Halifax (7 page)

Rom knew when numbers were correct and he knew when they were incorrect, when something didn’t add up, and the mathematical figures scrawled on the dry erase board at the front of Mrs. O’Brien’s empty classroom most definitely didn’t add up.

“Incorrect. Incorrect. Wrong in every way,” Rom said as he erased old numbers and put in numbers of his own. “She must be senile. That is the only explanation.”

He stepped back from the board and found Mrs. O’Brien now standing next to him, her arms crossed. As good as Rom was with numbers, though, was inversely matched by how bad he was with reading emotions. Rom had no idea Mrs. O’Brien was displeased with him despite the scowl on her face.

Rom stepped back up to the board and looked at the numbers again. “Was that a three or a four you had here?” he asked her. She didn’t answer. “I’ll just say it was a four. It doesn’t really matter. They’re both incorrect. They’re wrong, Mrs. O’Brien. Do…you…understand?” He said the last part like he was speaking to a five year old.

Mrs. O’Brien wasn’t moved by his condensation. She held out her hand. Rom stared at it for a long moment. Then he finally got it. He handed over the marker he was holding and backed away. He had crossed some line that he never understood but had crossed it enough to know it when he did.

Rom quickly retreated from the room and entered into the stream of kids leaving campus for the day. They headed for the buses out front or the car pool line to the side of the school or out back to the student parking lot. That’s where Rom found Farrell and Izzy not so patiently waiting for him.

“Four years, eight months, six hours and one day,” Rom declared as he joined them. “That’s when my math teacher, Mrs. O’Brien, is going to die. It’ll be heart attack. Unfortunately I’ll have graduated by then.”

“You won’t have graduated by then because we’re not really here to go to school, Rom,” Izzy told him as the three began to wind their way around the cars in the lot and towards their light blue Citroen.

“Not to mention the fact that you said you wouldn’t do any more age analysis on people,” Farrell chastised his younger brother.

“It’s a total invasion of privacy,” Izzy added. “The date someone is going to die is their business, not yours.”

“But her class is so boring,” Rom whined. “Calculating cell division is the only interesting thing I have to do.”

Farrell, ever the gentleman, opened the passenger side door of the Citroen for Izzy as Rom stood impatiently next to her waiting for Farrell to open the back door for him. Farrell instead brushed by him and headed around the car to the driver’s side. Rom finally gave up waiting and slid into the back seat, throwing his backpack in before him.

The car started up with a sputter, the engine attempting to crank a few times before it actually roared to life. Its old metal parts grinded away and it made a racket new cars didn’t make. Farrell began to pull out of his parking space but only made it half way into the lane in the lot when a loud honk drowned out even the very loud Citroen engine. It was Andre Davies driving a car that was stopped mere feet from Farrell’s bumper. He was at the wheel of a ridiculously expensive BMW convertible and had his ridiculously expensive looking girlfriend, Nora Evans, beside him.

“Nice car, loser,” Andre yelled through Izzy’s open window at Farrell. “Is that what they drive back in Africa?” Nora just sat looking straight ahead. It was hard to tell whether she was embarrassed or bored.

“Actually, we fly space ships where I come from,” Farrell shot back, which prompted a hard punch to the leg from Izzy. “As if he’d understand,” Farrell whispered to her.

“Whatever, dude,” Andre said and he put his car in gear. His car tires squealed as he peeled out of the parking lot, blonde hair, his and Nora’s, blowing back in the wind.

Rom sat slumped in the back seat. “We should get a nicer car.”

Farrell looked back at Rom disapprovingly and put on his best older brother voice. “Don’t give in to peer pressure, Rom. Nothing good can come of it.”

The Citroen was finally on its way and the Halifax siblings drove off through the chaos of the student parking lot and headed for the exit. As they drove away, however, they were being watched with more than the normal level of curiosity afforded new kids in a weird car. They were being watched with abnormal concentration by the most menacing boy at Lexham. It was Bobby Ramirez. He didn’t smile or even flinch. He stared with a burning and unsettling intensity at the Halifax siblings as the Citroen turned a corner and drove out of sight.

