A Tangle of Secrets

by R. G. Thomas

  “That’s it? You look like you were chased through the woods. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m sure. I am dirty, though, so I’m going to take a shower.”

  “All right. I’ll call you down for dinner.”

  It seemed as if the stairs were twice as tall as he made his way up them. He could not remember ever feeling so tired. A shower would definitely feel good.

  He stopped in his bedroom to get his bathrobe and glanced out the window into Teofil’s backyard. Astrid was on her hands and knees with several of her siblings kneeling around her. She was showing them different types of stones, turning them over and over in her hands, and Thaddeus had the sudden urge to use magic to pluck them from her hands and fling them through the windows of the Rhododendron house.

  Do it! They’re all against you!

  Shock ran through him, and he stepped back from the window. Where had that thought come from? He loved Astrid—all of the Rhododendrons, actually—and would never do anything to harm them.

  He entered the bathroom and shut the door, hoping a warm shower would help clear his troubled mind.

  Chapter EIGHTEEN

  THE REST of the week, Thaddeus declined invitations from Andy to leave the school for lunch and was rewarded with more taunts of being a baby and a goody-goody. Aisha had yet to respond to any of his text messages, and that coupled with Garbage Baby, the new name Dixon and his jock buddies had started calling him, made Thaddeus angry and edgy by the end of the week.

  On Friday morning Thaddeus overslept and missed getting on the bus by a couple of minutes. He cursed and stood for a moment as his bad mood spiraled down into something even darker.

  Use your magic, suggested the sneaky, whispery voice in his head. Make the bus stop for you. Show them what you can do.

  He resisted that very strong urge and instead stood on the curb and let out a heavy sigh. He was really, really glad it was Friday. Adjusting his backpack on his shoulders, Thaddeus started walking toward school. Each step felt like it reverberated in the cyst on the back of his neck, which in turn fed his headache. If he wasn’t able to lance this pimple over the weekend, he was going to have to tell his parents about it so they could look at it and determine if he needed to see a doctor. The thought of going to a doctor about a pimple was absurd and, he had to admit, a little scary. The doctor would most likely use a long needle to lance it, and the thought made his tummy feel funny. He really didn’t like needles. And painful as the cyst was now, he feared draining it might be even worse.

  A car roared past, and a deep male voice shouted, “Hey, Garbage Baby!”

  Thaddeus winced but didn’t look up from his study of the sidewalk. He wished he knew where that new and decidedly awful nickname had come from. Some stupid private joke between Dixon and his fellow jocks?

  As he crossed one of the side streets, the rumble of a truck caught his attention. A garbage truck trundled away from him along the street. While he watched, a couple of men jumped off the back, dashing to either side of the street to grab bins from the curb and dump their contents into the back. One of the men looked very familiar, and Thaddeus came to a stop as he stared.

  Was it? No. It couldn’t be.

  Hey, Garbage Baby!

  Look, it’s Garbage Baby. Is that where they found you?

  Chip off the old trash compactor, aren’t you Garbage Baby?

  The voices echoed in his head as he watched his father grab another can from the curb and upend it over the truck’s gaping maw.

  Before the fury could take firm hold of him, a horn blasted from behind. He jumped and looked around. He’d been so stunned by the sight of his father collecting trash he’d stopped in the middle of the street. After giving the driver a dirty look, Thaddeus moved to the curb to allow the car to speed past him. He glared after the car, then looked past it for his father, but the garbage truck had turned the far corner out of sight. Well, good riddance. He continued on his way to school, mumbling to himself. He thought back over the past week and the stilted conversations he’d had with his parents over dinner each night. His father had only told them that work had been tiring or the day had been long, but he’d never once said what it was he’d been doing.

  And no wonder. His father had taken a number of crappy jobs over the years, but this was a new low. A garbage man? Seriously? As if Thaddeus didn’t have enough to deal with, what with having to adjust to a new school, learning to live with his fire-starting mother, and his boyfriend—if he could even call Teofil that anymore—going off on adventures without a word about it to him.

