“If you don’t agree,” Wagner threatened delightfully, “I’ll tell everyone how you go around killing animals, like cats, and cows, and . . . deer.” He laughed gleefully.
Bradley Wallace felt his heart stop beating and his legs turn to jelly. He slowly turned back to face Wagner, hoping the shaking of his knees wasn’t too obvious. Wagner stood with his arms folded smugly across his chest, leering victoriously.
How, Bradley Wallace demanded of his stunned brain, how could he have known? Was this what Wagner’s careful observations of him had been all about? Had the other boy been waiting and watching for something to hold over Bradley Wallace’s head? But there’s no way he could know about the animals. No way! It had to be a trick.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said tightly, deciding to challenge his enemy’s assertion. Wagner couldn’t know. “I’ve never killed a cat or a cow in my life.”
Wagner tilted his head insolently, his wolfish eyes gleaming with pleasure. “How about a deer, huh? See, Murphy, I know what you been doin, man, and I ain’t afraid to tell, either. I think lots of people might be interested, like those cow owners up Petaluma way.”
Bradley Wallace hesitated. He gazed deeply into Wagner’s gloating eyes, and felt certain the other boy didn’t know very much for sure. He knew bits and pieces, that was obvious, but he didn’t know how they fit together. How he got those bits and pieces was still a mystery. But even with what little he knew, Wagner could still stir up a lot of questions, questions Bradley Wallace would find it hard to answer. But this was blackmail, and Bradley Wallace’s stubborn pride told him to spit in Wagner’s face and walk away. However, he didn’t need that tiny voice in his mind to tell him that Wagner had him over a barrel. It didn’t seem as though he had much choice, did he?
His throat felt parched, as though he’d just trekked across a barren desert under a blazing, unmerciful sun without water, and his voice cracked embarrassingly. “All right,” he whispered, self-loathing trickling out with each word. He knew this was wrong, but what could he do? “You can say we had a fight and I won’t deny it.”
Wagner grinned in triumph, his twisted features momentarily resembling the demon in the forest.
That look sent Bradley Wallace’s anger level to an alarming height, but he contained it. “None of what you said is true. I’m only doing this to avoid trouble. Maybe now you’ll feel superior enough to leave me alone.”
He whirled and stalked away, not certain where the last idea about superiority had come from, nor why he even said it. He was furious with himself for giving in, furious with Wagner for being such a prick, and furious at the world for making everything so hard for him.
He stopped at the entrance to the classroom building, steaming with rage, and seriously considering fighting the jerk for real. But he knew, even in anger, that it wouldn’t solve anything. Wagner would still know what he knows, and could still tell it to everyone.
But the thought of Wagner boasting and gloating over something he didn’t do infuriated Bradley Wallace. The whole school would soon think he’d lost a fight with Wagner, something all the guys had speculated on numerous times - who might win. Once the word got around, Bradley Wallace’s humiliation would be complete. Wagner will have won at last.
The remainder of the day was even worse than Bradley Wallace envisioned. Wagner bragged ceaselessly about how he “taught that fag a lesson” and beat him where it really counts. By the time lunch period rolled around, every kid at St. Raphael’s knew of Bradley Wallace’s “defeat,” and the small measure of respect he’d generated with his arm wrestling victories withered and died with each deceitful lie Wagner uttered. And, as he’d agreed, Bradley Wallace had to back Wagner up, painfully admitting the “truth” when disbelievers queried him.
He could see by the look in many eyes that he’d disappointed them, guys who obviously thought he could take Wagner and had let them down by losing, and this knowledge increased his depression.
He could feel his drop in status just in passing clusters of murmuring students, just by the giggling or pitying shake of heads. He felt like a leper, more outcast than ever.
The only person who didn’t take his defeat so hard was Janet, who seemed more relieved that he hadn’t been badly hurt. She fussed over his bruises like a bee hovering above an enticing flower, and he flushed red with embarrassment. But her positive interest was a welcome relief from all the negative crap he’d taken this day, even if he wasn’t quite certain how to respond to it. He still felt uncomfortable around girls, especially Janet. So why hadn’t he felt uncomfortable with Josette? Maybe because Janet fawned and Josette fought, he considered.
