Tripping on his books, the young boy fumbled for cover while the bullies followed in pursuit. Desperate, he rushed to the emergency exit and flung open the doors. A loud warning bell echoed through the hallways, but Simon didn’t hear it, for he was already maneuvering his way through the parking lot.
He found himself running down a busy street. Normally, his first instinct would have been to head towards the orphanage, but another building drew his attention instead—the video arcade. A sign at the door read: No Students Allowed Before 2:00 PM.
His watch showed 1:23 p.m., so he sat down at the edge of the curb and counted the reasons why nobody liked him. He even surprised himself by the extensive list he created. How could someone be so unloved?
As the minutes passed by, he noticed a bunch of large black ants attempting to carry a green leaf with a nest of caterpillar eggs attached to it—a food source that would sustain the insects for some time—but the leaf hardly budged. Simon gazed in amusement as a family of smaller ants kept walking onto the leaf, weighing it down. Perturbed by this, the larger ants would let go of the leaf to chase off the smaller ants, but as the big ants were lured away, the remaining small ants monopolized the leaf until they too were forced away by their larger cousins. The two types of ants fought in this manner, over and over. And after several minutes, the leaf hadn’t moved even one centimeter.
Suddenly, a screeching tire rolled over both groups of ants. Mrs. Trimble had just pulled up. She rolled down her window. “Simon, let’s go home.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“This is where I’d go if I just had a bad day,” she said with a warm smile. Simon got into the station wagon, and they drove off.
* * *
The orphanage, which was really just an old two-story home, belonged to Mrs. Trimble, a kind, elderly woman who loved her job very much and loved her foster children even more. But since her husband’s recent passing, she had been forced to reevaluate her position as overseer of the foster home. She wasn't as young as she used to be, and she found herself relying more and more on the aid of her niece, Maggie.
Although she took care of a handful of adolescents, most of her affection centered on Simon. She even enrolled him in karate lessons to help raise his self-esteem. Some of the other children in the foster home thought she showed favoritism, but Simon knew the real reason she paid so much attention to him: He reminded Mrs. Trimble of her son.
After attending to some menial tasks and thanking her niece for babysitting once again, Mrs. Trimble walked into the children’s bedroom on the second floor, holding a bottle of alcohol and a clean rag. Simon was sitting on the edge of a well-used bed, playing a video game on his handheld device. A tiny six-year-old named Dimitri sat next to him and watched in awe.
“Dimitri, what have I told you about getting too close to the other kids?” Mrs. Trimble scolded. “The whole reason you stayed home from school today was so you wouldn’t make anyone sick.”
“Sorry.” The little boy sneezed. Dimitri was a cute blond-haired boy with a good heart, deep blue eyes, and a stuffy nose.
The boy exited the room, but Simon didn’t seem to notice; he sat in his own little world, covered by shadows. Mrs. Trimble turned on the light, but the room didn’t brighten very much because three of the four light bulbs had already burned out. She noticed the sheet of paper taped to Simon’s back. It read: Kick Me!
“Oh, my goodness!” Mrs. Trimble exclaimed, pulling the paper off his back. She turned the sheet over and read the first sentence of Simon’s book report. “Who would do such a thing?” Simon didn’t even look up.
She dipped the rag into the alcohol. “This may hurt a bit.”
She wasn’t kidding! Simon thought. His cut stung as she patted the dried blood on his forehead. He flinched to remind her of the pain but not enough to stop himself from playing his video game.
Mrs. Trimble removed his broken glasses. A spider web design ran down one of the lenses, while the warped frame pushed the other lens out of place.
“Simon, why do you insist on wearing these things? You know you don’t really need glasses.”
“You wouldn’t hit someone with glasses, would you?” he asked dryly, not moving his eyes from the video display.
“Of course not.” She pulled open a drawer that contained a slew of eyeglasses, most of which were damaged, and tossed the broken pair in with the others. The old woman fumbled around the drawer until she found a good pair. She put them onto Simon’s face. “So you think the kids at school will stop hurting you if you wear glasses?”
