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

by Yolen, Jane; Stemple, Adam

  “We’ve got to do something!”

  Skink gave a very small smile. “Well, what I’m going to do is, like, heal. And then train.”

  “Train?”

  “Yeah, apparently I need more practice in fighting multiple opponents.” Skink chuckled at his own joke, though it sounded forced, and probably hurt him some to laugh.

  Sammy joined in even though the joke wasn’t actually funny. Skink looked like he needed someone to laugh with. And that was what friends were for.

  In the car home, Sammy’s dad said nothing, but his mom turned around, as much as the seat belt allowed.

  “It was that awful gang in school, wasn’t it? The ones who pick on you, Sammy.”

  “I asked him that, Mom. But he said they were masked, so he couldn’t be sure.”

  His dad almost growled. It was a sound low in his throat. A sound Sammy had never heard him make before.

  “But he doesn’t want his dad to get in trouble, so don’t even hint at that.” Sammy spoke with as much authority as he could manage. “I mean, what if it was someone else.”

  His dad banged a palm on the steering wheel. “My Lord, Sarah, we haven’t come very far in race relations in this country if a gang of kids can beat up someone just because he’s black.”

  “Half black, dear. He’s also half Korean.”

  “That’s not why they beat him up.” Sammy’s voice was low, but sure.

  His dad’s hands on the wheel were so tight, they seemed glued there.

  Sammy continued. “They beat him up because they’re scared of him. He knows martial arts. He’s fast and efficient and not scared.” He paused. “Not like me.”

  “Well, I’m going to the principal and tell him what I suspect,” his mother said.

  “MOM!” Sammy shouted in panic. “You can’t . . .”

  His mom sighed. “If you’re that scared, Sammy, why not let me homeschool you this year. I can do it. I used to be a teacher. Well, a teacher’s assistant. If we can’t even report bullying for fear of reprisals . . .”

  “It’s not reprisals that I’m afraid of, Mom . . .” he began, then stopped, wondering how much he’d give away if he said more.

  His dad glanced sideways at his mom. “Honey, have you looked at Major Williams? He’ll kill those kids with one hand if he suspects them at all, and never give it a second thought. He’s a trained military man, a . . .”

  Sammy barely heard them. He was thinking about homeschooling. It was tempting. Really tempting. But then he thought about Julia Nathanson. He thought about Skink. He thought about . . . the golem.

  “I got it covered,” he told them both, without telling them anything.

  Dad’s hands relaxed on the wheel. “That’s my boy,” he said. But it didn’t sound to Sammy like he really meant it.

  Sammy didn’t go back to school that day, and was actually relieved, though he didn’t let his parents know. Three times he overheard his mother talking on the phone about what had happened. Twice he was sure it was to Skink’s mom, and once—maybe—to an authority, but whether the authority was the policeman or the principal or the major he wasn’t sure, because just then she spotted Sammy, put her hand over her mouth, and walked with the phone into the workshop where she closed the door behind her.

  Sammy took a deep breath. What does it matter who she’s talking to? he told himself. He had the afternoon to himself. Not being in school, he would be able to reread the golem book cover to cover again—well, at least the English translation part—and memorize the important parts of it. Only this time, he’d see if he could figure out how the golem could protect not one but two people.

  Skink and me.

  10.

  Feet of Clay

  That night, as Sammy lay in bed, he ran through his possible choices. Though he’d told his parents he had everything covered, it was a lie. Without Skink, he didn’t stand a chance. But if he stayed home, he’d never see Skink again. He’d never see Julia Nathanson. Never have a band. Or a life.

  He put his right hand to his head and swore he could hear the wheels grinding away in there. He thought: The golem is a fairy tale. Not real. Not possible. And yet . . .

  Sammy sat up in bed, but quietly. Maybe he should check the clay anyway. Just . . . well, just in case.

  But then he heard a noise. Listened intently for a moment. Realized it was his parents talking in the living room. They didn’t sound happy. He lay back down. This was not the moment.

  He looked up at the ceiling, a dark splodge in the dark room. And then, suddenly everything became as clear as if a lightbulb had suddenly been turned on. Fairy tale or not, Sammy knew what he had to do. He had to work on the golem again. Really work this time. Work—and believe. It was his last—in fact it was his only—chance.

  Turning onto his side, he reached for his clock-radio and set the alarm to one a.m. again. Then he snuggled down into the covers and slept. He dreamed of James Lee chasing him through a jagged landscape. Behind James Lee was a large dark shadow. The background music was klezmer.

  He awoke to the sound of soft music, but without thinking, hit the snooze button.

  Twice.

  “Rats,” he hissed, sitting up in the dark. “Twenty minutes already wasted.”

  There was little enough time. “I need a protector before Skink comes back to school. And I’m the only one who can provide it,” he whispered to the room.

  He got out of bed carefully, noiselessly. Crossing the room, he gave silent thanks to the cushiony rug. When he opened the closet door, he did it in such tiny increments, there were no awful squeaks. He turned on the closet light knowing that no one could see it from the hallway.

  Staring at the few pieces of clay he’d already worked and the remains of the brick, he couldn’t help sighing aloud.

