The Punished

by Peter Meredith

  However, not careful enough.

  "My name is Danny Stebbins and I was uh..." Curt started to say but was interrupted by Mr. Gallarti. Unbelievably, the janitor punched him in the side of the head, which sent him sprawling onto the couch. He had clearly chosen the wrong kid to impersonate.

  There were three boys whose name he kept on the top of his mind just in case of such situation like this. Danny was his go-to name. Danny was quiet and shy, unassuming and tended to blend into whatever crowd he happened to be with, but more importantly, the two boys bore a passing resemblance to each other.

  "You don't think I know all the children who go to my school? I've known Danny Stebbins since he was a kindergartener, so stop you're lying," Mr. Gallarti hissed. "Now tell me who you are."

  The punch had been so unexpected that Curt almost blurted out his own name, but he had been in worse situations before and quickly collected himself.

  "I'm a...I'm a..." he spluttered weakly. He felt a sudden wave of dizziness from the strike and decided to go with that, playing up a head injury.

  But Mr. Gallarti wasn't buying it. "Oh look, you fell down a flight of stairs, running from the janitor," Mr. Gallarti said ominously, and with that, he picked Curt up and set him on his feet. "Now tell me who you are or you're gonna have another accident."

  Curt felt a little chill go down his spine at this. If he had been an actual student attending Ben Franklin Elementary, the janitor would have been skating on some thin ice, but as it was, Curt was doing the skating.

  "I didn't mean it," he whined pitifully. "My name is Adam Malone. I'm in Mrs. Harpers class...I was out after my curfew and I got locked out. My dad would kill me if he knew I was out so late so...I came here. I didn't know where else to go and...and one of the doors was left open, so I just kinda slept here on the couch."

  Curt used his fear and the whomping pain in his head to push out a few tears, and they dangled to nice effect from his eyelashes. The janitor's features softened slightly at this, and Curt knew he had told his well-rehearsed story perfectly. However, he wasn't going to rely on the story to get him out of trouble completely; that would have been pushing his luck too far.

  He suspected the janitor would take him down to the office and verify that he was indeed Adam Malone. Curt would go along with him, acting the part of a sullen boy about to get in trouble, and when he saw an opening, he'd make a dash for it. It wouldn't take much of an opening.

  Mr. Gallarti had a hundred extra pounds sitting on his waistline, and Curt knew he could escape with only a one-second head start.

  But none of that happened.

  "What were you doing out so late?" the janitor asked. The question, though unexpected, didn't faze the thief. There were only two reasons for a boy his age to be out so late: mischief and girls. For a sixth grader, mischief sounded more believable.

  "Ron Harnet tee-peed our house and I was only settling the score," he lied so smoothly that he nearly convinced himself. However, the janitor responded in the most upsetting manner, he punched Curt again. It turned out that Mr. Gallarti lived down the street from the Harnet's and there hadn't been any toilet paper decorating their house that morning.

  5

  "You don't look so good," Miss Feanor watched him massaging his aching head and sidled up to him. "Do you have a headache? Would you like some Tylenol?" she asked, still with her sweet personality.

  "Yes, please."

  She was off again sliding back down the hall, and as soon as she left the doorway, he moved as well. His headache wasn't an act, but he was curious to a fault. He went to the cupboard, from which she had pulled the bread and jelly, hoping to find food there. Respectable food, proper food, chips or cookies, perhaps even soda. However, he found more of the same that he had already seen. The exact same. There were two more jars of pickles, two containers of wheat germ, one jar of marmalade and so forth. In the back of the cabinet, as if hidden away, were also a couple dozen cans of spam and carrots.

  "Bizarre," he whispered, staring unhappily at the contents of the cupboard. It was then that he heard the whisper of feet, and he only just made it back to his seat before Miss Feanor re-entered.

  "Here you go, these will fix you up," she handed him two very large white pills and a glass of warm tap water. To Curt, the pills seemed way too big to be Tylenol, and he looked at them skeptically.

