The Yearbook

by Peter Lerangis

  I dropped the book and leaned against the case firmly.

  With a creak it swung away, into a vast, empty blackness.

  Chapter 13

  “WHOA …”

  The space beyond the bookcase was huge.

  It receded into darkness, the expanse broken by thick cement pillars. Rotting wood beams made rectangles in the ceiling, from which a few scraggly light bulbs hung.

  I stepped inside, onto a floor of hard, well-trammeled dirt. The air was clammy and cold, and it smelled of mildew and dry rot.

  I turned on two light bulbs. They swung jerkily as I let go, sending ghostly shimmers of light across the walls.

  Plenty of students had found this place, besides The Delphic Club. Drawings and graffiti were all over the walls. This is what I saw on the nearest one:

  BEANO + DELORES 1948

  CLASS OF ’73 RULES!!!

  MAX YASGUR FOR PRESIDENT

  IMPEACH NIXON!

  TRAMPLE THE NAZI DOGS!

  END IMPERIALISM! MARXISM NOW!

  U.S. OUT OF VIETNAM

  GEORGE LOVES CALI 4 EVER 1967

  I stared at that last one. I felt my heart skip.

  George and Cali are my parents.

  Well, one is and one was.

  The message stood out so proudly, as if it had been written yesterday. I could see Dad, seventeen and looking over his shoulder, not wanting to be caught.

  4 Ever, it said. That was how long they expected to be in love. Forever.

  They didn’t make it. They had twenty years.

  Twenty years seems so short. Yet the seven years since Dad died — that seems like forever. I guess it’s because my time without him will never end.

  Terrific. My eyes were watering. I hated thinking about Dad. I’d trained myself not to. It was too frustrating. Whenever I did, I always wanted to ask him questions — about sex, about Ariana, about this crazy yearbook stuff. I would picture him listening, but I couldn’t picture his answer. Whenever I tried to imagine looking into his eyes, he was always looking back at a ten-year-old.

  I needed to let my past alone. Reading about strangers was much easier.

  Besides, some of the writing might answer what had actually happened down there in 1950.

  A lot of the messages were faded or drawn over, but I could make out dates on quite a few. I saw plenty of writing from the forties, about Hitler and Mussolini and the atomic bomb. A couple of things were dated 1950, and lots of it was after 1965.

  Absolutely nothing existed between those two dates.

  The basement had been “sealed” after 1950, that much I remembered from the microfilm. But what exactly had happened down there?

  I followed the writing deeper into the basement. Odd, unexpected corners opened into wider and wider areas, until the bookcase was nowhere to be seen.

  The writing thinned out, then disappeared. But I didn’t care. The air was sweeter here, and I was feeling light-headed.

  At the end of the wall was a long, long crack in the dirt floor, which I followed with my eyes till it led to a wide opening fifteen feet away — through which a soft mist billowed and hissed.

  I’m coming.

  I breathed deeply and started to laugh. A hole in the earth, maybe that was where The Delphic Club met, an underground lair like the high-toned Communist-agitated frat.

  Someone was giggling, cackling. It didn’t shock me at all, and then I realized the laughing was mine and the smoke was circling my face and I was walking to the hole and I felt smart (om … pha … los) and powerful and charged with energy (Oh how weird what the hell did that mean?) and I never wanted to go back and I could live forever like that (4 Ever!) and behind me I could see the bookcase now and it was closing (Hamlet was a putz) and (Smut and Monique) and (what am I doing).

  A strangled cry welled up from my toes. It exploded from my mouth, doubling and tripling off the walls.

  I stood at the edge of the crack. My knees were locked, but I felt a piece of me ripping away, plunging in the blackness.

  My heart was a jackhammer, my brain a tangle of loose sparking wires. Before the last echo of my cry faded, I turned and ran.

  The bookcase was in view when I blacked out.

  And another dream rushed in to fill the void.

  Part Four

  Mark

  Chapter 14

  “MARKY, OUR COMPANY’S HERE!”

  Splursh. Spllllat!

  “MARKY!” Yiayia screams from the living room.

