His parents finally showed up at the station, his mother red-eyed and his dad pissed off about, well, everything. The police had decided to release Greg into his parents’ care. He’d be free, which also meant he could keep an eye on Kimberly. As soon as his parents went to bed, he’d sneak out and go watch over her. He’d do that for as long as it took him to find Fetch and figure out a way to deactivate him.
Greg almost couldn’t bear to get out of his dad’s pickup when his dad pulled it into the garage. Dragging his feet, Greg reluctantly opened the car door and stepped onto the concrete. He cautiously approached the stairway leading up to the front door. Then he steeled himself and looked around.
Everything seemed normal. Kimberly’s body wasn’t under the house or on the front mat.
He nearly fainted in relief.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Greg’s dad asked when Greg sagged against the stair railing.
“Nothing.”
When Greg and his parents entered their house, Greg’s dad grabbed Greg’s arm. Greg gritted his teeth.
“I’d say I was disappointed in you,” his dad said, “but I haven’t expected anything good from you in years.”
Greg’s mom sighed. “Steven.”
“Hillary.”
Greg ignored them both and went up the stairs to his room.
Peeling off his clothes as soon as he was in the darkened space, he went to take yet another shower. He stank … again. Not only did the hard bike ride and the panic to save Kimberly make him sweat buckets, he’d sat in what smelled like dried urine in the cop’s SUV.
He thought the hot shower might bring him back to life. He had to get the energy to go to Kimberly’s house again. His bike was still in the back of his dad’s pickup. The policeman had stuck it in his SUV when he took Greg in, and he’d given it back when he and his parents left the station.
But when Greg got out of the shower, he was wiped out. He looked at the time on his phone. He also checked for texts. Nothing. That was good. Right?
Maybe he could take a nap before heading to Kimberly’s to be sure she was okay. Heck, maybe he’d been wrong about the whole thing. Maybe Fetch was retrieving him a snack or information he hadn’t even realized he’d requested. Maybe there really was nothing to worry about.
Greg pulled on a yellow T-shirt and a pair of gray flannel sleep pants. Then he threw open the bathroom door.
Barely containing a scream, Greg stumbled away from the door and fell to the tiled floor, his mind struggling to accept what he was looking at.
There was something wrapped in a sheet, laying across the doorway. As he stared, the once beige sheet was turning a deep, dark red, and it glistened wet in the room’s muted light.
Who was under the sheet? What was under the sheet? Greg couldn’t get himself to move so he could find out.
Greg didn’t need to look any further. He knew everything he needed to know.
The phone on Greg’s bathroom counter vibrated. He couldn’t help himself; he picked it up and looked at it.
Fetch had texted:
CU.
Bad,” Alec had always argued, was such a subjective word. With its very definition, it was determined by someone else’s baseline. It was a word that served one purpose: to judge. And Alec had been judged his entire life.
His first memory was a decidedly terrible one. He was in preschool and bigger than the other kids. Recognizing this advantage at an early age, he found he could move to the front of any line with surprising ease. The other kids were glad to play the games he dictated, and he never had to look for a seat at the lunch table. It was only when his preschool teacher pulled him to the side on that first memorable day that Alec was made to understand that he was “bad.”
“You’re a bully,” the teacher had said to him, a word he assumed was positive and smiled when she offered it. Instead of patting him on the shoulder like his mom would do when he ate his whole meal, the teacher shrank away from him in horror. In fact, it was that precise expression on his preschool teacher’s face that Alec remembered most of all. More than the way the blue plastic chairs in the classroom would stick to the backs of his legs in summertime. More than the way a fresh box of unused crayons smelled under his nose. More than the way the canned peaches they served as snacks slid around on his tongue amid the sticky syrup and metallic aftertaste.
Alec didn’t even remember his preschool teacher’s name. He simply remembered her look of horror when he didn’t understand that he was “bad.”
As he grew older, Alec came to realize that “bad” was defined by comparison. And that was mostly a workable construct for Alec.
Until Hazel came along.
Hazel, who was named after a beloved grandmother Alec had never met. Hazel, whose fine blonde ringlets were twisted up in stiff bows. Hazel, who slept through the entire night with nary a fuss.
Alec was named after no one. It was a compromise between the “Alexander” his mom had wanted and the “Eric” his dad had lobbied for. Alec’s curls were unruly, tamed with water from the tap and a wooden-backed brush. Alec’s nights were cleaved by nightmares and bouts of loud wakefulness.
For the first five years of his life, Alec’s behavior was more or less in constant search of the walls separating good from bad. After Hazel was born, Alec jumped the wall and landed in uncharted lands. He was not as easily tracked in this new space. He was “bad” sometimes, yes, but more often than not, he was boundless. He went undiscovered. It was in that space that “good” and “bad” didn’t exist. If there was no one guiding him to the boundaries—if there was no one watching—behavior, if anything, was an afterthought.
“Maybe don’t single him out as often, Meg,” Alec’s aunt Gigi would say. “Kids respond so much better to positive reinforcement.”
