by Han Nolan
I'm sulking because I didn't get to see Dad, and I don't want to talk, but Sam has questions.
"Jason, you've got to tell me what happened. Where did the knife come from?"
"I don't know! Reed's pocket." FBG WITH A MUSTACHE: Keep your cool, son.
"So it's Reed's knife?"
I shrug and stare out at the cars rushing past us. I know Sam's driving slowly on purpose. He wants to grill me before we reach the Lynches' house so he can file his report in the morning.
"I guess it's his," I say. "It sure isn't mine."
"Did you provoke him?"
I look at Sam. "Are you going to try to make this my fault? Did you actually believe that act of his?"
CRAZY GLUE: Uh ... yup.
"So you didn't provoke him?" Sam's looking straight ahead.
I stare out my window and say, giving in a little, "Yeah, I provoked him. He told me if I stepped over the line, he would slit my throat in my sleep. I thought he was bluffing. He looks so innocent."
"Those are the ones you've got to look out for," Sam says, "the innocent-looking ones."
"Now you tell me." I run my hand across my stomach and feel the thick bandage the doctor had put over this skin adhesive that's supposed to act like stitches. We'll see.
"So what did you say when you thought Reed was bluffing?"
CRAZY GLUE: Whoops.
"Okay, well, I told him that if he stepped over the red line and touched my stuff, I wouldn't wait until he went to sleep; I'd kill him right then."
"You were bluffing?"
I look at Sam. "Yeah, I was bluffing! I don't go around killing people for getting into my stuff, jeez!"
Sam glances at me, car lights reflecting in his eyes. "Well, let me give you a warning, okay? Some kids will kill you for a lot less than that, so no more bluffing. If you have a problem with someone, call me or tell the Lynches. Don't try to handle it yourself."
CRAZY GLUE: Now, there's some crappy bit of advice.
FBG WITH A MUSTACHE: You asked Dr. Gomez for help and look where it got you.
CRAZY GLUE: Yeah, riding with Garlic Head Sam and stabbed in the stomach.
As painful as the stabbing was, though, I feel that standing up to Reed, saying what I said, has kind of set me free. I feel different—looser. I feel like I can take on the world. Maybe I don't have to be afraid of swirlies anymore.
CRAZY GLUE: Oh yeah? Does that go for all the Dear Mouse hate mail you get, too?
I don't know, but maybe that's why I'm acting so pissed off with Sam. It just feels really good to know that I can stand up to Reed, to anyone, and survive it.
FBG WITH A MUSTACHE: You're pissed off. That's what feels good.
After a few moments of silence I ask, "So how am I supposed to keep this Reed guy from slitting my throat in the middle of the night? Do I wear a suit of armor to bed or what?"
"Oh, you won't have to worry about him. He's been removed from the house."
CRAZY GLUE: What? Been removed? By who? The pod people?
A weird science-fictionlike scene runs through my mind where men wearing white suits and white head covers come charging into the house and grab Reed, who's still hollering, "I didn't do it!" Then they stun him with their stun guns, suck him up into this human vacuum, and scuttle away.
CRAZY GLUE: Sounds like a good movie. I wanna see that one!
Back at the Lynches' house, I go into my bedroom, and my little scenario doesn't seem quite so far fetched. The room's been wiped clean of Reed's existence. Even his bed's been stripped and his desktop has been cleared off. All the shelves are empty—not a single military plane left. I don't like it. It's creepy how they could just get rid of him. Like he's, like we're all, just so disposable. Is that what they'll do to my dad? Suck him up and dump him somewhere where I can't find him, where nobody can, until nobody even remembers that he exists? You're here one minute and gone the next? I don't like it.
SEXY LADY: Don't worry yourself. You're tired. Go to bed now. You'll feel better in the morning.
I just wonder where they put homeless boys who stab other semi-homeless boys, that's all.
CRAZY GLUE: Well, then ask, goob.
