The John Green Collection

by Green, John

  “You sure shot the living hell out of that gray thing,” Hassan said.

  “What gray thing?” asked Colin. Hassan pointed, and Colin followed the trajectory of his finger to an oak tree about fifteen feet away. Crooked between the trunk and a branch, a sort of gray paper cyclone contained a circular hole about an inch in diameter.

  “What is that?” asked Hassan.

  “Something’s coming out of it,” Colin said.

  It doesn’t take long for a thought to get from your brain to your vocal cords and out of your mouth, but it does take a moment. And in that moment, between when Colin thought Hornets! and when he would have said “Hornets,” he felt a searing sting on the side of his neck. “Oh FUG!” shouted Colin, and then Hassan said, “AIEE! AH! AH! FU—FOOT—SHIT—HAND!” They took off running like a couple of spastic marathoners. Colin kicked his legs to the side with each step, like a heel-clicking leprechaun, trying to discourage the blood-thirsty hornets from attacking his legs. Simultaneously, he swatted around his face, which, as it happened, only indicated to the hornets that besides stinging his head and neck, they could also sting his hands. Waving his hands above his head crazily, Hassan ran considerably faster and with more agility than Colin had ever thought possible, weaving around trees and hurdling bushes in a vain attempt to discourage the hornets. They ran downhill, because that was easiest, but the hornets kept their pace, and Colin could hear their buzzing. For minutes, as they ran in random directions, the buzzing continued, Colin always following behind Hassan, because the only thing worse than getting stung to death in south-central Tennessee when your parents don’t even know you’re on a hog hunt is dying alone.

  “KAFIR (breath) I’M (breath) FADING.”

  “THEY’RE STILL ON ME. GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO,” Colin answered. But just after that, the buzzing stopped. Having chased them for the better part of ten minutes, the hornets began the winding journey back to their decimated nest.

  Hassan fell face-first into a brambly bush and then slowly rolled over onto the forest floor. Colin bent over, hands on knees, sucking air. Hassan was hyperventilating. “Real (breath) fat (breath) kid (breath) asthma (breath) attack,” he finally said.

  Colin pushed aside his fatigue and rushed up to his best friend. “No. No. Tell me you’re not allergic to bees. Oh, shit.” Colin pulled out his cell phone. He had reception, but what could he tell the 911 operator? “I’m somewhere in the woods. My friend’s trachea is closing. I don’t even have a knife to perform an emergency tracheotomy because stupid Mr. Lyford ran off with it into the woods to chase the same goddamned pig that started the whole fugging mess.” He desperately wished Lindsey were there; she could deal with this. She’d have her first-aid kit. But before he could even register the consequences of such thoughts, Hassan said, “I’m not allergic to (breath) bees, sitzpinkler. I’m just (breath) out of (breath) breath.”

  “Ohhhhh. Thank God.”

  “You don’t believe in God.”

  “Thank luck and DNA,” Colin corrected himself quickly, and only then, with Hassan not-dying, did Colin begin to feel the stings. There were eight in all, each of them like a little fire burning just inside his skin. Four on his neck, three on his hands, and one on his left earlobe. “How many do you have?” he asked Hassan.

  Hassan sat up and looked himself over. His hands were cut up from landing in the briar bush. He touched his stings, each in turn. “Three,” said Hassan.

  “Three?! I really took one for the team by staying behind you,” he noted.

  “Don’t give me that martyr shit,” said Hassan. “You shot the bees’ nest.”

  “Hornets’ nest,” Colin corrected. “They were hornets, not bees. That’s the kind of stuff you learn in college, you know.”

  “Dingleberries. Also, not interesting.”76 Hassan paused for a moment, then started talking. “God, these stings HURT. You know what I hate? The outdoors. I mean, generally. I don’t like outside. I’m an inside person. I’m all about refrigeration and indoor plumbing and Judge Judy.”

  Colin laughed as he reached into his left pocket. He pulled out Mr. Lyford’s can of chewing tobacco. He pinched a bit of tobacco, and pressed it against his own earlobe. It felt instantly, if only marginally, better. “It works,” Colin said, surprised. “Remember, Mae Goodey told us about it when we interviewed her.” Hassan said, “Really?” and Colin nodded, and then Hassan took the can of dip. Soon their stings were covered with blobs of wet tobacco dripping brown, wintergreen-flavored juice.