Maybe.
It wasn’t till afternoon recess that Mr. Baldie commented on the boy’s “souvenirs,” as he called the black and blue marks. He took Bradley Wallace aside after sending the others outside, but the boy could only look shamefaced down at the floor. He somehow felt he’d let Mr. Baldie down, too. The old man clasped both hands tightly behind his back and stood before the battered and dejected child.
“Losin’ a fight’s not so bad, Murphy old boy,” he barked good-naturedly. “I lost lots of ‘em when I’s your age.”
Bradley Wallace looked up into the old teacher’s deep-set eyes.
“You did?” He always thought from Mr. Baldie’s many stories that his homeroom teacher had always been on top of things, even as a kid.
“Yeah, sure,” Mr. Baldie assured him, casting the whole matter aside with a casual shrug. “It doesn’t mean a thing.”
Bradley Wallace nodded, feeling slightly better for the older man’s interest. But of course, Mr. Baldie didn’t know the half of it.
“Thanks, Mr. Baldie,” he replied sincerely. He turned, thrust his hands into his pants pockets, and ambled slowly toward the classroom door. He wasn’t in any hurry to join his peers in the play yard.
“Wagner didn’t lay a hand on you, did he?”
Bradley Wallace whirled in surprise to face his teacher, his reaction answering the old man’s question for him.
“I thought so,” Mr. Baldie said, nodding to himself. “Why are you lettin’ him do this?”
Bradley Wallace felt momentarily like spilling his guts to this perceptive grownup that he’d always liked, but never given much credit for understanding kids. Common sense overcame his desire to tell, and he held his tongue. He couldn’t face his teacher’s open, searching gaze, however, and lowered his eyes to the floor around his black oxfords.
Mr. Baldie sighed in the manner of grownups that think you’re doing something stupid but are willing to accept your decision. “I hope whoever you’re protecting is worth it, Murphy, my friend.”
Bradley Wallace looked up suddenly, and smiled. He really had underestimated “ole skin head.” “He is,” the boy replied, turning to hurry from the classroom.
Mr. Baldie padded forward toward the door, his gait almost a waddle, his head shaking from side to side. “Kids,” he grunted, chuckling hoarsely to himself.
Bradley Wallace managed to slink his way through his last few classes, steadfastly avoiding any unnecessary contact with his peers. Whenever he spotted anyone heading in his direction, he headed the opposite way.
He knew that eventually everyone would tire of hearing that blowhard Wagner boasting, and the incident would be forgotten. He’d just have to hold out until then. Riding home on the bus, he heard somebody shout “Wimp!” at him from in back, and he realized that “then” could be a long time. And to think Whilly always defended Wagner. Well, Whilly would hear about this, that’s for sure, he thought, simmering all the way home.
Bradley Wallace sought the dragon out at once, pacing angrily back and forth across the echoing water chamber floor as he described in extraordinary detail the day’s plethora of humiliations. It always seemed the experiences he recalled the most clearly were those that were the most painful. And lately John Wagner initiated most of his painful experiences.
“How c
an you keep defending him?” Bradley Wallace practically shouted at the thus-far silent dragon.
Wisely, Whilly said nothing, knowing that whatever he did say would be wrong no matter what it was; the boy was in one of those kinds of moods.
“After everything he’s done to me,” Bradley Wallace ranted on, as though not expecting an answer or caring if he got one. “And now this. And you keep telling me he’s not so bad.”
He stopped suddenly, pacing and babbling, flinging his hands to his hips and turning angrily to the mute dragon. “You’re not listening to me, are you?” he snapped.
Of course I am, Bradley Wallace, Whilly replied calmly. I don’t really have any choice.
“Well?” the furious boy challenged. “What are you going to say about it?”
At this point, nothing.
“Why not?”
Because no matter what I say, your overpowering emotionalism will make you hear only what you want to hear. Thoughts are too precious to waste.
