The Other Normals

by Ned Vizzini

  The knife flies past my ear. I feel my temple and realize a critical portion of my bowl haircut is gone. A thin cut brings to mind the trickle of blood I left on the other Ryu, today, at camp, hours ago, centuries ago.

  “Die!” Ryu snarls as Gamary and Ada restrain him.

  “I thought I had it under control,” I tell her.

  “Not anymore!”

  I note the symmetry: Ryu’s friends at camp grabbed me, and now my friends are grabbing Ryu. I cut Ryu with Pekker Cland, and now Ryu has cut me in the same place. Ryu knocked me out, so I know what I have to do. It’s almost like I’m not in control of myself, like I’m a different person, and not necessarily a better one, as I swing Ada’s notebook at him. He crumples to the ground.

  42

  “ALL RIGHT,” ADA SAYS, “I WANT YOU TO listen very carefully.” She moves around the room with the confidence of an ER doctor, opening panels on the walls, setting dials. The thakerak hums and purrs.

  “Whoa!” Gamary yells as a sword jabs through the door.

  “Open up!” a voice orders. The sword jerks up and down but, lodged in the wood, it can’t get far. From the size of it I know it’s Officer Tendrile’s.

  “Hurry up!” Gamary pleads.

  “Peregrine.” Ada takes my hand. “You have to go back to camp and kiss Anna Margolis, do you understand? We’ll find Mortin in Granger Prison.”

  “How? You’re trapped here.”

  “I have a service exit,” Gamary says, “if you two don’t get us killed by dawdling.”

  “If you don’t kiss her, you won’t free the princess, and the dark shroud of violence that you see will continue to befall us.” She holds up the silver figure. I look into the princess’s eyes. The thakerak sparks, and I swear, for a second, the princess winks at me.

  “Why can’t we free her here?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Open up!”

  “Ophisa—he’s in the Badlands, right? We’ll get an adventuring party together and defeat him. Me, you, Gamary … plus we can rescue Mortin and bring him. I’ve demonstrated my worth as a warrior, right? We’ll kill the monster, free the princess, and all live happily ever after.”

  “You’re saying you would rather travel to the Badlands, infiltrate Ophisa’s lair, try to avoid the poison that he spits from his unblinking eyes, run under him with a sword, and plunge it into his dark and distended heart … than kiss a girl in your summer camp?”

  “Yes! That’s exactly what I’m saying!”

  The door splinters and bends. “Hurry!” Gamary says.

  “You have bowels, Peregrine, I’ll give you that, but—”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re brave. Bowels.”

  “Oh. Uh …” I’m embarrassed to correct her, and we are in a time-sensitive situation, but I remember what Mortin said: you should always correct a friend who mispronounces something.

  “You’re thinking of a different term, Ada. It’s balls.”

  “Like male human testicles?”

  “Yes. Well. Yes.”

  “That’s not fair. What do you say for a woman, then?”

  “I never thought about it.”

  “Open this door!”

  “Remember, for Anna,” Ada says, “don’t talk about Creatures and Caverns. Instead, compliment her. Don’t think of her as a magical, unattainable creature. Think of her as a person, like you, like me. After you’ve talked to her for a maximum of three minutes, propose that you meet in a romantic location to continue your conversation. Once there, go for the kiss. Okay?”

  “What if I don’t want to kiss Anna? What if I want to kiss you?”

  “What did I tell you about asking that? I’m not even human.”

  “Are you a magical, unattainable creature?”

  She blushes.

  “Hurry!”

  “One final thing: don’t think about the tree and car battery where you first traveled to our world. Can you do that?”

  “What?” As soon as she says it, of course, I picture the scene: the mushroom patch, the Logo Spermatikoi battery, the woods....

