Sliding into the backseat, he motioned Gully to sit next to him. The golem looked the car up and down and side to side before ducking his head low to slide in.
“Seat belts!” Sammy’s father called.
Sammy leaned over and grabbed Gully’s seat belt, stretching it nearly to its limit to get it around Gully’s big frame, before clicking it into place.
“Seat belts?” Gully asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Seat belts to keep you safe,” Sammy said, wondering at the same time when he’d given the golem eyebrows. He couldn’t remember doing it. Then he leaned back and grabbed his own seat belt. But before he could stretch it across his chest, Gully snatched it from his grasp, and with a motion that looked practiced—but obviously couldn’t have been—whipped it around Sammy and clicked it into place.
“Seat belts,” Gully said, with a satisfied nod. “To keep you safe.”
Sammy smiled at him and Gully smiled right back.
I wish I’d glazed those teeth white, Sammy thought. But of course he’d never glazed anything without his father’s help. And even if his dad hadn’t noticed the enormous amounts of missing clay, he’d have surely figure out the kiln had been used at night—by the residual heat if nothing else.
Residual, he thought. A good word. For a difficult moment. Trying to cover for a made-up creature who was created out of residual ideas and leftover clay. All gray.
However, he didn’t have to look at the offending teeth for long. As soon as Sammy’s father got the car rolling down the driveway, Gully’s smile disappeared into a tight-lipped frown and his eyes bugged wide. His whole body went tense, his arms bulging with ropy muscles and his grayish knuckles turning white where his hands grabbed the edge of the car seat.
But he only stayed that way for the briefest of moments. With a snort like an angry bear, he released the seat belt, leaned forward, his hands curling into alarmingly large fists. Then he sneered at the back of Sammy’s father’s head, pulled his right fist back, and—
“No!” Sammy screamed, and flung himself across the backseat at the golem.
“What? Did you forget something for school?” Sammy’s father glanced in the rearview mirror. “And why are you hanging off your friend’s arm?”
The golem was looking down at Sammy as if he wanted to know the answer to that last question, too.
“Um . . .” Sammy began uncertainly. “Gully here is a nervous rider.” He patted the golem’s arm. “He doesn’t have a lot of experiences riding in cars.” He patted the seat. “Cars.” He patted it again. “Cars that help us get from one place to the other and are usually driven by my family that I love. And that I don’t want hurt.”
“What in the name of Thomas Wedgwood are you going on about?” Sammy’s father demanded. “A nervous rider? Never been in a car? Is Gully Amish, or something?”
Thank you, Dad!
“Yes, exactly!” Sammy gushed. “Amish.”
“Car,” Gully said. “Amish.”
Sammy plumbed his mind for everything he knew about the Amish.
They don’t use technology. They ride in wagons and raise barns. They have funny beards and even funnier names.
Then he remembered the most important fact he’d gleaned from his extensive research into the Amish culture, which involved watching half of one old movie with the Indiana Jones guy and reading a couple of Newsweek articles in the bathroom.
“He’s on his rumspringa,” Sammy said.
“Rumspringa?” Sammy’s father asked.
“I think that’s the word.”
“Rumspringa,” Gully said confidently.
At least he sounds like he knows what he’s talking about!
Sammy looked at the golem, “You want to explain, or should I?”
Gully gazed benevolently back at him. “You explain.”
“When the Amish turn sixteen,” Sammy said, “they’re allowed to leave the church and explore the outside world before deciding whether they want to rejoin as adults.”
There, Sammy thought, I’ve exhausted my knowledge of the Amish.
“Interesting,” Sammy’s father eyed Gully in the mirror. “He’s sixteen? And in your class?”
Ugh. “Um, yeah. Apparently the Amish education system isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” Double ugh.
Sammy’s dad chuckled. “Rumspringa. Sort of like an Amish bar mitzvah!”
“Bar mitzvah,” Gully said cheerfully. “Rumspringa. Sort of like.”
