Deadman's Castle

by Iain Lawrence

  It wasn’t really necessary. No one was trying to take my picture. Though it made me a little sad to admit it, I was a part of the group only in the way that Pluto was part of the solar system, a distant object circling the edges.

  Half an hour later, the ringing and texting and picture-taking had stopped. Only four of us were left: Angelo, Trevis, Zoe, and me. Dented cans didn’t have cell phones.

  I stood leaning back against the pillar, looking up at the lion’s mouth. Someone had smeared red lipstick on the lips and gums, giving it a fierce snarl. Behind me, Angelo said, “Let’s go.”

  I didn’t know if he meant to include me. When I turned around, Trevis was already moving, and the two of them walked away. Zoe kept drumming her heels on the lion’s ribs, a bump-a-bump sound.

  “I guess I better get going,” I said.

  “You want to walk me home?” asked Zoe.

  “How far is it?”

  “Not far. But if you don’t want—”

  “Yeah, okay,” I said, like it didn’t matter to me one way or the other.

  “Catch me.”

  Zoe swung her leg across the lion’s shoulders and launched herself from its back. I didn’t even have time to lift my hands before she crashed against me. We tumbled backward onto the ground, knocking the wind out of me.

  I lay there gasping, but Zoe just laughed and got up. “Nice catch,” she said.

  We walked north toward Jefferson Street. I had no idea where Zoe lived, but I still had lots of time to get home before five o’clock.

  “So why don’t you like having your picture taken?” asked Zoe.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I saw you. The way you turned around when people brought out their phones. You think they’ll steal your soul or something?”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Well, why then?” asked Zoe. “Are you hiding from someone? Are you running away?”

  She was only joking—or partly joking—but it scared me that she’d come so close to the truth so quickly.

  “Come on, Igor,” she said. “You can tell me.”

  I wanted to. What a huge relief it would be to tell her everything. We could sit down, side by side, and I would start with the day when the big policeman had walked into the house with his gun. But I didn’t say a word.

  Zoe bumped against me and peered into my eyes.

  “Who are you, Igor Watson?” she asked. “You come out of nowhere with a Spider-Man lunch box. You dress like an old man.” Her hand counted off these bizarre things. “You don’t want your picture taken. You carry your money in your sock…” She shook her head. “What planet did you come from?”

  “Look who’s talking!” I snapped at her without thinking. Words spewed from my mouth by themselves. “You dress like a vampire and you look like a corpse.”

  Zoe started crying.

  I saw her face crumple up, and I felt terrible. I reached out to grab her, but she whirled away and started running.

  THE HORRIBLE PLANE CRASH

  I got home before five o’clock. But Dad still looked suspicious as he let me in. He stepped onto the porch to make sure no one had followed me, then closed and locked the door.

  “Where have you been?” he asked.

  “At school,” I told him.

  “I mean after school.” He crossed his arms. “What were you doing?”

  “Talking with my friends.”

  “About what?”

  “I don’t know. Just stuff,” I said. “Why does it matter? I came home on time.”

  He glanced down the hall to see if Mom or Bumble was listening, then lowered his voice. “I don’t want to tell your mother yet, but I saw something suspicious.”

  “Oh, Dad!”

  “Shh.” He pulled me into the corner and leaned closer. “Listen. I saw the same car go by three times on Jefferson today. Windows dark as a coal mine.”

  “Maybe they were lost,” I said.

  “I think whoever was in that car was looking for something. Or for someone.”

  “So we’re bugging out?” I said. “ ’Cause you saw a car with black windows?”

  “No, I don’t want to do that.” Dad checked to make sure he’d chained and locked the door. “It might have been someone lost, as you say. There could be other explanations. I just can’t be sure,” he said. “But for the next few days I want you to be extra careful. Straight to school, straight home again. All right?”

  “Sure, Dad,” I said. It was scaring me, the way he was talking.

  That night I thought about Zoe. Again and again in my mind I watched her run away, and I wished I could take back the things I’d said. I decided to tell her I was sorry, but I never got the chance.

