Stranger Things Have Happened

by Jeff Strand

“I don’t want you to go to the hospital,” said Ken. “That would cause a lot of problems on my end. So yeah, I guess all I really want is one good punch.”

  “Face or gut?”

  “To be fair, it would have to be a gut punch. It still wouldn’t be completely fair because you’d be expecting it and you’d have a chance to tense your muscles, but it’d be fair enough that I’d stop coming after you.”

  “Okay,” said Marcus. “I let you punch me in the stomach, and you leave me and Peter alone for the rest of the school year. Do we have a deal?”

  “The end of the school year is pretty far away,” Ken noted. “I can’t commit to that.”

  “I’m not going to let you punch me if you’re going to do it again a week from now.”

  “It wouldn’t be a week. What if we went until holiday break? That gives you almost two months.”

  Marcus shook his head. “It’s not even a month and a half. Spring break at the earliest.”

  “Spring break? That’s not an option. Sorry. How about Groundhog Day?” asked Ken. “February 2. That’s fair, right?”

  “How about this? If the groundhog sees his shadow, you can start bugging me again on Groundhog Day. If he doesn’t and we have six more weeks of winter, you have to wait those six weeks.”

  “You’ve got it mixed up,” said Chris. “The six more weeks of winter is if he sees his shadow, not if he doesn’t see it.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t think that’s right,” said Marcus. “If he sees his shadow, then the sun is out, so that would imply that the weather is getting better, not worse. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Yeah, but we’re talking about a rodent sticking its head out of a hole to predict the changing of the seasons,” Chris pointed out.

  “I understand that. There still needs to be basic logic though.”

  Chris said, “I am 100 percent positive that if he sees his shadow, it means six more weeks of winter. I’ll take the punch for Ken if I’m wrong.”

  “I think he’s right,” Peter told Marcus. “His shadow means six more weeks of winter.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense,” Marcus insisted.

  Marcus, Peter, Chris, and Ken each took out their cell phones to research the subject. A few moments later, Chris and Peter were smiling, Marcus was frowning, and Ken was still reading the screen.

  “Okay, well, I stand corrected,” said Marcus. “If the groundhog does see his shadow, you have to wait another six weeks before you can start bugging me again.”

  “No deal,” said Ken. “Too complicated.”

  “Then why did you let us talk about it that long?”

  “Here’s my offer. Take it or leave it. One punch, and then I won’t bother you until January 15. I think that’s totally fair.”

  “January 21,” Marcus countered.

  “January 19.”

  “January 20.”

  “January 15.”

  “You can’t go back to the fifteenth after you’ve offered the nineteenth.”

  “I can do whatever I want,” said Ken. “I’m the one with the fist.”

  “No deal.”

  “I’m negotiating because I’m a reasonable guy, but technically, I can punch you in the stomach whenever I want.”

  “Okay,” said Marcus. “January 19.”

  “January 15.”

  “January 17.”

  “Deal,” said Ken.

  Peter looked up from the ground. “I offer my stomach in Marcus’s place.”

  “What?” Ken asked.

  “You can punch me instead. As hard as you want.”

  “Nah.”

  “I think that’s a great offer,” said Marcus. “You get to quench your thirst for vengeance, and you get credit for punching a much larger person.”

  “Can’t do it,” said Ken. “The deal was to punch Magic Boy.”

  “Just offering,” said Peter, looking down at the ground again.

  Ken extended his hand to Marcus. “Shake on it?”

  Marcus couldn’t believe that he was about to do a handshake agreement that involved getting punched in the gut. But he needed at least one of his problems to go away, or else he’d go absolutely mad.

  As he raised his hand, he noticed Bernard standing in the parking lot. Bernard looked extremely angry, and he was holding up a poster. Marcus couldn’t see it clearly from where he stood, but he was pretty sure this poster reflected the new date.

  And that’s when Marcus decided he’d had quite enough.

