Underdogs: Three Novels

by Markus Zusak

  “Smile again, will y’s,” she said, and we did.

  We crowded around to watch the picture form, and soon I could make out the rough gatherings of Rube’s hair and the outline of my face. The apple was still balancing in Rube’s hand and we were standing there, leaning, both in old jeans, Rube in a flanno work shirt, me in my old spray jacket. It appeared to be so right, both our faces imprinted with smiles.

  Appeared …

  Sarah pulled the photo closer to her.

  “I love this picture,” she said, without a moment’s thought. “It looks like brothers.”

  What brothers should be, I thought, and we all continued looking at it, as the tap still dripped down, exploding more quietly now, into the sink.

  “Give us a look at that,” Rube said, and he snatched the photo from Sarah’s hand. Immediately, I could tell. Somehow I knew.

  The way he did it.

  The way his eyes zeroed in on the photo. I knew my brother was about to ruin everything. In the last few minutes, it had been coming, and now it was here. A quiet anger about the situation had reached him completely now. He’d decided that he didn’t like this at all. Octavia and Cameron — to Rube, it wasn’t right. It didn’t sound right. It didn’t feel right. In his eyes, I could see it now. He was about to end it, on gut feeling.

  He smiled, but suddenly it wasn’t genuine anymore. It was sarcastic as he said, “Yes sister, this sure is a great shot you’ve produced here.” He showed it to her as if he’d taken it himself. “It’s such a great shot of me and young Scraps here, isn’t it?”

  Sarah was confused. “Scraps?” she asked, just as I felt my insides collapse.

  “Sure,” my brother laughed, still focused on the photo. I could only just hear his words above the anxiety that boxed me in the ears. “Sure sister,” he explained. “Scraps — I find the girls and Cam picks up the scraps….”

  I remember Sarah looking over at me then.

  With a few sentences, Rube had destroyed me. Weeks later, I found out why he really did it, but for now, it seemed like he’d done it only because he was capable — because he was the guy who got the girls in this house, not me. Not Cameron. And especially not with a girl who was once with him.

  Defeat opened the kitchen floor at my feet, raising its hands up to pull me down. Stay calm, I told myself as I watched Sarah pull the photo back from Rube’s hands. A wounded look scattered slowly and painfully across her face, and when she looked back at me, I felt my anger gathering itself together. When it was all there, I climbed up from the defeat and stood before my brother, face-to-face.

  I read his expression. It shaped up to me.

  “You’re a real bastard,” I said. It didn’t sound like me, though. I didn’t normally have this much aggression in me. “You know that?”

  “Well just remember that you pick up the scraps of a bastard,” he answered. “If it wasn’t for me you’d have nothing,” and that was it. It was all I needed. I leaped at my brother and tore him down to the floor. In the background I could hear the shrieks of Sarah. I couldn’t even understand her for the electricity in my ears, and too quickly, I could see the plates and cups and forks from the table crash silently to the kitchen floor. Straightaway, I was on my back. Rube, the faster, the stronger, had me pinned. Next I saw his fist, close up. It met my face right beneath my eye and everything shook. I thought the ceiling was splitting apart, and just when it all joined up and found its right place again, it burst open as my brother threw his fist into my face many times. His knees burned through my shoulders. His eyes tore into me. And his hair showered into his face as I fell limp and took it now without feeling anything.

  “Stop it!” I heard Sarah screaming now. She’d gone out and come running back into the kitchen with a bucket of. She threw it down just as Rube got off me. The freezing water splashed over me, covering me like a nice, icy blanket. “Bastard!” she yelled and threw the bucket at Rube. He shrugged it off and walked out.

  Just before exiting the room, he pointed his finger at me.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you, anyway?” he said callously. “You couldn’t find anything of your own, could y’?” He laughed. “Jesus! You don’t pick up the girls y’ brother once had. It’s low! It’s screwed up, you bloody freak!” He laughed hard and angry and awful. “How ‘bout I give y’ Julia’s number when we’re done? Would y’ like that?” He left then, finally, slamming the front door behind him.

