The images haunted her throughout the night.
Chapter 12
Bartholomew's eyes widened. An A. Yes! Mother was going to so relieved. He wanted to hug the test and feel all those correct answers warm against his chest.
Now it wouldn't matter that he had to bathe in a limo right after P.E. or if his clothes were different from everyone else's. He was passing math. Now he wouldn't have to be homeschooled again.
Holding it tightly, he glanced at Alex and smiled, but his friend kept he eyes focused front, and Bartholomew's joy quickly faded. They hadn't spoken since the day they argued, giving the boy in white an ever-bigger pit in the bottom of his stomach.
All of a sudden, Ms. Buttsfert rifled through her books, counting each one, and Bartholomew's blood froze. The answer book was still in his backpack, waiting to be returned. Not that he hadn't tried, but Ms. Buttsfert went from absentmindedly leaving the door ajar to locking it every time she left.
Leaning over, Bartholomew quietly unzipped his bag. How many times had he done this the last few days? Forty? Four hundred?
Every time he peeked, he was sure it'd be gone, whisked away by some police officer who sealed in an evidence room. Or as an alarm sounded, he'd find himself in the center of a spotlight while handcuffs descended from the ceiling.
Expecting to see a satisfied smile on Ms. Buttsfert's face, he glanced up. Instead, she showed the same look Mother got when she saw specks of dust. There was no reason for her to appear so grouchy. The class was quiet. Even Con and Ty were sitting politely. For once.
Ms. Buttsfert paced the room, eyes crawling over every child. She paused at Ty's desk and shook her head. She lifted an eyebrow at Con, but when her gaze crept up to Bartholomew, she nodded.
She knew! The color drained from his face. Should he run?
Bartholomew reached down and clutched his backpack. With one leg poised to dash away, he inched off the chair. She stomped closer, ready to tap him on the shoulder and tell him he was caught.
Get up, Bartholomew. Run!
Sweat beaded on his upper lip, but Ms. Buttsfert was so close he didn't dare wipe it away. Gardenia perfume hung in the air. He choked on the sick odor.
Keep going. Don't stop. Please, please pass me, he thought.
Ms. Buttsfert halted right next to him.
He felt a hand on the back of his char. His heart raced, pounding so loud he was sure she could hear it.
“I…” Bartholomew began.
“An A … hmm.”
He didn't dare look up.
Bartholomew opened and closed his mouth to apologize, but nothing came out.
“You did not show your work. Redo it at break,” she commanded, her blonde moustache stretching above a sneer.
Bartholomew felt sick. This was a trap. She wanted to get him alone so she could search his backpack. He had to get rid of the stolen book. NOW.
Yes, ma'am,” he croaked. As class droned on, his mind raced. As soon as the bell rings, go to the field. Run like the wind. When you get to the corner, throw that thing as far as you can. Then come back pretending a bathroom emergency.
When the bell finally rang, Bartholomew dashed out the door, passing right by a confused Ms. Buttsfert.
He heard her voice but didn't turn. “Bartholomew!” she bellowed. “Come back.”
He ran faster. Through laughing students. Past grinning faces. Over the sidewalk. When he bumped into Gwen, he mumbled a hurried apology before willing his feet to go ever faster towards the field.
His shoes squished into the recently watered grass. Mud, yuck! He leapt to one side, but the ground there was just as soggy.
Gazing straight ahead, he focused on one corner of the fence. Salvation. A place to toss that horrid book. There rays of light shone on the drainage pipe like heavenly beams.
“Bartholomew!” Ms. Buttsfert called.
He glanced over his shoulder and gaped. The shrieking teacher was getting closer by the second.
He sped up. Then suddenly, one foot stopped. For a split-second time froze. Down he went, splat, right into a mud puddle. Arms and legs all akimbo, he watched his backpack skid across the grass.
Ms. Buttsfert gray slacks flapped like vulture's wings as she descended upon him. “I told you to stay after class,” she hissed.
Bartholomew didn't reply. He was in a mud puddle just like the one Father had drowned in twelve years before.
“Why aren't you getting up? Are you hurt?”
