AbrakaPOW

by Isaiah Campbell

  She leaped and yelped, twisting around to examine the very large wet spot that now cohabited her skirt with her, as well as the trickles of milk that dripped down her legs and into her shoes.

  Mrs. Conrad did not waste any time flying from her desk to Max’s with a couple of towels and several stern words. As the sound of her clucking tongue filled the air, Max turned her gaze to whom she was sure was the culprit. The smug grin on Judy’s face proved her accusation accurate.

  “Be glad I started with the milk,” Judy whispered and pointed to the line of five thumbtacks on her desk that awaited their dispatch.

  Max now realized she was not at all in the state the major was in when he arrived home months earlier. He had left the war behind. She was entering it. And, unfortunately for her, this was a war in which bloodshed would not be acceptable. Rather, this would be a war of pranks and humiliation.

  Unfortunately for Judy, no one pranked and humiliated like a magician.

  After wiping up the milk, Mrs. Conrad decided Max needed to visit the nurse. There was no good reason for Max to visit the nurse, but Mrs. Conrad greatly wished to punish Max. Yet, since everyone knows the adage about appropriate emotions to exhibit over spilled milk, she decided an unnecessary trip to the nurse would be the greatest inconvenience she could reasonably deal.

  “Who will walk Miss Larousse down to the office?” Mrs. Conrad crowed to the room as she deposited the soggy towels into a bag next to her desk.

  Judy turned and sent a silent message to the class. Nearly no one volunteered.

  Nearly no one.

  A single hand lifted in the air near the back. Max wondered who would dare be the lone dissenter in the room.

  Then he stood and it all made sense.

  Of course it would be the Jap, she thought with a groan.

  “Who’s that?” Mrs. Conrad asked, squinting through her glasses.

  “It’s me, Shoji,” he replied. He didn’t sound anything like Natalie’s impersonation. Nothing like the Japs in the cartoons at all. Instead, with his drawl and the slight twang in his husky voice, he sounded more Texan than anyone else Max had met.

  “Mr. Jingu, thank you,” Mrs. Conrad said. She waved her hand toward the door as a disgruntled queen might wave away a putrid peasant.

  Max struggled to motivate her feet in that direction. She leaned on Judy’s desk as though suddenly burdened under the pain of humiliation.

  “Miss Larousse,” Mrs. Conrad hissed. “Please move along.”

  The nisei boy came to her side. “C’mon, milk-butt. Unless you’d rather stick around here and endure the Monster Society of Evil.”

  No matter what preconceptions she had toward Japanese boys in west Texas schools, Max couldn’t help but appreciate the wit that went into so aptly renaming the Mesquite Tree Girls the “Monster Society of Evil.” She shuffled her feet along as they walked out into the hallway.

  And, of course, nobody noticed that there were now only four thumbtacks on Judy’s desk.

  They went into the hallway and Shoji turned right. Max stopped walking. Even after only one day at the school, she knew the nurse’s office was to the left.

  Shoji noticed her absence after a few steps. He returned and grabbed her arm. “Are you coming or what?”

  “The nurse is that way,” she said, pointing.

  “Do you need the nurse?”

  “No, but Mrs. Conrad said I should go.”

  “And we’re going, aren’t we?”

  “But not to the nurse. The nurse is that way.”

  “We’ll get there eventually,” he replied. “Jeez, you’re not very bright, are you?”

  She bristled internally and pulled her arm out of his grip. “Bright enough to know how to stay out of trouble. I’m going to the nurse.”

  “Good Lord,” he groaned. “You’re stupid. You’re already in trouble. You made enemies with the worst girl possible. I’m just trying to help you survive. But if you don’t want that, if you want to be alone for the rest of the year and the rest of your life and some day die an old hag with a snaggletooth and a billion cats, that’s totally fine.”

  Max felt the need to catch her breath from listening to him. “I think you’re overreacting. I have milk on my butt. I’m not dying an old maid.”

