Morsixx held his cupped hands steady, but the back of Sully’s underwear didn’t give up the hook easily. When it finally released, it did so all of a sudden, jolting Sully forward, which caused Morsixx to stagger back.
“Hold still, Morsixx!”
“You think I’m trying to dance here, Dude? Get a hold of yourself.”
Sully grabbed wildly to stall his fall, clinging to Morsixx in the process, with his arms around his head and his legs around his chest.
“Morsixx! Let go of me! Put me down!”
“I’m not the one holding on, Dude. You’re going to take us both down.”
“Hold steady!”
“Let go!”
The two of them landed hard on the bathroom floor, face-to-face, Sully spread-eagled and flailing while Morsixx rolled out from under him.
“You nearly killed me.” Sully bounced to his feet and looked around, as if witnesses might pop out of thin air.
“You’re welcome,” said Morsixx.
“We can’t let anyone see us.” Sully shut himself in a stall to undo the damage the wedgie had caused.
“I’m late for class.” Sully exited the stall and headed for the door to the hallway. “Wait five minutes after I go before you leave.”
“Say what?” said Morsixx.
“Look,” said Sully. “Thank you for helping me, but the last thing I can afford is for someone to see us coming out of here together.”
“Dude, you should be more afraid of being seen with yourself. Take a good long look in the mirror. You are so messed up these days.”
“What are you saying?” said Sully. “What do you know about that?”
“Dude, look at yourself. Seriously.”
Sully swung round to look at himself in the mirror. Pieces of him were chasing themselves around his face like a game of Pac Mac. His eyes were doing loop the loops, jockeying for position with his spinning ears and ping-ponging nose. His mouth yawned cavernously as if ready to swallow the whole lot.
A sharp rap on the bathroom door froze his features in their new location, all bunched together in the middle of his face, with one eye in each ear canal flanked by his lips and flaring nostrils.
“We’re coming in!” It was Winters’s voice. “Don’t think I don’t know what that odor is. I can smell it out in the hallway.”
The door pushed inward as Mr. Caradine, the caretaker, paved the way for Winters.
“Coast is clear, Miss Winters,” he said. “It’s okay to come in.”
“Has one of you been smoking?” Winters looked at Sully. “The penalty is suspension, but if you lie on top of that, you’ll be expelled.”
“It wasn’t me!” said Sully.
“It wasn’t either of us,” said Morsixx.
“And yet, the evidence is evident,” said Winters, sniffing the air. “Another student advised you were in here.”
“There must’ve been dozens of students through here this morning,” said Morsixx.
“That may be so,” said Winters, “but that doesn’t explain why you’re hanging out in the boys’ bathroom when you’re supposed to be in class. I suppose it’s just coincidence that you two are in here together at the exact same time? I know you’re friends.”
“Who says we’re friends,” said Sully.
“Whoa, Dude, that’s harsh. You’re even more messed up than I thought. My friend’s just having a major identity crisis, Ma’am, but I—”
“I’m having an identity crisis?” said Sully. “Look who’s talking. If anyone’s having an identity crisis, Morsixx, it’s you with your stupid Emo clothing!”
Morsixx ignored him and turned back to Winters.
“I’m telling you the truth. Neither of us is responsible for the cigarette smoke in here. The Dude was roughed up by some punks and I was helping him. That’s all.”
“Bullying?” said Winters. “We have zero tolerance for bullying at this institution. Who was bullying you, Mr. Brewster?”
“No one,” said Sully. “I just tripped, Miss Winters.”
“Pretty impressive trip,” said Morsixx under his breath.
“You can talk to me,” said Winters.
“Thank you,” said Sully, “but I’m fine.”
“Is everything okay, Miss Winters?” Dodger stood outside the door as the four of them walked out. “I was excused from class to use the washroom. Is it safe to use?”
“There’s nothing to worry about, young man,” Winters patted his shoulder and nodded. “Thank you for asking. Hurry along so you can get back to class.”
“Oh, I will, Miss Winters.” Dodger winked at Sully. He held up his phone behind the principal’s back and swiped quickly through some photos Sully couldn’t make out. “I made sure to time things so I wouldn’t miss a thing.”
CHAPTER 22
“Just in time, Brewster.”
Some guy named Owen Black was in the midst of a presentation on gonorrhea when Sully walked in with a late slip. Owen’s wide Grinch grin slid in place as he stepped in front of Sully and steered him to the front of the class.
“You decide to saunter in late to this class,” said Green, responding to the look of protest on Sully’s face, “you suffer the consequences. Proceed, Mr. Black.”
“As I was saying, you have to be careful when courting the . . . lay-dies.” He said the word “ladies” in a high voice, with an exaggerated hand flourish toward Sully.
“Oh, wait . . . ” said Owen, as Sully batted his hand away. “My mistake. Geez, get a haircut, Brewster.”
Everyone laughed as Sully pulled away and took his seat. Except Tank, whose smirk emitted something darker than simple amusement.
