CHAPTER SEVEN
Jessica immediately began spouting off about some TV show she knew I had never seen. I was too distracted by Lathon’s last comment to pay attention. He not only said Jessica’s last name but recognized it just by hearing her attitude and voice. The feeling crept up that a lot of people knew something I didn’t and I had it in spades.
Jessica punched me in the arm, “Hey, jerk. How did the dinner go?”
The memory brought me back to my reality. I saw Darius’s leathery skin shrinking to his bones, stealing his life away.
“Was it that bad?” Jessica said. “Are you crying?”
I wiped my eyes. “No? Me? Crying? Of course not.” Jessica stared at me like I had antlers growing out of my head. “It was dinner. Mom cooked. We ate. They talked. He left.”
Jessica refused to lower her gaze. She had an awful habit of seeing right through me when I was trying to lie. I said, “Ok, it was ten times more exciting than that, but this really isn’t a good time to talk about it. Present company and all.”
She mocked me by interrogating the kids who had chosen to sit in the back of the bus with us, “Do you care what Alan Quinn had for dinner last night? No?” She turned back to me, “No one cares. I cared a minute ago but now even I’m not so sure anymore.”
A tingling sensation crept into my ear like someone had turned a microphone on for a concert. My companion was attempting to climb in my head, “Alan, that small, teensy, weensy hunch inside of you that is begging you to give Miss LeCarre a hint about last night’s festivities needs not be humored.”
I mumbled quietly under my breath so Jessica couldn’t hear me slowly becoming the freak she thought I was, “Why? She is my best friend. She wouldn’t believe me anyways.”
He said, “You would be surprised.”
Jessica pointed out that I wasn’t very good at keeping my voice down, “What are you babbling about now? If you don’t want to talk to me you should have just said so.” She crossed her arms, “You can be a real jerk sometimes.”
“I am sorry—I—”
When I couldn’t get her to look at me, I decided to dive headfirst into the crazy pool. “Darius showed up at my house but he was thirty years older than he was when I saw him at the store.”
This got her attention. As well as Gerry’s who was behind us mashing buttons in a new fighting game, popped his head up to hear our conversation.
Sure that Lathon wasn’t going to stop me, I continued for my new audience, “Well, he brought some weird stone to my house and left it on our table, but then my mom kicked him out in the cold. I followed him with Peaches to the park at the end of the street, but when I got there—” I paused, wondering if I should omit the part where he died. I kept that part of the story to myself for fear it might freak them out. The fear they might call the cops also came to mind.
Jessica said, “And then what happened?”
I started to talk about Lathon but a sharp prick hit my leg from inside the bag. I let out a loud, “Ow!
Jessica and Gerry both gave me the same glare. Jessica said, “You are lying to us, aren’t you?”
Gerry, dissapointed, leaned back in his seat. Jessica switched her attention back to the window.
Lathon whispered, “It might have been useful to mention I am speaking through your mind so I can allow you to respond in the same fashion. You do not have to talk for me to hear you.”
He was already getting on my nerves.
I attempted to concentrate my words at him with my mind by holding both of my hands against my forhead, “How do you know who the LeCarres are?”
He said, “You really do not have to do that. Anyways, I will answer your question with my own. Did you think that your family moved here just by chance?”
I lowered my hands, “Maybe? I imagine you are about to tell me otherwise.”
“You could have benefited from living on Draio because you certainly have no sense. I will leave you with this: nothing in your life has been a coincidence.”
He continued to drone on for the rest of the trip, but I developed the valuable skill of tuning him out. I learned from the best, considering Jessica successfully pretended like I didn’t exist. I hardly felt like anyone was on my side.
We arrived at school fifteen minutes later and walked to the Dahlgreen main gym to wait for the bell. They had put Coach Cyrus, in all of his ogre like glory, in charge of morning duty.
Since my first class was gym, he had me and the rest of my classmates dressing out in our gym clothes to prepare for dodge ball while everyone else got to sit on the gym floor and hang out with their friends. It usually wouldn’t have bothered me since I only had the one friend, but now I was not so sure if I even had her anymore. It was more likely that she thought I was too much of a freak to be around.