  The next day, and all that week, she ignored me at school. If I walked toward her, she went the other way. I felt hollow inside, like an empty cave where the wind whistled through. I learned that the only thing worse than not having a friend was losing a friend.

  At the end of the day on Friday I waited for her at the concrete lion. Angelo was there, and Trevis, and all the cell phone kids. Suddenly the front doors banged open and Zoe strode out.

  She came straight down the stairs and right past me. “Wait,” I said. On she went, clomp, clomp, clomp in her army boots.

  “Zoe!”

  I started to follow her, but Angelo stopped me. “Forget it,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “That’s just Zoe being Zoe.”

  She turned through the gate and onto the street. Behind me the kids were talking, and their shadows lay on the grass like a big blob with twenty arms and twenty legs. Trevis said, “Hey, Angelo, you wanna do something?”

  “Yeah, okay,” said Angelo.

  He had been leaning against the pillar and now pushed himself up. At the same time, he shoved me with his elbow. “Come on, Igor,” he said. “Let’s walk up to Deadman’s Castle.”

  I wanted to go with Angelo. I was afraid that if I said no he might never ask again. But I knew I shouldn’t. Dad had made that very clear earlier in the week. Straight to school, straight home again.

  “Well?” asked Angelo. “You wanna go, or not?”

  What if Dad was right and the Lizard Man was watching us? Would he really try to grab me in broad daylight? With Angelo and Trevis right beside me? Then I wondered if the Lizard Man could even recognize me. How would he know what I looked like? I’d always been hidden in the car when we bugged out. If we didn’t have a garage, Dad would cover my face with a blanket and rush me through the door, into the car, like a criminal on the way to court. For almost all of my life I had lived behind curtains.

  Angelo was getting impatient. “You coming?” he said.

  I made up my mind. “Sure,” I told him.

  We walked together out to the street, Angelo and Trevis and me. We turned to the right like marching soldiers, in a line across the sidewalk. Like always, I watched for old men in big cars, for young men in black cars, and all the other things Dad had told me to watch for. But after a while I began to feel stupid doing that. I was proud to be walking with Angelo. I scuffed my feet like he did. When he put his hands in his pockets, I put my hands in mine.

  Trevis found a Coke can and started kicking it ahead of us. It jangled and rattled, skittered and bounced.

  “How long have you known Zoe?” I asked Angelo.

  He answered with a riddle. “You think anyone knows Zoe?”

  The Coke can bounced off a crack in the sidewalk and went spinning along like a top. Angelo stepped over it.

  “She keeps changing,” he said. “It’s like all of a sudden she’s got a new name and new clothes and she’s acting all weird.”

  “Why?”

  “Who knows?”

  Trevis stomped hard on the Coke can. It folded up around his heel and clung to his boot. When he walked he clanked. “It’s ’cause of the plane crash. Right, Angelo?”

  Angelo only grunted.

  “What plane crash?” I asked.

&
nbsp; “When she was a little kid,” said Trevis. “Tell him, Angelo. She was the only survivor.”

  “Wow.”

  “Both of her parents were killed,” said Trevis. “Zoe grew up as an orphan. That’s why she’s weird.”

  “But I met her mom at the Salvation Army,” I said.

  “Oh, that’s not her real mom. Right, Angelo?” Bored with the Coke can, Trevis sent it soaring onto somebody’s lawn. “It was a 747. A jumbo jet.”

  We walked half a block and crossed a street. Trevis tossed in another detail. “Three hundred and forty people were killed.”

  I wondered what it would do to somebody to be the only survivor in a crash like that. If it happened to me, would I start dressing in black and painting my face like a corpse?

  Poor Zoe, I thought. “Does she wear all the makeup to hide the scars?”

  Trevis started laughing. Hee-haw, hee-haw. It belted out of him. I said, “What’s so funny?”

  “He’s making it up,” said Angelo. “There was no plane crash. That stuff isn’t true.” He pushed Trevis sideways, sending him reeling into a hedge. “You can be a real jerk sometimes, Trev.”

