Reapers Never Smile

by Stephanie Prochaska

  As soon as we walked into the office a crazy-haired secretary immediately stood up and rushed around the desk to meet us.

  “Oh, you poor dear!” she cried, her voice filled with concern. “What happened?”

  “He got hit with a baseball. In P.E.” I said guiltily before Derek could tell her that I was the one who’d hit the ball.

  “You poor thing!” she exclaimed, sounding even more upset. Derek shot me a look that clearly said even he thought she was overreacting just a bit. She stood there, wringing her hands, looking from Derek to me with wild eyes. When it became clear that her only plans consisted of standing around and looking worried, I decided I’d have to speak up.

  “Umm…is the nurse back this way?” I asked, pointing down the hall. The secretary absently followed my finger with her eyes for a minute before suddenly snapping back into action.

  “Oh. Yes, of course.” she said. “Right this way.” We followed her down the corridor and turned into the second door on the left. She stuck her head into the room and asked, “Ellen? This boy needs some help. Would you look after him?” And with that, she headed back to the front desk, mumbling “poor dear” as she shut the door.

  We walked in and the nurse turned around to greet us. She took one look at Derek and in a businesslike tone said, “Sit down. What happened here?”

  “He got hit with a baseball.” I admitted as the nurse pulled Derek’s hand away from his face. She nodded, tilting his chin up to get a better look.

  “Well, it doesn’t look broken.” she said at last. “I’m going to get some ice. You wait here, ok, Derek?”

  Derek nodded and the nurse left the room. I turned and stared at Derek, but his eyes were closed, so he missed the look I was giving him.

  “How does she know your name?” I asked. I knew we hadn’t introduced ourselves to her. Derek opened his eyes just a sliver and looked at me before answering slowly.

  “I’ve been here before.” he admitted.

  “As in, you’ve been injured at school before?” He nodded, and I continued. “So many times that the nurse actually knows you by name?”

  “Yeah.” he said. “I’m not that coordinated, ok?”

  “Sorry.” I said. I hadn’t meant to imply anything. I’d just never met a kid who went to the nurse’s office on such a regular basis.

  “Here we go.” The nurse cut in, coming into the room with an ice pack wrapped in a cheap brown paper towel. “You’ll be fine. Just put this on it to keep the swelling down.” At least I hadn’t caused any permanent damage, I thought.

  The nurse left the room, and we made small talk until most of the bleeding had stopped. By the time he looked good enough for me to stop feeling guilty about leaving, my math class had been in session for about twenty minutes. The lady at the front desk was incredibly impressed that I’d come down and spent time with Derek. She made me feel like most people wouldn’t have done that, which made me start to worry about this place. I hoped she was just a really dramatic person. She was so happy that I’d stayed with Derek, she gladly wrote me a note to give to my teacher so that I wouldn’t have to worry about getting in trouble for being late.

  It turned out that we did lose that baseball game after all – by one run. On some level I knew it wasn’t my fault, and I’d like to think that my classmates knew it too. But the kids I’d been talking to in P.E. that day didn’t seem to have quite as much to say to me after that. I definitely moved up the list when it came to picking teams in class, but there wasn’t any of the friendly banter anymore; it was much more impersonal. I sighed, realizing that my hitting a ball into some dork’s face and then apparently having the nerve to check to see if he was alright may have just cost me several friends.

  Chapter 4

  Over the next few days, I realized more and more that the only person who ever seemed happy to talk to me was Derek. I stood with my tray in hand, and scanned the cafeteria wearily. I’d been here almost a month, and I still didn’t really know anyone. I mean, I knew a lot of the kids in my class, but none of them really talked to me more than to say hi. I’d been really hoping to meet people, but everyone seemed to have all the friends they needed already, like they’d filled their friend quotas. That’s what made changing schools senior year even worse.

  I saw Derek sitting in a corner by himself. He’d seen me standing in the isle looking somewhat lost, and as soon as I made eye contact he grinned and waved. I sighed and slowly headed over, wishing I was somehow able to make other friends. Even though I hadn’t particularly wanted to hang out with Derek, he was really starting to look like my only option. Before I knew it, I was sitting with him every day at lunch, watching Karen eat with the cool kids and wishing that anyone else wanted to be friends with me.

  I hadn’t really talked to her in a couple of days. The more I hung out with Derek, the less I felt like talking to Karen. Don’t get me wrong, I still wanted to talk to her. It was just that I was falling further and further into the dork group with each passing day, and it was getting harder to think of something impressive to say to her. It was embarrassing, really. I tried to think of something more clever than “hi”, but it never came. Mostly I just stared at my desk in gloomy silence.

  “Hi.” Derek said as I sat my tray down.

  “Hey.”

  “Classes getting any better?” he asked, making me take my eyes off of my lumpy pizza. He knew I wasn’t really liking the school, and it was pretty cool of him to ask. It almost made me feel bad that I wanted other friends. Almost.

  “They’re ok.” I told him. Suddenly, he got a knowing smirk.

  “And how’s Karen?” he asked.

  “Huh?” I asked, only somewhat interested.

  “You like her, don’t you?” he asked. Apparently, he’d noticed my staring across the cafeteria several times each week.

  “Yeah, I guess… I mean, she is pretty cute.” I added lamely. It was a pretty terrible answer, but I’d been caught off guard.

  “I don’t blame you. Everybody likes her.” he joined me in looking jealously across the room for a minute before asking, “Why don’t you talk to her?”

  “Huh?” I asked, surprised.

  “Why don’t you talk to her?” he repeated. “I mean, she’s nice and she’s really smart. You’d probably get along really well with her.” I sat there for a moment, thinking about what he’d just said.

  “If she’s so great, why haven’t you tried to talk to her?” I asked. I felt like I was on the spot, and I was trying to get out of it as fast as possible.

  “Really?” He looked at me like maybe I’d lost my mind.

  “Sure, why not?”

  “I don’t think she’d be that interested in talking to me.” he said patiently. I glanced over at him and knew instantly what he meant. Actually, I couldn’t believe I’d even asked him. Clearly I was spending too much time with him; his dorkiness was starting to slip by me. I don’t know if he saw the look on my face or if he was just continuing his train of thought, but he looked a little embarrassed as he said, “Karen’s a cheerleader. And she’s on the volleyball team. I’m not exactly the athletic type, you know.”

  I really did know. He was the most unathletic person I’d ever seen. Even if you ignored the fact that his nose was still a little swollen, his arms and legs were sticks and his thick glasses put most contact sports out of reach, the thing that really sealed his fate was his coordination. Somehow, he’d managed to get through life with almost no balance or hand-eye coordination. He stared dejectedly down at the table, and I knew I had to think of something to cheer him up.

  “Well, you never know.” I told him, even though I was pretty sure I did know. “Have you ever talked to her?”

  “Yeah. Sophomore year. We were in science together. I helped her study for a couple of tests… it was pretty obvious that I was barely even in the ‘friends’ category.”

  “That’s ok. There’s plenty of other girls out there. And maybe you can meet one who has the s
ame hobbies as you.”

  “Maybe…” I could see Derek brightening as he considered this.

  “So what do you like to do anyway?” I asked. “Video games?”

  “Nah, I’m not that good at video games. I like cards, personally.”

  “Well, I’ll keep my eyes open for any card-playing girls in any of my classes, ok?” I clapped him on the back.

  “Oh, yeah. I’ll be waiting.” He said it sarcastically, but I could see him start to smile. I was glad to see he was feeling better. He might be a little weird, but he was starting to look like my only friend for the year. And I couldn’t let my only friend be upset.

  I looked over at Karen one last time. She was sitting with a group of six other students. I knew one of the guys from my Spanish class and two of the girls were in English with me. The others were people I’d never seen. She was laughing and smiling, and all her friends seemed happy to be near her. I hated to admit I was jealous. When I compared her lunch group to mine, I felt just the tiniest bit depressed. Not that there was anything wrong with Derek. It was just that he was, well… Derek. He was a really nice guy, but I thought I could actually feel myself becoming more and more dorky every second I sat next to him. I gulped, trying to put things into perspective. Ok, I told myself. First I’ll get in to Karen’s group. Then I’ll worry about what to do with Derek.

  Chapter 5

  Monday morning, I sat down in history, wishing I was just about anywhere else. It wasn’t just the fact that I thought history was boring and irrelevant, or the fact that my teacher jumped from topic to topic like he was getting paid based on how many subjects he could bring up per day. The reason I was really dreading history was because this was the day we were going to learn about our big project for the year: a term paper.

  “Alright, listen up.” Mr. Guerra said. “As I told you yesterday, we’re going to discuss your term papers today.”

  The class quieted down, and my heart sank right along with the noise level.

  He passed out outlines so we could follow along as he told us all about the paper I didn’t want to write. The outline was two full pages front to back, and detailed everything that would happen from start to finish on this project. Once he was sure that everybody had received a paper, Mr. Guerra started talking.

  “The reason you have to write this paper is so you get some practice in before you go off to college. Once you get there, your teachers will expect term papers for almost every class you do.” Suddenly I found myself reevaluating whether or not I wanted to go to college. Maybe I could switch to one of the other history classes and get out of this whole thing. Mr. Guerra continued on. “And before any of you think about trying to change classes, I want to remind you that this is a school-wide project. Everybody in this school will be writing a ten to fifteen page paper their senior year.” So much for that idea.

  A hand shot up at the back of the room. Mr. Guerra nodded, and whoever it was asked, “How long do we get before the paper’s due?”

  “Four months.” he replied. I sighed with relief, knowing I would have at least three months before I’d really have to get serious.

  “What’s it on?” Someone else asked.

  “Why don’t we hold off on questions until the end?” Mr. Guerra said, sensing the anxiety levels in the room. Three hands that were already raised slowly lowered back into the crowd. When everybody had quieted down, he continued. “As I said before, your papers will be ten to fifteen pages and they will be due in four months. Each of you will write about an ancient civilization. Now, since this will be a big project, we’re going to do it in stages to make it easier.”

  Mr. Guerra continued to talk, and I scanned the outline he’d given us as he went. In two weeks we’d have to turn in a paper saying what our topic was. After that, for the next four weeks we would need to turn in the names of books or articles we’d found that we were planning on using for our sources. Our first five pages would be due in two months and the entire thing would be due in four.

  That didn’t sound too bad. So I wouldn’t have quite as much time to mess around before it was due, but this actually made it seem easier. Now all I had to do was find a topic that would be interesting enough for me to be able to fill ten pages talking about it.

  ……

  When school finally let out, I started my long walk home. I was still thinking about that history paper and what a pain it was going to be. I wanted time to think, so I decided to take the longest route I could find. Mom wouldn’t be home until around seven, and dad was almost never home before nine. I could have gone home and played video games, but I’d already beat my last game the night before, so the feeling just wasn’t there. I didn’t have anything better to do, so I cut across a field, suddenly wishing Steve was here with his beat-up old football.

  The problem with wandering aimlessly in a new town is that you’re almost guaranteed to get lost. And that’s exactly what happened to me.

  I came out of the field and walked into the supermarket parking lot. I took a left from there. I was pretty sure I lived right, but I guess I was hoping for some sort of adventure. Even if I got totally lost, it’d be a lot better than any of the boring stuff I’d be doing at home. And it was definitely better than thinking about all the stuff I could be doing if I hadn’t moved to this stupid city and all the homework I had now that I was here.

  Eventually, I found a network of long narrow alleyways that connected the local mom-and-pop shops to the garbage route. Perfect. I’d never been back here before, but this was exactly the kind of place I’d been hoping to find. And judging by the sickly-sweet smell of rotting garbage, I was pretty sure that no one else would be coming around here any time soon.

  As I walked down the passageways, I couldn’t help but notice that there was all kinds of junk on the ground, from springs to twisted bits of scrap metal. I really wished Marcus was here to see this! He was always gluing useless pieces of garbage together to make new pieces of garbage. I thought about calling Derek for about a second before I decided against it; he’d probably tell me not to touch anything so I didn’t get rabies or something.

  I walked past a pile of junk that looked like it had come from either a doll store or one of those places that sells really old furniture. There was a broken old bookcase and a few tattered rag dolls that looked pretty badly burned. A porcelain pot lay shattered next to some tarnished pieces of metal, battered beyond repair. I knelt down to get a better look, a sense of excitement growing. Maybe someone had started a fire here on purpose! For insurance, probably – that was always the reason for fires, wasn’t it? Maybe the cops had been investigating, but they couldn’t figure out who did it. If I was the one who figured it out, I’d be a hero! Just the thought of everyone knowing I’d solved the case and brought a terrible arsonist to justice made me smile. Not to mention it’d be a great way to get noticed! I’d be impressive enough for even Karen to know who I was!

  Grinning stupidly to myself, I knelt down and ran my fingers through the soot that was still caked onto pieces of broken glass. I looked carefully at a thin aluminum pot, which rocked violently as I touched it. Despite being warped and discolored, there didn’t seem to be anything suspicious about it, so I turned my attention to the dented metal pieces on the ground. I didn’t really know what I was looking for, but I’d seen a lot of crime shows with my parents. It seemed to me that all the cops on those shows had to do was to run their fingers through the dirt in order to come up with the suspect’s name and address. How hard could it really be?

  I picked up the ugliest pot in the soot, and my heart sank. I knew I wouldn’t be solving the crime of the century any time soon. The old copper pot had partially hidden an incredibly old lamp – the kind people used to carry around the house before they invented electricity. The lamp was actually in pretty good shape. The glass wasn’t cracked at all and the metal had a dim kind of shine to it. I picked it up and confirmed what I’d already suspected.

  Along the side of the
lamp, going from the base of the glass shade up to its top, was a three inch ribbon of velvety charcoal where flames had licked the side. I set the lamp down on the only good shelf still left in that old book case in order to get a better look at it. As soon as I let go, the lamp started rocking back and forth so much that I quickly put my hands back around it to stabilize it. As the lamp continued to wobble even after I’d steadied it, I knew exactly what had happened in that store: a rickety old lamp had tipped over and scorched a few items on a bookcase. No mystery. I sighed to myself in disappointment. It looked like it was going to take a little longer than that to get recognition in this city.

  Even though my investigation had been a bust, I decided not to go away completely empty-handed. I grabbed the lamp and dusted off the loose pieces of dirt. It was a pretty nice lamp, even if it was really old. I’d never seen anything like it, and I figured it would make a nice souvenir if nothing else.

  Chapter 6

  I got the lamp home and set it carefully on the desk in my room. Of course, neither of my parents was home when I got there. Not that I’d expected anything else, but it did make things a lot easier since it meant I wouldn’t have to worry about sneaking tools up to my room or being too quiet. It wasn’t that I wasn’t allowed to bring tools up to my room – I was practically an adult, after all. I just didn’t want to have to explain that what I was trying to fix was a lamp that would have an open flame when it finally worked. Especially since the lamp in question had already caused at least one fire, I just didn’t see that conversation going all that well.

  I went out to the garage and got down my dad’s toolbox. I had absolutely no idea what was wrong with the lamp or what tools I would need, so I just took the whole toolbox to my room. I just hoped that old lamp wasn’t going to be too hard to fix once I opened it up.