Holly Black (23 page)

“After you,” he said, opening the door and gesturing me in.

I walked forward, down the small hallway, turning toward the beds. And that’s when I realized—there was someone in the room. And it was Sung. And he was on his bed. And he wasn’t wearing his jacket. Or a shirt. And he was moaning a little.

I thought we’d caught him jerking off. I couldn’t help it—I burst out laughing. And that’s what made him notice we were in the room. He jumped and turned around, and I realized Frances was in the bed with him, shirt also off, but bra still on.

It was all so messed up that I couldn’t stop laughing. Tears were coming to my eyes.

“Get out!” Sung yelled.

“I’m sorry, Frances,” I said between laughing fits. “I’m so sorry.”

“GET OUT!” Sung screamed again, standing up now. Thank god he still had his pants on. “YOU ARE THE DEVIL. THE DEVIL!”

“I prefer Antichrist,” I told him.

“THE DEVIL!”

“THE DEVIL!”
I mimicked back.

I felt Damien’s hand on my shoulder. “Let’s go,” he whispered.

“This is so pathetic,” I said. “Sung, man, you’re
pathetic
.”

Sung lunged forward then, and Damien stepped in between us.

“Go,” Damien told me.
“Now.”

I was laughing again, so I apologized to Frances again, then I pulled myself into the hallway, where I doubled over with more laughter.

Damien came out a few seconds later and closed the door behind us.

“Holy shit!” I said. “That was hysterical!”

“Stop it,” Damien said. “Enough.”

“Enough?” I laughed again. “I haven’t even started.”

Damien shook his head.

“You’re cold, man,” he said. “I can’t believe how cold you are.”

“What?” I asked. “You don’t find this funny?”

“You have no heart.”

This sobered me up pretty quickly. “How can you say that?” I asked. It made no sense to me. “How can you, of all people, say that?”

“What does that mean? Me, of all people?”

He’d gotten me.

“Alec?”

“I don’t know!” I shouted. “Okay?
I don’t know
.”

This sounded like the truth, but it was feeling less than that. I knew. Or I was starting to know.

“I do have a heart,” I said. But I stopped there. I couldn’t tell him what was inside it. Because I still wasn’t sure of myself. The only thing I was sure of was that he wouldn’t want to hear it.

I could feel it all coming apart. The collapse of all those invisible plans, the appearance of all those hidden thoughts. I couldn’t let him see it. I had to get out of there.

I bolted. I left him right there in the hallway. I didn’t wait for the elevator—I hit the emergency stairs. I ran like I was the one on the cross-country team, even when I heard him following me.

“Don’t!” I yelled back at him.

I got to my floor and ran to my room. The card wouldn’t work the first time, and I nervously looked at the stairway exit, waiting for him to show up. But he must’ve stopped. He must’ve heard. I got the key through the second time.

Wes was on his bed, reading a comic.

“You’re back early,” he said, not looking up.

I couldn’t say a thing. There was a knock on the door. Damien calling out my name.

“Don’t answer it,” I said. “Please, don’t answer it.”

I locked myself in the bathroom. I stared at the mirror.

I heard Wes murmur something to Damien through the door without opening it. Then he was at my door.

“Alec? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said, but my voice was soggy coming out of my throat.

“Open up.”

I couldn’t. I sat on the lip of the tub, breathing in, breathing out. I remembered the look on Sung’s face and started to laugh. Then I thought of Frances lying there and felt sad. I wondered if I really didn’t have a heart.

“Alec,” Wes said again, gently. “Come on.”

I waited until he walked off again. Then I opened the door and went into the bedroom. He was back on his bed, but he hadn’t picked up the comic. He was sitting on the edge, waiting for me.

I told him what had happened. Not the part about Damien at first, but the part about Sung and Frances. He didn’t laugh, and neither did I. Then I told him Damien’s reaction to my reaction, without going into what was underneath.

“Do you think I’m cold?” I asked him. “Really—am I?”

“You’re not cold,” he said. “You’re just so angry.”

I must’ve looked surprised by this. He went on.

“You can be a total prick, Alec. There’s nothing wrong with that—all of us can be total pricks. We like to think that just because we’re geeks, that means we can’t be assholes. But we can be. Most of the time, though, it’s not coming from meanness or coldness. It’s coming from anger. Or sadness. I mean, I see fat people, and I just want to rip them apart.”

“But why do I want to rip Sung apart?”

“I don’t know. Because he’s a prick, too. And maybe you feel if you rip apart the quiz bowl geek, no one will think of you as a quiz bowl geek.”

“But I’m not a quiz bowl geek!”

“Haven’t you figured it out yet?” Wes asked. “Nobody’s a quiz bowl geek. We’re all just people. And you’re right, what we do here has no redeeming social value whatsoever. But it can be an interesting way to pass the time.”

I sat down on my bed, facing Wes so that our knees almost touched.

“I’m not a very happy person,” I told him. “But sometimes I can trick myself into thinking I am.”

“And where does Damien fit into all this, if I may ask?”

I shook my head. “I really have no idea. I’m still figuring it out.”

