I turned the TV’s volume down and listened to Echo bustle around in the kitchen. Part of me wanted to go out there and talk to her, maybe feel her out a little bit. What kind of brother was I? How was I supposed to treat her? What did she call our parents? What did she think of them? But I held back and closed the door instead.
A half hour later, there was a knock. I could hear Echo call my name, but I just got into bed and pulled the sheets over my head until she went away.
I know. I’m a real coward sometimes, but there was still something about Echo that bothered me. The image from this morning of her standing in the doorway came back into my head, and I suddenly realized what it was. It was that girl, the one I’d seen on TV back when I was Echo’s age, the one whose form my mother had taken on, whose schoolbooks became my schoolbooks for the next year. Echo looked just like her—not so much the face, but the hair and the clothes, the backpack. It was all so familiar. Those parents probably never found their daughter, just like at some point Echo’s brother would disappear and she and her parents would never find him. It was only a matter of time. And I was the only one who knew it.
Of course, my mother would have a different take. “You’re overthinking things,” she’d probably say. “Just become the form. Forget about your own miserable self for once.”
And she would probably be right.
Later that evening Echo knocked, then poked her head in. I hit the mute button.
“Supper’s ready,” she said. “Mom told me to get you. She made yellow meal.”
“Okay,” I said, wondering what “yellow meal” was. I got out of bed and followed Echo down the hall.
“Yellow meal” turned out to be frozen fish patties heated in the oven, Kraft macaroni and cheese, and canned corn. Apparently it was my favorite. To be honest, it was pretty good, if a bit monochromatic, and I was hungry, too, having eaten only half a can of beans in the last two days. Still, I was supposed to be sick, so I poked the food around the plate a bit at first. I figured sick people weren’t supposed to seem too eager.
“Still not feeling great, huh?” Sheila asked, watching me. “By now you’ve usually inhaled your first plate and reloaded for seconds.”
Before I could answer, she turned and hollered into the living room.
“Barry, get in here! Your supper’s getting cold!”
A minute later Barry came in, the smoke from the last drag of his cigarette still trailing from his nostrils. He swigged the remnants of his beer and set it down next to the two other empty cans on the counter.
“You left the TV on, Dad,” Echo said. Barry turned to her but didn’t say anything, and after a second Echo looked down at her food.
“How was work?” Sheila asked.
“A bitch. Big delivery in the morning, then a bunch of pipes broke at the hospital and I had guys coming in all afternoon looking for this and that. I told Mitch, another day like that and he could find himself a new manager.”
“Careful,” she said, “he might take you up on it.”
“Funny, Sheila,” he said. “He knows he could never make it without me there to run things for him.”
“I suppose,” she replied.
“No supposing,” he said.
Then nobody said a word. We all just ate, staring at our plates, glancing up from time to time to see if anyone else was glancing up, and then ducking our eyes back down. Finally Barry broke the silence.
“And what about you?” he said, turning to me. “Is the little pansy going to be feeling good enough to go to school tomorrow?”
“Barry, stop it,” Sheila said.
“Well, the game against Waterbury’s coming up this weekend. I don’t care how good a linebacker he is, if he misses another practice, coach might not start him.”
“I’m feeling better,” I said.
“Well, start acting like it. You know, you look kind of funny. All pale and everything. Jesus, no wonder Amber doesn’t call anymore.” He started laughing.
“Barry, leave him alone,” Sheila said. “Things are going fine with Amber. Isn’t that right, Chris?” She turned and looked at me expectantly.
“Swimmingly,” I said. I’d heard people say it in the movies before, and I always liked the sound of it. Unfortunately it didn’t go over well with Barry.
“Swimmingly?” he said, scrunching up his face. “What are you, a faggot or something?”
“No,” I said. “I just meant things were all right, that’s all.”
“Swimmingly,” Echo said, then giggled to herself. She liked the word too.
“Shut up, Echo,” her father barked.