Aunt Gigi had also suggested to Alec’s mom in that same conversation that she switch to organic milk; the added hormones in regular dairy increased aggression in kids, according to some studies. Aunt Gigi had no children and no desire for any. Alec’s mom was often in the mood for advice, and her older sister was always happy to give it.
“Gigi, it’s not the milk,” Alec’s mom had argued. “They drink the same milk. And he’s not aggressive. He’s just … I don’t know … he’s in his own world. It’s like the rules don’t apply to him.”
“Well, then you know he’ll be a leader when he’s older. That’s great!” Aunt Gigi had posited.
“Yeah,” Alec’s mom had said. “Maybe. I don’t know. He doesn’t seem to like other people much.”
“He’s ten, Meg. They hate everyone.”
“Not everyone,” his mom had argued. “Look at Gavin.”
“Who?”
“Becca’s son.”
“That kid who’s always smiling at everyone?”
“That isn’t a bad thing,” his mom had said.
“No, it’s a creepy thing,” Aunt Gigi had said. “Trust me, you don’t want more little Gavins running around the world. That’s the kind of kid you find standing over your bed one night holding a butcher knife. No, thanks.”
It was times like those that Alec wondered if he’d been born to the wrong sister, and Aunt Gigi was really his mom. But his turned-up nose and blond hair like hay were dead ringers for his mom, no question.
It was also times like these that Alec wished he wasn’t so good at eavesdropping. His parents had both warned him about it many times, but inevitably, he’d find himself perched at the top of the staircase, listening to the conversations no one really tried that hard to hide. It was almost like they wanted him to hear.
Eavesdropping was how he’d found out about The Plan.
Alec probably should have seen it coming; it was April after all. The magical miracle month, otherwise known as the month their precious Hazel was born. Alec got a day, the eighteenth day of August to be precise. That was his special day when his parents pretended he wasn’t a problem. But Hazel? Hazel got a full thirty days of adoration.
> “Someone’s got a special day coming up in two weeks,” his dad would say.
“Are you excited for your party?” his mom would ask.
And Hazel’s eyes would glitter, and she’d act like it was all too much fuss, and his parents would eat it up. She’d earned it, they would say. She should enjoy it. Then they’d look at Alec and wait for him to agree, which he rarely did. Why bother? It’s not like it would change a thing; she’d still get the party. Maybe it would have been decent of him to be nice to Hazel once in a while, but Alec just couldn’t see giving his parents the satisfaction.
So when he overheard his parents discussing The Plan, he was frankly surprised it had taken them this long to come up with it. They must have been behind on their reading.
“It’s in Chapter Five. Have you gotten to Chapter Five yet?” Alec’s mom asked his dad across the kitchen table where they stirred their decaf coffee that night.
“I thought Chapter Five talked about letting the child choose his own road,” his dad said. That tone of exasperation in his voice was becoming more of a regular thing.
“No no no, that’s from The Glowing Child,” corrected his mom. “I’m talking about The Plan Planner. This doctor says The Glowing Child’s theories are all wrong!”
Alec remembered The Glowing Child method well. Apparently, that author believed every child was simply a blob of clay waiting to be self-molded, which involved some completely bonkers exercises like letting Alec rename himself. So he decided on Captain Thunder Pants and spent the entire week farting himself around the house and claiming he couldn’t help it—it was his namesake.
That wasn’t as ridiculous as the time they read that they needed to plant a garden with him so he could nurture something, or the time they were told to go camping as a family to get back to their “familial core.” The garden experiment ended when Alec buried his mom’s wedding ring in the soil to see if it would grow more diamonds. The camping trip devolved into a sort of Lord of the Flies situation after Hazel got a mosquito stuck up her nose, and Alec may or may not have convinced her that it would lay eggs in her nasal passage. The trip really didn’t have a chance after that.
“Honestly, Meg, the more we read, the more I’m convinced that none of these so-called doctors know what the heck they’re talking about,” his dad said, but Alec’s mom was not one to be deterred.
“Well, Ian, what’s the alternative? Do we give up?”
This wasn’t the first time Alec had heard a conversation like this one. It seemed to happen in the spaces between every other book that his parents would read to try to understand why their son was just so different than them.
It wasn’t the first time Alec had heard this sort of conversation, and yet, it would form the same hard stone in his stomach every single time. Because no matter how many books they read or gardens they made him plant or organic milk they poured down his throat, the one thing they never tried was talking to him.
“Of course we don’t give up,” his dad said to his mom, whipping his little teaspoon around the sides of his coffee mug until Alec imagined it forming a little decaf whirlpool against the ceramic.
“Just ask me,” Alec whispered, and for just a second—for once in all of his fifteen years—his parents were both silent, and he thought maybe they’d hear him. “Just ask me what’s the matter.”
If they’d asked, he might have said, “I’m not like you, and I’m not like Hazel, and that should be okay.”
But his parents simply went on talking.
“You just need to skip ahead to Chapter Five,” his mom said.
“Can’t we just skip ahead to the part where you tell me what we’re supposed to be doing?” his dad said.
“Just read the chapter, Ian. The party’s next weekend, and I really think we need to lay some groundwork before Saturday.”