  "This is Tylenol?" he asked politely.

  "They are extra strength. You'll see. Your headache will be gone in jiffy, though they may make you sleepy."

  There was an impenetrable depth to Miss Feanor that kept him from reading her with any accuracy, but he could see no reason for her to lie to him. Therefore, he took the pills and found that she was right on both counts. His headache disappeared in minutes and by the time, he had finished his toast, he was already feeling groggy.

  "Let me show you to your room," she said when he was done.

  The house, seemed extremely old, but despite that, it retained its original beauty and grandeur. Attention had been given to every inch of it as far as Curt could tell, and there wasn't a nick or scratch to be seen, anywhere. It might have been brand new, if it wasn't for the smell. It smelled very old. The smell, which he associated with a mental picture of a grandmother, was coupled with the perfection of the house in a way that he had trouble grasping.

  "Miss Feanor? How old is this house?" he asked in a whisper. They were moving up a narrow backset of stairs, slowly and still quietly. She placed her feet just so and he followed suit, finding that if he didn't, he would cause the steps to crreik angrily at him. Before answering, she came to a complete stop and waited for him to catch up to her.

  "One Hundred and forty-two," she whispered back, her smile was now gone from her face, likely due to what she considered an unnecessary question.

  As she started up, he shook his head at her retreating rear end, deciding then that this place was just too weird, and that he'd leave the next day, or the next night to be more precise. This night, he would sneak out of his room and find the silverware, which a place as old as this one undoubtedly had by the truck loads.

  Tomorrow, he would lay low, keeping quiet, which was what was clearly expected of him anyway and then he would take off around midnight. The plan was a good one and he even had a place to stay in mind, an abandoned theater he knew of not more than six miles away.

  The layout of the house though, wasn't ideal for an escape. Its main problem was that Miss Feanor's room was almost dead center on the ground floor, and with the deathly quiet of the place, she might be able to monitor his comings and goings from her room. But there was a window overlooking the garage, and he figured he would slip out of that one if needed.

  The house was shaped as a two-story rectangle. The backstairs led directly from the kitchen and zigzagged on short flights to the second floor. It entered upon an uneven hallway, which jogged a few feet to the right at two intervals and then split at the main staircase. Each jog to the right came at a doorway to a bedroom. The first room that they passed was Matt's. His door was mostly closed, but Miss Feanor said his name quietly and pointed at the door. At the next door, she again pointed and said the name Beth. He didn't know which girl that was, but since he was planning on leaving, he didn't much care.

  Now they came to the main stairs, and the hall way opened up and branched around it. There were five doors here and the first, just to their left, was another bedroom. "Paul," she nodded in its direction. Miss Feanor then pointed further down the hall at a door catty-corner to them and said "Amber."

  The door across from hers didn't have a name associated with it and Miss Feanor didn't give it a second glance. The door just to their right and at the top of the stairs was a bathroom and finally, right next to the bathroom was to be his room. It was the most spartan room he had ever seen. It contained a single bed and a small three-drawer dresser.

  That was it.

  The walls were a bare, unblemished stark white, unadorned by a single picture, while t
he dresser held nothing more than a dull gleam of polish. A closet stood open and barren just to his left, and the only other feature to the room was a lone gloomy window, which was shuttered from the outside.

  Curt's eyes swept the room back and forth a few times as if he were unable to comprehend the emptiness of the space. His grogginess had increased as they had walked from the kitchen, and now it was all he could do to keep his eyes open. Coming up the stairs, there had been a dozen questions on the tip of his tongue, but for the life of him, he couldn't remember even one now.

  "You may nap until dinner if you wish. It might help with your headache," she whispered, and the thought of dinner brought to mind one of his questions. He hadn't seen a clock anywhere in the house, not even in the kitchen. It felt to him very close to five o'clock and wanting to be sure, he began to ask Miss Feanor, but her eyes narrowed and he bit back the question.