I probably should have listened to the magical alien that had hidden in my satchel and held my peace, but Jessica was my only friend. She deserved to know what was going on. It didn’t matter. She had gotten so upset with me on the bus that she didn’t even wait to talk to me before she went to the girl’s locker room. Lathon said some garbage like, “It is for the best,” but he did not deserve a response from me. He still wouldn’t tell me how he knew who she was.
The locker room smelled like a family of pigs sitting on a dung heap under a hot sun. A hundred teal and black lockers filled the walls. There were showers in the back but those were reserved for athletes.
I was joined by the twenty or so brutes that I had met on my first day of school. Each one made me look like I was too young to be in their grade with their early facial hair and massive side burns. Vick, the biggest of the bunch, had grown his first mustache over the summer, which I supposed made him the official leader. I assumed puberty had hit him when he was six. I gave it until the end of the year before he would grow a beard.
He kicked off the days by teasing me about my accent, saying, “Alan doesn’t know if he’s English or just an idiot.” I never got it because I did not have an accent. His friends, on the other hand, laughed at his jokes like he was the next Richard Pryor.
I usually retaliated by requesting he make an attempt to find all of the different countries I had lived in on a map. It sounded like the cleverest thing after the first few times I did it until he showed me how easily I could fit into the storage closet.
Since then, he had made a point to make my life a living hell every day. I was usually defended by Jessica who can pack a pretty good punch but the chances of her helping me out on that particular day were very slim. I wish she knew I wasn’t lying to her. Of all people, I thought she would at least have listened.
Vick, almost twice my size, put his finger up against my nose. It smelled like a day old bag of Doritos covered in mayonaise. He said, “Good morning, Princess Fart Wad. Want to guess what the flavor is today?”
I wasn’t in the mood to be messed with, “If it isn’t your mom then I don’t care to know.” He jerked me back by my white gym shirt and threw me into the locker.
In spite of the dizziness that set in, I quipped, “You should have let me know if you didn’t want me to guess.” That got me thrown at a bench.
The other boys rallied together, chanting, “FIGHT. FIGHT. FIGHT.”
Lathon tuned into my ear, “Maybe it is not advisable to respond with social combat. You are not helping your cause. You were supposed to be showing me how this was better after all.”
I slapped myself in the ear, “I will handle my own fights, THANK YOU.”
The locker room had grown silent. I looked over my shoulder to find every boy with their mouths dropped open. Vick had a confused expression, but I couldn’t tell one way or the other since he always looked
that way. It just occurred to me that I must have said that out loud.
Vick laughed, “Oh, really? He is a freak and he is crazy. We might be doing Dahlgreen a service by shutting him up. It’s the showers for you, Quinn.” They started towards me when the bell rang. I breathed a sigh of relief but a wicked grin stretched across Vick’s face. He said, “We’ll settle this on the pavement!”
I said, “Pavement?”
The group looked even more confused until a scrawny boy I knew as Rory stepped forward. “Uh, Vick?” he said. “I believe the expression is we’ll settle this ‘on the court.’ In this situation, of course.”
Vick growled and led everyone out of the locker room.
I allowed my body to relax. I said to myself, “This is going to be a long day.”
Lathon mused, “Are there more hours today then there were yesterday?”
I shook my head, got changed into my uniform, and locked everything else away in my locker. Not ready for what waited for me outside, I ran out to the gym.
When I set foot on the court, the gym was dead silent. All of the students had gone off to their classes and gym class had officially begun. Coach Cyrus had split us up into teams, but I knew it was really all of the guys against me.
When the match began, I knew most of my teammates were just going to let themselves get tagged out so Vick wouldn’t have any obstacles. To add insult to injury, the girls were watching our match before they received their turn on the court. I saw Jessica at the top of the bleachers but her eyes were focused on her school books. Anything to not look at me.
“Eyes on the game, Quinn,” Coach Cyrus yelled, his face dark red with anger. “You will have plenty of time for footsy in BALLET CLASS!”
