Harrison Squared

by Daryl Gregory

  “Hello, Harrison,” the students said in unison. Not just generally at the same time, but in perfect synchrony, like a choir. A choir that had been rehearsing.

  I lifted a hand in greeting. They stared at me. They were dressed in blacks and grays, not quite a uniform, but definitely a look, as if they all did their shopping at clinicaldepression.com. My tie-dye shirt was like a loud laugh at a funeral.

  I let my hand drop.

  “It’s Practical Skills hour,” Mrs. Velloc said. “We’re learning how to make a proper net. Do you know your knots, or do you not?”

  “Pardon?”

  She already seemed put out with me. “This way.” She led me to an empty seat in the first row. On the desk was a flat stick almost two feet long with notches at each end. Its middle was wound with rope.

  “Lydia will show you the sheet bend. Miss Palwick?”

  The girl to my right—Lydia Palwick, I presumed, since I’m smart like that—looked at me with a slightly surprised expression, though that was probably because her eyes were so large. Her long black hair shined as if oiled.

  Mrs. Velloc turned and walked back to her desk. She picked up a tiny book and began to read to herself.

  I looked down at the section of rope that lay across my desk. Then I picked up the tail end of the rope that was spooled around the big stick. Okay, I thought. Tie this thing to that thing and make a net. No problem.

  Except I didn’t know any sailor knots. Mom did; she was great at that stuff. But I never went on boats. I didn’t know anything about nets or ropes or sheet bends.

  Lydia watched me fumble around, then took the stick out of my hands. She moved it in and out of the net, over and around, the rope spooling behind it. Suddenly there was a new diamond in the net.

  “Wait, how did you—?”

  “Left, loop, right, loop, over, and through,” she said. Her voice was flat, bored.

  I leaned closer to her and whispered, “Can I ask you a question?”

  She glanced to the side but didn’t pull away from me.

  I said, “How much of Practical Skills hour is left?”

  * * *

  Forty minutes later the class showed no sign of ending, and my fingers prickled from what felt like microscopic needles. I didn’t know that rope could get under your skin like that. Also? I was bored bored bored. My phone was getting zero reception, so there was no one I could text to back home, and no one here was passing notes or even whispering. They simply worked, fingers busy as spiders.

  I finally leaned over to Lydia and whispered, “Why is everybody so quiet?”

  She frowned. “Why are you always talking?”

  “I’ve said like five words since I got here.”

  Mrs. Velloc’s head whipped around at the noise. I shut up. A few seconds later, Lydia whispered, “Chatterbox.”

  Somewhere far away, a gong sounded. The students stood as one, and then packed the piles of rope into large wooden trunks lined up at the back of the room. I’d managed to connect three or four lengths of rope. In the same amount of time, Lydia had created a net the size of a queen-sized blanket.

  The students began to file out of the room. I walked to Mrs. Velloc’s desk. Eventually she looked up from her book.

  “I don’t know where to go next,” I said. “They didn’t give me a schedule.”

  She looked at me as if I were a moron. “Follow Lydia,” she said.

  “To where? The office? Because I can—”

  “Do what she does. Go where she goes. Your schedule is her schedule.”

  I glanced toward the door. Lydia had already left the room.

  “Is that too complicated for you, Mr. Harrison?”

  I didn’t know where my temper came from. Mom didn’t suffer fools gladly, but her anger never lasted longer than a minute. My dad supposedly never hurt a fly. But me … Calm did not come naturally. Sometimes—like, say, when somebody treats me like I’m an idiot—I could clearly picture my hands around their neck. I could almost feel myself squeezing.

  When I was little I didn’t know what to do with all that emotion, and I actually did try to strangle people. I punched other kids. Bit teachers. Screamed at, well, everybody, but mostly my mother. Gradually I learned to control myself. My main technique, and still my go-to move when I was feeling the rush, was to simply observe myself. Catalog what was going on in my body and my head. Hey there, look at that fist clenching! Feel that heart beating! Take a gander at that violent movie playing in your head—got any film music to go with that?