  I would have felt terrible if Angelo had talked to me that way. But Trevis only laughed again. He said, “I bet we see her up at the castle.”

  “Probably,” said Angelo. “She goes there all the time.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “It’s spooky. Like a crip.”

  I was pretty sure he meant crypt, but I didn’t correct him.

  “Zoe goes in there without a flashlight,” he said. “Nobody else will do that.”

  “You know what?” said Trevis. “Once, she went right to the bottom.”

  “No she didn’t,” said Angelo.

  “That’s what I heard,” said Trevis. “She found a secret door down there. Another way out.”

  “Quit lying!”

  “It’s the truth!”

  They sounded like Mom and Dad on the edge of a fight, each annoyed at the other. But they kept walking toward Jefferson Street.

  I knew I should leave them, that I should say “See you later” and turn away to go home. But I just couldn’t do it. It was like I was handcuffed to Angelo, or something, and had to go wherever he went. Almost before I knew it, we were on the other side of Jefferson. We walked north for another block, then turned left toward the river. I’m going to be in so much trouble, I thought. But I still kept going. I wanted to stay with Angelo. I wanted to see Zoe.

  We crossed Dead End Road and kept walking west until we came to a path. A yellow post had been planted in the middle to block motorcycles. Trevis leapfrogged right over it while Angelo and I passed on either side. We walked down a slope to the river, where a spidery bridge made of rope and wood hung high above the water. Only wide enough for one person, it sagged in the middle until it was about twenty feet above the water.

  Trevis pushed ahead to be first across. The bridge creaked like an old rocking chair as Angelo went behind him.

  This was my very last chance to go home before I had broken every rule that Dad had made. I had not gone straight home. I had crossed Jefferson and was about to cross the river as well. But I still kept going. I couldn’t stand the thought of Angelo talking to me the way he’d talked to Trevis. I followed him onto the bridge.

  Out in the middle, Trevis started shifting his weight to make it swing. Angelo and I staggered from side to side.

  Hee-haw, laughed Trevis. He threw himself against the ropes and got a rhythm going. The bridge swayed so fast that I had to stop and hold on.

  “Quit it!” said Angelo. But Trevis didn’t listen. He hauled on the ropes, and they made popping sounds as loud as gunshots. We swung through the air, back and forth.

  Angelo swore. “Quit it, Trev! I’m not kidding.”

  Hee-haw. Trevis threw himself to the left. He threw himself to the right, bouncing off the ropes like an all-star wrestler. I was sure I’d be thrown into the river. Pitched forward and back by the roll of the bridge, I looked down at the water, then up at the sky.

  I felt sick.

  The blur of trees along the banks, the swirls in the water, the flash of sky made me dizzy. Sure I would puke, I closed my eyes.

  Hee-haw. Ropes squealed and banged; the wood groaned.

  Angelo was yelling. His voice went high and shrill, and I knew he was terrified. But Trevis kept laughing that stupid laugh, leaning forward and back as he pulled on the ropes.

  My feet slipped out from under me. I crumpled onto the planks, tumbled sideways, and the whole world seemed to swing around me.

  “Stop it, you moron!” screamed Angelo.

  Trevis let go of the ropes. The bridge swayed slower and slower until it came to a rest. “There,” he said. “Happy now?”

  Angelo helped me up. With an arm around my shoulder he led me back to the path. To me it felt like the bridge was still swinging. I staggered onto the grass, dropped to my knees, and threw up.

  Of course Trevis found that hilarious. But Angelo kept his arm around my shoulder and told Trevis again to shut up. “You laugh like a jackass,” he said. “Why don’t you just get out of here?”

  I was glad when Trevis turned and walked away. But I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. Suddenly he was the one who didn’t belong.

  “You okay?” asked Angelo, standing over me.

  I nodded. My mouth tasted of sour vomit, and I could feel little chunks clogging my nose. But my dizziness had gone, and I started laughing with Angelo about how we’d both thought the bridge would break, and the way I’d looked when I was throwing up, and what a dork Trevis was.

