B.u.g. Big Ugly Guy (9781101593523)

by Yolen, Jane; Stemple, Adam

  He paused. “What else rhymes with life?”

  “Knife!” Sammy said smoothly. “With pitchfork, ax, and knife . . .”

  “Right!”

  “ . . . with pitchfork, ax, and knife.

  But me, I won’t be troubled ’cause

  I’ll bring this clay to life!”

  Sammy hooted with glee and added a doo-wop backing vocal that consisted of, “Go-lemmmmmmm. Go-lemmmmmmm.”

  When Skink heard the backups, he couldn’t continue for laughing. Sammy joined in and soon they just alternated between laughing and shouting, “Go-lemmmmmmm.”

  Eventually, they ran out of gas, and Sammy said, “But seriously, let’s make a golem.”

  “You’re crazy, man.”

  “C’mon, give me one good reason why not?”

  Skink ticked reasons off on his fingers. “It won’t work. It’s a waste time. It’s just a story, Sammy. And it’s, like, childish.”

  “Childish? Are you an adult all of a sudden?”

  “More than you, I guess.”

  Sammy wouldn’t let it rest. “So even without a bar mitzvah?”

  “I just . . .”

  Sammy’s mom shouted down the stairs, “Skink, your dad’s here!”

  Whatever Skink had been about to say was lost. Instead, in a gesture of goodwill, he held his fist up and Sammy punched knuckles with him. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Yeah. Tomorrow, Skink.” But Sammy’s voice was cool, and Skink had already bounded up the stairs when he added, “I just thought it’d be fun.”

  He stood looking up at the empty stairs for a few seconds more, than shook himself.

  He’ll come around, he told himself. Friends help friends.

  He was sure of it because now the Hebrew letters of the spell glowed in his mind. And I’m going to build that golem. With or without Skink. Humming the golem . . . golem backup line from the song, he settled down in his chair to finish reading the book. The front of the book, which was actually the back, had the English translation.

  9.

  There’s More to Friendship . . .

  At the dinner table, Sammy’s mother remarked in an offhanded way, “You didn’t come up to see Skinner off.”

  “I was . . . involved,” Sammy said.

  “Too involved to say good-bye to your friend?” His father was also puzzled.

  “He understood.”

  “He seemed a little miffed.” Sammy’s mother passed him some mashed potatoes.

  “Miffed. That’s a strange word,” Sammy said, jumping up from the table to look the word up in the dictionary. “It means annoyed. And it goes back as far as England in the early seventeen hundreds.”

  “I know what it means, Sammy. Finish your dinner.”

  His father added, “Well, young Skinner only goes back as far as his house and he’s in his early fourteens. But at a guess, he’s as miffed as one gets. Really, Sammy, it’s not like you have friends dropping off of trees.”

  “Harry!” his mother cautioned.

  Sammy knew that was true, and suddenly he was worried. What if Skink really was miffed or annoyed or ticked off? What if his one friend and protector had just become his ex-friend and ex-protector? He shivered. And then he realized that if the golem project worked, he wouldn’t need Skink. Or anyone. Just the Big Ugly Guy. He could almost see the golem already: a hulking, skulking, loyal presence.

  Then he thought: Don’t be ridiculous. It won’t work. It can’t work. It’s a fairy tale, a fantasy.

  “He understood,” Sammy repeated. “Skink understands.” But does he?

  The spell suddenly glowed, as if in 3-D before him. He almost reached out to touch it with his fingers. At the last minute he stopped himself. He could see it but his parents couldn’t. No need to alert them that something strange was going on. But now he knew—with absolute and total conviction—that once his folks were asleep, he would make a golem. He was the perfect person to do it after all. There was all the stuff in his father’s workshop. And his great need for the help a golem had to give.

  But I’ll have to go there late at night and in secret. It was important that no one stop him. NO one. Not Skink, not his parents, and certainly not his own somewhat timorous heart.

