The Wednesdays

by Julie Bourbeau

  “But, Mr. Grimsrud, that’s just it. You are the only person in the village they don’t bother! You’re the only one who can get close enough to use the stun gun,” Max pleaded with him. “Please, sir, you’re my last hope.”

  The old man shook his head. “I’ve always left them alone, and they’ve always left me alone. Doesn’t make much sense to change anything about that.”

  It seemed like a lost cause, but Max gave it one last shot. “But weren’t you a soldier?” he asked, as if he didn’t already know the answer. “I mean, you fought in a war. These are just a bunch of short, funny-looking creatures—they don’t carry guns or drive tanks. Honestly, what’s the worst that can possibly happen?”

  Mr. Grimsrud stopped knocking on his head and glowered irritably. Max could see he was hitting a nerve, so he pressed on. “You fought for your country; that’s how you got the metal plate in your head, right? Well, this is like fighting for your village. Except you won’t actually have to fight at all. Well, at least not really. You just have to zap them a little with a stun gun. It should be a piece of cake for a man with your … experience.” Max was really laying it on thick, he knew, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

  A strange expression crept across Mr. Grimsrud’s grizzled face, and for a moment Max feared he had blown his last chance completely. Then he realized that the old man actually appeared to be getting misty-eyed!

  Max took a step back, confused. Anger, he could have understood—he might have pressed too hard and offended the old man. But … tears?

  Mr. Grimsrud snuffled a bit and then dabbed at the corner of his eye with a frayed shirtsleeve. “I never dreamed I’d ever hear the call to duty ringing in my ears again,” he whispered. And, although technically he hadn’t said yes yet, a change came over him. He stood up straighter, with his shoulders back and his chest thrust forward. He snapped his heels together, rapped sharply once on his head, and saluted a flagpole in his yard that currently flew nothing but a bird’s nest.

  Max couldn’t tell whether the old man had consented to help or not. “Shall I come by and get you late Tuesday night, then?” he asked hesitantly.

  Seeming altogether oblivious to Max’s continued presence, Mr. Grimsrud began to loudly hum the national anthem. Thursday howled in harmony from inside the house.

  Max crept away, wanting very badly to hope that this meant yes.

  ax, who was feeling very much determined to remain Max, diligently set about learning all there was to know about clocks. He spent several entire days poring through a book on clock repair that he had found in the library, and he spent his sleepless nights feverishly sketching out charts, timelines, and intricate diagrams. Twice he even used Gemma’s key to sneak into the tower to study the village clock’s dials and levers. It was a complicated piece of machinery, but after days of studying and tinkering, he felt as if he finally understood enough to get the job done.

  His original plan was to destroy the clock altogether. If the clock was demolished, then the wednesday door would stay shut forever. Or, at least that was what he thought. Aside from the nagging fact that the clock’s destruction would likely require jackhammers, dynamite, or other such difficult-to-acquire supplies, it had seemed the most logical solution overall.

  When he described his plan to Noah and Gemma, though, Noah was quick to point out the obvious problem with it. “Sounds like fun, but it won’t work. They’ll just fix it right up.” He was pouring the last crumbs from a bag of chips into his mouth as he said it, and Max ignored him as he chewed with his mouth open.

  “No, really—” Noah went on anyway, oblivious to the bits of food spraying out of his mouth as he spoke. Gemma glared as she flicked a wet clump off of her shoulder. “Everyone in this village is nuts about that clock. They’ll never just let it sit around broken forever. My mother’s even on the Tibidabo Clock Committee, you know? They hold a bake sale in the square every year to pay for the clock maintenance, and last year she stayed up for two nights in a row baking hundreds of cupcakes for it. Don’t you remember when the whole village went berserk just because someone suggested replacing one of the old bells? The village priest and one of the aldermen almost got into a fistfight over it—one of them was going on and on about ‘tonality’ or ‘musicality’ or something, and the other, the one who tried to land a punch, kept yelling about ‘historical value.’ ” Noah licked the salt from his fingers. “Nah, they’ll just fix it if you break it.”

