by Gillian Chan
“What’s wrong with that boy’s face? Why is it all twisted? It looks like it’s owie.” This was from a kid who looked about four, and was so frail that you could almost see through him, so thin that you felt that if it wasn’t for the metal IV pole attached to his arm he might float up into the air and drift away. His mother shushed him, trying not to look at me.
The kid was still staring.
“I had an accident.” I spared him the smile.
He looked like he wanted to ask more, but his mother, in a voice that was too cheery and too loud, suggested that they go and see if the foosball table was free now. He followed her down the corridor, his head craned around on the fragile stalk of his neck to watch me.
“Mike, where are they?” Luce flew out of the elevator, her face flushed with the cold. “Are you all right?” She leaned in to hug me. I couldn’t help it; I stepped back and her arms closed on empty air. I don’t do hugs.
“In there.” I pointed to the swing doors that led to the ward. I thought that she’d go inside straight away, but she stayed for a moment, looking at me.
“What?” It sounded ruder, more aggressive than I meant it to.
“You didn’t answer me.” She smiled and I remembered then why the kids all liked her. When she was talking to you, you felt that you were the only person who mattered to her.
“Yeah, I did.”
She still didn’t move, and her smile grew broader. “Yeah, you did, but only one of my questions. How are you? Chaz said that you got sick, too.”
“I just puked, is all. I’m okay now. They said it was probably shock.”
She patted my arm, tentatively, like I might shy away. “If you say so, Mike. Make sure that Chaz keeps an eye on you, okay?” With that, she went.
A minute later, Chaz was there, looking more serious than I was used to seeing him. “Let’s go. Luce left the van in the parking lot. If they let Jacob out tomorrow, I’ll come back for them then.”
The drive back to Medlar House was silent. I think Chaz knew that he would get nothing out of me. I hunched down in my seat. I couldn’t face thinking about what I’d seen and heard under the bleachers, not yet, not until Jacob was back. It was Paddy and maybe Matt who occupied my thoughts now. I just didn’t get why they’d go after Jacob like that. What was the point? I’m no saint, but if I hurt someone it’s for a reason: to let them know that they shouldn’t mess me around; to make a point, you might say; or to put someone in their place. It’s calculated, and there is never malice involved. Jacob didn’t do anything to anyone. The more I thought about it, the more I wondered what Matt’s role had been. He hadn’t been smirking like Paddy. I could believe that it gave Paddy some sort of sick pleasure to hurt a kid who was so defenseless. He was a shit. That’s all it was. A shit who needed to be dealt with. But Matt . . .
Not surprisingly, those two were not anywhere to be seen when we finally got back to Medlar House.
Chaz had surprised me by suddenly pulling into a small strip mall about ten minutes away from the home, parking in front of a dingy-looking Chinese restaurant.
“Dinner will be done when we get back, and I don’t feel like foraging for leftovers. They’ve managed without us this long, so another hour won’t make much difference.” Chaz turned and looked at me. His face looked drawn and tired in the harsh glare of a street lamp that shone in through the van’s window. “Come in if you want; if not, tell me what you want and I’ll get it to go.”
I went in with him. Mom never had the money for us to eat in restaurants, so I always got a kick out of eating out, even at a run-down joint like this one. Chaz was a man after my own heart, and went for quantity rather than quality. He ordered enough food for a family of four, and we ate it all. I wasn’t expecting him to question me further about Jacob, and he didn’t disappoint me.
At Medlar House my least favorite social worker, Bob, was sitting in the television room. He jumped up as we came in. “Oh, you’re back.”
I had a feeling that he really wanted to add “at last” to the end of that, but thought better of it.
I slouched over to a chair and sat down heavily. I wasn’t ready to go upstairs to my room just yet.
Bob gave me a look of barely concealed dislike. I grinned back at him, a big, shit-eating grin, until he broke off eye contact and turned to Chaz.
“Yeah.” Chaz sounded as tired as I felt. “We stopped to get something to eat. I knew dinner would be over. I hope you didn’t have any problems?”