“Not just the kids at school. Butch has it in for me.”
“Butch?” she said, surprised. “Butch is as gentle as a lamb.”
“No he’s not!” Simon shot back. “He’s the meanest person I’ve ever met.”
“Look, Simon, Butch has had it pretty bad. His parents were murdered a few years ago…” She paused, then continued, “…on his birthday, of all days.”
“What happened?” Simon remained intent on his game.
“I’m only telling you this so you’ll understand where he’s coming from. What I tell you stays in this room, okay?”
Simon nodded.
“His mother and father were stabbed to death, and the killer was never found. You remember when he first came here? He was the most troubled boy I’d ever seen. It took days before he could talk to the police.”
“I didn’t know,” Simon whispered.
“Not many people do.” Mrs. Trimble stood up to put the alcohol back into the bathroom cupboard. She started to walk away.
“Where’s my mom and dad?”
Mrs. Trimble turned around. The young boy had switched off his video game and was looking up at her, longingly. Although she had been the only mother he had known, it wasn’t enough; he had to know the truth.
“Where’s my mom and dad?” he asked again, more firmly. He wasn’t about to let her dodge the question—not this time.
She looked solemnly at the carpet. “You don’t know, do you?” she whispered. “I never did tell you… I suppose it’s about time I did.” She sat next to him, and Simon’s stomach churned in anticipation.
“I wasn’t there when it happened, but I was told that when you were born, you really gave the doctors a show. Your mother was—how should I say this?—not well-to-do.”
“What do you mean?”
“She was homeless—a vagrant, I suppose. She came into the hospital with no money, no ID, and just the clothes on her back. Well, she did have something. Come with me.”
The two of them walked out of the room and into the hall.
What in the world could it be? His stomach did somersaults, and his weak lungs forced him to take a deep puff from his inhaler to compensate for his excitement.
In all the years Simon had been at the orphanage, he had never been inside Mrs. Trimble’s bedroom—not many of the children had—but that was exactly where the old lady was leading him. She pulled out a key and unlocked the door.
Nearly everything in the room looked older than Simon: a battered coffee table and lamp, a few Oriental rugs, pictures of relatives, an aging record player, and so on.
Simon noticed a black and white photograph of a young man dressed in a pilot’s jumpsuit, standing in front of an airplane. This must have been Mrs. Trimble’s son, David, before he was shot down in the Vietnam War. Simon frowned at the old photograph. How could he, a scrawny boy, remind her of the big, strong man in the picture?
“This way,” she said.
Mrs. Trimble urged Simon to the back of the room. She detached part of the molding from the wall, revealing a secret compartment. Several shiny objects glistened from the rays of sun that crept in through the wooden blinds. From within the tiny hole, Mrs. Trimble brought out a jet-black medallion attached to a thin golden chain.
“This was your mother’s,” she said, handing it to him. Simon stared at the strange engravings embedded in the medallion. The metal was cold to the t
ouch, but it seemed to warm his heart.
“Simon,” she continued slowly, “your mother isn’t coming back. She died in the hospital when you were born. She said she wanted you to have this.”
Simon felt as if his heart had just been ripped in two. “And where’s my dad?” he asked behind a sniffle, dreading the answer.
“I don’t know. Your father was never found. In fact, we don’t even know what your mother’s name was… but I think you should know that she loved you very much. No one can describe the love a mother has for her son.”
Tears welled up in her eyes, and the two of them hugged. As they embraced, Simon gazed at the old photograph sitting on the mantel. Mrs. Trimble’s large and handsome son was just so different from what the boy had expected… so different from Simon.
* * *
That night, Simon lay sobbing in his bed. Everyone in the house was asleep—or at least, he thought they were—but then Dimitri’s small, familiar voice broke the silence. “What’s wrong?”
