The Ether
Page 4
As they grew older, Vero remained much smaller than average, and Tack was the complete opposite. So whenever the other kids would tease Vero for any reason, Tack would stand behind him, pounding his right fist into his left palm. That usually sent the bullies running.
Standing next to his best friend, Vero appeared short but gangly, with long arms and legs. Vero’s mother was constantly trying to fatten him up with protein shakes, while Tack’s mother began padlocking the refrigerator between meals.
But during the past summer, both Vero and Tack had grown significantly. No one would call Tack fat anymore, maybe just big boned — although they wouldn’t dare say that to his face either.
Tack’s real name was Thaddeus Kozlowski. He got his nickname “Tack” from his older sister Martha. When their parents first brought Tack home from the hospital, Martha took one look at her little brother and declared he was as short and fat as a thumbtack. And it stuck. Since that moment, Thaddeus was called Tack.
Over the years Martha has tried changing her story, saying the reason for his nickname is because his brain is the size of a tack. But that simply wasn’t true. It requires real intelligence to come up with new excuses for why you didn’t do your homework, or how the latest zombie video game was beneficial for your hand-eye coordination. All of these things needed a certain amount of smarts, which Tack possessed in excess. But as his math teacher, Mrs. Grommet, told his parents, “His intelligence is utterly misguided.”
As bad as Tack’s grades were, Marty, Tack’s father, was more disappointed that Tack would not be carrying on the family tradition. All of the Kozlowski men were dowsers. And after having three daughters, Tack’s dad was thrilled when Tack finally came along because the dowsing gift was passed down through the male genes. But so far Tack hadn’t shown any abilities in this area.
Dowsers have an innate ability to locate water, minerals, and oil underground. Using a Y-shaped rod or twig, Marty would explore an area, and the dowsing rod would twitch when it was over the target. A really gifted dowser didn’t even need a rod or twig. Tack’s Great-Great-Uncle Morris had never used any tools for his dowsing back in Poland. He just felt it in his bones. Tack, on the other hand, had shown no aptitude for the gift.
For years Marty took his son to the beach every summer so Tack could practice finding metal under the sand. The only time Tack ever found anything happened two summers ago when he stepped on a melted Hershey’s Kiss. Hardly impressive.
In years past, a dowser could make a good living finding wells for homes and such. But with modern technology and geologists, dowsers weren’t in high demand any longer. While dowsing could be lucrative from time to time, the income wasn’t enough to support a growing family. So Marty owned a hardware store in Attleboro, K & Sons Hardware, which he’d inherited from Tack’s grandfather. And Tack helped out in the store from time to time.
Tack shut his locker door and locked the padlock (purchased from the family hardware store).
“Why are you running hurdles?” Vero asked. “I thought you wanted to do shot put?”
“That was before I grew taller,” Tack said. “When I go over those hurdles, it’ll be spectacular. Everyone on that track is gonna eat my dust.”
Vero checked his laces.
“Why don’t you run in the lane next to me?” Tack asked. “Maybe you’ll pick up some pointers.”
“Maybe,” Vero said.
Minutes later, the boys were warming up for gym class during second period. As he stretched, Vero could see his breath in the air. It was unusually cold for an early spring day. The gray sky made it feel like snow might even be on the way.
There were eight lanes drawn on the track, each with ten hurdles set up at eight-meter intervals. A pit formed in Vero’s stomach and he felt nervous for his friend. Tack had never run hurdles before.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Vero asked.
“Why? Afraid I’m gonna beat you?” Tack replied with a smirk.
“Fine!” Vero said. “You wanna race? It’s on!”
“Bring it!”
“Get on your starting blocks!” Coach Randy yelled.
Tack and Vero chose to run in lanes four and five, and boys from gym class filled the other six lanes. Coach Randy stood on the outside of the track while the runners lined up at their starting blocks. A cold wind suddenly blew through, catching everyone off guard. Coach Randy grabbed the top of his ball cap to keep it from flying off his head. He was never seen without his ball cap. Kids joked that his cap was guarded more securely than the Crown Jewels of England.