Bob said, “Well, things weren’t exactly normal, and everyone was a bit tense, but I kept it all together.” He smiled then and looked expectantly at Chaz like a dog waiting for a pat on the head.
Chaz was moving around the room restlessly. “So, no problems at all?” There was a slight hint of disbelief in his voice.
“Depends what you mean by a problem.” Bob’s laugh was too hearty for my liking. “That little kid, Adam. He came to me crying, got all hysterical about how he was frightened to be in his room. God, he’s a lot to take at the best of times, but when he’s crying . . .”
Chaz cut him off, his voice sharp. “Did you go check out his room?”
“Of course I did.” Bob bristled. “There was nothing there. His roommate was asleep. In fact, my going in woke him up. Then I had two of them to deal with.”
Shit, I had completely forgotten about Adam. I didn’t like the sound of that at all.
“So, what did you do?” Chaz was more alert now, his tiredness fading.
“Oh, I just told him to knock it off and get back into bed. If you ask me, it’s mostly attention-seeking on his part. He’s used to being the center of attention; you remember about his demented mother.”
“Geez, I guess you are just Mr. Compassion.” Chaz kept his tone light, but his disgust was obvious.
“Hey!” Bob was working himself up to be angry. “I do my best even if I’m not a saintly daddy-figure like you.”
“Ah, sorry, sorry.” Chaz waved a hand. “It’s been a long and strange day. I’m tired, and I’m sure it was probably nothing that got Adam worked up. I’ll take it from here.”
You could see that the other guy expected more, but he was shit out of luck. He hovered around for a few seconds then started to drift toward the door.
Turning to me, Chaz said, “You’d better get some rest, Mike. I’m going to write up some notes on what happened, then I’ll hit the sack, too.”
He stared hard at me then. “Are you sure you don’t have any idea who did this to Jacob?”
I shook my head. It was tempting to come clean because it meant that we would keep talking, and it had just hit me like a tidal wave that the last thing I wanted was to be alone, especially in the room that I shared with Jacob.
Chapter Seven
It was dumb. I took my time in the bathroom, making sure that I kept the taps running, that I splashed noisily as I washed—anything to fill the room with sound. I kept looking around—I had this sense that someone was watching me—but there was no one. But I couldn’t do that forever, and I started to sweat again as I forced myself to walk down the silent corridor and into our room.
Nothing.
It was just an empty room, barer than most. The only reason you would know that it was even occupied was that I’d left a bunched-up T-shirt on the dresser top. I hesitated in the doorway, sniffing like a dog.
I took my time getting ready for bed, again making a point to be noisy. The silence bothered me: I kept thinking that at any moment I might hear voices start up, the voices I had heard when I found Jacob under the bleachers. I had never heard anything like that before. The voices were quiet but they filled the space eerily. Some sounded like sobs, others were hisses—all of them freaked me the fuck out. It was stupid, I know: it was Jacob who could speak to the dead, not me. With him not here, I had nothing to fear. But I couldn’t help it. I got this pi
cture in my head of the room being filled with unseen presences. I tried reading, but that was a no-go. I couldn’t concentrate worth a damn. I gave up eventually and switched off my bedside light. I didn’t fall asleep, though, just lay there.
Then I really did hear something and was instantly hyperalert, sitting bolt upright trying to pinpoint what it was and where it was coming from. When I switched on the light, the room was empty.
The noise was a rustling, scratching sound and seemed to be coming from the closet. My heart was racing and I could feel clammy sweat forming on my forehead. I tried telling myself that it was just mice, or maybe a squirrel in the attic above. Medlar House was old; it could have been. The noise kept on: if anything it was getting louder, like something was trapped in there and struggling to get out.
I couldn’t take it anymore, so I launched myself off the bed and flung open the closet door. Jacob and I didn’t have much in the way of clothing, but I could see that most of it was off the hangers and covering a struggling, writhing lump on the closet floor. My windbreaker was on top. My hand trembled when I reached down to pull it off.
