It would have been a good place for me to drift into the background and gather my thoughts, if it hadn’t been for the fact that Eric Feldman was in my class and he sat just a few desks away. After talking to Lisa, it seemed people thought I had done them a favor with the whole rat prank, but that didn’t stop Eric from muttering things about invisible rats for the benefit of his posse. I was pretty sure he wanted the attention to shift away from how close he’d come to getting his butt kicked in the hall. It worked. Mr. Webber’s lack of awareness enabled a barrage of notes to make their way to my desk, the bulk of which were signed by Eric as if they were pieces of artwork. One was a piece of scrap paper that he’d made to look like an official certificate announcing my insanity. Another was a picture of a giant rat eating a kid. My name was written with an arrow pointing to the kid, not that it was really necessary. The rest were more of the same.
By the time the buzzer sounded, the idea of spending another second in the school was too much for me to bear. Everyone was now eyeing me rather than ignoring me, and I felt as if I had a diaper strapped to my head.
Lisa and Colin were waiting by my locker when I got there.
“Look, I gotta go, guys,” I said, not giving them a chance to speak first. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” I unlocked my locker and loaded my books into my bag.
“What do you mean?” Colin asked. “You’re leaving?”
I nodded and slung my bag over my shoulder.
“Tell us what’s going on,” Lisa ordered. “What happened to you, Dean?”
I was going to tell them. I even opened my mouth to speak, but then the image of Mrs. Farnsworthy flooded my head and I started wondering if I really was going crazy. If I had another hallucination, I didn’t want it to be somewhere with so many witnesses. I was halfway down the hall and heading for the door before either one of them had a chance to say much else.
“I’ll call you later,” Colin yelled.
I didn’t turn around. I suddenly felt smothered, as if a monster-sized blanket had fallen on me and threatened to stifle the very breath from my lungs. The only thing I could think of was getting outside.
Fresh air filled my lungs, and the feeling of suffocation was gone by the time I reached the corner. “I’m going crazy,” I mumbled. I felt the urge to run, and that’s exactly what I did. I ran as hard as I could, ignoring the pain in my ribs, until the school and everyone behind me fell away. Even more than the embarrassment, I had a feeling of dread that surged and twisted in my guts whenever I thought about Mrs. Farnsworthy. I wondered how fast I would need to run to lose that feeling.
Chapter 7
I cut through Mr. Utlet’s yard and hoped the ornery old man wouldn’t notice me. But of course I ran straight into him. I bounced back as if I’d just run into a brick wall, then winced and looked up. He was glaring down at me.
Mr. Utlet was one of those neighbors who looked both old and dangerous, as if he’d been an assassin in his youth and only retired to suburbia to throw off a hit squad out for revenge. He was on the small side of average, with short gray hair, a bristly face, and skin that looked like tanned leather. But despite his size, he came across as a giant. My dad said Mr. Utlet’s tattoos—he had one on each forearm—were from his time in the army. Special Forces, no doubt. His eyes were what freaked me out the most, though. They were cold and dark, like the color of the sky just before a really bad storm.
“I told you not to cut through my yard, kid.” Mr. Utlet’s gaze flicked over my face and his expression shifted from angry to curious. No doubt he was wondering where all the bruises had come from. I wondered if he could see the fear in my eyes. Even worse, maybe he was like a dog or a bee, and he could smell fear. It wouldn’t have surprised me one bit. “Sorry, sir,” I said, dusting off my clothes, “it won’t happen again.”
He grunted and gestured for me to go.
I crossed the street in a flash, rushed through the front door of my house, and didn’t stop until I was lying on my bed.
“What’s wrong with me?” I groaned into my pillow. I pressed my hands to my head and closed my eyes.
