by Tim McBain
The man’s voice had a deep resonance that juxtaposed with a fussy delivery that almost sounded like a fake British accent at times. It seemed like something that would be in a sitcom, one of the old ones.
“I’m willing to believe that you didn’t intend to use the scissors as a weapon – and thank God no one got hurt – but I’ve got to take the teacher’s word for it that you were the aggressor in this dispute, OK?”
Phillip shrugged. It smelled like cough drops in this room, the menthol ones with the over-the-top medicinal odor. It made Phillip’s nostrils flare every so often, some subconscious attempt to clear them of the stench which never quite worked.
“The story doesn’t really add up, though, does it? There’s more to it, I expect. Some ongoing conflict, if I’m right. Why don’t you tell me what’s really going on here?”
Phillip said nothing. He had been through all of this before. The best case scenario, if he were to snitch on Moffit and the others, would be a round of supervised mediation with one of the guidance counselors. He’d sit across from Moffit and the rest in uncomfortable silence, watching them smile and nod and play along with the adult suggestions right up until they got let off the leash, at which point Phillip would get it worse than before.
No thanks.
Even if they did punish Moffit – legitimately punish him – what would come of it? A detention? An in-school suspension? These things made no difference. If they really wanted to take punitive action, how about suspending him from a couple of soccer games? Or kicking him off the team? That would be a real punishment.
It was hopeless, though. Nothing good came from tattling, Phillip knew. The adults in the school, perhaps all adults, had this idea of what the world must be like, and they enforced the rules to cater to their idea rather than reality. From what Phillip could tell, they didn’t care about reality at all beyond their idea of it. He thought maybe they simply couldn’t see it.
“With the scissors involved, I probably should suspend you, you know…” the principal said.
Phillip gasped, the fingernails of each hand digging into the wooden arms of his chair like the talons of some bird of prey.
“But I believe detention better fits this particular crime. Your attendance has been impeccable, apart from the tardy this morning. Your grades aren’t quite up to snuff. You’re flunking geometry as I recall?”
“That’s correct,” Phillip said, nodding. “Possibly social studies as well.”
A disturbed look passed over Mr. Hagen’s face, but it receded quickly.
“I see. Well, you do show up, at least. I can reward that with a bit of leniency, I think. Don’t make me regret it.”
Phillip’s heart thundered as the principal signed the sheet of paper and handed it over. Detention. It could have been worse, he knew. His four year streak of perfect attendance could have been shattered just like that.
The significance of it tumbled in Phillip’s head as he walked back to his locker. The close brush with suspension took his mind off of the clowns entirely.
Chapter Four
October 29th
9:46 AM
Avery squatted by her kitty in the grass field outside the apartment complex, hands running up and down the length of the orange cat’s spine, ruffling its fur. Such a tolerant cat, Avery’s mother thought. Not many fur-balls would put up with the rough touch of an eleven-month-old’s little ham fists. Wizard wasn’t like most cats, though. He trusted people completely, and more than that, he loved the attention, the affection, circling back to brush his whiskers and lip against the plump little arm.
Drool spilled from the toddler’s mouth, a string of spittle draining down the side of the cat’s leg. Patty smiled, a single puff of laughter emitting from her nostrils. All of this was so cute. She needed pictures.
Her hands searched her pockets almost subconsciously, both jacket and pants, fingers not finding the rectangular bulk they expected. No phone. She must have left it inside.
Shoot. Missed opportunity.
Now the baby hugged at the back of the cat, opening her mouth to try to capture the tip of the tail in her toothless maw. She smiled as she waggled her head about like a dancing snake’s, never quite able to catch up to that swishing tube of fur.
Damn it all.
Patty could already feel the Likes piling up on Instagram and Facebook, if she’d just brought the stupid phone. Her hand fished into her pocket once more. Still nothing, of course.
Posting pictures of the baby had become her primary hobby. She even thought, sometimes, that maybe he’d come back to her if he saw how beautiful their baby really was, if he saw how special and precious his little girl was. If he saw how this was meant to be.
She glanced back over her shoulder, looking up at the second story balcony outside of their unit, the spider plant hanging over the patio chairs. It wasn’t so far. How long would it take? Ninety seconds? Maybe less. Probably less. Especially if she jogged.
She looked back at Avery and Wizard, the two of them occupied with each other entirely. She knew there’d be no harm in leaving the girl for just a minute. The baby couldn’t string together enough steps to make it out to the street, and she knew all of the neighbors well enough. Good people. It was all elderly folks in this building aside from her and Avery.
She walked in reverse a few paces, almost testing things out, watching the baby, seeing if she lurched or cried or even noticed her mother drifting away. Nothing. The fleshy little arms squeezed the cat again, and he coiled around behind the child, brushing that same side of his face across her shoulder blades on his way around.
She turned and ran for it, fingers ripping open the glass door into the complex, her heart already thumping from the little thrill of this, even if she knew there was no real risk.
As soon as Patty disappeared into the building, the voice called from the woods.
“Here kitty, kitty.”