Vero turned his head to the left and glanced at Tack.
Tack mouthed, “You’re going down.”
Vero ignored his friend’s taunt and faced forward again. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Davina standing off to his right on the sideline. Their eyes met, and Vero’s stomach flipped. He quickly returned his gaze to the ground in front of him and tried to focus on his feet.
“Runners, on your marks!” Coach Randy shouted. “Get set . . . ”
The starting gun shot into the air.
The runners took off. Vero and his classmates sprinted down the oval track toward their hurdles. It was a close start. Vero and Tack kept pace with the other sprinters, and everyone was neck and neck. Tack cleared the first hurdle with surprising ease. He looked over his shoulder and smiled smugly at Vero.
Seconds later, Vero reached the first hurdle in his lane. He began to leap, but what happened next sent a hush over his classmates. Vero didn’t clear just the first hurdle — he cleared the second one too! He soared over both hurdles in one bound! Everyone was astonished. Coach Randy’s mouth dropped open. And Vero was as surprised as everyone else. When his feet came back to earth, Vero continued running.
Now Tack looked ahead and saw that Vero had somehow passed him. As he came to the next hurdle, Tack watched as Vero cleared the third and fourth hurdles in a single leap! Tack was so surprised that he lost his concentration while he was still in midair and landed smack on top of the hurdle — it hit him right in his unmentionables!
Tack doubled over in pain and rolled into the next lane, which caused that runner to fall, which then created a domino effect. Runner after runner tripped over their hurdles and then each other until no one was left standing. That is, no one except Vero who crossed the finish line in first place. As he looked back and saw the mass of injured runners and hurdles lying on the track, Vero didn’t feel as good about his victory.
The rest of the gym class students were agape.
And Coach Randy did a little victory dance. “State Championship, here we come!” he shouted.
“You should have told me you could jump like that,” Tack said to Vero. He was now lying down in Nurse Kunkel’s office with an ice pack across his unmentionables. “That was such an unfair advantage.”
“I’m sorry,” Vero said. “I didn’t know I could do that.”
“You can tell me the truth. I’ll still be your friend,” Tack said.
“What?”
“You’re secretly taking ballet, aren’t you? That move you did out there . . . I’ve seen girls in my sister’s ballet class do that one. But they can’t do it nearly as good as you can. I think it’s called a ‘granny jet’ or something.”
“It’s a grande jeté,” Vero said in a flawless French accent.
“So you have been taking ballet!”
“No, I haven’t!” Vero insisted. “I swear! I know what a grande jeté is because my family goes to see The Nutcracker every Christmas.”
“The Nutcracker. Very funny,” Tack said. “Well then, where did you learn to jump like that?”
“I don’t know,” Vero said. “It’s not like I practice doing it or anything.”
“The hurdles, the snake . . . you’ve been acting weird lately,” Tack said. “And it’s like you’re getting smarter. You’re reading all of these big books, and you seem to understand them so easily when I can’t even pronounce their titles!”
As Nurse Kunkel handed Tack a fresh icepack, she asked Vero, “Have you been checked for scoliosis?”
“What’s that?” Vero asked.
“Curvature of the spine. From the way you’re hunching over, I’d say you might want to have a doctor examine you. Has your back been hurting lately?”
Vero nodded and said, “My parents said it’s probably because my old bed is so lumpy. They’re gonna buy me a new mattress.”
“Bend over and let me take a look,” she commanded.
Vero flashed Tack an uneasy glance. He’d only come to the nurse’s office to help Tack.
“Come on, hurry up,” Nurse Kunkel said in her no-nonsense way.
So Vero bent over at the waist, letting his arms dangle in front of him as Nurse Kunkel had instructed. He tried not to shiver as she ran her cold hands underneath his T-shirt and along his spine. From his upside-down vantage point, Vero could see the nurse’s enormous white orthopedic shoes behind him. But what he couldn’t see was the look on Nurse Kunkel’s face when she saw his protruding shoulder blades. Startled, she jerked her hands away, staggered back, and fell onto the cot where Tack was lying — and landed right on top of Tack.