The streets of the Valley were laid out in a grid of horizontal and vertical lines easily seen in the nighttime from the hills above as rows of streetlights crisscrossing the Valley floor. The major streets were brighter, illuminated by lights from shops and cars and the strongest street lamps. The smaller streets faded in and out behind the cover of trees. It was a beautiful place at night. It was a shimmering, moving, vibrant map of light. The lights of the city, however, weren’t the lights Farrell was looking at.

He stood on the terrace of their modern house, alone, looking out and looking up. Up at the sky. There was a map of light above as well. It was a map Farrell knew by heart. It was a map of the stars in the sky. He followed the Cassiopeia constellation towards Triangulum and out to a fixed spot past unnamed stars in the dark sky. On every clear night, when there weren’t clouds or a layer of smog to block the view, Farrell would trace the same path across the sky to one particular light so distant and dim it was barely noticeable.

“It’s still there,” Izzy said as she joined Farrell on the terrace.

“Not really,” Farrell replied.

“It’s still there for now,” she said as she put her arm around Farrell’s shoulder and traced her own route through the stars to gaze at the same far away flicker of light in the night sky. “I miss it, too.”

As Farrell and Izzy stared up into the sky, lost among the stars, Rom and Mom worked in the kitchen carving a large pumpkin into a traditional Halloween jack-o-lantern. The pumpkin had a crooked grin with a single tooth and classic triangular eyes. It was a Norman Rockwell pumpkin. Pure Americana. Rom had seen one just like it in a magazine. He had shown the picture to Mom and she had recreated the jack-o-lantern perfectly. The two of them had happily carved away as they ate cookies and watched
It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
on TV. Rom was determined to have the perfect Halloween just like every other kid in every other family. Just like everyone else.

Mom put a candle down into the pumpkin and lit it and Rom carried it out to the front porch and placed it down on the steps. He stood back and admired their handiwork. Farrell and Izzy could look at the stars all they wanted. Rom had everything he needed right there on Earth.

“…Cohan…”

“Here.”

“Djalili…Djalili….?” The science teacher, whose name Izzy didn’t remember, was calling roll. He stood before the classroom calling out names, occasionally looking up to scan the rows of desks and the several empty seats among them. He checked a box next to ‘Djalili’. Absent.

“Wang…”

“Present,” said the student with the last name of Wang, sitting two rows over from Izzy.

“Halifax…”

“Here,” Izzy said.

“Holcomb,” the science teacher said. Then he said it again, more of a question this time. “Holcomb?” He glanced up and looked to the same place Izzy was looking. The empty seat next to hers. Carolyn Holcomb’s empty seat.

“Lot of people absent today,” the teacher commented. “Must be a bug going around.”

Farrell and Izzy walked together in between classes, carrying books they never planned to read and homework assignments they never planned to complete—unless they handed them over for Rom to do. It just depended on how long this mission lasted. The shorter the mission the better as far as they were concerned. Get in. Do the job. Get out. Don’t stick around long enough to make friends or enemies—or have to do homework.

“Did you find out anything interesting today?” Farrell asked Izzy.

“Oh, sure,” she said. “In chorus I learned that I can’t sing, which wasn’t a big surprise, and in science the teacher told us that there’s no life on Mars, which we both know is a total joke.”

“No, I mean did you find out anything interesting about our escaped prisoner?” Farrell asked.

“The only thing I’m getting from all these teenagers is a headache,” Izzy said wearily. “They’re clogging my brain with hormonal drama. I don’t know how much more of it I can take.”

Coach Gwynn came running down the walkway towards Farrell and Izzy. He dodged students and swerved around obstacles in his path like a running back weaving past players on a football field. Unlike a fit football player, however, the coach was huffing and puffing from exhaustion by the time he reached them.

“Halifax…I need you,” the coach said as he rested his hand on Farrell’s shoulder and used him as a crutch. “I need you to suit up for the game today. Roberts is out sick or something and I’m a man down.”

“But I’ve only been to one practice, Coach,” Farrell told him.

The coach worked to catch his breath. “It’s not like you’ve never played before, Halifax. It’s basketball. It’s like riding a bike—or getting a divorce. You never forget. See you at the gym after school.”

Coach Gwynn gave Farrell a slap on the back before limping off across the quad.