  He huffed. “Just c’mon.” He grabbed her arm again to drag her down the hallway, then yanked his hand away. “OW!” he screamed and grabbed his thumb. A small bead of blood trickled down to his wristwatch.

  “I really don’t know how things work here in Texas, or how things are with you Japs,” Max said, holding a thumbtack menacingly in the air between them. “But I promise you: Touch me again, and this goes in your eye.”

  He raised his hands up in surrender.

  “Okay, okay. Sorry. I just thought that, since you’re already at war with Judy and her idiots, you might as well become one of us. And the whole group is waiting outside to meet you.”

  She lowered the tack. “The whole group? You mean those kids that were with you at lunch yesterday?”

  “Yeah, those guys. We’re the Gremlins.”

  “Like in the Bugs Bunny cartoon?” she asked. It was a common myth in the military that there were little creatures, gremlins, sabotaging the equipment of pilots and bombers across the war front, on both sides of the war. Roald Dahl had written a book about them, which she’d read at the doctor’s office the day before they moved. Rumor had it that Walt Disney was even going to make a movie out of it.

  “Exactly like that. We’re a group of misfits who’ve come together for the common good of destroying Judy through mischief.”

  Max grinned. “That’s quite a mission.”

  Shoji winked. “I’ve been working on it for a while.”

  Max glanced down the hallway toward the nurse’s office, where she imagined a thermometer and a blanket were waiting for her, as well as a phone call to her mother. Following Shoji would probably still demand a call to her mother, but at least she would escape the rest of Florence Nightingale’s invasive habits. She returned the tack to her sleeve and followed Shoji down the hall and outside.

  They made their way across the yard, dodging the eyes they could feel glancing their way from the classroom windows, and ducked behind the shed that housed the maintenance equipment. And also provided shelter for the Gremlins, apparently.

  “It’s about danged time,” the boy with the eye patch said as soon as he saw them. He was leaning against the shed, picking something out of his fingernails.

  “Shut up, Eric,” Shoji said. “She wasn’t the easiest to convince.”

  “How did you guys know to come out here?” Max asked.

  The girl, who stood four inches shorter than Max, spoke up. “We didn’t. This is where we always are. Shoji told us he’d bring you as soon as possible. Eric is just impatient, ’cause he’s from Ohio.” The girl grabbed Max’s hand and pumped it up and down. “I’m Lola, by the way.”

  “Dolores,” Eric said.

  Lola grimaced. “Don’t ever call me that.” She shot Eric a glare. “Nobody calls me that.”

  “No, but that is who you are. You should have said, ‘They call me Lola.’ That would have been more accurate.”

  “So you don’t come to class?” Max asked.

  “One of us does, always. And we speak up for the group when Mrs. Conrad calls roll. That’s why we sit in the back. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Mrs. Conrad is as blind as a bat.”

  Max made a mental note to explore all the ways she could use this newfound knowledge to her advantage. “And nobody’s tattled on you? Ever?”

  “We have a bet going with the others on how long it’ll be before she notices,” Shoji said.

  “Seems like even more reason to tattle,” Max mused.

  “Sure, except they wound up betting that we’d actually make it the whole year.” Eric’s grin drooped at the end, but it still seemed quite triumphant. “That was my doing. Talked them all into it, and none of them are the wiser.�
�

  Max was beginning to appreciate this little group more and more by the minute. They seemed hardy, cohesive, and just the sort that could be the perfect magician’s stage crew. “Wasn’t there another of you?” she asked.

  “Carl,” Lola said. “Big guy, yeah. He’s at home. He wanted to wait to meet you until the rest of us weighed in.”

  “He doesn’t do well with new things,” Shoji said. “It makes him nervous.”

  “He’s an imbecile,” Eric interjected.

  Lola punched his left arm. “Just ’cause he’s not here doesn’t mean you get to make fun of him.”

  “He’s fifteen in fifth grade. What do you call that?” Eric rubbed his new sore spot. “Gosh, it’s not right to hit somebody on their blind side.”

  Max pointed at his eye patch. “Is that . . . permanent?”

