Quaking (6 page)

The Rat is laughing his hideous laugh. I do not know if he is laughing at me or another Victim. I am shaking again. The tornado rises from inside and spins around until I think there is no way to stop myself from spinning in circles. I wrap my arms around my legs. But that does not stop the shaking. It does make me into a small quivering ball, though, and maybe I am small enough that the Rat will not notice me.

It works for today, but someday my luck will run out.

And I do not know how to handle bullies. I never have.

I should be an expert. However, it is my belief that no one can stop Beasts. Only Beasts can stop themselves. By getting arrested, killed, or because they want to reform. Personally, I only meet the reformed kind in books, so I am forced to deal with the others. Over and over.

I want to put them all on a rocket to Mars. Not a space shuttle. Shuttle implies that they would come back again. And what good would that be? I have been in school for so many years now that I have an entire fleet of rockets booked.

In grade school they tell you just to give the Beasts “I” messages:

By second grade, even the stupidest kids figure out that saying “I feel bad when you hurt me” only encourages the Beasts. The Beasts have their own “I” messages:

“I” messages do not stop them from saying that you are ugly. Or stupid. Or that they are bigger and stronger than you and they will get you somewhere, sometime, no matter what.

CHAPTER SEVEN

 

I
get off the bus and I can breathe again.When I reach the house, Sam is driving up in the Subaru. He gets out, smiling and waving. “Hi, Matt! How was your day?” I shrug. It is nicer than saying “crappy.”

He grabs about a dozen plastic grocery bags at once from the backseat of the car, closing the door with his foot.

I decide I can hold the storm door open for him.The top of the door snags the hem of the PACE flag.

He looks up at it. “It’s starting to sag. Guess I need to fix that.”

“What is the deal with this, anyway?” I know now that their last name is Fox.

He stops and stares at me. “You’ve never seen one of these? It’s a peace flag.
Pah-chay
. That’s Italian for peace.”

Oh. Italian is not one of my languages.And I am not sure that marking your house with a flag that screams “peace” is such a good idea these days.

I sigh and follow Sam inside.

“Hi, sweetheart!” he yells into the house.

He and Jessica are always calling each other love names. I am embarrassed for them. They have no idea how ridiculous they sound.

We are greeted by the Blob making odd gurgling noises at the top of his lungs.The gray streaks in Jessica’s long brown hair look like they have multiplied. Her eyes are red and her face is creased in places I had not noticed creases before.

Sam drops the grocery bags on the floor.“Is he okay? Are you—”

The Blob lets out a loud sound. “Maaaaaa!”

Sam’s whole body jolts. “Is he—is he—”

Jessica nods jerkily.Then she breaks into a smile. “I think he’s starting to talk. He keeps looking at me and saying ‘Maaa.’”

Sam makes a breathy, moany sound like the Blob and gives Jessica a big bear hug. He sits down on the floor next to the Blob and starts banging pots with him.

Jessica wipes her eyes. “We’ve been banging pots all day. He bangs, and I say ‘pot.’ I’m sure he knows what I mean. When I pick up the blue pot, I even say ‘blue pot,’ and I think he knows what I’m saying. He’s trying so hard to talk, but he can’t quite make the sounds.Yet.”

“You’re doing such a good job!” I do not know if Sam is talking to Jessica or the Blob.

The Blob even laughs, I think, although it sounds strange. He waves the blue pot at me. Sam is chuckling and sniffling at the same time.

Jessica, still smiling, rubs her head with one hand, opens the cabinet with the other, and takes down her mega-size bottle of aspirin. That is what she gets for encouraging the Blob to speak.

“Be careful what you wish for, huh?” I say.

“What?” She cannot hear me over the two blobs banging their pots.

I head upstairs but Sam’s big feet are following me.

“Hey, Matt? I was wondering if you’d like to play a game?”

I turn around and look at him. He looks like a fat little kid on the playground who wants to play Red Rover.

“A game?”

“Yeah!” He is still smiling.

Why is he not at work? I am thinking life must be a game for him, and then it comes out of my mouth. “Life?”

His smile fades. “I—I don’t have Life.” He smiles again. “How about Pictionary? That’s a lot of fun!”

He does not get it.

“Uh . . . I have homework.”

“Oh.” He looks like his whole day is ruined.

“Maybe another time,” I say, although I do not really mean it.

“Okay.” He moves his head from side to side as if trying to get jolly again. He turns to go back downstairs, then stops. “Do you have any interest in woodworking?”

Woodworking! “Not really.”

“Oh. Okay.” His face looks deflated but he does not give up.“You wouldn’t believe that I’m a pretty good shot at basketball, would you?” He grins.

“I did not know that. No.”

“Well, I am. So, if you want to play sometime, let me know.”

“Oh-kayyy.” I draw it out, hoping he will get the point. Enough already.

He shrugs and smiles. I turn to go up the rest of the stairs.

“Matt?”

“What?” I try not to sound as exasperated as I feel. I have to be careful because they might be the types who say, “We can’t help you, so you better go somewhere else.” And there is nowhere else.

Sam stands there swinging his arms stiffly at his sides. His smile is gone. His brow is creased. “I want us to do something together. I—I want us to get to know each other better. We could go bowling or—or whatever you like. Think about it. Okay?”

“Okay.”

He smiles a little like maybe he has broken through. I wish he would not try. It is not worth it. People just get hurt. It is better to leave things alone, Sam.

I make it up to my room before I hear Jessica say, loudly, “Oh, no! Look at this mess!”

I freeze and listen, even though it could not have been me. I have not been here long enough to ruin anything.Yet.

“Whoa, I don’t believe it.” It is Sam this time.

The Blob starts to moan.