  “Ever since kindergarten he’s been like that,” said Angelo. “Sometimes I can’t stand him.”

  THE BIG BANG OF FRIENDSHIP

  It was an angry Dad who let me into the house. He was waiting at the front door, pulling it open as I crossed the porch. He gave me just enough room to step inside.

  “Didn’t I tell you to come straight home?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “but—”

  “Did anyone follow you?”

  “No,” I told him, and that was absolutely true. But still Dad pushed me aside and stared out at the road. Satisfied that no one was there, he locked us safely inside.

  “Now let me make this clear,” he said. “You’re not leaving the house this weekend. Not for a moment.”

  “But Dad—”

  “I don’t know what else to do with you.” Dad sighed and shook his head. “I give you an inch and you take a mile. I told you to be extra careful, and you paid no attention.”

  “But nothing happened,” I said. “Dad, come on. You saw that one car, and it was days ago. Don’t you think it’s safe now?”

  “No,” he said. “It’s not that simple.”

  “Why not?”

  “You don’t understand.”

  It was like he had his secrets too. I wondered if I really knew the whole story of the Lizard Man.

  I spent that weekend inside the house, and I thought my dad was really mean. But when enough days went by with no one being murdered or kidnapped, he relaxed my rules. I was allowed to stay out until five o’clock again.

  I thought making a friend took a long time, like growing an acorn into an oak tree. But really it happened fast, like the big bang theory that Mr. Little had talked about. “For eon after eon you know nothing but empty darkness,” he’d told us. “Then BOOM! You’ve got it all.”

  It was the day at the bridge that made everything different. Angelo stopped hanging around with Trevis and started hanging around with me instead. Suddenly we were doing everything together, or as much as we could do before five o’clock. We started meeting at the same corner every morning, where an old man lived in a big old house behind a white fence. If I didn’t find Angelo leaning against the fence, I would lean there myself and wait for him. Sometimes the old man would come stomping out, yelling, “Get away from my fence, you hooligan!” We would always laugh about tha
t. We named him Mr. Meanie.

  In room 242, Angelo made Trevis change places, and we sat together at the back, and every time Mr. Little said something funny we looked at each other and smiled. And when the day ended we walked out of the room and down the hall together. We even went through the big front doors together, shoving them wide open at the same moment, not even slowing down. We hung around with the other kids at the concrete lions, then walked back to Mr. Meanie’s fence, where we said “See ya later” and went our separate ways.

  Trevis tagged along at first, always in third place like the way I had been on the day at the bridge. But then he started making other friends, and soon it was only me and Angelo.

  We talked all the time, about every crazy thing that came to our minds, like the best way to wrestle an alligator, and what we would do if we were invisible. The only thing we never talked about was the day he’d shoved snow in my face. We sort of pretended it had never happened, that we’d always been friends. That was how it felt.

  I even made friends with Zoe again. She went from saying nothing at all to saying two or three words at a time: “Move over.” “Shut up, loser.” After a while her sentences got longer, and soon it was like she’d never been mad at me.

  I came to see that kids in middle school acted the same way as countries. They could go from friends to enemies and back again. But they could also go to war for a hundred years.

  It was near the end of April when I went to Angelo’s house for the first time. He took me there after school.

  I didn’t expect a mansion. But his place was more ordinary than I’d imagined. A small, square house with small, square windows, it looked like the sort of house Bumble always drew, but without the jet of smoke shooting from the chimney.

  When Angelo opened the door I smelled garlic and spices. He shouted, “Ma! I’m home,” and I heard the scrabbling sound of claws.

  “Here comes Smasher,” said Angelo.

  I stepped back, expecting a pit bull to come charging down the hall, or a boxer with a chest wider than mine. But around the corner, scrabbling on its little legs, came the funniest dog I’d ever seen. Smasher was no bigger than a cat, a black-and-white bundle of fur with floppy ears and a scrunched-up face that looked a bit like Angelo’s. Her front teeth showed in a jagged line, like she was smiling. She hopped while she ran, kind of skipping along, then twirled little circles at Angelo’s feet.