Diary of a Witness

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  I don’t really think you can blame yourself for what your brother grows up to be, but I never had one, so I didn’t feel qualified to say.

  “It does help to talk about this,” Will said.

  But we didn’t, after that night.

  We spent another week like that, catching our limit every day. Will tanned his deerskin and made a bunch of venison jerky. Froze what he didn’t dry. We made fires in the fireplace at night, and Uncle Max would come out of his room and tell us stories about his travels. He writes nonfiction books about other countries, so he can tell you things like what Afghanistan was like long before the Russian invasion, long before the Taliban came in and we chased them out again. He can tell you what Iran was like back when they called it Persia.

  I could listen to him all night, but I thought it was just me. But Will could listen all night, too. I think something shifted in Will when he found out Uncle Max didn’t hate him. Will thinks everybody hates him. Unfortunately, he’s usually right.

  Will loved trout fishing so much that he even learned how to tie flies.

  But by the time we had to go home, whatever good had come out of him seemed to go back into hiding again.

  On the drive home he was quiet. Too quiet. Something about his face seemed dark. He never once talked on the ride home. Uncle Max would say things to try to get him to chat, but all he would do was grunt.

  When we dropped him at his house, there was no one there. He had to go in with a key, and we helped him carry in all his stuff, and all his packages of frozen venison, wrapped in white butcher paper, that we brought back in Uncle Max’s cooler. And the packets of jerky. Only about two-thirds of the frozen stuff would go in their freezer, though, so he gave some venison to Uncle Max and some to me.

  And then we just left him there. What choice did we have?

  I guess maybe he was happy to be home alone. I mean, if he had to be home at all. But he was definitely feeling moody, and I know we were both worried about him.

  As soon as we walked out of his house, Uncle Max said, “Anything happen I don’t know about? What’s so terrible that all that good mood just disappeared?”

  I said, “It’s nothing you don’t know about. He just didn’t want to go home.”

  “Oh.”

  “I thought it would really help him to take him up there and let him have a vacation and be happy. You know? And he really was. But now that he knows what it’s like to be happy, I think it might be even harder for him to go back to his life.”

  “He must’ve been happy sometime.”

  “I’m not so sure,” I said.

  Actually, I’m pretty sure. I think he never was.

  January 5th

  Today was our first day back at school. Call it denial, but I really wasn’t braced. I mean, I hated to be back. But I didn’t expect things to fall apart so fast.

  Because, you know, before we left for vacation, things were pretty quiet. Will was still all brittle, and nobody wanted to be the one to break him for real, and everybody pretty much stayed out of our way.

  And also, I know this sounds stupid, but I really thought it would be better in that jacket. I thought I’d be something a little different. A little more. I know it’s weird to think like that, and looking back on it, it seems like a stupid way to feel, but that’s how I went into the day.

  I think the reason it all went to hell so fast was Will. There was something different about him. And it’s hard to describe what it was. He was mad, though. He was mad to be home, and to have to go to school. He was upset about being in his life. And for some reason it wasn’t a helpless, passive sort of a problem. He was really projecting a lot of trouble.

  We were in second period. Mr. Gregorio’s history class. And one of the jocks kept staring at Will. Except I think Will might’ve started it. And also Will kept staring right back, which is like a total rookie mistake. It was that red-haired guy. Usually he’s not one of the really bad ones. Usually he’s not as bad as the other four. He just stands there with them and laughs. But Will challenged him, and he challenged right back, from two seats in front. While we were supposed to be taking a test.

  It’s one of those things like glancing nervously over your shoulder. Or maybe it’s just the opposite. One says you can be put in your place really easy, the other says you deserve to be. But either way it’s like bleeding into the water. Like, Here, sharky, sharky, sharky. You almost never have to ask them twice.

  I looked up just in time to see Red Jock turn toward Will—turn his head so Mr. Gregorio wouldn’t see him—and do the fish imitation.