“Swimmingly,” Echo said again, laughing harder.
“Jesus Christ,” he said, getting up. He grabbed his plate and went back into the living room. Sheila sighed and shook her head.
“Swimmingly,” Echo murmured, smiling down at her plate.
“God, Echo, would you just shut up,” Sheila said, slamming her fork down. Echo jumped at the noise, and I admit I did a little too. We watched as Sheila got up from the table with her plate, went over to the sink, and started doing the dishes, her face set hard.
Echo and I finished eating dinner alone. Neither of us spoke until the end.
“By the way,” Echo said, “Amber did call. This afternoon.”
“She did?” I said, snapping to attention.
“I tried to get you, but you wouldn’t open your door.”
“So what’d you do?”
“I told her you were sick.”
“What did she say?”
“She said ‘good.’”
As I lay in bed that night, I thought back over my first day as Chris Parker. To be honest, I was a little disappointed. Not so much with myself. Things hadn’t gone perfectly—or even swimmingly, for that matter—but I thought I’d held my own. It had more to do with Chris’s family. I know. Who was I to be disappointed in anybody? But as much as I hated killing Chris, a part of me had hoped to find a home, join a real family like the ones I’d seen on TV, even for a little while. Kind of sick, I guess. But the truth sometimes is.
Problem was, I didn’t really like my new family, and they didn’t seem to like me. In fact, I didn’t think any of them liked each other. Lying there in bed, I looked out the window at the half-moon hanging in the sky. Maybe I should just leave, I thought. Why stick around? Part of me wanted to bolt. You don’t owe them anything. Get back on the road. But part of me knew it didn’t matter whether I owed them anything—I owed it to myself to stick it through, to challenge myself, like my mother would have wanted. So the Parkers aren’t your dream family, I could hear her say. Big deal. Life is full of disappointments. Suck it up.
In the end I couldn’t bring myself to leave. Not for any high-minded reason or anything like that. I just didn’t have the energy. It was funny—I didn’t go anywhere or do much of anything that first day, but for some reason I was exhausted. Maybe it was from more than just today. Maybe it was from everything that had happened the day before, or the week before, or ever since my mother kicked me out. Maybe it was my whole life.
CHAPTER FIVE
Getting to school wasn’t too hard. I just stood out on the corner with a bunch of other kids my own age, and pretty soon a bus came by and picked us up. I was a little nervous when I first showed up and some of the kids started talking to me, but after a while I began to relax. It was kind of like a warm-up for the rest of the day.
Some guy asked me where I was yesterday, and I told him I was sick. Another asked with what, and I said it was my stomach. And blahbitty, blahbitty, blah. It’s surprising how easy it is to fake it with most people, especially if they think you’re who you appear to be and don’t know any better. You just sort of keep your mouth shut for the most part, and spend the rest of the time agreeing with whatever the other person says. “You bet!” “You’re right!” “Totally!” People like it when you agree with them. And if anybody notices anything different about you, you just say something like, “I�
�m just really tired,” or “I don’t feel so hot today,” or “I think I’m coming down with something,” and people pretty much let it slide. Besides, most of the stuff people talk about is meaningless anyway. Any moron can talk.
Pretty soon the bus dropped us off, and I found myself being ushered along with the crowd into a big brick building with a sign out front that said “Bakersville High School—Home of the Sharks,” which I thought was pretty funny since we weren’t anywhere near the ocean that I could tell.
I’d seen plenty of high school movies and TV shows before, so the scene inside wasn’t too strange. The kids looked pretty much the same, all standing in clusters here and there along the hallways, talking, laughing. Even though it was first thing in the morning, it was a Friday, and people were excited for the weekend.