  “Oh, no. I’ll die someday and they’ll take it off before they bury me. Nothing in this world is permanent.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, Eric is too smart for his own good,” Shoji said. “Lola here keeps him, all of us, in line. She’s our conscience.”

  “So he’s the brains and she’s the heart. What do you do?” Max asked.

  “Gopher, mainly. I’m the legs to every scheme, which was why I got elected to go for you. And Carl’s the muscle.”

  Max pondered these roles carefully. They certainly seemed to be all encompassing. “Okay, then what do you want with me? Sounds like you’ve got everything covered.”

  “That’s what I said.” Eric instinctively winced away from Lola’s fists. Lola kicked him instead.

  “If even half of the rumors the Monster Society is spreading about you are true, then it should be obvious what you bring,” Shoji said. “You bring the magic.”

  I bring the magic. Max could already see that motto emblazoned on the bottom of a flyer for THE AMAZING MAX. She Brings the Magic!!!! It was like the Gremlins were begging to have a grand magician at the helm of their group.

  “And you all have something against the Mesquite—er—the Monster Society of Evil?”

  “One way or the other, yeah,” Eric said. “We each got beef with them. The reasons aren’t really your concern. Common enemy, that’s what binds us.”

  “What sorts of things have you already done to them?” Max could only imagine, with such a unified force, that they had tormented and terrorized Judy and her minions worse than a tornado terrorizing a trailer home.

  Shoji glanced at his compatriots. “Nothing. We actually haven’t been able to agree on anything yet.”

  “Because you’re all idiots,” Eric said.

  “Or because we all keep saying things like that,” Lola muttered. “And by all, I mean exactly one of us.”

  Max nodded. This opportunity was only getting better and better. Her experience with the Mesquite Girls had turned her off the idea of seeking any friendship, and this ragtag group wasn’t looking for another friend. Whether they knew it or not, they were looking for a leader. To have four people with such varied gifts and yet a common goal was a gold mine. Particularly because, if she played her cards right, she would not only have them following her in pranking activity, but she could also have them join with her in her own purposes. And a magician always plays the cards right. “Okay, I’ll join your club.”

  “Great!” Shoji said. “Now let’s get back to the classroom before Mrs. Conrad starts to think you have yellow fever or something.” He went to grab her arm again, then thought better of it and scratched his head.

  “So, when do I get to start skipping class?” Max asked as they walked inside.

  “You sit in the front row, so probably never.”

  This cast a bit of a cloud over the whole club idea, but Max did her best to rise above. Eventually she would be making the rules for the club and then she could skip class all she wanted.

  After all, she thought, I bring the magic. There’s nothing more important than that.

  Chapter Eight

  “Where do you find ferret food in a desolate wasteland like this?”

  —Max’s diary, Monday, March 13, 1944

  Elderly women are far more active than most people assume, if given the proper motivation. This was a fact Max discovered, thanks to Houdini, as Mrs. Morris screamed and attempted to strike the little ferret with her broom, all from the top of a barstool in her kitchen.

  To be clear, the little escape artist hadn’t meant to get himself into such a tight predicament. When he had popped open his cage earlier, it was merely because his human had forgotten to put her sock back in his hiding spot from which she’d retrieved it the night before. He’d had the purest of intentions.

  But then, of course, after organizing the socks yet again, he discovered that the window to the room was cracked open, and he thought it would be best if he sniffed the air outside for any villainous rabbit vermin. While sniffing, he noticed how short a drop it was from the window down to the grass below. So, because he wasn’t entirely sure of what a rabbit smelled like, he decided to perform a visual inspection of the grounds.

  And, if this loud old lady didn’t want a ferret in her house, why did she leave the back door open? And also, why was she enticing him by wiggling that broom on the floor? Surely she knew such activity was an invitation to any and all ferret-type creatures in the vicinity.

  Max had actually been quite clueless as to the excursion her little friend had taken until she heard the sound that people make when they first spy a ferret in their house. The sound of screaming.

