by David Lubar
“Mrreoww.”
“Whiskers,” Karen said as she grabbed her cat and ran from the room. She shut her door and climbed back into bed, hoping that sleep would rescue her from the images that were frozen in her mind. But sleep was a long time coming.
“Dad,” she said at breakfast. “About Safari …”
Her dad smiled. “Isn’t he great? I’ve been counting. He’s already said over thirty things. Isn’t that amazing? He can even sing. And he can make some animal sounds. I can’t believe how smart he is.”
“Great,” Karen said.
That afternoon, she went to the pet store. As she opened the door the strong scent of cedar wafted over her. Inside the shop, a man was giving food to a hamster in a large glass tank. “Yes?” he asked. “Let me guess—you want to buy a turtle?”
Karen shook her head.
“What about a hamster?” He held up the animal. “They make wonderful pets.” He smiled.
“My dad bought a parrot here … .” She wasn’t sure what else to say.
The man’s fingers opened, allowing the hamster to squirm back into the tank. “No, it’s a mistake. I don’t sell birds.” His fingers clenched into fists. Scars ran across the back of both hands—deep, ugly scars.
“But he said—”
“I don’t sell birds!” the man shouted. “I hate birds! They’re awful creatures. Stop bothering me. Get out.”
Frightened, Karen backed up a step. But she forced herself to speak again. “Help me,” Karen pleaded. “Please.”
The man shook his head. His face softened for a moment. “I can’t.”
“Please.”
“Get out!” he screamed again. “Get out! Get out!”
Karen fled.
At home, in the light of day, Safari was still speaking harmless sentences. Karen stayed away from the living room.
That night, she tried not to hear the skritch from below. It’s just a parrot, she told herself.
Skritch.
It can’t hurt me.
Skritch.
It’s only a stupid bird.
Skritch.
“It can’t do anything to me,” Karen whispered. “It can’t even get out of the—”
Click.
Karen jumped from her bed and rushed across the room to shut her door. Whiskers, who’d been asleep on her blankets, looked up, let out a “Mrewww,” then dashed past her feet and out into the hallway.
“Stop,” Karen called. She raced after her cat. She heard the light pat—pat of paws running down the stairs. She followed Whiskers into the living room. The cage was still covered. Karen lifted the blanket.
The door was unlatched. The cage was empty.
“Kill you now,” Safari promised from somewhere overhead.
Karen heard a flap and flutter. She ducked. Safari shot past her face. Karen stumbled into the couch and grabbed a pillow. The parrot was swooping toward her again. She swung but missed as the bird darted to the side then shot back toward her head. A claw slashed at her eyes.
The bird flew past, then turned and attacked again. Karen threw the pillow. It hit the bird. Safari fluttered to the carpet. For an instant, the bird didn’t move. Then it rose and attacked her again. Karen tried to dodge. She stumbled, took a couple of steps, then tripped over the pillow.
She fell hard, headfirst, then rolled to her back. Above, the bird was diving straight at her. She swung her arms and braced for the ripping pain of the claws and beak.
A flash of black flew across her vision, brushing her face. Whiskers hit the parrot from the side. His jaws clamped on the neck of the bird.
Karen shivered as she heard a sharp crunch. Whiskers dropped the parrot on the carpet.
“I can’t let you get in trouble,” Karen said. She had to put the bird back in the cage. She couldn’t let her dad think that Whiskers had done this. But she couldn’t bear the thought of touching the body.
Karen saw the blanket on the cage. She took it off and dropped it over the bird. She grabbed the lump beneath the coarse wool cloth. It was awful, but she thought she could do it, if she did it quickly.
Karen went to the cage and managed to get the body of the bird back inside without touching it. She closed the latch and put the blanket in place.
“Come on,” Karen said to Whiskers. She returned to her room and shut the door, then crawled under the covers. Whiskers jumped to the foot of the bed.
“It’s over,” Karen whispered.
Her cat licked his left front paw.