The twisted image of Mrs. Farnsworthy screaming like a maniac—a dying maniac—played over and over in my mind until I couldn’t keep my eyes closed for another moment. I tried to forget about the whole thing by studying my biology textbook, but it was no use. The moment I managed to get the image of Mrs. Farnsworthy out of my head, I instantly remembered what a scene I’d made and felt my cheeks flush with renewed embarrassment. I flipped a bit further through the book until the words started swimming off the pages and frustration got the best of me. I growled and threw it across the room. It hit my night table and knocked my alarm clock to the floor.
Get a hold of yourself! I took a breath, pushed myself to my feet, and paced in front of my bedroom window until I started getting dizzy. Then I plunked down at my computer and spent the next while surfing the Internet for an explanation for what might be going on with me besides PTSD. I wasn’t a psychologist, but the whole PTSD thing just didn’t make sense. I hadn’t been beaten up in the alley. I hadn’t been attacked at all. No, it hadn’t been fun to watch a man get beaten to pulp, but I didn’t feel anxious when I thought about it. I wasn’t worried the men were going to come and find me or anything. My hallucinations had to be the result of something else.
Exhaustion overwhelmed me, and I moved to my bed. Just a quick nap, I decided. I had barely finished the thought before I passed out.
At four-thirty, my mom knocked at the door and startled me awake. I hadn’t heard her come home. “Colin’s on the phone, honey. Do you feel well enough to talk?”
I cracked the door open. “Yeah. Thanks, Mom.”
She handed me the phone and smiled one of those worried-mom smiles before heading down the hallway.
I took in a deep breath before speaking. “Hey, Colin.”
“Hey, man, what’s going on? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, just tired, I think.”
“So you’re just seeing screaming faces because you’re tired?” a girl’s voice suddenly asked.
“Lisa?”
“Oh yeah, sorry,” Colin said. “Lisa’s on the line too.”
I sighed. “You guys don’t need to worry about me.”
“Yeah right! You’re either on drugs, schizophrenic, or, my personal favorite, possessed. I’m hoping you’re possessed. That would totally explain the outburst in Mrs. F’s class, plus I’ve always wanted to see an exorcism. You haven’t been puking up green slime or crawling around on the ceiling, have you?”
I moved to the window. “You watch too many movies.”
Colin chuckled.
“I think you’re right… you’re just tired. Stressed and tired,” Lisa offered. “Are you feeling stressed out, Dean?”
“I’m fine.” My parents already thought I was nuts. The last thing I wanted was my friends thinking the same thing. I tried to choose my words carefully. “There’s”—I swallowed—“nothing wrong with me. I just… I don’t know, maybe I’ve got a fever or something. That might explain all the hallucinations.”
“Whoa,” Lisa said. “All the hallucinations? As in more than one?”
I winced. “I guess there might have been a couple.”
“Well, I still think its stress.” Lisa sounded less convinced, but I appreciated her effort.
“I don’t,” Colin said. “I still think he’s possessed.” I could hear the smile on his face.
The corners of my mouth twitched, and the tension in my shoulders slackened. Colin had that effect. “But if you’re not,” he continued, “it has to be the drugs. What are you doing these days?”
“Oh, I do whatever I can get my hands on,” I said, laughing. “Cocaine, meth. Sometimes I just raid the medicine cabinet and take handfuls of whatever I find.”
I was about to dive in and tell them all about mugging and the man in the alley when there was a stifled gasp from behind me. I turned to see my mom standing in the doorway,
her hand over her mouth.
“Mom, no.” I held up the phone to prove my innocence. “It’s Colin and Lisa. I’m just… it was a joke.”
Mom’s expression shifted uncertainly between horror and fury. Settling on horror, she bellowed, “Jonathan! Come up here. Now!”
I hung up the phone as my dad arrived at the doorway. He wore a flowered apron and clutched a wooden spoon that dripped spaghetti sauce on the carpet.
“What?” he said, looking around the room anxiously. “What happened?”
“Your s… son’s turned to drugs!” Mom’s words sounded like they were being choked out of her.
“I’m not doing drugs.” I rolled my eyes. “We were joking around. That’s all.”