  Ada shoves me into the center of the room. I trip and land on the thakerak. It pops happily around me. The halos shoot out of my feet. Gamary pushes a shelf aside, and a second door rotates out of the wall. The main door bursts open in a shower of wooden shrapnel as Officer Tendrile and his guards plunge in. Ada and Gamary hustle away (Ada clutching the princess figure). My bodyless head meets Officer Tendrile’s fierce glare as I transit back to

  CAMP

  WASHISKA

  LAKE

  43

  I MATERIALIZE NEXT TO THE CAR BATTERY and clump of mushrooms, exactly where I’d left, just as I pictured. The trees shoot out at me in bleached high contrast and settle into their normal positions. Before I even have my whole body back, I’m running.

  I’m convinced that Officer Tendrile and his men are on my tail! I figure they’ll be coming after me at any moment, ready to cut a bloody swath through camp. It’ll be all over the news … but maybe nothing here ever makes the news. Maybe that’s what “No Lawyers Beyond This Point” means.

  I stop. I’m naked. No one’s coming after me, but the wolf stands in front of me.

  I forgot about the wolf. “Are you kidding me?” I ask out loud. I guess I returned at the same time I left, or maybe the wolf likes to hang out here. It growls, but I hear fear in its growl. I’ve been through way too much to be scared of a wolf. I shoo it away like I would a cat—and the itching starts.

  It begins in my feet and spreads up my legs and arms. I collapse on the forest floor. It infests every inch of me. I don’t have any hepatode bags to help; I writhe on the ground and plunge my nails into myself and scratch at my chest, arms, and legs. I have to do something. What did Ada say? If you can’t get rid of the itching with pleasure, you have to …

  I slam my hand on a rock next to me.

  “Aaaaagh!”

  That does it. The pain spreads out and numbs the itching. I lie on the ground as my body settles. I take a deep breath. The sun shines through the leaves at an afternoon angle. A bird calls. The insects start up. Earth. It smells like Earth; it looks like Earth; it’s a North American deciduous forest in summer, and everything’s where it belongs. I need some clothes.

  Mortin’s clothes are in the pile where he left them when we traveled together. His lighter too. It’s real. As real as Earth. Could both Earth and the World of the Other Normals be real? I look down my nude body as if the answer is there.

  A hair!

  44

  IT STICKS OUT BETWEEN MY LEGS LIKE an intrepid explorer reaching for the stars. I stare at it and think about the component words of late bloomer: the first one is late, and that’s bad, but the second is bloomer, and the blooming really does happen.

  “I did it!”

  I skip, trip over a root, and hit the ground hard, but I can’t stop laughing and examining myself. Have my adventures made me hit puberty? Must be! I hop in circles to celebrate, but that only lasts a few seconds, until I check the side of my head—the cut from Ryu’s knife has traveled back to camp with me. The blood is congealing into a bumpy wall against the elements. My ankle’s still tender, too, and my hand still hurts from smashing it on the rock to stop the itching, and my wrists have tentacle sucker marks on them. I have a lot of explaining to do.

  I put on Mortin’s clothes. They’re too big but they’re better than nothing—I’m not that proud of the hair.

  45

  MY NAVIGATION SKILLS HAVE IMPROVED; I might have higher Intelligence now. I use the sun. I remember from the brochure that the nurse’s office is near the southern end of camp, and the sun has crested in the west, so if I keep it to my right, I’ll be fine. I never thought to use the sun before; in New York it’s easier to find a watch than the sun.

  I wonder if I did a specific thing in the World of the Other Normals to make myself get the hair, or if my “correspondent” did. Ada said everyone has a correspondent:
Who’s mine? Is it Wizard of Oz–style? Did mine do something brave to make me level up?

  I step on roots and rocks so as not to leave footprints, but I also snap the lowest snappable branch of every tenth tree. It makes a clear path back to the transit point, a path only I would notice.

  After ten minutes I reach the edge of the woods. In front of me is the field I ran across with Mortin so many eons before. I step out, holding my pants up. Was I gone for an hour, or a second? Does time work the same way here that it does there? It certainly seems like the same afternoon I left, but what if it’s been years? What if the nurse’s office is abandoned? Maybe mice are nesting in the cabinets, and spiders have taken over the motivational posters....

  The nurse who tended to me stands outside, smoking. She looks at the sky as the smoke whiffs away.

  “Ah … excuse me?”

