B.u.g. Big Ugly Guy (9781101593523)
Page 1
DUTTON CHILDREN’S BOOKS
An imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
DUTTON CHILDREN’S BOOKS
A division of Penguin Young Readers Group
Published by the Penguin Group
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple
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Published in the United States by Dutton Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group
345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
www.penguin.com/youngreaders
Designed by Irene Vandervoort
ISBN 978-1-101-59352-3
For Karl Finger, who is teaching me to dance to the odd Middle European beats, from the Balkans to Klez; for Jody Shapiro, who frequently regales me with the numinous; and for that hard taskmaster Steven Meltzer
—JY
For Flip, who I could definitely see playing his blue fiddle in a klez-jazz-fusion garage band
—AS
There are rivers in the world, with their banks a particular type of clay. Form this clay into the semblance of a man, and place a piece of paper with God’s ineffable name written upon it in Hebrew under the creature’s tongue, and you shall bring forth a golem. And he shall not eat, nor drink, nor accept any pay, but he will protect you from harm and do your work and your bidding.
Until he doesn’t . . .
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Before
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Songs from BUG
Glossary
Before
2008: In an underground research facility,
near Rehovot, Israel
Chaim crouched in the men’s room in the dark and prayed. He wasn’t particularly religious—he was a scientist, after all, in his first year of real work.
But this night was different from other nights. It was Passover. And it was definitely a night for prayer.
He shuddered as the sound of automatic gunfire rattled down the long hallways, accented by the booming reports of a single .50 caliber Desert Eagle.
Guns won’t stop the protectors, he thought. The soldiers don’t know what they’re fighting.
Chaim knew, though.
“It’s keshaphim,” he whispered into the dark. “Magic.”
But it had all started with science.
Chaim had always been good at science. Had a gift for it. Since grade school, he could see patterns in raw data that other people needed weeks to decipher. He had the ability to explain his results clearly to any audience.
When you have such a gift, Chaim felt, you should use it in service. Give back to those who had educated you. So when the secret service, known as the Mossad, came to him before he even started fielding offers from the private sector, he listened.
“There’s money in the big companies,” they told him, “but there is no kavod, no honor.”
Remembering the recruiters’ words now brought a cheerless smile to his face. Where’s the honor in waiting in the dark to die?
Back then, it had seemed not just an honor but a joy to come to work every day. He was in the technology department. The equipment was cutting edge, the staff dedicated, and his bosses wanted him to think and act “outside of the box.” No idea was too wild to mention, and most of the time he was encouraged to follow up on even the craziest of them. So when he began seeing patterns in historical data pointing to something outlandish, unbelievable, even . . . mythical . . . he was still allowed to perform some experiments.
His boss, a man named Lev Spiegel, laughed as he signed the paperwork.
“Should I call you Rabbi Loew?” he said.
Rabbi Loew. The sixteenth-century chief rabbi of Prague. The one who created a creature from clay to defend the Jews in the ghetto. A creature called a golem.
“Let’s see if it works first,” Chaim replied.
Lev was the first in Chaim’s department to die. Then Nissa, his research assistant. Then . . .
Then the rest of them, Chaim thought as the gunfire stopped. There’s nobody left but me.
And now heavy footsteps were heading for his hiding spot. But instead of fear, Chaim suddenly felt strangely calm.
Kavod, he thought. If I am to die, I won’t die in the bathroom. I will do it with honor.
He stood. Opened the stall door. Felt his way in the dark toward the exit. Toward the footsteps. When he stepped into the corridor, he could see again. Small fires were crackling where gunfire had set stacks of paper or garbage alit, illuminating the area.
Thwop . . . thwap . . . thwop . . . thwap. Slow stone footsteps on cement floors.
They were coming.
Chaim shuddered but moved with a purpose to the nearest pile of papers strewn on the ground. Gathering them up, he fed them into one of the fires, then bent and grabbed more. He added those as well, and within moments, the flames were tall enough to lick the ceiling. As he turned to build another fire, he saw long shadows starting to creep around the corner. He scurried wildly around now, tossing papers onto every flame he could see.
“I will burn this place to the ground!” he shouted at the shadows. “No one will know what happened here.”
He expected no response from the shadows or the creatures casting them. And he didn’t get one. Just the slow, relentless approach of their footsteps.
Thwop . . . thwap.