  I didn’t actually step out of my body. I wasn’t that crazy. But watching myself did get me to settle down. Rage makes little sense from the outside.

  I relaxed my hand and smiled at Mrs. Velloc. “I think I got it,” I said.

  I walked out, and my right leg was throbbing, right down to my invisible toes. I made sure not to limp.

  * * *

  Students streamed out of the rooms, but it was an orderly stream, without pushing or shoving. Nobody yelled or even raised their voice. Most of them looked younger than me, but they all had that same dark-haired, pale, fishy look as the kids in Velloc’s class. From behind I had no idea which one was Lydia, but I finally spotted her as the streams converged on the stairway down.

  “Hey, Lydia!”

  Scores of faces turned to look at me. The flow of traffic stuttered, then resumed.

  Lydia looked up at me. Then she closed her eyes and slowly opened them again, as if hoping she’d imagined me. Nope. Still here. She backed out of the line of students and waited for me on the first landing with her back to the aquarium.

  “Thanks,” I said when I reached her. “Velloc says I should shadow you until they give me a schedule.”

  “Shadow me,” she said skeptically.

  “It’s not my idea,” I said. And suddenly it seemed like a very stupid idea. “Listen, never mind, I’ll figure this out.”

  “I doubt that,” she said. “Lunch is this way.”

  She led me downstairs and along a corridor to a cavernous room. The cafeteria. The serving line was on one side, and wooden tables filled the rest of the space. I followed Lydia’s lead and picked up a large wooden bowl and tin cup. One by one the students passed the counter, where a pair of lunch ladies filled the bowls with a steaming, chunky stew. The air smelled of vinegar.

  I held out my bowl. The lunch lady, a thick-necked woman with horsey teeth, held out her ladle. When she moved I caught a glimpse of the kitchen behind her. A woman who could have been her older sister stood at a metal table wearing a bloody smock. She held a huge silver fish, perhaps three feet long, by its tail. The creature twitched weakly in her grasp. Suddenly she plunged a knife into the belly of the fish and ripped down.

  I dropped my bowl.

  The serving lady, still holding her ladle aloft, scowled at me over glasses that perched at the end of her long nose.

  I raised my hands. “That’s it. I’m done.”

  Lydia frowned at me.

  I turned toward the door. Lydia said, “Where are you going?”

  “Home,” I said.

  She followed me for a moment, then grabbed my arm. Her eyes were sea green.

  “Truancy is a crime,” she said.

  “Then I guess I’m a criminal. Besides, who uses the word ‘truancy’?”

  Something changed in her face. I’d just become marginally more interesting to her.

  “See you around, Lydia. It was a pleasure meeting you.”

  2

  Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look—

  Lydia didn’t try to stop me again. I walked fast for the door, feeling the eyes of the students on my back, but I didn’t care. I was going home. Not to the rental house down the street—all the way back to California, to my friends. My real school. In San Diego, the school hallways were outdoors. The sun shined all the time. In class you learned how to do normal things like write essays and speak Spanish—you didn’t perform slave labor.

  Did I say I’d lea
rned to keep my anger under control? I may have been exaggerating.

  I left the cafeteria and marched down the hallway. The corridor turned, turned again—and then dead-ended at a stone wall. I thought I’d been heading toward the front entrance, but somehow I’d taken a wrong turn.

  I retraced my steps until I found a hallway that led off to my left. The yellow globes hanging from the ceiling looked familiar, and I hustled toward them. But when I reached the lights I wasn’t in the atrium, or anywhere else I remembered.

  From somewhere came a moan. A voice pleading. My right leg burned like it was in ice water, but I ignored it.

  I slowly walked forward until I came to a set of double doors that hung slightly ajar. The light beyond seemed marginally brighter than that of the hallway. I pushed through.

  It was a library. The bookshelves were a dozen feet tall, much taller than seemed practical for a high school. The books, too, were larger and more massive than the books in my old library in California, as if each were an unabridged dictionary. The voice came from somewhere in the stacks.

