by Troy Hooker
It wasn’t that Sam wasn’t grateful she raised him; it was only that she seemed bipolar at times. One minute she praised him for everything, the next minute she talked about how he would never amount to anything. He overheard her one day saying that he was going to become just a “bum pushing a grocery cart.” He figured it boiled down to something missing in either her marriage or her life, perhaps a lack of purpose, or maybe she didn’t know much about parenting. Whatever it was, most days Sam didn’t want anything to do with her.
Phillip rarely stood up for himself when she went on one of her rampages. Apparently he had learned from past attempts. Sam guessed it was from exhaustion rather than fear. He wasn’t particularly mean or violent, although Sam could see the possibility for both. At forty-nine, Phillip was a tall and beefy man, and never dressed in anything other than a black suit. He chose to spend his time working away from home, many nights choosing to stay at the office in Lansing, no doubt to avoid his wife and her cackling friends. When he was at home, he was buried in a newspaper or locking himself in his office for hours on end.
Sam remembered glancing back at them standing in the station as they watched him leave. He said nothing—just did his best to stare at the train seat ahead of him. For a moment, he thought he could see Silvia reach a hand up to wipe a tear away, but he was too far away from the station platform to tell. Either way, it didn’t matter now … whoever or whatever they were to him was no more. It was time to move on.
A new life in a backward town.
***********************
Sam slunk down in his chair in an attempt to avoid the teacher’s line of sight. He sat nervously, fidgeting—waiting for his chance. From the back row, he could not see the teacher and she could not see him, especially in the dark classroom.
Sam looked around him at the other students in the class—some were intent on the epically boring The Building of the Mackinac Bridge, some were trying their best in the dark to squint their way through another vampire book, and the entirety of row four was passing notes to each other, giggling like junior high girls around some new guy from Iron Mountain. Most of the class, however, was sound asleep at their desks, thanks to the teacher’s inobservance and the lack of light. The school’s famous bully, Timothy Becker (otherwise known as “Bush” because of his curly blondish-brown hair that extended outward to form an uncanny likeness to shrubbery), was hanging half out of his chair with a string of drool that was well on its way to forming a puddle on the floor. Sam could see it glistening from the light of the projector screen. It was enough to make anyone’s stomach turn.
Satisfied no one could see him, Sam slipped out of his chair and began to slink toward the half-open door of the classroom. For a moment, the girl in the second row seemed to notice the movement and glanced back, causing him to stop suddenly for a moment. She was the girl that almost always had her fire-red hair pulled back in a ponytail, and she was very pretty. Sam only knew her name, Emma, and she always seemed to be hanging around the chubby curly-headed boy that everyone called “Grimace” behind his back.
He was almost halfway to the door before he remembered his backpack and book at his desk. Cursing himself for his forgetfulness, Sam snuck back to the desk in the dark and snatched up his backpack and his Geography and Culture textbook, and again headed for the door. Still the red-haired girl watched him, but made no attempt to announce his escape.
Unknown to him, however, Sam’s backpack strap had somehow become lodged in the legs of his desk during class, and as he slunk toward the door once more, the desk attempted to follow him, making a hideous screeching noise across the unwaxed tile floor. Sam tried to free the strap by tugging his backpack from side to side, but with every tug, the desk screeched even more loudly. SCREECH! the desk went, and Sam’s heart began to pound.
SCREE! Sam pulled again, trying to dislodge his backpack from its captor. Sam glanced over at the teacher’s desk, but she was engrossed with the video and did not seem to notice him. Other than Emma, who was now tensing her neck and shoulders with each irritating screech, no one else figured out what was going on. He knew his window of opportunity would soon be closing, and his chances of getting caught were increasing with every horrible scrape of the desk.
Instead of trying to fiddle with where the strap was attached to the desk in the dark, Sam decided he would give one last tug before giving up the whole idea of skipping out early. He breathed deeply to slow down his racing heart, and then gave one great yank on the strap in a desperate effort to loosen it.
SCREEEEEECH! went the leashed desk across the floor.
The noise was so loud that Bush, the puddle of drool now at his feet, woke suddenly and pitched forward, taking his desk with him. His fall created a sudden domino effect, forcing the thin, well-dressed girl in front of him to jump suddenly out of her chair, which also startled two more sleeping boys, making one of them spill his books all over the floor. Jenny (Sam had heard her name because everyone was afraid of her), who sat in front of the two sleeping boys and was hit in the back by a falling book, stood and became instantly furious—demanding to know who created the nightmare that interrupted the video.
The ninth-grade geography teacher, Miss Karpatch, snapped out of her educational coma and hurried over to a light switch near the door to turn on the lights. Sam, who was still holding onto his leashed backpack, could not move in time before the flustered teacher caught the edge of his shoe and pitched head over onto the floor. She screamed as she went down, sounding much like the desk on the tile floor.
Sam quickly slinked back to his desk in the dark while Miss Karpatch stood and gathered herself from the fall and flicked on the lights.
