Castle Juliet

by Brandon Berntson

  “Oh, Jeez! Oh, Holy Jeez!” Lonny said, looking from Alice and Pooper to Jack and Tork, unable to decide what to do. He stepped in one direction, then the other, eyes wide in fright. “Oh, Mary! Oh, Sampson!” Lonny hesitated, stepped toward Jack and Tork, decided against it, then stepped toward Pooper and Alice. Deciding against this, he stepped back to his original position, looking at one, then the other. Not knowing what to do, Lonny burst into tears and started to blubber.

  “YEEEOOOWWW!” Tork howled again, when Jack bit deeper into his ear. Blood slowly rolled down the side of his neck.

  “Letter O!” Jack cried. “Letter O! Or-oh-’elp-’ee-’od, I’ll-’ite-your-ear-off!”

  Spit drenched Tork’s ear now, along with blood.

  “Oh, Sampson! Oh, Mother! Oh, Jeez! Oh, holy jeez!” Lonny continued to babble, stomping from one foot to the other.

  “What should I do, Tork?” Pooper cried, his hold on Alice lessening, but her arm still wrenched up behind her. “What should I do?”

  Pooper, too, was pasty white and on the verge of tears.

  “Let her go, you dimwit!” Tork commanded.

  Immediately, Alice felt Pooper’s hold lessen, her arm was tingly, lifeless, and numb. When the blood rushed back, pain hit her below her shoulder and into her forearm. She bit back the tears, turned, filled with rage, and smacked Pooper across the face as hard as she could. Then, she kicked him in the shin with her cowboy boots.

  Pooper screeched in surprise and pain. He buckled, fell to the ground, and curled into a ball, holding his shin. Lonny, still immobile and indecisive, watched these proceedings unfold with disbelief. Alice noticed the crotch in his jeans darken and smiled in satisfaction.

  “Did—’ee—letter O?” Jack asked.

  “Yes-yes-yes!” Tork whined, kicking his feet into the ground. “He let her go!”

  “Are you sure?” Jack asked, smiling with Tork’s ear still clenched between his teeth, the blood on his teeth, making him look rabid and lunatic.

  “Yes-yes-yes!” Tork howled again, and Jack giggled to himself, let go of Tork’s ear, let go of his arms, and stood up, backing away.

  Alice was shocked to see Tork’s blood on Jack’s mouth and lips. His smile looked dementedly freakish, and it scared her. His bright green eyes, however, were alight with madness and glee.

  “You ever touch Alice again,” he said, in a deadly voice, “and I’ll kill you. You understand me, you greasy pile or rat blubber?”

  “Yes, yes,” Tork said, rolling over and grabbing the side of his head. He inspected the blood on his hand. He looked at Jack, eyes wide. “Jeez! You bit my ear off!” Tork, as well, was on the verge of tears.

  “I mean it,” Jack said, ignoring all this. “You ever touch her again, I’ll rip off more than just your ear, you over-sized bag of head lice.”

  “I got it. I got it,” Tork said, the idea of defeat not gelling.

  Pooper continued to roll around on the ground, moaning and holding onto his leg, while Lonny simply stared dumbfounded and incredulous.

  “She broke my leg!” Pooper complained, clenching his eyes shut. “She broke my leg!”

  “Shut up, you blubbering pansy!” Tork said.

  Jack walked up to Alice and put his hand on her shoulder. “Are you all right, Alice?” he asked, his voice strangely compassionate.

  Alice nodded and looked at Jack, not sure what to think. “Y-yes,” she said, rubbing her arm. “T-thank you, Jack.”

  He nodded, looked back at the Rand Band of Rebel (now fallen) Survivors, pleased by what he saw. He steered Alice away from the scene, leaving the gang to lick their wounds and fend for themselves.

  “You might want to get yourself some tennis shoes, Alice,” Jack said. “I mean, those cowboy boots are cool and all, but they’re too slow. They’re great for horses and stuff, but I’m just saying, you might want to think about getting some tennis shoes.”

  “Sure, Jack,” Alice said, her mind numb from all that had happened.

  With that, summer had officially come to a close.

