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Authors: Doug Wilhelm

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BOOK: The Revealers
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I didn't really feel like it, and I had homework to do. But I logged off, looked at the screen, and started to type.
“It felt kind of good, writing that,” I said the next day.
“Well, it was good,” