The Gray House

by Mariam Petrosyan

  “Hear that?” he squeaked, gasping. “There are fourteen packages in the principal’s office, and loads of letters! But to hell with the letters. The important thing here is the packages. All of them mine!”

  “Would those be the responses to your letters?” Humpback ventured.

  “None other!” Stinker made a circle around the room, spokes glistening. “I ask you, have you ever heard anything this outrageous? They’re not letting me have them. Asking who sent them and why. How’s that their business? They were sent to me, which means they’re mine. So it follows they must hand them over.”

  “So you turned around and left, just like that?” Wolf said.

  “As if! I made a scene. Now I need some time to recuperate, and then I’ll go back and make another one. Except I need a poster. Mind drawing it for me?”

  Grasshopper laughed.

  “Nothing funny about it,” Stinker said indignantly. “This pile of useful stuff is rotting away in the principal’s office. Not funny at all! Come on, quick . . . Get to the drawing! And writing!”

  He wheeled over to the nightstand and rustled some papers.

  “Don’t we have a large poster board? I don’t get it. It’s like the most useful thing to have around.”

  “We could use a bedsheet,” Magician piped in with enthusiasm. “We can cut it in half . . . We’ll need a couple of sticks for the handles.”

  “One handle is enough,” Stinker said sharply. “I’m going to need my other hand to blow the trumpet.”

  They sat on the floor in front of the remains of the sheet and nibbled on the brushes thoughtfully.

  “Something along the lines of Don’t Tread on Me,” Stinker insisted. “Or Hands Off . . . something or other.”

  “Or maybe Packages for the Owner?” Humpback suggested.

  “We could do that too,” Stinker agreed reluctantly. “Even though it sounds trite.”

  Beauty fondled the paint cans. Elephant drew a sun on the floor. Wolf got to writing Packages in blue paint.

  “Careful. Keep it on the line,” Stinker fretted. “Make the letters bigger.”

  “We could just pick the lock,” Siamese Rex said, “and carry everything away. At night. Then we wouldn’t need to write anything.”

  “No way! Stealing something that’s rightfully mine? No, they must hand it over themselves,” Stinker said, smoothing out the sheet. “They’re bound to regret their decision. They’re going to beg me: ‘Come, oh, come and take them!’”

  “Fourteen packages,” Magician sighed reverently.

  “See what I mean? Totally worth the effort.”

  Once the slogan Packages for the Owner was ready, Magician demanded they make another copy, for him. Wolf said that two identical banners was boring, and in the time it took the “Packages” one to dry they wrote Down with Dictatorship on the other half of the sheet, and also Hands Off Student Property on a poster board. Then they glued handles to the sheets.

  “Faster! Faster!” Magician urged.

  “Can we come too?” one of the Siamese asked.

  “Later,” Stinker said sternly. “You’re the second line. For when we get exhausted. Then it will be your turn to shout ‘Shame!’ and rattle something.”

  Beauty suddenly grew agitated, stuttering excitedly, “Four apples! Four! That’s a lot!”

  “Beauty will provide juice,” Wolf translated. “And Siamese will bring it over. To revive your stamina. The juice of four apples.”

  Beauty beamed. Stinker patted his arm.

  “Thank you. Your valuable contribution to the just cause shall not be forgotten. I’ll give you a lemon to make the contribution even more valuable.”

  Magician, Stinker, and Humpback took the slogans and left. Siamese went looking for something they could rattle. Beauty bustled around the juice maker. Elephant brought him one more apple. Wolf lay on the floor and closed his eyes.

  Grasshopper sat on his bed. He was dying to find out what Stinker was going to do, but was self-conscious about it. It was going to be something noisy and shameful, and the entire House was going to come gawk at it. Siamese dug out the salad bowl, the bear trap, and the ladle, and then set to picking up the scraps of paper off the floor and closing the paint cans, gingerly stepping around Wolf.

  “Fourteen packages,” they whispered to each other, licking their lips.

  Beauty reverently operated the juice maker. Elephant held the pan under the spout, watching it fill up with the transparent yellowish juice.

