Prince of Gulbrania

by Lauren M. Flauding

  Most people would just write that statement off as an exaggerated threat, but I believed her. Once when I was nine I took my pills three hours late, and it felt like my entire body was on fire. A couple months after my dad left, I was diagnosed with a rare liver disease. Since then, the pills were a regular part of my life. I took two before bed every night, even though they tasted like floor cleaner.

  “Okay, okay, I’ll take my pills,” I assured her, giving her a small smile before I started lifting again.

  She nodded and stared intently at me, something I had noticed she’d been doing more often lately. “Frederick, I’m sorry that I have to leave so frequently, but someday you’ll understand why.”

  She stood and disappeared upstairs, leaving me alone with that cryptic statement. It really wasn’t a mystery, we needed money and so she needed to work. I knew she felt guilty about leaving me alone, but that was just one of the disadvantages that came with being a single parent. I got a little bitter about it sometimes, but generally I would just have to remind myself that my mom was struggling too. I wasn’t the only one affected when my father left.

  Chapter Three

  Kayla

  I pulled up to the diner just as it was closing, which was fine with me. The later I was there, the less chance there was of anyone I knew seeing me. Kathleen’s Diner was on the edge of town, and in my estimation, it was a big dump, so I could never understand why my mom had bought the place. I think maybe she had some nostalgia for it since she used to go there as a teenager, or maybe she just wasn’t thinking straight at the time. She had acquired it just a year after my father’s incident.

  I parked my little truck in the back and went into the employee entrance. The smell of fried food and over-sweetened pie washed over me as I greeted our nighttime cook, Frank, and made my way to the small storage closet where my mom usually went through her closing checklists.

  “Hey mom, I’m here,” I said, peeking my head into the closet. “I’m just going to head back into the kitchen.”

  “Wait!” She said, reaching out to hold my arm, “You’re here so late! Is everything okay?”

  “It’s fine. I just had to contact everyone who’s participating in the pep rally and then I had a lot of homework.”

  My mother shook her head, causing a few strands of her dark hair to come lose from her ponytail. “You’re too young to be working this hard.”

  “I’m doing exactly as much work as I want to,” I assured her. “You’re the one who’s working yourself to death.” It was true. Most days she spent fifteen or sixteen hours at the diner, and she rarely took a break.

  My mom smiled and waved her hand dismissively. “I like it. It keeps my mind off of... things,” she said vaguely, looking down at her hands. Then she blew out a breath and snapped her head back up. “So, how was school?”

  “Fine,” I replied. “Except that I have to work with Frog on a world cultures project.”

  My mother drew her eyebrows together. “Frog? His name is Frog?”

  “No, it’s Frederick.”

  “Oh, Frederick Vonnegan? He’s such a nice boy.”

  “You know him?”

  She gave me an odd look, but before she could answer, someone called her from the front.

  “Helen! The register is acting up again!”

  She squeezed my shoulder. “Sorry, honey, I have to fix that.”

  “It’s okay, I’ll just be in the back.”

  “Thank you.”

  I walked back to the kitchen and looked at the mountain of dirty dishes that were waiting for me in the corner. “Looks like they had a busy day,” I murmured. I changed out of my clothes and into some sweats and a T-shirt and prepared to get completely drenched. I came and washed dishes at the diner almost every night, but since I didn’t have a lot of time to spare, I had to be efficient, even if it meant half of the water ended up on me.

  I filled the three large sinks with hot water, then set up the makeshift dish racks behind them. I threw all the silverware in the first sink with some soap and filled the racks with plates and bowls. Then I grabbed the sprayer, took a few steps back, and turned it on full power, hosing down the dishes in front of me and squinting my eyes at all the spray that came back. A few more rounds of this and soon all the dishes were free of food. I quickly ran them through the sinks to wash, rinse, and sanitize, then I set them all on the drying racks and dried them with a leaf blower. 30 minutes later I had changed back into my dry clothes and was heading home in my truck. It wasn’t the most conventional way to wash dishes, but for now, it worked. Maybe one day we’d have enough to buy an industrial dishwasher.

