The Boy Who Lost His Face (13 page)

T
HE GATE
creaked as David pushed it open. He walked slowly up the path to the house. The garden which had been trampled by Roger and Randy had been replanted with yellow and white chrysanthemums. The broken window next to the door had been fixed.

The rocking chair was stuck in the back corner of the porch. It seemed almost ghostlike, teetering slightly as David stepped up the old wooden stairs onto the splintered porch.

The poor old woman is probably afraid to sit and rock anymore in her own front yard, he thought.

Poor old woman? He wondered how he could still think such things. She was a witch. Pants don’t just fall down.

He approached the door and smiled uncertainly at the word
WELCOME
printed across the old straw mat.

He tried the doorbell, although he could tell by looking at it that it probably wouldn’t work. It didn’t. It practically fell off the wall when he pushed it.

He had to pull open a torn screen door so he could knock on the heavy wood door behind it. There was an odd-shaped door knocker. He knocked a couple of times with his fist, but that didn’t seem to make
much of a noise, so he lifted the heavy metal door knocker. He then realized it was in the shape of a shrunken head. He knocked it twice against the door, then quickly stepped back.

The screen door banged shut in front of him.

He didn’t know what he would say when Mrs. Bayfield opened the door—if she opened the door. All he could do was tell her he was sorry and beg her forgiveness.

He heard movement inside the house, then the doorknob turned and the door opened a few inches. Mrs. Bayfield peered out at him from under a safety chain.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m really sorry. I know I should have said I was sorry earlier, instead of pouring lemonade on my head, and I’m sorry I didn’t. I guess I just didn’t believe you put a curse on me, but that doesn’t matter. I should have said I was sorry anyway, whether or not you put a curse on me. The curse shouldn’t have anything to do with it. Even if my pants didn’t fall down. I shouldn’t have even been here in the first place. I never should have pointed my finger at you, whether you know what it means or not, although I guess you probably do. I thought it would make me popular. But I never wanted to hurt you. You have to believe that. It’s because I have no face.”

He didn’t know if anything he said made sense. Mrs. Bayfield didn’t say a word.

“What else can I say?” he asked. “I’m sorry. What do you want me to say?”

The door closed.

There was a clicking sound and then the door opened wide. Mrs. Bayfield was wearing a plain brown-knit dress and she leaned on a plain wooden cane. She looked older than he remembered. For some reason it made him glad when he noticed that she had on the same red high-top sneakers.

“Come in,” she said.

He stepped inside.

Although the outside of the house was old and rundown, the inside was beautifully and lavishly decorated. The floor to the entryway was covered with green and white marble tile, and the walls were covered with a rich red and black cloth. A large oval mirror encased in an ornate gold frame hung on the wall in front of him.

He smiled mockingly at his “lucky” clothes as he saw himself in the mirror.

“You look like a Greek poet,” said Mrs. Bayfield.

The smile left his face. He turned and looked at her in awe. He shouldn’t have been surprised. He already knew she was a witch. At least he thought he knew that, but those last words erased any doubts he still might have had.

It was exactly what Tori had said to him—before his pants fell down.

Felicia Bayfield obviously had seen and heard everything that had happened to him. She’d seen his pants fall down. Of course she probably saw him put on his pants every morning, too.

He got even more proof, not that he needed it, as
he passed a small table with a telephone. Next to the phone was a pad of paper with
DAVID BALLINGER
written on it. Under his name was his phone number.

He nodded as he looked at it. So she was the one who called him last night.

She led him into the living room. He felt his eyes widen as he looked at all the strange and beautiful masks hanging on the walls.

He sat down on the edge of the couch and stared at them. Some of the masks were very odd; faces with three eyes or faces that were half black and half white. There was one that looked like it was part lion and part human, although it was impossible to tell where the lion stopped and the human started.