The cat and girl both fixed their gazes in that direction. Dry leaves crunched and twigs snapped and there was a visible stirring of plant life there along the edge of the woods, but the foliage was too thick to see who might be calling. The voice repeated itself, lifting into a falsetto this time.
“Here kitty, kitty, kitty.”
The cat trotted that way, intrigued. The baby’s brow rumpled a moment, wrinkles forming and smoothing all around it, and then she tottered along after her feline companion. She loved her kitty.
When the clown appeared there, a massive smile on his face, neither child nor animal flinched. They kept heading toward their destination. The painted face contorted to smile even harder.
The baby toppled into the grass about halfway there, falling far behind. She looked up in time to see the cat in the clown’s hands, and something wasn’t right. It wasn’t right at all.
Avery knew the clown was hurting the orange cat. Kind of. She couldn’t fully process the encounter unfolding before her, didn’t understand the way the head was twisting, but based on the sounds Wizard was making, she knew enough to start crying. She did not, however, retreat.
She wheeled around to face the building, all of her being expecting to find her mama off to her left. But no. No mommy. No one at all.
She was alone. That fact scared her more than the clown itself.
Her bottom lip trembled now, and the sobs that came out of her sent two tremors through her torso that seemed to rattle her along the axis of her spine. Then she went rigid. The cries were nearly silent. Fully panicked gasps that sounded more like wheezing breaths than crying.
She hugged her tiny arms to her chest, hunched her back in a pose of fear, and remained utterly motionless. Even when the clown closed on her, even when he scooped her up into his arms, she held very, very still.
Patty burst out of the glass door moments later, her chest heaving from the run up and down the steps, the phone gripped in her mitt. There. It was done. Quicker than she had figured, too, she thought.
But just when the ease of that
tension began to settle over her, her eyes scanned the field, and her chest got all tight.
No Avery. No cat.
“Avery?” she called out, embarrassed right away by the naked fear she heard in her voice.
There was no answer. No sound at all but the hum of traffic in the distance.
She took a step forward, hesitated, took another. The arches of her feet balanced on the nub where the asphalt dead ended into the grass. Somehow crossing the threshold seemed to free her up to full mobility.
The cat lay near the edge of the woods. Motionless. She rushed to it, kneeled, touched it and found it as limp as a wet towel, already going a little cool. Wizard was dead.
She realized her mouth was open when the dry of the air touched her throat. Her bladder ached just then, and she could hear the blood beating through her ears. This couldn’t be real. It was too awful to be real.
A breath scraped into her lungs when she saw it. The tiny forearm protruded from the tall grass where the woods began in earnest, the rest of the body concealed by the foliage. She watched that fleshy arm for a moment before the terror fully hit. It didn’t move.
Panic blurred her thoughts, severing her from reality as she scooted over to where it lay. She scooped the bloody lump from the ground and examined it, her chest and neck constricted. An incredible amount of the flesh had been removed considering the time frame, revealing the sinew and stringy muscle fiber wiring the jaw to the cheek bones. She hugged it to her chest, squeezing it tighter as though that could stop it from feeling wrong, feeling too small, feeling skeletal. She ran then, some panicked animal response that lacked all reason. She ran and ran with no place to go, no destination in mind, screaming as she carried her dead baby out into the street.
Chapter Five
October 29th
9:58 AM
Chloe lifted her head from the pillow, dimly aware of the alarm on her phone screeching its shrill cry at her. She pawed at it until it shut up. The clock next to her bed was just a blurred red blob in her half-awake state. Her eyes blinked open and shut slowly, trying to make the numbers come into focus.
9:58 AM.
Shit. School started hours ago. Had she really slept through her alarm clock for almost three hours?
She rolled out of bed, feeling groggy, like she hadn't slept well.
On her drive to school, she thought about Rick and asked herself again what she was doing with him.
If you stripped away the leather jacket and the spiked bracelets, wasn't he just like every other guy? Did she actually think Rick liked her for anything more than superficial reasons? For the things she thought and said and felt?
Chloe stomped into school, yawning. Just before she went through the double doors, she spat out the piece of mint gum she'd been chewing in lieu of brushing her teeth. The sticky wad of neon blue missed the garbage bin she'd been aiming at by over a foot, but she kept walking. She was already late for third hour.
The halls were mostly empty, but by some shitty twist of fate, she wound up passing Greg Moffit on her way to class.
“Hey! Oscar Mayer!”
Chloe flipped him the bird with both hands.
“Eat a dick, Greg.”
Her luck reversed when she reached her classroom. Her biology teacher had his back to the class when Chloe slunk through the door, and he was so immersed in the diagram of cell structure he was outlining on the overhead projector, he didn't even notice she was late.
Chloe's mind drifted to thoughts of Rick. They didn't generally do much talking. Mostly they made out and went to shows. One of the few times they'd had an actual conversation, she remembered that Rick had started out by asking her if she was afraid of heights.
“I don't know,” she said. “Maybe a little.”
“'Cause you might fall?”
“Yeah, I guess,” she said.