  *****

  “Kayla, you’re staring at him again.”

  I flinched and almost knocked over the beaker in front of me. Miranda giggled and I gave her a sheepish smile.

  “Thanks for that,” I said, stealing another glance at Wyatt before I set to straightening the things on our table. Everyone in our chemistry lab had a beaker of clear liquid, a container of blue food coloring, goggles and gloves set out on our tables. The room was loud with the conversations of dozens of students. We were at capacity because the other chemistry teacher, Mr. Flannigan, had gotten in a bad car accident. So while he recovered they had combined the classes, and that meant I got to spend a whole hour in the same room with Wyatt, which was fine with me, except I kept getting distracted with the way his shoulders filled out his tight shirt. Frog and his short friend Milo were there as well, sniffing the clear liquid in their beakers. They were so weird. I scanned the teeming room and saw that the teacher, Mrs. Clements, was still preparing a tray at the front.

  Suddenly, Miranda elbowed me in the ribs.

  “Ouch!” I exclaimed. “What was that for?”

  “He’s coming over here!” She whispered.

  I looked up just in time to see Wyatt approaching our table.

  “Hey,” he said, flashing a breathtaking smile. “I noticed you’ve been looking at me a lot. Do I have food on my face or something?”

  “No, there’s nothing on your face,” I said with a forced laugh. Would you like something on your face? I thought. Like my lips, perhaps? I pulled myself out of my daydream and back to reality. “No, I wasn’t looking at you. I was looking at the poster behind you.”

  Wyatt glanced at the wall, and then back at me. “The periodic table of the elements?”

  “Yeah, I’m trying to memorize them,” I lied. “You never know when you might need to engineer some fuel, or a bomb...”

  His eyebrows shot up. “A bomb, huh? Okay, well, good luck with that.”

  He started to head back to his seat and I squeezed my eyes shut in frustration. Our conversation can’t end like this.

  “Hey, Wyatt,” I called out.

  “Yeah,” he said, turning back toward me.

  “I, um, just wanted to make sure that you knew the debate team is meeting again on Thursday.”

  “Right, thanks. But I’m actually not going to be able to make that one because I have football practice.”

  “Oh really?” I said in a teasing tone. “So you think football is more important than debate?”

  “It is this week. We’ve got a game on Friday. But the debate team doesn’t have a tournament for at least a month.”

  “Sure, that makes sense,” I replied, a little irked that I didn’t have a better response.

  Wyatt leaned casually on the table. “When you have so much going on, you have to prioritize based on immediate need. I’m sure you understand that.”

  “I can relate,” I agreed, determined to keep my voice even.

  He smiled at me and I had to fight valiantly to keep a girlish giggle from escaping my mouth. He leaned a bit closer and looked into my eyes, but I stood my ground.

  “I hope you’ll be there at the game on Friday, cheering us on.”

  “I’ll be there.” I replied, returning his intense gaze.

  “I’ll be cheering you on,” Miranda interrupted loudly, nearly ca
using me to jump out of my seat. “But I’ll be cheering officially, because, you know, I’m a cheerleader,” she said, batting her long eyelashes. “Kayla just plays volleyball,” she added condescendingly.

  I frowned at her attempt to belittle me. Wyatt gave her a small nod in acknowledgement and then turned back to me.

  “I love volleyball,” he said. “We should play sometime.”

  “That’d be great,” I said, feeling my temperature rise a few degrees.

  “I love volleyball too!” Miranda exclaimed. “Maybe we could play doubles!”

  I pushed down the urge to punch her in the face.

  Wyatt considered her for a moment, and then broke into a smile. “Sure, that’d be fun.” He winked at me and then headed back to his seat. Now it was going to be even more impossible to stop staring at him.

  Miranda sighed heavily, bringing my attention to her. “I guess I’ll have to wait for you to break his heart before I get a chance with him,” she said with a mischievous grin.

  I shook my head in disbelief. “Does our friendship mean anything to you?”

  “Of course,” she replied. “I’m letting you have the first round, aren’t I?”

