"Yes, Mr. Brown?"
"Ms. Hite, how do you know the person who did this stuff is for the Nazis? Maybe he's calling other people Nazis."
"Is that your theory?"
"No—I mean, I don't have a theory. I was just wondering."
"Of course we can't know what's in the mind of the perpetrator until he steps forward and owns up to his deed, or we catch him."
"Could be a 'her.'" Everybody turns toward Tanya. "Why does everybody assume a guy did this? It's prejudice, that's what I think."
"Yes, Tanya, thank you for reminding us that girls can be hurtful as well as boys."
Ben shows up late for art class. Why would he call attention to himself on this of all days? He's always spouting off about "Nazi this" and "Nazi that"—won't somebody remember and tell on him?
"Should I go for a late slip, Mrs. Co-hen?"
She nods, and he turns on his heels and clicks them. That's something else he should stop doing.
She snaps her fingers. "Wait..." I think maybe she's figured it out, she's going to say, "You, Ben Cavendish, you did this, didn't you?" But she doesn't say that. "Just take your seat, Benjamin. Lateness doesn't seem important to me today."
She sets out the bowl of still deads again, lining it up exactly as it was last week. She's pretty precise about these things, which I like.
Everyone takes out their sketchpad and pens. Nobody says anything. I'm staring at the fruit, hoping this time to see some life in it—and then I do see something. The banana looks odd. From my seat at the far left of the classroom I see a dark black mark on the side. Is the banana rotting? I stand up for a better view.
"What do you see, Devon?"
"I don't know, something black." As I move toward the bowl, Mrs. Cohen comes up behind me. At the desk I squat down so that I'm eye level with the banana. She bends down behind me. We see it at the same time—a finely drawn black swastika.
She makes some weird noise in my ear and falls backwards, knocking over an easel. Ben's the first one to her. He pulls her to her feet. "Are you all right?" He asks her this with such sincerity that I can only marvel at him.
"Quiet, here's the report." Mom turns up the volume on the television. I look up from my English journal assignment—"The Use of Fear to Impose Rule." Dad lowers the newspaper from his face.
"At The Baker Academy, one of the area's most exclusive private schools, administrators and students are today dealing with a disturbing act of vandalism that struck the school overnight. On the scene is Channel 7's Mark Myers. Mark?"
"Well, Kelly, disturbing is certainly the right word today as this affluent, liberal school does some soul-searching to explain this..."
Mom lets out a gasp as the camera moves inside the school and shows "Nazi" and swastikas scrawled on lockers and flags and walls and doors.
"In all, the vandal or vandals defaced at least twenty-seven spots in the school, from the trophy case in the entranceway to the cafeteria and locker rooms."
Dad folds his newspaper on his lap. "Who was targeted?"
"Mrs. Cohen's door was tagged, and..."
"Tagged?"
"Yeah—written on, like with graffiti."
"Is she Jewish?"
"I guess so."
The television reporter moves on to another story, and Mom mutes the sound. "It's horrible. To go to school to teach children and find that one of them put that symbol of hate on your door. Maybe kids today don't understand all the suffering the swastika represents to older people, especially the Jews."
"It wasn't all against Jews, Mom. It was written on lots of kids' lockers who aren't Jewish."
"Then I don't understand it, Devon."
Dad shakes his head. "I don't, either."
And I can't begin to explain it to them.
CHAPTER 20
During the next two days, more "Nazis" and swastikas keep turning up in strange places. The news spreads through the halls. When Mr. Harvey pulls down the world map in his American History to 1945 class, there's the word in big block letters over America. When Coach Duffy empties the bag of basketballs in gym, a swastika is on each one. The lunchroom aides find "Nazi" drawn on the napkins, like a monogram.
Teachers are starting to act afraid. Each time they open a drawer or turn a page, they peek first to make sure "Nazi" doesn't leap out at them. Some kids clap each time it shows up, the kind of kids who cheer anything that bugs their teachers.