  “Somebody help!” Mrs. Morris screamed. “There’s a polecat in the house!”

  Max charged across the yard and peeked through the window. “Houdini?” she said as she ran in through the kitchen door.

  Houdini instantly feared that the old lady would swipe at his beloved human, too, so he bit the broom and held on for dear life.

  Carl came in behind Max. “You got a ferret? I love ferrets.” Houdini noted that this giant’s hands smelled like sausage as he was grabbed and yanked off the broom. Houdini bit the giant as punishment, but the giant-boy laughed.

  “You get that polecat out of here!” Mrs. Morris yelled.

  Max apologized and she and Carl ran out the door, giggling all the way back to the meeting of the Gremlins down in the storm cellar.

  Now, it is true that the dank air of the storm cellar was far from the most comfortable location for the Gremlins to have their first after-school convocation at Max’s house, but after her previous experience with the Mesquite Tree Girls, she was wary of allowing any strangers to enter her bedroom. Besides, her mother had rules against boys touching the same bed as girls. At least, Max assumed she had that sort of a rule. It seemed like the kind of thing her mother would believe.

  When Max and Carl returned to the midst of their group, they gleefully retold the tale of Mrs. Morris and the broom that attacked Houdini. Shoji and Lola laughed. Eric, however, was preoccupied.

  “This place is creepy,” Eric said. He was staring at the wall adorned with the occult drawings made by what Max could only assume were kindergarteners.

  “Dark deeds require a dark place to conjure them,” she said and kissed her ferret’s head. She handed him to Carl, who had pulled out some string to play.

  “I don’t see why we can’t just do my ideas,” Eric said, shaking his head and turning away from the lopsided bull’s head drawing. “I’m the brains, after all.”

  “Because dipping their hair in ink is the lamest prank anyone’s ever pulled,” Shoji said. “Max has some really good ones in mind already.”

  Lola and Carl sat on the steps playing with Houdini. Max never planned any magic without Houdini around to offer his opinions. Besides, Lola’s cousin had a pet ferret, so Max knew Houdini would be in safer hands than he’d been with Judy.

  “Really?” Eric sneered. “Like what?”

  “Show ’im,” Shoji said.

  Max retrieved a small plate from the bench mostly occupied by unwanted knickknacks. On
the plate were two small candles. She held the plate between her and Eric.

  “I will bet you fifty cents that I can eat a candle and you can’t.”

  “See, that’s stupid. And lame. And you guys think she’s—”

  Max lit a match and used it to light the candles. Then she blew them out and, while the smoke still rose into the darkness above them, she picked up the one closest to her and popped it into her mouth. After five seconds of chewing, she swallowed.

  “All right, eat it or cough up fifty cents,” she said.

  “What? No way, I didn’t agree. And . . . uh . . . how did you do that?”

  “Oh, I see. So you’re a welsher. Figures it’d be you.”

  Carl started laughing. “Yeah, he’s a welsher. He ain’t even given me back the nickel he borrowed for a magazine yet.”

  “I borrowed that today, you idiot,” Eric snapped.

  “What about the dime you borrowed from me?” Shoji asked.

  Eric growled and snatched the other candle off the plate. He popped it in his mouth and began to chew. Or rather, he attempted to begin to chew. Unfortunately, the candle wax and charred wick were even less appetizing then they sounded. He stood for very nearly two minutes, his face contorting, his complexion fading, and his jaw straining as he mashed and scraped the waxy block in his mouth. Eventually he surrendered to the realization that there would be no masticating of this little tea-light, so he attempted to swallow. This activity took another thirty seconds, during which his complexion changed to a terrible pale-green color. Finally he ran to the corner to gag it out of his mouth.

  All the while, the rest of the Gremlins fought unsuccessfully to contain their giggles. When he returned to the group, Max gave him a cup of water.

  “Jeez, I spit it out as soon as I bit it,” Carl said as Houdini crawled up his sleeve like Mickey climbing the arm of the giant at the top of the beanstalk. “And I’m the idiot.”