The Skull of Truth

by Bruce Coville

  And Charlie wouldn’t have, either. But Gilbert, with whom he had once been fairly friendly, made the mistake of asking Charlie what he thought. The idea, of course, was that Charlie would assure Gilbert that he looked okay, maybe even say that it was kind of cool. But faced with a direct question, Charlie had no choice but to respond with exactly what was on his mind.

  “I think it looks totally doofy,” he said. “And I hope to god it never happens to me.”

  The lecture he got from Mr. Diogen was the longest and most horrible he had ever received. The fact that he agreed with everything the teacher said didn’t make it any easier to take.

  Act 3 was brief, a ghastly climax to a terrible day. If it were possible to die of embarrassment, the event would probably have been fatal.

  Like Act 1, it took place on the playground.

  The class, most of which was officially not speaking to Charlie because of the Gilbert incident, had gone outside for recess. Feeling hurt and lonely, Charlie was delighted when Karen Ackerman, who had shimmering chestnut hair, an upturned nose, and the best batting average in the sixth grade, broke with popular opinion and came over to talk to him.

  Unfortunately, what she came over to say was “I can’t believe what you did this morning, Charlie. I always thought you were one of the nicest kids in the class, even if you do lie all the time. But you’re the worst bully that I ever met.”

  She turned to go.

  Desperate—too desperate to think straight—Charlie called, “Karen, wait! Please, please don’t be mad at me!”

  “Why not?” she asked, her voice dripping with contempt.

  Before he could stop himself, Charlie replied. Opening his mouth, he gave Karen the most horrifying answer imaginable.

  FIVE

  The Truth Hurts

  Two hours after the catastrophe on the playground, Charlie raced up the back steps of his house. Shooting through the kitchen, he ignored his mother, who was baking, and Mimi, who was finger painting. Jumping over Stewbone, he hit the stairs at a run, pounded up them, burst into his room, yanked open the closet door, and shouted, “Do you know what happened to me today?”

  The skull’s eyes began to glow. “Is this a game? Do I get a prize if I guess the right answer?”

  “I’m serious!”

  “Oh.” It sounded disappointed. “Well, then, the answer is, ‘No, I don’t know what happened to you today.’”

  “I told Karen Ackerman I love her! I opened my stupid fat mouth right there on the playground and said, ‘Please, please don’t be mad at me.’ And when Karen asked why not, I opened it again and said, ‘Because I love you!’”

  He was silent for a moment, remembering the horror that had overwhelmed him when he realized what he had done. If he’d had the ability at that moment, he would gladly have dug a hole, climbed in, and pulled the dirt on top of himself.

  Karen had said nothing, for she had been as shocked as he was. But her best friend, Loud Beth, had stood there shrieking with delight: “Charlie loves you! Karen, Charlie loves you!”

  Charlie glared at the skull. “My life is over, and it’s all your fault! I could kill you!”

  “Sorry, somebody beat you to it.”

  Before Charlie could ask what the skull meant, he heard his mother. She was standing at the door to his room, looking worried. “Charlie, are you all right?”

  He turned to face her, closing the closet door slightly to keep the skull hidden. “No, I am not all right.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No!”

  Which was the absolute truth. He didn’t want anyone else to know about his incredible humiliation. The only reason he was telling the skull about it was that he blamed the wretched thing for the entire mess.

  His mother sighed. “You know, Charlie, sometimes things are better if you talk about them.”

  “Not this thing.”

  Mrs. Eggleston looked at her son a moment longer. “All right. But if you do decide you want to talk—”

  She was interrupted by a wail from Mimi. “Momma! Momma! Come quick! I spilled again!”

  Mrs. Eggleston rolled her eyes. “You know where to find me,” she said, before she dashed away to deal with whatever disaster her youngest had just created.

  Charlie turned back to the skull. “What would happen if I told my mother about you?”