  Instead, he said simply, "A nap sounds nice." He gave her a smile of gratitude as if she had done him a favor when in truth, there didn't appear to be anything else to do. In fact, the house was so silent just then that he wondered if the other children were napping as well.

  It may seem odd for a twelve-year-old boy to like naps, but Curt liked them very much. They went along with his carefree life style. He stayed up as late as it pleased him and slept or napped when he grew tired. So it wasn't with a complaint that he laid himself down and slept through to morning.

  Chapter 2

  Once Bitten

  1

  "Curtis?"

  Hands shook him and then shook his some more.

  "Curtis?" He heard his name and it was only slowly that he pulled himself from a very deep sleep. Immediately, he wished to go back. A tremendous headache started pounding the second his eyes fluttered open.

  "Uhng," he groaned softly. Keeping his eyes open only made the pain in his head worse, but closing them made him fall back to sleep again. When that happened, the hands shook him and that little movement hurt terribly. His whole body ached as if he had been used as a punching bag.

  "Curtis, wake up. We have to get going," the voice, a dry whisper belonged to Miss Feanor, but it was a few moments before he was able to recognize her or his surroundings. He felt completely dazed; it was as if he were trying to think with someone else's brain.

  "Miss Feanor? Where are we..." he started to ask, but her eyes went wide with alarm and she put soft fingers to his mouth.

  "Shhh. Not so loud," she said. "We have to fill out some paperwork. Would you like McDonalds for breakfast?" Normally he'd have jumped at the chance to go to McDonalds, but the more he came awake, the more he felt sick and out of sorts.

  And confused.

  "Breakfast?" he asked in puzzlement. "What happened to dinner?"

  Pulling him out of bed, the little woman whispered, "You slept through dinner." She then pushed at him until Curt started walking on his own. At that point, he found that whatever was ailing his head was causing his joints and muscles to ache as well. It hurt to walk, and navigating the stairs was even worse, and he had to stifle groans as he moved.

  When they entered the kitchen, she turned to gaze closer at him. "You still don't look so good," Miss Feanor murmured the obvious. "I'll get you some aspirin."

  She left him swaying there and it was a moment before he realized that the other kids were in the nook, not twenty feet away. They were sitting as still and silent as the furniture under them. At length, in slow mechanical motions, they began to eat their toast with orange marmalade, and only their eyes demonstrated that they were truly alive.

  They had expressive eyes.

  All except the blonde girl, who hadn't looked up as the others, but sat staring at the remains of her toast, chewing slowly as if the taste of orange marmalade was a great thing and worth savoring.

  But the other three had eyes that were very much alive. They took in every detail about Curt with them, but they spoke to him with their eyes as well.

  Matt, the eldest, had small brown eyes that matched his hair and went well with the small features of his face. He would have been considered good-looking, but for the tinge of unkindness that marked his features. His eyes spoke to Curt, telling him in no uncertain terms that he was in charge and that Curt had better pay him respect.

  Curt did so and nodded to him as a way of saying good morning. Oddly, Matt didn't seem pleased at this and only narrowed his eyes at him as if he had done something wrong. Curt suspected there would be no pleasing this boy without plenty of butt kissing.

  He looked next to Paul, who at five and half feet tall, was only an inch shorter than Matt, but where Matt was thin, Paul was downright scrawny. His arms were twigs and his face was narrow and haggard looking. He appeared unwell, like one of those boys with asthma or allergies, who seemed perpetually sick. Even his blonde hair hung limp and lifeless, but it was his eyes that told Curtis that the boy was slowly dying.

  There was nothing in particular that Curtis could pinpoint in them that told him this, all the same, he read it as fact. And what's more, Paul's eyes told him that he knew it as well. His eyes were a dull grey and showed mostly sadness, but beneath that, Curt saw faint wisps of defiance, and he suspected that these wisps had been roaring flames at one point. Even as groggy as he was, that thought, the idea that the boy had been broken, gave Curt the shivers and he considered for a moment taking Paul with him when he made his break for it.