  Sammy set his alarm clock for one a.m. Since his parents slept on the other side of the house, they’d never hear it. Especially since he put it on to play soft music, not the loud, persistent tone. Since he’d fibbed about doing all his algebra, he finished that, then read some more of the translation in the golem book, and fell asleep. It seemed like only a minute or two after he shut his eyes that he heard the sound of WRQC’s late night DJ. Rolling over, he slammed his hand on the shutoff button and sat up. Then putting his robe on over his pjs, and wearing his brown fuzzy slippers—looking more like a hobbit on the road to Mordor than someone about to make a monster—he stuffed the golem book in the robe’s pocket so no one would find it, and headed out of his bedroom.

  He stopped in the hallway, listening. The grandfather clock ticked loudly in the living room, but other than that, the house was still. Nodding to himself, he slunk along the hall until it branched into the living room on the left side, the dining room on the right, then made it quietly, safely to the kitchen.

  That was the easy part. The hard part would be opening the kitchen door—it tended to squeak. Or shriek if it was winter. But that was the only way from inside the house to his father’s workshop. He pulled slowly on the door, but that only made the squeak last a long, agonizing time.

  “Better to do it like a Band-Aid,” he told himself. “One quick jerk,” and he gave the door a yank. It shrieked once, louder than he’d hoped for—but not so loud as to wake anyone, and then the house was still again.

  He propped the door open with his right slipper. No need to make that sound twice.

  The workshop was kept at a constant temperature, unlike the rest of the house, which was always cold at night. His father said, “Cold people can always wrap up, but cold clay just gets wrapped up and thrown away.”

  Sammy went over to the section of the workshop where the clay bricks were kept. He took one from the rear of the pile and then he was back in the kitchen, the door snicking quietly closed behind him. He managed to get his foot into his slipper without setting down the clay.

  The grandfather clock sang out the half hour in a clear, ringing voice. Then he heard a toilet flush and he froze. What if his mother or father should come out of their bedroom for a late snack?

  Wildly, Sammy looked around for somewhere to stash the clay brick. But before he’d shoved it all the way under the sofa, he heard the sound of the bed sighing as someone lay down.

  Just one of those nighttime toilet trips. Probably Dad.

  Scarcely breathing, Sammy waited for another five minutes, then another, counting the time with the help of the clock, till he heard the sound of his father’s snoring. Then clutching the clay to his chest like a new mother with an infant, he tiptoed back to his room.

  After closing the door, he turned on the overhead light for just long enough to find the flashlight in his camping bag at the bottom of his closet. Then he turned off the light off, kicked off the slippers, and hopped into bed with the heavy brick of clay, the flashlight, and the golem book still in the pocket of the robe.

  Snuggling under the covers, he turned on the flashlight. In the halo of white, he could see to unwrap the clay. It was barely warm from the workshop. He poked a finger into it. Since the clay had not yet been worked, it would take a while for him to make pieces soft enough to start making anything with it. He knew all about that part. His dad had shown him how to do that when he was a kindergartner. He knew all about coiling and making slabs, about shaping figures. However, he was an absolute flop on the wheel; his pieces wobbled and warped. But, he thought, you can’t make a golem on a wheel anyway.
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  He didn’t allow himself to acknowledge that it wasn’t actually possible to create a living, breathing golem at all.

  He fell asleep before he’d gotten more than a few pieces wedged and worked, and woke covered in bits of clay, sunlight streaming in through his window, his mother knocking on the door.

  “Don’t make me come in there, mister,” she called.

  “I’m up, I’m up!” His heart was beating wildly. He leaped out of bed, holding on to the larger part of the clay, and little bits fell onto the floor. Scrambling on his hands and knees he picked up everything he could find and stuck them on the larger piece which he stashed at the bottom of his closet under his sleeping bag. Then he got dressed and was about to leave the room when he thought he’d better check the bed.

  Just in case!

  Lucky he did, because there were about fifteen pieces of clay the size of the tip of his pinkie sprinkled between the sheets, and a couple even under his pillow.