I'm scared to go near Ben. He keeps looking at me like he wants to talk, but I turn away every time. I figure they'll catch him soon or later, and I don't want anybody remembering seeing me with him. I even take the upstairs hallway now to get to classes so I won't run into him.
But I have to tell someone. I've never been part of something this wrong before, and I can't keep it to myself. There's only one person I trust.
Tanya's sitting on the steps when I come out for lunch. She's already licked her ice cream below the cone.
"You're late."
"Yeah, I went the long way." I take out the different parts of my lunch and set them on my legs. I decide to start with the carrots today. "You don't get in trouble much, do you, Tanya?"
"Not me. Trouble is trouble." She dips her tongue inside the cone to dig out the ice cream. "Why're you asking?"
"I don't like trouble, either, but I think I'm in it."
"What kind of trouble could you get into?"
I lean over the railing to make sure no little kid is sitting under the stairs. "I was there when the school was tagged."
Tanya laughs out loud, the first time I've seen her do that. "You're kidding."
"No, I really was there. I didn't do anything myself, but I didn't stop the kid who did."
"Ben, right?"
"You know?"
"I was guessing it was him. I put two dollars on him in the pool."
"The pool?"
"Yeah, the guys on the swim team are running a fifty-fifty pool. If you pick who did it, you win half the money."
"Kids are betting on who sprayed the school?"
"Yep, and I saw the sheet—your name isn't even on it. Maybe I should tell them to add you."
"No, wait—you can't do that. They'd figure you knew something."
Tanya gets up.
"Where are you going?"
"I'm not eating with somebody who doesn't trust me."
"I trust you. That's why I told you."
"Then you shouldn't have to worry that I'd give you away."
"Okay."
She sits down next to me again and tears the wrapper farther down her ice cream cone. "All right. Tell me everything."
Dr. W.'s late for our regular Wednesday session. I'm stuck in the waiting room with little kids ripping at magazines and standing on the chairs and spitting paper balls at one another. I hate waiting and I hate wild kids. Where are their parents? How can anybody leave these squirmy little monsters alone?
Three different shrinks stick their heads in the waiting room, and three kids leave. Finally it's just me and one bony kid wearing a red baseball cap. He has little stickum cartoon figures all over his arms. He comes up close to me, and I can smell strawberry gum.
"What's wrong with you?" He points his grimy hand at my face.
I lean back as far as I can. "Beat it."
He puts his hands on his hips and comes even closer. "Make me."
I don't react in the slightest. That's self-control. I could grab this kid by his sneakers and swing him upside down until he throws up—but I'd have to touch him, and I'm not going to do that.
I stare at him and count to ten. He stares back. He coughs without covering his mouth, and I can see the air exploding with his germs.
"Get away from me. Now."
"No."
What would scare a little kid? I figure it's what used to scare me. "Okay, then I'm going to have to eat you."
"What?"
"I said, I'm going to have to eat you." I pull out the white handkerchief that I use for opening doors and
tuck it under my chin. "I'll eat your eyes first, and then your ears, and then I'll bite off your little nose and spit it down the toilet."
He steps back a little. "No you won't. You're just pretending."
"That's why I'm here, because I eat people." I growl at him, showing my teeth, and lunge forward.
He falls back on the floor. "I'm telling. I'm telling."
"Tell and I'll wait outside your house until your parents fall asleep, and then I'll creep in your window and eat your face off."
"Josh, what's going on?"
Another doctor's standing in the doorway. The boy looks at me, and I smile at him, showing my teeth again.
"We were just ... just pretending, that's all."
I suppose I was pretending, but it didn't really feel like it. Maybe I'm finally getting in touch with my inner sociopath.
***
I'm alone in the waiting room. The blue hand of the wall clock sweeps around the circle, clicking away each second. At 3:22 and thirty-one seconds, Dr. W. sticks his big head around the doorjamb.
