Deadman's Castle

by Iain Lawrence

  She started crying. She just would not move.

  This was the moment I’d been warned about for years, and I felt like I was stuck in one of my terrible dreams, scared to look back, unable to run. I shouted, “Mom!”

  Someone must have heard me in their apartment high above us. A sliding door banged open. A face appeared at a railing. Mom came dashing out onto the back porch. “Igor, what’s wrong?” she cried.

  Bumble wailed as I pulled her along by the sleeve. She kicked her little feet as she slid through the snow. I was so scared that I almost left her there. But I whirled around to pick her up, and in that moment I saw the man rising to his feet. Snow fell away from his shoulders and his arms.

  “Mom!” I clutched Bumble’s collar and dragged her through the snow. Mom was running down the steps to help me.

  The man’s voice carried over the river. “It’s all right. It’s me.”

  I stopped and looked toward him. I saw Dad waving from the edge of the forest.

  “It’s just me,” he said.

  He came out of the bushes in his clown pants, a jacket on top. He plowed through the snow to the riverbank, then waggled his arms and shouted, “It’s okay!”

  It took Dad nearly half an hour to walk back to the house, but Mom was still furious. “What on earth were you doing over there?” she asked.

  “Scouting,” he said, like it was the most reasonable thing in the world. “I wanted to see what someone would see from there.”

  “So you hid in the forest to frighten your children?” asked Mom.

  “I’m only trying to keep them safe,” he said.

  THE BOOKS

  I dreaded going to school the next day. I kept remembering the kids laughing at me, the taunting cry behind my back. Eeeeeeegor. Eeeeeeeegor. How could I go through that again?

  My parents watched me fiddle with my breakfast, and it wasn’t hard for them to guess what I was thinking. “You know, son, you don’t have to go back,” Dad told me. “You can stay here and do your homeschooling.”

  “I bet you’d like that,” I said.

  He only sighed. But Mom told me, “We want what you want.”

  That was no help. “I don’t know what I want,” I said.

  Dad went upstairs to get ready for work. With Bumble still asleep, only Mom and I were left in the kitchen.

  “I’m going to tell you a story,” she said.

  “Oh, boy. It’s my lucky day.”

  She pulled out a chair and sat down beside me. “When I was little girl, my father made me take piano lessons,” she said. “I hated him for that.”

  “Oh, Mom.” I didn’t care about her stupid piano lessons.

  “Now just listen,” she said. “I kicked and I screamed. I made such a fuss that my father gave up after only two weeks. ‘You don’t want to go, that’s fine with me,’ he said. So I quit. And you know what? I’ve regretted it ever since. I’m sorry I never learned to play the piano.”

  It was a dumb story, maybe not even true. But it made me decide that I did want to go to school. Because I didn’t want to sit at home with my mom anymore. When Dad came back into the kitchen, he was wearing his clown suit. As he adjusted his huge bow tie, he asked, “So what’s the verdict?”

  I said, “I’ll go to school.”

  “That’s great,” said Mom, smiling at me.

  Dad wasn’t so happy, but he didn’t argue. “Well, if you’re sure about this, you might as well let your mother drive you there right now.”

  I didn’t want to be seen driving up with my mom in the bright green minivan. I said, “I’d rather walk.”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” said Dad. “We made a deal. Your mother will drive you.”

  “I walked there before,” I said.

  “I know that,” said Dad. “And you won’t do it again. If you don’t want your mother to drive you, I’ll get the keys and—”

  “No!” I said. The very last thing I wanted was to be driven to school by a clown in a minivan.

  So I went with my mom, and because I didn’t have a backpack yet, I carried my things in a grocery bag.

  I was more than half an hour early, the first kid in room 242. As Mr. Little wrote things on the blackboard, I took my seat and started fiddling with my pen. The other kids arrived in little groups, laughing and talking all around me.

  “Take your seats, please,” said Mr. Little.

  The hee-haw boy tumbled into his chair next to mine like he’d fallen from an airplane. Soon only one kid was left standing. Right beside me, he gripped the corner of my desk and shook it.

