The Next Great Paulie Fink

by Ali Benjamin

  Mags walks to the window and stares out for a few moments before turning back to us. “I don’t think I can tell you anything here that you don’t already know, Originals. Being brave is what you’re already doing. It’s putting one foot in front of the other. As you do, try to show as much honor, as much arete, as you can.”

  Somewhere over the course of the morning, the news van shows up. They’re filming everything—the goats, the statues, the playground, the portrait of Julius Oxthorpe. It’s pretty distracting. When we get to recess, we can even see them at the edge of the field, filming us from a distance.

  “Well.” Gabby frowns. “This isn’t exactly how I pictured being on TV.”

  At lunch, Mr. Twilling stops me as I head into the cafeteria. “Hey, Caitlyn? I could really use your help. It’s about Kiera.”

  It takes me a second to realize who he’s even talking about: Fuzzy. She’s just Fuzzy to me.

  “A few of my students have been asking questions about the school, about what’s going to happen. We’ve tried to be honest with them, but also reassuring. Most of the kids are fine—next year’s a lifetime away when you’re in kindergarten. But Kiera’s a sensitive soul. She left the classroom to go to the bathroom, but didn’t come back. She went into the fort that Henry built, and now she refuses to come out. Do you think maybe you could talk to her?”

  I tell him I’ll try. Of course I’ll try.

  When I get to the fort I can see Fuzzy’s red sneakers sticking out. I squat down. “Knock, knock.” I poke my head in. Fuzzy’s knees are pulled up to her chin, her arms wrapped around them. “Is there a Real Rabbit around here? I’ve been trying to find a Real Rabbit all day. Oh, hey look! There’s one.”

  She doesn’t say anything, so I crawl inside. Fuzzy shifts a little to the left, making room.

  It’s nice in here. Bigger than it looks from the outside. It’s dark, with slivers of sunlight slipping in between the branches.

  “Are you sad?” I ask. She moves Real Rabbit’s head up and down, like Real Rabbit’s the one saying yes.

  “Maybe a little scared, too?” She doesn’t answer, just bites her lip.

  “I get it,” I say. “I had to switch schools this year, did you know that?”

  She looks up at me, and I can tell she’s surprised.

  “I forgot that you might not know,” I say. “But your first day of kindergarten was my first day here, too. I was so scared.”

  And now that the words are finally out there, I realize how true they are. I was scared.

  “But you’re big,” Fuzzy whispers.

  “Well, that’s true,” I say. “But that didn’t stop me from being scared.”

  It wasn’t just that first day, either, I realize. I think I’ve actually been scared for a long time. Even when I thought I was being as strong as stone.

  For a long while, we sit there, just the two of us, and Real Rabbit, in a fort and kind of scared.

  And when Anna Spang’s face pops into my head, I don’t try to push it away. I just sit there with the memory.

  The Story I Don’t Tell

  It happened last year, on one of those dreamy green days when the teachers open the windows and warm breezes move into the classroom, and you can just feel that summer’s around the corner. We played volleyball in gym class. Every time the ball came near Anna, kids made donkey noises. I don’t remember who started it—it wasn’t me, but I joined right in. The teachers told us to knock it off, so we did it more quietly.

  When the game ended, Anna walked straight into a bathroom stall in the locker room and shut the door. She didn’t come out.

  I was halfway to my next class before I realized I’d left my math notebook behind. I raced back to the locker room. Anna was on a bench, all alone.

  Just me and Anna for once, none of my friends nearby. She looked different—more real, almost like I was seeing her for the first time. Her eyes were swollen and her skin was blotchy, like the map of some distant planet.

  I remember thinking, That’s what I look like when I cry.

  If my friends had been there, I’d have moved past her, pretended she wasn’t there at all, maybe laughed a little too loud to show that I was too busy having fun to even notice her. Maybe if a teacher had been there, I’d have said something, like Bell’s about to ring, or Better hurry, we’ve got that math quiz.

