by Rowe, Brian
“Cameron, part of the reason I decided to become a nurse was to work part-time, so I could concentrate more on my writing. I thought I was going to concentrate on fiction, but I decided last summer to work on a non-fiction project.”
I waited for a point to come across. “What?”
“My book is about you, Cameron. And I wondered if you had some time in the next few weeks to do an interview.”
I did not just hear her correctly. “Come again?”
“I’ve already talked to your friend Wesley a few times, plus Mrs. Gordon, Mr. Welch… let’s see… I got a hold of your girlfriend Charisma, but she didn’t say much… your pal Ryan… I talked to your dad…”
“You talked to my dad?”
“Yes. Your mom doesn’t want to talk to me, nor does your sister, who I’ve cornered many times, I must admit—”
I stood up, my heart racing faster by the second. I was confused, embarrassed, and humiliated, all at the same time.
“You’ve been doing all this behind my back, Mrs. Newt?”
She shook her head and smiled. “I told you to call me Nurse.”
“How about I call you a lying sack of shit?”
Her mouth went wide. “Cameron…”
“You’re no different than all the rest. You just want to make a quick buck off my crazy problems? Screw you, lady!”
“Cameron!” She stood up and blocked me from the door. If I had been six-one, I might’ve been able to push past her. But at five-five, I had no such luck.
“I need to see my sister,” I said.
“Cameron, I am here to help you. I am not doing this for a quick buck. I got to know you for two years when you went to this school, and I’m telling you now, I’m doing this because the world has to hear your story…”
“I’ve heard that shit before. You’re lying!”
“I’m not!”
I felt bad pushing her away, but I had to make an effort. I needed to get out of this claustrophobic room, and away from this greedy woman.
“I expected more from you,” I said. “I thought you were one of the good ones, Mrs. Newt.”
“Cameron…”
I opened the door and turned to her one more time. “Hey, at least you have more material now, right? The boy who aged into his eighties… now a year later starts aging backward…” I sighed and shook my head. “It’ll make a hell of a sequel.”
I slammed the door and raced out into the parking lot, across the street, all the way to my car. I got inside, curled up into a ball, and waited for the tears to drop. They didn’t. I just stared out the windshield, angry, trying to make sense of what happened.
First, Wesley. Now, Mrs. Newt. What’s next? Is Steven Spielberg gonna come knocking on my door to ask if he can turn my story into a big summer blockbuster?
I shrugged. I decided I didn’t so much mind the Spielberg scenario.
The bell rang around noon, and I watched from my car as hundreds of students flooded the outdoor corridors of the school to take their lunch breaks. It was time to find Kimber. It was time to reveal to her what I was going through.
Before Mrs. Newt does, that is.
I opened the car door and stepped into the blinding sunlight, still shaking with disorientation from just how low to the ground I was. I didn’t feel like I was getting shorter. I felt like I was slowly morphing into an animal, and that by the weekend I’d be down on all fours, and a whole lot hairier.
I decided to walk around for a few minutes, scoping the school grounds in hopes that I would see Kimber eating lunch with her friends. But I walked a full 360 around the school and didn’t see her anywhere. Does she even go to this school? I made my way to the right side of the building and entered a long hallway. This was the one stretch of the school I hadn’t visited yet.
A few students and teachers were walking up and down the halls, but not too many. I thought it was funny that nobody was paying attention to me. Here I was, a guy who looked like a seventh or eighth grader, roaming the halls of a school he wasn’t enrolled in, and nobody even seemed to notice.
I just have to avoid the main evil trio—Priss, Newt, and Gordon’s demon child.
I still couldn’t believe Mrs. Newt. She seemed so on top of everything I’d been through in the last year that I wouldn’t have been surprised if she knew Liesel was a witch, too; hell, it wouldn’t surprise me if she were the culprit behind Liesel’s disappearance.
Maybe she is really trying to write a sequel to her book, trying to fake drama so that she can get a major publishing deal. Maybe she’ll write a third book, too, and make it a goddamn trilogy!
“You’re new here, aren’t you?” a girl asked, standing on the left side of two others who I assumed were her friends, or maybe her subordinates.
“Uhh… yeah…”
“You’re cute,” one of the other girls said.
“Thanks.” I took the compliment, even though at eighteen years old I knew looking at these girls below the neck was a major no-no. “Would any of you happen to know Kimber Martin?”
“Kimber?” the girl in the center said. “We call her Kimmie.”
“Uhh… whatever.”
“Actually, some of us call her Kim. But she prefers Kimmie. None of us know why. You looking for her?”
“Yes. Do you know if she’s inside or outside—”
“She’s definitely inside,” the girl to the left said. She laughed and her friends joined in. I was dumbfounded.
“Can you tell me where she is?”
“He’ll do,” the girl in the center said. It was hard telling them apart. All three had blonde hair, wore the same clothes, and stood about the same height. They were indistinguishable from each other.
“I’ll do… what?”
“Come here.”
I just stared at her. “Huh?”