  And me?

  I was spread out on the kitchen floor.

  Bruised. Soaked.

  Beaten.

  I closed my eyes and opened them again. The whole thing seemed surreal.

  Did that really happen? I asked myself, but then the swelling on my face proved it to me, aching and turning over my skin. The disbelief and shock held me down — I’d always been worried about telling him, and now my worst fears had been realized. They were free to trample me.

  Slowly, I looked all around.

  The kitchen floor was covered with water, broken crockery, and other assorted scraps.

  PIECES

  Sometimes there only seem to be clouds.

  Tonight, the clouds hang above me, sulking in the sky. They watch me write the words. I don’t even think they bother to read them.

  I imagine myself in a room, where some shattered pieces are strewn on the floor, in front of me.

  As I walk toward them, I have no idea what they are, so I approach with trepidation. They seem to be a puzzle, all torn up and thrown apart. They look injured.

  I crouch down and begin putting them together, finding each scrap that surrounds my feet.

  Gradually, I see the picture form as I put it all together.

  Gradually, I see.

  These pieces on the ground.

  Are made of me.

  CHAPTER 14

  I didn’t go out with Octavia the next night.

  She showed up right at the time she said she would, but when she saw my face, she knew immediately what had happened. I had a bruise that swelled b around my eye and slid across my cheekbone. When she came onto the porch, I remember seeing her eyes back away from me. It didn’t take long for her body to follow.

  There was no hello.

  No niceties.

  I only stood and wanted to touch her hand, and the girl said, “Is that …?” Is that.

  All I could do was nod my head in agreement with the question that was cut in half. It was an attempt to ignore the pain of it. Is that from Rube? is what she’d really meant to say.

  Watching her feet.

  I recall it so clearly — watching as her feet backed down the steps, carrying her toward the gate.

  She said, “I’m sorry, Cam.” Her words winced. “I’m so sorry — I should have known.” The pain she felt at coming between my brother and

  me was obvious. It was wringing itself out through her expression. Her face dripped to the ground. What she didn’t know was that it wasn’t just her that came between Rube and me the previous night. It was everything that was different about us. It was Rube being the winner and me not settling to be the underdog anymore. It was the way he treated girls against the way I wanted to treat them. It was me facing the reality that I had lived my whole life not in Rube’s shadow, but behind it, not even able to touch it. Yes, it felt like everything.

  “Please,” I called out then, afraid that it sounded like a yelp. “Octavia, don’t go.”

  But she did.

  She shook herself from the gate and walked onto the street. Half a walk. Half a run. There was panic in every footstep, and the sound of each one seemed to erase everything else that had happened before. Her face had been so full of sacrifice. In an instant she was willing to give up whatever she wanted, or what the two of us wanted, for the sake of Rube and me. She left so fast, and my reactions were simply too slow.

  Can it be so quick? I asked myself. Can everything burn down so fast? Can she just tread past me because of Rube?

  The truth of it ke
pt rolling over me. It was like a virus, arriving with more strength with each passing thought of it. I replayed it at least a hundred times within a few minutes. Her words, her face. And the savage sound of her soft, falling footsteps.

  How could it be so fast? I asked again, but there were no answers. A week ago she wanted every piece of me.

  She loved me even for my failures, like not being able to lean on the glass windows in the tower. She loved the shell and my words. All those things were gone now.

  I’d envisioned so many things for this night.

  A cold street with us walking through it, warm.

  An empty movie cinema, but for us.

  Laugh

  Talking.

  Sitting in the underground waiting for Octavia’s train home.

  Counting the trains as they pulled in, waited, then pulled back out — we’d be too happy for her to get on a train and go home. I’d sit there, proud that I could make Octavia Ash this happy….

  It all brushed past me with the icy breeze that lifted itself to our front porch and swept across my face.