Her face was beet red, and she was taking on the ominous signs of a nuclear meltdown. She had great patience, that woman did, but even she had her limits. The only other time Sam had seen her lose her temper was when she had caught Bush pushing around one of the new kids from Iron Mountain the first week of school. She had grabbed Bush by a clump of hair and dragged him down to the school office. He was given a week suspension, but rumor had it that Miss Karpatch had given the principal an earful when he tried to tell her she couldn’t physically handle the students.
But Sam wasn’t particularly worried about Miss Karpatch or the consequences; this wasn’t the first time he had skipped. He was a professional skipper at his old school, and worst he had ever had to endure was detention once for an hour on Thursday. No, Sam was more worried about Bush, and what medieval method of torture he would use on him later for interrupting his nap during class.
Bush wasn’t an ordinary boy, but a bully with the worst kind of chip on his shoulder. Most of the older teachers had pretty much given up on him, and there was a rumor that he had singlehandedly driven two of the newer teachers out of teaching for good with his classroom demeanor.
For some reason, Bush seemed to take an interest in Sam. Maybe it was that Sam was new, or that he kept to himself and didn’t talk much. Whatever it was, he was Bush’s target most weekdays when class let out—pushing him into the lockers demanding money and sneaking in a few punches if Sam didn’t have any.
One day Bush discovered Sam alone in the locker room after gym class. Bush called him “pretty boy” and then he shoved his nose to the locker room floor when Sam called him an “overgrown hillbilly” under his breath. With Sam’s nose bloodied, Bush then pushed him into the showers and turned on the cold water.
Telling on him would have been useless—it would most certainly draw attention to the problem even more, leading to more beatings and ruthless taunting. Teachers and administrators seemed clueless or had their hands tied, unable to intervene from fear of lawsuits. Staying under the radar seemed like a better idea, but he had blown that now. Not only was Miss Karpatch about to explode, but now Bush was being laughed at for the small pond he had dribbled onto the floor.
Miss Karpatch surveyed the destruction around
the room. She centered her gaze finally on Sam and found the target of her meltdown.
“Sam,” she withheld her rage. “See me in the hallway,” she paused again, “now.” Her voice squeaked a bit.
And then, as if the whole thing were planned, the bell rang and the whole class exploded into the normal chaos of changing classes. The only one lingering behind was Bush, who finally made his way over to Sam with an “it’s open season on Sam” look on his face.
Finally, the only ones in the room were Sam, Miss Karpatch, and the Mackinaw Bridge, which was still being constructed on the screen.
“Sit,” Miss Karpatch insisted after motioning Sam over to her desk. She didn’t wait for him, but just sort of plopped down in her chair and began to rub her knuckles on her temples. Sam thought he heard her whisper something under her breath.
“I’m sorry,” Sam half whispered. “It won’t happen again.”
Miss Karpatch looked up, forcing a smile to her lips. Her long brown hair had dropped out of its bun and was falling into her face.
“Sam, your grades are slipping, and it’s the beginning of the year. You are failing geography, and your general lack of consideration for the rules is going to get you in serious trouble …” she said bluntly. “But that’s not what ticks me off the most. You have such unrealized talent, and yet you don’t seem to care.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.” Sam didn’t look up, but he could tell she was looking at him.
“You show an aptitude for history—for academics in general, and yet you blow it off like it’s not even important.” Her voice squeaked again as she threw her hands up, saying, “You show such potential—”
“Yeah I know. Don’t remind me,” Sam cut her off.
The frustrated teacher bit her lip.
“I am going to recommend a two week suspension to the administration—”
“Oh come on! You can’t be serious! I was just trying to get out and get some fresh air! I was going to come right back in—”
“Give it up Sam,” she breathed. “You were skipping again.”
Sam said nothing. He just scowled at the young teacher sitting across from him. She gazed deeper into his eyes, which forced him to look away.
“You really need to focus on what’s at hand, Sam, and …” she sighed as her expression changed, “you know you can always talk to me about what happened with your parents.”
“Foster parents. And don’t talk about them like you know them. You read my file and now you think you know me? You have no right—”
“Do you think I am afraid of your threats?” she leveled her gaze. “Come on, Sam. At some point you have to talk to someone. You can’t just live a lonely existence because you’re ticked off at the world.”
Sam reflected to himself. Lonely? Ticked off at the world? What would she possibly know about that? He was really tired of people trying to get him to talk. He was not crazy, or in need of someone to “talk” to. Save it for the psychos that needed it … the ones with real issues.
Even still, they had no idea what it was like not to know your real parents—and to know that your fake parents dumped you on someone else because they were more concerned with traveling than raising a kid. Miss Karpatch was just another one of them, someone who pretends to care but all they want is to make themselves feel better by asking. Come to think of it, maybe she did know something about being alone. She was single. Perhaps she scared all eligible men off with her obsessive digging.
He didn’t say anything more to her, only picked up his backpack and stiffly walked out of the room, certain that he could feel her eyes on him. Skipping the next class would be a breeze. Mr. Adrian spent the whole time showing videos and rarely took attendance. It was as if God was actually giving him a reason to skip class.