His dad sighed so heavily, Alec could hear it from the stairs, which is how he knew that his dad would once again read a useless book about some useless method for helping them to understand their enigma of a child.
It was the same every time.
And because his parents always stashed their collection of parenting books in some supersecret location Alec had never been able to discover, he’d be starting from a disadvantage like always, watching The Plan and Chapter Five’s contents unfold over the course of the next week.
Upstairs, in the Jack-and-Jill bathroom that separated Alec’s room from Hazel’s, he stared in the mirror and tried to see himself the way his parents did. They saw the same blond hair, the same light green eyes, the same jaw set in rigid determination to never hang open in amazement, to never break into an unexpected smile. Alec was nothing if not deliberate.
It was only Hazel who occasionally took him by surprise.
“Are you okay?” she asked from her doorway, and he fixed his face in annoyance, but he was a little too late in doing so, and he was afraid she’d seen him startled.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” he asked, leveling her with the same type of question he always asked. He had mastered the art of deflection.
Hazel shrugged and grabbed her toothbrush, playing at being nonchalant, too, but she wasn’t nearly as good at it as he was.
“Mom and Dad are acting weird again,” she said, shorthand for the explanation. She meant “Mom and Dad are picking on you again.” But Alec wasn’t so easily fooled. His sister was the worst of them. She conned everyone else with her questions that pretended to be innocent, and her smile that might’ve made anyone else think she meant it.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “It won’t affect your party.”
He’d meant for it to be a slight on her, but she misunderstood and thought he actually cared.
“I don’t really care that much about the party, you know,” she said, looking at his reflection in the mirror instead of looking directly at him. That’s how he knew she was lying.
She started to brush her teeth, and Alec took a moment to study her as she looked down into the sink to spit.
It’s almost like she was able to will every part of herself to be perfect. Her hair never frizzed. Her nose never ran. Her freckles were evenly spaced, as though they’d been painted on by a steady hand. Even her teeth were straight. She’d probably never need braces. Alec had started to believe he’d never get his braces off.
“Don’t be dumb,” he finally said. “Of course you care about your stupid party.”
Her face flushed a perfectly even shade of pink. “I bet not that many people will even come,” she said.
Alec couldn’t even muster a response to such a ridiculous plea for fake sympathy. He just snorted.
“Yeah, okay,” he said and left her to finish swishing the toothpaste from her mouth. The day of getting his own bathroom in his own house with his own rules and no one to wonder why he was so different than them … that day couldn’t come soon enough.
Stars had begun to dot the sky when Alec’s trance was broken by the creak of the bathroom door on Hazel’s side. He waited for the interruption to pass, but the longer he waited, the more it became clear that Hazel wasn’t in there to go to the bathroom. After another few seconds, the door to his room from the bathroom opened a crack, and in spilled the blonde curls of his sister as she broke a cardinal rule.
“Get out,” he said, and she snatched her head back into the bathroom, startled. But that didn’t last.
Instead, she opened the door a little wider, and to Alec’s utter disbelief, she dared to take a step inside his room.
He watched her look around for a second, as though she’d entered a strange new world, and in a way, she had. If he’d ever suspected that she snuck in here when he wasn’t around, that question was answered by the way she stared around her now. She was a rule follower, even when no one was looking.
“You have a death wish,” he said, and he could hear her swallow.
Still, she took another step toward him.
He had a couple of options. The usual verbal intimidation wasn�
��t working. He could use brute force. Pain was an excellent motivator. He could play at charging her: whip the covers off of himself and lunge out of the bed just far enough to chase her off.
Or he could exercise psychological trickery. He could lie there, perfectly still, saying not even a single word more. He could watch her as closely as he was watching her now, wait for her to get close, to achieve whatever insane goal she must have for coming in here and defying all logic, and watch her courage falter the deeper she ventured into his room.
Maybe it was the thrill of exerting that level of control over the situation, or maybe he was curious to see what she’d do. Either way, he opted for the third option.
And he waited.
Strangely, for as closely as he studied her, Hazel studied him just as closely back. She took another step toward his bed, then another, and though he could tell she was trembling, could see that from the second she popped her head in, she continued to walk forward. It wasn’t until she was just a couple of steps from his bed that he noticed she was holding something.
She took the last two steps fast, as though her courage was expiring, and set the thing at the foot of Alec’s bed. Then she took two steps backward, spinning on her heel, and sprinted back into the bathroom, pulling the door to his bedroom closed behind her.
Alec stared at the book at the foot of his bed for a long time before he finally picked it up.
It was green with bold white lettering, the title precisely centered and slightly raised from the jacket. It was flagged with a bright pink sticky note right at the start of Chapter Five. And when he opened it, written in the fine pencil script of his mother’s careful hand, were notes for his dad and her to follow in the days leading up to Golden Hazel’s party.
Defying their parents—defying all logic and rules and self-interest—Hazel had stolen The Plan Planner from their parents’ secret library while they slept.
And she had shared it with him.
Alec’s heart raced as he read through the carefully prescribed steps of Chapter Five, the method that promised to turn their bad child good and achieve the familial harmony his parents had read over and over was achievable.
Fetch Page 7