  And if we lived in a different universe altogether, I’d have said something else. I’m not really like you think I am. Maybe I’d tell her I don’t know what this thing is inside me, this hard thing, I don’t know where it came from, but I know it’s taking over.

  Instead, I just stood there, each of us looking at the other, until finally I snatched up my notebook and hurried away.

  Then summer came, and my mother told me we were moving. And now here I am, sitting with a sad kindergartner and her stuffed rabbit, wondering what to say. I can’t tell her the story that’s on my mind, because I know she’d ask why I wasn’t nicer to Anna. And I know I’d never be able to give her an answer that’s good enough.

  Sometimes ordinary people do crummy things. That’s just the truth of it. They do things that they’ll wish later they could undo. And they’ll just be stuck with them forever.

  I watch Fuzzy, and I think about the way she looked at me on the first day of school: like I was someone to look up to, even though I didn’t know how to talk to her, didn’t even know how to open her milk carton.

  Fake it till you make it, Gabby had told me.

  I wonder: What if I really could be the person Fuzzy thought she saw on that first day? What would that person do right now?

  “Hey, Fuzzy,” I finally say. “I want to tell you a story.”

  “Paulie vs. the Gleeb?”

  I shake my head. “Nope. This is a different kind of story.”

  The Story I Do Tell

  Once upon a time there was a girl who felt too soft on the inside. She made a wish that she could be hard, and I guess it worked. Soon she did feel something hard inside her, like a peach pit had formed behind her ribs.

  No, that’s not right. The thing she felt was even harder than that, and unlike a pit, nothing would ever grow from it.

  This thing was hard like stone.

  Some days that stone burned like lava, and on others it was as cold as ice. And when she felt it, it was difficult to feel much else. It grew, that stone. It got a little bigger every day. The girl didn’t think this was such a big deal, except sometimes she was sad, and always she was scared, and a stone isn’t any sort of comfort when you’re sad and scared.

  So I guess it turns out it really mattered quite a bit.

  The stone made her mean, too. To lots of people in small ways, and to one particular person in a very big way. The bigger it grew, the meaner she became.

  Then one day, this girl wandered into the woods. She walked so deep into the woods she couldn’t see her old house anymore, which made her extra frightened. That’s when she met a Real Rabbit, who had big eyes and very long arms and just a tiny bit of magic inside. With his big eyes, he saw the stone. He saw how tired she was from carrying it everywhere. So with his long arms and a tiny bit of magic, Real Rabbit was able to reach down the girl’s throat and pull out the stone.

  Once it was out, he threw the stone away, into a river. The girl felt lighter then, and a little less tired, and a whole lot less mean.

  Which meant that Real Rabbit isn’t just magic. He’s also kind of a hero.

  How to Be Brave

  “The end,” I finish.

  Fuzzy looks at Real Rabbit. She stretches his arms out, moves him back and forth, making him sway from side to side.

  “Did it hurt?” she asks. At first I think she’s talking to Real Rabbit, but then I understand.

  “When the stone came out, you mean?”

  She nods.

  “Well.” I think about that. “A little. But once it was out, she felt a lot better.”

  “Did she say sorry? For being mean?”
r />   I remember standing in that locker room, eyes fixed on Anna. How frozen I felt.

  “Not yet,” I admit.

  Her brow furrows, just a bit. “She should say sorry.”

  It must seem so simple to Fuzzy. Maybe it is simple. But sitting there, I can’t imagine apologizing to Anna. It’s like she’s on one side of a rushing river, and I’m on the other, and there’s no bridge to connect us.

  “She probably should,” I say. “Maybe someday. But this particular girl still isn’t very brave.”

  “But she’s braver than she used to be?”

  I consider that. “Yeah,” I finally tell her. “Yeah, I think so.”

  Fuzzy keeps making Real Rabbit dance, her lips moving like she’s singing without noise. Even though I can’t hear her, I’m pretty sure Real Rabbit can. Me, I listen to the sounds on the other side of the fort—the leaves rustling like whispers, the goats bleating in the distance, the faraway sounds of the cafeteria where everyone is but us.