  “Now see that’s interesting,” Hassan said. “You should focus less on who was prime minister of Canada in 193677 and focus more on shit that makes my life better.”

  • • •

  Their idea was to walk downhill. They knew the camp was uphill, but Colin hadn’t been paying attention to which way they ran, and while the cloudy sky made it bearable to walk around in long sleeves and an orange vest, he couldn’t navigate by the sun. So they walked downhill, because (a) it was easier, and (b) they knew the gravel road was down there somewhere, and since it was longer than the camp, they figured they had a better chance of finding it.

  And maybe they did have a better chance of finding the road than the lodge, but they never found it, either. Instead, they walked through a forest that seemed endless, and their progress was slow, as they had to step through kudzu and over trees and hop the occasional dribbling creek. “If we just keep walking in one direction,” Colin said, “we’ll find civilization.” Meanwhile, Hassan was singing a song entitled: “We’re on a Trail / a Trail of Tears / There’s Dip on My Chin / and We’re Gonna Die Here.”

  Just after 6 P.M., tired and hornet-bitten and sweaty and generally in a poor mood, Colin spotted a house a short walk to their left. “I know that house,” Colin said.

  “What, we interviewed someone there?”

  “No, it’s one of the houses you can see when you walk to the grave of the Archduke,” Colin stated with great confidence. Colin gathered his last bit of energy and jogged up to the house. The place itself was windowless, weather-beaten, and abandoned. But from the front of the house, Colin could—yes—see the graveyard in the distance. In fact, there seemed to be some movement down there.

  Hassan came up behind him and whistled. “Wallahi,78 kafir, you’re lucky we’re unlost, because I was about ten minutes away from killing and eating you.”

  They hustled down an easy slope and then fast-walked toward the store, ready to bypass the cemetery. But then Colin caught sight of movement in the graveyard again, turned his head, and stopped dead. Hassan seemed to notice it at precisely the same moment.

  “Colin,” said Hassan.

  “Yeah,” Colin answered calmly.

  “Tell me if I’m mistaken, but isn’t that my girlfriend in the graveyard?”

  “You are not mistaken.”

  “And she’s straddling some guy.”

  “That’s correct,” said Colin.

  Hassan pursed his lips and nodded. “And—I just want to make sure we have our facts straight here—she’s naked.”

  “She certainly is.”

  71 That is, the hog.

  72 Eating pork is Haram in Islam. It is also forbidden in Judaism, but (a) Colin was only half-Jewish, and (b) he wasn’t religious.

  73 Arabic: “Pig”

  74 Arabic: “What, pigs don’t speak Arabic?”

  75 Arabic: “Satan.”

  76 But there is an important difference, and that important difference was manifested in Colin’s throbbing pain. Bees sting people only once, and then die. Hornets, on the other hand, can sting repeatedly. Also, hornets, at least the way Colin figured it, are meaner. Bees just want to make honey. Hornets want to kill you.

  77 William Lyon Mackenzie King, who had enough names for two people (or four Madonnas) but was only one man.

  78 Arabic: “I swear to God.”

  (sixteen)

  She was facing away from them, her back arched, her butt bobbing in and out of visibility. Colin h
ad never seen actual people having actual sex before. From his angle, it looked a little ridiculous, but he suspected it might appear different if he were in the guy’s position.

  Hassan laughed silently, and he seemed so amused by the situation that Colin felt okay laughing, too. “This is some fugging snow globe of a day,” Hassan said. And then he raced forward about ten paces, cupped his hands over his mouth, and screamed, “I AM BREAKING UP WITH YOU!” Still, though, a goofy grin was on his face. Hassan takes so little seriously, Colin thought. As Katrina turned back toward them, her face shocked and scared, her arms crossed over her chest, Hassan turned away.

  Hassan looked back at Colin, who finally tore his gaze away from the inarguably quite fetching naked girl before him. “Give her some privacy,” Hassan said. And then he laughed again. This time, Colin didn’t join in. “You gotta see the humor in it, baby. I’m bug-bit, hornet-stung, bramble-cut, covered in chaw, and wearing camouflage. A feral hog, some hornets, and a prodigy led me through the woods so that I might stumble upon the first girl I ever kissed riding TOC like he’s a thoroughbred next to the grave of an Austro-Hungarian Archduke. That,” Hassan said to Colin emphatically, “is funny.”