  He added those pieces to the stashed clay, then checked the front of his shirt, saw clay on it, took it off, and shook it out over his trash basket. Then he put his shirt on again, and a sweater over it.

  Just in case.

  Before going to the door, he checked himself in the mirror. “Don’t want any clay pox,” he whispered to his image, but he looked clean.

  Finally, he walked out of the door and into the kitchen as if it were an ordinary day.

  One ordinary day, he thought, with a monster. Even though he hadn’t quite gotten started on the golem, he already felt better about going to school.

  Sammy’s good feeling lasted for about eighteen seconds after he got to school.

  Skink wasn’t there.

  In the week they’d known one another, Skink had always been at school before Sammy. Always met him at his locker so they could talk about things, like the Boyz or the band.

  Sammy stomped down the hall. First Julia, now Skink. He wondered if something was catching—and why he couldn’t have caught it. Whatever it was.

  Throwing open his locker, he tossed in his bag and slammed the door shut with a loud clang. Some friend—leaving me alone to fend off James Lee and his gang.

  Sammy stopped cold. As the enormity of that fact began to sink in, he decided to stop stomping and start skulking. Just . . . in . . case . . .

  Slipping into homeroom, he went swiftly to the relative safety of his desk. He saw no sign of any of the James Lee’s crew.

  Good. Maybe they’re late. Or even better, got run over by the school bus.

  He almost began to relax.

  But suddenly the door was thrown open, slamming against the wall with a loud bang, louder even than a drummer with a full kit, and in came three of them jostling each other, snickering, bumping fists.

  They look awfully pleased with themselves. Except for Erik Addison. He looks like he swallowed a bug. A BIG bug.

  Erik’s buddies grinned at Sammy in a way that made him shiver.

  Whereas those two look like cats that ate a couple of canaries. BIG canaries.

  Even using an extraordinary word like whereas didn’t give Sammy his usual lift as the three Boyz made their way to the back of the room.

  Hunching his shoulders he shivered.

  I hope Skink gets to school soon.

  Sammy got the call before fourth period, just after lunch.

  “Sam Greenburg to the office, please. Sam Greenburg to the office.”

  He’d no idea what he’d done to deserve a trip to Sinner’s Row, but backpack over one shoulder, he headed toward the principal’s office. It didn’t pay to keep the Big Cheese waiting.

  But instead of Principal Kraft, Sammy saw his parents outside the school office.

  “What’s up, folks?” he asked as he walked up.

  His mom wiped her eyes quickly and smiled at Sammy.

  “Mom? Are you crying?”

  “Honey, we came as soon as we heard,” she said. “We know how close you are to Skink.”

  “What happened to Skink?”

  Sammy’s father answered. “He was beaten up. Badly. We’re going to take you to see him in the hospital right away.”

  The floor tilted strangely, and Sammy had to drop his backpack and put his hand on the wall to keep from falling over. Skink? Beaten up? Badly? Bad enough for the hospital?

  “Who?” he finally managed.

  His father looked at him strangely. “No one knows. We’ll take the car, son.”

  Sammy shook his head. “No. I mean . . . How did Skink?” The floor straightened for him and he scooped his backpack up off the floor. “Let’s go.”

  They ran to the car, and the car’s tires squealed as they peeled out of the school parking lot.

  Skink was sitting up in bed. He waved at Sammy when he pushed past the major and Mrs. Williams. Sammy tried to smile at Skink, but couldn’t. He was too busy checking Skink’s condition.

  Skink looked bad, both eyes bruised, the left one nearly swollen shut. But he wasn’t plugged into any hospital machines and no doctors or nurses hovered around him. Only his parents. Sammy thought those were good signs.

  “Hey, Word Man,” Skink said. He didn’t open his mouth very wide when he spoke, and he didn’t smile.

  Probably hurts too much, Sammy thought. He pointed at Skink’s hands which were resting on top of the covers.

  Skink understood immediately. “The hands are okay. Actually, everything’s pretty okay. Considering.”

  “Considering . . .” murmured Mrs. Williams from behind Sammy.