I assumed that was the best insult he could think of. Coach Cyrus put a whistle in the side of his mouth, “You all know how this works. You get the ball. You throw the ball. If you get hit by the ball, you are out of the game. If you are out of the game, you do a lap around the gym. You do not stop doing laps until the game is over.”
A loud groan rose over Cyrus’ shouts. Everyone was staring at Vick, pleading for him to call off his “leave Alan to me” game plan as it would certainly guarantee they’d be running laps for awhile.
Coach Cyrus blew his whistle three times until they quit groaning. He said, “We could always skip dodge ball and run instead. I wouldn’t mind that at all.”
A resounding, “No, Coach Cyrus,” bounced around the acoustics of the gym. The ten players on the other team lined up horizontally on the other side. My team outnumbered them by one but that never amounted to much.
Coach Cyrus placed the ten balls we would be using to barrel each other with strategically at the center of the court. Vick licked his lips. This was Christmas to him and I was the ham he would be eating for lunch.
Coach Cyrus counted down, “3…2..” while Lathon chimed in, “Want to see a fancy trick?”
I said, “Not particularly. Please go away.”
He said, “I can take that as a yes.”
Before I could scream, “No,” something that felt like a five foot long worm climbed into my nose. I flipped out and slapped my nose a few times, but noticed I had to be the only one in the gym that could see or feel it, so I tried my best to resist the urge to have a nervous breakdown. Vick and his buddies thought I was a riot and rolled on the floor laughing.
I said, “Lathon, get out of my body. Now!” It was too late. He had taken control of my motor skills and by that time Coach Cyrus had already screamed, “One,” and blew his whistle. The game had started.
The girls were cheering us on, while my team took their positions to get knocked out of the match.
Vick hung back behind his teammates like a commanding general waiting for his chance to dive into the action. I, however, couldn’t move. Lathon had been so excited about taking me over that he temporarily forgot what he was supposed to do next.
Lathon said, “This is a team effort, you know. I cannot be doing all of the work.”
A ball flew past my face. I yelled in my mind, “Tell me again how this was supposed to impress me.”
He said, “I have not exactly done this in awhile. Wait a tick! I have got it. Here we go.”
I felt a pinch inside my head like someone was twisting a screwdriver to tighten a bolt. It was quite painful for a moment, but the pain went away around the time I lost control of my arms and legs.
My body moved back and forth behind my team which had dwindled to five members against our opponent’s nine. Allowing him to drive me was weird at first, but I realized Lathon purposely had me mimicking Vick who was not so quick to take notice.
My lips moved against my own free will, “Your muscles are the least impressive things I have ever seen. How do you expect to pick up any girls when they can see you would probably lose a fight to a Nee Naw?”
I yelled at him with my mind, “What in the blazes is a Nee Naw? If you are going to be choosing my words for me, try saying something that everyone else would understand. You are going to get me killed.”
He continued, “In order to beat a bully, you have to understand them. They do not wish to be picked on either nor do they want their intelligence questioned. Once you have picked up that little tip, you may notice that someone like Vick will get insulted no matter what you have called him. He would be mince meat up on Draio if he could not handle being called a Nee Naw.”
“A Nee what?”
“Save your questions. Your nemesis has taken to the front lines.”
Lathon made my body do a dive and roll to catch a ball that had fallen to the side. My arms grabbed a hold of it as my legs stood me back up with spring action. The ball shot out of my grip and pelted one of the heavier kids I knew as Murray in between his eyes. The crowd went wild. It kind of looked like it got Jessica’s attention as well. Strangely, it looked like she was taking notes on the event.
Even Coach Cyrus pumped his fist, chanting, “There is hope for you yet, Quinn. Do it again.”
I thought, “That felt good,” and Lathon responded, “I am just getting started.”
Another five minutes passed and the majority of the players had been relegated to jogging around the gym. I had taken out so many members of Vick’s team that my guys went from making themselves leave early to serving as my personal body guards, so I could lead them to victory.
They watched as I leapt five feet in the air to dodge the enemy force’s attacks. At one point, Lathon had me perched on the shoulders of one of my biggest teammates, Scottie Armstrong (think the Incredible Hulk in between the switch from Bruce Banner to X-Men’s Beast but he has white skin instead of blue and sports blonde hair.)