Adam blinked up at me, looking for all the world like a small rat in a nest of clothes.
I grabbed his arm and hauled him up.
“What the fuck are you doing here? You scared me shitless.”
He was shaking and that made me feel bad. I tried to keep the anger and shock at bay and pushed him down so he was sitting on Jacob’s bed, facing me.
“Why are you here?”
Adam twisted his fingers together and kept his eyes fixed on the floor. “I was scared,” he stuttered in little more than a whisper. “Mr. Mazzone wasn’t here, and you were gone, too . . .” He snuck a look up at me. “The other man wouldn’t listen to me when I told him. He said I was making it up just to get attention. I wasn’t. I swear.”
I can’t say I felt much more sympathetic than Bob had been. He was right. Adam was a hot mess with swollen eyes and blotchy skin. “Look, it’s been a tough day for me,” I said. “An even tougher one for Jacob, for God’s sake. What the hell have you got to make a fuss and cry about?”
Shit, at this Adam started to snivel even more. “I know. Miss Evans told us before she left what had happened. Then the others, the big boys, they were talking about how Jacob had got beaten up so badly that he was in the hospital.” He looked directly at me. “I heard Paddy laughing about it, saying something about how it had been a piece of cake to find the retard.”
The swell of anger I was feeling switched its focus from Adam to Paddy. I had guessed that Paddy was behind the attack on Jacob. I fought down the urge to drag that scumbag out of bed and beat seven kinds of shit out of him. I had to be patient. It would be better to bide my time.
Adam watched me closely, his body tense. “His friend, Matt, told him to stop. That it wasn’t funny. That they shouldn’t have done it, that he wished he hadn’t let himself be talked into it, even just being a lookout.”
Now that I found interesting. I had sensed that Matt was trying to distance himself from Paddy, and Adam’s words seemed to confirm that. I was pretty certain that I could work on Matt and get the full story of what had happened. I didn’t really need the why. From everything I’d seen of Paddy, he got off on hurting people.
I must have smiled then because the tension left Adam’s body. He sagged a little.
“Why did you come in here? What did you do, wait until your roommate was asleep and sneak in here?”
Adam’s face crumpled. “Paddy saw that I heard him. He hit me.”
When I looked more closely at the poor little bugger I could see that one eye was slightly swollen, and that he would probably have quite a shiner tomorrow, one he would no doubt explain away as being due to his own clumsiness.
“Is that why you went to Bob? Why didn’t you tell him? Did Paddy come into your room?”
“No.” Adam was shaking a little at the memory. “I went to the bathroom and he was there, too. He told me that he’d get me if I told. And he will, I know he will.” Adam’s fear was genuine. “You look out for Jacob, so maybe you can look out for me, too?” By the way he asked, I could tell that his question was born of hope, but a hope that he thought was small.
Shit, I thought to myself, the way I acted with Jacob must have given Adam the impression that I was someone who would protect him. I sighed.
Adam piped up. “I came to tell you. I didn’t have to . . .”
He was right, of course. If I did anything to Paddy, that bastard would go straight after Adam, knowing that he had told me what he’d overheard. I sighed again, feeling that I was no longer in control. It was a feeling I didn’t like one bit.
Adam’s eyes were glistening with tears.
“Yeah, all right.” The words didn’t come out easily. “I’ll make sure that Paddy stays away from you—when I can, that is.”
Adam’s smile was huge. He threw himself at me, wrapping me in a hug. It was all I could do not to shove him away, hard. “Go easy,” I grunted as I wriggled out of his grip.
“So, I can stay here tonight? Sleep in Jacob’s bed?”
Now that was too much. “No! You go back to your own room now.” It came out a bit harsher than I intended, but it didn’t seem to dampen his joy. “I’ll watch until you go inside, and then tomorrow, we’ll see how it goes, okay?”
Adam nodded and I watched him creep theatrically down the corridor until he reached the door of his room. He stopped there, turned around, waved, and grinned at me. It was the grin that did it—pure happiness, just the way Jon used to smile when something pleased him.