  “I don’t know, Skink” Sammy said, pointing at Skink’s black eyes. Even against his dark skin the bruises were noticeable. “You are in the hospital.”

  Skink shrugged. And winced slightly. “They just want to hold me overnight and make sure I don’t have, like, a concussion.”

  “You get knocked out?”

  “Nope. I remember the whole thing.”

  “Then what happened, Skink?”

  “Yes, what happened, Skinner?” a new voice asked.

  Sammy hadn’t noticed that there was another person in the room. But when he turned to find the voice, he saw a policemen sitting in a chair by the window, fully uniformed except for his hat, which lay on the sill behind him.

  “I told you,” Skink answered the policeman, chuckling without much humor, “I got my butt kicked.” He looked at Sammy. “It would have been worse but some neighbors heard the noise and chased them off before they could, like, really put the boots to me.”

  The policeman had a notebook in his hand, but it didn’t look like Skink was giving him much to write in it.

  “And you didn’t see who did it?” the policeman said in a tired, controlled voice. As if, Sammy thought, he’d asked it before.

  “They wore masks. I don’t think you want me to pick the Power Rangers out of a lineup.”

  The policeman looked like he was about to stand up, then changed his mind. “Well, let’s go through it again. Besides the masks, what were they wearing?”

  Skink frowned. “I’m sorry, officer. I really can’t help you. I was too busy staying alive to notice anything else.”

  “Did they say anything?” the policeman asked. “I mean, racial things?”

  Hate crime? For a moment Sammy’s heart lifted. If the police could get the Boyz on a hate crime charge . . . Then he realized that just hating an outsider, a newcomer didn’t count.

  “Nope,” Skink said. “Nothing particularly racial. In fact they didn’t say anything at all. All they did was breathe loudly. Turns out beating someone up is, like, hard work.”

  There was something going on here that Sammy didn’t understand. Why doesn’t he tell them about James Lee and his Boyz? It had to be them. He was about to open his own mouth when the major spoke.

  “Skinner John. Son. Who. Did.
This.” He clipped off each word as if he were biting off strips of beef jerky. Sammy looked up at him and realized that if there were a definition in the dictionary for “barely contained fury,” next to it would be a picture of Major Williams in this hospital room. His teeth were clenched so hard Sammy was surprised he’d been able to force air past them to speak even the six words he had. His fists were so tight, his fingers were nearly white. His eyes showed no human emotion Sammy could name.

  “I don’t know who did it, sir.” Skink didn’t look at the major. “I think I need to rest. Mom? Can you get the nurse?”

  Sammy waited for the major to say something about “nurse to hearse,” but his jaw was clenched tight, with only a slight whistling of air escaping through his teeth.

  “Oh!” Mrs. Williams said. “Of course, I’m sorry, honey.” She gave a half bow to the policeman. “Can we do this later?”

  “Of course, ma’am.” He grabbed his hat, nodded to the major, and ducked out. Sammy started to follow.

  “Sammy, wait a sec,” Skink said. “I need to know what Mr. Hallas gave us for homework today.”

  Sammy stopped while Mrs. Williams, her slim arm tightly wound about the major’s strained biceps, dragged him out. Sammy’s parents followed close at their heels.

  When they were all gone, Sammy took the cop’s chair. “Who’s Mr. Hallas?”

  Skink shrugged again, then, with nobody but Sammy left in the room to see, grimaced in pain. “My humanities teacher. And I know you’re not in that class. But I had to talk to you alone.”

  “It was James Lee wasn’t it?”

  “They did wear masks.” He sat up a bit taller. “But it had to be.”

  “We’ve got to tell the cops! And your dad!”

  Skink shook his head. “The cops can’t do anything. They wore masks. And you—like—can’t say anything to my dad!”

  Sammy thought of the major’s clenched fists, his dead eyes. “He’ll kill them, won’t he.”

  “He’ll at least hurt ’em, like, bad. And I don’t want to be responsible for him going to prison.”