Bartholomew hadn't thought of this. An injury, huh? He liked it. But where? Head? Torso? Limbs, yes. That would divert attention. He pointed at his right leg.
“Can you walk?”
Bartholomew shook his head. “I can't,” he groaned. It was the truth. If he got up, everything would be ruined.
“You don't look like you're in too much pain to me.”
He tried to sound in agony when he said, “My ankle. I think it's broken.”
“Pshaw,” Ms. Buttsfert blew as the nurse and Dr. Stricklin arrived with a wheelchair for the moaning Bartholomew.
He tried keeping up the act until to his horror, he saw Ms. Buttsfert pick up his unzipped backpack and follow alongside. His eyes never left the bag as they bumped over the field toward the office.
As if staring could magically keep everything inside.
As soon as they parked him at the nurse's office, the answer book tumbled onto the floor with a thud. Several of the adults chatting nearby stopped mid-sentence. The school secretary, Mrs. Boltnice, tilted her head to one side and pointed. Dr. Stricklin shook his balding head.
Bartholomew tried moaning again.
Ms. Buttsfert didn't miss a beat. She snatched up the answer book and shoved it in front of his face. “You lying little cheater. So that's how you got the A.”
Bartholomew stared at his mud-splattered slacks as cold prickles of shame pierced his every nerve.
This was the end.
* * *
Mr. White shook his head back and forth when he emerged from the principal's office. “Well, chappy. You seem to have got yourself in quite the mess, haven't you?”
Bartholomew shrugged. The less said the better.
The school nurse shook Mr. White's hand. “I have examined his ankle and can't find any swelling or signs of a break. I think the fall frightened him more than anything.”
“That remains to be seen, Miss. The family doctor will let us know.”
The blood drained from Bartholomew's face. Doctor? She'd probably put one of those blood pressure cuffs on him and pump it until he spilled the truth all over the examining table.
“I have brought clean clothes for Bartholomew. His mother gave me explicit instructions. He is to change before leaving.”
Bartholomew glanced around for Mother.
Mr. White read his mind. “Your mother awaits you in the car, young man. She could not bear to see you in the clothes your principal described over the telephone.” He handed Bartholomew a plastic bag. “If you would be so kind as to slip into these, we'll be on our way.”
The nurse's jaw dropped. She stared at Mr. White as if he'd suggested they toss a baby out a window. Bartholomew knew why. Not many families would ask a child to redress before rushing their kids to the doctor. Of course, Bartholomew's family was not like other families. Although she seemed shocked, she closed the blinds and stepped outside to let Bartholomew change.
He looked in the bag. Pajamas! He had to wear pajamas at school? And these were the jacquard silk ones. They didn't even look anything like the cartoony sweatpants other kids wore on pajama day.
He stripped, tossing his mud-caked clothes into the bag. He knew where they were going. The garbage.
When he stepped out into the hall a minute later, the nurse and Mr. White both turned to him simultaneously. “As you can see,” the nurse said. “His ankle is fine. The fall only scared him.”
Oh, no! He forgot to limp. Never too late. He hobbled to Mr. White and held out a hand for support.
&
nbsp; “Fine, indeed.” Mr. White glared at the nurse. “Come along, Master Borax.” He offered an arm for Bartholomew to lean on and led him toward the door.
Luckily, there were only a few kids in the office. Most were at the other end of the hallway. There was a preschooler sitting next to his mom in the waiting area, but Bartholomew didn't care what little kids thought. He even managed a smile for the mousy-haired boy. “Hey!” the urchin called. “Why you got your PJs on?”
“I'm hurt.”
“Oh,” the boy said before going back to playing with the zipper on his sweatshirt.
Keeping a pained look on his face, Bartholomew limped to the parking lot.
Inside the stretch limousine, Mother waited, sternly facing front as if she didn't dare look in Bartholomew's direction. Although steam had filled the inside of the car, it added no color to her cheeks. If anything, her face was paler than usual.
Bartholomew hung his head and waited for some word. Anything. Mr. White squeezed his shoulder. It seemed he, too, was dreading Hygenette Borax's wrath. She pivoted her head slowly toward them. As soon as she saw Bartholomew, she put one hand to her forehead and swooned. “FILTH! MY BABY IS FILTH!”