  The glow in the skull’s eyes grew brighter. “Well, let’s think about that. To begin with, she probably wouldn’t believe you—which would be ironic, since you can’t help but tell her the truth. So maybe nothing would happen except that she would be a little annoyed with you. If you persisted until you actually got her to come look at me, or if you took me down to show her, she would probably be appalled and insist that you get rid of me. Boy, would you be in trouble with Elives then! If you tried to explain why you had to keep me—told her the whole story about how you got me—she would probably decide you were losing your mind and take you to get professional help. Of course, since you can only speak the truth, you would keep telling the therapist the same story over and over again, which would lead him to decide you were hopelessly delusional.

  “Bad events would likely follow.

  “So-o-o-o . . . if you want my advice—don’t do it.”

  Charlie sighed. He had worked out the same line of reasoning himself on the way home. He had been hoping the skull would say something different. “What if you talked to her?” he asked, though he wasn’t actually sure this was a good idea. “She’d have to believe me then.”

  “That would probably convince her. But you’d have to get her to look in my eye sockets and ask me a direct question before I could do it.”

  Charlie groaned as he imagined trying to get his mother to ask the skull a question. With the curse on him, he would have to tell her the truth when she asked why he wanted her to do it. And given his reputation for making up stories, there was no way she would believe him when he told her. So the only way he could get her to discover the truth would be by lying to her—which was absolutely beyond his power right now.

  “What am I going to do?” he moaned.

  “Relax and enjoy the experience, baby.”

  Charlie wondered if breaking open a dead man’s skull could be considered murder.

  The horrible day had been a Friday, leaving Charlie to face a weekend of bitter regret whenever he thought about what he had done; total confusion when he tried to figure out how to patch things up with Gilbert; and intense fear whenever he thought about returning to school on Monday.

  To make things worse, the skull kept him awake most of Friday night with a nonstop string of jokes, riddles, and songs.

  “Don’t you ever shut up?” asked Charlie wearily, at about three in the morning.

  “I’m making up for lost time! It’s been years since I’ve had someone new to talk to.”

  By the time Uncle Bennie called on Saturday afternoon to ask if Charlie wanted to go to a storytelling concert that night, Charlie was ready to jump at the offer as eagerly as if he had just been shown an escape route from a burning building—which, indeed, his mind was starting to resemble.

  Bennie’s roommate, Dave, was coming along, too. This was fine with Charlie. Dave was funny and weird, and seemed to know cool things—what movies were going to be really hot, for example—a month in advance of everyone else. Charlie had used Dave’s information to good advantage in the past. If he was lucky, he would pick up some interesting tidbits that might help him climb out of the pit he had dug for himself at school.

  That was assuming he ever went back again, an event he was trying to figure out how to avoid. . . .

  “Take me with you,” said the skull, when it saw Charlie dressing to go.

  “Yeah, right. I’ll get Uncle Bennie to buy a separate ticket, so you can have your own seat”

  “Hey, you never know. You may need my advice. Remember what happened the last time you left the house without me!”

  “The only advice
I need is in Mr. Elives’ letter,” replied Charlie, who had decided the old man’s words about being careful what he said and to whom he said it (not to mention the bit about not talking at all) were the wisest things he had ever read. If only the letter hadn’t also insisted he had to take good care of the skull until Mr. Elives came back to get it!

  “The old man wrote to you? What did he say?”

  “It’s private,” replied Charlie, with some satisfaction.

  “Take me with you,” said the skull again, when Charlie was about to go out the door.

  “I can’t! Besides, I need a break from your chatter.”

  “I’m afraid to stay here alone!”

  Charlie snorted. “What do you have to be afraid of? You’re already dead!”

  “Oh, getting personal, huh? Well, if you think being dead is the worst thing that can happen to you, you have a lot to learn, kid.” Suddenly the skull’s voice grew serious. “Listen, Charlie. Something’s coming. I can feel it in my bones, if you know what I mean. It’s like a storm just over the horizon, fierce and powerful but still out of sight. Only it’s moving toward us and I don’t want to stay here by myself.”