Simon wiped his eyes. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” Dimitri said innocently. “Why are you crying?”
Tears trickled down Simon’s face. “Because I killed my mother.” He wept bitterly.
Dimitri put his tiny arm around his friend and comforted him in the dark.
Chapter 2
Butch
“Francis Eugene Oswald, you get back here!”
“Yeah, Francis, you get back here,” Dimitri said, imitating Mrs. Trimble.
Everyone laughed but stopped when the teenager snapped his head around in disapproval. “My name is Butch,” he growled, slamming the door behind him as he left.
“I don’t know what’s happening to that boy,” Mrs. Trimble said to no one in particular. Butch had missed curfew last night and had come home with a black eye.
The children ate their breakfast merrily while Mrs. Trimble beat the life out of a bowl of eggs. “Simon,” she yelled, “come and eat, or you’ll be late for the bus!”
“I’ll get ’im,” squealed Dimitri. He leapt from the table and ran up the stairs. Simon lay motionless in his bed. “Simon! Simon! Wake up… wake up… wake up, Simon… wake up, Simon.” Dimitri prodded relentlessly until Simon responded.
“Go away,” the twelve-year-old mumbled incoherently into his pillow.
“But you’ll be late for school.”
Simon looked up at the little boy. No, not the puppy-dog eyes! He was powerless to resist Dimitri’s long face. “Okay—squirt. I’m getting up.”
Simon lumbered to the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. Several large bottles spilled out into the sink. Mrs. Trimble had been informed previously that she should keep the medications behind lock and key, but over the years she had become lax with the rules. Besides, Simon was the most obedient child she had ever known.
A large array of pill bottles, consisting of different sizes, colors, and labels, rested on the shelves. They all had one thing in common: Simon’s name printed on them.
As early as the boy could remember, he had always been sick. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another. He could have sworn he’d had the chicken pox three times now, and he was the only kid he knew who received medical supplies as Christmas gifts instead of toys. Someone even had the audacity to give him a thermometer—with his name imprinted on it, no less!—for his ninth birthday.
Simon swallowed half a dozen colorful pills. He slapped some cold water on his brown hair and wrestled with the perpetual rooster’s tail on the top of his head.
Back in the bedroom, he filled his fanny pack with his video game machine, a couple of extra games to play during lunch, and some spare batteries. He glanced at his watch and panicked. He was going to be late for the bus!
Simon started to run when a glint of light caught the corner of his eye. He looked over at his bed and discovered the source of the light. The medallion seemed to be looking up at him, beckoning him.
He walked over to his bed and picked up the cold piece of metal. A feeling of caution—or was it foreboding?—came over him. He rubbed the medallion between his fingers methodically. What was this, and why had his mother wanted him to have it?
Simon raised the necklace above his head. Holding onto the gold chain, he let the medallion drop. Mesmerized, he watched—for what seemed like an eternity—as the medallion spun in front of his face, untangling itself from the chain. The round pendant appeared as though it was suspended in midair, and Simon felt like life itself had gone into slow motion. With each rotation of the hypnotic charm, a ray of light threw itself against his pale face. Faster and faster… the medallion spun out of control. Suddenly, it stopped moving, as if some invisible hand had intervened.
Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Simon put the medallion on for the first time.
“SIMON!” yelled Mrs. Trimble from downstairs.
Startled, he opened his eyes, tucked the necklace under his button-down shirt, and rushed down the stairs to catch the school bus.
“You forgot your lunch!” Mrs. Trimble yelled after him, a bit too late.
He ran along the sidewalk, waving his hands up and down like a wild bird. The yellow bus finally stopped, and Simon boarded.
“Sorry,” he mumbled as he passed the bus driver. The burly man sitting in the driver’s seat shook his head disapprovingly but said nothing. The bus lurched forward.