“You wanna know where Kimmie… err, Kimber… is, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Come here!” The girl in the center, the one with the clearest skin of the three—I figured they argued about their complexions constantly amongst themselves—motioned for me with her index finger to come toward her.
I decided to comply. I took a few steps forward, ready to be swallowed by perfume overload.
“Come here,” she said again, and her friends looked on with giant grins on their faces.
This is where it ends, I thought. It all ends with this blonde chick swallowing me whole and spitting my skeleton back out.
I stepped even closer, all the way up to her face, ready to kiss, lick, or fondle her puffy cheeks.
She brought her mouth up to my ear. I prayed she wouldn’t stick her tongue in it. “Seven minutes,” she said softly. Then she shouted, “ENJOY!”
Before I knew what was happening, I watched as the girl on the left opened a miniscule closet door to the right of me, and the other two girls pushed me inside, closing the door behind me. I was suddenly in total blackness, completely blind. I started banging on the closet door.
“Hey! Let me out!”
I heard the girls giggling outside, but it was faint.
“Open the door! Now!”
I pounded on the door five more times, but then I stopped. I had to keep myself from screaming.
I felt the warm touch of a body behind me.
“What the…”
“Shhh…” was all I heard before I felt two hands touch my shoulders.
I frantically tried to find a light switch, but all I could feel were boxes and tools on the left side of the closet. My fingers touched a shovel. I figured, worst case scenario, I could hit this mystery girl over the head with it.
“I don’t know what—” I started.
I felt one of the girl’s fingers brush against my lips. “We have seven minutes,” she whispered. “Let’s make them count.”
The girl kissed me, hard, on the lips, her whole body tilted against mine. My back slammed against the door, and I tried to push her away. I couldn’t. She was too strong.
“Hey… what…”
“Shhh,” she said again, kissing my cheeks as I fell to the hardwood floor, the back of my head smashing against the shovel.
“Stop,” I said. “Stop!” I brought my hands back and grasped the shovel.
“You little pussy,” the girl said. “What wuss did those girls stick me with this time?”
“Oh… Oh God…” Oh no. No no no.
“I’m gonna kick your scrawny ass, if it’s the last thing I do,” she said.
I pulled the shovel out from behind me, all the way up to my lap. I wasn’t sure who I wanted to use it on—me, or my sister!
Kimber turned the dim light on in the closet and stared down at me. She didn’t recognize who I was at first. “You see, the whole point of this game is to have a few minutes of fun, not to freak out and whine and—”
“Kimber…”
“Call me Kimmie… are you new here, or…?”
I just shook my head. I could see lipstick smeared all over my sister’s face. I could feel the puke racing up my throat.
First my mom. Then Mrs. Gordon. Now my sister! Who’s my next make-out session gonna be with? My damn dog?
“Are you all right? You look like you’re gonna be sick—”
She reached her hand out. And then she started screaming.
I screamed right along with her.
“Cameron?”
“Don’t hurt me!” I shouted back, using the shovel to shield my face from hers.
“Cameron? What are you doing here?”
“I should ask you the same thing,” I said softly, swallowing as fast as possible to keep the vomit down.
“And why do you look like… like…”
“…I’m your age?” I said, finishing her sentence.
She brought her hands to her mouth. “Oh God… Oh God, we kissed. We were just kissing. Oh God…”
“I know…”
“I stuck my tongue in your mouth!” Kimber turned to her right and spewed all over the cabinets on the right side of the closet, the chunky yellow vomit, mixed with the putrid, head-spinning stench, causing me to lose control of my body, too.
“Oh God…” I said before puking straight up at my sister, my vomit splashing against her legs and shoes.
“Oh no… Oh Cam…” She turned to me, both her arms covering her stomach in pain, as she projectile vomited up at the shelves above me, the puke flying over my head, landing on a ledge behind me.
But the worst was yet to come. I looked up to see her vomit start dripping down to the top of my head.
“No… this isn’t happening…” I said.
Kimber just started shaking her head, holding her hand over her mouth, trying not to upchuck again, as she opened the door and started running down the hallway, past her three friends, who were standing in front of the closet nonchalantly.
The three girls took a step forward and looked inside to see the nasty yellow carnage.
“Oh my God!” the center girl shouted. “Run the other way!”
They sprinted down the hallway in the same direction as Kimber, and I was left all by lonesome in the gross, pitch-black closet.
“This… this didn’t… go… the way… I planned…”
I threw up one more time, this time on my lap, before I hoisted the shovel up and slammed it down against my head. I was knocked unconscious instantly with one painful, perfect blow.
---
“Cameron… Cam…”
I felt a hand slap my cheeks way too hard to suggest it might be Mrs. Newt, or another student at Mope Middle School I didn’t know. I knew this had to be my sister.
I blinked and looked to my left. I was sitting in the deserted track field toward the back of the school. Kimber leaned over me but rose to her feet when she realized I was waking up.
