Oddity
Page 5
Wait.
There, at the base of my skull. An edge. I work my way under it, and pull. The bare surface peels away, and my braids fall into place. I look at what I’m holding in my hands.
It’s one of those fake bald caps from a costume shop. She must have been saving it for something like this!
I scream with rage … and hear mocking auntly laughter from downstairs.
When I pull myself together and head down the hall to get ready, I find the bathroom door shut and locked. I kick it.
“Come ON, Mase!” I holler, exasperated.
There’s a lot of scrabbling and scuffling before the door opens.
When it does, there’s no one there.
Stella’s using the bathroom now? I think, before remembering she can’t leave the closet. I look down. Nope. Not ghosts. It’s one of those little critters I’ve been calling zombie rabbits, though they’re not really zombies and they’re not quite rabbits, either. What they are, apparently, is in our house. Guess that job Daddy did repairing the mortar in the corner of the basement didn’t take.
The little vermin looks up at me with his round, wide eyes. Like all zombie rabbits, he’s wearing footie pajamas. These have green-and-yellow-flowered ears. After a long, awkward standoff, he thumps one foot impatiently. He’s waiting for me to get out of the way. Zombie rabbits are sneaky, and my feet are bare, so I do, but I bet I’ll regret it later. Give a zombie rabbit an inch, and he’ll take a mile. They’re like a bunch of tiny pirates, no disrespect to Badri.
“Move,” he growls, pushing past me. Then he slouches down the hallway and disappears into the linen closet. The laundry chute door, which is on a spring, opens and slams. The chute gives a metallic ripple as the rabbit goes down it. I shake my head.
Chapter 7
Sweepstakes Time
When I land in the grass at the bottom of the trellis outside my window, Mason is waiting for me with my books. I load them into my backpack.
“She see you take these?” I ask, shouldering my pack.
“Naw, I don’t think so. But anyway, the wheelchair’s not so good on grass.” He’s got a point.
“You get in any trouble?” I know he was jumping to go with us, but still. As the oldest, I’m supposed to be the voice of reason.
He shoves me, which is how he tells me I’m treating him like a baby. “I have to go help at the bakery after school for a week. It was worth it.”
As we cut through the hedge to the sidewalk, I notice the newspaper still sitting there. Daddy must have gotten home really late if the paper’s still out here. There’s a blue insert sticking out above the headline: SOUTH SIDE RESIDENTS COMPLAIN OF BIOLUMINESCENCE, LOST SLEEP.
When Mason and I meet Cayden and Raymond on the corner, there’s a cheery blue-and-white sticker on the stop sign. A block later, another on the window of the co-op. I pull a flyer out of my backpack and add it to the glass as I go by. It reads ORGANIC HOMESCHOOLED CHICKEN 50% OFF.
My mood begins to rise. Raymond’s downright grinning, and it’s hard to resist grinning back. The minute I do, he can’t keep quiet anymore.
“Come on, Ada, you know this is going to be great,” he says.
I shove my shoulder into his.
“It is, isn’t it?” I say. “Pearl would love this!”
Raymond looks away.
“Yeah,” he says, then focuses his attention on Cayden, who’s looking stressed.
“Come on, Cayden. Show some school spirit,” says Raymond.
I nod, trying to act like Raymond’s nonsense isn’t getting to me. I guess I understand why the grown-ups are all weird about a kid winning the Sweepstakes for the first time in the history of ever. Parents expect to keep their kids until they grow up. Now everybody’s wondering if their kid’s next. But I don’t see why Raymond gets to be uncomfortable. I’m the one who lost my sister.
He’s still pep-talking Cayden.
“You seriously showed up at the perfect time. We’ve been waiting years for this.”
“You’ve been waiting years to chase adults around town for their signatures,” Cayden says.
I sigh. At this point, he’s just being dense. We’ve talked his ear off about canvassing for the Sweepstakes.
“Think of it as the biggest game of capture the flag ever,” Raymond says.
“Right,” I say. “And the adults are the flags.”
“You don’t think it’s a little weird that the grown-ups run away to avoid signing up for the Sweepstakes?” he asks.