  She should say sorry.

  She isn’t very brave.

  But she’s braver than she used to be.

  I don’t know what makes Fuzzy finally decide that it’s time for Real Rabbit to stop dancing. I don’t know what makes her feel ready to go back into the world. But after a bit, she crawls out of the fort, then brushes pine needles off Real Rabbit.

  When I come out, the sunlight is brighter than I expected, and it takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust. When they do, I see one of those newspeople in the distance, filming the goats.

  As we walk across the field, Fuzzy holds up one of Real Rabbit’s paws to me, and I take it. She’s got him by the other paw. Now we’re three in a row. Two humans and a magic rabbit, walking hand in hand.

  The cameraperson shifts. Now they’re pointing the camera right at us. I think about Glebus telling parents that nobody has to be filmed if they don’t want to. And I realize I don’t care. Let them film, I think. Maybe someday, years from now, Fuzzy will watch the footage and remember that all of this—this ramshackle mansion, these cranky goats, this makeshift fort, and this strange crooked scarecrow surrounded by sacrifices—even existed.

  “Will it ever be back?” Fuzzy asks.

  “Hmm?”

  “The bad stone. Will it grow back? In the girl?”

  I think about that, about how all these good ideas about arete, honor, have been around for two thousand years, and yet people just keep messing up anyway.

  “I don’t know,” I tell her. “The girl doesn’t want it to, but she’s not sure. She’s not certain about much of anything anymore.”

  Ahead of us, the cafeteria doors open, and the Minis come spilling out onto the playground. I look at the field where we’re going to play soccer soon, and at the Paulie statue that’s supposedly our good-luck charm, with the kickball head that’s probably a bad omen. I look at all those notes fluttering in the wind.

  Devlinshire arrives in an hour.

  Surprise

  Everyone’s freaking out. We’re in Mags’s classroom, waiting for Devlinshire to arrive, all jangled nerves and raw energy. Diego’s leg is jiggling up and down so fast he’s practically jackhammering a hole into the floor. Fiona can’t stop shifting in her seat. Next to me, she tucks her left foot under her butt. Almost immediately, she untucks. Shifts again.

  Everyone’s moving, actually. Yumi’s drumming her fingers on her desk. Henry rakes his fingers through his hair, and Timothy won’t stop cracking his knuckles. As for me, I only notice that I’m flicking a pencil back and forth when it flies across the room.

  Which means I’m nervous, too.

  That’s when we hear the rumble of a bus engine. Getting closer. “They’re here,” Henry whispers.

  We listen to the hiss of brakes, the creak of bus doors opening. And then we hear voices, kids’ voices, coming through in an indistinct blur of chatter. But then someone shouts something, three syllables, and others follow.

  They’re chanting. Devlinshire is chanting. Just like the Mitchell kids do. Except what they’re saying is something altogether different.

  “Ring the bell!

  Ring the bell!

  Ring the bell!”

  Fiona’s the first to get up, so fast she knocks her chair to the floor.

  “Fiona,” Mags warns, but Fiona’s already at the window. As soon as she’s up, everyone else follows.

  There they are, marching toward the building: a mass of kids in sapphire-blue shirts, crisp white shorts. They’re heading straight for the Good Day Bell like an advancing army of bright blue beetles.

  “Ring the bell!

  Ring the bell!

  Ring the bell!”

  “Don’t you dare,” Fiona snarls. “Don’t you dare touch our bell.”

  We watch, helpless, as one of the kids in blue reaches out, grabs the rope. Next to me, Gabby sucks in her breath.

  Clang.

  All these weeks, I’ve only rung the bell one time: that afternoon with Fuzzy. The Good Day Bell still doesn’t feel like it belongs to me. But for some reason I get this hot, angry feeling inside me when I hear that clang and the cheers that follow.

  That bell is barely mine. So it definitely isn’t theirs.