I felt woozy, but, thankfully, not nauseous. I sat up and brought my hands to the top of my head. I looked down to see my clothes virtually spotless, as if Kimber had spent an hour or two rubbing all the vomit out.
“You’ll be OK,” she said. “You didn’t hit it that hard.”
“How would you know?”
She didn’t answer my question. Instead she asked, “Cam, what’s going on with you?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said, attempting to stand up so I could face her, but I didn’t have the energy yet. “If anyone’s going to be asking questions right now, it’s me, missy. You have lots of explaining to do.”
“I have a lot of explaining to do? Cameron, you’ve shrunk nearly a foot!”
“I… I know.”
“You look as young as I do!”
“I know!”
“So, again I stress…” she said. “What. The hell. Is going on.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Is it happening again?”
I didn’t want to lie. “Yes.”
She shook her head and started crying. I was surprised it took her this long. She turned away from me and started weeping into her hands.
“What were you doing in that closet, Kimber?” I asked, changing the subject. “You’re fourteen years old. What the hell were you doing in there waiting for some guy to come inside and have his way with you?”
She brought her hands to her hips and started smiling through her tears. “You really want to get into this now?”
“Yes.”
“Cam, are you dying? Again?”
“No, Kimber, I’m not dying.”
“You almost died last year. I can’t take this again. I can’t!”
“Don’t worry. I know what to do now. Will you please just answer my question?”
“You’re aging backward now?”
The two of us were on completely different wavelengths. I didn’t know how I was going to get her to calm down. “Kimber…”
“Do Mom and Dad know?”
“Kimber, I—”
“Oh my God, if you’re aging backward, that means…”
“I’m going to be OK—”
“That means we have less time than before!”
I finally jumped up to my feet and pulled Kimber close to me, slamming her forehead against the side of my chin. “Kimber! Listen to me!”
“What?”
“Listen to me! I’m going to be OK!”
“How do you know?”
I took a step back. I had to tell her. “If you answer my questions, Kimber, I promise to tell you everything.”
“Everything? About what?”
“There’s things you don’t know about what happened last year.”
“What do you mean?”
I sighed. “Don’t you think it was odd how I survived at the last possible second?”
“Well…”
“Didn’t you find it weird at my graduation how I floated up in the air with Liesel?”
“You said that was a trick… I thought…”
“Kimber, I’m going to tell you everything. But you have to promise me to tell me the truth about what happened here today.”
She wiped a tear away from her eyes. “OK.”
---
My sister and I sat on the sidewalk behind the gates of the school, now even further from the school grounds, trying to remain inconspicuous as the final bells of the day rang behind us, letting out hundreds of students. Kimber had her arm wrapped around mine, but this time, it wasn’t, thankfully, in a romantic fashion.
“I’ve been really hurting since Tommy dumped me,” she said. “He was so cute and he liked me, and he wanted to be with me, and I wanted to re-create that feeling again. But no other guys asked me out. So me and my friends came up with doing Seven Minutes in Heaven, capturing cute boys at school and throwing them in the dark with us. Today just happened to be my day. I haven’t done it that much. It was only my third time.”
“Third time?” I breathed in through my nose and tried not to scream. “Kimber, look, you can’t turn yourself into someone who just throws herself at any guy who comes your way. These eighth grade boys sho
uld have to fight for you.”
“Look, this is all easy for you to say,” she said. “You have Liesel.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know if I do anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let me just finish my thought. Promise me, Kimber. I want you to promise me you’ll stop these games and end this desperation to feel something with just anyone. I know it seems like the end of the world, but give it time. You’ve got high school coming up. Playing these games in middle school is one thing, but high school guys are different. They can take advantage. They can cause real, serious problems. Trust me, I would know. You need to be careful, Kimber. I want only the best for you.”
She cracked her neck and started stretching her arms out. “Cam, you have to understand something. After what happened in that closet today, I don’t think I’m gonna be kissing any guys for a long, long time.”
I managed a subtle laugh. “Yeah…. well… same here.”
Kimber laughed really hard at that one. But then her happy demeanor quickly transitioned into a somber one. “OK,” she said.
“OK.”
“Tell me everything.”
I did. I started by taking her back to the night in late March last year when Charisma and I and my basketball teammates went out for a late pizza dinner. I told her what Liesel did. I told her how she and I bonded over the next couple of months, until I finally caught her in the CRHS biology room lifting objects in the air with only her mind, including that very vocal frog. I told her about the night I laid dying in the hospital bed, only to watch in awe as Liesel magically brought me back to health with the most awesome set of spells the human eye had ever seen. I told her all about Liesel’s powers. I told her the truth about our floating at graduation.
And then I told her about last Saturday night at the French restaurant.
Surprisingly, she didn’t flinch. “It’s amazing,” she said. “It all makes sense now.”
“I don’t know if everything makes sense,” I said, “but at least there’s kind of an explanation.”
“She has powers? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I shouldn’t be telling anyone, Kimber. And you can’t tell a soul.”
“I won’t…”
“If you tell one single person, I’m never going to speak to you again. Ever. Do you understand me?”