  The ketchup lands in little shiny clumps on the carpet. Marky steps in them.

  He hears the front door open and some strange woman’s voice squeal hello. Yiayia and she jabber on about how long it has been and how wonderful each other looks.

  Marky opens his mouth, squirts some of the ketchup inside, and keeps it there without swallowing. For good measure, he gives his white T-shirt a blast, right over his heart.

  Oh, and some in his hair, of course.

  He hides the ketchup bottle under his bed. Then he lies down, his matted hair right in one of the red puddles on the carpet. Facing upward, he spits. The ketchup, thinned by his saliva, trickles down the sides of his mouth.

  “MARKY! Just a sec, Joyce. He’s probably got his headphones on. Eight years old and he can’t go a minute without — ”

  The bedroom door swings open, and Yiayia swallows her last word. Marky wishes he could see the expression on her face, but that would mean opening his eyes.

  Yiayia’s scream is worth the trouble, even though it is the loudest scream he has ever heard and he thinks he has lost some hearing.

  “Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Help!”

  The gasps are great, too. Like hiccups.

  Then she has to go spoil it by jumping on him. He doesn’t expect that. Also he doesn’t expect her to start pounding his chest.

  Putting her lips on his is the last straw.

  “Stop! Ew! Ew!” he cries.

  Yiayia’s eyes are enormous. Her mouth.is ringed with ketchup, and curled into this gross shape, like a kidney bean.

  Behind her, Joyce Somebody stands gaping in the doorway.

  “You almost gave me a heart attack!” Yiayia shrieks. “Is this your idea of a joke?”

  Marky bursts out laughing. Yiayia looks like a clown with that ketchup around her mouth.

  “I want you and this room cleaned up, right now! And no dinner for you tonight!”

  All riiiight! Marky thinks. He doesn’t want to have dinner with those old farts anyway. All Yiayia ever likes to talk about is one thing.

  She slams the door, and Marky hears footsteps receding down the hall.

  “I’m so sorry, Joyce. He never used to be like this. His parents’ death was huge trauma. I’m looking for a therapist right now for him.…”

  There she goes. Starting already. Only this time he doesn’t have to sit there and take it. His parents aren’t dead. The bodies were never found. Dead bodies don’t just walk away. Someday they are going to come back.

  And then what will Yiayia do? She’ll have nothing to talk about.

  Which is just fine.

  Part Five

  David

  Chapter 15

  “DAVID!”

  I was fading into consciousness. My eyelids fluttered.

  “David! Are you all right?”

  It took a few seconds for Ariana’s face to come into focus. She was leaning over me, still in a down coat. Her face was streaked with tears. Behind her the bookcase was ajar, and I could see into the scenery shop.

  “Yeah,” I groaned. “I — I just tripped, I guess. How did you find me?”

  “Mr. Sarro told me you were in the office, but it was empty when we checked. Then he said he heard voices in the auditorium. I saw the gate open and the light on in the scenery shop, so — ”

  “Why did you come? I thought you went home.”

  “I was going to, but — but — ”

  Ariana’s face crumpled. Tears began streaming down her cheeks.

&
nbsp; I sat up and let her bury her head in my shoulders. “What? What happened?”

  Her answer was a fit of moaning, keening cries. She couldn’t speak. I gently helped her up, trying to keep weight off my bum ankle. As she sat on a sofa in the scenery shop, I swung the bookcase inward.

  I took one last look into the basement cavern and saw the graffiti on the walls. I remembered reading some of it, but that was all. The rest was a blank.

  But I did recall turning the lights on. And now they were off.

  The bookcase slid into place, and I sank into the sofa. “Ariana,” I asked, putting my arm around her, “did you shut the li — ”

  She clutched me so hard, it took away my breath. “Oh, David, it was horrible! Now I know how you felt. I — I — I don’t know what — I — should we call the police? I want to move — I don’t want to live here anymore — ”

  “You kids all right down there?” Mr. Sarro’s voice boomed from above. “I mean, I don’t want to interrupt, but I can’t let you stay down there unsupervised, you know. Not that I don’t trust you, but my job — ”

  I looked at Ariana. She wiped her eyes and nodded.

