All Good Children (31 page)

The principal smiles. “I have just the thing to make him better.” He moves fast for a fat man. He's at my side in a flash, hugely tall and wide, wrenching my arms behind my back.

Dallas stands just inches away, looking down on my struggle, doing absolutely nothing. “Pass me your necktie, Richmond,” Mr. Graham tells him, and he does.

The principal ties my wrists behind my back and pats my shoulder. “Now, Connors, stay calm.”

“Max needs to go home to his mother,” Dallas says. “She's a nurse.”

Mr. Graham snickers. “I don't want to send Maxwell home just yet. I might lose him over the holidays, and I don't want that. Once he masters his antisocial tendencies, he'll do the school proud.” He moves in front of me and pats Dallas. “Good boy, Richmond. Your father told me to keep an eye on you two.”

Dallas stiffens, blinks rapidly, clenches his jaw.

I arch my back and stretch my arms in hope of getting my hands around my legs and up in front of me, but they get stuck on my ass. Mr. Graham laughs at me. He grips my arm tightly. “Come back to my office now, Connors. I'll drive you home from school today.” He looks at Dallas and smiles. “You're free to go. Merry Christmas.”

He pushes me ahead of him, away from the trailer. I have a brief view of the school and the frozen grounds. I see Mr. Reese walking across the parking lot. He has a coffee cup in one hand, briefcase in the other. He's the only person in sight.

“Wait!” Dallas shouts. “There's something in the trailer you should see, sir.”

Mr. Graham pauses, turns, yanks me back out of view. “What?”

Dallas blinks rapidly. “There's something in the trailer, sir. You need to see it.”

“Can't it wait? It's Christmas.”

“No, sir, it can't wait.”

Mr. Graham huffs, scowls, rolls his eyes. “All right. Go get it.”

Dallas nods. He picks up his coat and turns the corner.

I hear scraping and thumping from inside the trailer. I think about tearing free and running for it, but I'm reluctant to try.

Part of me wants to see how it all ends. I don't feel like it's really me tied up, about to be zombified. I feel like I'm beyond this moment, above it all, looking down on the last kid on Earth.

Mr. Graham frowns at my misery. “It's much better this way, son. They've done studies to back that up. You'll be glad once you experience it.” He pats my shoulder, but I shrug him off. He runs his hand over his fat face. “Believe me, you will never want to go back to the way you are now. And you won't have to. Other parts of the country can't afford to keep up the treatments, but we're privileged here, Connors. The future is in our hands.”

I hear Dallas stomp down the trailer stairs. I regret not running away. I reconsider it—there could be another teacher on his way home, Mr. Ames or Coach Emery—but I don't bother. I don't do anything except stand in the shadows and wait. The skin on my face is tight where my tears have dried. I can't believe I made such an ass of myself. I'll be sixteen years old tomorrow and I still cry in public.

Dallas waits at the corner of the trailer. He wears his football face, stands taller and stronger than I've seen him all day.

“Where is it?” Mr. Graham asks.

“I can't get it because it's on the wall.” Dallas's voice is different. Deliberate.

Mr. Graham snorts. “Thank you, son, but I am not interested in graffiti. It's the Christmas holidays. It can wait.”

“It's not graffiti, sir. It's a list of names.”

“Whatever, son. I'm not interested. I have to get Connors fixed up and get him home before his mother comes running over in a fury.” He turns away with a tight grip on my arm.

“It's important, sir!” Dallas shouts. His jaw twitches and he blinks too fast. “I saw Max's name on the wall while I was cleaning the trailer. I moved the bench and found a list of students who missed the vaccinations.”

Mr. Graham turns around and rubs his belly. “Really? Who's on the list?”

“I don't remember, sir. It's on the wall.”

He's lying. I know he's lying.

The principal weighs the benefits of such a list against the hassle of climbing three steps. Dallas holds his gaze with too much interest for a zombie. “All right,” Mr. Graham says. “Lead the way.”

He pushes me ahead of him, up the steps and inside the trailer after Dallas. He sniffs the stale sweat and makes a face. “How do you all fit in here? You change in this trailer? The whole team? With the pads in the way? How do you keep from falling over each other?”