  22

  Marcus lowered his hand.

  “We didn’t shake yet,” said Ken.

  Marcus reached into his pocket and took out a deck of cards. “Want to see a trick?”

  “Uh-uh. No way. We aren’t doing that again.”

  “You sure? It’s a great trick. Watch.” Marcus dropped the cards onto the ground. “See? The miracle of gravity! Want to see it again?”

  “No.”

  Marcus took out another deck of cards. “Watch carefully.” He dropped the cards. “Gravity! Science! Let’s all give it up for science!” He ignored the pain in his left hand as he applauded for science. Nobody else joined in.

  “How about another card trick?” he asked, reaching into his pocket. Alas, he had no more decks of cards. Marcus patted his other pocket and then patted the first pocket again in case he’d missed one. He patted the second pocket, and then he shrugged. “Guess I made all of my cards disappear! Ta-da!”

  He applauded again, not caring how many of his fellow students were staring at him. Ken and Chris each took a tentative step backward as if they were concerned that Marcus might start biting people at random.

  “How about a coin trick?” Marcus asked. “Everybody likes coin tricks!” He took a few coins out of his pocket and held up a nickel. “See this nickel?” He flicked it into the air. “Gone! See this quarter?” He flicked it into the air as well. “Gone! Oh, look. It’s another nickel! Gone! I’m a magical genius! I bet none of you have any idea how I accomplished that amazing trick! Applaud!”

  Nobody applauded. Several of the onlookers also stepped back.

  Marcus threw all of his coins into the air. “All of them have magically disappeared! It’s the most astounding illusion any of you have ever seen! Holy cow! Holy four-chambered cow stomach! How come your mouths haven’t fallen open in shock! Hey, Ken, open your mouth in shock!”

  Peter stepped forward. “Maybe it’s time to go, Marcus.”

  “No! My show’s not over! I haven’t done my most incredible trick yet!” He tried to pull up his sleeves, but then he realized that he was wearing a short-sleeved shirt. “Nothing up my sleeves, right? Right? Right? Right? Right?”

  “That’s right,” Peter said warily. “Nothing up your sleeves.”

  “And nothing up anybody else’s sleeves, right?”

  “Uh, we can’t really speak to that,” said Peter.

  “Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to read everybody’s mind! Not just one mind. That would be too easy. Everybody’s mind at once!” He began pointing at people. “I’m going to read your mind, and your mind, and your mind, and your mind, and your mind.”

  Peter grabbed Marcus by the arm, but Marcus shook him off. “Don’t touch me! You’ll break the spell!”

  “You need some alone time,” he whispered.

  “I need nothing!” Marcus squeezed his eyes closed. “Everybody concentrate on whatever you were thinking about before I started this trick! Concentrate! I can tell you’re not all concentrating! Concentrate! Concentrate harder!”

  “Uh, Marcus—”

  “Concentrate, Peter!”

  “It’s hard to concentrate with you having a psychotic episode.”

  Marcus opened his eyes. He could se
e stars in the corner of his vision. “You were all thinking of…eight! The number eight was on all of your minds! Admit it! Admit it!”

  Nobody had an expression that said, “Whoa! That’s exactly what I was thinking!” They all looked kind of worried.

  “Peter, what number were you thinking of?”

  “Uh, none. You never asked us to think of a number.”

  “Chris, how about you?”

  “Same here. And if you’d asked me to think of a number, it wouldn’t have been eight. It would’ve been fourteen or something.”

  “Did anybody think of the number eight?” Marcus asked.

  Everybody shook their heads.

  “Presto!” said Marcus. “Abracadabra! I successfully named a number that not a single one of you were thinking of! That’s far more difficult than guessing a number that you were thinking about!”

  “I don’t think it is,” said Chris.

  “Do you want to try it?”

  “Sure. Forty-seven.”

  “I was totally thinking of forty-seven,” said Marcus.

  “No, you weren’t.”