“Sam,” she called quietly after him. “I am here if you change your mind. Everyone needs a friend … or a few …”
“Go grade some papers or something,” Sam said under his breath, but not really caring whether she heard him or not.
As if fate was laughing at him, Sam found Bush waiting for him after school on the path that Sam took back to his grandfather’s house. Luckily, Bush hadn’t seen him yet and Sam was able to skirt around the main path out of sight of the bully. He knew the delay was only temporary—not only did he have the frame of an elephant but he had a memory like one too.
That night, after his chores around the cabin and a quiet dinner of beef stew and biscuits, Sam mouthed an inaudible goodnight to his grandfather and slipped into his room to read.
He pulled on his flannel pajama pants and a t-shirt and slunk down in the pillows of the log bed. The room was small, but it was especially warm from being adjacent to the fireplace, and strangely enough, he had even come to like the bearskin rug and rocking chair in the corner. It was as if he lived in a ski lodge, complete with snowshoes nailed to the wall.
Snatching up his third book in the series War Walking, he half-heartedly turned the pages, still distracted from the encounter with Miss Karpatch. It was just skipping class … it wasn’t like he called in a bomb threat or something. He knew of others in class who were outright cheating, smoking weed in the woods behind school … but yet, she seemed to have picked him out for special attention.
The next day started the weekend, and it couldn’t come soon enough. As Sam drifted off to sleep, he did what he did best—buried all of the problems from the week: Bush, Miss Karpatch, his foster parents, the odd people of White Pine—and let his mind drift away.
He stared at the dark cloud that spread throughout the sky and valley surrounding him. It was thick like soup, and he could hear it whispering something at him, it’s mouth only a moving mass of smoke-like lips. It seemed to be speaking something to him, but it was inaudible.
Then it spoke again.
Malak Eben, the voice whispered.
Then, suddenly, he was running from the cloud and through the Darkness, the cold wind chilling him to the bone. There was a flash, and a bright white light covered him as he lay in the cold weeds. He could see a dark stone arch against the black horizon, and dark fluid shapes were amassing within its interior. A cloaked person thrust something into the leg of the arch, a stone that glowed brightly of four colors. Suddenly the shapes began pouring out of the entrance and gathering above him. He could not move, he could not speak—all he could do was stare at the dark figures as they swirled closer …
Malak Eben …
***********************
“Sam! SAM!”
Sam opened his eyes to see his grandfather Amos standing over him. He was still in his red flannel pajama bottoms and white t-shirt, and his neatly combed white hair had the ruffled look that only a pillow could create. The remains of the fire were glowing softly from the living room, but Sam could not feel its heat. He was still cold from the vividness of the dream.
“You were dreaming again,” Amos put a hand on his forehead. “You were screaming.”
“No—I—I’m not sure what it was about,” Sam lied, rubbing the grogginess from his eyes. But he did know the dream. In fact, this was the third time he had woken up this way since moving to White Pine.
“Sam,” Amos said, stopping to clear his throat. His voice was low and hushed. “I want you to know …” then he stopped, choosing not to finish the sentence. “I will make you some tea. A cup or two always chases away the night demons.” And he turned and left the room.
Soon the fire in the little living room was blazing again and the teapot began a low whistle. Sam accepted his cup of tea and sat as close to the fire as he could. The steam rose from the white mug thickly, and he tasted the strong liquid carefully while he stared at the crackling fire. It was good tea, as sweet and nearly as strong as the coffee Amos made, and he could feel the tension leaving him with every sip.
Amos sat down in the old creaking rocking chair
next to him and sipped his tea silently while he rocked. Except for his white hair, Amos looked too young to be a grandfather. He was strong, and his face showed little signs of wrinkling or aging in the firelight.
Since his arrival, Sam and his grandfather hadn’t really talked much, and when they did, it was about the weather, chores, or what was for dinner. Amos was rarely much more than quiet at best, but one could tell he wasn’t weak by his voice. When he spoke, Sam thought the whole cabin rumbled just a bit. He wasn’t mean, but he did seem to be concerned with where and when Sam went. Sam was rarely allowed out of the cabin after dark, and when he was, it was to get firewood or close the barn door.
When he had arrived at the station in White Pine, Amos was standing on the platform of the tiny station, much like the scene when his foster parents had left him. He wasn’t told what Amos looked like, but it didn’t matter because he recognized him right away. He was average height but dark from the sun, and he was carrying a bag, which he handed to Sam when he walked down the steps of the train car.
“You will be needing some different clothes,” he had said awkwardly. In the bag his grandfather gave him oddly while still at the station, Sam found two new pairs of blue jeans and three t-shirts—blue, green, and black. Also in the bag were two dark blue flannel shirts with thick inner linings, and a blue sweatshirt. “These will keep you until winter starts.”
For as long as he could remember, Sam had only worn jeans outside the house twice in his life—once when he volunteered at a horse ranch, and another time when his friend let him borrow a pair when he stayed over. His foster mother did not believe in jeans, and Sam was made to wear khakis or a suit wherever he went. School had a uniform as well, so when he wasn’t in pajamas, he was always dressed up.
