The Wednesdays

by Julie Bourbeau

  The wednesdays glided out of their cluster and formed a circle around him. They all sat down on the ground except one, who was slightly larger than the rest.

  “Who’re you?” Max asked, wondering if he was the leader.

  “Two,” the rest of the wednesdays answered in unison for him.

  “I don’t mean to be rude, but why do you use numbers instead of names?” Max asked. “It seems a bit, I don’t know, impersonal or something.”

  “The order,” whispered all of the wednesdays except Two, who hadn’t yet said anything at all.

  “You’re not exactly chatty, are you?” Max didn’t like the way Two was silently looking at him. There was something vaguely menacing about the wednesday. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

  As if in response, Two smiled broadly. It was an ugly smile pretending to be a friendly smile, though, and Max noticed with disgust that the creature’s teeth were mossy green and filthy. “Welcome. We’re so glad you have joined us.” The other wednesdays started giggling, until Two silenced them with a sharp hissing sound.

  “I haven’t joined anything,” said Max crossly. “I just came to ask some questions.”

  For some reason this made the wednesdays clap and chant gleefully:

  Questions, questions, answers none.

  We talk in circles till we’re done!

  Max was starting to become thoroughly annoyed. “Listen, I just want to know what’s happening to me. And also, why do you keep doing such nasty things to my family?”

  “Who, us?” Two’s silver eyes widened innocently. “Why, we haven’t done anything at all … to your family.”

  “Birds keep pooping on my mother, my father’s slippers were filled with grape jelly this morning, my baby brother’s hair is still stained black, and all of the electrical appliances seem to be running backward, if they run at all, for starters,” yelled Max. “I demand that you stop all of this, immediately!”

  All of the wednesdays, including Two, laughed as if Max had said something hilarious.

  Two finally quieted the group, just as Max was about to storm away. “Nex—I mean, Max. We’re your friends.” His voice sounded slippery and greasy, and not at all sincere. “We didn’t do any of those things. We are not responsible.” All the wednesdays looked accusingly at Max.

  “You can’t possibly be saying I did all of those things,” Max protested. “That’s absolutely ridiculous. Why would I do terrible things to my own family? Or to Noah, either. He’s my best friend!”

  The circle of wednesdays tightened, and Two looped a long, skinny, pipe-cleaner arm around Max’s shoulders. “Now, now, Max. I’m not saying you meant to do anything unkind. But really, everyone gets upset at their parents now and then, and that cat of yours isn’t exactly friendly, is he? And I don’t know how you tolerate that noisy little ankle biter of a child crying at all hours. Maybe there’s just a small part of you that … wanted those things to happen.”

  Max did not like Two’s tone.

  Max also did not like Two touching him—the wednesday smelled like mildew and brine.

  Max could not, however, argue with what Two was saying. It was true that he didn’t care much for the cat. And baby Leland really was exceptionally loud for such a small person. But Two’s claim was absurd.

  “No,” he finally said, forcefully shoving Two’s stringy arm off his shoulders. “I didn’t want my mother to burn my birthday cake or get bird poop in her hair. I didn’t want my dad’s slippers to be ruined or his television broken. I didn’t want any of those things to happen. And don’t call Leland an ankle biter. He’s a baby, and he’s my brother.”

  “Hmmm. I suppose I could be mistaken.” Two spoke in a sarcastic tone as he widened his silver eyes and brought one long and crooked finger to his chin.

  “You most certainly are mistaken,” Max said, glaring at the ugly creature.

  Except there were a few things that Max might have kind of, sort of, almost thought about right before they happened—like Dr. Tetley’s pants splitting or his parents’ canasta cards going down the garbage disposal.

  He shook his head, feeling slightly confused. “I definitely did NOT want my mother’s hair to catch fire,” he finally said.

  Two steepled his long fingers thoughtfully. “Max,” he began in his slow, slithery voice, “sometimes a … naughty thought pops into your mind—one that you can’t control, right?” He didn’t wait for Max to agree. “Well, your mind also has its own mind, and that’s even naughtier.”