  “You’re in my place,” he said.

  He had not been at school the day before, or I would have noticed him for sure. He had a scrunched-up face with lumpy little ears, his hair too long on one side, too short on the other. I guessed his mother was his barber.

  “Get out!” The boy jiggled my desk again. He shoved my books aside and plonked down his backpack. “Move!” he told me.

  Mr. Little sighed. “Angelo, what’s the problem?”

  “This dork’s in my place,” said the boy.

  “Then sit somewhere else.” Mr. Little pointed to an empty desk in the middle of the room, on the aisle that split the class. “That place is empty.”

  “I don’t want to sit there,” said Angelo, as whiny as a three-year-old.

  “Feel free to leave, Mr. Bonito.”

  With a scowl, Angelo grabbed his backpack. As he turned away, it banged against my head, not by accident.

  The hee-haw boy leaned closer and whispered, “He’ll get you for that.”

  I was aware of Angelo Bonito all through that morning, as we moved from class to class. Whenever I saw him, he was taking up an awful lot of space, always talking loudly. Of all the kids I wouldn’t want to be mad at me, Angelo Bonito would be top of the list.

  Right after lunch, our math teacher handed out a pop quiz and told us to bring them up to her desk as we finished. I had to pass Angelo on the way there, and then again on the way back, and at that moment he reached out his hand to stop me. He pointed at the floor.

  His books lay scattered next to his desk.

  “Pick them up,” he told me.

  “Why?”

  “You knocked them down. Pick ’em up.”

  I knew I hadn’t knocked down his books, and I wasn’t going to get onto my knees and pick them up just to give him a laugh. I stepped right over them. A few minutes later I watched Angelo bend down to collect them. I could see a band of his underwear peeking up above the seat of his pants. There was something about the way he had to stretch and grope that made me feel sorry for him. But as soon as the teacher turned away, Angelo turned to me. He pointed a finger like a stabbing knife. “I’m going to kill you,” he mouthed.

  The hee-haw boy nodded at me. “He will,” he whispered. “He’ll kill you.”

  Through the rest of that day I couldn’t think of anything except Angelo and his stupid books and what would happen as soon as school ended. I imagined myself lying in different arrangements under the concrete lion, with a chalk outline drawn around my body.

  In the final period, back in Mr. Little’s room, the clock at the front counted down my last minutes. The long finger of the second hand moved in tiny leaps until the buzzer rang to end the day.

  I got up and joined the rush for the door. Like water through a funnel, it swept me out into the hall and down to my locker. I saw Angelo’s goofy face and his weird haircut bobbing past.

  I took out my coat and put it on. All around me, the metal doors of the lockers were clanging shut, kids were shouting, and that river of people was surging along.

  I could have thrown myself into it and tried to escape in the flood. But Angelo was a little bit downstream, standing by his open locker. The hee-haw kid was there beside him, the two of them watching me, waiting for me to go floating past.

  There was no way I was going to do that. I went back to the room and sat at my desk. I emptied my grocery bag and fi
lled it again, as slowly as I possibly could. Each pencil, each pen, each piece of paper, I placed carefully inside.

  There were a few stragglers still leaving, and the noise in the hall was beginning to fade. I imagined that Angelo had gone outside with everyone else and was waiting for me by the concrete lions like a spider in its web.

  Well, he’ll have a long wait, I thought. I decided to sneak out of the school through a back door. If I could find one.

  I was about to put that plan into action when Angelo and the hee-haw boy strolled into the room again.

  Mr. Little looked up but didn’t say anything. He couldn’t leave until the room was empty.

  I started taking stuff out of my bag all over again, like I’d suddenly remembered I had to make more notes. The boys wandered across the room to look at Mr. Little’s displays of rocks and fossils and dead insects.

  It was probably the first time any kid had stayed late to look at those things, and Mr. Little must have been amazed. He closed his books and leaned back in his chair.

  “Interested in butterflies, Trevis?” he asked.