  “No sweat, Mr. Sarro!” I said. “We’re coming right up!”

  I helped Ariana to her feet. As she climbed the spiral stairs, I pulled the light switch, then followed her up.

  We went to the yearbook office, where I grabbed my coat. When we were finally outside, Ariana hugged me with both arms and began crying again.

  Whoa.

  If I could bottle how that felt, I’d keep it with me and take a sip every day for the rest of my life.

  Had she found out about Smut and Monique? Was that what this was about? “What’s wrong, Ariana?” I asked.

  She swallowed hard. “Come with me.”

  As we walked arm in arm toward her house, my ankle began feeling stronger. Ariana was trembling, and I held her tightly.

  We turned onto Cass. At the intersection with Eliot Place, we saw the construction site that Chief Pudgy had almost run into. Ariana stopped. Her face was practically white.

  “L-l-look in there,” she said. “I can’t.”

  I left her on the corner and walked closer. Wooden sawhorses surrounded a gaping, rectangular hole in the road. Inside the hole was a corroded metal pipe that looked as if the Pilgrims had put it in themselves. The center had rotted away, and debris had collected inside it — newspapers, bottles, wrappers, a shoe.…

  My eyes widened. I went to the edge and looked over.

  The shoe had a foot in it, And it was attached to a leg.

  “Oh my God,” I said.

  “What do we do?” Ariana asked.

  “Is it real?”

  “I don’t know!”

  As if in answer, the foot twitched.

  Then, slowly, it slid into the pipe.

  Chapter 16

  WE STOPPED RUNNING AFTER three blocks. Clutching hands; we sat on a park bench along the Ramble.

  For a long time we couldn’t talk. Ariana rocked slowly back and forth, her eyes focused blankly on the sidewalk.

  My head throbbed. The chalky smell was in my nostrils again. I sat forward, massaging my temples and breathing deeply.

  Ariana finally turned to me, her eyes bloodshot and her teeth chattering. “What do we do now?”

  “I don’t … know.” Each word was like a fist to the head. I gasped.

  “David, are you okay?”

  I nodded, then whispered, “I’ll deal with it.”

  Ariana moved aside. “Lie down.”

  I did as she said. She looked down at me, her eyes now full of concern. “I’m sorry,” she said with a sigh. “I’ve been so upset, I didn’t even ask you about your accident.”

  “What accident?”

  “Oh, my lord, amnesia.” She began speaking slowly, as if to an infant. “I found you in the basement of Wetherby High School. Do you know where that is?”

  “Well, yeah …”

  “Good. Now, I think you may have a concussion, David. Do you have blurred vision?” She held up three fingers, like a Boy Scout salute. “How many fingers?”

  I returned the salute. “On my honor, I will do my duty to God and country, and obey the Scout code …”

  Ariana’s face went blank. Then she scowled at me. “Very funny. You know, we have a serious situation here.”

  I was already feeling better, until I started to laugh, which was like inviting Arnold Schwarzenegger to sit on my head. “I don’t have amnesia,” I said, speaking slowly, “at least not completely. I went to the basement to look for The Delphic Club meeting place.”

  “You what?”

  I told her everything I’d learned about Reggie Borden and the strange 1950 deaths. I described the rumors about the underground groups, and I told her my suspicions about The Delphic Club meeting in the basement.

  Ariana listened closely, softly stroking my hair and nodding. “That feels so good,” I said. “You have soft hands.”

  She laughed. “Soft hands? Stephen says my hands are like a truck driver’s.”

  “He’s lying. You could be a masseuse — or a painter or a pianist.”

  “Please. I’m much too practical. You need to be a dreamer for those things.”

  “You’re not?”

  “Uh-uh. Just the opposite. I discovered there was no Santa at the age of three, by stringing gum across the chimney. When the gum wasn’t broken the next morning, I had my proof.”

  I sat up. “You didn’t!”

  Ariana nodded. “When I lost my first tooth I didn’t put it under my pillow for the Tooth Fairy. I put it in a glass of Pepsi to see if it would decay.”