“Sort of like,” agreed Sammy as he helped the golem put the seat belt back on. But inside, he was disgusted with himself. The creature he’d made had just tried to punch out his dad. And now I’m spinning lie after ridiculous lie to protect him. Sammy knew that if he got asked any more questions, the lies were going to start piling one on top of another until they inevitably collapsed into a big, stinking heap of untruth, with Sammy and whatever was left of his integrity, dignity, and self-respect crushed underneath.
For the first time that he could remember, Sammy couldn’t wait to get to school. At least there, separated from Gully—who would surely be put in the remedial classes—he’d be safe. From the lies.
But once they were left off near the school, Sammy remembered why he hated the place. There, in a row by the front door, looking like a police lineup, stood James Lee and the beat-em-up crew. They were hassling the younger kids, hustling their milk money, and laughing uproariously whenever one of the younger kids began to cry.
“Gully,” Sammy said, turning to the hulk by his side, “time to earn your living. And by that, I mean living. As in life! Okay?”
“Earn living,” the golem said. “Okay.”
But how much Gully really understood, Sammy could only guess at.
They walked side by side up to the stairs.
“James Lee,” Sammy tried to explain. “The big kid on the left. He’s the really bad one.”
“Bad,” the golem said. “Left.” His head went back and forth, surveying the whole crew.
Sammy pointed. “That’s left. And that . . .” he pointed to the other side, “is right. Got it?” Honestly, he thought, it’s like trying to raise a kid. A huge, ugly, hulking, bald kid. “Oh, and turn your hat around so the front is the back.” He made a motion with his hand describing the hat and how to turn it.
“Okay.” Gully said. “Got it.”
How much was okay and what did he get, Sammy still hadn’t a clue, but at least the golem turned the hat around so the brim was at the back.
“Not a complete dork now,” Sammy muttered.
“Complete dork now,” Gully echoed.
Side by side, they marched up the stairs.
Waiting at the top, James Lee smiled broadly. “Well, well, well—welcome back, Sammy GreenBug. Got any money to pay the toll?”
Well, here goes nothing. Sammy stopped, clenched his fists, and tried to give James Lee a manly stare. But he was still a step down and had to look way up, which was not a good angle.
Gully stopped, too. But even though Gully shared the step with him, Sammy noticed that James Lee had to look up to meet the golem’s eyes. That lent Sammy courage.
“I think you mean pay the troll!” Sammy told James Lee. “And listen up, troll, I’m never paying you another dime ever again.”
“That so?” James Lee sneered. “Who’s your ugly friend?”
“His name is Gully and . . .”
“He related to you, GreenBug?” said Erik, the boy Ms. Snyder had said was smart but as far as Sammy could tell was only smart-alecky. “He a GreenBug, too? ’Cause with him I bet the BUG stands for Big Ugly Guy.” He turned to James Lee. “Get it?” He started to spell it out, literally, and had gotten to the G when light seemed to dawn in James Lee’s eyes.
“Yeah,” James Lee said, smiling at Erik. “Big Ugly Guy.”
“
Yeah,” the rest of the Boyz parroted, “Big Ugly Guy.”
James Lee turned his attention back to Gully. “You don’t want to hang around with losers, do you? Stick with us.”
Gully shook his head. “I . . . I . . .” he stuttered.
Oh, no, Sammy thought. Real bad time for my golem to get nervous.
James Lee cackled at Gully’s stuttering. “I . . . I . . . I . . .” He plastered an idiotic expression to his face, lips twisted up and eyes bugging out.
“I . . . I . . . I . . . Aye, aye, Cap’n!” He busted out laughing, and the Boyz joined in.
“I . . .” Gully went on as Sammy hung his head.
I hope the toilet’s been flushed recently, Sammy thought. And then something else came to him. Won’t unfired clay dissolve in a toilet bowl?
But Gully had already stopped stuttering, saying quite clearly, “I hang around the Sammy. He’s tough for a little guy.” He glanced at Sammy as if seeking approval of his sentence structure.
Sammy gave him a small smile and nodded as Gully turned back to James Lee who merely looked confused.