  I playfully rolled my eyes and she laughed until a nasty glare from Mrs. Clements made her stop.

  Chapter Four

  Frog

  “Does this smell like fertilizer to you?”

  Milo leaned forward and sniffed the liquid in his beaker. “Yeah, it does,” he replied. “Just one whiff of this takes me back to last spring when Mr. Zonkowski had us spraying the football field for hours.”

  I nodded, remembering the event. Mr. Zonkowski was the school’s facilities manager and our boss, and he had given us a long lecture about proper use of the fertilizer and keeping it separate from the other cleaning supplies. At that moment, Mrs. Clements set a tray of small cups on her desk and rapped her knuckles on the chalkboard to get everyone’s attention.

  “Alright everybody, put on your googles and gloves.”

  We all obeyed, dozens of latex gloves snapping on and everyone pulling the large goggles onto their heads. Now I’m not the only one with huge eyes, I thought.

  “This is a very elementary experiment,” Mrs. Clements announced, smoothing back her impeccable bun. “We could do more advanced experiments if they would adequately fund the science department, or if my class didn’t double on a day’s notice.” She took a deep breath. “Anyway, I’m going to come around and give each table a cup of bleach. Do not touch it until I tell you.”

  Milo and I looked at each other in alarm.

  “Remember that story Mr. Zonkowski told us about the kid that spilled the fertilizer into the pool sanitation supplies?” Milo asked.

  “How could I forget?” He had repeated it to us at least ten times, with very graphic descriptions.

  Mrs. Clements set the cup of bleach on our table, and we both drew back from it. When she had made her way through the classroom, she returned to the front. “First you’re all going to put three drops of blue food coloring into your beaker of water,” she instructed. “Once the coloring has dispersed, you will pour your cup of bleach into the solution and observe the reaction.”

  I started to bounce my knees nervously. If the stuff in the beaker actually was the fertilizer we had used, or anything close to it, the combination of it and the bleach would be disastrous. Before I knew it, my hand had shot into the air.

  Mrs. Clements gave me a murderous look. “Yes, Mr. Vonnegan?”

  “The liquid in these beakers is not water,” I said, my voice cracking with anxiety. “I think it might contain some chemicals that if mixed with bleach would be extremely dangerous.”

  Mrs. Clements narrowed her eyes at me. “Is this a prank, Mr. Vonnegan? Are you just trying to draw attention to yourself?”

  I squirmed in my seat. “Quite honestly, Mrs. Clements, I already draw far more attention than I want.”

  There were a few snickers from the students, and I saw Kayla’s mouth twitch up into a half smile. Somehow it gave me a little bit of courage.

  Mrs. Clements stared me down for a few seconds and then stormed up to our table. “Mr. Vonnegan,” she hissed, “I have spent the last hour preparing for this lab. How dare you question my chemical knowledge and attention to detail. If you disrupt my class again, I will send you to the principal’s office.” She turned and walked resolutely back to the front of the room to continue her instruction.

  I expelled the breath I hadn’t known I was holding. She wasn’t even going to check. What were my options? I could leave the classroom and save myself, but then all my classmates would be in danger. As much as some of them annoyed me, I didn’t want harm to come to them. Although I wouldn’t mind if that blonde guy Kayla had been flirting with got seriously injured.

  I was going to have to do something drastic. If it turned out that the liquid in the beaker was harmless, then I’d just go to the principal’s office, which was a place I didn’t mind too much. Getting yelled at by an adult was way better than being tormented by my peers.

  I stood up, grabbed the beaker and the cup of bleach, walked briskly to the window, and opened it.

  “Mr. Vonnegan, what are you doing?” Mrs. Clements screeched.

  I ignored her. Instead, I focused on keeping my hands from shaking as I quickly poured the bleach into the beaker, then chucked the whole thing outside and slammed the window.

  “Mr. Vonnegan! I swear I’m going to-”

  The rest of Mrs. Clements’ threat was drowned out by the sound of the resulting explosion. Shattered glass from the beaker pelted the window and a nearby bush caught fire. I drew a ragged breath and turned slowly to face everyone that was staring at me.

