The Cybil War (7 page)

S
imon was sitting in his living room after the pet show. He was slumped on the sofa, staring straight ahead. His emotions were so strong that he was surprised his mother was not questioning him about them. He felt he must reek of pleasure like an onion. He could not wipe the smile off his face.

Simon felt, he decided, a little like that prehistoric fish must have felt, millions of years ago, when he noticed he had tiny legs and decided to try to step out of the water. That first weak step which probably left him jammed in the slime on his belly must have seemed at the time like a useless and stupid thing. Just as his own step today seemed useless and stupid, childish even.

“So much for walking,” the fish probably said, writhing back to the sea.

“I will not writhe backward,” Simon said to himself. His smile broadened. He felt better than he had felt in a long time.

Suddenly Cybil Ackerman appeared at the screen door. The sight of her there caused Simon to leap up like a puppet. His feet actually left the floor.

“Good news!” She opened the door, came in and saw Mrs. Newton. “Oh, you must be Simon's mom. Hi!”

Before Simon's mother could nod, Cybil turned back to Simon. “Guess what? Miss Vicki got first prize for Worst Behaved!” She looked delightedly from him to his mother. “It was between her and the cocker spaniel who bit the peekapoo, and we voted. This was after you left.”

Simon nodded. After Tony's disgrace, Simon had waited awhile and then slipped away too. He hadn't thought anyone noticed. The fact that Cybil had gave him another pang of pleasure.

“Miss Vicki won by a landslide! It would have been unanimous except for the peekapoo's owner. I'm going over to Tony's house and tell him.”

“I'll do that,” Simon offered quickly. He was halfway across the living room, no longer smiling. It came over him in a rush how much he did not want Cybil to go over to Tony Angotti's house. “I was going over there anyway,” he lied.

“No, I want to see his face when I tell him.”

“But I—”

Cybil turned to Mrs. Newton. “Did Simon tell you what Miss Vicki did to get Worst Behaved?”

“No.”

“Wet her diaper.” Cybil grinned. “You'd have to know Tony to appreciate it.”

“I appreciate it,” Mrs. Newton said with a smile.

It came over Simon that he
had
to prevent Cybil from going over to Tony's. He had to keep her
here.
He made a desperate offer. “You want a Coke?”

“No, I've got to go.” She swirled. “Say good-bye to everybody, Paw-paw.” She made Paw-paw wave to each of them.

Mrs. Newton waved back. It was the first time Simon had seen his mom wave to a cat, but that, he thought, was the effect Cybil had on people. Swinging Paw-paw under her arm, she went out the door.

Simon stood in the middle of the rug as Cybil's footsteps faded into the distance. His thoughts went with her as she crossed Brock Street, turned down Oak, went up the Angottis' walk. As he thought of her ringing the bell, his face twisted with misery.

“Who was that girl?” Simon's mother asked.

Simon looked at her. It sounded like the end of the Lone Ranger shows when somebody asks in an important voice, “Who was that masked man?” and somebody answers in an equally important voice, “That was the Lone Ranger.”

Simon answered in an equally important voice, “That was Cybil Ackerman.”

He did not move. He was overcome by how quickly tides could turn in love and war, how quickly up could become down, victory defeat.

“That was Cybil Ackerman,” he repeated to himself.

And it was not as if there were dozens of Cybil Ackermans, he realized. There was only one. And in the world that swirled in confusion and conflict around him, she was an oasis, a patch of fresh air, a circle of peace.

He started for his room, stumbled over the rug and missed a step. “Are you all right?” his mother asked quickly.

“I'm fine,” he said with careful cheer.

“Your face looked flushed.”

“I'm hot.”

“Simon—”

“Let me alone.”

He closed the door behind him.

W
hen Simon was in third grade, the teacher, Mr. Romano, asked the class to write in twenty words or less the saddest sentence they could think of.

