The Boy Who Lost His Face (17 page)

“Oh, yeah, I think I saw it when I lived in France,” said Larry.

“Is that somewhere near Indianapolis?” asked David.

Larry ignored him.

“Okay,” said Mo. “How about this? Maybe you thought you were just making up some words, but maybe you happened to say the words just right and really did put a curse on David without even knowing it.”

“That means he’s still cursed,” said Larry. “And you don’t know how to remove it.”

“How else do you explain all the things that happened to him?” asked Mo.

“Tell me more about this curse,” said Tori’s famous aunt.

“I don’t know,” said David. “I’ve never believed
in anything like that, but it was just so weird. Everything that those guys did to you happened to me. There were too many coincidences.”

He told her everything that happened, from breaking his parents’ bedroom window to his pants falling down. He even told her about the flour falling on his head.

“Well,” said Mrs. Bayfield, “I have an idea. But I don’t know if it’s right.”

“What?” asked Tori.

“If you are cursed, Mr. Ballinger—David,” said Mrs. Bayfield, “it is only because you are a sensitive, caring human being.”

“Him?” asked Larry with a laugh.

“I imagine David felt very guilty about what he and the other boys did to me. Didn’t you, David?”

“I thought you were just a lonely old lady,” said David. “I didn’t know you were famous.”

Mrs. Bayfield smiled. “You probably felt you should have been punished for what you did,” she said. “And when nobody punished you, you punished yourself.”

“You mean I broke our window on purpose?”

“You or your subconscious.”

“And I purposely didn’t tie my pants tight enough because I wanted them to fall down?”

“ ‘Fraid so.”

David shook his head. “I’m really weird, aren’t I? I mean Roger and Randy and Scott didn’t punish themselves.”

“They obviously are not as sensitive as you are.” Mrs. Bayfield smiled warmly at David. “You’re a
caring, thoughtful, considerate human being. Maybe that is a curse in this cold world we live in. You have the soul of a poet.”

Tori beamed at him.

David looked at all the faces on the wall. Little did he know that someday his face would be up there with them.

D
AVID THOUGHT
a lot about what Tori’s aunt had said. He really never did believe one hundred percent that he was cursed. But on the other hand he also found it hard to believe that he did all that stuff to himself on purpose.

Or maybe his subconscious did it to him.

Or his Doppelgänger.

But why else would he flip off his mother if he didn’t want to get punished? Then his mother didn’t even punish him for that, he remembered, so he had to keep punishing himself.

In the end, he realized, all he had to do was tell Felicia Bayfield he was sorry. The whole time his subconscious, or Doppelgänger, kept doing stuff to him, trying to make him do that. At last he didn’t tie his pants tight enough and that finally did it. He ran to tell her he was sorry and the curse never struck again.

Or, on the other hand, Mrs. Bayfield could be wrong and he still might be cursed. Or maybe that was just what life was all about. Maybe everyone is cursed, one way or another. He remembered Larry and Mo saying that they sometimes felt like there was a curse on them too. Everyone steps in dogshit once in a while.

It was like Mrs. Bayfield said: We all try to act like we’re so important—doctors, lawyers, artists—but really we know that at any moment our pants might fall down.

The bell rang. David walked out of math, put his books away in his locker, and headed out for recess.

He felt himself tense up when he saw Roger and Scott heading toward him even though they had pretty much stopped bothering him. Scott had his arm around Ginger.

I guess not everyone’s cursed, David realized. Scott Simpson didn’t seem like he was cursed at all. He always got everything he wanted. He was popular. He got all A’s. He was a good athlete. He was handsome. It hardly seemed fair.

Scott walked by without even glancing at his former best friend.

But then again, thought David, Scott Simpson didn’t have the soul of a poet.

He checked to make sure his fly was zipped, then headed out to join his friends.

“D
ID YOU
see what David gave me?” asked Tori. “He made it in shop class.”

“His apple-cheese board!” exclaimed Mo.

“It’s not an apple-cheese board,” said Tori, somewhat offended. “It’s a heart.”

“Oh, uh, that’s right,” Mo said very quickly. “It’s a heart. I don’t know why I said it was an apple.”

“I think it looks more like an apple,” said Larry. “Not the kind of apples you get in here in America, but the kind of apples I ate when I lived in Zambia.”

“H
ERE COMES
the drooble!” said Harley.

His buddies laughed.

Willy tried to ignore them.

“What’s the matter, drooble?” asked Harley. “Your underwear too tight?”

Harley’s friends laughed again, and so did a couple of girls.

Willy reddened. At least he didn’t hear Maria laugh. He would have recognized her laugh. It was almost musical.

“No quacking,” said Mrs. Po, his teacher. “We are in a museum, not a quack factory.”

Everyone stopped talking. They were on a field trip. It was March 15, 2139. There was no school tomorrow because it was David Ballinger’s birthday.

“Hey, drooble!”

Willy turned around to see Quentin flip him off. He looked away and focused his attention on the painting at the end of the hall. It was a picture of a man with a bucket over his head.

Everyone in his class laughed when they saw it. “What a drooble!” someone said.

“We should get a bucket for Willy,” said Quentin. “He’s so ugly!”

Willy entered the Bayfield room.

He looked at all the faces on the walls. He moved from mask to mask until he got to the face of David Ballinger. Then he stopped and stared.

I bet nobody ever called you a drooble, he thought.

Everyone in his class had had to memorize a famous speech. Willy had chosen Ballinger’s Moscow Address. He remembered how important he felt as he stood and recited it in front of the class. Maria’s eyes seemed to shine at him as he spoke with the dignity and grace that made Ballinger famous.

He was still standing in front of the mask when Maria stepped up beside him. He was afraid to even look at her. His heart was pounding so loudly he was afraid she might hear it. He gripped the wood bar in front of the exhibit.

They stood next to each other without saying anything for several minutes, both staring at the face of David Ballinger.

She started to go.

“Hi, Maria,” he said, then blushed.

It was so stupid. He should have said hi when she first got there, not when she was leaving! When someone leaves you’re supposed to say bye, but he couldn’t say bye without having first said hi to her.
I’m such a drooble
!

“Hi, Willy,” she replied.

He watched her brown ponytail bounce behind her as she walked out of the room. “Bye,” he whispered.

He looked back up at the mask of David Ballinger.
I wish I could be more like you
.