  Well, fine. He could play that same game. They would see. If everyone else was keeping secrets from him, then he would start keeping secrets from them. And he would start that evening. The Spirit dance was tonight, and he would leave home without a word to his parents about where he was going. He planned to stay out pretty late too, and if they didn’t like it, that was just too bad. Tit for tat.

  He went through his day in a blur. With his emotions running so high and his headache and cyst throbbing in a painful duet, Thaddeus couldn’t really focus during his classes. His teachers may as well have all been speaking in different languages.

  At lunch Thaddeus carried his tray to the usual table near the back of the cafeteria. He passed the pack of jocks and cheerleaders at their table in the center, too distracted by his headache to pay them any mind. But Dixon Praise caught sight of him and started a chant which most of the kids in the cafeteria soon picked up.

  “Garbage Baby! Garbage Baby! Garbage Baby!”

  It was accompanied by hands slapping on the tops of tables and feet stomping the floor. The sound of it surrounded Thaddeus, and he blushed as he picked up his pace. Anger mixed with his humiliation, making it so difficult to keep himself from letting loose with a burst of magic that would most certainly silence Dixon and all the others who shouted at his back.

  “Stop that at once!” someone bellowed, and Thaddeus looked up to see Mr. Winslow, his counselor, standing by the doors that opened into the hall. He had his hands on his hips as he glared out over the cafeteria.

  Thaddeus ignored Mr. Winslow as he sat down next to Andy and across from Crystal and Marty. He was too embarrassed to look at them, so he kept his gaze on his lunch for which he no longer had an appetite.

  “Mr. Cane, are you all right?”

  Thaddeus looked up at Mr. Winslow and hated that he felt close to tears. He managed to keep from crying—barely—and nodded.

  “I’m fine. Thanks for getting them to stop.”

  “I’m not sure what that torment was about, but I’ll see to it that it does not happen again.”

  “Well, good luck with that,” Thaddeus said.

  “You don’t believe me?” Mr. Winslow asked.

  “Oh, I believe you want to put a stop to it,” Thaddeus replied. “But you can’t be everywhere at once.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Mr. Winslow walked off, stopping at each table to talk with the kids sitting there.

  “I wish he’d leave it alone,” Thaddeus grumbled.

  “What was that all about anyway?” Marty asked. “Why did they call you Garbage Baby?”

  “His dad’s a garbage man,” Andy said.

  “Dick activity detected,” Crystal said in a robotic tone as she glared at Andy.

  “It’s okay,” Thaddeus said. “He’s right. My dad has been out of work since Superstition Sporting Goods closed. He told me he found a new job working for the city, but he didn’t say what he was doing.”

  “He didn’t give you any warning about it at all?” Andy asked, then threw his head back and let out a long, loud laugh. When he managed to tone his laugh down to a chuckle, he looked at Crystal and said, “And you say I’m a dick.”

  “Anyway,” Thaddeus said. “I’d heard them calling me that throughout the week but didn’t know why, until this morning. I missed the bus and had to walk to school, and I saw my dad riding on the back of a garbage truck and picking up trash.
”

  Crystal grimaced. “Ouch.”

  “Yeah, ouch,” Thaddeus said.

  “I’ve heard that garbage men make pretty good money,” Marty said with a shrug. “It’s a tough job too. Outside all day, lifting all those heavy cans. And the smell.” He made a face. “Not an easy job, but someone’s got to do it, right?”

  “Oh, I get all that,” Thaddeus said. “It’s just another lie on top of all the other lies Nathan Cane has told over the years.” He sighed and pushed his tray away, his lunch untouched.

  “You’re not going to eat that?” Andy asked.

  “Dick activity detected,” Crystal said once again.

  “Hey, I’m not being a dick,” Andy protested. “I’m keeping Thaddeus from wasting food.”

  “It’s okay, Crystal,” Thaddeus said, then looked at Andy. “You can have my lunch.”

  “Oh yeah, double lunch day!”

  Andy got up and stepped behind Thaddeus, intending to sit on his opposite side where Thaddeus had pushed his tray. But then he stopped right behind Thaddeus and gasped.