"Come on up, Devon."
He doesn't apologize for being late, which I think is rude. I follow him up the narrow staircase and into his office. I don't feel like standing and I don't feel like leaning, so what am I going to do—float in the air?
Doc pulls out my file folder and starts reading. He clicks his pen in and out as he does this. Click in, click out. Click in, click out. I'm getting very irritated. I used up all of my patience in the waiting room. "Aren't you going to ask me anything?"
He looks up with a surprised expression, as if he'd forgotten what a shrink is supposed to do. "Would you like me to ask you something?"
Oh God, not this stupid conversation. I know it by heart. I'm supposed to say, "That's what I'm here for, isn't it?" and he'll say, "What do you want me to ask you about?" and I'll say, "Why don't you ask me why you're such a moron?" and he'll say, "Do you really think I'm a moron?" Once a shrink starts asking questions like this, he never stops. I learned that from Dr. Castelli.
So I don't say anything. He keeps clicking his pen. It seems to me that people who click their pen while somebody else is trapped listening to it should be put to death in some slow way—like being hit on the head by a ball-peen hammer.
He stops clicking. "Have you thought any more about your earliest memories, Devon?"
"No, was I supposed to?"
"Yes, I did ask you to think about that."
"Oh, sorry, I forgot."
"Well, let me prod your memory. Last time you were telling me about your teacher in kindergarten who smelled like glue, correct?"
"Yes."
"Do you remember anything else from kindergarten—how you interacted with the other children, perhaps?"
I don't remember the other kids at all. I barely remember the glue-smelling teacher. But I do remember Mom taking me by the hand to school. "She used to drag me down the sidewalk."
"Who used to drag you?"
"My mom."
"You didn't want to go to school?"
"I was just walking slowly I think. I had to step on every crack in the sidewalk."
"Why did you have to do that?"
"I don't know, I just did. And she said, 'Step on a crack, break your mother's back.' I asked her if that was really true, and she said yes."
"What did you do then?"
"I jumped up and landed on the next crack with both my feet. I thought I was doing something funny, but she yelled and grabbed her back. She said, 'See, I told you. Now you've broken your mother's back. You have to be good now.' And she walked the rest of the way hunched over."
"Good, Devon, very good. Now try to remember something about your father, maybe something that happened at home."
"Well, I remember sitting on the living room floor of our house in Intercourse playing with these little red blocks that were my granddad's when he was young. I used to build forts out of them. Dad always made me take the forts down at night, so I'd pull apart the bricks and stack them in the box. One night he was angry about something—"
"Do you remember what?"
"I think maybe Grandpa had just moved in, but I'm not sure, and Dad wanted me to go to bed right away. I started taking the fort apart and he yelled at me to just throw everything in the box. I wouldn't do that, so he kicked the fort and made me go to bed."
"How did that make you feel?"
"Like he was going to die."
"Just for kicking over your fort?"
"Not Dad—Granddad. They were his old bricks."
"What did you do?"
"I stayed awake until I heard them go to bed. Then I sneaked downstairs and stacked the blocks in the box."
"And your granddad didn't die?"
"Not then he didn't, no. I saved him that time."
CHAPTER 21
I can't believe this is happening to me.
Two cops—one big, one small—are walking up the driveway. The doorbell rings, and I run upstairs to my room. This can't be good news. They must have found out about Ben and he told on me. I hear Mom open the door. Then she calls me.
"Devon, are you up there?"
"I'm sleeping, Mom."
"Sleeping? It's five in the afternoon. Come down."
I check myself in the mirror and tuck in my shirt and brush back my hair—God, my ears! They're so small. How could anybody hear out of them?
"Devon?"
I grab my old John Deere cap off the hook in the closet and head downstairs. It was actually Granddad's lucky cap when he was young. It's too big for me and I look pretty stupid in it, but I don't have to look at myself. Besides, I need all the luck I can get at this moment.