  “What are you going to do? Scoop out my brain and see if there’s a forty-seven imprinted on it? My trick was successful. Admit it. Admit that you’re awestruck. Admit it.”

  “Should somebody call the nurse?” asked a kid Marcus didn’t know. Or maybe Marcus did know him. He was having difficult recognizing people right now.

  “Let’s go home, Marcus,” said Peter. He looked up at Ken and Chris. “That’s okay, right?”

  “Yeah, yeah, that’s fine,” said Ken. “I’m not going to punch him in the middle of a meltdown.”

  “You’re all just scared of my abilities!” said Marcus. “You’re scared I’m going to transform you into a monkey! Well, you know what? I might! You’re all in danger of becoming monkeys!” He began to point at people. “You’re a monkey, and you’re a monkey, and you’re a monkey, and you were already a monkey and you’re a chimp, and—”

  All of a sudden, Marcus began to feel self-conscious, as if he were behaving in a manner that might cause his fellow students to stare at him awkwardly.

  “Uh, hi,” he said. “I would like to apologize to all of you for my behavior just now.”

  “Apology accepted,” said the kid who’d asked if he should call the nurse.

  “Sometimes to deal with your problems, you have to let off a little steam. It was not my intention to make anybody uncomfortable or fill any of you with concern for my well-being. I’m okay now. My problems are still there, but I will no longer be pretending that I’ve turned you into monkeys.”

  “Disperse,” Peter told the crowd.

  Marcus crouched down and began to gather his playing cards. He hoped nobody would upload his outburst to YouTube, although at least six or seven kids were likely recording the scene with their phones.

  “I’ll punch you later,” said Ken. “I don’t want to do it when you’re fragile.”

  “No, do it at my low moment,” said Marcus. “I want to cross it off my list.”

  Ken shook his head. “Let’s just forget the whole thing. I didn’t realize you were so bad off.”

  “How do you know he wasn’t faking it?” asked Chris.

  “Did you see the crazy look in his eyes?” asked Ken. “You can’t fake that.” Ken turned to Marcus. “If you need somebody to talk to, give me a call.”

  “All right. Thanks.”

  Ken and Chris headed off, and the rest of the spectators went their separate ways. Marcus gathered up both of his decks of cards and shoved them back into his pockets. Each deck was gimmicked in a different way, so he’d have to sort them out later.

  “That was interesting,” said Peter.

  “Did I look undignified?”

  “A little.”

  “At least I wasn’t—” Marcus started to say, “Wearing a witch mask,” but then he saw some kids within earshot. Peter might go ballistic if his secret identity was revealed, and the school really only needed one student to make a spectacle of himself on any given afternoon.

  “I’ll give you credit,” said Peter. “You’re pretty good at keeping bullies from beating you up.”

  Marcus stood. “Yeah, well, I’m bad at everything else.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re great at a lot of things. And I think you’re going to do a disappearing shark trick that will make everybody else go as crazy as you just did.”

  They started to walk home. “I don’t know why I told Kimberly that I punched Ken in the face,” said Marcus. “That was dumb.”

  “You told her that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “I just said that I don’t know why.”

  “It could’ve been worse.”

  “Yes, I could have told her that I knocked all three of them unconscious with my pinky. The fact that I could’ve said something worse doesn’t mean it was a good thing to say.”

  “So you exaggerated the story,” said Peter. “Big deal. What’s she going to do? Never talk to you again?”

  “I can’t figure out if you’re trying to make me feel better or if you’re trying to crush my spirit into the dirt.”

  “The first one.”

  “You’re not a great motivational speaker, Peter.”

  “I would never say I’m good at talking. What I am good at is seeing when people are beating themselves up and they don’t deserve it. I should know. I beat myself up all the time.”

  “Not to be argumentative,” said Marcus, “but you deserve it a little bit.”

  “For last night, yeah. I’m talking about the past sixteen years.”