  Max sighed. Noah was probably right. The clock tower was the centerpiece of the village, and people did get a bit goofy about preserving it.

  After a great deal of discussion, much of which was monopolized by ridiculous suggestions from Noah that prominently featured gunpowder, storm troopers, or souped-up monster trucks, they finally agreed it would be better to just set the clock ahead, ever so slightly. The change would have to be small enough so that no one in the village would really notice, but big enough to make sure that it would discourage the wednesdays. And, judging from what they had seen of poor Ninety-nine’s two minutes of Tuesday, it seemed highly likely that three, or four, or maybe even five minutes of Tuesday would most certainly get their attention.

  “Maybe, but I’m still convinced that you’ve gone soft in the head,” Noah grumbled. “Perhaps we should make them a nice cup of tea while we’re at it?” He, of course, thought the plan sounded far too mild to be effective. But they had all seen Ninety-nine’s miserable two minutes, so even Noah finally had to concede that it just might work.

  “Think of it like an electric fence,” Max argued. “If the clock is set early, then when it strikes midnight, the wednesdays will try to come through the door before it’s actually Wednesday. In other words—they’ll run right into the electric fence. And with any luck at all, Two’ll be the first in line to get a nice big taste of Tuesday Surprise. He’ll go running back into the clock faster than you can say ‘yesterday.’ We can start with five minutes, and tell them that we’ll keep setting the clock earlier and earlier until they let me go.”

  The electric fence explanation cheered Noah considerably. “I can’t wait to see the look on their ugly faces when they pop out and it’s really still Tuesday. ZAP!” He dropped to the floor and writhed around in mock agony. “But shouldn’t we start with more than five minutes?” he asked from his position on the ground.

  Max frowned. He didn’t want to be soft on the wednesdays, but he didn’t want to destroy them, either. “Well, Two banished the girl wednesdays to not-Wednesday, and they haven’t been seen in a hundred years. I don’t know how long it takes until they just … vanish, or whatever it was that happened to the girls. Besides, five minutes feels like forever when you’re suffering as much as Ninety-nine was.” Max did not add the fact that he might soon enough be suffering right along with the wednesdays, but he thought it.

  “Is that what happened to One?” Noah asked. “He was kicked out, too?”

  Max nodded eagerly. “I’m almost sure of it. See? So they’ve done it at least twice. They made the girls and One disappear by forcing them into a day other than Wednesday. There’s absolutely no way my plan can fail. They either agree to let me go, or else they risk vanishing like the girls and One.”

  Gemma, who had remained silent up until this point, scoffed loudly.

  “What?” Max challenged her. The sleepless nights were wearing on him, and his patience was frightfully thin.

  She sighed wearily. “Neither of you considered for a moment, did you, that One was a girl?”

  Max and Noah both cocked their heads in identical expressions of confusion.

  Gemma rolled her eyes. “So typical. What, you think girls can’t be leaders? Welcome to the twenty-first century, boys. It’s obvious, isn’t it? One was a girl and Two kicked her out with the rest after a power struggle.”

  Max was embarrassed to admit it had never even crossed his mind that the original wednesday could be a girl. Two was just so ugly and awful that he couldn’t even imagine a girl b
eing even uglier or awful-er than him. “Okay, you’re probably right, but that doesn’t change the plan. We know Two made One disappear by banishing her, so he should be terrified of the same thing happening to him.”

  Gemma eventually nodded in agreement with the plan, but she looked skeptical.

  “What now?” Max asked. He was starting to get a terrible headache, and he was half convinced that he could actually feel his head growing more and more squarish.

  “Oh, nothing. I mean, I suppose it’s the only way.…” She trailed off. “Whatever it takes, right?” But still, she frowned.

  When Dr. Conkle-Smoak arrived, he was also unconvinced. He halfheartedly argued something about spacetime continuums and polar objectivity, but it quickly became clear that, for all his blathering and fancy words, he couldn’t come up with anything better. “Well, at least be ready with the psycho-magnetic catabolizer, just in case you need it.”