“No one will repeat this deed!”
Thwop . . . thwap.
They were around the corner now and in full view, but Chaim didn’t look up. He knew what they looked like. What they were.
“And if I survive,” he said softly, “I will leave this desert and move somewhere cold and wet.” He fed a last piece of paper to the flames. “And I will study the Torah every day.”
Then he looked up into the lifeless eyes of the creatures he’d created and started toward them.
He was thinking of the name of God.
1.
Another Day in the Boys’ Room
Sammy Greenburg was head down in the boys’ toilet. Again.
He knelt on the cold gray tiles until the laughter faded and the footsteps left his side. Until the boys’ room door snicked shut. Until he stopped shaking with anger and fear.
He’d just sat back on his bottom, wringing his wet curly hair on the bowl’s edge, when the door opened.
Not more, he thought. One swim a day in the porcelain pool is enough. And this time it wasn’t just because he’d mouthed off at James Lee and his cohorts. Cohorts. He loved that word. Sounded like something full of ugliness and warts. And not because of a paper he’d been forced to write for James Lee which got James Lee a D plus. On purpose. After all, Sammy knew the teacher would figure out right away that James Lee hadn’t read the book Frankenstein. All the references were to movies like Young Frankenstein and to actors like Boris Karloff. He was proud of that. It took a kind of warped genius to pull off.
“My warped genius,” he whispered.
No, this time he’d been dunked because he’d stood up for Bobby Marstall, a seventh grader whose lunch money was about to get pocketed. Did get pocketed. So he’d achieved nothing but a dunking and it was the worst one yet. He really thought he was going to be drowned this time.
“I am nothing,” he said softly to himself in a frothy way, spitting out toilet-bowl water as he spoke. As he waited for yet another dunking.
“Are you, like, okay?” The voice was soft, concerned.
Sammy glanced up and snapped, “Do I look, like, okay?”
“You look, like, damp.” It was the new kid, his dark face and chocolate-brown eyes full of concern.
“I am damp.” Sammy squeezed more water out of his hair. “This isn’t perspiration.” Perspiration was one of his favorite words. Other kids said sweat. But not Sammy.
“Come on,” the new kid said, “let’s wash your hair in the sink. God knows what’s been in that bowl.”
“God knows, and now I know, too,” said Sammy. “And it wasn’t anything good.” Better the sink, he thought, not knowing whether the new boy was going to be like the rest of them.
Bending over, Sammy rinsed his hair out and then washed his face and ears. The new kid helped, directing the water flow by sticking his finger up into the faucet. It was freezing cold—but no colder than the water in the toilet. And a lot cleaner!
“Here,” the kid said, when Sammy was done. He handed him a strange-looking narrow black metal comb with widely spaced teeth. “All I have.”
“Thanks.” Sammy tried to get his hair to part properly with the comb, failed, then handed the comb back. He thought a minute. Considered alternatives. Finally he said what was really on his mind. “Okay, level—why are you helping me? Trying to soften me up for another swim?”
“Oh, was that swimming?” the kid said. “It looked more like drowning.” He put his head to one side as if considering, then added, “Actually I was just coming into the bathroom for, like, other reasons. But recon in a new school is always helpful.”
“Recon?” Sammy wasn’t sure he knew what that meant, which was strange. He was always the kid with the largest vocabulary in any school he’d ever attended. One of the other reasons he’d been head down again in the toilet. James Lee Joliette had called him a backstabber when the Frankenstein paper had come back, and when Sammy had replied, “Better than a backwoods yahoo.” He hadn’t expected to get away with it. Even if it was true.
This time he’d gone even further, trying to divert attention from little Bobby Marstall. Called James Lee “a backstreet bank robber with a degree in thuggery and a brain the size of a macadamia nut,” which even made some of his gang start to snicker. It had given Bobby time to run off after giving up his lunch money. Which, he thought, probably makes me some sort of a hero. Or some kind of idiot. Or a healthy helping of both.
“Recon,” Sammy said again, trying to parse the word. He hated not knowing the meaning.
“Reconnaissance.” The kid shrugged—almost an apology. “Dad was in the army. Like a major. He’s out now. And none too soon, Mom says.”