  I got icy cold all over, and my heart pounded. Sure, they’ve been doing it to us forever. But this was different. This was now. This was after Will’s little brother died with those fishes.

  Did he not know? Did he not care? Did he somehow not know that Will would see it as a clear message? A mortal insult? He might just as well have captioned the move, “What’s this? The last thing your little brother ever saw.”

  Because I know that’s what Will heard.

  Will took off through the air and landed swinging. Really clumsy swings, meant to batter the jock in the head, but most of them swung wild.

  A lot of kids jumped up from their desks to get out of the way, and I heard Mr. Gregorio yell, “Hey!” And then I saw Will fly through the air again, only not by choice this time. Red Jock just sort of flipped him away, and he landed hard on a desk on his side, and ended up on the floor, and came up like he’d hurt himself. Like he couldn’t really straighten up all the way.

  He still tried to go back in for more, though, but Mr. Gregorio grabbed him around the waist and held him and said, “What the hell is wrong with you, Will?”

  He stopped fighting then.

  See, that was a bad choice of words. If he’d said, What’s gotten into you? or, Why are you acting this way? But the idea that there was something wrong with Will was getting pretty widespread, and hearing it from the mouth of a teacher just stole all the rest of Will’s air. Probably nobody else in the room was aware of all that but me. It was painfully clear to me, though.

  Mr. Gregorio sent him down to the principal’s office and said he’d be down right after the bell, so don’t think about going anywhere else.

  Will walked out looking like he’d lost the war.

  That’s when it hit me. Nobody had my back. I was down behind enemy lines alone.

  After the bell, I was trying to get out without incident, but Mr. Gregorio stopped me. “Wait,” he said.

  And I did, because I had no choice, but I was dying to stay with the crowd. If he kept me too long, I might end up in a nearly empty hall. It could get ugly out there alone.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Is there some explanation behind what just happened? Because it looked like Will flipped out and tried to beat somebody up for no reason at all. Was there something more to it? Something I didn’t see?”

  I looked up and saw three of the jocks standing out in the hall. Rusty and one of the others whose name I don’t know, and the red guy. Waiting to see what I would say.

  Mr. Gregorio had his back turned to them, but he saw me looking, and he looked over his shoulder. And they quick stopped staring and just started talking to each other, like there was nothing going on at all. Mr. Gregorio went over and closed the door.

  I had a bad choice to make. Was I actually going to rat one of them out? That had to spell certain death. But the only other choice was to betray Will and say he did what he did for no reason, which was like the last thing he needed at a time like this, when people seriously thought he might be losing it anyway. Besides, even if I didn’t rat the jock out, they would think I did, and I’d probably be dead the minute I walked out into the hall. No matter what I said.

  I had to steady myself by thinking what Uncle Max would tell me to do. The right thing. Obviously. He’d tell me to do what I think is right.

  I said, “That guy was teasing Will. He did this thing they’ve been doing t
o us forever. Making fun of us for liking fishing. But he might’ve meant it to pick on Will about how his brother died. Or, at least … I mean, even if he didn’t mean it that way, I know Will thought he did.”

  Mr. Gregorio nodded a little and chewed on the inside of his lip. “Hmm,” he said. “I’d better tell that to the principal, because it might make a difference in the length of his suspension.”

  My gut tingled at the sound of that word. Suspension. I wasn’t alone behind enemy lines for a period or two. I was here for weeks.

  “I’ll have a talk with Harris.”

  Right. That was the red guy’s name. Harris Tripp.

  He stepped out of the classroom and into the hall. Leaving the door wide open. I wondered if I should slip by them all now and get away. But Mr. Gregorio hadn’t said I could go yet. I could hear him talking to the three jocks. Not exactly hear his words. Not from where I sat, on a desk in the front row, willing it to bear my weight. Pretending I didn’t have to walk out into the hall. Ever. But I could hear there were words. Just not exactly what they were.