Izzy smiled with satisfaction. She loved the rare moments when Farrell wasn’t in complete control. She loved to see him squirm a little. “Basketball?
This
I have to see.”

Rom sat ramrod straight at his desk in his math class. He watched as Mrs. O’Brien scribbled an equation on the dry erase board. Rom studied the numbers, watching his teacher intensely as the other students barely paid attention.

Rom’s arm suddenly shot up into the air. Mrs. O’Brien saw him out of the corner of her eye but continued to write on the board, ignoring Rom.

“Mrs. O’Brien?” he finally asked, waving his hand back and forth. “Mrs. O’Brien, I have something to say.”

The elderly teacher lowered her hand from the board and looked to the heavens. Why wouldn’t this impossible boy just DIE? “Yes, Rom. What is it?”

“Your equation is incorrect,” he replied with neither a look of satisfaction or any arrogance at all. It was a fact.

“No, Rom,” an exasperated Mrs. O’Brien said. “It comes directly from the text book.”

“Then the text book is incorrect,” Rom told her.

Mrs. O’Brien took her glasses off and wiped her tired eyes. “I assure you, it’s correct, Mr. Halifax. I’ve been teaching from this book for twenty five years.”

This was hardly an explanation to appease Rom. “If you’ve been using this book for twenty five years and you’ve never noticed this error, I think it might be time for you to consider retirement.”

“My name is Rom Halifax and I’m here for detention,” Rom told the been-there, done-that, seen-it-all librarian, Ms. Goodman. She was small on the top but large on the bottom. It looked as if her rear end had melted and spread across the large expanse of her well-worn chair.

Ms. Goodman didn’t even look up at Rom. She just pointed her fleshy finger to a nearby table in the empty library. Only the ticking of the clock on the wall could be heard as Rom made his way there, past rows of books, an old globe, and some tenth grade papier-mache volcanoes displayed on a shelf.

The library seemed the last place that should be so silent. It was filled with stories. Sad stories. Exciting stories. Romance and adventure. The celebration of human emotion in the books, however, was neatly tucked into rows and Dewey-decimalized into submission. Just like Rom.

“Welcome, everyone, to the final game of the fall tournament,” Principal Whitaker said loudly through his microphone as he addressed a gymnasium packed with students from rival schools ready for a basketball showdown. He was awkward when it came to public speaking but was doing his best to sound enthusiastic. “I know the players from both teams are going to be thrilled to see so many fans here today. So let’s get this show on the road and bring out the boys. First, the Lions from Westminster!”

The students broke out into a mixture of cheers from the visiting fans and “boos” from the Lexham students as the Westminster Lions basketball team ran out onto the court in their green and white uniforms. They were led by a back-flipping student dressed in a furry lion costume complete with pointy lion ears. He wore a Westminster basketball jersey and was surrounded by six attractive cheerleaders furiously waving their green and white pom-poms.

Principal Whitaker stood in the middle of the mayhem and took to his microphone again. “And now our home court heroes, sixteen time division champions and three time state champions, your very own LEXHAM NIMRODS!”

Rafter-rattling music played and the Lexham faithful roared with approval as the varsity basketball squad took to the court. Their own mascot, a boy dressed up as the mighty hunter, Nimrod, from the Book of Genesis, led the way. He fired off nerf arrows into the crowd as Andre Davies, waving to the students like a rock star, brought the team out. Farrell brought up the rear, laughing to himself that he was not just watching this spectacle; he was actually a part of it.

Farrell may have been in a basketball uniform but suddenly, as the Lexham cheerleaders made their way onto the court, the game was the last thing on his mind. He was fixated on them and it wasn’t because their skirts were shorter than those of the Westminster cheerleaders.

Led onto the court by the tumbling, whooping and hollering Shana Rowen, the Lexham cheerleaders now numbered over twenty. Twenty plus scarily enthusiastic cheerleaders took over the floor, waving their blue and red pom-poms and dancing in unison to the beat of the music.

The squad now included a number of surprise recruits. Executing a split in the center of the court was none other than Izzy’s friend, Carolyn Holcomb. She was now totally stripped of any signs of individuality. She was groomed and highlighted and powder-puffed and almost indistinguishable from the rest of the cheerleaders.