Rex Zero, King of Nothing

by Tim Wynne-Jones

  “Oh, for goodness sake, child, stop that insufferable sniveling.”

  The tone of Miss Garr’s voice only makes S-A-M wail all the louder.

  “Stop it immediately!”

  S-A-M sniffs and sits up, her hands crossed meekly on her desk.

  “You silly goose,” says Miss Garr. “I’m not talking about raffle tickets. I’m talking about an act of treason. An act of war!” She holds the envelope up for all to see.

  “This disgusting piece of filth was mailed to my home address.”

  Another gasp.

  Disgusting?

  There was nothing disgusting about the letter, was there? I bite my lip. Did I say something I didn’t mean to? I remember how I couldn’t concentrate because I was thinking about Natasha. Oh, no. What did I say?

  Miss Garr is scanning the class, like a turret gun on a tank. She starts on row one, that’s me. I’m blushing so badly I can’t bear to look at her, but her gaze travels right on by.

  Everyone is blushing. Everyone looks guilty. Finally she makes it to the window aisle and Donnie Dangerfield.

  “What is written in this letter is libel,” she says, as if she were talking just to him.

  He doesn’t flinch. He stares right back at her. I’ve never seen him give her so much attention.

  “Does anyone know what libel means?” Miss Garr’s eyes swivel to Polly. “Miss Goldstein?”

  Polly’s father is a lawyer and Polly wants to be a lawyer, too. Miss Garr likes to ask her legal questions the way she likes to ask me to sing.

  “It means something false?”

  “A false and malicious statement, yes. Go on.”

  But Polly doesn’t know or doesn’t want to, which hardly matters to Miss Garr because she has her speech already prepared.

  “What is written in this letter is a lie. Whoever wrote this vile and repulsive missive intended to hurt the recipient and make a fool of her. The recipient, however, is made of stronger stuff.” She pauses to load more ammunition into her vocal cords. “This culprit will be brought to justice.”

  Again her head swivels around to Donnie. Other people’s heads turn to look his way. Donnie just sits there looking relaxed.

  How can he act so cool? I ask myself.

  Then I remember why – he’s innocent!

  What have I got myself into?

  I glance at Kathy. She has turned deathly white right down to her knuckles, which are clenched in fists on her desktop. Me, I’m shaking so much I have to grab hold of the edge of my desk. I’m hot all over. It feels like the flu. I could start puking any second, but I can’t ask to leave. She would know. She would know!

  The room is silent. Not dead silent. It feels more like the room has a giant pulse. A pulse the size of King Kong’s. The whole room feels likes it might start shaking any second.

  “I will give the culprit one day,” says Miss Garr, tapping the letter against her open palm. “One day to make himself known to me.”

  Polly clears her throat. “So, it’s a boy, Miss Garr?”

  Miss Garr’s eyes widen with interest. “What makes you say that, Polly?”

  “You said the culprit had a day to make himself known to you.”

  Now Miss Garr glares. “I was merely using correct English, as you know perfectly well, Miss Goldstein. Was that impertinence, young lady?”

  Polly looks down at her desk and doesn’t answer.

  “I asked you a question.”

  Polly still won’t look up.

  Then, suddenly, breaking the silence, a voice says, “Leave her alone.”

  It’s Zoltan. He’s standing.

  “Mr. Kádár?”

  “She only ask question,” he says. “Good question.” He looks as if he has more to say but it will be too hard to say it, so he sits down.

  For some reason, this is enough to stop the runaway train. Zoltan is older than us and bigger. His voice is deeper, too, and he looks like someone who has seen even worse teachers than Miss Garr, and he may have eaten one or two of them for lunch.

  Whatever it is, Miss Garr steps back and takes a deep restorative breath. She stares at the letter in her hand as if it is the source of her power. When she looks up, she smiles a frozen smile.

  “I do think it is a boy, since you ask. But I may be wrong. Whoever it is, the person or persons responsible for this gross indecency will identify himself or herself or themselves before nine tomorrow morning or there will be no Christmas party.”

  The class groans.

  “Silence!”