  After a while he came back in. Back to where I was sitting.

  “He swears he didn’t know,” he told me.

  “Everybody knows about Will’s brother.”

  “He says he knew he died. He says he knew it was drowning. But he figured it was a pool accident or something more like that.”

  “Do you believe him?” Meaning, should I?

  “Hard to imagine anybody would purposely pick on Will over a thing like that. He actually sounded pretty sorry when I told him how it came out.”

  “Why would anyone pick on him at all? Over anything? After everything that’s happened?”

  “Good question,” he said. “People don’t think. They don’t use their heads.” I didn’t answer, so he waited a second and then said, “Okay, thanks.” Like, You can go now.

  But I really didn’t want to go out there alone. “Ah … are you going down to the office now?”

  “In a minute,” he said. “I’ll go down in a minute.”

  I sighed. And walked out to meet my fate.

  They were there, of course. The three of them. There were a few other people around, but that never helped me much in the past.

  I tried to walk down the hall to my next class, but they got in front of me and blocked me off. My face felt hot.

  “Look,” I said. “Just leave me alone, okay? Just get out of my way and let me go to my class.”

  “Yeah, sure, Fat Boy,” Rusty said. “We’ll do that.” He put one hand in the middle of my chest, stopping me from moving forward. “But first I have a question to ask. Why are you wearing my jacket?”

  I got so scared that the sounds in the hall got far off, like when you’re falling asleep. Like the world was moving farther away. All of a sudden dying seemed like getting off easy. Nothing could be worse than this.

  “I’m not. It’s mine.”

  “Oh no it’s not. That’s my jacket. Now take it off and give it to me.”

  “No!” I said it not so much like standing up for myself. More like, No, anything but that! It was a big, weak, help-less no, and it drew them like the predators they were.

  I felt them grab at my arms and try to pull off the sleeves. I pulled my arms in close to my sides and tried to keep them in, but those guys were strong. So I fell down on the floor in a fetal position and tried to lie on my arms and keep the jacket all around me, but I felt their hands underneath me, pulling my arms out. I felt a sleeve pulled off one arm, and I tried to roll onto as much of the jacket as I could, but I got the sinking feeling that I was losing fast. It was just a matter of time.

  So I did something I’ve never done before. And never, ever thought I would. I screamed for help. And I do mean screamed. I screamed so loud it hurt my throat to force out those three words. Three words I don’t think I’ve ever said before in my life.

  “Somebody help me!”

  Mr. Gregorio came running out of his room.

  The two jocks who weren’t holding my jacket took off running. I looked up to see Rusty standing over me, still holding most of the jacket. I still had one sleeve on.

  He dipped his head closer to me. “I don’t believe you did that. You are so dead.”

  I remembered when Will started carrying the pepper spray. And how at the time I was thinking that they don’t actually, literally kill you. That was still true, right? I mean, I knew it was. But I had to keep reminding myself. Because that “so dead” was really creepy. Whatever it literally meant, it was a very chilling thing.

  “What’s happening here?” Mr. Gregorio yelled.

  It was too late to act like I didn’t just scream for help after all. So I said, “They were trying to steal my new jacket. My mother gave me this jacket for Christmas.”

  Rusty let go of the jacket, and I quick put it back on.

  Mr. Gregorio said, “Is there something in the water today, or what? I’ve never seen you guys so out of control.”

  But that’s only because most of the time he doesn’t see it. Because most of the time I would never dare scream for help.

  Then he said, “Well, it’s convenient that I was just headed to the office anyway.”

  He grabbed Rusty by the arm and kind of towed him off down the hall. I watched Rusty stumble a step or two behind. He turned around and caught my eye and then ran one finger across his throat, like he was cutting it with a knife. Very clear message: You are dead. Your life is over. Figuratively speaking. Like I said before. Like I kept telling myself. They don’t kill you. They just make you wish you were dead.

  I didn’t doubt him, either. From that moment forward I’m figuratively dead boy walking.

