The Boy Who Couldn’t Fly Home: A Gay Teen Coming of Age Paranormal Adventure about Witches, Murder, and Gay Teen Love (The Broom Closet Stories Book 2)

by Jeff Jacobson

  “Tongxue,” Chen Laoshi said to him one morning as the other students were leaving the classroom. “Ni de gongke zuo de bu hao.” Charlie stared at her, knowing that she was saying that something wasn’t good but having no idea what the subject of the sentence was.

  “Shenme?”

  “Charlie, you don’t say ‘Shenme?’ when responding respectfully if you don’t understand something. You say, “Qing zai shuo yici.”

  “Qing cai zuo yizi,” he mumbled.

  “Budui,” she said, correcting him. “Qing zai shuo yici.”

  “Qing zai shuo yici.”

  “Hao. Ni de gongke.” She held up a piece of paper showing the Chinese characters that Charlie had handed in for homework the day before. Half of the page was covered in red ink corrections. “Zuo de bu hao.”

  “Oh, duibuqi Chen Laoshi, wo … wo …”

  Chen Laoshi stood up and looked over at the doorway, cast her glance around the classroom, and then spoke in a lowered voice.

  “Charlie, I know you are studying other things late at night. And I understand that you are under tremendous pressure to learn as much as you can before the next attack.”

  Charlie winced at her words. A part of him still hoped that the next attack might not happen. He knew it was a ridiculous thought, but he couldn’t help himself. When he heard the adults talk about it, it wasn’t a matter of if, but a matter of when. And when seemed to be swiftly approaching, at least in their eyes.

  “But you must keep up with your schoolwork and your attendance here at Puget Academy.” Chen Laoshi continued. “If you don’t already know this, we have the double burden of maintaining both sides of our lives, the public side and the community side, which of course must remain private. Do not let your public life suffer, Charlie, or it will cast aspersions not just on you, but on all of us.”

  He didn’t know what “casting aspersions” meant, but he figured it must be something bad.

  As Charlie nodded and turned to go, Chen Laoshi took him by the arm.

  “I know it’s hard work, Charlie. Hang in there.” Then she winked at him. It was very uncharacteristic for her to break her formality and do something like that. He felt kindness from her, and understanding. Her gesture emboldened him, and he took her words to heart, more determined than ever to do his best to maintain his school life and his witch life.

  CHAPTER 22

  Right as Rain

  ON A SATURDAY IN MID-OCTOBER, Charlie awoke late and lay in bed trying to decide how to use the day to catch up on everything, when he heard a knock on his door.

  “Come in,” he said, his voice still groggy.

  “Hey, bud.” Randall opened the door halfway and peeked his head in. “I asked Beverly if I could kidnap you for part of the day today. She told me I shouldn’t use that word, since it’s a little ‘sensitive,’” he smiled, adding his ubiquitous air quotes.

  Charlie smiled back. His uncle’s enthusiasm, as well as the way he teased his wife, was infectious.

  “To do what?” he asked, yawning and stretching.

  “Well, if Diego’s free, I thought I’d take you two over to the Eastside. There’s a place over there that looks really fun. I don’t want to tell you what it is, but I will say you’ll need to wear something comfortable. Like gym clothes. What do you say?”

  * * *

  Diego rode up front with Randall. Charlie listened to the two of them chatting away like old friends. He enjoyed their banter. It was a nice distraction from the worry that he wouldn’t get enough done today.

  “I know, right? And then she’s all ‘whatever,’ and then he was all like, ‘whatever.’”

  Randall laughed. “Yeah. But I still like the show.”

  “Okay, me too. I think it’s rotting my brain, but I can’t help watching it.”

  “Have you seen the trailer for that new reality show where they make some bozo millionaire live in a poor rural area like a local, and then at the end it’s revealed that the people have a millionaire living among them?”

  “Totally!” cried Diego. “And then the rich guy cries, and everybody cries, and he donates all this money to the town to like build a library or something?”