  She whirls around, flinging her cigarette down and crushing it in one guilty motion.

  “Holy—what happened to you? You were just here!”

  “Ah … I started wandering in the woods and I got a little confused and I seem to have lost my clothes and I also found these clothes and I have some injuries I can’t explain.” I try to sound calm. “Do you have clothes from the Lost and Found to fit me?”

  “Get inside! Jesus! Let me see your head!”

  She holds open the door for me. I’ve figured out how to jut my hands into my pockets and press them against my hips to hold up Mortin’s pants, so I hope I look natural, but I don’t think I quite pull it off.

  “Thanks for your help. And hey, I didn’t get a black eye, huh? That ice pack must have worked.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Remember? When I was here? You gave me an ice pack?”

  “You didn’t need any ice pack. You were fine when you came in. I don’t know what happened to you since, but—”

  “If I was fine, what was I here for?”

  “You were here to talk with Dale Blaswell after you knocked out poor Eric Chin! You don’t remember?”

  46

  THE NURSE GIVES ME KHAKI PANTS AND a bright pink T-shirt from the Lost and Found. I don’t think the clothes are “lost”—I think they were wisely jettisoned by previous campers. I change in the bathroom where I climbed through the window after Mortin Enaw. I put Mortin’s clothes in a shopping bag; I figure he might want them later. I picture him coming through to Camp Washiska Lake and not finding them and being very mad at me. At least I left his lighter.

  I check myself in the bathroom mirror—my hair is ridiculous and asymmetrical, but isn’t asymmetrical hair popular these days? This is the face I have to work with. Everybody gets one face, and there’s no point hating it. I used to think mine looked doughy and needy, but now I’m just glad it’s attached to my body.

  When I go back to the nurse, she’s on the phone at her desk in the examination room.

  “Yeah, he just wandered out of the woods. He seems con—”

  I press the button on the phone cradle.

  “What—”

  What would Ada do? She’d be smart, like when she told the guard she needed a doctor. She’d find leverage.

  “I don’t think it’s appropriate for you to be smoking cigarettes in front of campers, do you agree?”

  “Excuse me? I was on the phone!”

  “I know, but I’m saying, maybe it’s best that you not tell anybody about me coming out of the woods.”

  “Who do you think you are?”

  “Perry—” I start, but then I decide to try something different. “Peregrine. Peregrine Eckert, of New York. And I’m not trying to be unreasonable. Smoking isn’t permitted at Camp Washiska Lake; I read that in the brochure. So let’s just hide our secrets together and both be cool. Cool?”

  She puts the phone in its cradle and nods.

  “I think I’m ready to join the other campers now.”

  “Head down the road to the right. Follow the signs for Hideaway Village. They should be getting ready for dinner. The square dance is after. And whatever happened to you”—she leans forward—“if you need to talk, I’m here. I’m a licensed behavioral therapist.”

  47

  I WALK ALONE DOWN THE BADLY PAVED road that bisects the boys’ side of Camp Washiska Lake. The shoes I found in the Lost and Found are flip-flops that cut into the skin between my big and second toes, so I take them off and find myself more comfortable barefoot, World of the Other Normals–style. The asphalt is warm and cracked. The streaming light around me feels safe. I never realized before: it’s a luxury to be safe, to walk around without fear of serious imminent bodily harm. It’s rare, and it’s recent.

  It’s also boring. The adrenaline is gone. Time goes at its normal pace, and all the old thoughts come back: I’m not big enough I’m not good enough I’ll never make it it’s too late I’m disappointing someone somewhere right now people hate me I deserve to be hated palsy fever acne blister bone drench fluid burst.... I wonder how my brain can be such a clear and beautiful machine in mortal danger and such a tedious drag when I’m safe.

  I come to a bend in the road and see a sign tacked to a tree: HIDEAWAY VILLAGE. I proceed up a wide, well-worn path and bump into a burly male adult of the hip-hop persuasion coming the other way.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” He wears a tight stretch top like people who go to the gym. He has a big neck and short blond hair. It seems the only other white people at this camp are adults. “Are you Perry Eckert?”