  I took off my jacket and locked it in my locker, where nothing bad could happen to it. But I still worried about it. I worried I’d come back and the lock would be cut or broken. And it would be gone. Or, worse yet, ruined. Covered in paint or cut to ribbons. They might do that. Because this was escalating with every unfortunate misstep. On both sides. And because I had made the fatal mistake of letting them know how much it meant to me.

  Between classes I’d stick my head around the corner and look down the hall at my locker, but everything still looked okay.

  When I got to gym class, I slipped into Mr. Bayliss’s office and out of my clothes. Stripped down to just my boxer shorts. I looked at the scale. I had a feeling I’d lost a little since my vacation at Uncle Max’s cabin. It seemed like the waistband of my jeans didn’t cut me in half quite as bad as what I was used to. And it made sense that I would lose up there. I got lots more exercise than usual, and ate mostly venison and trout.

  I got on the scale: 236.

  It hit me that I could probably always lose weight at Uncle Max’s cabin. But could I keep it off at home? That was the big question.

  I ran into Mr. Bayliss on the way into the gym.

  “How’s our little deal going?” he asked.

  “Okay,” I said. “I lost six pounds.”

  He gave me a good slap on the back and said, “Way to go, Ernie boy.”

  In a way it felt good. In another way it was kind of pathetic. Six down, over ninety-five to go. No one would even notice six. And I didn’t even know if I could keep from putting it right back on again now that I was home.

  But I guess you have to start somewhere.

  At the end of the day I took the jacket back, rolled it up inside out, and held it close to my body while I got home as fast as I could. And it went fine. Because this was an easy day. Rusty was suspended, and the other guys probably left school entirely to avoid the flap. It was like a tiny, quiet little no-man’s-land.

  I knew it could never last.

  Will was sitting on my front steps when I got home.

  “Why are you here?” I asked, not like I really minded, just curious.

  He just shrugged, and I knew he couldn’t bring himself to go home.

  I let us both in with my key and got us glasses of milk and a couple of pie
ces of the chocolate cake my mom had made to welcome me home. I took them into my room. Will had his shirt off, and he was looking at his side in the mirror. I never saw him with his shirt off before. He was even bonier than I thought. His whole side was just this massive purple bruise.

  “That looks bad,” I said.

  “I think I might’ve broken a rib. Or cracked one or something. It hurts to breathe all the way in.”

  “Are you gonna tell your mom? Get it x-rayed?”

  He shook his head. “The less I tell my mom, the better.”

  He put his shirt back on, and we sat down and ate the cake and drank the milk. There was something quiet and solid coming up in Will. Usually solid is a good thing, though. This wasn’t good. This was upsetting.

  “How long are you suspended for?”

  “Just three days.”

  “Oh. Good. Maybe I should get sick for three days. Because I’m gonna die if I go back to school without you.”

  I started to tell him about Harris Tripp. How he didn’t know Sam died fishing. But I didn’t. He would never believe it anyway. And I wasn’t sure enough to convince him.

  Instead I just told him the story about the jacket.

  He stopped chewing and just listened with his mouth open. “If they do something to that jacket,” he said, weirdly calm, “I’ll kill them. I’m serious.”

  “I hope that’s just talk,” I said.

  “It’s less just talk every day.”

  “It scares the crap out of me when you say things like that, Will. I really wish you wouldn’t say things like that. You’re letting them pull you down to their level. We’re better than all that.”

  He jumped up, knocking his half-full milk glass over onto my rug. “That’s what I’m saying, Ernie, that’s my point. We’re better than this. Why do we let them treat us like this?”

  I was looking around for something to wipe up the milk with. A shirt that was on its way to the hamper anyway, or something like that. Meanwhile, Peaches was licking most of it off the rug. “Because we have no choice,” I said. “They’re the hunters, we’re the hunted.” The minute it came out of my mouth, I regretted the phrasing.