I shook my head. I was getting soft. Being soft was dangerous.
I didn’t think that sleep was going to come easily. Too much had happened, and now there was the whole problem of Adam to factor into the mess. As soon as I lay down, however, I fell asleep—a deep and dreamless sleep that only dissolved when I heard the banging of the gong for breakfast. It was weird to wake up to an empty room. Jacob was usually silent, sure, but I hadn’t realized how aware I typically was of his presence. There was a timid scratch on the door and when I opened it, there was Adam. His eye was now definitely boasting a shiner, blue, black, and purple bruises flourishing around it. He didn’t say anything, just gave me a small grin and followed me to the bathroom, then walked down the stairs at my side. In the dining room, Chaz was already seated in his normal place at the bottom of the table, an empty place on either side of him as usual. Paddy was in his usual seat in the middle of the table—as far from Chaz as possible so he could carry out his petty villainy without too much scrutiny. To send him a message, I walked Adam up to his place near the top of the table, and as I passed Paddy, I faked a stumble and managed to elbow him hard just behind the ear. I was hoping that he would screech and make a fuss, but he was too clever for that. He didn’t give any indication that anything had happened, though I could tell from my own aching elbow that it must have hurt like a bitch. Adam flinched at this but made sure that his face remained expressionless as he sat down next to where usually Lucy was. Today, Bob was sitting there, and the bastard didn’t even comment on the fact that Adam now had a black eye.
Chaz looked weary: his face gray, his eyes baggy and red-rimmed. I didn’t have to ask about how Jacob was; Chaz was talking even before I had slumped into my chair.
“Luce called about an hour ago. They’re keeping Jacob one more night. I’ll go visit them, maybe spell off Luce awhile. No!” He raised a hand, palm facing me, as I opened my mouth to speak. “You can’t come. Go to school.” He kept the hand raised. “If it makes you feel any better, you can play detective. Try and find out anything you can about what happened yesterday . . .” His sigh was resigned. “The principal will make all the right noises, but he’ll be playing a waiting game, waiting for the fuss to die down. He could not care less who beat up the weird kid from the group home.”
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nbsp; After that there was nothing more from Chaz except brief commands. His mood infected us all and, without Jacob there to be the punching bag, we got into the minivan silently and without the usual shoving and pushing. Well, almost. Paddy, coming on last, managed to swing his backpack onto his shoulder just as he passed me, the edge of a folder inside clipping me just above my eye. He smirked.
Playing detective was a joke. At the best of times I tried to have as little contact with others as I could, so it was hardly as though anyone was likely to open up and start talking to me. Oh yes, I got a subtle feeling that everyone was on their guard, but I heard nothing except some losers saying that whoever had beaten up Jacob was righteous because, after all, he was a weird little shit who gave them the creeps. You’d have thought that both Paddy and Matt would have been the dictionary definition of low profile, but no. Today, Paddy was getting in my face as much as he could. As I’ve said, he was in most of the honors classes with me, and he took to giving me a little nod and slight smile whenever he caught me looking at him. My irritation simmered. Matt, though, I hardly saw at all that day. Normally he waited outside the English classroom for Paddy at lunchtime, but today he was definitely missing in action.
The day was one huge drag. I could barely concentrate in class, staying just attentive enough that no one would call me on it, but my brain was bubbling like a stew.
I needed to be there for Jacob and now, fuck me, for Adam. That meant that I couldn’t risk openly retaliating against Paddy and Matt. I had to be a good boy. If I did anything wrong, got physical with them, I could see myself being carted off to some young offenders’ shithole. The annoying thing was that Paddy was smart enough to know that, and I’m sure that made it all the sweeter for that bastard. Even though it made me sick to my stomach to let it go for now, I had no choice. The only thing I could think of doing was to try and find out more about Jacob, perhaps track down some relatives so that they could at least get him out of Medlar House and to a place where he wouldn’t be everyone’s whipping boy.