  “Peregrine.”

  “Who gives a shit? Where you been?”

  “I was going to Hideaway Village.”

  “I’m your counselor. Ken. You were supposed to be here an hour ago. What happened?”

  “I was in a fight and I got injured. See?” I show him my head.

  “Fight? You look like you got a drive-by haircut. I know about the fight. You’ll be happy to know the kid you beat up is in the same yurt as you. Right now we’re doing a cookout, and nobody from my yurt can eat until my campers are accounted for, so come on.”

  I don’t ask what a yurt is. I know from the brochure. I’m not eager to see one in person.

  48

  PICTURE A SMALL CIRCULAR CABIN WHERE you sleep on the floor. That’s a yurt. Nomads in Tibet live in them. For some reason Hideaway Village campers do too. When Ken and I reach ours, though, I’m comforted: it looks like Gamary’s thakerak chamber. It’s round and compact with wooden walls, a flimsy screen door, and no windows. In front of it is a campfire pit. Around it, sitting on logs, are five angry campers.

  “Can we eat now?” one asks. He’s the darker of the two guys who were playing basketball in the parking lot before. Next to him is the guy he was playing with.

  “Everyone,” Ken says, in an adult-summarizing-things tone, “this is Perry, the seventh member of Hideaway Village yurt four. Please welcome him. You can start cooking your hot dogs now.”

  “Peregrine,” I correct. No one welcomes me. Ken lights the fire. I think of Ada. What’s she doing now? Is she rescuing Mortin with Gamary? Is Mortin alive? It feels wrong not to know … and for what? So I can rot with these fellow humans? The basketball duo snap open a cooler and hand hot dogs to everybody.

  “Eckert,” Ken says, “meet Kolby and Jaxson.” He nods at the pair. They ignore me. Next to them sits a small guy with a pushed-in nose and angry, beady eyes. He was hanging out with Sam in the parking lot too. He sneers as he puts his hot dog on a stick.

  “You get in a fight and keep us all from eating, what’s wrong with you, bitch?”

  “This is BJ. BJ, please be respectful.”

  “JB, son, JB,” he says. “If you mess it up again, I’m’a punch you.”

  Ken tightens his fists and flexes his chest at JB; JB backs off. Ken gestures to the next guy, a portly Hispanic kid. “George.”

  George ignores me. He’s totally focused on his hot dog, as if by looking at it he could make it cook faster.

  “And you know Ryu.”

  There he is
: the original Earth Ryu. He has to correspond to the one I hit with Ada’s notebook. Not just because of the name. He looks different now, far removed from the confident, predatory character I encountered at the start of camp. He has a bruise under his lip and a cut on his temple. I guess because I defeated the other Ryu, I did a reverse-history thing and beat up this one as well. He looks like he has vengeance on his mind.

  “Hey, ah, it’s okay.” I sit next to him. “Whatever we were fighting about, I’m sure I’m cool with it now.”

  “I don’t care if you’re ‘cool’ with it, I’m not ‘cool’ with it.”

  “Hey!” Ken says. “You two: one wrong move, and neither of you gets your hot dog.”

  Ryu mouths, I’m going to kill you. I slide away from him.

  “Ken, you said there were seven people in our yurt? Who’s the last one?”

  Ken nods behind him. Coming toward us, pushing his glasses up his nose, is a person I was worried I’d never see again. “Damn, this place has some off-brand bathrooms. What’s up with you putting the bathrooms ten minutes from where we gotta sleep?”

  “Sam!”

  49

  SAM IGNORES ME, WALKS TO THE COOLER, and gets a hot dog.

  “Sam? We’re friends, right?” I hope I haven’t effected some kind of correspondence change where Sam and I no longer know each other. I can’t survive the next eight weeks without Sam.

  “Yeah, we’re friends,” he says, sticking his hot dog over the fire. That’s it. He clams up. I get a hot dog. I sit next to Sam and cook it. At least he doesn’t move away. After many uncomfortable moments, I build up the courage to speak in the quietest voice I can.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you’d be here?”