He'd gotten this cocky look on his face then, lips puckered into a little smile.
“Not me. I ain't afraid of fallin'.”
She cocked an eyebrow, not sure where this was going. Was he trying to impress her with his fearlessness or what?
“Nah, fallin' ain't the scary part,” he continued. “It's hittin' the ground. That's the part you should be worried about.”
He'd taken a swig of his PBR tallboy then, obviously pleased with himself over this revelation. Before she could say anything else, he'd sucked the last of the beer from the can, tossed it in the corner of his dingy little room, and went back to groping her breasts.
Well, that's stupid, she thought. Falling and hitting the ground kind of went hand-in-hand in that scenario.
It occurred to her, as he slipped a probing tongue between her lips, that the whole conversation had seemed rehearsed. Like he'd said it all before. Like maybe he thought this little anecdote was so clever, so charming, that he trotted it out from time to time. Probably for whatever teenage girl he was currently trying to bone.
She imagined him practicing the conversation in the mirror, smoothing the sides of his mohawk as he tried out different turns of phrase. A breathy giggle escaped her mouth, and he pulled away.
“What's funny?”
Shit.
Not willing to admit that she'd been laughing at him, she wriggled a little, drawing attention to where he had his hands up her shirt.
“That tickles,” she said, then put her hand on the back of his neck and pulled him into a kiss.
Now, as she listened to Mr. Dunton drone on about mitrochondria, Chloe was disgusted with herself. How could she let herself get dragged into these situations?
She'd been an early bloomer, developing a full set of breasts by the time she was in sixth grade, when most of the other girls were still wearing training bras.
The boys in her class dared each other to pretend to trip in front of her or sometimes pushed one another toward her, hoping to cop a feel when they put out their hands to purportedly catch themselves.
They snapped the straps of her bra in the hallway, in class, in the darkened auditorium when they had assemblies.
They had contests to see who could be the first to land a Skittle in her cleavage from across the room.
More than anything, though, she hated the way they stared at her. A few times she even caught some of the male teachers gazing at her chest.
Her mother was inexplicably proud of the attention Chloe drew from men. When they were at the mall once, she'd whispered conspiratorially as they headed for the Jamba Juice.
“Did you notice that guy?”
Chloe glanced around at the bustling shoppers in the food court. “What guy?”
“The one in Macy's that was more interested in checking out your rack than the one holding the clothes.”
Chloe instinctively crossed her arms over her chest, covering herself.
“Mom! Gross!”
“I bet he thought you were at least sixteen.” She said it like it was a good thing.
“He was older than dad,” Chloe said, her nose wrinkling in distaste.
“Enjoy it,” her mother said. “You won't have it forever.”
Chloe shook her head, baffled. Whatever “it” was, she remembered hoping she lost it sooner rather than later.
She'd played soccer since second grade, and in sixth grade she joined the volleyball team, too. She was good at both, a mean striker on the field and a decent setter on the court. Her mother was pleased, having been an athletic, popular teen herself.
Chloe was at school one day, heading to class, when she passed a group of boys. Eighth graders. One turned to the others and made a crude gesture at his chest. Her face grew hot, knowing they were talking about her. She looked away and hurried down the hall. At her next volleyball game, there was a suspicious surge in attendance, most of the newcomers being boys from her school. Boys who had never shown even the slightest interest in girl's sports. She felt their eyes on her. Heard how they cheered extra loud when she made a lunge for the ball.
She hoped it was a one-time thing, but a
t the next game, there were more of them.
She started doubling up on her sports bras before games, trying to smush her large breasts into something smaller and less conspicuous. She switched back to one bra when she overheard one of the older girls on the team refer to her as Uniboob.
And so, she did her best to ignore it. During sports, she focused on the game, eyes never leaving the ball. If she didn't see them watching her, she could pretend they weren't there. During school, she focused on her school work, eyes on the chalkboard, ears only pricking up to hear what her teachers had to say. And in the hallway in between... well, she had her friends. If she noticed any giggling coming from the boys, she didn't show it. She'd turn to her best friend, Faith, and concentrate singularly on her complaints about her parents or her excitement for the upcoming school dance or her dread over her fifth hour math quiz. They'd been best friends since third grade, and they were inseparable.
Nearly every Friday, Chloe rode the bus home and stayed the night at Faith's house, or vice versa. She remembered one such sleepover, when Chloe noticed Faith watching her from the corner of her eyes as she changed into her pajamas.
Faith was sprawled belly-down on her bed, and she pushed her chin up with a fist.
“I wish I had big boobs like you.”
Chloe scoffed. “No, you don't. I would trade anything to have normal boobs.”
Faith stood and went to the mirror.
“At least you have boobs. I look like an eight-year-old boy.”
Faith tried in vain to push her non-existent breasts into something resembling cleavage.
“Trust me, you're lucky that no one pays attention to you,” Chloe said, then immediately realized how awful that sounded. “I mean- I didn't mean it like that, Faith!”
But it was too late, and she saw Faith's chin quiver as she struggled to hold back the tears.