  The wednesdays were chanting again, softly this time. Max couldn’t quite make out what they were saying.

  “That’s right.” Two nodded encouragingly at the group. “So, Max, you might not intend to cause any harm, but your mind’s mind sometimes thinks of naughty things without you even being aware. And then?” He signaled to the other wednesdays.

  “Poof!” they screamed in unison, giggling uncontrollably. Two gestured for them to settle down, and they resumed their chanting, this time loudly enough for Max to hear:

  The mind’s mind turns and the mind’s mind wheels.

  Your bottom brain burns and your back brain steals!

  Max had had quite enough. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to my family, and I don’t want the cat’s fur to fall out! I didn’t want Noah to get caught, either. I didn’t do any of those things! You’re all just ridiculous and awful, and I want you to leave me alone!” Max pushed his way out of the circle of wednesdays, fully prepared to fight if they tried to stop him.

  They didn’t try, though. They just laughed and laughed, rolling on the ground while holding their sides with their long, skinny arms and winking their glinting, silver eyes.

  Max fled in disgust.

  ax didn’t even try to go to sleep before midnight. Neither did his parents object to him staying up so late, since they didn’t look as if they would be getting much sleep, either. They waved to him sadly through the window, and his mother blew him a kiss.

  At 12:01 his father popped his head out the back door to invite him back into the house, but Max still didn’t feel tired. “In a minute,” he answered.

  His father looked as if he wanted to say something, but he just nodded and went back inside. As he walked away, Max noticed a stoop to his shoulders and a heaviness to his footsteps that hadn’t been there before. Max wanted to think his parents were so exhausted because baby Leland kept them up all hours of the night, but he had a feeling his Wednesday problems were more likely the cause.

  Feeling terribly guilty, he climbed up on the roof of the house. He liked to go up there to think, and he figured that it was safe enough now, since it wasn’t technically Wednesday anymore.

  He lay on his back looking at the stars. From the highest point of the steep roof he could see the lights from the amusement park on the top of Mount Tibidabo. There was an airplane ride that had been Max’s favorite when he was younger, and next to it an old-fashioned Ferris wheel painted in a rainbow of colors. He found it relaxing to watch the rides going around and around, and he imagined that each Ferris wheel car was filled with happy, smiling people.

  Suddenly, he bolted upright. What if it’s true? What if I really am the cause of all of the bad things? He desperately tried to recall each and every one of his thoughts from the last few minutes. Had he thought anything bad? Had he wished any harm on the people in the Ferris wheel? Had he been jealous, or spiteful, or even just thought any sort of mischievous thought, even for a moment?

  He didn’t think so, but he was filled with horror as the wheel abruptly stopped turning. He was much too far away to actually hear any sounds from the amusement park, but for one horrible instant he imagined he heard terrified screams coming from the people on the ride.

  “No!” he cried, and shut his eyes as tightly as he could. If he couldn’t see it, then surely he couldn’t hurt it. Or so he hoped. “I don’t want anything bad to happen! I don’t want anyone to get hurt!” He kept his eyes closed and covered his ears wi
th his fists while he counted backward from fifty, trying to occupy his mind with the numbers and absolutely nothing else. “La, la, la,” he shouted at the top of his lungs when that didn’t work. His mind kept turning to the Ferris wheel, no matter how hard he tried to think of anything—anything—else. “Ponies and bunnies and grannies and teddies!” he yelled, over and over again.

  Finally, slowly, he opened his eyes and uncovered his ears, desperately frightened that he would hear screams again—real or imagined, he was no longer sure.

  The Ferris wheel was turning normally. There were no screams, nor any other sign of disaster. Everything appeared perfectly, perfectly normal.

  Max sighed a huge breath of relief.

  “Good thing it’s not Wednesday anymore,” he said out loud, vowing to control his thoughts very, very carefully in the future and to never, ever look at the Ferris wheel on a Wednesday.

  Hearing his mother call him, he climbed down off the roof and went inside, finally exhausted enough to go to bed.