  Then they too headed off. Elephant carried the bottle of juice. Beauty carried nothing. Siamese carried the things they were going to rattle. Beauty fretted. He could only manage to make it through the door on the third try, and for that Siamese had to wedge him between themselves and march him out like a prisoner between two guards.

  Wolf lay on the floor. Blind lay on his bed.

  Blind can hear everything anyway, Grasshopper thought. He doesn’t need to go. He’s both here and there at the same time.

  Grasshopper slid down from the bed and sat on the floor.

  “Ancient’s leaving,” he said. “Forever. He’s not going to be in the House anymore. He’s afraid of something. Something that’s going to happen in the summer before the seniors have to leave.”

  Wolf opened his eyes.

  “How do you know? You mean you talked to him?”

  Grasshopper nodded.

  “He remembers the last graduation. He says there’s nothing worse than the last year.”

  “That’s true,” Wolf said, propping himself up. “I’m only curious why he would talk to you about things like that. Or did you . . . overhear what he was saying?”

  “No. He told me himself. Only me, no one else.”

  Wolf lay back down.

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” he muttered.

  Blind stirred on his bed. When he rose, he had a dusty plastic bag in his hands. He traipsed over to Grasshopper, dropped the bag in his lap, and went back. Grasshopper stared at Blind’s present in surprise.

  Wolf turned over, grabbed the bag, and peeked inside.

  “I think this is what you wanted,” he said and shook out some cassette tapes on the floor. Old and battered, some without the inserts, flashing the scratched labels.

  “That’s your Zeppelins,” Blind grumbled. “The ones making you go crazy in the head. He told me that these are it exactly. The one who gave them to me.”

  “Thanks,” Grasshopper whispered. “Thanks, Blind. Where did you get them?”

  “It was a gift,” Blind replied curtly. “From someone who couldn’t say no.”

  It was obvious that this wasn’t Elk he was talking about.

  “Doesn’t matter. Just enjoy.”

  “One more blackmailer,” Wolf remarked thoughtfully. “Rather a lot of you guys for one dorm.”

  It was Skull who gave it to him, Grasshopper thought. Blind is carrying his letters. So Skull is the one who couldn’t say no.

  Blind lay there with his hands hidden under his armpits. His black hair shined, obscuring his face.

  “Who was it that couldn’t refuse you, I wonder,” Wolf said probingly.

  Blind didn’t answer.

  Wolf turned to Grasshopper.

  “He never answers. Almost never. Then he says something and goes silent again. Just once I’d like to hear the rest of the story, find out if it actually happened.”

  Grasshopper shook his head.

  “What is it you’d like to hear?”

  “A complete sentence. So I could understand what he was saying. I don’t mean now in particular. I mean usually.”

  Grasshopper looked at Blind.

  “I can always understand what he’s saying. Even when he’s not saying anything at all.”

  Wolf’s orange eyes glanced in the direction of Blind.

  “You, maybe. But I don’t.”

  “Well, I don’t understand anything when you’re silent,” Grasshopper admitted. “And sometimes even when you’re speaking.�
�

  “How about enough?” Blind said. “Another round of this, and you’d both stop understanding anything.”

  “What do you hear?” Grasshopper asked.

  “Stuffagers are all there, and a lot of seniors. It’s Siamese’s turn now. They’re howling and banging.”

  Grasshopper gingerly picked up the tapes and put them back in the bag. There were five, and only two had cases.

  “But how am I supposed to listen to them?” he said sadly. “We don’t have anything for that.”

  “There are fourteen packages being rescued as we speak,” Wolf reminded him. “If I know anything about Stinker, at least one of them is going to contain something that would play your Zeppelins.”

  Grasshopper was suddenly restless.

  “Should I maybe go and shout too?”

  “There’s enough shouting as it is,” Blind said. “I’m surprised the principal is still holding.”

  “We’ll go in half an hour,” Wolf said. “Fresh reinforcements. It would be more useful that way.”

  Grasshopper peeked into the bag to count the tapes again. There were still five of them. No more, no less.

  “Was there anything else Ancient told you?” Wolf said smoothly.

  Grasshopper looked at him in surprise.

