“That’s not what you’re supposed to write, Christopher.”
“What do you want me to write?” he asked.
“You know what to write,” she said calmly.
Christopher turned to see Ms. Lasko walk to the front row of students. She knelt down in front of Jenny Hertzog, picked up the scissors, and quietly snipped away the thread covering her mouth. Jenny loosened her jaw. She began to salivate. Like little babies do when they are starting to grow teeth. Little baby teeth.
I AM SORRY I FELL ASLEEP IN CLASS.
“That’s not what you’re supposed to write, Christopher,” Ms. Lasko said.
“Ms. Lasko, please. I don’t know what you want me to write,” he begged.
“Yes, you do. The bell is going to ring for lunch period. Would someone like to help Christopher at the board?”
All the kids raised their hands and opened their mouths to say “Me! Me! Me!” But no words came. Just the sound of babies crying to be fed their mother’s milk.
Mother’s milk is blood without the red corpuscles.
Milk is blood. The babies want your blood.
“Thank you, children. You. You in the red hoodie. Why don’t you help him?” Ms. Lasko said.
A raised hand came out of a little red sleeve. Christopher couldn’t see the kid’s face. All he saw was Ms. Lasko moving down the front row, cutting all of the children’s mouths free. Snip. Snip. Snip. The babies were howling for blood.
Christopher turned back to the board. Desperate. The chalk shook in his hand. He knew he could never write anything about the tree house or the nice man or the training or the imaginary world. So, he started to write furiously. Anything he could think of.
I’M SORRY YOU DRINK YOURSELF TO SLEEP, MS. LASKO.
“THAT’S NOT WHAT YOU WRITE, CHRISTOPHER!” she hissed.
Ms. Lasko moved to Brady Collins. Snip. Snip. Snip.
I’M SORRY FOR MS. LASKO’S BABY. IN HEAVEN.
“That’s not where my baby is,” Ms. Lasko said in a baby voice. “HELP CHRISTOPHER WRITE WHAT HE NEEDS TO WRITE!”
Christopher saw the kid in the red hoodie move next to him at the blackboard. He saw a little hand grab some chalk and begin writing. He followed the hand to the arm to the face of a little boy. The little boy turned to Christopher and smiled. With his missing front teeth. His eyes glowed as he wrote in big, bold letters,
WHO IS HELPING YOU?
“That’s all we need to know, Christopher. Just write it down like a good little boy, and you’ll get out of here alive,” Ms. Lasko said with a cheerful smile.
Ms. Lasko quietly moved to the second row. Cutting all the threads with scissors. Snip. Snip. Snip.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Christopher said.
“Yes, you do,” Ms. Lasko said. “Lunch period is almost here. Tick tock.”
The little boy in the red hoodie dragged his chalk against the blackboard, screeching each letter.
WHO IS HELPING YOU?
“No one! I swear!” Christopher said.
Ms. Lasko went to the back row, cutting the last of the thread free. Snip. Snip. Snip.
“Now, who wants to eat him first?!” she shrieked.
“Oh! Me! Me! Me!” the piglets squealed.
Christopher turned to the little boy in the red hoodie. Desperate.
“How do I wake up?” he whispered.
The little boy said nothing. He just turned to Christopher with his glowing eyes and smiled. With his missing front teeth. The same missing teeth Christopher saw on the skeleton. Christopher felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
This thing was David Olson.
“David, please help me wake up,” Christopher begged.
David Olson stopped, shocked to hear his name spoken aloud.
“Please. I know your big brother Ambrose.”
The boy looked bewildered. For a moment, his eyes blinked and stopped glowing. He wasn’t a thing. He was a little boy. He opened his mouth, trying to speak, but his serpent tongue flicked through the gap like a snake. And nothing came out but hissing.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to say,” Christopher whispered.
David Olson moved to the board. He wrote in big capital letters.
RING.
The bell rang. Christopher turned. He saw the mob of kids running at him at full speed. Their teeth exposed. He ran to the exit door where Mrs. Henderson stood guard in the hallway, holding a stack of library books.