  PART II

  AUTUMN IS A BANQUET OF HOLIDAYS

  CHAPTER V

  JACK TURNS INWARD

  The weather cooled when September arrived, though bouts of summer still clung to the air, hoping to make a last impression. School had begun, and Jack and Alice were officially in the fifth grade now. They were lucky enough to share seats beside one another at the back of the classroom. Mrs. Dermott was a likable teacher, letting the kids pick where they wanted to sit instead of assigning seating arrangements. Tork McGuckin and the Randy Band of Rebel Survivors were also in school that year, and they’d slipped miraculously into the sixth grade. Not having them in the same grade was a relief, but Tork and the Survivors kept their distance after Jack’s ear-biting antics, so all was well. Who knew what Jack was capable of, they’d whispered to one another. Jack was, according to them, “the craziest mother in all of Storyville.” Jack nodded and smiled proudly. Tork never met his eyes when they were in the hall together, and a scar was visible on his ear now, a constant reminder, Alice thought, of that day in the meadow. If the boys planned anything against Jack and Alice, they were saving it. Even Pooper and Lonny greeted Jack with voices of fear, camaraderie, sometimes even compassion. “Yo, Jack!” “Hey, my man!” Pooper had even stuck up for Jack once when another boy started picking on him in the hallway. Jack raised his eyes at Pooper, more surprised than anything. Though, Alice couldn’t believe it, Jack had become an esteemed figure in the eyes of every bully at Storyville Elementary.

  As the days trudged by, they settled into the tiresome, academic routine that was the beginning of the school year. Because of it, Jack grew increasingly restless and distant. He’d never enjoyed school, and it was showing already. With summer behind him, school forced him to be something he wasn’t. Jack was not a studious boy by nature. He’d always had trouble excelling. With pencil in hand, he spent most of his time staring into space as the teacher droned on about the day’s lesson. If anything, he was everywhere but in the classroom. Imagination had taken him to the furthest reaches of space. Jack was a time traveler. He lived for adventure. He doodled pictures onto the clean, white sheets of his notebook: kingdoms, castles, magical creatures, spaceships, distant planets, haunted houses, anything and everything his small mind could conceive. Confinement forced him to venture outside the norm, and Jack took every opportunity to escape. Every year, he did the same thing, and this year was no exception.

  These routines, though, harmless, concerned Alice. She wanted—as his friend—for Jack to do well in school, but Jack’s biggest problem was paying attention in general. She was concerned for him because he spent so much time daydreaming, longing to be everywhere and anywhere but where he actually was.

  As the weeks moved by, Alice sneaked a glance at Jack’s assignments. Large red C’s and D’s had been scrawled across the top, even the occasional F, with See Me written beside it. Jack sighed quietly to himself when these papers came back, shoving them carelessly into his desk. He never stayed after to see the teacher. He turned it into a game, sneaking out of class as discreetly as possible, so Mrs. Dermott wouldn’t notice him leaving.

  Alice asked Jack about it as they were walking home one day, but again, all Jack did was sigh, shrug, and shake his head. He grew frustrated with himself, trying to talk about it. C’s and D’s were, after all, enough to pass, he’d said. Alice mentioned if Jack continued to get the random F, and his grades continued to slip, he might be held back while Alice moved ahead, something Alice didn’t want to think about: a classroom without Jack in it.

  But Jack didn’t seem to mind his poor grades. In class, he fell into what seemed a languid silence, studying something in the room only he could see, an action scene developing on the chalkboard perhaps. Jack would smile to himself, saying nothing at all. Only when school was over did Jack return to his old self, as though he had to be something he wasn’t until the bell rang. It wasn’t as if every other st
udent looked forward to doing homework, the tedious, mental strain of working outside school as well. But with Jack, he seemed to take a permanent vacation from the hours of seven am until three pm. Some paradise beckoned only he could reach. He disassociated himself from the moment he walked through the door and sat down. Already, he was gone. Sometimes he learned over and asked Alice what Mrs. Dermott was talking about. Even when he tried paying attention, his mind wandered. It was futile, something Jack had no control over.

  Alice not only sensed this; she witnessed it taking place. She told herself he needed another outlet was all. Jack already had an untamed imagination. Rules and order only complicated his freer thoughts. School itself had become an enemy. Jack, Alice realized, was trying to escape himself.