  I edged around the corner of a row. A white-haired man in a gray cardigan sweater stood in front of the shelves, waving his fingers in the air. Though he wore thick glasses, he blinked furiously as if he couldn’t get his eyes to focus. “No no no,” the man said to himself. “It’s got to be here; it must be.…”

  “Can I help you?” I asked.

  The man spun to face me, shocked. Then he glanced behind him and said, “Are you speaking to me?”

  “I’m sorry, I just thought—”

  “What did you mean, help me?”

  I wasn’t sure how I could help, just that he sounded so desperate. Maybe he was so old his vision was failing? I said, “Have you lost a book?”

  “What book? Why do you think I’m looking for a book?”

  “It’s a library?” I said.

  “There are many types of items in a library. Maps. Periodicals. Artifacts and artwork…” He strode away from me. The floors here were the same dark stone as the hallway. The shelves themselves were thick as ship’s timbers.

  “You can’t possibly be of use,” the man said. “I’ve been combing this library for … quite a while. You’re a child and I’m a trained researcher, which means that not only do I search, I do so repeatedly.”

  I walked after him, curious now. “Maybe if you told me the title.”

  He wheeled to face me. “The title? You ask me for the title?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said again.

  “Ye gods. If I knew the title, don’t you think I would have found it by now?”

  He pulled at the tufts of gray hair that sprouted from the side of his head. His dusty glasses hid his eyes. “I will not despair. I will not despair.” He seemed to be talking to himself now. “It’s only a puzzle. A riddle. A mystery. I am a solver of puzzles.”

  He gazed for a moment at the shelves above us, then forced his eyes away. He shuddered.

  “Good luck,” I said, and started to leave.

  “You’ve been touched, haven’t you?” the librarian said.

  I froze. “What?”

  “It’s the only explanation. You’ve been exposed, and that’s made you sensitive.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

  “It’s all right, my boy. It takes time to adjust to the world you’ve found yourself in. It’s perfectly understandable to engage in denial.”

  “Right. Well, it’s been great talking to you, but—”

  “You’re searching for something. Of course, why else would you have forced your way in here?”

  “I didn’t force anything. I just saw that the door was open and I—”

  “You had no choice,” the librarian said. “I understand. For men such as ourselves, the lure of the stacks is impossible to resist.”

  “Yeah. Right. So, if you’re okay…”

  “I wouldn’t say that. How would you describe a man in my condition? No, don’t say it. Denial, my boy. Denial is what keeps a soul going in trying times.”

  “Sure,” I said, though I was pretty sure I didn’t agree with him. “It was great meeting you, Mister…”

  “Professor, if you please. Professor Freytag.”

  A distant gong sounded. I felt it more than heard it.

  “I really should get going, Professor.”

  “What about your book?”

  “Maybe later,” I said.

  Freytag looked disappointed. “Very well. Off you go.” He turned away from me. Now he seemed to be mad at me. “Close the door on the way out. I don’t like to be disturbed.”

  * * *

  I heard the murmur of student voices, the shuffling of feet, but it was impossible to tell where it was coming from. The walls were all damp stone, bouncing sound in tricky ways. There seemed to be no active classrooms in this wing. The doors, when I found them, looked like they hadn’t been opened in years. Corridors branched at odd angles. Some of them were only dimly lit, and I had to use my phone’s screen like a flashlight. Other hallways were pitch dark; those I refused to go down. My phone was getting no bars. If I fell down some stairs I doubted anyone would find me.

  My only strategy was to follow the best-lit corridors. I was surprised when this worked; many minutes later I emerged into a wide hallway and saw a familiar door: OFFICE OF THE PRINCIPAL. The wide staircase was off to my left. There were no students in sight.

  My anger had long since disappeared. I might have given up on my escape plan, but I had no idea where Lydia was, or where my next class might be.

  I pushed through the big doors and blinked at the gray sky. Still definitely not California.

  The rental house was downhill, toward the bay. I started down the sidewalk. The only person out was a man sitting on an iron bench just beyond the border of the school grounds. He was jotting something in a notebook.