FBG WITH A MUSTACHE: Maybe you don't really want to know.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I FALL INTO BED, exhausted and feverish, and sleep for days, waking only to pee or drink some juice with my pills. I keep seeing the other side of the room, one minute full of Reed and his planes and the next minute empty, everything gone. I dream I see him tossed into a cement mixer with his planes, and they swirl and fart until they disappear into the cement. Then he's set on fire by a giant blowtorch, and all the nuts and bolts that held him together explode. Then in another dream, he's with my mom and dad, and he's their son, and I'm screaming for him to get away from them, but they can't hear me because their ears have been stuffed with Oreos.
Reed turns up everywhere in my dreams. He's in school with Pete and Haze and Shelby. He's in Dr. Gomez's office discussing my "terrible situation" with Dr. Gomez. He's in my house playing the violin, using his switchblade for a bow and sawing off all the strings. He's also in my suffocating dream, only instead of suffocating beneath the ocean floor, I'm buried under him. I can't breathe through all the blubber. I wet the bed. I know that I've wet the bed, but I can't rouse myself to do anything about it. I feel myself lifted and carried, but I just keep dreaming, and my wetting the bed just becomes part of one more dream.
While I sleep I shiver, then sweat, then shiver again. I hear voices all around me. I listen for my dad's voice among them, but his is never there.
Finally, after days and nights of dreams and voices, I wake up and it's morning. The sun is shining through the windows and I can hear birds singing. I see that the bed across the room from mine lies empty and someone is speaking; I think it's my mom, but it's only Mrs. Lynch.
She leans over me. "There you are. How are you feeling today? Any better?"
I look at her and I hear music. I hear "Puff the Magic Dragon," and I wonder for a second if it's coming from her somehow, but then I lift my head and look behind Mrs. Lynch and I see the little girl, little Gwen, holding a Talking Elmo CD player. I lie back, relieved.
From the doorway I hear, "Well now, he's alive after all," and a man comes into the room. I know it has to be either Mr. Lynch or Mrs. Lynch's brother, because the man looks so much like her, only taller and broader. He has salt-and-pepper hair, a thin, kind of turned-up nose, and lots of laugh lines around his eyes.
He holds out his hand for me to shake. "Hi, Jason, I'm Tony Lynch. You can call me Dad or Tony or Captain, whatever makes you feel most comfortable."
CRAZY GLUE: How about Cap'n? Think he'd like that?
FBG WITH A MUSTACHE: Or just Cap. Call him Cap.
I shake his hand and his grip is firm. I can't look him in the eye. How can he think I would ever want to call him Dad? I have a father. And Tony's too personal. I'll call him Cap. Tough if he doesn't like it.
I look around the room and see my computer and backpack sitting on the desk. They've been to the house, my house. I don't know if I like this.
"How long have I been sleeping?" I ask.
"Four days," Mrs. Lynch says. "I think you were more exhausted than sick, but you did run a fever the first couple of days. How do you feel now?"
FBG WITH A MUSTACHE: That's four days down and ten to go until you see your dad.
I sit up and lean against the headboard. "I feel okay," I say, eyeing my laptop again and remembering the Dear Mouse letters. I need to mail those off.
"Good to hear it," Cap says. He steps over the line to Reed's side of the room and grabs the desk chair. He carries it back across the red line and sets it down beside my bed, and again I think about how disturbing it is to see no traces of Reed anywhere in the room. How could he just disappear so completely and so fast? I can't get the thought out of my head.
CRAZY GLUE: They're all looking at you like you're some bug specimen.
I lo
ok at the three of them smiling at me. I look away and notice one of the photos from my wall at home leaning against the side of the desk. It makes me mad. I feel invaded. How dare they take that down and bring it here. Do they think I'm going to put my photographs on these walls? I'm not sticking around that long.
CRAZY GLUE: Don't let them get their claws into you.
Cap clears his throat and I glance at him, then study my lap.
"So, if you feel well enough after breakfast, how about you and I going for a walk? I'll show you around the place, let you get your bearings. Then later we'll go to the post office and transfer your mail to our address. Sound good?"