I reach the living room just as my mother is emptying a bag of Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies onto a tray. The cops look over at me. They have guns snapped into their holsters. Why is she giving them cookies?
"Devon, these men want to ask you a few questions."
"Okay."
The small cop points to the sofa. "Why don't you sit down, Devon?"
I don't like that. It's my house. He shouldn't be inviting me to sit in my own house. I sit anyway.
The big cop leans over to take one of the Milanos. He stuffs the whole thing in his mouth, and there's room to spare. "We were just explaining to your mother that we're investigating the graffiti incident last week at the school—you know all about that, don't you?"
"Know all about that"—what does he mean? "I saw the stuff, sure. Everybody saw it."
"We've been talking to a number of people who may have been in or around the school a week ago Tuesday, late afternoon. Can you tell us where you were then?"
"Me?" I know that's a stupid thing to say, but I need time to think ahead, make sure I'm not blurting out the wrong thing. Cops can trap you, if you don't watch yourself.
"Yes, you—Devon."
"Well, I was just around, I guess. I don't go out much, do I, Mom?"
"That's right. He stays very close to home after school."
"Let's say between five and six Tuesday afternoon—that's eight days ago—were you home then?"
"I think so. We ate early that day, didn't we, Mom?"
I look at her and she looks at me with a confusion I've never seen on her face. I can't tell if she's confused about whether we had dinner at that time or about whether to lie for me.
"Last Tuesday ... I think you came home a little late that day."
"Did I? I don't remember exactly."
The cop pulls a pad and pen from his back pocket. "Were you out with someone, Devon?"
"Oh yeah, I guess I was."
"Who was that?"
I don't want to say. I'm sure they can't force me to—that would be an invasion of my personal privacy and right of association. I learned about that in civics, too. "It was just another kid, it doesn't matter."
"You let us judge that, okay?"
They're cops, not judges. They shouldn't be judging anything.
"Devon, please tell the policem
an whom you were with after school last Tuesday."
"I was just hanging out, Mom, that's all."
"Was it Tanya?"
"No, it wasn't Tanya."
The big cop reaches for another cookie. He bites off half of it and grinds it between his teeth. It sounds like he's chewing tinfoil. I'll confess to anything if he just stops chewing like that.
"Let me tell you, son..."
Oh God, he's not done chewing and now he's talking. I can't look at him. I can't listen.
"Devon?"
"Yes."
"Someone reported seeing you go inside the locker room of the school just before dark Tuesday afternoon."
"Tuesday yesterday?"
"Tuesday a week ago, Devon."
Mom sits up on the edge of the chair. The cops are on either side of me. I'm cornered. "How can they say it was me if it was dark?"
"Just before dark. The witness reported seeing a boy with red hair go in."
"Lots of kids have red hair."
"Lots of kids?"
"Some kids."
"Well, the witness reported a boy with red hair who he thought was new this year at The Baker."
"Oh no, Devon ... you are involved in this?"
She thinks I've done something terrible. I hate that. I'm not a kid who does terrible things. I can't even think terrible things without feeling guilty. I only saw somebody do something wrong. It's not like I watched Ben kill somebody. I wouldn't do that. I'd have stopped him. But this was different. I have to make her understand.
"Okay, Mom. I was there, but I didn't do anything."
The cops nod at each other like they knew it all along. "You better come with us, Devon. We have some more talking to do."
Mom jumps to her feet. "You're not arresting him?"
"No, we're asking Devon to voluntarily come down to the station and answer some questions."
I shouldn't have to answer questions. I know my rights. Mom's a lawyer—she'll tell them.
"Of course he'll answer questions." Then she grabs my hand so hard I think she'll never let go.
There's nothing more embarrassing than sitting in the back of a police car with your mother. She won't stop holding my hand. I try to slink down in the seat, but she taps my leg to sit up.
Not As Crazy As I Seem Page 10
