Saving Montgomery Sole (18 page)

“Someone call an ambulance!”

“What's going on?”

“Matt? What is it, man?
Matt!
Dude!”

“He can't talk, dude!”

Thomas pulled out his phone. “Nine-one-one? Yes. I think a student has had some sort of attack. Yes, we need an ambulance.”

“Matt, just relax, man!”

“What's wrong with his face?”

Something, somewhere must have been burning. The air was full of a bonfire char smell. That smell of trees and nature turning into something else.

I stumbled away, across the field, across the baseball diamond. I dodged through the dwindling crowds of kids standing outside in the parking lot.

There were sirens. Kids stood by their cars, craning to see.

“What happened?”

“Did
you
see what happened?”

“Oh my
God
, an ambulance! What's going on?”

I walked up Main Street and through the suburban streets where parents still had their front doors wrapped in Day-Glo fake spiderwebs.

I wasn't sure where I was walking to, or why I hadn't waited for Thomas.

Or what had just happened.

I walked by Yoggy, but then I didn't want to go in there, either, so I just kept going.

Finally I headed to the movie plex and paid six dollars to see a James Bond movie. Because I suddenly had this idea that I didn't want to be found, and there is no way someone would look for me in a James Bond movie.

I could feel my phone buzzing as James Bond ran across the screen and got beat up and put on a tux and took off his tux.

By the time I got out, I had two missed calls from my moms and a zillion texts from Thomas, one from Naoki.

Thomas: Where are you? Where did you go?

Thomas: Are you OK?

Thomas: Matt off to hospital.

Thomas: Where are you?

Thomas: Seriously.

Thomas: MONTY.

Thomas: Ignoring your best friend is lame.

Thomas: Okay. When you are ready you should call me.

Thomas: Call me now.

Thomas: Montgomery!!!!

Thomas: Okay. Am peeved but will be patient for you to take your sweet time calling me back.

Thomas: Call me now.

Thomas: Montgomery, what happened?

Naoki's text was from three hours ago.

Naoki: you
?

When I got home, Momma Jo was in the living room, watching TV.

“Where were you?” Momma Jo asked, standing up.

“We've been calling you.” Mama Kate came in from the kitchen, holding up her phone. “Why didn't you answer?”

“Library.”

Mama Kate dropped the phone by her side. Looked at Momma Jo.

“I can't answer the phone in the
library
,” I snapped.

Everything looked a little different. A little off. Like the walls had been repainted a shade darker. Something.

“Hey.” Momma Jo put her hands on her hips. “First of all, don't be a jerk to us. We are your
moms
. Second. If you see we have called, you can walk your butt out of the library and call us back.”

I studied the carpet. “Fine. I'm going up to my room to study.”

“More?” Momma Jo asked.

Mama Kate stepped forward. Then stopped.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Monty,” Mama Kate said. “We haven't seen you all day. Do you want to sit for a bit? Did you eat?”

“I ate. I have to study, okay?”

“Okay,” Mama Kate said, stepping back toward the kitchen. “Okay, Monty. That's fine. Just…”

“Adjust your attitude a little would be nice,” Momma Jo grumbled, settling into the La-Z-Boy.

What is that supposed to mean?
I stewed.

As I passed Tesla's door, I could hear music blaring. Someone singing about love. And heartache.

In my room, I pulled everything I could find on the floor and the surrounding area onto my bed.

Curled up under the weight of a thousand cushions, I took the stone off my neck, wrapped my fingers around it. It was cold as ice. A little shiver ran through me.

What was happening?

 

9

 
Hypnotism

Hypnotism is the ability of one person to say “this is true,” and make it true for another person.

Momma Jo doesn't believe in hypnotism, because she's only ever seen white people get hypnotized. Which, basically, to Momma Jo, means it's some sort of western society thing, which somehow, to her, makes it less true. Which has something to do with feminism in this way I'm not completely sure about.

I've tried it on Thomas many times, using instructions I found on this website for the Society for the Secret Mind. They didn't work. Thomas would always criticize my tone and overall delivery, which he was convinced needed to be more regal.

“Like Sherlock Holmes,” he offered once, lying on my couch while Naoki filmed our session with her phone.

“I don't think it has anything to do with Sherlock Holmes,” I countered. “You just want to hear a British accent.”