No way! Jeez! I'm grateful they took care of me while I was sick or whatever, but I'm not making this permanent. No way!
CRAZY GLUE: Yeah, back off, Cap'n!
I shrug and don't say anything.
FBG WITH A MUSTACHE: You need a game plan, son.
CRAZY GLUE: You gotta scram. You don't wanna stay here. They're not your parents.
AUNT BEE: They are nice, though, and something smells pretty good in the kitchen. A good meal wouldn't hurt.
CRAZY GLUE: They know you wet the bed.
After a few more minutes of small talk...
CRAZY GLUE: Very small.
They leave me to shower and dress. Then I go to the kitchen, which is all cheery and warm with the walls covered in strawberries wallpaper. I eat a huge breakfast of French toast and scrambled eggs while Gwen talks a blue streak. She prattles on about Homer, who, it turns out, is a doll, and then about the snowman that she and Cap made and that she fears is going to melt. She names all the Cheerios left in the bottom of her bowl, then says she can't eat them because now they have names. I've never heard anyone talk so much, but I decide I'm glad she's here. She takes the heat off me.
I don't feel like talking and I guess the Lynches sense this, because they leave me alone pretty much. They tell me before I head back to my room that since it's Thursday, I can wait until after the weekend to go to school. That will give me a chance to rest up and prepare myself.
Whatever. FBG is right. I need a game plan. I don't feel like going back to school yet, but I don't want to sit around here, either. I want to see my dad. I wonder what's happened to him. I picture him dumped on some ash heap with Reed—the rejects. It gives me chills. I can't get it out of my mind.
Cap isn't ready for our walk yet, so I sit at the desk by my bed and open my laptop. It's nice to have an Internet connection again.
AUNT BEE: And a full stomach and a warm home.
Okay, okay, I know. I'm grateful, but I'm not staying here.
I send off my Mouse letters and read the new ones that have come in.
Dear Mouse:
I'm kind of a big mouth and a know-it-all, and I know I get on peoples nerves, so I don't have a lot of friends. The other day I ratted somebody out, one of my friends. It was the right thing to do as far as right and wrong go, I guess, but now I think I lost my friend. I don't know how I can get that friend back. Maybe I shouldn't have told, but then my friend would have been really hurting. Did I do the right thing? How can I get my friend back? I'd do just about anything to make it up to this person.
Tattletale
Dear Tattletale:
If your friend were really your friend, then...
CRAZY GLUE: Goob, this is Shelby.
No. Is it? She wouldn't write a letter, would she? She would talk to Dr. Gomez.
AUNT BEE: It sure sounds like her.
CRAZY GLUE: She knows you're Mouse! She wrote it because she knows you're Mouse.
No. She couldn't. No, it's a coincidence.
FBG WITH A MUSTACHE: She spent the night in your room. If she snooped, she might have found something, like the letter to the editor you printed.
Oh man.
CRAZY GLUE: And she's got a big mouth, like she says. By the time you get back to school, a whole mob could be after you. Still feel like you could stand up to anyone?
I stare at the letter a long time. It makes me feel tired. Now I don't know how to answer the letter. After a while I write:
Dear Tattletale:
Did you do the right thing? Not likely since your friend isn't your friend anymore. What makes you think you're always right about everything, anyway? And now you can't undo what you've done, so you and your friend have to live with that. How can you get your friend back? It's not up to you. Why do you think you should control this person and this person's fate? You're only half the friendship. Your friend either forgives you or not. Who are you to decide everything, anyway?
I stop. I shouldn't be doing this—writing these letters. I'm asking Shelby who does she think she is; well, who do I think I am? I can't give people advice. I'm not always right, either. Nobody should listen to me. Hell, I talk to voices in my head!
CRAZY GLUE: Maybe we're real.
AUNT BEE: Maybe we aren't just voices.
SEXY LADY: Come on over to our side, Jason.
FBG WITH A MUSTACHE: Life is easier over here. Don't you know that?
Shut up! Why are you guys turning against me?
SEXY LADY: We're for you, not against you. Don't I always remind you how hot you are?