“Tough?” James Lee reached out to grab Sammy’s shirt with his right hand. Sammy shrank back, but he needn’t have bothered. Two hundred pounds of golem was suddenly between James Lee’s big hand, and Sammy’s shirt and Gully’s even bigger hand was wrapped around James Lee’s neck. Slowly, James Lee’s face began to turn a rather brilliant shade of red. His hands banged ineffectively on Gully’s chest.
“Get him,” James Lee said in a strangled voice.
One of the Boyz—Brandon Overman—obeyed and leaped at Gully, but the golem seemed to just shrug and send him flying down the stairs. He managed to roll instead of tumble, which saved him from a cracked skull, but he didn’t seem in a hurry to climb back up the stairs. None of the other Boyz jumped in.
Sammy—who was enjoying this way too much—noticed that James Lee’s face was turning from red to blue, and his hands that moments ago had been pummeling Gully’s chest were now fluttering aimlessly.
“Better let go now, Gully,” Sammy said.
“He’s the really bad one,” Gully said. “On the left.”
James Lee’s shoulders slumped. His arms dropped to his sides.
“Let go now!” Sammy managed to keep his voice just below a scream.
“Okay.” Gully let go and James Lee collapsed to the ground. Now his friends came to his aid, crowding around him and glaring up at Gully. Brandon even tried to tell Gully how lucky he was to have stopped when he did. But even he didn’t sound as if he believed it.
A small cheer went up from the few kids not already inside the school. Then they hurriedly pushed past the Boyz who stepped back to let them go through the door.
Sammy grabbed Gully by the hand. “Time for class.”
“Class,” Gully repeated.
As they followed the kids into the school, Sammy smiled, thinking: Victory! His first ever against James Lee. First ever against anyone, actually. He felt like a Western hero who’d just survived a gunfight and was riding into the sunset with his girl. He looked up at the big, gray golem who stared blankly at the group of boys he’d just backed down. Well, close enough.
Then, right before they got through the door, Sammy looked over his shoulder and told James Lee, in a passable imitation of the old-time movie star his father loved, John Wayne, “New sheriff in town, pilgrim. Better get used to it.”
James Lee looked puzzled.
But then, thought Sammy, when he wasn’t angry, he often looked puzzled, as if someone thinking differently than he did just didn’t compute.
Giving James Lee no more thought, and pulling Gully after him, Sammy went into the school.
14.
Julia Joins
The first person to greet them was Julia Nathanson. She was grinning broadly. “That was awesome!” she said. “I watched through the window.” She pointed to the hall window where a knot of younger kids was still gathered. “We were all watching. It was like a Western shoot-out. Who’s your friend?” She looked pointedly at the golem.
“Gully,” Sammy said. He was thinking about the hero riding off into the sunset with the girl. His voice cracked and sputtered, so he cleared his throat. Tried again. “Gully, this is Julia. She’s one of the good guys.”
“On the right,” the golem said.
“Gully?” Julia asked. “What kind of a name is that?”
“Short for . . . um . . . Gulliver,” Sammy said.
“Gulliver,” Gully added. He was smiling and his gray teeth showed.
“Gulliver?”
“Well, it’s . . . a family name.” Sammy was almost trembling. More lies. “And well, that’s the kind of name other kids can make fun of. Like a cousin of mine who was going to be named Adam Scott Silverman until they figured out the initials and . . .”
Julia had to bite her bottom lip to keep from laughing, before saying, “You’re making that up.”
“Am not.” Sammy let out the breath he’d been holding. The story about his cousin Adam, at least, was absolutely true.
“Then they shouldn’t have named him Gulliver,” Julia said, her head nodding toward Gully. “It’s absolutely going to be the school joke.”
“Don’t tell,” Sammy said.
Gully added, “Don’t tell.”
Julia put her finger to her lips.
Gully did the same.
And—just to be on the safe side—Sammy did, too.
At that moment, the first bell rang and Sammy, dragging Gully to the left, started down the corridor to his homeroom. Julia’s homeroom was on the right. But before she’d even got a few steps down the hall, she turned and called back, “Sammy?”