  As I passed the bench, the man looked up and said, “Tough morning?”

  “Pardon?”

  He was handsome, with dark hair graying at the temples. The kind of distinguished gentleman who wasn’t a doctor but could play one on TV. His long legs were crossed at the knee, and one long arm spread out along the back of the bench. His suit was black, his shirt white as bone, his tie a sea green. On his collar he wore a silver pin in the shape of a shark. A thresher.

  Oh.

  He said, “I imagine our little school is probably very different from what you’re used to.”

  “No, it’s great,” I said lamely.

  “It’s all right. I know we’re a bit … rural.” He held out his hand. “I’m Principal Montooth.”

  I’d never had a principal try to shake hands with me. “Harrison Harrison,” I said. “Pleased to meet you.”

  His grip was firm. He held it for a bit too long. “You’re not the first person I’ve met with that name,” he said. “Your father was an anthropologist, wasn’t he?”

  “You knew my dad?”

  “Know is too strong a word. I met him when he visited the area a while ago.”

  A while ago? At least thirteen years: Dad died when I was three. I had no idea he’d been here before. Mom had never mentioned it.

  A dark car, an old-fashioned sedan with tall rear fins, rolled up to the curb. Montooth stood up. He was tall—taller even than Mrs. Velloc. “This is my ride,” he said. “You enjoy your afternoon. I think we can agree that half a day is enough of a start.”

  “Uh…”

  “See you tomorrow, Harrison. Bright and early.”

  Montooth clapped me on the shoulder, then got into the passenger side of the car. The vehicle rumbled away, then turned off halfway down the hill.

  I wasn’t sure what to do. Was this a trick? Had the principal seriously told me it was okay to skip school?

  I glanced back at the wooden doors, then shook my head. Kidding or not, Montooth was right. A half day was quite enough of Dunnsmouth Secondary.

  * * *

  All I had to do
to get home was follow gravity. The school perched on a high, rocky promontory surrounded on three sides by the sea. A single road—the cunningly named “Main Street”—snaked downhill through beautiful downtown Dunnsmouth (a handful of sad stores and a police station), past the town’s only stop sign, and ended at the bay. If I’d turned left at that stop sign I would have eventually made it to the highway and civilization. Don’t think I didn’t fantasize about it.

  Our rental was two blocks short of the water, set back from Main Street by a gravel driveway. It was a wooden shack with peeling paint, and seemed intimidated by the surrounding pines. Last night I hadn’t been able to see any other houses, but even in daylight they were barely visible through the pines. Every house was an island in an ocean of trees.

  I’d made sure to get a key to the rental from Mom. I’d had my own key to every place we’d lived since I was five years old. When she was AMPing, it was good to have my own access to food and shelter.

  “Mom?” I called. But I knew she wasn’t home yet; the pickup was still gone. She’d probably be out on the water for hours, because the research buoys had to be placed miles apart. There were no messages on my cell phone; not from Mom or anybody. I still had no data or voice. If all of Dunnsmouth was a dead zone, we had to order cable for this house immediately.

  A bad thought occurred to me. Was this place even wired for cable? I walked around the house, studying the walls. The place was furnished in Early Hermit: a couch framed in dark-stained planks, heavy wooden chairs, an oak kitchen table like a raft. Braided rugs covered wood floors that looked like they’d been warped by water damage. There were not many electrical outlets, and no other wall jacks except for a single line for the phone.

  Surely they couldn’t expect us to use dial-up. That was simply not acceptable. A two-month scientific mission was one thing, but I was not about to get involuntarily Amished.

  Almost all of our stuff was still in boxes stacked in the living room. We’d been so tired last night that we hadn’t even tried to unpack except to find some bedsheets. Not that there was much to unpack. Because of all the scientific equipment we had to haul, we had to limit the rest of our baggage to the necessities: the waterproof footlocker in which Mom kept her research materials; three suitcases; a cooler of emergency food; half a dozen boxes for household supplies and books; and the few personal items we couldn’t bear to put in storage.