“Ugh!” I groan, looking up at the sky for assistance. Alien ships are really hard to see without their running lights, though. “I told you, it’s not like that. Think of it as a safety drill where the whole town participates. We’ve been watching for years, and it’s hilarious. It’s the best thing about becoming a fifth grader!”
On the way into school, we walk past the flagpole, which has acquired some new swag. A smallish purple alien, mostly neck with four short legs, has clamped on to the pole with its teeth. Its whole body sticks rigidly sideways.
“Is it waiting for the flagpole to surrender, or does it think it’s a flag?” Cayden asks, glad for a change of subject. Nice to see he has a sense of humor about aliens now. Apparently it’s possible to live your whole life not knowing Earth is an interplanetary commuter hub. I’m not saying he screamed the first time he saw an alien, but I’m not saying he didn’t, either.
Inside, bold blue-and-white posters plaster the walls, all emblazoned with a design as familiar as the smell of Thanksgiving Meat-Substitute Gratitude Loaf: the outline of a boldly striped tent, arcing above the words WHEN YOU LOOK IN THE MIRROR, DO YOU SEE A WINNER?
It’s Sweepstakes time.
I guess Ms. Winters had a post-morgue setback, because the principal comes in to introduce her replacement, Mr. Bishop. After roll call, Mr. Bishop drops a stack of glossy foldouts and a stack of ink pads on each desk to be passed back. The words on the foldouts blare:
SWEEPSTAKES!
You wait all year, and now it’s here!
All stamp books and customer loyalty cards honored.
The greater your loyalty, the better your odds.
Eat, drink, be merry, and buy it all at GREELEY’s state-of-the-art grocery.
WATCH FOR THE BLUE TENT.
Mr. Bishop starts working his way through a prepared statement from the city council.
“As you all remember, the Greeley’s Sweepstakes fund-raiser accounts for a substantial amount of the school’s operating funds for the year. Ammunition, window replacement, the fees we pay for school assemblies and paramilitary training all come from the Greeley’s drive … as does the end-of-year party.
“Now, if you’re new, you’ll want to make sure you pair up with someone who has grown up here, for safety.”
Someone does that thing where he pretends to sneeze, to cover what he actually says: “Fresh meat!”
Cayden turns pink, and some of the kids snicker. I flush. It’s one thing for me to pick on Cayden. I’m his friend.
“Each of you must canvass an assigned section of Oddity,” Mr. Bishop continues, “knocking on every door or … well, anything that’s serving as a front door for someone. Tent flaps, corrugated metal roofing, garbage can lids, rope-ladder rungs … you get the idea. Each individual in your canvassing zone must place a blue thumbprint on the chart by his or her name. What’s the rule for thumbprints?”
“Press the pad, lick the thumb, stamp the chart,” chants the class.
“That’s right. Make sure you wear your latex gloves, so you don’t contaminate the samples.” (We have them in our PKs, preparedness kits, in case of bodily fluid or ectoplasm exposure.) “It is vitally important that you canvass everyone in your assigned area.
“Make sure they see you. Regularly. Be visible in the corners of their eyes whenever possible, whether you have their thumbprint or not. Discover their habits and make a practice of standing silently on people’s porches or lawns when they exit their hom
es in the morning.…”
The longer he talks, the more impatient I am to get out there and try it for myself. This is going to be like a live-action MMORPG. I can’t wait.
The classroom door snicks open, and I turn in my seat, along with everyone else. One more perk of being old enough to canvass: we get celebrity visitors. The Protection Committee is here.
Mr. Whanslaw steps into the room, clicking as he comes. His puppeteer walks behind him, stone-faced, working the controls. Same one, different one. Can’t tell, don’t care. They’re a little blurry if you stare straight at them, anyway, so I generally don’t. We all turn back around in our seats and try to look capable, like troops being inspected.
Puppet and puppeteer stroll down the row beside my desk. Whanslaw’s head is level with mine, even though I’m sitting down, and if he turns his head toward me now on that creaking neck, I’ll be looking straight into his black, shining eyes. I don’t look. He makes his way to the front of the room, puppeteer obediently attending him, and sure enough, just past me he begins turning his head left and right, staring at anyone reckless enough to look back. Though all I can see is his fuzzy, white, fleecy hair, I am sure he catches Cayden’s eye. Cayden’s hand trembles on his desk.