He turned so quickly, he almost fell over, and Gully’s hand shot out to steady him.
“I’d like to be part of the band. With you and Skinner.”
“Skinner?” His heart was beating like a drum. “Drum.” He said it out loud.
“No, silly.” She shook her head and her dark hair waterfalled around her long face. “Violin. I play the violin.”
“Sure,” Sammy said. And, as if his tongue had suddenly developed an echo pedal, he said it two more times. “Sure. Sure.”
“I fiddle around. Let’s talk at lunch,” she said. Then added—before disappearing through the door of her homeroom—“That’s a joke.”
“Drum,” Gully said.
Slowly, Sammy turned to him. “What?” His head was still filled with the idea of talking to Julia Nathanson. In the band. At lunch. Sitting with Julia Nathanson. At lunch.
“Drum,” Gully said again. “Silly—I play drum.”
“You don’t even know what a drum is,” Sammy told him, and pulled him into homeroom. But suddenly, Sammy remembered the way Gully had slammed James Lee and the Boyz. Beaten on them. Like a drum.
That’s not a bad idea at all. He’d never considered a drummer for the band.
Sammy had a story ready for the teachers when they asked about Gully: He’s a visiting cousin from Europe who is here to learn to speak English, and he can’t stay home alone while my parents are at work.
He knew it wasn’t a particularly good story. It was full of enough holes to be a golf course. And if anyone thought to confirm this with his parents, he’d be in serious trouble. But it would explain the way Gully talked, if not his looks. And if any of them asked Gully where in Europe he lived, he’d probably answer, “Europe, silly,” but it was all Sammy had come up with. Maybe I’ll say “Middle Europe,” he thought, not exactly sure where Middle Europe was. Except, probably somewhere . . . well . . . in the middle. But his parents often talked about it because it was where their ancestors came from, before they lived in Hartford. Long before.
However, the thought of Ms. Holsten interrogating him in front of the entire homeroom class had Sammy chewing on
his fingernails. The taste was awful because there was enough clay still embedded in them to make a meal, but still he chewed.
He introduced Gully to Ms. Holsten as she sat at her desk.
“Um, my cousin Gully. Gully Greenburg. From Middle Europe,” he said. “Gully, this is Ms. Holsten.”
“Poland? Slovenia? Czech Republic?” Ms. Holsten asked brightly.
“Czech Republic,” Sammy said, having no idea which one would be best, just relieved that she’d given him three choices.
Gully nodded. “Check,” he said. “Republic.”
The Holstein nodded again, almost cowlike. Sammy was surprised that she didn’t moo as well. “Welcome, Gully.”
Why isn’t she saying anything more? Sammy thought, biting a hangnail so short that it started to bleed. She has to be curious about where he comes from in the Czech Republic. And what grade he’s in. And why he’s so gray.
Then he had another thought—biting the hangnail again—why did I ever think making a golem was a good idea. It’s a terrible idea.
But whether it was some magic of the golem’s, or Ms. Holsten’s assumption that Sammy-the-Good-Kid must have the proper permissions to bring in a visitor, she made no mention again of Sammy’s big, gray cousin except to have them get an extra chair and desk from the back of the room and sandwich it between Sammy’s desk and Jason Fredericks, the goofy kid with the Coke-bottle glasses who sat on his right.
Ms. Holsten turned out to be the only real hurdle, because all of the teachers seemed to automatically assume that the teacher before them had cleared the visitor. Sammy only had to say that Ms. Holsten had said it was okay and that—it turned out—was the end of it. He’d even been ready to avoid lying outright by saying something like, “Ms. Holsten didn’t say it wasn’t okay.” But he never had to resort to that new lie.
In fact, he’d gnawed his nails down to nubs for nothing.
With James Lee put in his place, and Gully looking like he’d be allowed to stick around, Sammy should have been nice and relaxed by lunchtime.
B.u.g. Big Ugly Guy (9781101593523) Page 11