Together, we became a human battle tank. Lathon placed some kind of force field around us, making our defenses unstoppable. We took out everybody one dodge ball at a time, saving Vick for last.
I had to admit Vick was fast and extremely atheletic. He dodged every ball I threw at him and, after awhile, Scottie was getting too tired to hold me. He said, “Can I put you down, boss?”
Lathon spoke through me, “You have been a worthy ally, Scottie of Dahlgreen. You may put me down. This fight has to be won by me and me alone.”
I thought something around the lines of “You are a dork,” but Lathon wasn’t the least bit offended. He had too much power to be offended. In fact, I was starting to get the feeling he had no intentions of letting me have my body back.
“Let me take this one,” I said to him.
He responded, “Why would I do that? With you at the reins, we are more than likely to drown in the wallows of mediocri
ty.”
He paused and used my eyes to look around at all of the kids who had stopped moving. They were frozen in shock, “Yeah, I suppose I have frightened your schoolmates enough. Here you go.”
I felt the big invisible worm climb out of my nose and fall to the floor. Slowly, inch by inch, I regained the use of my muscles. I was ready to prove I could win without assistance, but Vick used my moment of vulnerability to throw his ball. It hit me square in the chest and hurt like hell.
I fell on my butt. The gym erupted in laughter. Lathon chuckled, “I suppose it is the journey that counts, not the destination.”
Coach Cyrus helped me up, which felt like a nice gesture, but he informed me I had to run twenty laps by myself since I’d lost the match.
Lathon said, “You are on your own kid,” and slithered off to the locker room.
I started my laps, while the rest of the kids had their complimentary free time. Vick had a crew of his followers around him, presenting their congratulations for his sound victory, but that wasn’t the only thing they were gossiping about. Vick relished every moment of it as he shook all of their hands. If I did not know better, I would have assumed he won a close mayoral race.
Vick was waiting for me when I made it back to the locker room. His friends were cheering him on while he gleefully ripped through my satchel.
“How had he gotten to it?,” I thought to myself. I must have left it next to the bench, but I thought I had put it up. I said, “What are you doing?” They ignored me like I was a fly buzzing around their heads. Louder, I said, “Put down my bag.”
Impatience filled my body to the rim. The search for my dad had reached breaking point, my nightmares were coming to life, and even that didn’t cut me a break from school bullies. He wasn’t even clever enough to get under my skin, but something made me want to punch him right between the eyes. So, I did.
The room went silent. Twenty sets of eyes turned their attention to me and glory does not describe the situation. Vick might as well have received a beating from a bird feather for all of the pain I caused him. But, instead of instant doom, Vick froze into a Vick-sized statue.
Lathon’s voice called from my locker, “I promise this is absolutely necessary.” A puff of smoke, I alone seemed to see for all of the reaction it got, shot out of my locker and climbed into Vick’s ear. Vick’s expression turned into one of alarm before it morphed into an absolutely horrifying grin.
I shook my head “No” to let him know this wasn’t okay. Vick nodded his head saying, “Oh, Yes.”
Lathon-Vick threw down my satchel, “Are you done barking at me little puppies or would like daddy to take you on a walk?” The boys threw on their street clothes and ran to their next class.
Vick-Lathon or Lathon-Vick was freaking me out. The Silhouette bounced around the room like a kid in a brand new Halloween costume, doing back flips off of the benches.
I lost it. I said, “Get out of his body, this instant!” I caught him mid-flip and grabbed a hold of his right arm, forgetting that he weighed at least a hundred pounds more than I did. I was instantly regretting my decision.
We tumbled on the ground together with Vick-Lathon going first. The middle bench snapped in half. I hardly believed Lathon felt anything, but Vick was in for a rude awakening when he snapped out of Lathon’s hold. Upon regaining the ability to breathe, I said, “Why are you doing this to me?”
He said, “You wanted to go to school. I have a world to protect. Since I obviously cannot have one without the other, why not have a little bit of fun?”
The Silhouette (Alan Quinn and the Second Lifes) Page 8