“Mr. Henderson doesn’t love me anymore, Christopher. He always goes out at night.”
She dropped the library books and grabbed his arm. Her eyes were lost and desperate.
“Why does he think I’m so ugly? Christopher, help me!”
Brady Collins and Jenny Hertzog rushed at them. Howling like baby dogs needing to nurse. Christopher wrenched his arm free and ran out of the auditorium. But Mrs. Henderson did not move. She just stood there, looking at herself in the glass of the display case stuffed with decades of trophies and class photos.
“When did my hair turn grey? When did I become so old and ugly?” she said just as the pack of children jumped on her. Their teeth gnashing. Thirsty. Starving.
Christopher ran down the hallway, looking for an exit. Some way to get to the street. Just get to the street. He turned the corner and saw the exit far in the distance. On each side of the hallway were rows and rows of lockers. Eyes peeking out through the vents. Whispers behind the metal frames. Christopher ran toward the exit. The locker handles began to jiggle.
The lockers started to open.
Like the lids of coffins.
Christopher ran past them as fast as he could. He raced through the hallway. Just get to the exit. Just get to the street. He was just about to open the exit door when…
A locker opened, and a hand pulled him back into the darkness.
Christopher started to scream. The hand covered his mouth.
don’t. it’s a trap.
It was the nice man.
Suddenly the front door burst open. Ms. Lasko ran back into the school. Somehow, she had doubled back. She stalked around the hallways. Her face smeared with blood.
“Chrissssstopher,” she whissspered. “Is your friend here now? I think he might beeee.”
don’t scream. that’s how she finds you.
Christopher peered out through the vent. He saw Ms. Lasko walk to different lockers and rap her bloody knuckles.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
“Eeny. Meeny. Miny. Moe.”
Bang. Bang. Bang.
“Catch the new friend by his toe.”
Bang. Bang. Bang.
“He will holler, can’t let him go.”
Bang. Bang. Bang.
“Eeny meeny miny…”
Silence.
Christopher stood breathlessly, waiting for her to open the locker. But she didn’t. She went to the gymnasium across the hallway and disappeared behind a door. The nice man waited for a moment. Then, he lowered Christopher down and whispered.
we need to get to the street.
Christopher opened the locker.
The entire hallway was filled with children. Too short to be seen from the vents. They all pointed and screamed at once.
“MOE!”
The gymnasium door slammed open. Christopher saw Ms. Lasko enter the hallway. But she was all wrong. Her eyes glowed green like the fakest of green contact lenses. Like no color an eye should be. A sick puke green. A broken-arm green. She stared at him and smiled, revealing dog’s teeth.
“YOU’RE OFF THE STREET!” she cackled.
She ran at him.
Christopher fell down in the hallway. He couldn’t get up.
With every step, he heard a sick click as her neck began to break. It was like a giraffe’s neck growing out of her shoulders one vertebra at a time. The children parted like the Red Sea as she moved at him with a click. Sick. Click. He could smell her breath. Hot and rancid. There was no more Ms. Lasko. There was
only this woman in her true form. Covered in burns. Her hair matted and insane. A silver key hanging from a little string noose around her neck.
She launched herself at Christopher, digging her nails into his neck. Suddenly the nice man sprang out of the locker. The two collided and fell to the ground.
“I knew it was you!” she hissed.
That’s when Christopher realized that it was a trap. But the trap wasn’t for him. The lady reached her dirty fingernails and grabbed the nice man. The children jumped up and down. Howling. All except David Olson, who stood as far away as he could down the hallway, then slipped into a locker out of sight. Hiding. The nice man tackled the woman. She opened her mouth, baring her razor-sharp dog teeth. She was stronger. Faster. Her eyes glowed. Screaming and licking and hissing. Hiss. Hisssss!
The nice man looked at Christopher.
He was about to speak.
“STOP HELPING HIM!” the hissing lady screamed as her dog teeth buried themselves into the nice man’s neck.
Chapter 40
Christopher was screaming before he even opened his eyes.