  “Dude, what is going on with your neck?” Andy asked.

  Thaddeus hunched his shoulders and pulled up the collar of the mock turtleneck to cover as much of his neck as possible. Shame swept through him in a hot rush, and his stomach knotted. This cyst was the worst pimple he had ever had, and he felt somehow responsible for it, as if he should be able to control his acne outbreaks.

  “I don’t know what that is,” Thaddeus said through a groan. “It hurts a lot, though.”

  “There are, like, tentacles coming out of the thing,” Andy said.

  “Shut up!” Thaddeus twisted out of Andy’s line of sight. “There are not!”

  He had turned away from Andy, but now was giving Marty and Crystal a good look at it.

  “Oh, Thaddeus,” Crystal said.

  “Yeah, dude, it’s really infected,” Marty agreed.

  “What?” Thaddeus wanted to cry again. “I’ve tried everything. And I can’t see the damn thing in the mirror.”

  “Here, I’ll take a picture and show you,” Crystal said. “Hold still.”

  Thaddeus flinched when he heard the sound of her shutter snapping a picture. She tapped on the screen of her phone a couple of times, then set it on the table in front of him. Thaddeus’s breath caught in his throat as he looked at the thing growing on the back of his neck. Half of the bright red blemish was visible above the collar of his shirt, and he guessed it was at least an inch in diameter. The raised surface looked smooth and shiny, and thin red tendrils snaked out from all sides of it along his pale skin. Some of the feelers disappeared beneath his shirt collar, and others reached up into his hairline.

  “Oh my God,” Thaddeus said. “What is that thing?”

  “That is the zit from hell,” Andy said. He had taken the seat on Thaddeus’s opposite side and was eating his abandoned lunch.

  “Yeah it is.” Thaddeus shook his head as he made a face. “It’s awful.”

  “You need to have someone look at that,” Crystal said. “A doctor or someone. Those red streaks coming out of it are infection.”

  “Infection?” Thaddeus looked at her with wide eyes. “Where would I have gotten an infection?”

  “Well, your dad’s playing around in garbage now,” Andy said. “Maybe he’s brought home some super bug?”

  “Hey, dick of the day,” Crystal said in a snappish voice. “Lay off the garbage-dad jokes.”

  “Wow,” Andy said, and Thaddeus thought he almost looked hurt by Crystal’s words. “If I’m being a dick, then you’re sure as hell being a bitch.”

  “Okay, okay,” Marty said. “Let’s everyone calm down before this gets out of hand.”

  Andy pushed to his feet and glared down at Crystal. “I’m gone, since that seems to be what someone here wants more than her sense of humor back.” He looked at Thaddeus. “You going to the Spirit dance tonight?”

  Thaddeus was unsure now. The Garbage Baby name and now the sight of the zit from hell had him second-guessing himself. He made a face as he thought about being at a dance with everyone from school, including Dixon and his henchmen. “I don’t know….”

  “Oh, come on,” Andy said. “I promise you, it will be a fun time. Wear a scarf or something to hide your plus one.”

  “Dick activity—”

  Andy slapped both hands down hard on the table, startling them all and cutting off Crystal’s comment. He leaned in over the table and fixed her with a cold look. “Point taken.”

  “Good,” Crystal said, glaring back. “Take my point with you as you leave.”

  Andy walked off without another word. Thaddeus watched him go, and when Andy reached the cafeteria doors, he nearly ran into Mr. Elder, startling both of them. Mr. Elder leaned in close to Andy and pointed a finger in his face, his expression very displeased as he delivered some kind of reprimand. Thaddeus watched the back and forth between the two until Andy finally said in a loud voice, “Okay, I get it!” and stomped out of the cafeteria. Mr. Elder went after him and moved into the hallway out of sight.

  “Whoa, what was that about?” Marty asked.

  “He’s hardly in Mr. Elder’s class anymore,” Crystal said. “Probably told him to shape up or he’ll flunk out.”

  “You think he’s doing that bad?” Thaddeus asked.

  “Uh, yeah,” Crystal said as she looked at him in surprise. “You know how many times he’s skipped class.”