Billy Bonfili's sentence was: Last summer I almost drowned in front of my cousins and they laughed.

Cybil's was: My cat Paw-paw has been missing for three weeks and I think he's dead.

Simon's was: Last summer my mom sent me to Camp Okiechobie to make up for the fact that my dad left and on the third day I got the worst case of poison ivy the councelors had ever seen and finally it reached my eyes and I had to be led blindly to the toilets by a boy named Mervin Rollins who refused to tell me if there were any daddy-longlegs on the toilet seat.

Simon's sentence was way too long, of course, but Mr. Romano gave him an A anyway because he admitted it was hard to condense that much sadness into twenty words.

After that, Simon had often tried to create the saddest sentence in the world. He knew he had it with “My father is gone,” but he still kept writing. So far he had written twenty-seven.

Now he tried for twenty-eight.

I was ajar of peanut butter in the class play and I stepped out and said my line perfectly (“Peanut butter is a nutritious food and good in sandwiches or on crackers.”) but when I stepped back in place, I bumped into Billy Bonfili who shoved me back so hard that I pushed Harriet Haywood who was unsteady in an ill-fitting cottage cheese carton and who sat down on the stage and couldn't get up until me and the green beans helped her and Cybil looked at me and did not grin and cross her eyes and later the green beans told the teacher I had done it on purpose and the whole thing made me wish I had never seen, heard of or tasted peanut butter.

Way too long, Simon decided, too tiresome, too many who's, and anyway nobody cares about the feelings of a jar of peanut butter.

He was sitting at his desk as he wrote the sentence, waiting for the bell to ring. The sign “Peanut Butter” that he had worn in the play was on the floor under his feet. The dusty prints of his tennis shoes had blurred the letters.

Simon reread his sentence and then folded it to take home. One day he would have a collection of sad sentences worthy of being donated to a library. They would have a special room—The Simon Newton Collection—and people would pass through and marvel at the sadness of the sentences in the glass cases.

The bell rang, startling him out of his thoughts. He got up, sighing, picked up his books.

The sacks of potatoes jostled him as he went into the hall. He barely felt the jabs of their elbows.

He had the eerie, crystal-ball feeling that there would be another, newer, sadder sentence in the very near future. It was such a strong feeling that he could almost hear the sympathetic sighs of the viewers as they looked into the last case and read—

It was just as well, he thought, that he didn't know what.

I
n the week that followed, Simon sometimes felt he was a yo-yo, he went up and down so quickly. In school he could not concentrate because he had to keep watching Tony Angotti, who was watching Cybil, and then watching Cybil to see if she was watching Tony. His neck began to ache with all this unnatural straining.

“Eyes front,” Miss McFawn said again and again.

Sometimes to Simon's surprise she would add, “Tony,” and Simon would know Tony had been looking at Cybil and he hadn't caught him. Then he would glance back quickly himself. Cybil would be writing or looking for something in her notebook, and Simon would feel instantly better.

One day after school when Simon and Tony were walking home, Tony said, “Everybody likes me but Cybil Ackerman,” in a depressed way.

Tony's genuine dismay made Simon feel wonderful. His steps quickened with pleasure. But then he began to analyze that statement, and he slowed down. Everybody did
not
like Tony. He himself could name at least ten people who didn't like Tony, starting with Simon's mom, Miss Ellis, Mr. Repokis, Annette, Harriet Haywood, Billy Bonfili ... And if Tony could be wrong about that, then he could also be wrong about Cybil's not liking him.

“What makes you say that?” Simon asked carefully.

“Oh, I don't know. Do you think she likes me?”

“I don't know. She's the kind of person who likes everybody.” He paused, then added, “No matter what they're like.”

“Yeah, there's no reason she
wouldn't
like me.” He held up his hands as if he were testing for rain. “She probably does like me. Thanks, pal.” And he walked on, obviously feeling much better.

Behind him, Simon followed, feeling much worse. “What do
I
know,” he said, but his target was out of range.