  “Who isn’t?” said the hee-haw boy.

  Mr. Little walked over and stood between them. He was about the same height as Angelo and at least a foot shorter than Trevis.

  “Look at this.” He pointed into one of the cases. “That’s an owl butterfly, that brownish one,” he said. “See how those spots on its wings mimic the eyes of an owl? Here, look closely.”

  The boys bent down, their hands on the sides of the wooden box.

  I knew they didn’t care about butterflies, and it made me feel sad to see Mr. Little so enthusiastic. Then I started wondering if he knew exactly what was going on and only wanted to give me a chance to escape.

  I shoved my things back in my bag, bent down, and tightened the buckles on my boots. Quiet as a ninja, I left the room. In the hall I started running. I turned right, then left, then left again, past a janitor with a cart full of garbage bags, a teacher who shouted at me to “Walk, don’t run!” I bounded down a flight of stairs, bashed open a metal door, and stumbled out onto the playground. Across the field, over the snow, I went at a dead run. Only when I reached the street did I stop to catch my breath. Then, like a spy on the loose, I dashed from tree to tree and made my way to the front of the school.

  The green jelly bean was the only car left. Mom was standing beside it, shielding her eyes from the sun as she looked around the school yard.

  “Oh, thank goodness,” she said when I ran up beside her. “I was getting scared.”

  Well, so was I. Hot air blasted from the minivan when I threw open the sliding door. Bumble was there, laughing at me as I dove inside. “Let’s go,” I said.

  “Don’t you want to sit up front?” asked Mom.

  “It’s nice back here.”

  Mom pushed hard on the sliding door. It closed with a whoosh and a thump that rocked the whole van. I lifted my head and peeked over the seats. Out through the school’s front door came Angelo and Trevis.

  As they started down the steps, Mom got into the driver’s seat. She yanked on her seat belt, hauling it over her shoulder as they walked toward the street.

  “Let’s go,” I said again.

  “All right!” In a huff she put the car into drive, turned on the windshield wipers for no reason on earth, and pulled slowly from the curb.

  We went right past Angelo and Trevis. I could see Angelo’s gnarled little ears, as pink as Bumble’s coat. He turned to look right at me, like he somehow felt me watching him.

  There was no way he could see through the tinted windows. But I didn’t move until Mom rounded the corner at the next block. When I raised my head, I saw her watching me in the rearview mirror.

  “Do you know those boys?” she asked.

  “Sort of.”

  “Are you in some kind of trouble?”

  I wanted to tell her yes, I was in big trouble. Then she could talk to Principal Harris, and someone would tell Angelo to leave me alone. But I knew that wouldn’t work. It would only make him angry. So I shook my head and said, “No, Mom.”

  I was doomed.

  That night was terrible. I felt like a guy on death row, hoping for a last-minute pardon. I kept seeing Angelo turning around to point at me. I’m going to kill you. I kept hearing Trevis whispering, He’ll get you for that. Over and over and over, I asked myself, Why didn’t you pick up the STUPID BOOKS???

  At dawn I was still tossing in my bed, looking every minute through the crack in the curtains, hoping to see a sudden, terrible blizzard that would close the school. But that never came, and I knew I couldn’t run away from Angelo every day for the rest of my life. There was no choice. I had to go to school and let him kill me.

  A HANDFUL OF SNOW

  I thought my pardon had arrived.

  Again the first kid into the classroom, I watched the others come through the door. I expected Angelo and Trevis to appear at any moment. But when the first bell rang they were the only two who hadn’t arrived.

  Mr. Little walked over and gave the door a push to swing it shut. But it crashed open again, banging against the wall. In walked Angelo and Travis.

  “Glad you could join us, gentlemen,” said Mr. Little.

  That was a horrible day. I just wanted to get it all over with, and I wouldn’t have believed that hours could pass so slowly. When the buzzer rang to end the day, I put my things in my grocery bag, got my coat from my locker, and started walking toward the front door like nothing was wrong. Right away, Trevis was at my side. Another boy fell in behind me. Then Angelo stepped in front, and they herded me down the hall.