  “Like I said. Extremely dangerous.”

  *****

  “Did you make this chili? It’s amazing!”

  “Thanks,” I said as I watched Milo serve himself a third bowl. I was glad he liked it. With as much as my mom had been gone, I’d learned a thing or two in the kitchen. Milo had come over to my house to work on our English homework, which was a welcome change for me. On the nights my mom was out of town, it could get really dull sitting there by myself.

  “By the way,” Milo said in between bites of chili, “thanks for being a hero today.”

  I snickered. “I was mainly doing it for self preservation. Keeping everyone else out of harm was just an afterthought,” I joked. But even as I said it, a shudder rippled through me at the thought of what would have happened if Mrs. Clements had followed through with the experiment.

  “Well, you’re lucky you didn’t lose your hand or burn off your eyebrows or anything,” Milo said. “I’ve never seen anyone chuck something out of a window that fast.”

  “Probably a result of the adrenaline,” I mused.

  “Yeah, well, I wonder what they’re going to do for chemistry lab now that Mrs. Clements has been suspended. Maybe they’ll just let us have a free hour.”

  “I doubt it,” I replied. After the explosion, the administration had come in, demanding an explanation. Mrs. Clements was flustered and defensive, but eventually the story came out and they evacuated us all from the room and called the police. Vice principal Youngblood had half thanked, half scolded me for what I did, and then had run off to fill out some paperwork. The whole episode had been crazy, and I didn’t really want to think about it anymore.

  “How’s your paper coming?” I asked Milo, hoping to change the subject.

  “It’s good,” he responded with a grin. “Four more sentences and I’ll be finished with the first paragraph. I think I’ll congratulate myself by watching a little TV.”

  I chuckled. Milo definitely had a talent for procrastinating. Before I could persuade him otherwise, he had grabbed the remote and turned on the TV, which displayed the last show I had been watching.

  “What is this?” Milo said, reading the title of the show. “Hip-Hop Dancing for the Angsty Young Man?”

  I felt my face flush. “Oh
, that’s just something my mom has been trying to get me to do,” I lied. “She thinks it’s supposed to be therapeutic or something.” In truth, I watched that show nearly every night for the past week and had learned most of the dance moves.

  “That’s weird,” Milo said, casually changing it to a different show. I was relieved that he didn’t suspect anything.

  As we were starting to watch some documentary about race cars, the doorbell rang. I got up to answer it. We often got packages delivered in the evenings and I was expecting a new guitar strap that I had ordered the week before. I opened the door was surprised to see an older man with a clipboard and a bag on his hips.

  “Hi, I’m Mack from Juniper Windows and Roofing,” he said with a forced smile. “I noticed your windows are a little out of date. Could I take a look and give you a free estimate?”

  I raised my eyebrows. The guy didn’t really look like a “Mack.” He was big and sinewy, with multiple scars on his face and neck and a calculating expression that made me want to hide under a table.

  “Now is not really a good time,” I said, starting to close the door.

  “It’s as good a time as any,” Mack exclaimed, forcing the door back open and almost knocking me back. “It will only take a few minutes.”

  He walked past me and made his way into the living room. I shook my head. I knew solicitors could be pushy, but this guy seemed a bit too aggressive. Maybe he really needed the money.

  “Um, hi,” Milo said as Mack walked through the room.

  “It’s a window guy,” I explained, shrugging my shoulders. “He’s going to do an estimate.”

  “Oh, cool,” Milo responded, glancing over at him. “Hey man, I like your fanny pack. My mom has about a dozen of those.”

  Mack turned and glared at Milo. “It’s a utility bag,” he growled, then turned back to measure the window.

  I gave Milo a warning look. It probably wasn’t a good idea to provoke a guy with that much muscle. I watched Mack measure all the windows in the kitchen and write on his clipboard. He headed upstairs and I followed him. He inspected all the windows in my mother’s room, which was impeccably clean, and his eyes kept darting around like he was looking for something. Finally he went into my room and measured my one small window, spending a little extra time at the top corners. He glanced at my nightstand and picked up the bottle of pills that was on top of it.