Tack let out a high-pitched “Help!”
Nurse Kunkel immediately tried to stand up. But she was a large woman, so it wasn’t easy. She was the exact opposite of one of those inflated punching-bag clowns, where no matter how hard they’re punched, they bounce back up. In this case Nurse Kunkel couldn’t lift herself off the cot. In her many attempts to get back on her feet, she steamrolled all over Tack, left and then right, but still couldn’t prop herself up. Finally, she just rolled off the cot and fell onto the floor with a loud thud followed by silence.
Vero exchanged nervous looks with Tack.
“Is she dead?” Tack whispered.
“Of course I’m not dead, you idiot!” the nurse shouted from the floor. “Now help me up!”
Vero and Tack each grabbed one of Nurse Kunkel’s hands and somehow hoisted her to her feet.
On any given day, the buttons on the front of her nurse’s uniform were stretched to capacity, and they were known to occasionally shoot off her dress like bullets. There was a rumor that a button nearly took out a kid’s eye when Nurse Kunkel leaned over to take his temperature. As Nurse Kunkel pulled herself and her uniform back together, Vero and Tack noticed that this latest incident had cost her three buttons.
“Thank you. I’m fine,” she snapped, attempting to smooth her wiry hair. Face flushed, she turned to Vero and said, “You’ve got something worse than scoliosis. No wonder your back’s killing you.”
“What? What’s wrong with me?” Vero asked.
“Kyphosis,” she said.
Vero had no idea what Nurse Kunkel was saying.
“Hunchback syndrome,” she continued. “It’s one of the worse cases I’ve seen.”
The nurse gave Vero’s back another look, and Tack made sure he wasn’t behind her this time.
“Hmmm . . . when you stand up, I can’t see it. That’s very strange,” she said. “Nevertheless, here . . . ” She quickly scribbled something onto a pad of paper, ripped off the page, and shoved it into Vero’s hand. “Give this to your parents. Tonight. You don’t need a new mattress. You need to see a doctor ASAP.”
Vero reluctantly put the note in his back pocket. Tack looked at him with a worried expression on his face. Vero knew exactly what Tack was thinking — just another weird thing to add to the list.
Word of Vero’s hurdle-jumping exhibition spread like wild-fire throughout the school. Kids and teachers gossiped about him in the hallways, locker rooms, and cafeteria. Coach Randy begged Vero to join the school’s track-and-field team, but Vero refused. He was afraid to draw any more attention to himself.
Later that day, school was dismissed early due to an unexpected snowstorm that started right after gym class, for which Vero was extremely grateful. He’d silently prayed for a huge snowfall so he wouldn’t have to go back to school for a few days — or even weeks.
As students boarded the school buses for the ride home, Tack, who was still recovering from his hurdle mishap, was lying across one whole bus seat. So Vero had to look for another place to park himself. The bus was overcrowded with kids whose parents normally would have picked them up but were now unable to leave work early or couldn’t drive in the bad weather. Even Clover was on the bus. She wasn’t allowed to ride with Vicki’s older sister in any kind of treacherous weather.
When Vero reached the next-to-last row of bus seats, he spotted his sister sitting with Vicki. He could possibly squeeze in with them, but Clover shot him a most unwelcoming look and then turned her face toward the window. It was a clear sign that she wasn’t happy with all the recent talk about him in school, and she wasn’t going to make room for him in her bus seat.
His only option was to head back to the front of the bus and sit directly behind the driver.
After checking the snow chains on the tires of the bus, the driver got on and started the engine. He then stood up and faced his passengers.
“Listen up!” the driver said. “It’s starting to come down hard out there, so no messing around. Everyone stays in their seats and keeps quiet. Got it?”
No one answered.
“Got it?” he repeated.
“Yes, Mr. Harmon,” the kids answered in unison.