  “Wait, TOC?” Colin’s head swiveled back to the Archduke’s obelisk, where he saw—holy shit—TOC, his very self, slithering into some camo pants. “The. Rat. Bastard.” For reasons that he didn’t understand, Colin felt a pulsing rage, and he took off toward the graveyard. He didn’t stop running until he got to the knee-high stone wall, and was staring TOC dead in the eye. And then he didn’t quite know what to do.

  “Is my dad with you?” TOC asked coolly. Colin shook his head, and TOC sighed. “Thank God,” he said. “He’d have my ass in a sling. Have a seat.” Colin stepped over the wall and sat down. Katrina was leaning against the obelisk, dressed now, her hands shaking slightly as she smoked a cigarette. TOC started talking. “You’re not gonna say a word. Because this ain’t none of your business. Now your little Arab friend can have his words with Kat, and that’s fine, and they’ll keep it ’tween themselves. But I don’t reckon you want Lindsey to know anything.”

  Colin stared at the Archduke’s obelisk. He was tired and thirsty and sort of needed to pee. “I think I have to tell her,” he said, a trace of the philosophical in his tone. “She’s my friend. And if I were in her position, I’d expect her to tell me. It’s just basic Golden Rule stuff, really.”

  TOC stood up and walked over to Colin. He was a sizable presence. “Let me tell you both,” and only then did Colin realize Hassan was standing behind him, “why you aren’t going to say a word. If you do, I will beat your asses so bad, you’ll be the only guys in hell walking with a limp.”

  Hassan mumbled, “Sajill.”79 Colin quietly reached into his cargo pocket and fiddled with the device for a moment, then kept his hand in his pocket so it wouldn’t look suspicious. “I just want to know,” Hassan said to Katrina, “how long this has been going on.”

  Katrina put her cigarette out against the Archduke’s obelisk, stood up, and walked over to stand next to TOC. “A long time,” she said. “I mean, we dated when we were sophomores and we’ve been hooking up occasionally ever since. But we came out here and I was going to end it. Honestly. And I’m sorry because I really do like you and I haven’t really liked anyone since him,” she said, glancing up at TOC, “and I wouldn’t have even done it this time except, I don’t know. It was, like a good-bye or something. But I’m really sorry.”

  Hassan nodded. “We can still be friends,” he said, and it was the first time Colin had ever heard those words spoken sincerely. “No big whup, really.” Hassan looked at TOC then. “I mean,” Hassan said, “it’s not like we had agreed not to see other people.”

  TOC shot back, “Look, she just said it’s over, okay? So that’s it. It’s over. I’m not cheating.”

  “Well,” Colin pointed out, “you were cheating five minutes ago. That’s a pretty narrow definition of cheating.”

  “Shut up before I knock your goddamned teeth in,” TOC said angrily. Colin glanced down at his muddy shoes. “Now listen,” TOC continued, “they’re all coming back here from Bradford in a little while. So we’re all just gonna sit here like a big happy family, and then when they show up, you’re going to make your retarded jokes and hunch over and look like the shitsucking pussy you are. And the same goes for you, Hass.”

  This is what Colin thought in the long silence that followed: would he want to know? If he were dating Katherine XIX, and if she’d cheated on him, and if Lindsey knew, and if Lindsey would get physically injured as a result of sharing the information. Then no, he would not want to know. So perhaps the Golden Rule indicated that he should stay mum, and the Golden Rule was really Colin’s only Rule. It was because of the Golden Rule, actually, that he hated himself for Katherine III: he’d believed that Katherines did unto him as he would never have done unto them.

  But there was more to consider than the Golden Rule: there was the small matter of liking Lindsey. That shouldn’t factor in to an ethical decision, of course. But it did.

  He hadn’t quite made up his mind when Lindsey, trailed by SOCT and JATT, came running up with a six-pack of Natural Light beer in each hand. “When’d you get here?” she asked TOC.

  “Oh, just a minute ago. Kat picked me up as I was walkin’, and then we ran into them,” TOC said, his head gesturing toward Colin and Hassan, who were seated together on the stone wall.

  “There was some concern that you might be dead,” Lindsey said to Hassan matter-of-factly.