He looked up and saw the face of Ms. Lasko, rushing at him. There was no time to lose. He got up and pushed her.
“Get away from me!” he screamed.
“Christopher, calm down!” Ms. Lasko said.
“You’re going to kill me!” he shrieked as he grabbed her arm. His forehead became hot with fever, which he immediately pushed down his arm through his fingers. His fingers heated up like little ovens through the fabric of Ms. Lasko’s cotton blouse.
“Christopher, stop! You’re hurting me,” she shrieked.
“Please! Don’t let them eat me!” he said.
The laughter was what finally snapped him out of it.
Christopher looked around the auditorium. The kids were all sitting at their desks, taking the state exam. Their mouths were no longer sewn shut. They were wide open and laughing at him.
“Please! Don’t let them eat me!” Brady Collins mocked.
“Shut up, Brady!” Special Ed said.
“If they want to eat someone, Special Ed is the juiciest,” Jenny Hertzog said.
The kids laughed harder. Christopher looked back at Ms. Lasko. Her fingernails were clean. There was no more dirt. No more puke-green eyes. No more hissing lady. This was the real Ms. Lasko. And she was…
Terrified of him.
“Christopher, you had a nightmare. Please, let go of my arm.”
Christopher let go. Ms. Lasko quickly pulled her blouse off her arm and looked just as little blisters began to form. She turned back to Christopher, who seemed even more terrified than she was.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Lasko,” he said.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s just a brush burn. Let’s take you to the nurse.”
“I don’t need the nurse,” he said. “I’m fine now.”
“For your neck,” she said.
Christopher didn’t understand what she meant until he noticed the little smears of blood on her white blouse in the shape of his fingers. Christopher looked down at his fingernails, raw like hamburger. Then, he reached up and felt his neck. The place where the hissing lady scratched him was the same place that it seemed he’d ripped his own neck with his fingernails.
“Come now,” she said kindly.
The minute Christopher stood up, the laughter began anew. It started as little snickers from the kids around him. Within moments, it had spread through the entire auditorium as kids laughed and pointed and whispered. Christopher looked down at his pants and saw it.
The urine stain.
It had spread over his corduroy pants, turning the tan color into a dark chestnut brown. He had wet the bed in front of his entire school. He looked up at Ms. Lasko, who quickly snapped her attention away from the mild pain on her arm and into the eyes of a mortified little boy. She took his hand and led him to the nurse’s office.
Ms. Lasko is…
Ms. Lasko is…putting vodka in her thermos.
Ms. Lasko is…chewing gum to cover the smell.
Christopher lay on the hard plastic cot in the nurse’s office. His head ached and his forehead was hot with fever. He tried to see the thermometer over the bridge of his nose, but his eyes crossed. He could barely see the numbers climbing.
99. 100. 101.
He looked over at the nurse treating the burn on Ms. Lasko’s arm. She slowly rubbed a cream on the blisters and wrapped it loosely with gauze.
“Just keep it wrapped,” the nurse said. “The blisters will be gone in a day or two.”
The thermometer beeped. The nurse came back and grabbed it out of Christopher’s mouth.
“One hundred and two degrees,” she said. “Stay here. We’ll call your mother.”
The nurse thinks…
The nurse thinks…I hurt my neck on purpose.
Ms. Lasko and the nurse walked into the office next door to call Christopher’s mother. Christopher suddenly panicked. If his mother knew he was sick, she would never let him out of the house. No school. No tree house. No way to help the nice man. But it wasn’t just the fever. His mother would see the urine stains on his corduroy pants and the cuts on his neck. She would ask him questions. Questions he could never answer. Because the hissing lady was watching him now.
“Excuse me, Ms. Lasko? May I clean up in the bathroom?” Christopher asked.
“Of course, Christopher.” She smiled.
Ms. Lasko is…
Ms. Lasko is…thinking about the drink in her thermos.
Ms. Lasko is…drunk drunk drunk all day in school.