  “My thoughts? Cheesy.”

  “Cheesatoidinal!”

  “But I’m still going to watch it.”

  “Me too! I’m gonna record the whole series!”

  Diego looked in the back seat. “You’re kinda quiet back there, Charlie. Even quieter than normal.”

  “I’m just enjoying you two gossiping about every TV show ever made.”

  “Charlie!” Randall gasped, pretending to take offense. “It’s not gossip. It’s artistic critique.”

  “That’s right,” Diego chimed in. “We are refined minds here, speaking of refined things.”

  “Oh, you mean like who sleeps with who on Bachelorettes Gone Bad?

  Randall exited off the main road and pulled into the parking lot of what looked like a large business park.

  “Where are we going, anyway?” asked Diego.

  “I thought you two boys might like …”

  “No way!” yelled Diego. “I’ve wanted to come here for like ever!”

  The place was a huge gymnasium-like structure filled with trampolines. After paying an entrance fee, they were given a short tour of the facilities. There was an open floor with segments of six-foot-by-six-foot trampolines, bordered on all sides by padded dividers. As the guide explained how things worked, they watched little kids running and jumping from square to square, as older kids did flips, and even ran up the sides of the padded walls.

  In another section, two large trampolines were split down the middle and separated by a long strip of hanging mesh. Teams on either side threw balls at each other while trying not to fall as they bounced around. The kids here were older, and even though they tried to be serious, most couldn’t help laughing at their failed attempts to stay upright.

  “Dodge ball, trampoline style,” said the guide.

  “Awesome!” Charlie, Diego, and Randall replied in unison.

  The last section had five long runs of trampolines, running parallel to each other, which ended in a pit filled with huge pieces of foam. People were throwing themselves off the end and flipping into the pit with varying degrees of klutziness and skill.

  Diego started jumping around on the floor. “Can we, can we, can we?”

  The three of them put their wallets and cell phones in a locker before walking over to the open floor filled with the trampoline squares.

  “I haven’t been on one of these in a long time,” Randall said. He took a few small jumps, smiled at the boys, and then performed a perfect back flip.

  “Whoa! Dude! Where did you learn how to do that?” Diego exclaimed.

  “I was a diver in high school. Sometimes we trained on trampolines instead of at the pool.” He gave them a mischievous grin. “Beverly made me promise I wouldn’t do anything too wild.”

  The boys joined him, and soon they were bouncing, dodging kids, shouting to each other, and laughing.

  Charlie enjoyed the weightless feeling at the apex of each jump. It wasn’t like flying on a broomstick, but he imagined he felt more comfortable this high off the ground than he would have before he learned how to ride. He remembered Beverly telling him that some witches don’t use brooms, that they had the inherent ability to fly through the air on their own. Knowing how hard he had to work to master even the simplest of witchcraft skills, the idea of learning how to fly without a broom made his head hurt.

  Just then, Diego did a spinning twist in midair and bumped into Charlie, knocking them both down.

  The boys fell back on the trampoline floor and began giggling, unable to regain their footing. Randall tried to jump onto their square right at the exact moment a young girl in pigtails and pink barrettes ran past him. He let out a yelp, spread his legs to let the girl pass underneath him, then sailed over the square and crashed into the padded wall nearby.

  This se
nt the three of them into such guffaws of laughter that one of the young employees, dressed in a baggy polo shirt uniform, cheeks bright with acne, came over to tell them that they had to either keep jumping or leave the floor.

  After recovering from laughing so hard, they tried their hand at the dodge ball game. Randall and Charlie were both fierce throwers and very competitive. Diego didn’t like it as much. “I can’t throw very hard,” he complained, sitting out.

  “I’ll help you if you want!” Randall yelled as he bounced up into the air. Just then a ball launched by Charlie hit him hard in the gut. “Oomph!” he grunted in midair.

  They moved over to the third area with the foam pit. Charlie jumped on the three successive trampoline squares then flung himself high before landing on the soft wedges of foam. He was surprised how difficult it was to pull himself out of the pit. The softness of the wedges was perfect for a safe landing, but gave no support when climbing out.