“You’re my favorite,” she told him. “You always were.”
Whiskers cocked his head slightly, as if amused, and stared at Karen with one eye.
“Kitty?” Karen said. She scrunched back against her pillows. “Pretty kitty …”
Whiskers opened his mouth and hissed.
JOIN THE PARTY
Dan wished Saturday didn’t exist. The school week was bad enough. But the existence of Saturday meant the existence of Saturday night. That’s when Dan really felt it most. Walking through town, hearing other kids having fun, enjoying parties or playing games or just hanging out and talking, Dan felt like he was on the wrong side of a glass barrier.
Usually, he stayed home and watched television or read a book. Sometimes, he went for a walk. This Saturday, as spring ended and the airwaves filled with summer reruns, Dan decided to go out. The moment he opened the door, he heard laughing and shouting. One house away, at the Emersons’, kids were playing in the pool.
It should be easy, Dan thought. All he had to do was walk up to Nicky Emerson and say hi and start talking. That’s all. They’d been neighbors for years, but they never did anything together. That’s the way it was. Dan didn’t know why. Most of the time, he didn’t even really mind. At least, not too much.
But Saturday nights were tough.
Dan walked.
He passed through his own neighborhood, traveling as unnoticed as a gum wrapper blowing across the pavement. He entered another part of town, where the houses were older and the streets were narrower. I’ve got to change, he thought. This can’t go on forever. He remembered a moment from far in his past. Hiding behind his mother’s legs as she’d talked to one of her friends, he’d heard her say, “Dan’s shy.” She’d spoken as if this explained all he was and all he’d ever be.
Dan walked.
He passed another party in a house to his right. Loud music washed over him as it spilled across the lawn. Ahead, Dan saw a group of kids coming toward him. He recognized several of them from school.
Join them, he thought. It should be so easy. Just say hi and turn and walk the way they walked. They reached him. He took a breath to speak. The words didn’t come.
The kids passed him, talking and horsing around.
Another memory drifted into his thoughts. Another phrase spoken often in the past. Dan doesn’t make friends easily.
Dan walked.
He started to cross the street, moving slowly, thinking about how hard it was for him to say “hi” and wondering why it seemed so easy for everyone else.
A car horn blasted through him.
Dan jumped.
The car shot by, just missing him.
Dan walked.
He wandered until he found himself near the end of a dead-end street in the oldest part of town. The other houses were dark, but one house, the final house, showed signs of life. Dan could see kids inside listening to music, their images blurred by the thin curtains that hung in the windows.
The curtains blew open for a moment in the light breeze, giving him a better view. A couple of the kids looked familiar.
“It’s now or never,” Dan told himself. “I’m going to do it,” he whispered. He paused at the front steps, angry with his own heart for pounding so hard and betraying his anxiety. He wiped his palms against his shirt as he thought about walking up to the door.
Then he did it. He went up the steps.
He knocked. The act was more final and more frightening than steppin
g off the high dive for the first time.
As Dan heard the sound of his knock, he froze, realizing he couldn’t just invite himself inside. He needed to think of some excuse for barging in. He decided he could just pretend he was asking for directions. That would work. But where should he ask directions to? What were the street names around here? Dan wasn’t sure. He would have turned and run had he not been nailed to the ground with panic.
The door swung open. “Hi,” a kid his own age said.
Dan felt the silence wrap around him like an endless roll of gauze. It was his turn to speak, but he wasn’t sure if he could manage even the smallest sound. Then the word slipped from his mouth. “Hi.” It seemed small and weak. But it made the next words easier. “I was walking by and saw you guys, and I wondered …” It was easier, but it was still the hardest thing he had ever done.
The kid smiled, melting some of Dan’s fear. “Come on in. Join the party.”
Dan stepped inside, amazed, now that the moment was past, that he had actually come this far. There were about a dozen kids in the room, both boys and girls. Most were around his age.
“I’m Shawn,” the boy said.
Dan introduced himself.