  Curt next took in the mouse of a girl. Her brown eyes were those of a butterfly in a tempest. They darted about with an unsettling speed, landing, seeming without control, all over Curt's body. He did pick out a pattern however. There was one area of his body that she seemed to take in more than the rest of him. His crotch. Her eyes would go from his hair to his crotch, and then to his arm...and then back to his crotch and so forth. It got so bad, that he was forced to look down there and he felt certain that he'd see his fly open.

  However, his fly wasn't open, but there was something wrong and he stared down at himself feeling more confusion. But just then, Miss Feanor came in and ignoring the other teenagers, she pulled Curt to the garage.

  "My clothes...these aren't my clothes," he said in amazement. What he meant by this was that the clothes he currently wore were not the ones he had fallen asleep in. The ones that Matt had given him; jeans and a grey turtleneck shirt had been far too big. These ones, though still the standard uniform of the odd house, fit much better.

  "Hush," she ordered sternly and pointed at the passenger seat for him to get in. He did so, but still she held up her hand for him to be quiet. It wasn't until the garage door went up and she pulled out, that she explained. "You needed proper clothes, those other ones didn't fit," she explained, as if this was the most normal thing.

  "But..." he started to say, and so shocked was he that nothing else came out and he could only look at her, shaking his head in disbelief.

  "Don't worry, the boys changed you. Now I hope you don't mind, I would like to listen to some music," and without waiting, she flicked on the radio. Under no circumstances was Curt going to stay in that house for even another night, however he was still terribly curious as to why everyone whispered and was so silent.

  "Miss Feanor, can I ask..."

  She interrupted, "Curtis, please. When we get back home, I'll answer all your questions but first, let's just listen." She turned up the music, it was an eighties station and her fingers drummed along to the beat. She had her eyes half closed and smiled as if the sound was the most wonderful thing.

  Curt didn't care for eighties music.

  In truth, he wasn't big into any music, but that morning the steady beat was like a little hammer striking his head non-stop and he was heartily glad when they finally pulled into the parking lot of the social services building. He eyed it with disgust.

  And he had trouble keeping the same look off his face when he glanced at Miss Feanor. He knew her type. She had promised him McDonalds to keep him happy and quiet, but he guessed they weren't going. He
could only rub his now throbbing head.

  "Oh, your aspirin," she said as she caught sight of him. She dug in her pocket and came away with two normal sized pills and when they entered, he went to the nearest water fountain and swallowed them greedily.

  2

  He was wrong about McDonalds however.

  They spent an hour at the social services building, filling out forms and chatting. Curt felt the greatest temptation to say something about the odd and unhappy nature of the home, but the way Miss Gladys looked at Miss Feanor, it clearly would have done no good. He could also tell that Miss Feanor was expecting him to say something, but he kept his mouth shut, knowing that she'd have an excuse for anything he might say anyways...he would have if he was her.

  When he would leave the home was his only dilemma. His gut told him to take off right then and not to wait for nightfall. He could go to the bathroom as an excuse and just leave, but there was the issue of Paul and of course the silver.

  It was mostly the silver.

  Curt knew that he had a small sucker streak running through him and sometimes he would get played, falling for some scheme, or for a sad face. However, by knowing this, he never invested much of himself or his belongings and thus rarely lost very much as a consequence. Paul had one of those faces that he couldn't help but like and he felt an odd need to help him to escape.

  However, there was this, if Paul wanted to run, he would have done so by now and Curt could guess the reason he stayed. He was likely being played as a sap by Miss Feanor, who kept him and the others around as slave labor to keep that fine home of hers so perfect, all the while dangling the possibility of adoption in front of their eyes.

  They were never going to be adopted.