by Laura Quimby
His breathing was loud underneath the covers. He had panicked. The professor had to have heard him. Jack closed his eyes and pretended to go back to sleep, trying not to imagine what was locked inside of that trunk.
Early Saturday morning, Little Miss B. scratched at Jack’s door. Jack threw on a pair of not-too-dirty jeans and a ratty sweatshirt. He clipped the thin blue leash to her collar, and the two of them headed out in the cool fall morning. As Little Miss B. strode perilously close to the mailbox, Jack tugged on the leash. She was a good dog, but Jack refused to call her Little Miss B. in public. He chose instead to call her B. or her new nickname: Bruiser. He admired the way she held her little head high and marched fearlessly out into the world even though she was blind. Although she probably had more than a few bruises under her fur from plowing into any and all stationary objects that crossed her path, still she was a tough girl.
The wetness from the dew-drenched grass soaked into his sneakers. Jack took the back way to the park, cutting through the trees that divided the houses and the park, which bordered a strip mall. As he wove through the trees, he noticed that a trail of paper, bright yellow scraps, caught on the wind like leaves. He chased one and snatched it up from under his shoe. It was an advertisement for a carnival. It would be in town for one more week. That was a strange coincidence. His stomach fluttered. He would have to tell the professor about it when he got home, and maybe they could go.
As Jack walked Little Miss B. through the park, he saw a few kids tossing a ball around in the distance. When Jack got closer, he realized it wasn’t a ball at all they were throwing, but a roll of toilet paper. There were three kids total, one bigger and two smaller, in the process of TP-ing the jungle gym and the swing sets.
The prank reminded him of this time in the group home when the boys on his floor had a toilet paper fight in the bathroom. Every surface was covered in toilet paper, including this kid everyone called Rat, because he always ratted on anyone who took food from the cafeteria to hide in his bunk. Stashing food in the dorms was against policy. (Like a pack of Twinkies was gonna attract the mother lode of roaches or something!) For payback, Rat was mummified in two-ply, and the entire floor of B Group was forbidden to use toilet paper for a month. After wiping his butt with scratchy recycled paper towels, Jack had a newfound respect for sanitary products. Toilet paper became sacred. He smiled to himself at the memory and tried to skirt the edge of the playground, but the kids spotted him.
“Hey, I know you!” the big one turned and yelled over to Jack. “You’re that new kid living with the mad professor.” The big kid looked like a psycho Elvis with long black oily hair that waved back from his face. He swatted at one of the smaller kids and repeated himself. “Mad professor, get it.”
They laughed on command. The sidekicks were fair-skinned and blond. The only thing remarkable about them was that they looked exactly alike, so much so that they had to be twins. The big kid tossed a roll of toilet paper up and down in his hands and looked at Jack sideways.
“Let me do you a favor, OK? That professor is into some weird stuff, like crazy stuff. There are a lot of rumors going around about him.” He looked around and then said in a low voice, “Word is he’s a grave robber.”
“What?!” Jack said. “That’s crazy. No one robs graves.”
“Look, I’m just saying what I overheard my mom and Miss Julie talking about, and Miss Julie has all the dirt on everyone, and she said that guy isn’t right. He’s always hanging around at Crazy Grady’s and over at Taylor’s Funeral Home. Well-adjusted adults don’t hang out at mental institutions and funeral homes. At least that’s what Miss Julie said.”
“He just has strange hobbies, that’s all.” Maybe Psycho Elvis had a point—thoughts of the trunk filled Jack’s head—but Jack was willing to give the professor the benefit of the doubt. The professor had been nicer to him than anyone he could remember. Except Mildred.
“Yeah,” one of the blond kids piped up. “I heard he has a pet cemetery in his backyard, except it’s really for his dead wives.”
Psycho Elvis kid rolled his eyes. “Shut up! I’m being serious here, doing a community service by warning this kid. I don’t care if you don’t believe me. I’m just saying that guy isn’t normal.”
“He’s all right. You just don’t know him.” Jack picked up a rock, threw it at the belly of the slide, and watched it slip back down to the ground. “He’s cool once you know him. He lets me do whatever I want.”