Bolting from Sex Ed as soon as the bell rang, Sully took refuge in English and ignored Dodger’s sneer as he entered the classroom. Blossom, on the other hand, slipped into the classroom twenty minutes after the bell. She placed her late slip on Wippet’s desk and walked to her seat as if navigating a narrow hallway.
“What’d you do?” said a girl as Blossom walked by. “Walk into a door or something?”
“Do you seriously think you look good?” said the girl in the desk beside her.
Blossom ignored them. She opened her book to a random page and stared straight ahead. Sully noted that she’d outlined her eyes in red and painted daffodils on her right cheekbone against a smear of purples and greens.
“We’re going to use The Handmaid’s Tale as our comparative novel,” Blossom whispered, as Wippet turned to the blackboard and began writing notes she had instructed the class to copy down.
For a moment, Sully wondered if Blossom was even talking to him. She focused alternately between the blackboard and an elaborate doodle she was penning in the margin of her notes.
“What?” he whispered back, after a pause.
“It’s a good fit,” she said, still not looking at him. “Both heroines are imprisoned. Both struggle within a world of someone else’s making. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t read it, because I have.”
“Are you talking to me?” Sully leaned forward to peer into her face, which was turned slightly away from him.
She turned to look at him. The violets on her forehead overlapped each other as her brow creased.
“Never mind.” While Blossom’s dismissal was whispered, Sully felt the sting of it.
“Who appointed you Queen?” he said. “What are you, some kind of control freak?”
“Do you have another title in mind?”
“Another title?”
“A different book.” She enunciated each word. “Do you have a different book you think would be better?”
“Well, no, I—”
“I thought not.” She turned to face the board again. “If you want to think of something better, I’m all ears. One way or another, we need to get started.”
The violets criss-crossed her forehead again.
“It would probably be a good idea for you to at least get the title right.”
“You do realize I’m in the middle of teaching this class, don’t you?” Wippet had somehow approached the side of Sully’s desk without him noticing.
“Talking in class is fine as long as it’s on topic,” Wippet continued. “So, let’s put your verbosity to good use. Follow me.”
Red-faced, Sully followed Wippet to the front of the class where she laid her volume of Tennyson’s poetry open on his palms.
“Read from here,” she said, pointing. “This will help you, Sullivan.”
Sully raised the book to block the mocking faces of his classmates.
“But in her web she . . . still delights to . . . weave the mirror’s magic sights for often thro . . . thro . . . like throw?” Sully looked to Wippet for direction.
“Like ‘through,’ Sullivan,” Wippet supplied. “For often through the silent nights. Continue.”
“For often through the silent nights . . . a funeral with plumes . . . ”
“A funeral,” interrupted Wippet, “and then you pause. Feel the syntax, Sullivan. Feel the words. A funeral went to Camelot. A funeral with plumes, which are feathers, and with lights and music. Try again.”
“A funeral,” said Sully, increasingly confused, “with plumes and lights and music, went to Camelot.”
Sully paused and looked hopefully at Wippet.
“Try one more stanza and then you can take your seat.”
Sully hid his face behind the book once more, and read, “Or when the moon was overhead came two young . . . lovers lately wed—”
“Here it is,” said Wippet. She closed her eyes and flung one arm out dramatically, while waving her other for Sully to continue.
“‘I am half sick of shadows,’ said the Lady of Shalott.”
“Thank you, Sullivan. Thank you,” said Wippet, taking the book from him. “You did just fine. It’s a lovely phrase, isn’t it?”
Sully shrugged.
“I am half sick of shadows, class,” she repeated theatrically and nodded for Sully to take his seat. “Do you see? Suddenly we are out of the lady’s web and into her head. ‘I am half sick of shadows.’ Tell me. What is she saying? What is the lady’s heartache? What is she pining for?”
Sully slouched in his seat with his arms crossed. He pivoted away from Blossom and scowled against her expected criticism.
“Well, aren’t you going to say something?” he said after a minute.
“Pardon?” She dragged her eyes off her notebook as if waking from a trance.
“Go ahead. Say what you’re going to say.”
“I am half sick of shadows,” she said, but her gaze fell short of him.
“Whatever.” Sully turned away again, but not before he saw that the intricate flowers in the margins of Blossom’s notebook were not entirely random doodles. The layers of vine that connected one flower to the next were wound around the figure of a sleeping girl, spun up and bound like a fly in a spider’s web.
CHAPTER 23
The day’s events—the wedgie, Blossom’s strange behavior, an unwanted stab of guilt when he thought of Morsixx—had pushed Mr. C. from Sully’s head. As he approached the purple house on his way home from school, the morning’s odd encounter with the old man rushed back.
Did he actually say the fence had something to do with Sully’s life? That was kind of creepy, or maybe just sad. Or funny. Sully was pretty sure Mr. C. was senile, but there was a strange intrigue about him at the same time . . . somewhere between crazy, awe inspiring, and cool.
Changes in the fence revealed the old man had been busy. Charlie Brown stood even further from the other figurines now. Still on the lowest fence post, he was side by side with Madonna, both of whom faced a shiny piece of tin foil that distorted their reflections.