  “That he was leaving. That it smells bad here. And it’s going to get worse. I mean, not in those exact words. About the seniors, in short.”

  “Our dear morons,” Wolf said. “I see.”

  Grasshopper frowned.

  “Why are you calling them that?”

  “Because it’s the truth.”

  “Is Skull a moron too?” Grasshopper said indignantly.

  “He more than others.”

  “Then give me the rest of the sentence. Like you demanded from Blind. So that even I understand. Why are they morons? And then about Skull. Separately.”

  “No problem,” Wolf said, looking at Blind. “There’s one House. It needs to have one master. One leader for all.”

  That’s what Ancient said, Grasshopper thought. Or something like that.

  “But that’s why the two of them fight. They want to be the one you’re talking about,” he said.

  “They’ve been fighting for a long time. Too long. Might as well quit. It’s ridiculous,” Wolf said, shaking his head. “If in all that time they didn’t manage to prove they could rise above everyone else’s wants and not-wants, then neither of them is worth anything.”

  “Skull could rise!”

  Wolf smiled. He was still looking at Blind. Blind wasn’t stirring. He could be listening to Wolf, or to Stinker, far away.

  “Strange thoughts you have,” Grasshopper said.

  “They’re not strange. They’re obvious,” Wolf said. “Child’s play. You need to build up on them. Like floors in a building—one, two, three, ten . . . Then they might start looking wise and deep. But until that time, seniors are seniors. And all we can do is bask in their smoke and die from envy listening to their records. Like this one guy I know.”

  “I wasn’t dying from envy,” Grasshopper protested.

  “I was,” Wolf admitted.

  “Still,” Grasshopper said stubbornly, “Skull is not a moron. And Ancient isn’t. You’re just jealous.”

  “Can’t you hear it?” Blind said suddenly.

  This time they did—the faraway voices and shouts. Grasshopper took another peek in the bag with the tapes and then looked at Wolf.

  “All right, let’s go,” Wolf said, getting up. “Go and support Stinker’s possessive urges. Something tells me he’s going to get rechristened after today’s show.”

  “Into Crocodile?” Grasshopper said.

  “Nah. Won’t work. Crocodiles gobble up something and then lie there sleeping, like statues. He’s much too noisy for that. And I don’t think he ever sleeps. Or has enough to eat.”

  Grasshopper stuffed the tapes into the nightstand so they’d be safe from Siamese.

  Blind didn’t get up.

  “Good luck,” he said lazily.

  “Do you think we’ll have to shout?” Grasshopper said.

  “We’ll see. We’ll play it by ear. Maybe we won’t have to.”

  Wolf let him go out first.

  The hallway was almost empty, but there was a throng of people at the other end, by the doors of the staff room. The garish shirts and jackets on the seniors’ backs shielded the proceedings from them better than any fence. They couldn’t see Stinker and the cohorts, but they could hear them fine. The clanking of metal on metal and the screams “Down with tyranny!” echoed through the building.

  The closer Wolf and Grasshopper got, the louder it became. The seniors weren’t standing in one place. Some of them moved away, laughing, and their spots were immediately taken by others who had just arrived. When Ulysses the wheeler peeled off with a disgusted grimace on his face, Wolf and Grasshopper quickly squeezed in. Now they could finally see.

  The posters swayed uncertainly in the feeble hands of Poxy Sissies. Magician, jaw firmly set and eyes bulging, held his above everybody else’s. Stinker, gone livid with the effort and bedecked in badges, brandished Packages for the Owner. The half sheet was draped around the handle limply, the writing wasn’t legible, so he simply waved it like a flag. Poker-faced Siamese furiously rattled the salad bowl and the bear trap. Elephant looked on, elated.

  “Down with tyranny! Down with counselors’ despotism! Down . . .” Stinker droned.

  “Down with it!” the choir picked up on the exhale.

  Elephant whined softly in agreement. Beauty hid himself among the wheelers, keeping his head low so as not to stand out.

  Stuffagers, all present, formed a semicircle and swayed to the beat.

  The seniors just laughed. Grasshopper thought that there was significantly more shouting than would be expected, and then realized that, to his surprise, Stuffagers were screaming as well.