  • • •

  Max had an appointment with the out-of-town specialist on Thursday morning; the new doctor had agreed to see Max in Dr. Tetley’s office for a joint consultation.

  “Good morrow, madam.” A strange man wearing a royal-blue cloak and bright red slippers stood up to greet them. “I daresay my reputation precedes me, but allow me to present my business card by way of introduction.” With a small bow, he handed a card to Max’s mother.

  “Dr. Conkle-Smoak, parapsychologist and occultist?” his mother read incredulously from the card. “What, no fortunetellers were available?” Her voice rose dramatically and she fixed an icy glare on Dr. Tetley. “Dr. Tetley, I need to speak to you in the hall,” she hissed.

  As they left the exam room Max overheard Dr. Tetley whispering to his mother, “I couldn’t find anyone else, and—trust me—I called around everywhere! This isn’t the sort of thing a doctor sees very often, you know.” The door slammed shut.

  Max picked up the card his mother had flung onto the desk:

  The specialist seemed unfazed by Max’s mother’s reaction. He sat placidly in a faux-leather chair with his hands folded over his considerable belly. He raised one eyebrow when he caught Max looking at him. “I tune pianos, too, but that’s more of a hobby,” he said, gesturing to the business card.

  Max decided that it would be best not to say anything until his mother returned.

  When she and Dr. Tetley came back, both looked tense. “All right,” Max’s mother said to him quietly. “We’ll give this a try. What’ve we got to lose?”

  “Dr. Conkle-Smoak has some interesting, ah, theories about your case, Max,” Dr. Tetley began, gesturing at the specialist to begin.

  Dr. Conkle-Smoak stood to speak, as if he were lecturing to an entire classroom instead of to three very skeptical listeners. “In cases like these,” he boomed, “I like to begin by placing my patients on a high-fiber diet.”

  “And the fiber will have a curative effect,” added Dr. Tetley, nodding as if he were in complete agreement.

  “No, not at all,” countered Dr. Conkle-Smoak, “but I find that nearly everyone can benefit from a good bowel cleansing.”

  Max giggled at this, and his mother elbowed him sharply.

  “Next,” continued the specialist, “we need to determine the severity of the infection.”

  “So, it’s an infection?” Max sat up hopefully. Having had numerous ear and throat infections, he knew that they could be cured with various foul-tasting remedies.

  “It’s an infection of sorts, but not the type you’re accustomed to,” answered Dr. Conkle-Smoak. “This is more like an infection of the imagination.”

  “I’m certainly not imagining the things that happen around my son on Wednesdays,” objected Max’s mother.

  “Of course not,” soothed the specialist. “That’s not what I meant. But, to be truthful, I can’t really be certain about anything without running some tests.”

  “What sort of tests?” Max eyed the strange doctor suspiciously, hoping that needles weren’t involved.

  Dr. Conkle-Smoak rummaged through a large satchel until he found what he was looking for. He pulled out a bulky ring and handed it to Max. “Wear this next Wednesday, and carefully make note of the colors it turns when you meet these creatures of yours. Please remember that bluish-green is different than greenish-blue. I need you to be very precise.”

  Max’s mother yanked the ring from his hand. “This is just a mood ring,” she objected. “This isn’t any sort of medical test! Anyone can buy one of these at a novelty shop.”

  The specialist looked indignant. “Madam, it may be ‘just’ a mood ring, as you say, but not everyone is an expert in diagnosing the results. I spent seven years studying the science of psychic chromatography, and in my skilled hands this ring is a precise diagnostic tool.”

  His mother rolled her eyes. “He’s as sharp as a donut, this one,” she said, a bit meanly. But the doctor didn’t seem to take offense. After giving the matter a moment of thought, she stood up and handed the ring back to Max with a shrug of defeat. “What’ve we got to lose,” she repeated to herself sadly as they walked out of the office.

  ax’s mother let him skip the rest of the school day on Thursday, and then again on Friday. She didn’t say it in so many words, but Max strongly suspected that she let him stay home because baby Leland had developed a strange, new fascination with him. Prior to Max’s run-in with the wednesdays, Leland had cried and fussed louder than ever when Max tried to play with him. He simply wasn’t a playing kind of baby. Instead he was a yowling, fussing, spitting-up kind of baby, and in Max’s opinion, not very fun to be around.