I barely hear him. I'm staring at the trailer's security camera. Dallas's coat is covering it—not hanging from it but wrapped around it tightly and fastened with tape. My skin crawls, thinking of all that could happen in a room like this when no one's watching.

Dallas waits in the far corner, so tall that he has to hunch. He stares at me, his eyes deep in his thoughts, his face twitching, his jaw moving up and down in a chewing motion. He has a weight belt wrapped tight around his right fist.

“No,” I whisper. “No way.”

“So where's the list?” Mr. Graham asks.

Dallas points to the wall beside him. “It's right here, sir, behind this bench.”

“No, it's not,” I say. “I erased it earlier when we cleaned the trailer. I saw that Dallas found it so I erased it.”

“No, you didn't. It's still there,” Dallas says. “It's just hard to read.”

“Mr. Graham, there's nothing there. Let's just go.” I strain against my bonds. “Just get out of here.”

“How can you care about people who care nothing about you?” Dallas asks.

“I care about
you
,” I tell him. “Where are you going to go after this? You're not thinking straight. You haven't slept or eaten for days. You're all messed up.”

Mr. Graham eyes me suspiciously and shuts the trailer door. He looks at Dallas, raises his hands, rolls his eyes. “Move the bench so I can see.”

“No. This can't happen,” I say. “I'll take the shot. I'll take the shot and Mom will take us somewhere safe until it wears off.”

Mr. Graham snorts like I'm a babbling recall. “I want to see that list.”

Dallas leans over, grabs the bottom of the bench with his left hand and tugs it out from the wall. He rises, points and waits.

Mr. Graham shoves my shoulder down. I realize I'm bouncing on the balls of my feet, edgy with nerves and the fear that my best friend is about to kill our principal. “Keep an eye on him,” he says to Dallas.

“Yes, sir.” Dallas's eyes track Mr. Graham as he walks to the bench.

“No!” I shout.

Mr. Graham leans over, hands on the bench, looking for the writing on the wall. “I don't see anything.” His belly grazes the wood, his head hangs there like an offering.

Dallas raises his fist, ready to slam the weight belt into Mr. Graham's skull.

I dive for him. I pitch forward and ram my head into Dallas's hollow belly as fast and hard as I can. He smashes into the wall and slams his weighted fist into my back. I jerk to my knees. We fall, knocking the principal off his feet. Mr. Graham collapses in the crowded corner. His arms give way beneath him, his cheek hits the bench.
Oomph,
crack, crash.

Dallas lifts me off him like a weight bar and hurls me aside with a strength that doesn't come from calories. I fall into a pile of ripped pads and cracked helmets, smashing my elbow and my ass.

Dallas rises to his feet. He straddles Mr. Graham's broad back, lifts him by the suit collar, and slams his head into the bench.
Crunch.

“No!” I shriek. “Stop!”

Mr. Graham isn't moving. Dallas presses a hand on his back while he leans over to pick up the weight belt from the floor.

“Untie me!” I yell. “My arm's twisted. It's going to break!”

I grimace and moan.

He doesn't even look. “In a second.”

I kick at his feet. “Now, man! There's something wrong with my elbow. I think it's going to break.”

He rolls his eyes and swears. He keeps his legs around Mr. Graham, holding him in place with his head on the bench, and gestures impatiently at me.

I rise and offer the wrists behind my back. “What are you doing, Dallas?” I whisper.

He shoves my shoulder down, yanks my arms up until I scream, and frees his necktie from my hands.

“Thanks, man.” I grab his arm and fake a smile. “Let's go.”

He doesn't smile back, doesn't even seem to recognize me.

He turns away and wraps the tie around Mr. Graham's throat.

“No!” I claw at him and pull him off the principal. He tumbles onto his shoulder and swears. He knees me in the gut and slams his palm into my temple. I roll away from him, my head ringing in pain. He kicks at me furiously, knocking the bench onto its side. Mr. Graham thumps to the floor.
Thud.

Dallas whips his head toward the sound. He sees a job half finished.

I grab the necktie and throw it across the room. Dallas reaches for the weight belt. I throw myself on it and trap it beneath my knee. He tugs, sighs, looks at me like this silliness won't be tolerated.