  “Believe me,” Hassan answered, “you weren’t the only one concerned.” Lindsey leaned in toward Colin then, and he thought for a second she might kiss him on the cheek, and then she said, “Is that dip?”

  He touched his ear. “It is,” he acknowledged.

  Lindsey laughed. “It ain’t supposed to go in your ear, Colin.”

  “Hornet sting,” Colin said morosely. He felt so horrible for her, cheery and smiling and holding beer she’d brought for her boyfriend. He just wanted to take her to her cave and tell her there, so she wouldn’t have to go through it all in the light.

  “Hey, by the way, did anyone kill a feral hog?” Hassan asked.

  “Nope. Well, not unless you did,” SOCT said. And then he laughed. “Me and Chase shot us a squirrel, though. Blew the damned thing to bits. Princess treed it for us.”

  “We didn’t shoot it,” JATT corrected. “I shot it.”

  “Well, whatever. I saw it first.”

  “They’re like an old married couple,” explained Lindsey. “Except instead of being in love with each other, they’re both in love with Colin.” TOC laughed heartily, while the two other boys repeatedly asserted their heterosexuality.

  • • •

  For a while, they drank. Even Colin stomached down the better part of a beer. Only Hassan abstained. “I’m back on the wagon,” he said. By then the sun was sinking fast toward the horizon and the mosquitoes had come out. Colin, already sweaty and bloody, seemed to be their favorite target. Lindsey was cuddled up against TOC, her head nestled between his pec and shoulder, his arm around her waist. Hassan sat next to Katrina, chatting with her in whispers, but they did not touch. Colin was still thinking.

  “You’re not so talkative today,” Lindsey said to Colin eventually. “Stings getting to you?”

  “They burn like the fire of ten thousand suns,” Colin said, deadpan.

  “Pussy,” TOC said, showing the grace and eloquence for which he was widely famous.

  And maybe it was for the right reasons and maybe it wasn’t. But right then, Colin pulled the minirecorder out of his pocket and rewound it. To Lindsey, he said, “I’m really, really sorry.” And then he hit play.

  “. . . dated when we were sophomores and we’ve been hooking up occasionally ever since. But we came out here and I was going to end it.”

  Lindsey bolted upright, staring at Katrina with a gathering malice. TOC, strangely, was frozen. He’d never exp
ected Colin Singleton, noted sitzpinkler, to say a word. Colin hit fast-forward, then play again.

  “. . . she just said it’s over, okay? So that’s it. It’s over. I’m not cheating.”

  Lindsey raised her beer, chugging it, and then crumpled the can and dropped it. She stood up and stepped toward TOC, who was still leaning, in a state of apparent calm, against the obelisk. “Baby,” he said, “you don’t understand. I said I wasn’t cheating and I’m not.”

  “Screw you,” she said, and then she turned around and walked away. TOC caught her in his arms from behind, and she wrestled to get free of him. “Get off me right now,” she shouted, but he held on tight, and then she sounded panicked, screaming, “GET OFF! GET HIM OFF ME.”

  “Let her go,” Colin said softly. And then behind him, he heard JATT. “Yeah, Colin, get off her.” Colin turned around, and saw JATT march up to TOC and grab him by the collar. “Calm the hell down,” JATT said, and then TOC threw Lindsey to the ground. TOC hit JATT in the face with a right cross, and JATT fell to the ground like a dead man. As JATT lay there, unmoving, Colin wondered at the fact that JATT had gone after TOC; Colin had underestimated him. TOC quickly turned around and grabbed Lindsey by the ankle.

  “Let her go,” Colin said, standing now. “You paardenlul.”80

  She was kicking against his grip, but he was persistent, holding her tighter, saying, “Baby, stop. You don’t understand.”

  Hassan looked at Colin. Together, they ran toward TOC, Hassan aiming for a body slam in the midsection and Colin going for a crazed punch to the head. At the last moment, TOC reached one hand out and hit Colin in the jaw so hard that the hornet stings didn’t sting anymore. And then with his leg, TOC swept Hassan’s feet out from under him. They weren’t much for damsel-in-distress saving, Colin and Hassan.

  But then again, Lindsey wasn’t much for being a damsel in distress. After Colin hit the ground, he opened his eyes and saw Lindsey reach up, grab TOC’s nuts, squeeze, and turn. TOC fell to his knees, hunched over, and released Lindsey.