But the eeriest ones looked like real faces. He couldn’t tell what they were made of. They seemed to have too much texture to be paper or plastic. There was a woman with a double chin, a man with a deep scar, and one mask in particular that he couldn’t stop looking at. It was the face of a very ordinary man with wire-rimmed glasses and a tiny birthmark on his cheek. The mask extended just below the man’s chin, so that there was the very top of a tie, and just above his head to the very bottom of a hat. David had the feeling that if you removed the hat and tie, the face would just dissolve away.

He turned his eyes away from the masks to the wrinkled face of Mrs. Bayfield. She was sitting in a large overstuffed armchair across from him.

“What happened to your friends?” she asked.

“Oh, you mean Roger, Scott, and Randy? They’re not my friends. Scott used to be my best friend but not anymore. Roger and Randy were never my friends, not even then. They’re the ones you should have cursed. Not me. I mean, I’m not saying I wasn’t partly to blame, but they’re the ones who knocked you over and poured lemonade on your head and stole your cane. Why’d you pick me? I just sort of went along with them.”

“I wonder …” said Mrs. Bayfield. “Who is more to blame? The leaders or the followers?”

“Isn’t there anything I can do?” David pleaded. “I still have my whole life ahead of me! Just tell me what I have to do, and I’ll do it!” He threw up his hands. “Or am I just going to be cursed for the rest of my life? Can you tell me that? Do I have to spend my whole life wondering when my pants are going to fall down?”

Mrs. Bayfield’s green eyes sparkled as she smiled. “Isn’t that what life is all about?” she asked. “We all pretend we’re such important, dignified people. We become doctors or lawyers or artists. Hello. How are you? Let’s have a barbecue on the Fourth of July. But really we all know that at any moment our pants might fall down.”

“There was this girl,” said David.

“Of course.”

“I know you know,” said David. “It’s just that I think she might have liked me. Did she? Do you know that? Can you tell me? I know it doesn’t matter anymore, but can you tell me what she would have said if my pants didn’t fall down?”

Mrs. Bayfield pushed out one side of her face with her tongue.

David shook his head. “Never mind,” he said. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I can never face her again. How can I even go back to school? Everyone will know about it. And then my brother will hear about it at his school. He already thinks I’m the biggest stooge on earth.”

“Bring me back my cane,” said Mrs. Bayfield.

David looked up. “And then you’ll remove the curse?”

“Bring me my cane,” she repeated.

H
E HEADED
in no particular direction as he walked away from Mrs. Bayfield’s house. He couldn’t go back to school and it was too early to go home.

He thought about running away. He could hitchhike to San Francisco, then stow away on a boat to China. By the time anyone found him it would be too late. They’d have to give him a job mopping the deck, or was it called swabbing the deck?

Of course he knew he would never do that. Besides, he couldn’t run away from the curse. It would follow him wherever he went, dumping lemonade on his head and pulling down his pants. Somehow he’d have to get the cane from Roger Delbrook.

Maybe he could buy it from him? He had more than five hundred dollars in the bank. He figured he could probably get the cane for no more than fifty.

He imagined their conversation.
Hey, Roger, I got a deal for you
, he’d say.

What do you want, Ballinger?
asks Roger.

You know that cane you took from old Buttfield? I’ll give you ten bucks for it
.

Go to hell, Ballinger
.

I’m not kidding. I’ll give you ten dollars for it. Make it fifteen
.

I wouldn’t give you the cane for a hundred dollars, asshole
!

All right, twenty dollars, but that’s my final offer
.

You really want it? You can have it for fifty
!

Twenty-five
.

Forty
.

Thirty
.

Thirty-five
.

Okay, thirty-five
.

He’d give Roger the money and Roger would give him the cane.

Here’s the cane. Take it and stick it up your ass
!

Thanks
.

It seemed like a good plan. It was certainly worth thirty-five dollars to get rid of the curse.

Or he could steal it.

He had thought he was walking in no particular direction, but looking up, he discovered he was at the corner of Commonwealth Circle. Roger lived at the end of the street. David had never been inside Roger’s house, but he knew where he lived. His house was at the cul-de-sac at the end of the block.