Her words echoed so loudly that Bartholomew thought he saw the school walls shaking. God, he wished he could disappear.
Leaping from the limo, Mrs. Borax jumped around frantically like a grasshopper between two pecking birds. “My baby. My beautiful clean baby. What have they done to you?”
“I am quite all right, Mother.”
“Probably infected. A horrible illness.”
“The nurse said his ankle looked fine,” Mr. White broke in.
“I can see that! He's walking, isn't he? He needs disinfecting. The germs. The bacteria. The disease!” She gathered up the stack of towels on the car seat and threw them at him. “Bathe at once!”
Bartholomew caught them, crawled miserably into in the limo, and sat next to the full bathtub. Waiting for them to close the door, he cleared his throat loudly.
Still open.
He did it again, louder this time. They still ignored him.
“Our chappy will be right as rain in no time, Mrs. Borax.”
“Oh, the dirt. The filth. Exactly like when Bartholomew Junior …” she muttered between long hiccups.
Did she have to mention Father? He felt bad enough. Now he was her making her relive the horrible drowning. The guilt knife twisted deeper.
No matter. Upset mother or no upset mother, he was not going to strip with the door open and the privacy glass down. He was twelve, after all.
“Bartholomew.” She poked her head into the limo. “Get in the bath.
“But—”
“No buts. Go!”
Bartholomew had put up with a lot in his twelve years, but getting naked in front of the whole school? It was where he drew the line. He stuck out his lower lip and crossed his arms. “NO!” he said.
Mrs. Borax froze. Their mouths agape, Mr. White and the chauffeur stared at him incredulously.
Bartholomew sighed. Were they that oblivious? “The door is open!” he cried. “And the glass is down.”
The door slammed in his face, and Bartholomew heard another scream.
It was somehow soothing.
Chapter 13
The Lord of the Shadow Swine stared out from the throne room on the top floor of his castle. Carved from Subterranea's largest stalagmite, it was twenty stories high, giving him a perfect view of Caustic Cavern. He had named his tower Sickhert's Stalagmite so no one would ever forget who ruled in this underground land.
He glanced at the obsidian clock. Its crystal hands told him it was nearly time. West coast humans would soon be drifting off to sleep, and with so few Knights of Painted Light, it would be easy to invade their dreams.
Turning toward the miniature volcano in the center of the throne room, Lord Sickhert stretched his arms. He admired the way his albino hands contrasted with the black surface as his long claw-tipped fingers scratched and caressed the smooth sides.
While steam rose from the waist-high basin of lava in front of him, he recited the ancient chant: “Lava Pool Gramarye. Help me search for happy dreams. To twist and turn and drain away. While tormenting humans with thoughts of gray.”
Lava bubbled. Winding tendrils of white mist filled the room and hung suspended like hundreds of ensnaring spider webs. Then as if the spiders all awakened at once and shot silk from their spinnerets, each took shape, filling every corner with ghostly human figures.
Lord Sickhert pointed a bone-white finger at one of the misty shapes. The image of a young girl with short pigtails floated toward him. She had her eyes closed and was smiling as if having a happy dream—one soon to be bent and warped by his minions.
“Fly, fly through the air. Straight into my Shadow Swine's lair,” he hissed, running a tongue over double rows of jagged teeth. “And art will become your worst nightmare.”
Sickhert drove his fist into the girl's spectral face. Immediately, the apparition recoiled and flew out the misshapen window. Grinning savagely, his lordship watched the dream child drift toward his Shadow Swine's army barracks.
He loved this high perch. From here, he could see all of Caustic Cavern. To the west was the Great Window of Red where lava dribbled down a high wall. On the opposite side, stepped dams called Gour Pools caught the mucous-filled slime trickling from the ceiling. Next to them, a labyrinth of tunnels cut into the cavern wall leading to the army barracks.
A hunchbacked soldier emerged from one of the caves in the wall and snatched the wraithlike figure of the floating girl from the air. With a salute, he disappeared back into his hole.