Christopher slipped into the hallway and rushed to the first-floor boys’ bathroom. There were no kids in there. No boys doing “long shots” into the urinals. Christopher was finally alone. He looked up at the clock. The test wouldn’t be over for another five minutes. There was time. He quickly stripped off his pants and ran the cold water. He put his corduroy pants into the water and started to rub them back and forth. Throwing in a little soap. Trying to rub out the urine stains. But they wouldn’t come out. He scrubbed over and over. Manically cleaning and rinsing and cleaning and rinsing. But nothing worked. His pants got wetter and wetter. His cheeks redder and redder. His face flushed with shame.
It’s not working. She’s going to see my pants.
She’s going to see my neck.
She won’t let me go to the tree house.
Christopher knew he had to get back to the tree house. Promise or no promise, he needed to find the nice man before the hissing lady killed him. What if he was too late? What if the nice man was like the autumn leaves of the woods? When the branches went bare, the nice man would be gone. And Christopher would be alone.
He looked up at the clock. He had two minutes left. He stopped the water and wrung out his pants. He held them up to the hot-air dryer. He hit the button and let the hot air fill his corduroys like balloons in the Balloon Derby. He looked at himself in the mirror, and rolled his turtleneck sweater up to cover his neck like he did when he was afraid of vampires. He hit the dryer again and saw the brown chestnut color get a little more faint. But it wasn’t drying fast enough.
It needs more heat.
Where am I going to get more heat?
Christopher closed his eyes and felt the heat rising on his forehead. He pictured the Mission Street Woods. The branches bare except for the evergreens like Christmas trees. Christmas trees all in a row.
And they were burning.
Christopher looked up at the clock. Two minutes had gone by in a daydream, and he was standing in his tighty whities, holding his pants up to the blow dryer. The pants were so dry, they were hot in his hands. Brady Collins and his group of friends stepped into the bathroom as Christopher tried to put his pants back on.
“No, we’ll take those!” Brady said, snatching them out of his hands.
“Give them back, Brady,” Christopher said.
“Give them back, Brady,” Brady Collins mocked. His friends join
ed in a chorus of mocking. “Please, don’t eat me!” “Please, don’t kill me!” They walked forward, pushing Christopher out into the hallway. Christopher landed on the ground in front of Jenny Hertzog and a group of girls, who began to laugh.
“I’ve heard of floods, but this is ridiculous,” she mocked.
Jenny Hertzog is afraid…
Jenny Hertzog is afraid…of her stepbrother’s room.
“Brady, give them to me!” Jenny Hertzog squealed. “Floods! Floods!”
Brady threw the pants over to Jenny, who slipped them over her legs and under her skirt. Christopher’s face flushed hot with fever. He barely had time to think before the itch pushed the words out of his mouth.
“Why don’t you sleep in your own room, Jenny?”
He said it innocently. Like a child asking his mother why the sky is blue. But Jenny Hertzog stopped laughing. Her eyes narrowed to slits. She felt all the kids turn from Christopher to her, waiting for a response. Jenny Hertzog stared through Christopher, her eyes burning with hatred.
“Fuck you,” she said.
Brady started to walk toward him, pinning him against a locker. The itch came back, pushing words into Christopher’s mind.
Brady Collins is afraid…
Brady Collins is afraid…of the doghouse.
“What’s in the doghouse, Brady?” he asked.
Brady Collins stopped. All of the kids looked at him as his face went flush with embarrassment. Christopher looked at them. He saw they were scared. And somehow, he couldn’t get mad at them. Somehow, he knew that they were more afraid than he was.
Brady Collins did not speak. He just glared at Christopher with murderous eyes.
“It’s okay, Brady. It’ll be okay,” Christopher said.
Brady Collins hit Christopher in the mouth. It wasn’t a soft hit. It wasn’t a warning. It was real. But the strangest thing was…when Brady hit him, it didn’t really hurt. It felt like a tickle. But Brady wouldn’t stop. He was so angry, he wanted to kill Christopher. Brady rushed at him, both fists out, ready to do real damage. Christopher did not lift his arms. He merely stood there, waiting to receive the blows.
Imaginary Friend Page 20