Both of Roger’s parents probably worked, so there was probably no one home right now. The cane was probably just stuck inside Roger’s closet.

He walked down the street. It was amazingly quiet. There might not have been anyone home in any of the houses.

With his hands in his pockets, he walked around the circle of the cul-de-sac. He just wanted to get a better look at Roger’s house. He had nothing better to do. He had no intention of breaking in.

But if he was going to break in, how would he do it? First he’d have to ring the doorbell to make sure nobody was home. And then if there was nobody home?

At the side of the house there was a fence with a gate leading to the backyard. He could just walk through the gate, or, if it was locked, hop the fence. Once in the backyard, no one would be able to see him from the street. He would just have to find an open window.

Or he could break a window. He smiled. Roger broke Mrs. Bayfield’s window. It would only be fair. Roger stole Mrs. Bayfield’s cane. Now he could break Roger’s window and steal back the cane. Might as well trample some flowers while he was at it.

Of course he wasn’t really going to do that. He was just killing time until he could go home. He walked toward the Delbrooks’ front door, just to see if anybody was home.

He tried to think of what he’d say if somebody answered. He could say he was selling magazines. No, that was too complicated. If he heard someone coming, he’d just run away. No harm, no foul.

He rang the doorbell.

No one answered the door.

Just to make certain, he rang the bell again. He also knocked loudly on the door with the side of his fist.

Nobody was home.

He stepped backward off the stoop away from the door and looked around. The street was still
empty. He casually headed toward the side of the house.

There was a small chain sticking through a hole in the tall wooden gate. He tugged at the chain. It was locked.

He stepped back. The fence was about seven feet tall. He took a few more steps backward, then untied the drawstring on his pants and retied it, tight.

He ran at the fence and jumped. He grabbed the top of the gate with his hands as his feet kicked against the side trying to get some sort of traction. He managed to get his right elbow up and then swung his right leg over.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

He looked back to see a little kid running toward him. It was Roger’s brother, Glen.

David was half on, half off the top of the gate. “My ball went over the fence,” he said. He hopped back down to the ground. “I rang the doorbell but nobody was home.”

“I know who you are,” said Glen. “You’re Ricky’s brother.”

“I was just getting my ball,” said David. He didn’t know why he was even bothering to explain himself to a fifth grader. “Forget it!” He started to walk away.

“Stooge!”

He stopped and turned around. “What’d you call me?”

“Stooge!” Glen said scornfully. “You’re the Big Stooge and Ricky is the Little Stooge. That’s what everyone calls him.”

David took a step toward him.

“You know what Ricky said?” asked Glen. “He said The Three Stooges were highly respected in their field!” He laughed. “He said it was a compliment to be called a stooge!”

“I’m warning you,” said David as he took another step toward Glen.

Glen raised his fists. “You want to fight?” he asked. “I’ll fight you. I could beat you up just like I beat up Ricky.”

David stopped. He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t very well fight a little kid. “What are you doing home from school?” he demanded.

“Half day,” said Glen, his fists in the air. “Teachers’ meeting.”

David glared at him, then sighed disgustedly, trying to show his contempt.

“What’s the matter?” asked Glen. “You afraid to fight a fifth grader?”

“I got better things to do than mess with a little kid like you,” said David, turning away.

“Stooge!” shouted Glen. “Wait till I tell my brother. Wait till I tell my brother you were afraid to fight a fifth grader! And I bet there’s no ball back there, either. Wait till I tell my brother you were—”

David spun around. “You can tell your brother … You can tell your brother that I think he’s a sack of dogshit! Tell him that. Tell your pissant brother that I’ll be back here tomorrow, if he wants to do anything about it. Tell him I want the snake-head cane, too. You got all that or do you want me to write it
down for you? Tell him David Ballinger will be back tomorrow at noon to get the snake-head cane and that he better be here!”

He turned and strode away, leaving Glen Delbrook with his mouth hanging open.

L
ARRY
C
LARKSDALE’S
number wasn’t listed in the phone book, but David was able to get it from Information.