  “Down with teachers!” Crybaby squealed. Whiner incongruously proclaimed, “World peace!” Crook, waving his crutch, demanded, “Living space for the cripples!”

  But Stinker’s voice sailed clear above the din. His screams joined with the crashing of the salad bowl and the tooting of the tin trumpet to create one hellish, unbearable cacophony.

  Seniors, still laughing, inserted fingers in their ears.

  “Could it be that the principal has already jumped out the window?” Wolf shouted to Grasshopper.

  Principal hadn’t jumped anywhere. Safe and sound, albeit distinctly greenish in color, he opened the doors of the staff room and waved his hands, trying to shout over the commotion. Short, with a pugnacious gray beard, he resembled a retired pirate, except he didn’t smoke a pipe, wasn’t covered in tattoos, and generally was closer in appearance to a gnome—if not for the shaggy head of an old sailor.

  “Attention, squirts!” Boar the senior shouted, raising two fingers in the air.

  The seniors guffawed. Stinker, red faced and majestic, waved his little paw, commanding the others to pause. Siamese ceased their racket. Principal’s voice finally broke through the general hubbub.

  “At once . . . Outrageous . . . Ankle biters . . .”

  “Quiet!” Stinker ordered.

  The principal produced a handkerchief and wiped his face.

  “If I may be allowed to speak,” he said and had to wait out an explosion of laughter. “I hoped to prevail upon this young gentleman to consider sharing his bounty with others. But I’m afraid that the way this is going I won’t live to see the day. We’ll continue the investigation into where these packages came from and why. In the meantime he can take them away. The sooner the better!”

  Siamese whistled. Humpback applauded. Splint the counselor appeared behind the crestfallen principal’s back, pushing a cart. Black Ralph, hands in pockets, marched alongside him, while Elk was bringing up the rear carrying a box full of letters. The cart was piled with packages. A mound of boxes in bright wrappers.

  “What’s that?” the seniors
inquired.

  “Packages for the owner,” Stinker said and nodded to Humpback and Magician. “Prepare to accept the goods.”

  The cart was transferred from Splint to Humpback. Magician, in one practiced theatrical sweep, covered it with the Hands Off sheet, hiding the contents from the prying eyes. Sissies trooped in the direction of the Poxy room, pushing the cart in front of them. The Stuffage boys made way, flabbergasted. As the procession filed past the rows of seniors, they looked at Stinker approvingly and sneaked peeks under the cover.

  “That’s one wicked squirt,” Lame said with a tinge of respect in his voice. “He’s going to crawl far.”

  Stinker nodded left and right, graciously bestowing his toothy smile on the assembled admirers.

  “Wait,” he said suddenly, stopping the escort. “Just one moment.”

  He wheeled over to the cart, rummaged under the sheet, extracted the smallest package, in bubble wrap with stars plastered all over it, and tossed it to Whiner.

  “There. This is yours, guys. Thanks for the support.”

  The seniors applauded. Whiner ogled the package in disbelief.

  “Drop that thing right now,” Sportsman hissed, shouldering his way through. “Wheelers’ handouts! Drop it, I said!”

  “No, I won’t,” Whiner said, clutching the package tightly. “Why should I? Get your own things and drop them if you want.”

  Sportsman slapped Whiner across the face. Wheelers rumbled indignantly.

  As he was catching up with Sissies and the cart, Grasshopper looked over his shoulder. The principal was still standing at the entrance to the staff room. The counselors on both sides of him patted him on the shoulders soothingly. Principal’s vacant stare was fixed directly in front of him.

  Could he really have gone crazy? Grasshopper thought. I mean, it’s possible . . .

  “I want that cart back!” Splint the counselor shouted after them, his glasses glinting. “Miscreants!”

  A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT CORRIDOR

  Every time she returned to their place, she wondered at the difference between the two corridors and never could understand what the secret was. It wasn’t that theirs was narrower and shorter. It wasn’t the windows (that one didn’t have them), and not the area rugs either . . . But tonight she finally got it: their corridor wasn’t a corridor.