“Aren’t you listening? You’re living in a freak house with a freak father, a total weirdo.”
Jack felt a tinge of anger and a need to defend the professor. “No weirder than you.”
“Who you calling weird, you loser orphan? Did your mommy and daddy not want you, so the only home you could get was with a kook?” The three all laughed in unison.
Jack narrowed his eyes. “Up yours, lard butt.” The words flew from Jack’s mouth like a stone slung from a slingshot. Big mistake. Psycho Elvis balled up his beefy fists and threw a roll of toilet paper at him. The kid was not going to take the comment without a fight, like a silverback gorilla staking out his jungle gym territory by pounding his fists on his chest.
“You think you’re funny?” Psycho Elvis’s lip quivered like he was about to start singing, “You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog,” causing Jack to laugh.
“Yeah, I do.”
“You’re dead now, buddy.”
Jack dropped the leash and hoped Little Miss Bruiser would make it home OK. “Go, B., go,” he said, and pushed her away with his tennis shoe. The dog ran. Psycho Elvis smirked and nodded to the twins, who advanced one on either side of Jack, surrounding him. Jack clenched his jaw. His palms started getting sweaty. He tried to relax and stay loose, but Jack had never excelled in the art of butt-kicking. He had watched kung fu movies and tried to study the technique, but somehow whenever he got into a fight, the picture he had in his head of how it should go down never matched his actual movements.
Typically, he never started a fight, but he also never backed down, so he would take the hit and then have to regroup. Houdini could take a punch to the gut like it was nothing. He had a high tolerance for pain, unlike Jack, who was better at distraction, like throwing out a joke. Unfortunately, his stash of jokes typically referenced his lack of parental guidance, and that wasn’t going to work here.
Once, Jack had met this boy who had been in and out of juvie at least five times. His uncle robbed houses for a living, and the boy had said that his uncle would always go back to rob houses if they were easy marks: no security systems or yappy dogs. It was the same with fighting. Like it or not, he had to fight back, because he refused to be remembered as an easy mark. Psycho Elvis cracked his knuckles. The first punch had to count, so he cocked his arm and plowed his fist into Psycho Elvis’s nose. The rest of the fight was a blur of hitting and kicking, of elbows and kneecaps. The last thing Jack remembered was getting wrestled to the ground and Psycho Elvis sitting on his chest, forcing all the air from his lungs.
When Jack woke, he was staring up into the hairy caves of Professor Hawthorne’s nostrils. As it turned out, Little Miss B. was a wonder dog—she ran all the way back to the professor’s house and barked wildly at the door until the professor came out. He noticed the leash dragging behind her and went looking for Jack.
The professor pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket and dropped it, letting it float down to Jack like a wing. Blood dripped down Jack’s nose, so he wadded the handkerchief and stuffed it up his nostril to help sop up the blood while Little Miss B. licked Jack’s fingers. Jack stared at the grass and tried to forget the humiliating fact that he had just gotten his butt kicked.
“Never underestimate an old blind dog. I find that is the biggest mistake anyone can make.” The professor helped him to his feet, and they walked back to the house. “Come on. I have a gift for you.”
Jack followed the professor to his office, stopping just outside the door. The professor gl
anced back at him as he half-closed the door. “Give me a second, will you?”
Jack tried to peer into the room, but the door was in the way. The trunk was in the office. His arm nudged the door and it creaked open. There it was in the middle of the floor, big enough to fit a body. Jack’s imagination raced. Maybe the professor was a grave robber. Jack stepped into the office and the professor turned around, not even noticing the trunk that sat in the middle of the room.
“Why the gift?” Jack asked, unable to take his eyes off the old trunk and the shiny lock that sealed it shut.
“Why not? I never subscribed much to holidays and proper gift-giving. If I see something I think a person might like, I get it. And I saw something I thought might interest you.”
The professor turned and set a long, white department store box onto the trunk. Jack’s stomach sank. Every birthday, Mildred handed him a similar box that never failed to contain some sort of terribly itchy sweater or a dreaded turtleneck. The professor seemed to notice the look, and the wicked smile that spread across his face made his mustache twitch like a caterpillar. “I’m not sure if you are aware of this, but we have a very prominent psychiatric facility in this town. I have a friend who works there.”