  And what kind of protector will I be building out of one brick of clay? Sure, it’s twenty-five pounds. But what’s that going to get us? He made a face. A protector the size and weight of a three-year-old? He didn’t think a two-foot-tall golem was going to help anyone.

  “I need more clay!” he whispered, but in the room’s silence it sounded like a shout.

  I’ll need at least a two-hundred-pound golem, sort of the size and shape of Uncle Manny, he told himself. In a family of runts, Uncle Manny was a giant. Of course, he’d married in! Sammy held his arms out, trying to remember how huge Uncle Manny was.

  I’ll need six bricks at least. Plus one for any clay that gets wasted in the process of shaping and another for shrinkage. That’s eight. I’ve got one here. So seven more trips to the garage to haul out nearly two hundred pounds of clay.

  It already sounded like a tough job before he had his next thought: Seven more trips through the squeaky kitchen door.

  He couldn’t do that in one night. One squeak his parents might sleep through. But seven? Not a chance.

  Picking up the closeted brick, he hauled it to the bed to begin working . . .

  . . . and that’s when he realized he’d need to get a full eight bricks. In his hurry to hide the clay away yesterday, he hadn’t covered it well enough with the plastic wrapping and it was now too dry to be of any use.

  “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” he muttered.

  Suddenly, everything about the golem, like the clay, seemed too hard. Not to mention insane.

  Dad might not miss one brick of clay, or even two—but nine?

  Sammy collapsed back onto his bed, suddenly close to tears. The light from the closet threw strange shadows onto the ceiling, as if a dark forest of trees were looking down on him. “It’s not just hard—it’s impossible.”

  He began to think the way he did when studying for a math test.

  This is my life test, he thought. I can’t tell Mom and Dad. They’ll think it’s crazy. That I’m crazy. And I can’t tell the major because it will set him off agai
n. And Skink wouldn’t want that. And I can’t even tell Skink. But what do I do next?

  The trees in the ceiling didn’t provide any answers, so Sammy shifted his gaze back to the ruined block of clay. It looked particularly hopeless from this angle.

  A good Jew would go to his rabbi for advice. But since I stole from mine, that leaves him out, too.

  He lay still for a long moment, gathering his courage, wondering where courage was stored and how a person was supposed to gather it. With a teaspoon? A shovel? A bucket loader? His mind was awhirl with such questions. Stupid questions but important questions, too.

  Get up, Sammy, he told himself. So what if you don’t have many options? You’ve got this one, and who knows—it just might work. He shook himself mentally. “It’s got to work.”

  He sat up. “Though my closet might get a bit messed up in the process.” He laughed at that. His closet was always a mess. What did a little more matter?

  Sammy thought for another minute. If I can take two bricks a night from Dad’s studio, build the golem from the ground up in my closet—I’ll hide him behind my clothes. Then I can fire him on the fifth or sixth night.

  He didn’t want to think about firing the clay. Not yet. His father would surely realize something was happening then. One: the kiln makes a lot of noise. Two: it gets really hot and takes a day to cool down. Three: . . . Well, there wasn’t really a three.

  But he did know one thing. One important thing: Working that way gets me a complete golem in under a week.

  He bit his lip. I can be invisible for a week. Play nice with James Lee for a week. Give him my homework and my gum for a week. And my allowance. Write him a B paper or an A paper. Though that might be pushing it. No one would believe he could write an A paper.

  He stood up. Slipped into his robe.

  That’s if I make it past the squeaky door, again.

  And again.

  And again . . .

  He made himself a mental note to find some 3-IN-ONE oil in the morning. Or if necessary some of his mom’s cooking oil. Oiling the door should solve the squeaking problem.

  It’s all doable one problem at a time.

  Once again in his father’s studio, Sammy went to the very back of the stacked clay bricks and found a small pile of four. He figured his father would never miss those.

  Taking one back into his room, he spent the next two hours shaping the golem’s feet.

  He smoothed the clay down with his hands and a putty knife he’d filched from the workshop for some long-ago project and forgotten to return. Then he used the edge of the knife to carve in details like toenails, then pinched ligaments and veins to the surface. The golem’s feet ended up a size larger than his own. As his mom liked to say, “You’re a small boy for such big feet.” Then she would laugh, and add, “The first time I ever got you shoes, the salesman said ‘Never mind the shoes, I’ll wrap up the boxes they came in.’”

  Now his big feet proved perfect as a measure for making the golem. But only the feet. The rest would have to be done by guesswork. The golem had to be much larger than Sammy if it was to work reliably as his protector.

  It had to be at least as tall as James Lee, and—he hoped—taller.

  Strangely, Sammy was energized by the clay feet . . . and laughed at the joke of them. “My golem protector,” he whispered to himself, “has feet of clay!”

  He began to giggle. Then he stood, wrapped the feet well in the plastic the clay had come in, and stuck them in the closet.

  At that same moment, the start of a new song for the band came to him.

  I wanted a monster, to feed and to play.

  I made him by nighttime, and never by day.

  But then I discovered his feet were of clay,

  Singing hey and a ho and a go-lem-oh!