  Max stared blankly at him for a moment until Gemma whispered “stun gun” discreetly into his ear. “Oh, right. That. I’ve already worked that into the plan, as a matter of fact. We’ll have an expert of sorts helping out with that part.”

  Dr. Conkle-Smoak was visibly relieved that he hadn’t been assigned any of the more dangerous roles in the plan. “But perhaps I ought to attend as an observer, so I can document everything for posterity.”

  “Oh, yes, and I’ll have my video camera, too,” Gemma said casually.

  “What?” This was the first Max had heard about Gemma bringing a camera.

  Gemma shuffled her feet sheepishly. “Well, why shouldn’t I? It could come in handy … depending on how things turn out.”

  “Meaning, in case I vanish forever into wednesday oblivion? So you can prove that you ‘knew me when’ to help you become a famous television reporter?” Max was hurt, although he didn’t quite know why. Even though he himself had wanted to bring a camera when he first met the wednesdays, now it just didn’t seem right. Besides, he was becoming horribly self-conscious about his changing appearance, and the last thing he wanted was for his disturbingly square head and egg-shaped body to be captured on film for the whole world to see.

  Gemma blushed and chewed on her lip; she at least had the good grace to look ashamed of herself.

  Noah jumped to her defense, though. “Don’t be a twit, Max—bringing a camera’s a genius idea! How else will you prove that you got rid of the wednesdays forever? Having it on video will make you a hero, you lunkhead.”

  Max appreciated his best friend’s enthusiasm, even if it was overly optimistic. “All right,” he said quietly, suddenly feeling an intense need to be alone for a while. “I’ll see you all tomorrow night.”

  • • •

  Max needed air.

  He decided to hike up the Mount Tibidabo trail, which wound steeply through the forested slopes above the village. He discovered that his new, bouncy, wednesday legs were faster than his old legs, and in no time at all he was hiking in wooded isolation with no signs or sounds of civilization anywhere. Normally he would have found it spooky, but at the moment it just felt peaceful. Besides, these days he was probably the spookiest creature in the forest anyway. If there were any wolves or bears to be found, then they were wise to stay out of his way. Come to think of it, the forest seemed strangely deserted. None of the usual nature sounds could be heard—there wasn’t so much as a chirp, a rustle, or the snapping of a twig. I really am the creepiest thing in the forest, he thought. I’ve scared everything else away.

  He kicked dejectedly at a fallen pinecone as he walked. Predictably enough, it ricocheted off a tree and hit him in the head. Max barely felt it. What if I just keep going and never come back? If they can’t find me, then maybe they can’t turn me into a wednesday. Running away was awfully tempting, but Max suspected it wasn’t quite so simple as that. He had no choice but to confront the situation.

  But something was troubling him as he hiked at his breathless pace. The image of Ninety-nine writhing in pain and screaming in agony kept playing over and over again in his mind. He wondered how long Ninety-nine had been a wednesday. It could have been weeks ago, or it could have been hundreds of years ago, but Ninety-nine had been, at some point, just a boy. A boy like Max.

  Max suspected that Ninety-nine’s transformation had been a recent one, because in spite of his strange, wednesday appearance, there was still something unmistakably human in him. Ninety-eight still seemed to have a bit of his humanity left, too. He might have played pranks on Max, but Ninety-eight had never seemed malicious or cruel. He was actually sort of fun, Max thought grudgingly. Even Sixty-one and Sixty-two, who had likely been wednesdays for quite a long time, still had a brother-like bond left over from their previous lives. That was proof of something, Max recognized, but of what he still wasn’t certain. If nothing else, it showed that the wednesdays weren’t all bad. Or, at least that they weren’t all bad all the time. They just became bad over time as their mind’s mind, or whatever it was, took over the person they used to be.