  “Okay, I can’t speak to that whole time frame.”

  “This mess isn’t your fault.”

  “Not to be argumentative again, but I’m actually not blaming myself for this predicament. I’m blaming myself for the sucker punch fib. I can’t point fingers at anybody but me for that. But for everything else I’m blaming you, Grandpa Zachary, Sinister Seamus, Bernard, Ken, Chris, and Joe.”

  “I thought you said you were bad at everything?”

  “That’s not the same as blaming myself,” said Marcus. “And now that I’ve had a minute or so to recover from my feeling of complete despair, I still think I’m good at some stuff.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “In fact, I feel a lot better. Maybe that humiliation was exactly what I needed. I’m going to do this trick. I’m going to get a shark no matter what, and we’re going to build a tank no matter what. And we’re going to make the illusion work no matter what. Sinister Seamus is going to learn that he’s messing with the wrong teenage magician!”

  “Yeah!” said Peter.

  “Who does he think he is, trying to make me live in fear? Threatening me and my family? Changing the rules whenever he feels like it? He’s going to wish he’d never heard the name of Marcus Millian III. He’s going to wish he’d never broken into Grandpa Zachary’s apartment. He’s going to wish he’d never been born!”

  “Yeah!” Peter said again.

  “Maybe I won’t go that far. I’m sure he’s had some good years that will balance out the bad, so even if he doesn’t wish he’d never been born, he’ll wish he’d died sooner!”

  “Yeah?” Peter said after a moment of hesitation. “I want to chime in, but that’s kind of morbid. He’s a human being. He had a mother.”

  “All right,” said Marcus. “I withdraw that. But with you as my witness, I’m vowing right now that Sinister Seamus loses!”

  “Yeah!”

  “Hey!” shouted Bernard. Marcus and Peter looked back over their shoulder and saw him chasing after them. “I know you saw me in the parking lot!”

  They waited until Bernard caught up with them. He was breathing heavily, even though they hadn�
�t even made it off school grounds yet. He panted for a few moments before speaking.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t run much. I got a gym membership as a birthday present one year, but I never went. I need to get in shape. This is embarrassing.”

  He panted some more.

  “It’s okay,” said Marcus. “We aren’t in a hurry.” Marcus hoped Bernard wasn’t going to have a heart attack.

  “Okay, I’m fine now,” said Bernard. He handed Marcus the poster. “Would you care to explain this?”

  It was the same poster as before but with a new date.

  “Seamus changed the date on me,” Marcus explained. “Now we only have—” He looked at the poster and did a quick calculation in his head. “Two weeks?”

  “I thought you had a month,” said Peter.

  “I did have a month! He changed it again!”

  “It’s almost like he doesn’t want you to succeed,” said Peter.

  “This is unacceptable!” said Marcus. “If he wants to increase the stakes with his evil, murderous ways, fine, but he can’t keep changing the time line! That’s not how wagers work! You set the rules, and you stick to them!”

  “He’s Sinister Seamus,” said Bernard. “He does what he wants when he wants.”

  “Well, this is going to backfire. I’m now even more motivated than I was about a minute ago. He wants to change the rules? Let him. It will make his defeat sting even more. Mark my words. This show will end with Sinister Seamus crying on the floor of the restroom!”

  “He’s got you set for the same day that Prairie Dogs: A Musical Journey opens!” said Bernard. “That’s my big-ticket show for the season. I can’t have people showing up for Prairie Dogs: A Musical Journey and make them sit through some belly flop of a magic trick by a fifteen-year-old.”

  “I won’t let you down,” said Marcus. “When my illusion is complete, people will feel like they got their money’s worth before the opening song of Prairie Dogs: A Musical Journey even begins. That I swear!”

  “They’ll still be putting up the Prairie Dogs: A Musical Journey set up until the night before the opening. I can’t let you set up the shark tank until that morning.”

  “That’s not a problem,” said Marcus, even though it was a pretty big problem.