  *

  “How do you think you’ll do in school this year, Jack?”

  Jack shrugged. They were walking home down the short blocks and neighborhoods of Storyville. It was after three pm on Friday afternoon, the third week of school. The sky was cloudy, the sun hidden behind gray tapestries, threatening rain. A cool breeze, another sign of autumn, blew against them.

  “Okay, I guess,” Jack said, huddling deeper into his jacket “I haven’t given it much thought.”

  Alice realized how much truth was in that statement and wondered if Jack realized it, too.

  “You seem to be daydreaming a lot, Jack,” Alice said, looking his way. “Are you okay?”

  He shrugged again. “I guess, I’m just not happy the year’s started,” he said. “I don’t know. I understand why we have to do it and stuff, but I always feel like it’s the hardest thing to go through. I hate it. School just makes me feel stupid all the time.”

  “So, you don’t think about going to college?”

  Jack laughed. “Heck, no! You spend all this time going to school, and then you have to go off and do four more years! Jeez! When does it end? I can’t even make it through the fifth grade. I’m already tired of it. And there’s seven more to go! And you’re talking about college? I’ll be lucky to graduate if and when I ever make it to my senior year!”

  The breeze picked up, nudging the last of summer away.

  “You seem sad, lately, too,” Alice said.

  “Summer’s gone,” Jack said, as if that should explain it, no time to pretend now, at least not as much, and the thought broke his heart. Wasn’t imagination everything he lived for, everything that made him happy? He could not war through the galaxy, defeat tigers and dragons, end Doornail’s empire while sitting at his desk in school. He had to be a studious, methodical boy, laboring over what he thought were senseless assignments because someone told him he had to? It went against everything Jack believed.

  Not knowing what to do, Alice turned to Jack and tried a different approach.

  “Race you home?” Alice said.

  Jack beamed. “Oh, man!” he said. “You’re burnt toast.”

  “Burnt toast because you’ll have to put me out, I’ll be running so fast.”

  Alice didn’t waste any time. She patted Jack’s shoulder, saying goodbye, and bolted into a dead run.

  *

  Alice beat Jack because she had taken his advice earlier and was now wearing tennis shoes. Jack finally caught up, panting for breath. He leaned against the bole of a nearby elm tree.

  “You cheated,” Jack said.

  “Tee-hee,” Alice said.

  They walked together out of town and into the fields. Not anxious to go home yet, they sat by the creek under the cottonwoods. Jack had not taken his books or homework. Alice carried a fashionable book bag with her notebook and several books inside.

  “You know, Jack, if you need help in school,” Alice said. “I’d be happy to help you.”

  Jack turned to Alice and raised his eyebrows. “Why are you so nice to me, Alice?”

  Alice shrugged. “Because you’re nice to me.”

  They were quiet for a while, and Jack leaned his head back, staring up through the leaves of the trees at the gray sky. Despite the bleak atmosphere, no wind blew, and it was comfortably cool.

  “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it, Jack?” Alice said.

  “Yes, Alice.”

  “What are you gonna be for Halloween?”

  “Mr. Hyde.”

  “Weren’t you Mr. Hyde last year?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t you want to be anything else, someone different?”

  “Jack the Ripper, maybe. Dracula. But no, I like Mr. Hyde.”

  Alice leaned back now, too, and stared through the trees as Jack was doing. “What are we gonna do when winter comes, Jack?”

  “Dress warmer,” Jack said.

  “I’m serious.”

  “What did we do last year?”

  “Nothing much. It was so cold.”

  “Maybe we can build an army of snowmen together or something, and we can attack them, and they can attack us, and we’ll save the world from a deep freeze created by all the evil snowmen of the world.”

  “You think of everything, Jack.”

  For a while, they did nothing but sit together in silence, enjoying the lazy afternoon as if it were the last of many lazy afternoons. Something special was coming to a close, summer’s end, but something equally special, a mysterious unexpected change seemed right around the corner.

  “I guess we’d better get home soon, huh, Jack?” Alice asked. “My mom’ll be worried.”

  “Okay,” Jack said.