  As he hiked furiously up the slope, thinking these half-wednesday thoughts, Max came to a decision. He didn’t yet know how, but he did know that his plan would have to change. The change could cost him everything, but it was the only way he could live with himself.

  ut of all the many, many other miseries caused by his case of the wednesdays, perhaps the saddest was that Max seemed to have lost his old sense of adventure. He spent his final Tuesday alone in his backyard, not doing much of anything. His case of the wednesdays was now strong enough that he could do nothing to prevent his contagious calamities, and he simply couldn’t bear to spend what might be his very last day bringing bad luck to the people he loved.

  So, he watched his family through the windows, feeling like a different species altogether from his mom and dad and little Leland. He watched as his father piggybacked the baby around the living room; his mother was clapping, and they were all smiling and laughing together. Leland spit up all over his dad’s back, but not even that dampened their mood.

  Then his mother caught sight of him standing outside, looking in. The smile on her face wilted quickly, and Max watched as her eyes filled with tears. Baby Leland took his cue from Mommy and started to cry as well. Max’s father looked down at his feet.

  Max had ruined the moment. He’d ruined everything. His mother gestured at him to come inside, but Max shook his head, not sure that he could bear it.

  He just couldn’t bring himself to say goodbye.

  His mother stuck her head out the back door to insist, though. “Maxwell, darling, you look so glum. Be a dear and put your little brother to bed, would you?”

  “But what if something bad happens?” Max felt as if he was speaking through a lump in his throat.

  “Oh, I think that we can manage with a few bumps and spills. Leland just adores you, you know. Let him have a few minutes with his favorite big brother.” She smiled gently and held the door open.

  Max could hardly refuse her, even if time was getting short. Noah and the others expected him at the clock tower in just a few minutes, but Max found himself nodding in agreement. This can’t possibly take long, he reasoned.

  • • •

  As it turned out, it took quite a long time.

  Baby Leland simply would not fall asleep. At first he was perfectly well behaved, staring, mesmerized, at Max. He reached his little baby fingers up into Max’s face, content to play with his reflection in Max’s now undeniably silver eyes. He gah-gahed and goo-gooed happily—right up until the instant Max tried to move so much as an inch away from him. And then he screamed bloody murder, howling as if Max had meanly poked him with a pin.

  Next, Max tried standing up with the baby in his arms. He mimicked the bouncing, dancing sort of steps he had seen his parents do so many times while trying to soothe Leland. But once again it was all good and fine right up until the moment that Max tried to set him back in his crib, and then the shrieking began anew.

  “Hush, Leland. I don�
��t have time for this!” Max pleaded in a whisper. But baby Leland would not be consoled.

  Several times, Leland seemed to finally drift off to sleep. His eyes closed and he began to breathe in deep, rhythmic breaths that sounded like little sighs. But, yet again, the very instant Max tried to put him to bed, he jolted upright and howled so loud and long that Max began to worry his little lungs would run out of breath. Leland seemed positively determined not to let Max leave the room, almost as if he knew his brother’s plan and was trying to prevent it.

  Max glanced desperately at his watch. It was getting so late! He thought of simply plunking baby Leland in his crib and darting out the door, or calling in his mother or father for reinforcement, but he didn’t. He couldn’t bear to leave. Not while his baby brother was crying as if his heart would break. Max couldn’t accept the thought of his little brother’s wails being the last sound he ever heard from his family. From his home. So he rocked. And rocked. And whispered, and sang.

  First he sang lullabies and whispered little made-up stories. Then, carried away by his own distracted thoughts, he leaned into baby Leland’s ear and began to whisper his plan for dealing with the wednesdays. He whispered his doubts and his questions about the strategy, and he found himself sorting it out, bit by bit, even as he spoke. “All right, little brother. If you won’t let me out of here in time to start Wednesday early, I suppose I’ll just have to find another way,” he said softly. “Let’s see what we can come up with.”

  Finally, as Max’s whispered plan came together, Leland quieted at last. He uttered one more gurgly coo of approval, slowly closed his long-lashed eyes, and fell soundly asleep. Max held his breath until he couldn’t stand it for another second and then tiptoed out of the darkened room.