Jack wasn’t surprised at all that the professor had connections at Crazy Grady’s psych ward—Psycho Elvis wasn’t the first person to mention the professor’s odd habits. To Jack, that just made the present even more mysterious. Jack lifted the lid of the box, pulled back the white tissue paper, and stared down at the contents. Definitely not a turtleneck, but very binding—it was the coolest gift anyone had ever given him. Mildred would not be happy, but Jack was ecstatic. “How did you know?” he asked, pulling the jacket out of the box.
“A little deductive reasoning.”
Jack beamed. “I love it.”
“I knew you would. You can’t be a fan of Houdini and not have your very own straitjacket.”
Jack lifted the heavy canvas into the air and held it up to his chest. It was a perfect fit.
When Jack woke up the next morning, his entire body ached. He hobbled into the bathroom and stared at his reflection in the mirror. Despite the pain radiating from his body, with a black crescent moon carved under his eye, he looked really cool, very butt-kicked. He liked it. But thinking of the fight reminded him of the kids in the park, which made him think of the professor, which brought him to the trunk. After seeing the professor’s clandestine maneuvering of the trunk into his office, Jack suspected that the professor was hiding something. An investigation of the office and trunk was the only way to be sure.
The day started out pretty normal. Both the professor and Concheta were being extra nice to him since the incident the day before. They had no idea that the fight was no big deal, but he enjoyed the chocolate chip pancakes Concheta made and the Star Wars movie marathon he and the professor watched while sprawled on the settee, their socked feet propped up on the coffee table. Concheta came in every hour on the hour, bringing snack trays heaped with tiny egg rolls and pizza bites and filling up their drink glasses with frothy root beer.
After watching movies, Jack practiced his straitjacket escape, albeit painfully. Getting out of a straitjacket was really hard. (That was the point.) With his arms hugging his own body, a wave of claustrophobia cascaded over him. Jack’s face flushed; his nose pressed into the hardwood floor. The professor observed, giving him tips.
“It’s all in the arm, get it over your head,” he said as Jack floundered around on the floor. “Slack, my boy, you need to make it more slack.”
Finally, Jack got his head wedged under his arm and said breathlessly, “Got it.” After he got his head loose, he went to work on the buckles, and he was home free.
“I made certain to get the correct size so as to not give you an unfair advantage if the jacket was too loose,” the professor said.
For the first time Jack had a real coach, a mentor, just like Mildred said, only he didn’t think getting tips on escaping from a regulation nut suit was what Mildred had in mind. Still, it was very cool of the professor. That made it harder for Jack to suspect him of keeping unsavory secrets, but he had to get more information to be sure.
Finally, at around five, Jack got his chance. The professor went to the university to get some work done. Jack strolled into the kitchen. Concheta slapped a meat loaf into a pan, popped it into the blazing oven, and set the timer. “I’ve got to take Little Miss B. to the vet. She ate something that made her sick.”
“B. might have accidentally bumped into the platter of egg rolls earlier.” Jack shrugged. “Sorry. She’s fast when she wants to be. She scarfed down three egg rolls before I could grab the tray.”
“Jack!” Concheta raised one of her thin penciled-in eyebrows at him. “Your dinner is in the oven. Remember to take it out when the buzzer dings.” Concheta picked up a sluggish Little Miss B. in her dog carrier and headed out the door, leaving Jack with the whole place to himself.
Jack eased down the hall toward the professor’s office. He stopped dead in his tracks when he noticed that the door to the office had been left open, just a crack. His first instinct was that it was a trap. It was just too easy for him to get in and snoop around. Then a wave of guilt rolled through his stomach when he realized that maybe the door was open because the professor trusted him. He touched the cool metal doorknob. For Jack, trust was earned, and the professor hadn’t earned his trust yet.