  When there is silence, she holds up the envelope by the corner and continues.

  “You all know Constable Paul?” she says. Constable Paul is the traffic safety cop. “He assures me that the police can lift fingerprints off this envelope.” The class stirs excitedly. Miss Garr taps the edge of the envelope like it’s not a vile, repulsive missive anymore but an invitation to the ball.

  “Constable Paul also assures me he can have a crew of crime-scene investigators come into this room and take every student’s prints.” A further gasp. “So there will be no escape. We will find the guilty party.”

  The police taking our fingerprints? It’s like a dream come true and everybody starts fidgeting with excitement. Even me, until I remember that it’s my prints they’re going to find!

  Kids turn in their seats to talk to their neighbours. For once Miss Garr lets us. She wants us to be excited. I glance again at Kathy but she won’t return my gaze.

  Sami leans forward and hums the tune of Dragnet in my ear. “Dum da dum dum. Dum da dum dum DUM!”

  Everyone wants to know what the letter says. That’s what they’re all whispering about. I only wish I didn’t know.

  “I hope Donnie didn’t do it,” whispers Rhonda. “Garr will kill him this time.”

  We all look across the room at the class clown. He’s looking out the window at the bright, hard sunshine.

  I glance towards the front. Miss Garr is staring at him, her eyes glinty with triumph.

  Finally, she calls us to order.

  “Tomorrow by nine,” she says.

  She carefully places the envelope on her desk and picks up her notes.

  “Australia,” she says brightly. “Turn to page thirty-eight in your atlas, children.”

  With trembling fingers I turn to page thirty-eight and stare at that continent sixty billion miles away.

  If only I were there.

  * * *

  “We’ll give ourselves up.”

  James looks at Kathy, Buster and me. We’re in the playground at recess, standing by the fence. James has on his best James Stewart face. Or maybe his Gary Cooper High Noon face.

  “It’s my fault,” says Kathy. “If it hadn’t been for me, none of this would have happened.”

  “I wrote it,” I say. “I mailed it, too.”

  “We all approved what you wrote,” says James. “We’re in this together.”

  “Not me,” says Buster. “I never liked the idea. Anyway, my fingerprints won’t be on the letter. I never touched it.”

  Kathy is ready to punch him, but James stops her.

  “There was nothing rude or – what did she say – gross? There was nothing gross in the letter.”

  “It was stupid,” mutters Buster. “It was a good joke when we were just talking about it but I would never have sent it.” He won’t look at us.

  And he’s right, in a way. He had hardly anything to do with the letter. But I’m mad at him all the same. Only not half so mad as I am with myself. I thought we’d kill two birds with one stone. Looks like we’re going to kill four birds with one stone, or three, depending on whether Buster deserts us.

  The thing is, I never thought the letter would hurt her feelings. Or did I?

  “We’ve got until the start of school tomorrow,” says Kathy.

  “Good,” says James. “We can sleep on it.”

  “I’m not going to sleep on it,” says Buster.

  I don’t say it, but I ha
ve a feeling I’m not going to sleep at all.

  21

  King of Nothing

  THE JAILOR SHOVES ME in the cell and slams the door.

  “I’m innocent!” I call, rattling the bars. He just walks away, his laughter echoing down the long, dark corridor.

  “Well, well, well.”

  I swing around. There’s a man lying on the bottom bunk, his head lost in the shadows until he leans forward.

  Larry Lavender. He looks me up and down with an evil smirk on his face.

  “Look what the cat dragged in,” he says. Then he sits up and swings his feet on to the floor.

  I lean backwards against the cell door.

  “I got a bone to pick with you, kiddo.”

  I turn to rattle the bars again and gasp. Miss Garr and Constable Paul are standing there.

  “That’s him, all right, Constable. You work fast.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” he says, tipping his hat. “This whippersnapper won’t be causing you any more trouble for a long, long time.”

  They both laugh. Larry laughs, too.

  Then, “Rex? Is that you?”

  I turn to the right. In the next cell over stands my father, his hands grasping the bars. He hasn’t shaved, his clothes are in rags, and he’s thin, thin, thin.