  Charlie shivered. The skull seemed so sincere that he wondered if he should take it seriously. What would happen if he came home and found it was gone? Stolen. What would Mr. Elives do to him then?

  “Are you just making this up?” he asked suspiciously.

  “As if! Don’t you get it, Charlie? I can’t lie, either.”

  “How do I know that’s true?”

  The skull sighed. “You’ll have to take my word for it.”

  Sighing himself, Charlie got his backpack and put the skull inside. Then he rolled up a couple of T-shirts and tucked them around the skull as padding, so it wouldn’t chip or break. “You’d just better be quiet!” he said fiercely as he pulled the drawstrings that closed the top.

  “Why? You’re the only one who can hear me!”

  “Lucky me. But I want to listen to the stories, not your chatter. All right?”

  “Sure. I’ll listen, too. I love stories.”

  “What’s in the backpack, ace?” asked Uncle Bennie, when Charlie climbed into the backseat of his old convertible.

  “The Skull of Truth,” said Charlie, his stomach clenching nervously.

  Dave laughed. “Boy, I can tell you two are from the same family, Bennie. He’s as weird as you are!”

  “Take that as a compliment,” said Bennie, glancing at Charlie over his shoulder. Then they zoomed away from the curb, and the question of the backpack was dropped.

  The storytelling concert was at the Tucker’s Grove library, which had a small theater in the basement. Following Bennie and Dave down the stairs, Charlie wondered with a sudden thrill of horror if anyone else from his class would be there.

  The reality was even worse. Though no one from his class was there, Gilbert’s mother was, and the look she shot Charlie when she saw him chilled him to his very core.

  The houselights began to dim. Charlie sat down and put the backpack in his lap.

  The librarian, Mrs. Hayes, stepped onstage to introduce the storyteller. At least, Charlie hoped she was going to introduce the storyteller; she started with a list of thank-yous that Charlie feared might go on forever. But at last she said, “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our guest for the evening, our new children’s librarian, Hyacinth Priest.”

  “That’s my teacher,” Bennie whispered proudly in Charlie’s ear as the storyteller came out. Her flowing clothes were simple but elegant; her dangling earrings seemed to catch and play with the light—as did her enormous eyes. Standing in the center of the stage, she began to speak in a voice that was deep, rich, and clear.

  Though the stage was tiny, it soon felt as wide as the wide, wide world to Charlie, for Ms. Priest swept him up and carried him away on the wings of her words. The experience had as much magic, he later thought, as anything you might find in Mr. Elives’ shop. In fact, she was so compelling that even the skull stayed quiet during the performance—something Charlie had not expected it to do, despite its promise.

  After the concert was over Bennie said, “I want to say hello to Hyacinth. Would you like to meet her, Charlie?”

  Delighted, and a little nervous, Charlie nodded.

  “No need to worry,” said the skull, in words only Charlie could hear. “You can’t embarrass yourself any more than you already have today.”

  As they stepped into the aisle, Mrs. Dawkins approached. Charlie braced himself for a tongue-lashing. But she simply held out a piece of folded paper and said, “Take this.”

  Charlie did as she told him. Before he could think of what to say (which might have taken all evening, because what was there to say under the circumstances?), she turned and walked away.

  “Whew,” said Dave with a low whistle. “That is not a happy lady. What’d you do, Charlie? Pee in her petunias?”

  “I hurt her son’s feelings,” he replied, no longer surprised by his unavoidable forthrightness, simply relieved that he didn’t feel compelled to go into the excruciating details.

  His uncle looked startled.

  “I didn’t mean to! It was an . . . accident.”

  “Ah,” said Bennie with a nod. “I know what you mean; happens to me all the time.”

  Charlie looked at him in surprise. But he wasn’t able to ask about it because Bennie had turned and started down the aisle.

  “Come on,” said Dave. “He’s in a hurry to make points with Ms. Priest. I think he has a crush on her.”