“Your British accent is really funny,” he said, eyes closed, waiting.

“Thomas.”

“Just do it. I'll pretend to be hypnotized.”

I tried it on Naoki after that, and she just fell asleep. But she said that in her dream, she was hypnotized.

“And it was really relaxing.” She smiled.

 
Difference between being asleep and being hypnotized? Can you be both?

Hypnotism is one of the few techniques I've seen videos of where it doesn't look completely fake. There are actual doctors out there who use hypnotism to help people remember stuff and also to help them quit smoking. Sometimes the people in these videos look dumb, but I think that's just because they're sort of sleeping, and sort-of-sleeping people look kind of dumb.

For anyone who says, you know, that magic isn't real, I say, okay, well, look at hypnotism. A hypnotist tells you, “You are getting sleepy,” and you are. “You feel relaxed,” and you are. A hypnotist counts to ten and says, “You are awake,” and you are.

And no one is sure why.

It's a legit mystery.

Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it's not happening.

Although that can be kind of scary.

When Naoki tried to hypnotize me, I fell asleep, or I thought I did. In the video, I just kept saying “Be careful” over and over again, in this sleepy voice, no matter what she asked me.

*   *   *

The morning after what happened to Matt, I couldn't eat breakfast. I just got in the car and waited for Tesla to find her socks.

“You okay?” Momma Jo asked, twisting in her seat.

“Fine,” I said, slumped down in the same overalls, this time in my
I BELIEVE IN MAGIC
T-shirt.

On my way to first period, I bumped into one of the boys from the soccer field. A friend of Matt's. Peter Hassle. A tall kid with long brown hair that was always in his eyes. Maroon spots on his face. Smelled like orange gum. Always the third kid to laugh at a joke about someone else.

He looked up and scooped the hair off his face. His eyes went from sleepy to wide awake in a nanosecond.

Like I'd just popped him in the face.

“Uh, sorry,” he whispered, his gaze dropping to the floor.

By English, I could hear the whispers swirling on the backs of a thousand whispers.

“Didn't you know?”

“Montgomery Sole is obsessed with Matt Truit.”

“Yesterday? She attacked him.”

“No!”

“Josh and Pete told me.”

“She's such a freak.”

I pressed my fingers into my desk. The stone was still around my neck.

I'm sure I looked like a crazy person. I hadn't really slept. My joints felt like a rotten apple cores; my head felt like a bowling ball balancing precariously in a divot between my shoulders. When I closed my eyes, I saw Matt, his face white as chalk, mouth stretched open. It felt like someone else's pulse was racing against mine, like the rumble of traffic outside.

Chairs squeaked against the floor as students settled. Someone had written
Matt Truit
on the chalkboard and circled his name with a big heart.

Naoki was nowhere to be seen that morning. I'd received two “are you ok?” texts from Thomas, who I'd also yet to see.

Me: I'm fine.

Thomas: Ok. I want to talk to you, OK?

Me: K.

It felt like time was slipping out from underneath me. Like I was in that hour of pre-sleep where you trip into a dream. In and out. Someone said something about a comic book.

Right
, I thought,
because I'm in a classroom
.

“It's just a really good, uh, story,” he finished. It was Teddy Kent. Who only ever talked about comic books. And superheroes. In every class. No matter what we were talking about. “I thought. You know, better than the original series because well, the art is better in this one. At least. But the movie sucked.”

Mrs. Farley leaned on her desk and flipped through her notebook.

“Okay. Great. Thanks, Teddy. Let's get back to the text, okay? I know you want to talk, but I'm not allowing any more comments on TV shows or comic books or music videos you like, unless you can link it to our discussion of the hero
in this book
. Okay. How do you know when a character is the hero of a story?”

Our crumpled copies of
The Outsiders
sat on our desks, spines cracked. Corners frayed. Some students made a show of flipping through their books, “looking” for the answers, as Mrs. Farley sat on her desk, tapping her pencil on her teeth the way she does when she's annoyed we're not raising our hands.

“The hero is the person who saves the day,” someone shouted.

“It's the person who does good,” one of the Parte sisters added.

“They have superpowers,” someone in the back continued.

A Parte sister, possibly the same Parte sister, in the back of the room raised her hand. “Um, Mrs. Farley? Isn't a hero the person who overcomes
evil
?”