  “They say I’m a German spy, Rex,” he says. “But I’m not a spy. Who did this to me, Rex? Who, who, who?”

  “Yeah,” says Larry. “Who got us in this mess, eh?” He strides towards me, punching a fist into the palm of his hand.

  Miss Garr laughs hysterically. “There will be no Christmas party for the likes of you, Rex Zero.”

  Constable Paul laughs. Larry laughs. Only my father and I aren’t laughing. He’s staring at me, shaking his head.

  “Was it you, Rex? Why?”

  “Yes, why?”

  There’s another cell beyond my father’s, and Natasha Lavender is standing there, all in shadows and all in white, a single light shining down on her blonde hair giving her a kind of halo.

  “What are you doing here?” I call to her. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  She stares at Larry. “He killed Wilfred and I hope he rots in hell for it. But that won’t change a thing. I’m alone and will always be alone.”

  “No!” I cry. “It isn’t fair.” I rattle the bars as hard as I can. “It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair.”

  When I wake up, I can still hear a voice somewhere deep inside me crying, “It isn’t fair.”

  It’s dark. Winter dark. And cold in my room at the top of the house. I pull my quilted comforter up to my chin but I can’t stop shaking.

  I’ve never felt so alone in my whole life.

  22

  A Reprieve

  “IT‘S MY FAULT. I’ll handle it.”

  I can’t believe I said that! But it sounds good. James and Kathy and I are standing shivering in the schoolyard Tuesday morning. Buster is nowhere to be seen. I’m a little hurt but not surprised. Kathy grabs my arm and apologizes. I shake her off. I expect James to say something noble, but he seems relieved. I can’t really complain. I mean, I offered to take the blame. Except in a movie they would load up their six-guns and say, “We’re with you all the way, partner.”

  Buster is not at school, but he has been blabbing. As soon as I arrive in class, Sami leans forward and whispers in my ear.

  “Did you give yourself up?”

  “No,” I say. “Not yet.”

  He looks up at the clock. So do I. It’s almost nine. I try to imagine leaving my desk and heading off to find Miss Garr. Where does she hang out before class? In a casket in the basement?

  But I can’t make my feet move. And the clock ticks towards nine.

  Finally, Miss Garr comes into the room and the buzz dies immediately. She doesn’t even need to call the class to attention. She is back in her turret gun, surveying the battlefield.

  When she’s finished, there is a sly kind of smile on her face for just a moment. But it dies there.

  “As you can see,” she says. “There is a new development in our unpleasant little mystery.”

  Everyone looks around. What development?

  Donnie Dangerfield is absent! Then the whispers start.

  “Enough,” she says.

  We settle down.

  “No one has come forward,” says Miss Garr. “Which suggests that the culprit is too much of a coward to face the consequences of his actions. And yes, Polly, I did say ‘his.’”

  Polly just stares at her desk.

  The murmuring starts up again.

  “Class, please.”

  Miss Garr folds her hands in front of her chest as if she’s praying.

  “I will extend the deadline for the confession until tomorrow morning at the same time. Perhaps you can pass that information on to anyone who is not here.”

  A reprieve. Just like in the movies when the governor calls at the last minute and the falsely accused man is already strapped into the electric chair.

  The thing is, nobody is loosening the straps. I’m not free. I have one more day, that’s all. Still, I shake with relief so badly I can hardly write the date in the upper right-hand corner of my notebook.

  The relief doesn’t last and soon I feel even guiltier. Miss Garr thinks Donnie did it. Other kids in the class probably think so, too.

  We work away at our math, but there is too much on my mind to make the numbers do what they’re supposed to do. Something is bothering me. That’s an understatement! There is lots and lots bothering me. But there is something else – something new – that I can’t put my finger on.

  And then it comes to me. I’m angry, that’s what. Angry that Miss Garr thinks Donnie wrote that letter. Donnie is a great guy, but there is no way he could have written a letter that good.

  “Rex, is something the matter?”

  I look up and Miss Garr is staring straight at me.