  Hyacinth Priest was talking with Mrs. Hayes and two other women when Bennie approached. She interrupted the conversation to greet him, seeming genuinely happy to see him, and glad to meet Dave as well. But when she was introduced to Charlie, her expression turned serious. “Ah. I am very pleased to meet you,” she said, smiling at him as if they somehow shared a secret. She extended her hand, which Charlie shook without much vigor, being both too awed and too puzzled to muster a real grip. “Perhaps you’ll stop by and see me sometime,” she added.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, as Mrs. Hayes said, I’m the new children’s librarian. You do use the library, don’t you?”

  “Sometimes,” he said truthfully. Then, feeling a desperate need to be completely honest, he added, “But not very often.”

  “We’ll have to see if we can do something about that,” said Ms. Priest with a smile. Then she turned back to his uncle, leaving Charlie to wonder what was going on.

  When they pulled up in front of Charlie’s house, Bennie turned to Dave and said, “Mind waiting in the car for a minute? I want to talk to Charlie.”

  “No problem,” said Dave. “Night, Charlie.”

  “Night,” said Charlie, wondering what his uncle wanted. Shouldering his backpack, he followed his uncle up the steps to the porch. The night was lovely, warm and dark. Instead of going inside, they sat on the porch swing. Its chain creaked gently as they moved back and forth, its sound melding with the peepers’ singing in the distance. Charlie sat without speaking. Finally Bennie said, “Your mom told me you had a bad day at school yesterday. Want to talk about it?”

  “No,” said Charlie. At least, that was what he meant to say. To his astonishment, what actually came out of his mouth was “Yes.”

  Charlie blinked. That couldn’t be true—could it? But when he thought about it, he realized he did indeed want to talk about the whole mess; embarrassed and upset as he was, he was also in desperate need of advice. Choosing his words carefully, he gave Bennie an abbreviated account of what had happened the day before, managing to leave out any mention of the skull.

  When he was done, Bennie shook his head and whistled. “So that’s why Gilbert’s Mom handed you that note tonight. Wow. I bet it’s a scorcher. Man! I’ve had some bad days, but I think yours may take the cake. I’m impressed, buddy!”

  “Thanks a lot! What am I going to do about it?”

  Bennie smiled. “Well, it s
eems to me that this is a case where honesty is the best policy.”

  “It was honesty that got me into this!” cried Charlie, ignoring the snort of triumph the skull sent into his brain.

  “And now you need some more of it to get out,” replied Bennie calmly. “After all, you didn’t mean to hurt Gilbert’s feelings, did you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “And you wish you hadn’t done it?”

  “You’re not kidding!”

  “So go to Gilbert and talk to him about it. Odds are everyone else was thinking pretty much what you said. You were just the one unlucky enough to blurt it out. Tell him you’re sorry, and ask if he’ll forgive you.”

  Charlie made a face.

  Bennie laughed. “Yeah, it won’t be easy. But one nasty scene, and it should all be over.”

  “And what about Karen?”

  Bennie looked at him very seriously. “Love is nothing to be ashamed of, Charlie. That may be hard to believe at your age, but trust me—if we could all just be honest about love, everyone’s lives would be a lot simpler. You should never let anyone make you feel bad for loving someone.”

  “Easy for you to say. You didn’t blurt it out on the playground.”

  Bennie closed his eyes. “You do seem to be developing a gift for saying things at the most inopportune times, Charlie.”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it a gift.”

  “Whatever. Just try to remember what I said. It’s important.”

  “Nice guy,” said the skull, when they were back in Charlie’s room. “I wonder what he’s hiding.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Charlie, removing the skull from his backpack and taking it to the closet.

  “Just what I said. He’s keeping a secret of some kind. Trust me, kid; I know about these things.”

  Unable to think of a reply, Charlie ignored the skull and dug into his pants pocket for the note Mrs. Dawkins had given him. He stared at it for a moment, then crumpled it angrily and went to throw it away. But when he reached the basket, he couldn’t bring himself to drop it in.