  “And … ?”

  “It did. To a little pebble.”

  My pain was melting away — and so was the wall that had always been between Ariana and me. We were talking a lot, probably to avoid thinking about the Sewer Thing. But we were one now, united with a knowledge that no one else shared. And no matter what the outcome, we would carry this with us for the rest of our lives.

  I smiled at her. Her eyes became moist. “Oh, David,” she said, “what are we going to do?”

  I didn’t know whether she meant do about us or do about the foot in the sewer pipe.

  But it didn’t matter. I drew her close to me, and she didn’t resist. I closed my eyes and gently opened my mouth.

  The warmth of her kiss bathed me. The events of the past few days flew away, and I knew in my bones that Ariana and I belonged together.

  When our lips parted, she rested her head on my chest. I felt so lucky. I wanted this to last.

  But I started thinking about Smut.

  “Uh, Ariana,” I said, screwing up my courage. “When I was looking for the meeting place, I saw Stephen and Monique. You were right about them, you know. They were … well, kind of hanging all over each other.”

  Ariana stiffened. She let go of my hand and sank back into the bench. “What?”

  “You know, arm in arm.…”

  Ariana looked disgusted. “Is that what this was all about, David? You were just spying on Stephen? Trying to get me to like you?”

  I tried putting my arm around her. “No! That’s not it at all. I … I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  She edged away. “I’m not upset,” she said with a strange calmness. “Why should I be upset? I mean, classmates are dying, corpses are swimming in our water system, there’s a hole under the school, our yearbook was sabotaged, you’re busy checking out forty-year-old Communist conspiracies, and my boyfriend is seeing someone behind my back. What’s the big deal?”

  “Ariana— ”

  With a choked sob, she got up from the bench and ran toward her house. “Leave me alone.”

  I followed at a sprint. “I know how you must feel, but — ”

  She spun around. Her eyes were murderous. They froze me in my tracks. “You don’t have a clue how I feel, David. But I see through you. And I think what you’re trying to do is sick.”

 
“I don’t understand — ”

  “I’m sorry I ever asked you to be on the staff. You’ve spent two months staring at me, but I never thought you’d stoop to this. You leave my private life to me!”

  “But —but — ”

  I sputtered as she disappeared around the corner. Her footsteps echoed hollowly in the bleak evening.

  David Kallas, Master of Tact.

  I stood there until my ears became numb with the wind. Then, slowly, I headed home.

  My body tensed as I approached the construction site. Smoke was billowing from it now, and I craned my neck to see inside.

  The smoke was seeping out of the pipe, escaping upward through the junk in the rotted-open part.

  The shoe was gone, of course. But where?

  I sat at the edge of the hole. I had seen a foot disappear into a pipe. I had to make sense of it somehow.

  I asked myself a basic question: What does a pipe do?

  Carry fluids.

  How do the fluids move?

  From a higher to lower position … from higher to lower pressure.

  So, an object in the pipe — say, a body — would move for the same reasons a liquid would.

  Okay, so maybe we had not seen the Foot of the Living Dead. Maybe it had been your garden variety corpse moving to the laws of physics.

  Gee, what a relief.

  I climbed down into the hole. Using my hands, I cleared out the junk I could see, taking care not to reach into the pipe. Then I lowered my head to look inside.

  A billow of smoke rushed around my head, and I came face-to-face with a pair of small eyes.

  “Agggh!” I bolted upright.

  Footsteps skittered down the pipe, toward the Ramble.

  A rat. No big deal. It must have felt worse than I did.

  I let my heartbeat settle, then asked myself another small question:

  What happens to the contents of a pipe?

  They are carried to a dumping place, which in Wetherby is usually the Wampanoag River.

  I ran into the Ramble before I had the opportunity to think about what I was doing. Rain had started, and my feet slipped off slick, wet branches.

  I found my way to the boulder near the drainpipe. This time, no fuzzy head poked its way out of the water. I leaned out over the river and saw nothing but the gaping black circle of the pipe and some refuse underneath.