He had given the professor his word that he wouldn’t touch anything in the office, and if he got caught, the professor would probably kick him out for good; then where would he go? Mildred would be devastated if he screwed up again so fast, so for her sake, he couldn’t get caught. Jack’s fingers trembled slightly as he stared at the trunk; he wanted, no, he needed to know what was inside.
Jack crept into the office. The desk lamp cast a dusty halo of light across the carpet. Pulling the trunk away from the desk, Jack realized it was much heavier than it looked. A padlock dangled from the metal clasp. Jack slipped the lock pick from its usual hiding place in his shoe and made short work of the Home Depot special. The lock dropped to the floor with a thud. No turning back now. He heaved open the lid. A bone-chilling groan emanated from the box’s rusty hinges. A flourish of goose bumps cascaded over Jack’s skin when he peered inside.
Suddenly, a shrill buzzing rang through the house. Jack jumped, slamming the trunk shut. He skidded down the hallway to the kitchen and hit the timer and sighed with relief. He pulled the steaming meat loaf out of the oven. It was getting late. The professor or Concheta would probably be home soon.
Jack ran back to the office and knelt beside the trunk. A moldy smell rose up that he hadn’t noticed before. The box was heaped full of dirt. Reaching down into the trunk, Jack dragged his hand through the rich black earth. The dirt was cold to the touch. Disgusted, he brushed his hand off on his jeans.
Jack inspected the cakey soil and shuddered. There could be human remains or mouse bodies or something really gross in there. He grabbed a pencil off of the desk and dragged it through the dirt. The tip of the pencil stopped, hitting something. Wedging the pencil deeper, Jack lifted a piece of what looked like cardboard to the surface. He snatched it up quick and brushed the dirt off. It was a card, like a birthday party invitation, with printing in bold black type:
Jack dropped the card. It had to be a joke the professor was playing on him, probably trying to teach him a lesson not to pry into other people’s trunks. He picked the card up again, but this time a new line magically appeared:
He jerked his hand, and the card fell to the floor. Quickly, Jack grabbed the card and reburied it. This was definitely a trick, perhaps another gift, or more likely a trap to catch him snooping. He was so busted. For the first time since his arrival, Jack was afraid. He shut the box and fastened the lock.
In an effort to keep his mind off the card, Jack ate a thick slab of meat loaf for dinner and practiced with his cuffs. The metal bracelets called to him, and he cou
ld always count on them and their logic—a skill he could master and control. He twisted his hands behind his back like he had a thousand times before and closed the steel around his wrists.
As far as picking went, Jack was partial to the shim. He visualized the inner workings of the lock before inserting the slim metal tool. That’s how doctors do it in the emergency room when they’re trying to get a guy’s windpipe open and slide tubes in so the guy can breathe. The doctors imagine the trachea with its soft pink walls and visualize the tube going in. The esophagus runs straight. Sword-swallowers really did swallow the sword. Jack visualized the lock mechanism in his mind’s eye. He saw the ratchet—the toothed wheel inside the lock—the simple way it worked like a turnstile in a subway. He followed the shim going in and rounding the small metal corners of the lock, wedging its way in; overriding the catch, he pulled. Click. He didn’t need to see it now to know that the lock had released.
Too antsy to stay cooped up, Jack had the sudden urge to go outside and run to clear his head. He didn’t lock the door to the house. Jogging along, he was almost invisible in his black T-shirt and navy sweatpants, slipping in between parked cars and telephone poles, trading places with the dark. He made a game of it, trying to stay in the shadows, dodging a sudden flood of headlights. Throwing himself on the ground, he crawled on his belly till the car coasted by. He ran through the playground and through the small tangle of woods.
He felt alone, but alert, cautious. This was how animals must feel. People always liked to make it seem like animals had families, moms and dads and babies. But it wasn’t true. Sure, they technically did, but most animals were left to survive on their own pretty early. Once, he saw a nest of baby rabbits that the mother had already left—and they barely had their eyes opened. If those baby rabbits could survive, so could he. They don’t wait for their mothers to say good-bye to them. Jack kept running, like an animal in his leafy and tangled kingdom. He was a star in his own deep dark sky. His destiny was bigger and brighter than this journey of survival.