My father wasn’t a small man and could have been a linebacker in another life. So the apron he wore looked more like a bib. He tapped the sauce-laden spoon on one hand, pursed his lips, and then ran his hand through his hair, oblivious to the fact that in doing so he left a streak of red across his head. “Drugs, Dean?”
This was getting ridiculous. I struggled to clamp down my anger. “We were just joking around. I told them about the whole hallucination thing and they were just trying to make me feel better.”
“I think it was just a misunderstanding, hon.” My dad stepped next to me and draped his arm over my shoulder and looked at my mom. “Kids joke about serious issues. It’s normal.” He turned to me. “If your friends offer you drugs—”
“They’re not going to offer me drugs, Dad. You both know Colin and Lisa. You know they’d never do that.” I turned to my mom and sighed. “But if they do, I’ll say no.”
She wasn’t looking at me anymore. Instead her brows were furrowed. She was focused on my dad’s head. “What’s in your hair?”
“My what?” He lifted his hand toward his head and paused when he saw his sauce-smeared palm. As if on cue, the smoke detector from the kitchen started beeping. “My sauce!” He charged past my mom and back down the stairs.
My mom ignored the ruckus coming from the kitchen and moved forward to hug me. She held me at arm’s length. “You know better, right?”
I nodded.
She wiped her face with her sleeve. “I’d better go make sure your father doesn’t burn the place down.”
I plopped myself on my bed and thought about Mrs. Farnsworthy again. If this keeps up, I might need drugs after all.
Chapter 8
At 1:38 AM, it happened again. This time I was half asleep, or maybe I was completely asleep. I can’t be sure. What I am sure about is that Mr. Utlet was suddenly kneeling beside my bed. The emerald glow of my alarm clock illuminated his face. I shot up, flattened myself against the wall at the edge of my bed, and watched as my neighbor emptied the air in his lungs with a shriek that seemed to shake the entire room. In a blink, it was over, and I was alone, trembling at the corner of the mattress.
Whatever was wrong with me, it was getting worse. And I wasn’t sure how much more I could take.
Morning was like a kick in the shins: unexpected and painful.
The few brief moments of sleep I had managed to steal were filled with images of screaming neighbors, horrifying teachers, and ape-like thieves. My body ached from being so tense all night. Even my jaw hurt. I showered, then dragged myself downstairs and paused just outside the kitchen. It’s my birthday, I remembered. If I knew my mom, she’d have some kind of grand affair waiting for me: balloons, streamers, and perhaps some kind of huge breakfast. The only thing I knew: I couldn’t tell my dad about the other hallucinations. I’d be psychoanalyzed for the next three years. Instead, I took a deep breath, forced a smile, and rounded the corner.
Becky was alone at the table, attacking a towering stack of pancakes as if she only had minutes to eat them all. She looked up and gave me a frizzy-haired sneer.
“Where’re Mom and Dad?” I asked.
“Out,” she mumbled through a mouthful of food.
I looked at the pancakes and suddenly felt famished. “Are there any… um…”
“Nope.”
“Well, do you think I could have a couple of yours?”
Becky groaned, stabbed one of the pancakes with her fork, moved it to an empty plate, and shoved the plate toward me.
“Wow, thanks.” It was entirely out of character for Becky to do something nice, and I considered for just a moment that she might have poisoned the pancake. But it had been on her plate, so I decided it was safe, and I started eating before she could change her mind and demand it back.
“I guess since it’s your birthday, I’ll share. Well, that, and because you’re a hero.”
“Hero? What are you talking about?”
She gave the newspaper on the table a shove and it skidded toward me.