  Mr. Little watched us from the doorway. “Everything all right, boys?”

  “Yes,” said Trevis.

  “Igor?”

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  I could see he was suspicious. If I’d told him I needed help, he would have helped me. But I didn’t want to rely on him like Dad relied on the Protectors. I had to do this alone. Corralled by the boys, I was steered down the stairs and out the back door.

  It was cold there, on the shadowed side of the building. Under its fresh surface, the snow was old and crunchy. Angelo led us past the gym, to the loneliest part of the playground where teachers never went and the snow was thickest. Suddenly, he whirled around and grabbed my coat. He drove me backward, slamming me against the wall. I dropped my paper bag. The others held my arms and pinned me there, one on each side.

  Angelo reached down to grab something. With my head pressed against the cold brick, I couldn’t see what it was. But strangely, I didn’t care. I didn’t shout or blubber or struggle to get away. I just stood there and let Angelo do whatever he meant to do. I saw his hand sweep up again, and in his fist was—

  Snow.

  He had a handful of snow, and he squashed it into my mouth and my eyes. He forced it between my lips, against my teeth; he pushed it up my nose.

  I started laughing. After all the terrible things I’d imagined, the hours of worry and fear, all he did was rub snow in my face.

  “Why are you laughing?” he said.

  “I don’t know,” I told him. I tried to stop but couldn’t.

  Maybe Angelo was only getting started. Maybe he really was planning the things I’d imagined—or worse—and to him I seemed crazy and fearless. Laughing in the face of death. He let the snow fall to the ground and backed away.

  “Come on, let’s go,” he said to his friends. They went slouching across the playground, kicking at the snow. I picked up my bag and went home.

  After that day, Angelo never bothered me again. We weren’t friends or anything, or not right away. It was more like we’d become invisible to each other. He didn’t threaten me, didn’t intimidate me, didn’t try to kick me out of my place in the classroom. His desk became mine.

  THE OUTSIDERS

  I got Mom to buy me a backpack, but I wouldn’t let her pick it out. I was afraid she’d choose something orange or pink, with unicorns leapi
ng over rainbows.

  The one I chose was a nice bland color, but I scuffed it up a bit so it wouldn’t look too new. I loved my backpack, and I carried it slung over one shoulder with the straps dangling down, just like the cool kids did.

  Every morning I looked forward to going to school, and the days passed quickly. Soon it was March and winter was ending. Out on the river, huge cracks appeared in the ice. Snow turned to slush and melted away. But the apartment-shaded lawn of the yellow house remained a gray island of winter, deep with snow.

  In language arts, our teacher split the class into groups to study The Call of the Wild. I couldn’t figure out why she put me with Angelo and Trevis and the Goth, but every Wednesday afternoon we pushed our desks into a clump in the corner and got to work. Each group had to give a presentation, and we chose “Wolves of the Yukon.”

  The Goth was named Zoe, and in our group she was the smartest by far. She was our researcher.

  Angelo was the artist. If I drew a wolf it looked like a guinea pig, but Angelo’s seemed nearly alive. He made the hair thick and layered, so real I wanted to touch it. But if anybody told Angelo he was good at drawing he got mad. He wanted people to think he was tough and mean. In that way, he and Zoe were the same, afraid to let anybody see what they were really like inside.

  Trevis was our speaker, the one who’d have to stand up and give our presentation. He wasn’t a great speaker, but he didn’t mind making a fool of himself.

  That first day, I didn’t have a job. I didn’t even open my mouth. Then Zoe shoved a notebook in front of me and slammed a pen on top.

  I looked at her, but all I could see was a little crucifix pinned through her nose. It sparkled in the sun, dazzling me.

  “You’re the scribe,” she said. “Start scribing.”

  Only Zoe would have used that word. Trevis burst out laughing. “What’s a scribe?” he said in his hooting voice.

  “A writer, you moron,” said Zoe.

  She passed me all the notes she’d made about wolves. She practically told me what to write, then went back to her research.