  “Question seven,” I say.

  She sighs. “Sami, help your mathematically inept friend, will you?”

  I turn around. Sami smiles and looks at my math notebook. Then he looks up at me and frowns.

  My page is completely blank.

  * * *

  At recess, Kathy and I tell James what happened.

  “A lucky break,” he says. “Maybe we can still come up with something.”

  “What if I tell Dr. Arnold what we did?” says Kathy. “Maybe he would talk to Miss Garr and explain that we did it for my sake.”

  I can’t believe my ears. “Won’t he hate you?”

  She looks down at the ground. She’s building a little canal in the snow with her boot.

  “He might, but then again he might not.” She digs a little deeper. “If I still didn’t like him, he might be mad. But what if I tell him how much things have changed?”

  “They have?”

  She looks up and nods enthusiastically. “We had a really good time when we went out to dinner on Saturday. Missy is really cute and I had a Shirley Temple.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A drink served in a glass with a stem and an umbrella and a maraschino cherry – everything except booze.” Her happy face droops and she goes back to digging the canal. She breaks through to asphalt.

  “Oh, that’s just great,” I say.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, well why couldn’t you have liked him two weeks ago?”

  She pouts and James frowns at me.

  “I’ll tell Dr. Arnold,” says Kathy. “I’ll explain.”

  “Even if you did tell him, what can he do?” says James. “Miss Garr will be more embarrassed if he talks to her. And she’ll still take it out on the class. Right?”

  Kathy and I nod. We know it’s true.

  I try to think of some other way to smooth things out with Miss Garr. Like maybe a steamroller.

  * * *

  We’re walking up Lyon Street heading home after school when someone calls my name.

  I t
urn around. It’s Natasha Lavender.

  We wait while she catches up to us. She’s wearing a checkered tweed coat, black and white, with black boots and gloves, white scarf and a woolly white hat.

  I introduce her to James and Kathy.

  “I wonder if I might have a word with you?” she says.

  The others look at me with surprise. I feel strange and a little scared.

  “Sure,” I say. And then I say goodbye to my friends and they head off up Lyon Street.

  “Was that rude of me?” she asks.

  “No. It’s okay.” I glance past her down Lyon Street towards Fifth.

  “Larry’s not around,” she says. “Don’t worry about him.”

  I look into her eyes. “Did you kill him?” “My God, no!” she says, resting her hand on her chest. Then she laughs. “But it’s an idea.”

  I shake my head. How could I have said that? “I’m sorry, ma’am. It’s just that...”

  “No need to explain,” she says. “Shall we walk?” I nod and we head along Lyon towards my place. I’m trying to imagine how I’ll introduce her to my mother.

  She doesn’t speak right away. Then it kind of bursts out of her.

  “After I found out from you that Larry had been spying on me, I phoned around. He’d been staying with a pal, borrowed his truck to pull that little charade the other night. He didn’t get the job driving to Winnipeg. But as it turned out, he got one driving to Chicago, just yesterday. So he really is gone this time. Until Friday, anyway.”

  I nod. My head is bursting with questions but I don’t know what to say. Her perfume is making me flustered.

  Up ahead, James and Kathy are looking back at me. They’re a block away but I can tell they’re worried. Part of me wants to run away and be with them. Part of me doesn’t.

  “Listen,” she says. “I owe you for what you did. Are you free for that cup of hot chocolate?” I look at her in case she’s kidding. “Are you expected home right away? Would your mother mind?”

  Would my mother mind? She’s got two sick kids to look after and besides, she hardly ever knows where I am.

  “Okay,” I say, and so we set off down Second towards Bank Street. I wave at Kathy and James. James waves. Kathy just stares.

  Natasha and I choose a seat by the front window at the Two-by-Four. I watch her take off her leather gloves, fold them neatly and lay them on the linoleum tabletop. Her black eye is healing, more yellow now than anything. She’s covered the worst of the damage with make-up. She takes off her checkered coat and I think about movies where a handsome gentleman leaps to his feet to help a lady out of her coat. But I just sit there like a lump of Silly Putty.