  A few minutes later, in real reality, the door slammed behind me and Rube walked out. We looked at each other a moment, but nothing was said. All day at work, he and I had said nothing to each other. On account of my face, Dad knew we’d fought, but he stayed out of it. We’d fought before and got over it, but this time I wasn’t so sure.

  As I sat there in the darkness of the porch, Rube only continued down the steps and onto the street, just like Octavia. When he was gone, I realized that neither of them had looked back at me.

  The night was cold, but for a long time, I stayed there, enjoying it in a depressed sort of way. The wind grew stronger and slapped me in the face and even my jacket pockets were soaked with bitter coldness.

  It was the first night I’d ever gone out with a girl — and I never even made it off the front porch.

  Eventually, I went back inside.

  I watched TV with Mr. and Mrs. Wolfe but I saw and heard nothing. When they laughed at something, it shocked me.

  Soon after, I went into Rube’s and my room and sat against the wall, under the window. In the dark. It’s unfortunate to admit, but some tears burned their way down my face. When there was a knock at the door, I didn’t even bother wiping them off.

  I said nothing.

  Another knock, but this time, Sarah walked in and hit the light. I let the pain of it ignite in my eyes. “You didn’t go out?” she asked. Slowly, I shook my head.

  “Why not?”

  “She saw my face.” My voice was numb. “And she knew Rube and I had fought.” “And that’s it? She just left?” “She ran,” I pointed out. “I see….”

  There was a while of no talking then, but Sarah sat down at the opposite end of the room from me. We only sat there, staring, and I must admit that it was kind of nice to have some company. When she got up, she came over and offered me a hand.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let me show you something.” Cautiously, I took it and stood up, following her out of the room, down the hall, and into her own room. “Shut the door,” she said. I did as I was told.

  She lifted her mattress and pulled out a big spiral booklet. Some Polaroids fell out. I noticed the one with Rube and me in the kitchen before the fight.

  “Sit down.”

  Again, I did as I was told, and before my eyes, I saw the secret life of Sarah Wolfe, my sister. She turned pages and on each sheet, there was a sketch or a drawing, or a fully realized charcoal-colored work. There were sketches of our house, our family, our street. There were mothers dragging kids along at the supermarket, people boarding trains, cars lined up like dominoes on Elizabeth Street, and leftovers heating up in the kitchen.

  She gave me the book and I kept turning the pages, looking down in awe at the strength and feeling in the drawings.

  There was Dad getting out of his panel van after work.

  Mrs. Wolfe sleeping on the couch one night, exhausted.

  An anonymous person struggling down the street in the rain.

  Page after page.

  It took me a few minutes to be able to speak. “They’re brilliant,” I said.

  “Just keep going,” she nodded. “Go to page thirty-eight.”

  I turned all the pages until I found the right one.

  Standing on that page, was me. I was standing there in colored charcoal, in a blue suit, with a red tie, black shoes. My face was dirty but my head was high, and of course, my hair was a shocker — all tangled and rough and reaching for the sky. Most importantly, though, I was wearing a pair of red boxing gloves.

  Cameron Wolfe.

  In a blue suit and boxing gloves …

  “I love it,” I said to my sister.

  “Yes,” she said, “but do you know what it means, Cameron?” Any form of a smile left her face. She was serious. “Should I tell you what it means?”

  “The suit and the gloves?”

  “Yes.”

  I looked straight at her. “Tell me.”

  She answered. “Well, first of all, you’re dirty. That’s what you’ve always considered yourself to be — dirty, small, not worth much.” She pointed now to the suit. “The suit tells us that you’ve had enough of that. You want so badly to be better that it hurts … am I right?”

  Dumbly, I nodded.

  “Then, the gloves.” She was strong, and so sure. “The gloves show that you’ll always fight to get there, to be that person.” Now she became even more determined, and her words ran at me. Into me. “But I’ll tell you something, Cam — if you still want that girl and leave things as they are … if you just let that girl walk away, I’ll rub those gloves off altogether and disfigurends. I’ll even make it look like you’re about to cut them off.” Her last words were spoken harshly. “You got it?”