“Well, come join the party,” Shawn said again.
“Thanks.” He looked at Shawn, then asked, “Do you go to Thomas Edison?”
“I used to,” Shawn said.
Dan wondered whether Shawn had switched to one of the private schools. But he didn’t want to be nosy. He struggled to think of something else to say.
A girl joined them. “This is Cindy,” Shawn said. “And this is Dan.”
“Hi, Dan.” Cindy smiled.
Dan smiled back. He exchanged a few words with Cindy. She introduced Dan to a few more kids. Each new face was easier to meet. After a while, Dan began to feel comfortable at the party. He found two boys who liked swimming as much as he did. And he learned that he and Cindy had the same favorite authors.
As Dan stood in the corner of the room, talking with several of the kids, his eyes drifted back toward Shawn. The boy, as if feeling the gaze, came over toward Dan.
“It’s bothering you, isn’t it,” Shawn said.
“What?”
“Come on, I know you’re trying to think where you’ve seen me. Right?”
“Right,” Dan admitted. “Do I know you?”
“Think back a few years.”
Dan looked at Shawn and tried to picture him as he might have been a few years ago. Then he shook his head. “Nope, I guess it’s my imagination.” Then a thought hit him. “Wait, do you have an older brother?”
Shawn shook his head. “No. I’m an only child. But now you’re on the right track.”
“What do you mean?” Dan asked.
“What if you were younger, but I wasn’t?”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Dan said. But as the words left his lips, he realized that it did. He stared at Shawn and the name and the face and the memory slammed into him. He stumbled back, sitting hard on the couch, remembering a kid who was two years older. “Shawn Jepson. The kid who …” He stopped.
It couldn’t be.
Shawn nodded. “Yup, the kid who fell through the ice back when you were in fourth grade. I was in sixth. Mr. Martin’s class.”
Dan remembered that sad winter, with the funeral, though the memory was smudged by the passage of time. Shawn had been two years older than Dan. Now he looked the same age. “You died,” Dan said.
Shawn shrugged. “Yeah, that’s me. And you might remember Ricky over there.” He pointed to another kid. “Climbed one of those power towers and got zapped. Cindy had a heart problem. She was a year ahead of you, and she wasn’t in school very much, so you probably don’t remember her. I don’t think you knew any of the others.”
“You’re all dead?” Numbed as he was, Dan rose from the couch.
“Yup.” Shawn grinned. “That’s life.”
Dan closed his eyes for a moment, remembering a car that had come so close to hitting him. “Am I dead, too?”
Shawn laughed. Then he shook his head. “No, you’re alive.”
“Then how. . ?” He let the sentence dangle unfinished, not sure he wanted to hear the answer. How could he see them? Why was he here?
“We just felt sorry for you,” Shawn said.
Dan opened his mouth to protest. He didn’t want pity. Another conversation rose from his mind. “Dan seems pretty happy by himself,” his mother had told a neighbor just last week.
Dan gazed at the rest of the kids. They smiled at him. Cindy winked. Dan stared at his own hands, as if he might disprove his existence by seeing through his flesh. Both hands were solid. “I’m not dead?”
“No.” Shawn put his hand on Dan’s shoulder and led him to the door. “You’re alive. But the way you’re living, it’s hard to tell. Look, it’s pretty pathetic when dead kids like us feel sorry for someone.” He opened the door.
Dan stared outside, not sure he wanted to leave.
“Go on,” Shawn said. “You’ve got a lot of living to do. Better get started.”
Dan moved onto the porch. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure.”
Dan started to walk down the steps. Behind him, as the door was closing, he heard Shawn say, “Go out there and knock’em dead, kid.”
There was a soft click as the door closed. The sound of party music faded. Dan walked away. He wanted to see them once more before he left, but he didn’t look back. He knew his future was ahead of him.