  Now, however, baby Leland immediately stopped his fussing the instant Max entered the room. Occasionally, he even went as far as holding out his arms and cooing at Max to lift him.

  “See?” said their mother. “I told you that he would eventually outgrow his colic and want to play with his big brother!” And with that, she lay down on the sofa and promptly fell asleep, having spent the previous seven months up at all hours with the baby.

  But, as much as Max wanted to be a good older brother, he had a sneaking suspicion that baby Leland’s new fascination with him had more to do with the wednesdays than anything else. He couldn’t be certain, of course, but Leland seemed strangely preoccupied with staring into Max’s eyes, almost as if he could see his reflection in them. It was slightly flattering—and slightly creepy.

  Then, because it rained heavily all weekend long, Max ended up spending Saturday and Sunday indoors, watching old movies on the TV that his father had finally managed to repair and dodging requests from his parents to join them in a game of canasta. He called Noah once, but the conversation had been a short one.

  “I’m telling Mom! You’re not supposed to be on the phone, you little weasel!” Max could hear Noah’s sister shrieking in the background. “Get off!”

  “I can’t talk now,” Noah said breathlessly. “I’m grounded this weekend. See you Monday?” The sound of a vigorous wrestling match for control over the phone ended with an abrupt click, followed by a dial tone.

  Max hung up glumly, hoping Noah wasn’t too angry with him.

  • • •

  By Monday morning he was more than ready to get out of the house and go back to school. Four days of dodging baby Leland’s spit-up projectiles was quite enough. Besides, he hadn’t seen Noah since their ill-fated encounter on the previous Wednesday, and he was anxious to see how his friend had fared.

  He still hadn’t decided whether to tell anyone else about the wednesdays, but as he walked up the steps of the schoolhouse Monday morning, he concluded that it would be better to wait until he had some sort of proof.

  As it turned out, he didn’t have to tell anyone at all. The entire school had already heard.

  • • •

  When Max entered the crowded, noisy hallway, everyone immediately stopped talking. Groups of students parted as he walke
d by, everyone stepping hurriedly out of his path. At one point, a particularly high-strung fifth grader backed into Max as he walked by and literally jumped into the air with a high-pitched squeal when he saw who he had bumped against.

  Max was puzzled at first. Then he saw Peter Tetley leaning smugly against a drinking fountain.

  Peter Tetley was Dr. Tetley’s son.

  Peter Tetley had hated Max with a burning passion ever since the third grade, when Max had sort-of-accidentally (but kind-of-on-purpose) told a few of their classmates that Peter had wet the bed at a sleepover. It had been years now, but Peter had finally found his chance for revenge.

  It immediately became clear that Peter had gleefully told the entire school about Max’s case of the wednesdays, no doubt embellishing the story along the way.

  Max groaned and hurried to the refuge of his locker. Where the heck was Noah? Max knew that his best friend was chronically tardy, but he’d hoped Noah would show up on time just this once.

  He was pretending to concentrate on opening the combination lock when Max sensed someone approach him. He whirled around defensively, but it was only Gemma Swift. Not that there was anything “only” about Gemma, who carried out her role as the editor of the school’s newspaper with an intensity Max had always found both puzzling and more than a little intimidating. Her usual cluster of student reporters stood nearby, giggling nervously.

  “Max,” Gemma began confidently, as if she were conducting a professional interview. “We”—she gestured back to her twittering friends—“heard a little rumor about you.”

  Max held his breath while he considered whether he should simply deny everything.

  Gemma leaned in closer. “Is it true that you actually met them? The … wednesdays?” She whispered the word as if it were dangerous to even say aloud.

  Max suddenly realized that he could use his story to his advantage. After all, he was the only person who had ever met the creatures. He could be a local celebrity!