Simon swayed back and forth as he stumbled down the narrow pathway, frantically searching for an empty seat. An outsider might have thought the driver was driving recklessly on purpose to make the young boy fall down, but a seasoned passenger like Simon knew that this was standard driving protocol for the bus driver. During a particularly sharp turn, his body was propelled into an open seat.
“Hey, Simon,” came the familiar yet troubled voice of an older girl.
Simon stared with his mouth agape at Sara Parker. “Oh, s-s-sorry, S-S-Sara.”
He moved to stand, but she grabbed his arm to stop him. “Simon, it’s okay. Please stay.”
A look of confusion spread over his face. Although it was strange that the prettiest girl in school wanted him to sit next to her, it was even more strange that she was sitting alone in the first place. After a minute of awkward silence, the only thing the boy could think to say was: “Where’s Butch?”
“I don’t know,” she answered slowly. “I haven’t seen him since last night.” She paused for a few seconds. “Simon, you know Francis pretty well, don’t you?”
“Yeah.” Simon’s eyes widened at hearing her call Butch by his real name. The last time he uttered the word Francis, he found himself dangling upside-down with his head stuck in a stinky toilet.
“He wouldn’t do anything crazy, would he?” she asked with hesitation in her voice.
“Crazy? Crazy in what way?”
“He wouldn’t…” she started. “He wouldn’t… hurt anyone, would he?”
“Well,” Simon said thoughtfully, “Mrs. Trimble says he’s gentle as a lamb.”
Sara smiled. “Yeah, I think so, too.” But then a wrinkle appeared on her forehead. “It’s just… sometimes he seems to be one way, and then the next minute, he’s a totally different person. Last night he got beat up, and to tell you the truth, I just don’t know how he’s going to react.”
Simon nodded his head. He had a few ideas of what Butch would do to the unfortunate soul who had injured him, but he thought it best not to share them with Sara.
Several students dropped their bags as the bus came to a screeching halt. The kids began to push their way down the aisle.
Standing up, Simon said, “Well, I hope everything goes all right for you… If you n-n-need someone to t-t-talk to…”
“Oh, you’re so sweet,” she said, leaning towards him. For a split second, Simon thought she was going to kiss him—but he’d never know for sure because, at that moment, the impatient kids forced him down the aisle. What was he thinking? Of course she wasn’t going to kiss him—mayb
e a pat on the head, but not a kiss. She was several years older than Simon, leagues apart in social standings, and just so beautiful. But, still… she had leaned over.
Sara, the prettiest girl in school, stood up and called out over the empty seats, “Thank you, Simon.”
Beaming from head to toe, the boy floated the rest of the way down the aisle. Actually, he was carried and pushed by the students, but he hardly noticed.
* * *
The first two class periods flew by without a problem, but Simon dreaded his next class: math. He wondered why the school forced him to take math in the first place. Why couldn’t he just buy a calculator instead and skip the class altogether?
The school hallways were a beehive of activity. Simon’s locker stood at the end of the building, which meant he had to brave his way through a sea of upper-class students every day to get there—never a fun journey for the small boy. He hated being enrolled in one of the few schools in New York that insisted on keeping grades seven through twelve in the same building.
Simon stopped to get a drink and noticed Butch standing next to an open locker nearby. The teenager was trying to be inconspicuous but failed miserably. He wore a long, black overcoat, steel-tipped boots, and a pair of dark sunglasses—attire that was very out of character for the sophomore, especially since few people had ever seen him in the halls without his letterman jacket.
A moment later, Buz and Spike—along with three other seniors—congregated at the locker. Buz and Spike looked like a couple of henchmen as they crowded around Butch in a tight circle. Simon couldn’t see what they were doing because of their bulky overcoats.
He took a big gulp of the cold, stale water and wondered if the liquid ever circulated in the drinking fountain or if it just lay there stagnating day after day. While musing on this singular thought, Simon turned his head just in time to catch a glimpse of something he wished he hadn’t seen.
Spike was handing Butch a gun.
Paraworld Zero Page 2