Mr. Whanslaw turns to face the class. His eyes shine with intelligence, and his head and limbs bob, the tiniest bit, as he comes to a halt. He folds his fingers in a way that ought to be impossible without getting the strings tangled, and looks at us. Then he speaks, in his deep, bullfrog voice.
“How are we this morning, children?”
There are some muttered “goods” and “fines.” Behind the puppeteer, Mr. Bishop is giving us the hairy eyeball—like we’d ever act up in front of the Protection Committee. New teachers, I swear.
“I look forward to a wholehearted effort on the part of the fifth grade this year,” Whanslaw continues. “In this way, you will set an example for younger children when they follow in your footsteps. There is also great satisfaction to be found in the pursuit of signers. To hunt down the reluctant, to track them when they go to ground, is … invigorating. It gets the blood pumping.”
At this last, he homes in on Eunice in the front row, and I think for a minute that her braids are going to stand on end. After a moment, he breaks his stare to gaze once more around the room, like a hawk who changed his mind midstoop and is circling, looking for new prey.
“I trust,” he says slowly, pacing the front of the room, brocaded coat swaying, blue head bobbing, “that I will see you all circulating your assigned territories, doing your civic duty. I am quite certain that no activity, however novel, could possibly be more important.”
His head cranks around, wood squealing on wood, and this time, those shiny, black, merciless eyes are fixed on me.
He moves on so quickly that by the time my stomach stops turning surprised flips, he’s already looking at Bea. Then Charles. Then Raymond. Ralph, hulking in the back row. His crony, Delmar. Cayden. All of us are Nopesers. Uh-oh. Are our afternoon activities some kind of problem?
I guess we have been poking into things grown-ups might prefer we stay out of. Something’s not right here, though. I appreciate an intimidating puppet as much as the next person, but I thought the PC’s visit to our classroom would be fun, like we’d enter this secret circle of heroism. It isn’t turning out like that at all. It’s almost like Whanslaw’s trying to scare us—and enjoying it.
The door rattles open, and Myrtle, who sits right beside it, actually shrieks as a tall puppet with a rag-doll face pops her head in through the gap. She takes in our startled expressions with her shoe-polish eyes and lets out a high giggle. Once we get over our surprise, we grin back, but I can feel that mine lacks some wattage.
Maggie may be the strangest of all the puppets, even more so than fish-faced Lanchester. It’s hard to decide, moment to moment, because let’s face it, living puppets, but Maggie’s blank good humor and wide Raggedy Ann smile just freak some people out. Not me, but some people.
Whanslaw treats her like a daughter. “Well, my dear, are you finished … encouraging the sixth graders?”
She pushes her way into the room, her long, old-fashioned white dress sweeping the floor, puppeteer dressed in black behind her. Maggie is all angular limbs and thrusting energy. Just for fun, she slams her wooden hands down on Myrtle’s desk and gets all nose to triangle with her.
My feelings are all over the place. On the one hand, I’m a little bit scornful of Myrtle for leaning away. Show some backbone, kid! Then again, heroes should know better than to bully people. Maggie cocks her head right in Myrtle’s red, freckled face, and Myrtle’s already-fading smile vanishes completely.
I push my books off my desk and let them fall with a slap to the floor.
Maggie and Whanslaw both jerk around to look at me, and they don’t look like heroes at all at the moment. They’re like sharks in puppet form, and I’m their chum. As they’re heading my way, the end-of-period bell rings, and the door opens a third time.
Three Protection Committee members in the room at once. Kiyo, as elegant as Maggie is primitive, is a Japanese puppet with a white face, red lips, and black hair, and wears a long, traditional silk costume. It’s not a kimono—there are too many layers—but maybe there’s one under there somewhere. In every picture I’ve seen, women like Kiyo are serene, but not Kiyo. She always seems a twitch away from sneering. Usually I like that, when she’s sneering in the face of danger. Today, it’s one thing too many.