Still, with all these ups and downs, he was not prepared for Thursday.

Thursday had been an ordinary school day, one of those days so boring that when his mother would ask him to tell her one thing that had happened, he would not be able to. He would have to make up something that had happened another day to satisfy her.

Not once had he caught Tony looking at Cybil or Cybil looking anywhere but at her papers or through her notebook, and he had been lulled into a feeling of warm security.

It was walking home, with Simon whistling happily under his breath, that the blow fell. Tony Angotti said, “Cybil Ackerman
does
like me.”

Simon stumbled over a root. He looked up to see a smirk on Tony's face. “What?” He felt his cheeks begin to burn.

“Cybil Ackerman
does
like me.”

“Yesterday you said she didn't.”

“That was yesterday.” Another smirk.

“But what happened? I didn't see her even look at you. What makes you think she likes you?”

“She must. She's going to the movies with me.”

“What?” Simon stumbled again. “What? You asked Cybil to go to the movies with you?”

Tony nodded.

Simon kept staring at Tony. He could not believe it. He had known that sometime in the future all of them would be taking girls to movies and maybe even to dances, but that was years in the future. It was as unthinkable now as their joining the army.

A runner passed them. Simon heard the man's rasping breath, felt a spray of sweat, heard the slap of shoes against the pavement.

Sometimes it seemed to Simon that the whole world was running, that someone had yelled, “Fire!” and everybody had started running, with his father leading the pack. And he, like the prehistoric fish, couldn't take a step without plopping belly-down in the mire.

“There's just one catch,” Tony said.

“What?”

“She won't go unless you and Haywood come too.”

Simon stopped as abruptly as if he had run into a brick wall. “What?”

“You and Haywood have to come to the movies with us.” Tony spoke as slowly and carefully as if he were speaking to someone with a concussion.

“Wait a minute. Do you mean
I
would have a date with Harriet Haywood?” Simon's voice was higher than he had ever heard it.

“Well, it's not actually a date,” Tony explained. “We aren't going to pay their way. I was very careful about that.” He touched his forehead. “I told them we would meet them
inside, beyond
the candy counter. How's that for planning? We won't even have to buy them popcorn!”

“I'm not going to the movies with Harriet Haywood,” Simon said flatly.

“You have to,”

“I don't.”

“But I already set it up. I told Harriet you wanted to make up for overturning her in the play. You made a fool of her, Simon. I should think you'd want to—”

Simon kept shaking his head.

Tony sighed with disappointment. “Then I'll have to get Bonfili.”

“What?” Simon looked up. Tony's face, honest and open, looked back at him with regret.

“Harriet said she would go with either you or Bonfili, and so since you won't go ...” He shrugged.

Simon moaned beneath his breath. He put one hand to his forehead. It was one of those moments in a war, he decided, when the first inkling of failure comes, when that first sickening awareness that the war can be lost, that
you
can be defeated, comes and stays and grows. Grown men must tremble, he thought, deep inside them like volcanoes. He himself felt sick.

“I'll go,” he muttered.

Tony clapped him on the back, almost sending him to his knees on the sidewalk. “I'll tell them it's all set.”

“Yes, tell them that.”

Tony hurried off, leaving Simon alone. Simon kept standing there. All week he had been trying to prevent Cybil from looking at Tony—just from looking at him—and while he was congratulating himself on his success, he learned that somehow, without those looks, they had arranged a
date.
It was like the enemy taking the castle without the moat.

He turned around on the sidewalk like a person starting a game of blindman's bluff.

Slowly he began to make his way home. He walked like an old man trying to get used to new glasses. He tripped over curbs, tree roots, blades of grass.

It was, he decided, like Camp Okiechobie again, being led blindly to the toilets by Mervin Rollins. He could almost hear Mervin calling in his clear, young voice, “There are no daddy longlegs on the toilet seat.”