“You’re beginning to sound like my parents,” Bradley Wallace retorted sullenly. But as he gazed long and hard into the dragon’s serene eyes, a faint, but perceptible, light of reason began to trickle through the crevices of his fury. There was real wisdom in what Whilly said, the wisdom born of rationality. Kind of like Mr. Spock. And suddenly he felt foolish for getting so mad. He took a deep breath like they tell you at the doctor’s office, hoping to gain some measure of control over his runaway temper.
He had to force himself to speak calmly, but when the words did come they were without rancor. “You’re right, as usual,” he told the obviously pleased dragon. “I promise I won’t get angry, no matter what you say.”
That’s very sensible, Whilly replied.
Bradley Wallace forced a smile to his lips as proof of his good
intentions. “So, what do you think of Wagner now?”
I think he’s afraid.
“What!” the boy exploded, clenching the unclenching his fists spasmodically. “I knew you’d take his side, I just knew it!”
You promised not to get angry, Bradley Wallace Murphy, Whilly reminded him flatly.
“I lied,” the boy shot back like a bullet. “I’m getting real good at that, remember? And how can you defend him like that? You’re supposed to be my friend!”
*I am your friend, that’s why I’m telling you what I think. John Wagner, like all humans, is very complex, even as you are complex. You judge him with good reason, but without full knowledge. You only see what he lets you see. Look beneath the surface and you will see what is really there.*
“What are you talking about?” Bradley Wallace’s anger to one side, Whilly’s ideas were piquing his curiosity.
He’s afraid of you, Bradley Wallace. But mostly, he’s afraid of himself, and needs someone to show him the way.
“I don’t understand.”
He feels he must pretend to be things he is not, as you try to be for your parents. But he is far more insecure than you, and he fears your ability to be yourself. It disturbs him that you might see beneath his tough exterior and reveal his inner soul to the world. It frightens him.
Bradley Wallace forgot his anger as he thoughtfully digested the dragon’s confusing, but provocative (his newest word) notions. As he considered the person of John Wagner, only the vile things that had been done to him by the other boy came to mind, and his vast store of hostility toward Wagner once more took control. He stubbornly refused to release his hatred for Wagner; he couldn’t until after he at least did something to get back at the other, something to make up for all the torment. He felt Whilly’s compelling gaze, but refused to meet the dragon’s twirling scarlet eyes.
“You watch too much TV,” he finally said sullenly, determined not to listen to any more drivel about John Wagner.
Whilly shook his head as though disappointed. Think about it, Bradley Wallace.
But the boy didn’t want to, not anymore, not ever. He just wanted to get out of there, and scrambled up the creaky ladder into the hazy fall sunshine. As he hurriedly descended the steps encircling the old tank, the tinkling melody of Josette’s music box wafted out of the interior only to be carried away quickly on the late afternoon breeze.
That music made the boy feel wistful and melancholy as he moved dejectedly down the grassy knoll, kicking angrily at occasional reeds of knee-high grass.
Everything around him seemed to be changing, even his relationship with Whilly, and he felt so helpless, even a little frightened. He knew that once things changed, they would never be the same again. The chill wind picked up as he worked his way through the neighborhood, and he shivered from the cold. Looking upwards at the sky, Bradley Wallace saw the dark, ominous October storm clouds descending on his topsy-turvy world with suffocating intensity. On top of everything else, it would rain tonight. He shivered again and hurried on home.
It didn’t just rain - it exploded, lashing against the house so fiercely that Bradley Wallace felt the structure would be battered to splinters. The storm was such as he’d never seen before - hurricane-like winds, sheets of downpouring rain so thick you couldn’t see through them, blinding flashes of lightning, and booming thunder claps. The boy felt this must be what it’s like to be in the middle of a battlefield during heavy shelling. And he worried about Whilly. At first he hadn’t, still angry at the dragon for being so logical and dispassionate on the subject of John Wagner, mainly ticked off because Whilly hadn’t simply taken his side against Wagner. But this storm was dangerous, and the water tank no longer had a cover. Suppose Whilly got sick from all the water and cold. Suppose the tower got hit by lightning. Suppose . . .
