The Boy Who Lost His Face

HOLES,
Louis Sachar

STANLEY YELNATS’ SURVIVAL GUIDE TO CAMP GREEN LAKE,
Louis Sachar

THERE’S A BOY IN THE GIRLS’ BATHROOM
Louis Sachar

DOGS DON’T TELL JOKES,
Louis Sachar

SPRING-HEELED JACK,
Philip Pullman

DONUTHEAD,
Sue Stauffacher

TROUT AND ME,
Susan Shreve

CRASH,
Jerry Spinelli

REMOTE MAN,
Elizabeth Honey

“S
HE’S SO
ugly!” whispered Roger.

Scott and Randy laughed.

David laughed too, even though he didn’t think it was funny. Mrs. Bayfield wasn’t ugly. She was just a lonely old lady who dressed kind of weird.

“Is someone there?” Mrs. Bayfield called out.

The smile left David’s face. The boys crouched down behind the bushes next to the rusted iron gate leading to her yard. They became very quiet.

Mrs. Bayfield was sitting in a rocking chair in front of her large though quite dilapidated three-story house. She wore a yellow and white flowered dress and a red cardigan sweater. A floppy red hat covered her long gray hair. On her feet were red high-top sneakers and purple knee socks. Her snake-head cane lay across her lap.

They had come to steal her cane.

The cane was carved to look like a snake wrapped around a stick. The snake had two heads facing back to back. They formed the handle. Embedded in each snake head were two sparkling green eyes. One of the heads had its mouth open, with a tiny gold tongue sticking out.

“Look at her hair,” said Scott. “I don’t think she ever washes it.”

The boys laughed, including David.

“I don’t think she’s ever taken a bath!” said Roger. “Have you ever smelled her?”

“I can smell her from here,” said Scott, holding his nose. “She smells like a pig!”

Roger and Randy laughed, and again David laughed along with them, but not because he thought anything was funny. In fact, he liked the way Mrs. Bayfield smelled. He thought she smelled like Chinese tea.

He once stood behind her in line at the post office. The whole time he kept trying to figure out what that smell was, and finally decided it was like very sweet Chinese tea. That was also when he had gotten a good look at the cane.

He knew better than to tell Roger and Randy that he thought Mrs. Bayfield smelled like tea. It was one of those things that Scott would say was uncool.

“Okay, Scott,” said Roger. “When I give the signal, you grab the cane. Randy and I will take care of Old Lady Buttfield.”

“What do you want me to do?” asked David.

Roger didn’t answer him. He just looked at David like he didn’t know what David was doing there.

David didn’t know what he was doing there either. He certainly didn’t want to help steal a poor old woman’s cane. Still, he felt disappointed not to be included in Roger’s plans.

“You just be ready, David,” said Randy. “Do whatever needs to be done.”

David nodded. He was glad that at least Randy was willing to include him.

“But be careful,” warned Randy. “She’s a witch.” He smiled at David.

David smiled back, although he had no idea what he was smiling at.

“She stole her husband’s face,” said Randy.

David snickered, but stopped abruptly when nobody else laughed. Scott gave him a dirty look.

“She waited until he was asleep,” said Randy, “and then she peeled it off his head. It’s hanging on the wall of her living room. She talks to it.”

“Weird!” said Scott.

“What happened to her husband?” asked David.

“He’s dead now,” said Randy. “But for a long time he just walked around without a face. He lived up there, in the attic, so nobody could see him.”

David looked up at the window just below the roof. “Wow,” he said. He wondered if Randy or anybody else really believed any of that nonsense. He knew Scott didn’t. Scott couldn’t.

Scott and David had been best friends since the second grade. Then, this year, Scott managed to get in with Roger and Randy.

“You’re holding me back,” Scott had told David. “If you want to hang around with Roger and Randy, you got to be cool.”

“I’m cool,” David told him.

“Well, just try to be cooler, okay?”