Charlie Brown and Madonna. Sully smirked at the ridiculousness of these two characters together. Mr. C. called it a prediction. Yah, right. In what universe?
In an exact reversal of the morning, Sully loitered outside the house, half hoping to talk to the old man. Instead, he almost bumped into the Purse Lady.
“Well, that’s not good,” she said.
“You can see how messed up my face is,” Sully blurted. “Can’t you.”
“This arrangement is challenging to be sure.” She scrutinized Sully’s face as she inscribed a circle with her index finger around her own. “All the more reason you need to watch where you’re going.”
“Why can you see my face when no one else can?”
“If you want people to see your face, you should cut your hair.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it. I mean this.” He grabbed his jaw for emphasis. “How messed up I am. You can see it. I know you can.”
“A little give and take,” she said.
“What?”
“You have to give a little to get a little.”
“What does that even have to do with what we’re talking about?”
“It’s just this.” She rummaged in her purse, pulled out a pair of mismatched socks, and tucked them under her arm.
“No,” she said. “Not that. Give me a minute.”
After the socks, she pulled out a half-eaten muffin, some pliers, a deck of cards, a paperback book, a tin of tuna, some newspaper, a roll of toilet paper, a bag of buttons, some knee-highs, and a blanket.
Sully gawked. It seemed impossible that she could fit all this and more into her purse. It wasn’t that big.
“Here.” She unfolded the worn piece of paper she pulled out next and pointed to the drawing of the rainbow-colored ball she’d shown him the other day. “It’s just this. I think you know where it is.”
“Well, you’re wrong about that,” said Sully. “I don’t even know what it is.”
“Yes, you do. You just don’t know that you know yet.”
“Oh-h-h-kay. Why can you see what happened to me when no one else can?”
“You already asked me that.”
“Well, you didn’t answer.”
“It takes one to know one,” she said. “Maybe it’s just because whatever is inside of you is inside of me, too. But different, I suppose.”
“I have no idea what you just said.”
“Everyone’s jumbled to some degree,” she said. “Messed up. Looking for an answer. A solution.”
“I’m talking about my face,” said Sully. “Can we please stay on that for a minute?”
“Take a look.” She dug into her purse again and yanked out a hand mirror this time. The tarnished silver handle was decorated with intricate scrolls and inlay, which wound up and around the shield-shaped mirror. Some fancy letters were etched on the back, too complicated for Sully to decipher.
The Purse Lady pushed the mirror in front of his face and then eased in beside him, so they were both looking at the same image.
“Like I said, messed up. Now that your mouth is right side up, your frown is just a frown.”
“I know my face is messed up. What I’m asking you is how and why? How did this happen to me? Please . . . you have to help me. It’s freaking me out.”
“How should I know.” She shrugged.
“Well, why can—”
“I see you when no one else can?” she said. “What makes you think you’re so invisible?”
Saying this, she shifted the mirror over. The image looking back at them now was the Purse Lady’s own face, but in it her mouth wobbled in the wrinkled hollow of her left cheek, and tragic, red-rimmed eyes balanced along her jawline. Her ears fanned out on either side of her forehead, while her pink nose sniffled sideways on her chin.
Sully’s stoma
ch turned over, and his heart felt heavy with bottomless sorrow. Pushing the feeling away, he pulled away from the lady.
“What’s going on? Are you the one who did this to me? Are you some kind of witch? I don’t believe in witches.”
“Don’t be so rude.”
Sully lunged forward and grabbed the mirror’s handle. He looked from the reflective glass to the lady’s real face, which looked normal, and back again.
“Takes one to know one,” she said again. “Here, help me with this.”
She made a movement to shift her stash of items into Sully’s arms, but he pushed his hands out in front of him as he walked backward.
“You’re freaking me out.”
“You were freaked out long before you met me.”
“There’s something really wrong with you,” he said.
“I never said there wasn’t.”
“Stay away from me.”
“Suit yourself.” She shoveled the paraphernalia back into her apparently bottomless purse. “You get what you give.”
CHAPTER 24
In desperation, even though he felt a little stupid doing it, Sully googled witches and spells about altering people’s faces. Surprisingly, there were lots of sites that offered answers. Once inside the various web pages, however, he ended up with the same number of answers he had when he started. Zero.
Besides one site that offered a little chant to give your enemy red eyes, and another that involved candles, water, herbs, and another chant to get rid of acne, most of the others boiled down to the same thing: spells can’t really change your appearance, but they can change the way you feel about yourself, which, in turn, can change the way you look. In other words, if you want to be more attractive, you just have to gain greater confidence.
What a crock, Sully thought. He didn’t care about looking attractive. He just wanted to look normal. Normal enough that he could glide through Grade 9 without drawing unwanted attention to himself.
Useless preaching about mind over matter was not going to help Sully in his current predicament, and neither, apparently, was the Purse Lady. He wasn’t sure what to make of Mr. C., but the old bat with the purse was definitely someone he was going to avoid.
Sully Messed Up Page 7