As I walked down the hall, kids kept saying “Hi!” to me as I passed, patting me on the back, or giving me a little punch on the arm. The girls were especially friendly. They kept giving me these smiles and saying “Hi, Chris,” in this weird singsongy voice that made me feel a little prickly in a good sort of way. When Chris told me everybody liked him, I hadn’t believed him, but it seemed now that he’d been right, and for the first time it felt good to be Chris Parker. So good that by the time I found Josh and Steve with a bunch of other jocks, I was brimming with confidence.
“What’s up,” Steve said, grinning and holding out his hand. I held out my hand too, and he grabbed it and did some weird little move that involved clapping and snapping and something else that I couldn’t catch in time.
“What’s up,” I replied. That’s another little trick I figured out—if someone says something to you and you’re not sure how to respond, just repeat it back to them. Half the time they don’t even notice.
“Missed you yesterday, Parker,” Josh said. “Coach was mad. You better lay low at practice.”
“Planning on it,” I said.
“Hey, where’s your jersey?” Steve said, giving me a little shove. One of the things I’ve noticed about human males, especially the jocks, is that they’re always touching each other. They make a big deal about not being “queer,” but between the shoving and punching and slapping, not to mention the headlocks and butt smacks, it’s like they can’t keep their hands off each other.
I quickly realized the rest of the guys were all wearing their football jerseys.
“In the wash,” I said, hoping it would stick.
Steve shook his head. “I do not want to be you at practice today.”
Great. The last thing I needed was to call attention to myself.
I stood around with the other guys for a while and half listened to them talk about football. From what I could gather, they were wearing their jerseys because of the game against Waterbury tomorrow, but I was more interested in finding Amber. Shouldn’t she have met me by my locker? Isn’t that what high school girlfriends are supposed to do?
By the time the bell rang for first period, any confidence I’d gained had vanished. I suddenly realized I had no idea where I was supposed to go. Fortunately good old Josh saved the day.
“Let’s go, Parker. We got history.”
“You’re right,” I said, and followed him down the hall. After about a dozen steps he stopped, then I stopped, and we both just sort of looked at each other.
“Aren’t you going to get your books?” he asked, gesturing toward the bank of lockers behind me.
Oops, I thought, following his gesture. This could be bad.
“Um,” I tried to stall. “Ah, screw it,” I suddenly said, and sort of shrugged my shoulders like I was tough and all, and to hell with school.
Josh just sort of shook his head and snorted. He pushed by me, went up to a locker, and banged twice. It opened to reveal a pile of books.
“Come on,” he said. “You know how Johnson can be. Not that it matters—we’re just going to be watching a video like we do every other day.”
“All right,” I said. I went up to the locker and peered in. There was a picture of some girl taped to the inside door that looked like it had been taken out of one of the magazines in Chris’s closet. I looked over Chris’s books as students continued to rush by on their way to class.
“Hurry up,” Josh barked, “we’re going to be late.”
Finally I just grabbed the whole stack and followed Josh down the hall. We made it to class just in time, taking the last pair of seats as the bell rang. Mr. Johnson called the class to order, and I was off—my first day of school had officially begun.
Fortunately history turned out to be U.S. history, something I’d learned about already. Of course, it wasn’t a high school book I’d studied back at the cabin, but based on the questions Mr. Johnson asked us, it wasn’t that much harder. In fact, I don’t mean to brag, but I seemed to know more than most of the other kids in the class did. It was early in the year, and we were in the middle of the Revolutionary War. After a bit of discussion, the lights were turned out and we watched a video, while Johnson graded papers at his desk.
The video was a documentary on the Founding Fathers. It turned out I’d seen the whole series three times already on public television, so I used the period to go through Chris’s notebook and try to get a sense of what was going on. Fortunately his schedule was taped to the inside. History, study hall, science, phys ed, math, English—it all seemed pretty run of the mill. The only class that really raised a flag was Spanish 2, right before lunch. The only Spanish I knew was what I’d learned watching Sesame Street.
The bell rang and everyone headed out. Josh and I parted company, and I followed the door numbers until I found my next class.