  It was awful. Boy, he thought, I must be really goofy from lack of sleep. But it didn’t stop him from going back for a second clay brick.

  He woke to a knock on his bedroom door. Sunlight was flooding through

  “Sammy . . . you’re going to be late,” his mother said. “Breakfast is on the table.”

  “Be right there.” He’d fallen asleep before working the second brick, and it was still in its protective plastic wrapping. He got up and hid it in the back of his closet beside the clay feet, then got dressed. At the last minute, he stripped his bed because it was filled with clay bits, and threw the sheets and pillowcases down the laundry shoot they called the “Rabbit Hole.”

  Opening the door, he called to his mother, “I’m not feeling all that well. And I’m so tired. Maybe I have mono. My sheets were soaked, so I threw them down the Rabbit Hole.”

  She came in and put a hand to his head. “You do feel a little warm,” she said. “I’ll let you stay home today, but you’ll have to remain in bed.”

  “No problem,” he said, thinking that once he’d slept, he could tell her he was doing a super-secret project for school. A science project! After all, didn’t the science fiction writer Arthur Clarke say something like “Any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic.” Or was that technology? Either way, he could talk himself out of anything with his mom.

  His dad—that was going to be a harder proposition. Especially if he finds out there’s some missing clay.

  Sammy went into the kitchen to get some breakfast. His dad was already in the studio.

  “Eat a little something,” his mother said. “I’ll get you fresh sheets. Then it’s back to bed for you.”

  He didn’t argue. He actually did feel awful. Awful as in tired and scared. Not awful as in sick.

  11.

  Golem

  Working on the golem during the day was difficult. His mother kept coming in to check on him. Sometimes she knocked, sometimes she didn’t, in case she might be waking him. She was unpredictable. But she always left at least a half hour between visits, so he used that brief window to begin making the golem’s legs. He’d no time to pull everything out of the closet, so, kneeling down, he shoved everything but his backside in and began putting clay on top of the feet for ankles.

  Measuring with a piece of string he’d found in his desk drawer, he decided the lower part of the golem’s legs had to be at least double his own. Quickly forming a rough shape, he then scraped away clay till there was a hint of a shinbone. He took the leavings and packed them onto the back of the calf to form a solid muscle mass, like the picture of the Celtics basketball players he had on a poster over his bed.

  Getting ready to carve some detail into the calf muscle, he was startled when his mother knocked.

  “Sammy? You awake?”

  Sammy hopped back into bed and shoved his dirty hands underneath the sheets.

  I’m going to need to change the bed again today.

  “Yeah, Mom.”

  She came in carrying the thing Sammy had dreaded since he decided to fake an illness: a thermometer. It was a cheap electronic one, probably cost six bucks at Walgreens. And it was going to spell the end of Sammy’s charade.

  “Let’s take your temperature,” she said, and popped it in his mouth before he could protest.

  He couldn’t do anything but think hot thoughts. Couldn’t even surreptitiously warm the thermometer in his hands because he’d get clay all over it.

  The thermometer beeped and his mother pulled it out, looked closely, and frowned at the result.

  “It’s normal, Sammy.” She gave it a little shake like an old-fashioned mercury thermometer, as if that would change the result. “Ninety-eight-point-six. Couldn’t be any more normal if you tried.”

  Sammy shrugged. Kept his mouth shut.

  “You sure you’re not feeling well?”

  “Not really.” It was the least he could say.

  Sammy’s mother sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed, thermometer in her left hand. H
er right she placed on his cheek. She looked directly into his eyes.

  “Sammy, dear. I’m not a fool. And you don’t have to lie to me. Is this about Skink?”

  Sammy shook his head. “No, it’s—” He stopped as his mother frowned and took her hand away. “Okay, yes. It is. But I do want to go back to school. I just need a few days to figure things out.”

  His mother’s expression didn’t change. “I won’t send you back there to get hurt.”

  “Mom, I know we can’t afford private school. Not that there’s any around here, anyway. And moving isn’t an option.” Even to himself he sounded like an old man. A scared old man.

  “Homeschool.” But she didn’t look him in the eyes when she said it.

  “Really, Mom?” Sammy watched the breath go out of her. “I don’t think you want to devote the next five years of your life to my education.” He was about to reach out of the covers to touch her hand in comfort, but remembered the clay just time. “I’ll be okay.”

  “How can we know that?” She squeezed the thermometer till Sammy thought it might break.

  “Because I’m no threat to them. Oh, they’ll tease me, but they’ve done that all along. Skink scared them, so they had to do something big.”

  “How big?”

  “He showed them he knew martial arts and got the younger kids laughing at them.”

  “Ah.” Sammy’s mom nodded silently, her eyes starting to shine. “You’re very brave, honey.”

  I doubt that very much.

  Leaning over, Sammy’s mother suddenly enveloped him in a giant embrace. Sammy hugged her back through the comforter.

  “Just give me a couple of days to get my head together,” he said, “then I’ll go back to school.” He felt her nod against his shoulder.

  “All right,” she said, the words muffled by shoulder and pillow. She sat up and rubbed at her eyes. “All right,” she said again. “At least this way I won’t have to keep coming to check up on you.”