Bradley Wallace could finally take it no longer. His mind conjured up too many dire scenarios, and he had to make certain his friend was all right. Forgetting his earlier anger in the wake of concern, the boy waited impatiently until everyone in the house sought refuge from the storm in his or her room. Then, shrugging quickly into his slick yellow raincoat, he slipped silently down past the front door to the entry hall closet from where he snatched up his mother’s old flowered umbrella. Making certain this time that no one was following him, Bradley Wallace stepped outside into the raging tempest.
Instantly buffeted by biting, whipping winds that viciously sent needle-like raindrops into his face, the boy struggled from the back yard and up the darkened street. He fought to keep a tight grip on his wildly flapping umbrella, which he feared would tear apart or flip inside out any minute. He’d forgotten to replace the flashlight he’d dropped back in that forest, and so pressed onward in the pitch-blackness of the storm.
Thunder exploded with a tremendous “ca-boom!” somewhere off to his left, and a bright streak of lightning slashed brutally at the sky like the murderous butcher knife of a crazed madman. Bradley Wallace had managed to gain the hill by this time, and the lightening briefly illuminated the haunted water tower, which really did look haunted this night. He bent his head again against the gale, just as another burst of lightning attacked. He suddenly recalled something Mr. O’Conner used to tell him when he was afraid of such storms as a kid - “Don’t be afraid, lad, it’s just God takin’ our picture.” If that were true, God was sure taking a lot of pictures tonight, he thought, as he looked up from the ground and saw the water tower looming just ahead like a rotting corpse rising from its grave. He stopped short to avoid bumping into the rusted-out legs that rose out of the muddied ground to grip the tank like Atlas holding up the world.
“Whilly!” he shouted into the blackness above, but his tiny voice was completely lost in the driving wind and pounding drumbeats of thunder. Receiving no response to his call, Bradley Wallace slipped and slid his way to the stairway and pulled his way blindingly toward the top. After what seemed like a battle to scale Mt. Everest, the drenched, but determined boy finally gained the platform and gazed down into the tank. His lower jaw dropped like a rock.
Whilly sat on his haunches within casually watching television, apparently warm and dry
, and oblivious to the thrashing Mother Nature was inflicting upon the rest of the world. And not a drop of rain struck him.
What the . . .? Bradley Wallace stared in disbelief as the pelting
raindrops struck the air just above the rim of the tank, and simply rolled off to run harmlessly down the sides of the tower. But rolled off what? There was nothing there!
He reached out a tentative hand, but yanked it back instantly as his fingers passed through an invisible something and suddenly became dry and warm. But he couldn’t feel anything. What was here?
You can’t feel magic power with your hands, Bradley Wallace, he heard enter his mind, and saw Whilly look up at him from below. Only with your heart.
Bradley Wallace stood in the blinding rain and whipping wind oblivious to all but the astonishment he felt as he gazed down at the dragon. Even after all this time, I’m still learning things about you, he thought to his friend.
I am, too, Whilly replied. I haven’t grown up nearly as much as you think. Come on down here where it’s dry. ‘Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman’ is on TV.
Bradley Wallace grinned and nodded. He knew none of this would change anything, but at least he felt pretty good for the first time today. And he loved “Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman.” As he climbed down into the tank, the rain and wind and cold simply ceased to exist, as though he’d stepped into another dimension. Amazement overwhelmed him as he watched the eerie sight of raindrops falling toward him and then simply stopping in midair. That was weird. “Wow,” he murmured, giving his head another shake. And then he sat down beside the dragon and they watched television until late into the night. And neither mentioned John Wagner again.
As he expected, the remainder of that week went much the same as Monday, but to a gradually lessening degree. Wagner continued to brag incessantly, and Bradley Wallace was the primary topic of conversation amongst the children. He still felt humiliated and angry, but mostly disappointed with himself for giving in to Wagner’s blackmail. But the question continued gnawing at his psyche until it was frayed around the edges - how much did Wagner really know and how did he find it out?
A Boy and His Dragon Page 39