The day went on like this. I kept a low profile, and nobody really called on me or anything. Even Spanish turned out not to be too bad. The teacher, Mrs. Olson, spoke mostly in English as we worked on conjugating verbs. At one point, though, she turned to me, rattled something off in Spanish, and waited. I just repeated it back to her and then held my breath as she gave me a sort of funny look and a few kids snickered. There was a long pause. Uh-oh, I thought.
“That was excellent, Chris,” she said at last. “Really, a good job.”
“Gracias,” I said, and smiled.
In spite of that, I found the period to be pretty stressful, so when the bell rang and everyone headed off, I went up to speak with her.
“I was wondering if it was too late to drop the class,” I asked.
She frowned a little and shook her head. “It’s still early enough in the year,” she said, “but I wouldn’t advise it. Remember, most colleges require at least two years of a language.”
“Well,” I said, “somehow I don’t think I’ll be going to college.”
“Now, Chris,” she said, “I know you’ve had your struggles in school, especially in my class, but you shouldn’t give up. I hear a lot of talk about how you’re due for a big football scholarship. Just stick with it. You’ve got a bright future ahead of you.”
Yeah, really bright, I thought. “Thanks,” I murmured. I suddenly wanted to disappear, to shrivel up and blow away or crawl into some dark hole. I wondered if that culvert Chris was in had room enough for two.
“Besides,” she said, “I’ve never heard you speak so fluidly as you did today. It was beautiful—I think you may be turning a corner.”
“Maybe,” I said.
I turned and left the room, resisting the urge to break into a dead run and keep on going right out the front door. Instead, I ducked into the boy’s bathroom and splashed some water on my face. All of a sudden, I wasn’t feeling so good.
“Keep it together,” I said, looking in the mirror, watching the water drip off my face.
That was when I saw it.
It started with just a little twitch in the corner of my right eye. As I leaned in to check it out, both eyes swelled to watery, yellow bulbs, both pupils drew into slits, and there I was, staring into doppelganger eyes. I jumped back and gasped.
It only lasted a moment before fa
ding with no more than a ripple.
A toilet flushed, sending my heart into my throat. I dried my face with my shirt as one of the stall doors opened and a tall boy with a shaved head came out.
“Come on, Parker,” he said, barely looking at me as he headed for the door. “You’re going to miss lunch.”
I followed him to the cafeteria and went to the end of the lunch line. It was pretty straightforward—get your tray, get your food, swipe your card, find a seat. I fumbled a little before finding the right card in Chris’s wallet, but pretty soon I was through the line, looking desperately for a seat amid the sea of students. Steve flagged me as I drifted by.
I sat down, nodded to everyone at the table, and began picking at my food. It wasn’t that I didn’t have an appetite. I did. I hadn’t had that much to eat these last few weeks and it was all starting to catch up with me. But suddenly I didn’t feel like eating. It’s like I couldn’t swallow right or something. Meanwhile, Steve started going off on all the kids around us, making nasty comments about this guy’s face or that girl’s tits or which freshman he’d like to bang. Really gross stuff. I tried to ignore it for a while, but toward the end of lunch I just sort of lost it.
“Dude, will you shut up?” I said. I was practically yelling. I knew I shouldn’t have said it, but I was still feeling pretty lousy from my talk with Mrs. Olson, not to mention freaked out by what I’d seen in the bathroom. A few heads turned.
Steve seemed pretty taken aback. He kind of shrank for a second.
“What’s your problem?” he snipped. Then he looked up over my shoulder. “Oh, I get it,” he said. He picked up his tray and left. So did everyone else.
“Feeling better?” a girl’s voice said behind me.
Even before I turned, I knew it was her. I’d never heard her speak, but it was like I just knew. I looked up and saw her standing there in a cheerleading outfit, looking down at me. Her red hair was pulled partway back and hung around her like a fiery halo, and she was smiling, but in a weird sort of way. Her lips were tight, like she was trying to hold in a secret.
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