  “This is hard!” he yelled to the other two as he tried to reach for solid ground.

  Diego leaped into the air when it was his turn, swiveled his hips so that he could grab both of his feet with his right hand, then disappeared into the waiting foam pit. He had his own challenge climbing out.

  “What are you going to do?” Charlie asked Randall, as his uncle stepped up to the trampoline.

  “A double,” he said, giving him a wink.

  One bounce, two bounces, three bounces, and then he soared straight up, tucked into a somersault, spun around twice, and landed feet first on the soft wedges.

  “Oh my god! Oh my god! Your uncle is amazing!” Diego yelled.

  Although jumping into the pit was great fun, all three were exhausted by the time they could finally climb out. They were only able to complete a few more rounds of jumps before they found themselves standing off to the side, bent over with their hands on their knees, trying to catch their breath.

  “Okay, guys, I’m hungry,” Randall said, panting. “One more jump for me, and then let’s say we get something to eat.”

  They watched as he launched himself into the air, spun around two and a half times, then landed hands first as if he were diving into a pool.

  “Shit!” they heard him yell as he climbed up to a kneeling position on one of the foam wedges. He stayed there for quite some time, not moving, only holding up his left hand and looking at it.

  “Sir, you all right?” asked one of the employees.

  * * *

  They sat in the first aid room as the facilities manager applied ice to Randall’s wrist.

  “Sir, I’m pretty sure it’s broken,” he said. “I mean, there’s a bone nearly sticking out.”

  Randall laughed once before shaking his head. “Your aunt is going to kill me. Anyway, glad I’m right-handed.” In spite of his attempt to be funny, the skin around his eyes and forehead had turned pale, and he was sweating.

  They decided that Diego would drive them to the emergency room. Once Randall had been seen by a doctor, they would call Beverly. Not before.

  * * *

  The boys sat under the bright lights of the waiting area, worrying about Randall, while the physician’s assistant put a cast on his broken wrist in the examining room.

  He had been right. Beverly was furious.

  “I told him not to show off!” she had yelled when Charlie called her. He had to pull the phone away from his ear. After much discussion, Beverly finally agreed not to come all the way over to the Eastside hospital. Diego would drive them home.

  A young orderly came out of one of the storage closets pushing a cart of supplies. She glanced at Charlie, stopped her cart, then looked at him again before moving on.

  “That chick was totally cruising you!” exclaimed Diego.

  “What does that mean?”

  “You don’t know what ‘cruising’ means? It means she was checking you out. She thinks you’re hot.”

  “Na-ah.”

  “Uh-huh!”

  Diego punched him in the shoulder. Charlie tried to laugh it off, but something about the way the orderly had stared at him seemed strange.

  After the physician’s assistant finished with the cast, Randall signed a stack of paperwork, making more right-handed jokes. Diego went to get the car, and Charlie waited near the nurse’s station.

  “I have a message for you,” a voice said behind him.

  He spun on his heels only to find the same orderly staring at him from less than a foot away. She was bird-thin and quite short, and her eyes were caked with blue makeup. She looked to be about twenty years old.

  “Can I show you?” she asked, gesturing to a patient room.

  He turned and walked across the hallway after her.

  Don’t go in that room! a voice inside his head screamed. Ignoring it, he followed her through the doorway.

  Once inside the room, she closed the door. Her mouth lit into a strange smile, exposing tiny plastic-looking green braces on her teeth. Charlie looked around. The two hospital beds were empty. There were machines plugged into the wall, and an IV stand stood in the corner. On the far wall, a window was open and the blinds swung in the afternoon breeze, repeatedly hitting the window frame.

  Slap. Slap. Slap.

  “Grace said to say hi,” the orderly whispered. Then she threw herself at Charlie.