  Silently, I agreed.

  “Do you still want her?” she said.

  “Of course.” There was no other answer.

  “Well don’t,” she continued, “let Rube, or anyone else tell you what to do or what to be. Don’t worry about what everyone else wants, just so their own miserable lives can be easier. Do what you want, Cam. Understand?”

  For the last time, I nodded.

  “Now shut the door behind you.” This time she smiled.

  I walked to the door but turned around halfway and returned to my sister. I leaned down quickly and kissed her cheek, then walked back out.

  “Hey Cam,” she called, just before I was gone. I turned back. “And keep writing too….”

  I stepped closer. “How did …?”

  I gave up and nodded, and walked back up the hall.

  THE HALLWAY

  If there are alleys inside me, there must also be hallways.

  I take a walk inside, treading past rooms and closets, to find a dark hallway where I’ve never been before. There’s no door, so I walk right in, find a string, and pull on it, to produce the adequate light.

  The hallway glows now, but dimly enough to not hurt my eyes.

  Slowly, I look from side to side as I walk, and I understand that this is a hallway of underdogs.

  Plastered to the walls are the images of Sarah Wolfe, my sister. They’re the photos and drawings from her notebook — the people on the street, my mother and father, the ones struggling with their shopping. They’re all people fighting their way through their lives.

  I study each one on my way through.

  They keep me, and I keep them.

  … At the end of the hallway, there’s a light. It’s a lot brighter than what’s in here, but it blinks. It even seems to be limping in its attempt to get my attention.

  I keep walking, toward that limping light. I vow to remember each person I’ve just seen, each image of the hallway.

  The light awaits me, and I approach it uncertain.

  CHAPTER 15

  After everything that had happened, there was no chance of sleepin that night. I considered getting myself down to Octavia’s place, but
decided to wait out the hours and find her the next day down at the harbor.

  There was an old movie on TV.

  I watched it until I staggered to bed and dropped in.

  Earlier, I wrote some words and tucked them under my mattress, and lying in bed, they seemed to crawl out and step over me as I stared at the ceiling.

  It was late when Rube came in, tired and clumsy. He tripped over his shoes after he swept them off his feet, and briefly, before he went to bed, he came and stood over me. With my eyes closed, I could feel the presence of my brother.

  Keep your eyes shut, I told myself. I came close to saying something to him, but I remembered the kitchen and the fight, and the words and the fists. A hatred climbed into bed with me, whispering that I should be still and silent and wait for the intruder to leave.

  The intruder.

  It hurt to think of my brother like that, but in one glorious moment, he had ripped apart the first chance I ever had.

  To touch a girl. To be with a girl …

  “Hey Scraps,” I imagined him saying, but he said nothing.

  He only stood there.

  Even now, I wonder what he was thinking at that moment.

  Was he contemplating throwing his hand down to wake me, to call me brother and say he was sorry? Or did he want to ask me why I couldn’t find a girl of my own? Did he want to plead with me to stop being his shadow?

  I’ll never know, because the moment passed and never came up again. It ended when his feet dragged him over to his own bed and he fell down, on top of the sheets. It seemed fitting that night that Rube rarely covered himself in bed. He didn’t need the warmth, whereas I froze if I wasn’t covered up to my nose, lying there with just my snout sticking up for air.

  The hours dragged themselves by, and when Rube began to snore it felt like insult being lent to injury. The sound tore open the night, as I lay there with visions swimming and circling in my head. It was mostly Octavia, but images of Rube and Steve and Sarah also made their way inside me. I kept seeing the drawing Sarah showed me — the blue suit and the boxing gloves. For some reason, the visions of Steve also bothered me. I kept hearing the words he’d spoken — it was funny how my two brothers were so capable of hurting me, and how my sister was the one who could see something in me to believe in. All this time, she’d been watching, and I guess, if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have resolved that night to find Octavia the next day, and to face Steve one last time.