The Abbotsford Gazette wasn’t the city’s main source of news, but it was delivered to everyone for free. There, smack in the middle of the front page, was a picture of my battered face. I remembered the reporter snapping a photo the previous morning. The headline read: “Local Boy Stops Attack.” The article used the word “hero” more than once, and by the time I reached the end of the story, a big weight had lifted off me. I’d had a pit in my stomach about going back to school. I knew most people thought my outburst in Mrs. Farnsworthy’s class had been a prank, but I was afraid it was only a matter of time before I blew my cover by having another hallucination. And here was the perfect attention shifter—and on my birthday no less. Obviously, attention would not shift from me, but at least it would shift to something more positive. I was no hero, but I would take what I could get.
“You look pleased,” Becky said, her tone all sarcasm. “Hoping people will forget about your little screaming fit yesterday?”
Becky was in seventh grade and in a different school, so the fact that she knew anything about my… episode… stunned me. “How did you…?”
She waved a dismissive hand. “Jasmine, of course.”
Jasmine was Colin’s sister and every bit as annoying as Becky. I’d be talking to Colin about keeping his mouth shut around his sister when I next saw him.
Becky forked another chunk of pancake into her mouth. “Apparently, Colin thinks you’re possessed.” She nodded toward the newspaper. “I told her you’re just a big wimp, but now I think maybe you are possessed. It’s not like you to be brave.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said.
A car door slammed in the driveway and Becky jumped to her feet. She grabbed my plate, tipped the last couple of pancakes from her plate to mine, and shoved it back at me. She was at the kitchen sink looking very pleased when my parents walked through the backdoor, each carrying a pile of newspapers.
“Oh, you’re up,” my mom said. She put her stack on the counter and walked over to give me a hug. “And I see you’re well into your birthday breakfast.”
“My birthday breakfast?”
“See, Jonathan,” she added, looking toward my dad. “And you thought Becky might try to eat it.”
I glared across the kitchen at my sister. “But she—”
“How many of those papers can you possibly need?” Becky interrupted as a crooked smile inched across her lips. When it came to sibling rivalry, my sister was no slouch. I vowed revenge.
My dad held up a copy of the Gazette. “You read the article, right, champ?”
“Um… yeah, Dad. I read it.”
“You saved that man’s life, Dean,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you get a medal.”
“Whoa, whoa,” I said. “Just slow down. I didn’t save anyone. In fact, the article says the man’s still in the hospital. And just so there’s no confusion, all I did was call 911. No, I didn’t even do that, I just held my wallet to my ear. That’s it.” My mom made a gesture like she wanted to speak, but I cut her off. “Thank you for the breakfast, Mom. It was delicious. But please, when my friends come here tonight, don’t make a big deal of this whole hero nonsense.” I knew Colin would probably already make a big enough deal of the whole thing on his own.
He didn’t need help.
I grabbed my jacket from the back of the chair and made for the door, pausing to add, “And don’t make a big deal about my birthday either, okay?”
My dad laughed. “Modesty. I like that.”
“Me too,” my mom said. “I’ll pick you and your friends up after school.”
“No, it’s okay. I think we’ll walk, or we might take the bus into town.”
“You’ll call when you decide, right?”
“Jeez, Mom. Yes, I’ll call.”
I looked across the kitchen. Becky pointed at me and started rocking an imaginary baby in her arms as she mouthed the word “pathetic.”
“Nice hair, Becky,” I called as I reached for the door. I heard a loud growl and the stomping of feet before the door shut behind me. This could shape up to be a good day, I thought.
Boy, was I wrong.
Chapter 9
Colin and Lisa were waiting at my locker when I got to school.
“What’s the deal?” Colin held up a cut-out of the article from the Gazette’s front page. “You never told us this was the reason you were late on Friday.”
“Yeah, Dean. Why didn’t you say something?” Lisa added.
“I was a bit preoccupied, what with all the hallucinations.”
“Yeah, but now your hallucinations make sense,” Lisa said.
“They do?” Colin looked confused, and I was pretty sure my expression matched his exactly.
“Stress,” she said. “Stress can make people see things. You had to fight off a couple of murderous thugs. I’d say that qualifies as stressful.”
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