I hear taps on the keyboard from the kitchen, and Sam’s voice. “The office of Scottie Merrick, candidate for state senate, was found splattered with what police believe to be pig’s blood. A spokeswoman for Merrick’s campaign confirmed this evening that the candidate has received threatening phone calls targeting her lack of support for the war effort. Local police, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security are currently investigating the incident.”

“Maybe they’ll actually sit up and take notice,” Jessica says, a hard edge to her voice, “now that a public official is being attacked.”

“Well, you know what our chief of police says.” Sam’s voice is still soft. “The attacks are so random it’s hard to figure out what’s going on. It doesn’t look organized. Or maybe it is organized, and the attacks that don’t fit the norm are copycat attacks. It could be kids—except for those incidents that have happened during the school day. That’s the problem with terror tactics. You just don’t know when or where it’ll happen next.”

Jessica makes a sound halfway between a sigh and a whimper.

The Blob moans again.

“It’ll be all right, babe,” Sam says.

I am not sure about Jessica or the Blob, but nothing about this sounds all right to me. And I really do not like having that peace flag hanging outside.

That night, the Blob will not shut up with the moaning and I believe I have caught Jessica’s migraine. I wrap my pillow around my head to drown out the moans. No luck. I try stuffing tissues in my ears but that is not successful, either. Maybe it serves Jessica and Sam right to have to suffer his moans but it does not serve me right. I did not ask for the Blob to speak.

“Shut up, dork!” I finally yell from my bed. He actually stops, and I breathe a sigh of relief.

Then he starts again.

“Shut up, dork!”

He stops briefly but then continues.

“Shut
up,
dork!”

He does not stop.

I hear footsteps up the stairs. Jessica pops her head in. “Language, please, Matt.”

“I am speaking English,” I inform her. “The Blob is speaking early Baboon.”

It is dark, so I cannot see her expression, but I am sure it is not friendly. It may not even be Christian. “He’s starting to speak, Matt. It’s a wonderful thing.”

“For whom?”

Moans from the Blob.

“I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to deal with it.”

“Can I go to a hotel?”

“No.”

More moans.

“Maybe I will end up with some other relatives soon.” I say it loudly. I do not know why.

“No.”

I sit up in bed. “What do you mean, no?”

Moans.

“We like having you here.” Her voice is sweet. I assume she is channeling Jesus, except that Quakers do not appear to be Jesus freaks.

I lie back down. “That will not last.”

“I think it will. We just have one hurdle.”

I am not sure I want to know about the hurdle. I finally decide not to ask.

But she answers, anyway. “We need for you to be happy with us.”

Excuse me? Apparently, she has misunderstood whatever Loopy said. My feeling is not a requirement. It never is.

“Good night, children,” says Jessica. “Love you. Sweet dreams.”

I do not have sweet dreams. I have nightmares of being out on the street where a dark, camo-clad, tattooed figure keeps tripping me and laughing, then asking me if I am happy and laughing some more. It is an endless loop. I am looking all around the street but there is no bed to hide under.

I wake up quaking.

CHAPTER EIGHT

 

S
chool provides no refuge. Mr. Warhead is morphing into Hitler. He has those same insane eyes. And he plasters his remaining black hair over the bald part of his head so it looks like he just stepped out of Adolf ’s Hairdressing Salon. The worst part is the Hitler mustache, although I do not believe he is intending to grow a mustache. I believe his nose hairs are growing down so far that they are creating a Hitler mustache. I wonder if that is how Hitler grew his?

He is continuing to teach us about world events, the way he sees them, at least. We are fighting in Iran and Iraq and Israel and God knows what other “I” countries in the “Middle Eastern Theater.” We are sending them “I” messages. From what I can tell, the messages sound something like this:

I can help you get a McDonald’s adjacent to your current encampment
.

We are also sending them troops to show how serious we are about our “I” messages. But the other countries are serious, too, and our troops are up to their “I” balls in unfriendly fire. Including Mr. Warhead’s brother, who is some kind of contractor over there. Now I understand why Mr. Warhead hates “the Enemy” so much.What I do not understand is why Mr.Warhead’s brother would put himself in danger voluntarily. Is it for the money? Because he does not really have to go. He is not even in the military, for God’s sake.

Mr. Warhead hands back our quizzes on which senators support our troops. All of my answers are right, but he gives me a B. He draws a big red
X
over my heading, “Warmongers.” I believe the term is a matter of opinion and does not merit being knocked down a whole letter grade. However, his face is so red when he slams the quiz on my desk that I would not bring it up even if I did talk to teachers.

But I close my eyes and reserve him a spot on the next one-way rocket to Mars. I am hoping it will leave soon.

He is generally displeased with how the class did on the quiz, so he announces another one.

The screaming marker bleeds the words on the board.
“Name the countries supporting the war effort.”

I give the very short list of nations and believe they are all accurate. But at the bottom I cannot resist writing, “Perhaps we should listen to the United Nations?” I spend the rest of the quiz time coloring in the gashes on my desk.

Leering at me, Mr.Warhead says that he does not understand why some people who call themselves Americans want us to get out of the “Middle Eastern Theater.”

“I think,” a girl’s voice says, softly, tentatively, “some people want to be patriotic. They just don’t want . . . you know . . . more soldiers killed.”

The room goes silent as Mr. Warhead’s face gets redder and his lips press tighter together.

I peek between the rows and see a girl with frizzy hair, like mine only lighter. She is slumped down in her desk, also like me.

Mr. Warhead’s voice is steely when he finally speaks. “Susan, you need to understand that many Americans feel that not supporting the war undermines our troops. That’s why you hear the saying
You’re either with us or with them
.”

“Yeah!” The Rat pounds his desk.

Mr. Warhead smiles at him. There is applause from the Rat’s fan club.

“Now,” Mr. Warhead continues, “as we know, some people are pacifists—”