  I glance at the others, expecting them to look furious. Instead, they look… confused.

  “Wait,” says Fiona. She squeezes her eyes shut, then opens them again. Then she shakes her head, as if trying to wake herself from a dream.

  “No…,” mutters Diego, more to himself than anyone else. “No way.”

  “Holy crow,” Gabby says, her voice awed.

  I look at the Devlinshire kids again, trying to figure out what’s got the Originals so shocked. “What is it? What’s going on?”

  Nobody answers. I glance at Henry. He’s gone kind of pale. Almost like he’s seeing a ghost.

  That’s when it hits me. Maybe there is a ghost of sorts down there.

  Or maybe not exactly a ghost. Maybe more like an alien. Or someone who mysteriously vanished, and now—just as mysteriously—is walking toward the building.

  Wearing a bright blue shirt.

  THE FIRST GREAT PAULIE FINK

  Interview: Diego

  I couldn’t believe it.

  I mean, I actually couldn’t believe it. I kept thinking that this was a joke. That my eyes were playing tricks on me or whatever.

  Paulie Fink was down there. Our Paulie Fink. Returned from the dead like one of the zombies that Timothy and Thomas are always imitating.

  Paulie moved to Devlinshire?

  He was one of the rich kids now?

  The One and Only

  “Which one is he?” I ask.

  Fiona points, but I don’t see anyone who jumps out like I always expected Paulie Fink would. It’s just a bunch of kids.

  “There,” says Fiona. “Right there.” But of course that doesn’t help.

  “Wait, which one?”

  “Blue shirt,” Diego offers, as if that helps.

  “Pushing the hair out of his eyes,” adds Yumi.

  Oh. “That’s Paulie Fink?” Everyone nods.

  I don’t know what I expected. It’s not like I thought he’d have green scales and three heads and fourteen eyeballs or anything. But whatever I expected, it wasn’t that totally ordinary shaggy-haired kid, sweatshirt tied around his waist just like everyone else.

  “Huh,” I say.

  It’s like he can feel us looking at him, because he lifts his eyes, right up to the window where we’re all standing. Gabby screams and ducks.

  Fiona yells, “Holy fudge nuggets, he sees us!”

  Everyone else takes a step backward. Which, if you ask me, is a mighty curious reaction for a group of people who have literally been making offerings to a shrine they created in his honor.

  Behind us, Mags commands, “Wave to him.”

  We wave.

  Interview: Gabby

  I read this story once in a Megastar fan forum. A girl wrote that she’d traveled from North Caroli
na all the way to Florida to meet Jadelicious in real life. This was just after season two ended, when Jadelicious went on her world tour.

  The girl stood outside Jadelicious’s dressing room for like two hours. She was holding a copy of Jadelicious’s new book, No Imitation: Winning the Jadelicious Way. When Jadelicious finally stepped outside, the girl was so confused. It was Jadelicious—she had her cat’s-eye makeup and silver heels and everything. But at the same time, it seemed like it couldn’t possibly be the real Jadelicious. Her eye makeup was smudged, and her cheeks were a little bumpy, like she’d once had a bad case of acne. Mostly, though, the girl wrote on the fan forum, she seemed way too small to be Jadelicious.

  And Jadelicious, she’s larger than life, see?

  That’s how it felt when I looked at Paulie. It’s weird, because I think now he was taller and maybe a little thinner, like someone had taken the Paulie we’d known and stretched him. Something about his face looked different, too. Like his jaw was a little harder, more square.

  But here’s the weird thing: Even though he looked taller, he also seemed much, much smaller.

  In our minds, he’d become larger than life. But then there he was in front of us, just a regular kid in a blue soccer jersey who looked like he’d grown a few inches. The way regular kids do.

  Interview: Fiona

  I wanted to punch him in the face. That’s what I was thinking as we left Mags’s classroom and headed down to the field. I thought it over and over again. I’m so mad I could punch him.

  That traitor.

  That rat.

  That backstabbing double-crossing Benedict Arnold.