“Stop playing with the little dears so we can leave!” she demands, motioning impatiently to Maggie, who giggles and goes to join her. Whanslaw keeps coming, right up to my desk. Bending down, he does something no puppet should be able to do. He picks up each of my books, returning them to my desk one at a time with his blue jointed fingers, keeping his black glass eyes fixed on me the whole time. When all the books have been replaced, he bends down once more, and I remember that my canvassing form was under the stack. He puts it on top, instead, and caresses it with a jerky motion.
“Make sure this comes first,” he says to me. Then he makes his bobbing way out of the room.
We don’t leave the room when the bell rings, even though we’re allowed. We sit in uneasy silence, and no one dares to go out in the hall until we’re sure the puppets are gone.
I stare out the window at the Protection Committee’s headquarters, the big mansion up on top of Havasu Hill. I’ve always liked how school is halfway down the hill from it. Today, it’s a reminder that the puppets aren’t just watching over us, they’re also watching US, and we’d better toe the line.
When someone is on your side, you forget that being scary means they can scare YOU.
I guess the Protection Committee showed us.
Chapter 8
Pole Sitting
I’m in a funk the rest of the day. Come dismissal time, I trail the others out the door, but I’m barely even listening as Raymond and Cayden check Nopes on Cayden’s phone.
“It’s not the greatest picture,” Cayden says.
“Hey, nobody else has one,” says Raymond.
“Yeah, why is that, freak?” asks Ralph, elbowing Cayden as he goes by.
“It’s Freaked,” says Cayden. We should maybe change his Nopes handle. That joke has outlived its usefulness.
Ralph swings around to face us. “That’s the part that don’t make any sense,” he says. “No way somebody who’s always freaked went all the way out to Sunset Ridge and snapped that pic.”
“Oh, he got it,” says Raymond. “And he had to go toward the Blurmonster to do it.”
Ralph scoffs. “You never saw the Blurmonster.”
Delmar barges right through us like he’s a bowling ball and we’re pins. “Of course they didn’t. It’s invisible.”
“Transparent, not invisible,” I say, as I notice a crowd beginning to gather around the flagpole.
“Say what you want,” says Raymond. “That photo’s time-stamped, and we’re the ones who too
k it. That’s a win.”
I agree in theory, but it still feels wrong to “win” a competition that’s about finding six missing kids. This kind of story … we kids tell it, generation after generation, but we don’t really think about certain things. I have no idea where the Sunset Six’s parents might be now, or if they’re still looking for their loved ones. Now that we’ve found them, maybe some of the Six’s relatives will notice the posts on Nopes.
Will city officials admit that Mike Hannagan didn’t have anything to do with it? Probably not, that’s what I think. But we’ll know. That knowledge is surprisingly heavy.
I walk past Ralph and Delmar toward the crowd of kids. They’re in a ring around that little alien, who’s still doggedly hanging on to the flagpole by its teeth. I’m inclined to keep walking. Things are tough all over.
Then Ralph and Delmar come up behind me, which is bad news for the alien. Pearl called Ralph and Delmar the trolls. They’re the biggest kids in our class—short on brains and long on fist reach. I’m usually all right with Ralph and Delmar. They let me lead, and they love a good fight.
They’re bad news for the little alien, though. The trolls love free entertainment. From where I’m standing, the situation is actually kind of adorable—they’re trying to heckle.
“Lookit it running its face up the flagpole!” says Ralph. He elbows Delmar, who hyucks and shoves him back. They mostly communicate through moshing.
“It’s so … purple. I’m gonna call him Purple Nerple.”
“That’s dumb. It don’t even have nerples.” Delmar pokes at the alien. I find this pretty ill-advised. Dangling from a flagpole may not be the smartest hobby, but that thing’s got choppers for miles. I bet it could take somebody’s hand right off.
Ralph rubs his chin in an “I’ve got an idea” kind of way.
“You know,” he says, obviously enjoying the circle of onlookers. “Nerple here doesn’t look like a flag to me at all.”
Delmar’s surprise is probably genuine. “It doesn’t?”
“Nah. I think it looks more like … a tetherball.”