“I’m ice.”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“See, that’s what I mean,” said Scott. “You say stuff like that around Roger or Randy and they’ll think you’re a jerk. And then they’ll think I’m a jerk for being your friend.”

Now David felt a little angry as he looked at Scott. Scott had talked him into coming along—to prove he was cool. But when they met up with Roger and Randy, Scott completely ignored him. He made David feel like Scott’s kid brother who just tagged along.

Roger stood up and pushed open the iron gate.

“Hello?” Mrs. Bayfield called out.

“Hello, there,” replied Scott, entering the yard behind Roger.

David was the last one through the gate. He started to shut it, but Randy turned and whispered, “Leave it open.”

The yard was overgrown with weeds except for a small rectangular patch of flowers in front of the porch.

“Good afternoon, boys,” said Mrs. Bayfield from her rocking chair in the middle of the front yard. Next to her was a little table with a tall glass and a pitcher.

“Good afternoon,” said Roger. “How are you today?”

“Quite well, thank you.”

“Glad to hear it,” said Roger. “My name is Frank. And this is George and Joe,” he said, pointing to Randy and Scott. “And that’s David,” he said, pointing at David.

David’s face flushed.

“A pleasure,” said Mrs. Bayfield. “I’m Felicia Bayfield.”

David wasn’t worried that Mrs. Bayfield knew his real name. As long as she didn’t know his last name. It was just that Roger had done that on purpose.

“Would you boys like some lemonade?” asked Mrs. Bayfield.

“Why, thank you, Felicia,” said Roger. “We just love lemonade. Don’t we?”

“I love lemonade,” said Randy.

David shrugged. “Sure,” he muttered, hoping that they’d change their minds and just drink the lemonade, then leave.

“Nothing like a cool glass of lemonade on a hot day,” said Scott.

It wasn’t a particularly hot day. They were all wearing jackets.

“There are some cups on the porch, if you would be so kind,” said Felicia Bayfield.

Roger and Randy headed for the porch, directly behind Mrs. Bayfield. David watched as they stomped through her small flower bed, crushing the flowers. He smiled at Mrs. Bayfield, trying to show her that he really didn’t mean her any harm.

“I hope the lemonade’s not too sour for you,” she said. “It’s homemade.”

“I like it sour,” said David, still smiling. He watched Roger whisper something to Randy as they got some Styrofoam cups out of a plastic bag on top of an ice chest.

Roger returned with four cups and set them on the small table. “I’ll pour,” he said, and picked up the pitcher of lemonade.

Randy remained behind Felicia Bayfield.

“I hope there’s enough,” she said. Her eyes were bright green and sparkling like the green eyes on the snake-head cane resting on her lap.

Randy took hold of the back of the rocking chair with both hands.

“Oh, there’s plenty,” said Scott.

“Now!” shouted Roger.

Scott grabbed the cane while at the same time Randy pulled the rocking chair all the way over.

Mrs. Bayfield cried out as she fell on her back in the chair. Roger poured the pitcher of lemonade over her face, turning her cries into sputters.

Her legs were sticking up in the air and pointed right at David. He found himself staring at the strangest underpants he’d ever seen—black-and-white-striped with red ruffles. They extended from above her waist down almost to her knees.

Roger hurled the empty pitcher at the porch. It crashed through her front window.

“C’mon, David,” yelled Randy, standing by the gate. “Before she puts a curse on us!”

Mrs. Bayfield slid backward out of the chair. She propped herself up on her elbows and looked at David looking at her.

He wanted to help her or at least tell her he was sorry, but he didn’t.

He flipped her off.

Her green eyes flashed at him. In an angry, crackling voice she shouted: “Your Doppelgänger will regurgitate on your soul!”

David couldn’t really get what she said, but he wasn’t particularly worried about it. He didn’t believe in witches or curses or any of those kinds of things. He never heard of a Doppelgänger.