“You can't do this,” I say. I grab his lapels, lean into his face, speak softly, reasonably. “Dallas? Dallas, you can't do this, man. Look what you're doing.”

He stares at me like he hates me.

“You can't walk away from something like this. You do this and that's it, man, you go to jail, you don't go anywhere else.”

He runs his tongue over his teeth, waiting for my lecture to end.

I slap his face. “Do you hear me? Get control of yourself. Look what you're doing. Look where we are. Remember all the kids who used to be in this trailer? Remember our friends? We are all that's left, man. We have to get out of here, Dallas. You're not thinking straight.”

He leans away from me, looks around the trailer, stares up at his coat wrapped over the security camera. He furrows his brow, scratches his elbow, lifts up the sleeve of his uniform and tugs down a roll of duct tape he had jammed around his forearm.

“Oh, Jesus, no. That's the principal, Dallas. This is assault. You stop now, you're fine. It was an accident. He got hurt when I tackled you. The bench fell on his head. Leave it like this. You're going to get us both executed!”

He pushes me away from him, sits on his ass, sucks in his cheeks. He nods. His eyes soften. He glances at Mr. Graham and asks, “Is he alive?”

I get on my knees and feel for a pulse. “He's fine.” The principal's mouth is bleeding. A huge bruise blooms across his torn cheek and a cartoon lump rises on his forehead. “He'll have some swelling. He should have his head checked.” I lean back and try to think of a plan. “We should put him in recovery position,” I say, not moving an inch, just staring at Mr. Graham prone at our feet.

Dallas starts to curse, an aimless barrage of swear words that seem to soothe him. “You shouldn't have hit me. I would have told on you if I'd really been treated.”

“I didn't care.”

He rubs his cheek. “What's with the slapping? Could you not hit me properly?”

“Are you okay now? You were far gone, man. You weren't really going to kill him, were you?”

He snorts, stretches his neck, stares at the ceiling. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“We have to get out of here. We have to leave tonight.”

He smiles sadly. “I'm not coming with you, Max. I don't want to get caught. Your mom will go to jail for kidnapping. You'll be treated and so will I. I'm not taking that chance.” He waves a hand toward Mr. Graham. “Now they'll be after you for this too.”

“This was an accident. Sort of.”

“I can stay here and tell them that.”

“I can't leave you here.”

He laughs as he grabs my hand, which I realize I've wrapped around his lapel again. “Honestly, I'm not that way, Max. Give it up.”

I'm not smiling this time. “You're coming with us or we're not going.”

“They won't let you take me out of the country.”

“My cousin said other families are leaving with no problem. Lots of them.”

“Families, Max. We are not a family. I can't pass for your brother.” He puts his hand on my shoulder, all mature now.

“We're cinnamon and garlic, remember?”

I do remember, and the solution to our problem hits me so hard, it's a flash in my brain that actually hurts. I grab his hand with both of mine and laugh.

He pushes me away. “Stop it! Enough with the touching.”

I jump to my feet, smiling. “You got it, Dallas! What you just said. That's exactly right.”

“About what?”

“Salt and pepper.”

“We're going to wear our Halloween costumes to Canada? Is that your distraction strategy? ‘We're not runaways, officer— we're shakers?'”

“No! But they'll let us cross. They will.” Energy pulses through me. I could run a five-minute mile. “We have to get out of here.” I run my hands over the principal, check his airways and circulation. “We have to find a teacher to take him to the hospital. Can you go out there and be a zombie again?”

Dallas shakes his head. “I'm never going out there again.” He picks up everything he can reach from where he sits— weight belts, jump ropes, helmets—and piles them on his legs. “Can you pass me that shield? Thanks.” He leans back and props a long red pad over his torso and head. “I'm going to melt into the walls now. Someone will scrape me off in the spring.” He starts to giggle.

“You need to eat, man. Come on. We have to get help.”

There's a knock at the trailer door.

I scream. Dallas snickers. He peeks out from behind his shield. “Maybe we can hide him.” He points at Mr. Graham— face down on the trailer floor, huge and immobile, his legs and arms splayed, covering half the open ground between us and the door—and he starts to laugh, big and goofy, from the gut. He swats at the air, hunches over the debris around him, gasps for breath.