THE BILLION LEGER
Charlie threw a book at the centipede. He didn’t even think, he just reacted. Across the room, halfway up the wall opposite his bed, was one of those disgusting creatures with the fuzzy body and countless rippling legs. It was the motion that had caught Charlie’s eye—that smooth, flowing motion like a living piece of liquid rope. Now, under his full gaze, the bug froze, as if waiting for him to make his move. He made that move with the nearest thing at hand—two pounds of dead weight called Fun with Verbs and Nouns.
The book missed by less than an inch. It slammed against the wall, then dropped to the floor, lying open with its pages slowly turning.
The centipede slipped under Charlie’s desk, vanishing like a slurped strand of spaghetti. Charlie rolled off the bed, dashed across the room, and peered beneath the desk. He found dust and scattered bits of junk, but no sign of insect life. Part of him was relieved that he had missed. The thought of that thing squished and dead—or worse, squished and dying—made him feel sick.
But at least it was gone. Charlie figured he’d scared it off for good.
He saw the centipede again that evening. Just as he was about to switch off his lamp, he saw a slithering intrusion on the ceiling. The bug was right over his bed—directly above his head. Charlie jumped to his feet and searched for something that could smash the life from the centipede. He grabbed his pants from the floor, thinking he could swipe at the ceiling and knock the insect down. Then he could crush it and be done with it. He looked up.
The centipede was gone.
Charlie slept poorly that night. In his dreams, a million tiny legs brushed his face.
“Mom,” he asked the next morning, “do we have any bug spray?”
“Why?” she asked.
“There’s a big bug in my room.”
“Leave it alone,” she said. “It won’t hurt you.”
“Mom, it’s a really big bug. It’s huge.”
His mom sighed. Charlie could tell she wasn’t going to argue further. “Look in the garage,” she said.
“Thanks.” Charlie found a can. The label said it was for ants and other crawling insects. This should do the trick, he thought as he went back to his room. He figured anything with that many legs pretty much had to crawl. But it wouldn’t be crawling much longer. Charlie followed the directions, spraying all along the baseboards. Then he stuck his arm under his desk and held the nozzle down for a long time. The room filled with an interesting smell
, an almost sweet smell.
“The line of death …” Charlie said aloud as he finished spraying. He imagined the bug falling to the ground, dropping from whatever wall it hid upon like a toy dart when the suction cup gives out. He imagined it squirming in agony as the spray destroyed its tiny brain and turned its nervous system into mush. Charlie caught his reflection in the mirror as he left the room. He hadn’t realized he was smiling.
He checked his room later, eager for any sign that he had won. There were several dead bugs on the floor, but they were all spiders. That was fine with Charlie—he didn’t particularly like spiders either. It was their tough luck if they got in the way of the spray.
That evening, as Charlie trudged through his homework, the centipede ran across the wall above his desk. Charlie rushed to the garage for the spray can. By the time he returned, the bug was nowhere in sight. He sprayed the wall, leaving a large, wet blotch. As he finished, he wondered if this was the same bug. It seemed longer than before.
The next day, it looked even longer as it raced across a different part of the wall.
Charlie didn’t know whether there were several centipedes or if there was one that just kept growing. The first time he’d seen it, it couldn’t have been more than three inches long. Now, it looked more like five.
It kept getting longer.
And it kept refusing to die. Day after day, Charlie sprayed, until the can was empty. The bug didn’t seem to be bothered by the chemical fog.
Night after night, Charlie threw books and balls and hard toys at it. He always missed. The wall was chipped and cracked in half a dozen spots. The centipede was untouched. Charlie tried hitting it with a flyswatter, a yardstick, and a dozen other weapons. Once, Charlie even took a swipe with his bare hand, not caring what the mess might feel like. He didn’t come close.
The centipede grew bolder. One night, it crawled across Charlie as he slept. Each night after that, he’d wake up startled as the centipede brushed against his hand or leg or face. And each night, he’d swat at it in terror, slapping blindly at his body, then striking against the bed as he searched for the centipede in the rumpled sheets. But he always missed.