“You know he likes girls?”

“I said, I’m still figuring it out.”

“Fair enough.”

I paused, realizing what had just been said.

“Is it that obvious?” I asked Wes.

“Only to me,” he said.

It would take me another three months to understand why.

“Meanwhile,” he went on,
“Sung and Frances.”

“Holy shit, right?”

“Yeah, holy shit. And you know the worst part?”

“I can’t imagine what’s worse than seeing it with my own eyes.”

“Gordon is totally in love with Frances.”

“No!”

“Yup. I wouldn’t miss practice tonight for all the money in the world.”

We all showed up. Mr. Phillips could sense there was some tension in the room, but he truly had no idea.

Frances was wearing Sung’s varsity jacket. And suddenly I didn’t mind it so much.

Gordon glared at Sung.

Sung glared at me.

I avoided Damien’s eye.

When I looked at Wes, he made me feel like I might be worth saving.

Amazingly enough, during practice we were back in fighting form, as if nothing had happened. I felt like I could admit to myself how much I wanted to win. And, not just that, how much I wanted our team to win. More for Wes and Frances and Gordon and Damien than anything else.

After we were done, Damien asked me if we could talk for a minute. Everyone else headed back to their rooms and we went down to the lobby. Other quiz bowl groups were swarming around; those that hadn’t made the semifinals were taking it for what it was—a night where, for a brief pause in their high school lives, they were free from any pressure or care.

“I’m sorry,” Damien said to me. “I was completely off base.”

“It’s okay. I shouldn’t have been so mean to Sung and Frances. I should’ve just left.”

We just sat there.

“I don’t know why I did that,” he said. “Reacted that way.”

It would take him another four months to figure it out. It would be a little too late, but he’d figure it out anyway.

We lost in the semifinals to the Des Moines School for the Blind. I knew from the look Sung gave me afterward that he would blame me for the loss for the rest of his life. Not because I missed the questions—and I did get two wrong this time. But for destroying his own invisible plans.

Looking back, I don’t think I’ve ever hated any piece of clothing as much as I hated Sung’s varsity jacket for those few weeks. You can’t hate something that much unless you hate yourself equally as much. Not in that kind of way.

It was, I guess, Wes who taught me that. Later, when we were back home and trying to articulate ourselves better, I asked him how he’d known so much more than I had.

“Because I read, stupid,” was his answer.

We lost in the semifinals, but the local paper took our picture anyway. Sung looks serious and aggrieved. Gordon looks awkward. Frances looks calm. Damien looks oblivious. And Wes and me?

We look like we’re in on our own joke.

In other words, happy.

Text by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci. Illustrations by Bryan Lee O’Malley.

by
garth nix

“No going out till you’ve split that wood, Tony. All two tons, you hear?”

Tony looked up from lacing his outdoor boots and made a gesture to indicate he’d already done the job. His father understood the sign, but he still went outside to check, returning a few minutes later as Tony was finishing winding the lace around the top of his left boot.

“When did you do it?”

Tony held up five fingers and curled back his forefinger, to make it four and a half.

“Four thirty? This morning before school?” his father exclaimed. “You’re crazy, son. But good for you. You must have chopped like crazy.”

Tony nodded. He had chopped like crazy. He’d enjoyed it though, crossing the lawn to the shed, the frost cracking under his boots. It had been cold to start with, and quite dark under the single lightbulb swaying on its lead high above his head. But as he’d swung the blockbuster, split the wood and stacked it, he’d gotten hot very quickly, and the sun had come up bright and strong.

“What is it tonight? Basketball practice?”

Tony nodded again, and shrugged on his backpack. It was a full-on hiker’s backpack, not a school satchel or day bag. He carried it everywhere outside school, notionally for all his sporting equipment, and his father had gotten used to it long ago and didn’t inquire about what was actually inside.

“Considering how much practice you do it’s a wonder you guys never win a game,” said his father. He’d been an all-round athlete in his youth, and he couldn’t help but needle Tony a little about his lack of sporting success. He didn’t come to the games, either, not for the last few years. He didn’t like being with the other dads when Tony’s team didn’t win. He was also too busy. Though they lived on a farm on the outskirts of the city, it was a hobby farm, a tax deduction and sideline interest for his dad, who was a senior executive in some shadowy government intelligence outfit. Tony’s mother and younger sister lived on the other side of the city, almost an hour’s drive away. He spent some time with them, but not much. He preferred the farm, even though it took him forty minutes to get to school on the bus.

Tony settled his pack, then mimed turning a car key to his dad.

“You want to borrow the monster again?”

Tony nodded.

“You know, it wouldn’t hurt you to talk to me.”

“Sorry,” mumbled Tony. His voice was low and scratchy. It sounded like a rough scrubbing brush being drawn across broken stones. He’d accidentally drunk some bathroom cleaner when he was little, and it had burned his throat and larynx. His mother had blamed his father for it, and his father still blamed himself. “Can I borrow the car?”

“Of course. Be careful. No drinking after practice. None at all, you hear?”