Mr. Harmon was actually Wayne Harmon, a baby-faced nineteen-year-old who was not much older than the students. He got the bus driver job right out of high school because his uncle owned the bus company. And even though he’d gone to school with some of the kids on his route, Wayne insisted they address him as “Mr. Harmon.”
The bus slowly pulled away from the curb. As Vero sat by himself, he glanced behind him at the other kids. They were busy texting, laughing, or swapping food from their leftover lunches. Vero was beginning to feel more and more isolated. He felt as if he were watching the scene on the bus through an invisible divider, like that piece of plastic that separates the backseat of a taxicab from the front.
Vero was sitting on the bus, he could feel the wheels vibrating on the road beneath him, yet somehow he felt as if he were elsewhere.
Vero turned back around and stared out the windshield. The snow was coming down hard. He’d always loved the snow. There was something so peaceful about it. He’d learned in Mr. Woods’s class that no two snowflakes are alike, and it seemed so impossible. Of all the snowflakes that have fallen throughout the history of the planet, how could that be? But the scientists stood by their claim — the intricate ice crystals were full of endless possibilities.
Mesmerized by the falling snow and the swish-swish rhythm of the windshield wipers, Vero’s enchantment was suddenly broken when an oncoming car crossed into the bus’s lane. The car’s driver wrestled to gain control of the steering wheel, but the car still careened toward them with no chance of stopping in these icy conditions.
Vero noticed another man in the car was leaning over the backseat. He appeared to be fighting the driver for control of the steering wheel. The falling snow obscured Vero’s vision, but the face of the man in the backseat appeared distorted, unreal, with exaggerated facial features — a large snout-like nose and a massive forehead made his eyes appear sunken. As the car got closer, Vero saw what looked like a gruesome burn scar etched across his face. And his eyes! Were his eyes glowing red?
Vero jumped to his feet, pointing and shouting about the approaching car. Everyone on the bus grew silent. Vero felt Clover’s eyes on him from the back of the bus. Somehow — he didn’t know how — he could feel her hostility toward him.
“What’s your brother doing?” Vicki elbowed Clover.
Clover sunk lower in the seat.
“He’s headed straight toward us!” Vero shouted again.
“Sit down!” Mr. Harmon shouted back.
The car continued to slide closer and closer to the bus. And now it was close enough for Vero to see the rage glowing from the monstrous red eyes of the backseat driver.
“Don’t you see it?” Vero’s voice was edged with panic, but Mr. Harmon seemed oblivious. “I said, sit down!”
A head-on collision was imminent. “Look!” Instinctively, Vero reached over Mr. Harmon’s shoulder and yanked the steering wheel — just like the man in the backseat of the car was doing.
Suddenly, the entire windshield flashed white. A feeling of tranquility seized Vero, and somehow he knew they were safe. Then the whiteout disappeared, replaced by the steadily falling snow. Mr. Harmon brought the bus to a screeching halt at a stop sign. He opened the bus door, stood up, and pointed to the open door.
“Get out! You can walk home from here!”
“But I just saved your life! I saved everybody’s lives! He was gonna drive his car right into us! See? That car over there!” Vero pointed to the car in the opposite lane, which was now stopped at the stop sign on the other side of the intersection.
“That car swerved over the center line for less than a second!” Mr. Harmon shot back. “It wasn’t a big deal. You were the one who was going to cause an accident! It’s bad enough that I’m driving in a complete whiteout. I don’t need you yanking the steering wheel away from me!”
“But . . . you didn’t see . . . ?”
“Get off my bus! Now! Or I’ll have some of the football players escort you off.”
Mr. Harmon grabbed Vero’s backpack and threw it out into the snow. Vero knew he wasn’t going to win this fight, so he walked down the steps and into the snowstorm. The car that he’d been certain was going to hit them just moments before, accelerated cautiously through the intersection. As it drove past him, Vero saw the driver casually talking on his cell phone. There was no sign of the misshapen man in the backseat.