“He will find his work easy this night,” Lord Sickhert said.
In the southern valley, other Shadow Swine were gathered on the banks of the River of Lies. They inhaled the sulfuric fumes of lava and water—the vaporous mixture that fueled the draining of dreams. The soldiers swayed back and forth as blue-gray steam filled the air, their piggish nostrils flaring with each breath.
“Go, my minions,” Lord Sickhert said. “Power. Gain it now.”
The creatures below panted and blew as more dark mist filled the air. making the slime covering on each of their faces thicker and more viscous. Their yellow eyes glowed through the steamy haze. while they swayed in a trance-like dance of breathing, hissing, and moaning.
“Yes,” Sickhert rasped, rubbing his long hands together. “More.” He turned back to the Lava Pool Gramarye and repeated his spell. Soon the outlines of mothers, uncles, and sons appeared, each representing a human dreamer on Earth. Lord Sickhert sent them all to his waiting army. “Creation thoughts will be drained white this day.”
One-by-one, the Shadow Swine below trapped a human dreamer beneath a dark cape. With hunched backs heaving, they opened their cavernous mouths and blew. Scores of dark smoke escaped from blood red lips.
Then, like rising floodwaters on a horse-filled plain, the twisting smoke shot beneath the folds of all those dark cloaks. The fabric rose and fell in jerky waves as if a hundred stallions were drowning underneath.
His albino eyes grew wide reflecting the scene below. Glorious, Sickhert thought. Almost as beautiful as the day that the Borax father drowned in mud … ridding us of another artist.
The cries of nightmares filled the air, and his jagged grin widened. With a satisfied sigh, Sickhert lowered himself onto his black throne. His work was not yet done. He pulled on a stalactite lever hanging next to the royal seat, and a sob yowled throughout the castle. Adjusting the folds of his white robe, he waited.
The sound of clawed feet scratched up the staircase. A moment later, Sludge and Scum entered the throne room and dropped to their knees. “What is your will, my lord?” Sludge gurgled, his mouth full of foam. Crawling closer, he dribbled spittle onto his master's feet.
“Many dreams are being turned this night,” Sickhert said, accepting Sludge's honorific spittle by rubbing his maggot white toes together. “The Del
iverers' friends turn from art. However, a few are resistant. You must find their every weakness and use them to your advantage.”
Sludge glanced at the stairs leading to the torture room and touched one of the blisters on his face.
“You had best remember my Correction Chamber,” Sickhert warned, his voice like a den of slithering snakes. “Or those burns will feel like a Gour Pool bath compared to what you will next receive.”
“We are invading their dreams, sire,” Sludge assured him.
Scum nodded his bulbous head. “Ya, ya. We get 'em good.”
“I expect nothing less. Now, go!”
Crawling backward, the two Shadow Swine made their way to the door of the throne room, spitting reverently all the while. When they exited, Lord Sickhert rose from his glassy black chair and returned to the Lava Pool Gramarye. Stroking either side of the mini-volcano, he watched the twisted dreams unfold.
With every nightmare, his serrated smile grew wider. Then he laughed louder and louder. Soon his dissonant howls filled every inch of Subterranea.
And beyond.
Chapter 14
Surrounded. Trapped. Held hostage. Choking on the white, he was. Bartholomew looked at two pale faces glaring at him from across the long glass dining room table. Mother's thin cheeks pulled in tighter as if she were swallowing her own mouth, while Mr. White's bubble-fish eyes blinked in harmony. “You are a Borax, Bartholomew,” he said. “You have a reputation to uphold.”
“It's those dirt encrusted friends of his. I know it. I've had nightmares about their filth corrupting my poor baby.”
“We'll soon put a stop to it.”
Bartholomew didn't say a word. He hadn't for the last three hours of this lecture where they kept saying the same thing over and over. Mother took a break to bathe once. Then he'd only had Mr. White's droning to listen to. Now she was back, blonde hair pulled tight revealing the blue veins on her forehead. “Mr. White,” Mother said, turning her head. “I thought Bartholomew could manage school while acting like a proper Borax. Obviously, he cannot.”
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