  Before he could react to her attack, her bare fingers grasped his forearms and began to squeeze. She hissed her hot breath on him, and immediately he felt disoriented. He had the sense that he was falling even though he was leaning back against the closed door. Darkness began to seep in around his eyes, and he thought he was going to pass out.

  “Defend yourself!” he heard Daniel Burman’s voice shouting in his head.

  Another voice answered, prim and reprimanding. You’re not supposed to hit girls.

  He knew he should do something, but dizziness covered him as if someone had thrown a thick blanket over his head. He couldn’t think clearly.

  The woman inhaled, preparing to breathe on him again.

  “Now!” Rita Lostich screamed at him.

  The Words came from nowhere, finding his mouth, moving his lips. He bared his teeth and shoved forward with all his might. Light from his hands flashed up into the orderly’s face, and her head jerked back as if she had been punched in the chin.

  Her grip on his arms, however, remained vice-like. She fell backward and pulled Charlie on top of her. He could not free his hands. As they tumbled to the floor, the woman opened her mouth and lunged at his face, trying to block his Words. Without thinking, he jerked his head to the side and pulled back. Her teeth, snapping at his neck, missed their mark and instead sank into Charlie’s right shoulder, biting through the cotton of his sweatshirt right down into his flesh. Her head shook and she made grunting noises as she tore at his skin.

  Nausea and blackness. The pain was all-encompassing, as if it were a sound blasting through his ears, rendering him helpless. He opened his mouth and made a gargled screaming noise, which quickly faded as his remaining strength disappeared.

  He knew that if he didn’t do something soon, she was going to kill him, this stupid, skinny orderly in an empty hospital room while his uncle waited for him out in the hallway. But the paralyzing effect of her spell, combined with the horrific pain of her teeth clamping onto and tearing at his shoulder, overpowered everything.

  He tried to let the Words find him again, tried to concentrate the way Beverly had shown him. But the orderly’s grotesque biting, her grunts, her fingers draining his energy from him, the pain and shock blasting through his body, all of it rendered him helpless.

  Then the door to the hospital room opened.

  The orderly jerked her head away from his shoulder.

  “Charlie, what are you …?” he heard Randall say behind his back as the man stepped into the doorway.

  The orderly released her grip on Charlie’s forearms, slid out from underneath him, and shot four feet into the air, her body twisting and coiling like a rope
tossed from a boat. She flung herself at Randall, who stood with his eyes wide open and mouth agape, unmoving, his left arm with its blue cast hanging at his side.

  The nanosecond her fingers released Charlie’s arms, his mind cleared. Words found his mouth, and he felt a surge of white heat course through his body as his arms extended outwards from where he lay on the floor.

  Just before the orderly’s outstretched fingers could grab Randall, the IV stand from the corner lurched forward and struck her in the hip, stopping her trajectory and sending her spinning into the far wall.

  Charlie hopped to his feet and reached for Randall, pulling him inside the room and shutting the door.

  The orderly’s body rebounded off the wall and shot headfirst toward Charlie’s chest.

  More Words. Her body rose above their heads just before her shoes could crack into Randall’s skull. She was thrown against the opposite wall, toppling one of the bedside machines with a loud crash.

  “What the …” Charlie heard Randall exclaim from behind him.

  The orderly tried to stand, but her legs wouldn’t function. A gash above her right eye bled, sending a thin red line down her cheek.

  Surgical tape from a nurse’s tray sped through the air as Charlie’s lips continued to move. It made a loud ripping sound. In seconds, several lengths of the tape wrapped themselves around the woman’s hands, then bound her feet.

  She screamed at him. “You bastard! We will eat you alive!”

  More ripping, and the tape stuck itself in crude loops around her mouth, pinning her limp hair to the back of her head.

  Charlie remembered something Rita had taught him. “It’s a good way to render someone helpless without hurting them,” she had said.

  The orderly’s voice now muffled by the tape, Charlie walked over to her and touched her pink-soled shoe the way Rita had taught him. Her body jerked once, then she sighed through her nostrils and fell unconscious against the bed.