  “Yeah, that’s true.” Thaddeus looked toward the door again and thought about what Crystal had said. Andy wasn’t in class very often these days, but that interaction between him and Mr. Elder had looked different than a teacher speaking to a student. It had appeared more personal, like a parent scolding a child.

  The tones to mark the end of lunch sounded, and all three got up and grabbed their trays before heading to the door. Thaddeus followed Crystal to Mr. Elder’s class and was surprised to see Andy already sitting in his desk. Crystal ignored Andy as she took her seat in front of him, but Thaddeus couldn’t help whispering as he walked past.

  “Did Mr. Elder guilt you into attending class today?”

  Andy shrugged. “It’s Friday. I decided to end the week on a good note.”

  Mr. Elder briefly went over their assigned reading and then started on that day’s lesson. Thaddeus’s thoughts drifted to his father, and a sense of betrayal burned within him. Why hadn’t his father said anything about what his new job was? Why had Thaddeus been left to find out on his own, amid the name-calling and torment of the entire school? His thoughts spun, the numerous lies his father had told him over the years all twisting together. Thaddeus began to doodle stick figures in the margin of his notebook as he dwelled on his father’s habit of leaving large amounts of facts out of the information he shared.

  A few minutes before the end of class, a small, wadded-up piece of paper landed on his desk, making him jump. Thaddeus looked up from his doodling to see Andy looking at him. Andy nodded down to the ball of paper before turning to face the front of the class again. Thaddeus opened the wad of paper and flattened it out on his notebook. It was a note, written in surprisingly elegant penmanship for Andy’s personality and age.

  You’re going to the dance tonight. Meet me at the gym door at 8:00. I know it’s almost your bedtime, but it’s a Friday night. Live a little!

  Thaddeus rolled his eyes but he couldn’t help smiling. He would go tonight, and he wouldn’t tell his parents about it. It was going to be fun too. He’d earned some fun. After class he followed Andy out of the room and told him he would meet up with him as planned. Andy nodded, then ran off as Crystal walked up. She watched Andy go before she looked at Thaddeus.

  “You’re meeting up with him at the dance?” she asked.

  “Yeah. I figured I should check it out.”

  “You know he’s going to do something that will probably get you two in trouble, right?”

  “I’m old enough to make my own decisions,” Thaddeus sa
id. “I’m not going to follow blindly along if he does something stupid.”

  “Oh yeah?” Crystal gave him a soft punch in the arm and a tight smile. “Good luck with that.”

  AFTER HIS last class of the day, Thaddeus set off for home. He decided to avoid the main roads and any possible interactions with Dixon and his gang. He’d heard enough Garbage Baby jokes to last him the rest of his life. Because he stuck to the side streets, it took him longer than usual to get home. As he rounded the corner at the end of the block, he looked over at the Rhododendron house. A great empty hole seemed to open up within him, and he found himself on the verge of a powerful wave of tears. He missed the entire Rhododendron family, and he missed how he felt when he was with Teofil. When he really thought about things, he wasn’t exactly sure what had happened to put so much distance between them. That worried him too, because if he didn’t know what had happened, how could they hope to fix things? Would they ever be able to get back to where they had been over the summer?

  Thaddeus looked away from the Rhododendron’s and at his own house. His father’s Camry sat in the driveway, which meant his father was already home from work. Anger bubbled up inside him once again at the thought, and he barely managed to keep from damaging the car as he passed it. When he stepped in the side door, his parents were both in the kitchen, laughing about something. His mother looked so relaxed and happy, more so than Thaddeus could remember her appearing since she came home with them, and that helped defuse some of his anger with his father.

  “Welcome home,” his mother said when she caught sight of him. “How was school?”

  “Kind of crappy,” he said and set down his backpack.

  “What happened?” his father asked.

  “The kids at school have come up with a new nickname for me,” Thaddeus replied. “Wanna know what it is?”

  “Thaddeus, I’m sorry that—”

  He spoke over his father’s apology. “Do you want to know what they’re calling me now at school?”

  His mother nodded. “Tell us.”