Sammy wiped his face with the sleeve of his left hand. What a terrific word, he thought: Reconnaissance. He’d only seen it written, never spoken aloud. Except in war movies. And he didn’t get to go to many of them. Or see them on TV either since they hadn’t had a TV the past three years. His mother’s decision, but neither he nor his father ever watched much TV anyway. They were all readers. He held out his right hand. “Sammy Greenburg. Thanks.”
“Funny last name.”
Sammy stiffened. That’s what the other boys always said. In a town full of Joliettes, Arnettes, and Von Pattens, his name invited jokes about what part of him was green. His only edge in this place was his wit and his fast tongue. “You think Greenburg’s a funny name?”
“No—but Thanks is.”
Sammy laughed. This guy was tongue-fast, too. Maybe he wouldn’t be as bad as the rest.
The new kid held out his hand. “Call me Skink.”
“Isn’t that a lizard?” Sammy was all ready to follow that with something snappy about lizards, though he wasn’t actually sure what kind of lizard a skink was, when the new kid interrupted his thoughts.
“Real name is Skinner John Williams after my grandfathers. But everyone just calls me Skink.”
Admiringly, Sammy shook Skink’s hand. “Okay, Skink. I’m named after my great-grandfather, too. Samson.” He made a face. “I’d rather you didn’t tell anyone.”
“Like, would someone named Skinner make fun of a name?”
“Guess not. You’d just get landed with Skin-and-Bones and Skinny Minny and . . .”
“And Skinflint.”
“Really? Not around here. No one would know what that means.”
“You do,” Skink said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah,” Sammy said. “A skinflint is a miser, someone who squeezes a nickel to get back change.” Back at his last school there was someone who had called him that. Even though Sammy really didn’t have any money to speak of. He’d just assumed it was an anti-Semitic remark. Not one of the worst, of course. He could live with it.
“Well, Word Man, meet the Skink,” the new boy said.
Sammy grinned. Word Man. He liked that. Could own it!
Just then the bell rang for the start of classes.
“I’m in Holsten’s homeroom,” Sammy said, starting to hurry down the hall. Skink was moving in the same direction, but Sammy’s brief hope of actually having a friend in his homeroom was quickly crushed.
“Not me. I’ve got Lippincott.”
Sammy made a face. “Sorry. He’s tough. Big, too.”
Shrugging, Skink said, “It, like, doesn’t matter. Small school. I’m sure we’ll have some classes together. If not, I’ll see you at lunch!” Then he waved and turned down the hall toward Mr. Lippincott’s room.
Waving back, Sammy ran to his first class.
Ms. Holsten was slim and blond and not bovine in the least. Not that this stopped her from being known as “Holstein,” to mo
st of her students. With a name like Holsten in dairy cow country, what do you expect? But she remained pleasant and soft spoken and tolerant of all kinds of behavior, especially the stuff that could be expected from a classroom of unruly eighth graders. Like fart jokes and armpit noises, gossiping, occasional fits of the giggles, and an awful nickname.
Except for tardiness. Sammy knew she was never tolerant about tardiness. And Sammy was tardy. A dip in the ceramic swimming pool can do that to you, he thought. Not very tardy, mind you. Just a touch after the bell. A smidgen. A mere iota. But that little bit was enough for Ms. Holsten.
“Mr. Greenburg.” His name suddenly had a lot more syllables than Sammy remembered. Ms. Holsten drawled it out until the whole class was staring. “Are you late?”
“Only a little, Ms. Holsten. I had to . . . erm . . . wash my hair.”
There were sniggers from some boys in the back of the room. Giggles from the girls. Sammy wasn’t sure which was worse.
Word gets around quickly. These weren’t even the boys who’d dunked him. Dunked him because he’d gotten in their way. Because he stood up for someone who couldn’t stand up for himself.
Nah, Sammy thought, having one of those revelations that comes after a near-death experience. They dunked me because I’m different. Because I’m not one of them. And because . . . they can.
In fact, it had taken James Lee less than a week to decide that Sammy was different. Sammy’s name was one indicator. And he didn’t go to church, either. Not James Lee’s Baptist church, or the smaller Catholic church at the end of town.
“You must be one of them furrin immigrants,” James Lee had said to Sammy the first week of school.
Not realizing that James Lee was someone you didn’t want to butt heads with, someone who had absolutely no grasp of irony, had never spoken anything with the sarcasm font, Sammy had replied, “Yeah, I immigrated all the way from Hartford.”
“Where’s that at?”