  They stood up, and Alice said she would see him at school—or maybe over the weekend. She started off, waving goodbye. When she looked back, Jack had picked up a two-by-four she hadn’t noticed buried in the high grass and started dragging it behind him.

  *

  Not all of Jack’s imagination slipped away when school began. If anything, he lived more in his mind now than ever. Perhaps he hadn’t the opportunity to play and pretend as he had throughout the summer. The pressures of school, after all, forced him to be something he wasn’t: a studious boy, and that wasn’t who Jack was.

  As the lessons continued, Jack continued to dream of faraway lands, inhuman creatures, monsters, fairies, and magic spells. Once, even the letters and numbers Mrs. Dermott had written on the blackboard came to life. The five and the three held shields and swords, riding on top of numbers one-hundred and one-thousand like horses. The five and three warred with the twos and fours. A jumbled army cluttered the blackboard, a jigsaw mess of sticklike equations; some used the number one for swords, while those penetrated screamed in agony; others celebrated in victory, shouting louder than Mrs. Dermott as she conducted the lesson.

  Logic told Jack to allow the numbers to battle the letters, and in Jack’s mind, the letters always won. Strung together, they made sentences, and sentences made pictures in his mind he could build upon, something larger in scale than any infinite number could possibly be. It was no surprise—at least to Alice—that Jack lived more in a fantasy than any boy she’d known. After a while, he turned every classroom assignment into a parody. Sometimes, the letters and numbers leapt off the blackboard and took over the classroom, pulling at the children’s hair, destroying their paperwork, breaking their pencils, and stomping on their notebooks, leaving footprints like various letters and numbers themselves. Letters and numbers climbed up the legs of every child, grew large mouths with sharp teeth and bit into their kneecaps. Swords pierced their skin, and the children screamed, frantically ran around the classroom, clutching at the numbered and lettered masses congesting their hair as they were assaulted. Jack watched all this as if it were really happening, smiling to himself. Alice looked over and raised her eyebrows at him. “What’s so funny, Jack?” she’d whisper, but he couldn’t hear. Jack forgot about school and watched this fantastic world taking shape around him, but even Mrs. Dermott noticed him daydreaming.

  “Something you would like to share with the classroom, Jack?”

  Jack frowned, unable to decide where this voice had come from. Had it been real or imaginary?
Jack did not reply. Fantasy slipped over reality, and fantasy won the war.

  “Jack?” Mrs. Dermott said again.

  A puzzled look crossed Jack’s face. Fantasy separated, leaving reality behind. The voice pulled Jack back into the classroom, the lesson on the board, every detail of the plush, blue carpet, posters on the walls, the head of every child—who were all smirking at Jack now. Still, Jack was unaware of all of this, as though his childlike mind—despite seeing it taking shape—denied its existence. A Three leapt from the blackboard and climbed into Mrs. Dermott’s hair. The Three sounded the call for the other numbers, putting a trumpet to its lips. Jack smiled. Soon, all the numbers leapt off the board and into Mrs. Dermott’s hair.

  “Jack!” Mrs. Dermott shouted.

  Jack jumped, startled, in his chair, and turned pasty white. He trembled, and every number and letter on the board disappeared. “What?” he said.

  “You were giggling, Jack,” Mrs. Dermott said, matter-of-factly. “I and the rest of the classroom would like to know what you thought was so funny.”

  “Oh,” he said, slumping deeper into his chair. He blushed madly. “Sorry. I was just…thinking of something my dad said the other day. The lesson reminded me of it. I didn’t realize I was laughing, Mrs. Dermott. I’m sorry.”

  The eyes of every child bored into Jack’s brain. Sweat gathered at his armpits and forehead. He swallowed the lump in his throat, slumping deeper into his chair.

  “Please try to pay attention, Jack,” Mrs. Dermott said. “Okay?”

  Mrs. Dermott actually seemed concerned.

  “Yes, Mrs. Dermott. Sorry. I’ll pay better attention.”

  Several classmates snickered, made faces at him, then turned to the front of the classroom. Jack concentrated hard on the blackboard, the words of Mrs. Dermott, the lesson in general, but it was too late. Already, he was lost, confused by what Mrs. Dermott was trying to teach. The more Jack concentrated, the more confused he became. Reality dwindled again, and fantasy came to life.