Not lately. Anyway, I don't like this. I'm the one who's supposed to be in control. I'm in charge here.
CRAZY GLUE: Hey goob, don't you know anything? Characters always get out of control of their creators, just like real friends do.
I slam my laptop shut and jump up from my chair.
"Ready to go?"
I whip around and find Cap standing in my doorway. I'm so relieved to see a real live person.
"Yeah, yeah, sure. Let's go!"
I follow him out of the room, resisting the urge to grab hold of his hand.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I START TO PUT ON MY COAT, but Cap says, "Wait a minute—I think I have something that may be a bit warmer. It just might fit you."
I imagine another pea coat, but the real thing since Cap is retired from the navy and he has one on, but he reaches into the hall closet and pulls out a jacket with red and black squares on it. It looks like a woodsman's jacket.
"It's lined with Thinsulate, so it's thin but plenty warm," he says, offering me the coat.
I put it on as best as I can, what with my left arm still in a sling. The right side fits exactly, and I wonder which foster kid left it behind. It can't be Reed's; it's for somebody long and narrow, like me.
Cap helps me get the coat buttoned; then we step outside into the sunshine. I squint and look out across the lawn. It feels strange not to see the river in front of me, its color always changing to shades of gray and blue and green and brown. Instead, I see the snow-covered lawn and a puny snowman leaning drunkenly in its center. The brick walkway that divides the lawn in two is shoveled off, and as we walk toward the street, I hear the sound of our shoes crunching on the bits of salt scattered here and there. We step out into the road where the snow is melted. There are puddles I don't see until it's too late, and ice water seeps in through the crack in the sole of my shoe, soaking my sock.
"The Army-Navy Country Club is nearby. We'll walk there," Cap says.
I nod and stick my hand in the pocket of my new coat. I feel around for something left behind by the previous owner, but I don't find anything.
I take long strides to keep up with Cap, and five minutes later we come to a large parking lot. We head toward a brick building at the far end and pass by a row of snow-covered tennis courts.
"We've got swimming here, golf, tennis," Cap says. "While you're living with us, you can use these facilities. We'll sign you up for classes or lessons, if you'd like."
"Thank you," I say. "I think I'm just going to take it easy for now, though."
CRAZY GLUE: He's trying to bribe you.
Cap nods and we keep walking beyond the building, where the view opens up to parts of the golf course and a big, wide-open sky. Its vastness makes my chest expand and my back straighten. I feel I
need to walk taller just to try to fill all this space. It makes me wonder if there really is such a place as heaven, and that makes me think about my mom.
Cap breaks into my thoughts. "I heard about your mother," he says, like he's just read my mind. "I'm really saddened by your loss, and I'm sorry about your father, too. It's a tough break. But you know, I've learned there's really no use dwelling on what has happened in the past. Remember your mother with love, do the best you can for your father, and get on with your life. There's really nothing else you can do."
CRAZY GLUE: Except live it up with him at the club. What a weasel. Trying to make your dad look bad.
We keep walking, and the sun reflects off the fields of snow and shines in our faces. We both have to squint our eyes up really tight to see where we're going. As we walk, I listen to the squeak of Cap's leather shoes and the solid sound of his rugged soles striking the pavement. I squish along beside him.
A hawk takes wing from the top of a distant pine tree and Cap shades his eyes to watch. "You get back into school and get busy with your work and your friends, and you'll see, everything will fall into place again."
I don't say anything. I watch the hawk soar above us. I wish it would swoop down, grab me in its talons, and take me away—far away.
Cap stops walking, so I do, too. He takes a pair of eyeglasses out of his pocket. He puts them on, their wire frames making him look more like a professor than a naval officer, and points to the sky, squinting. "Look at that hawk, would you. Look at her soar. Now, that's beauty in motion." His face has this look of proud admiration—the same look I've seen on my mom, and I know that like me, like my mom and dad, too, he's a bird lover. I can tell just by his expression and the way that his hand, shading his eyes, looks almost like a salute.
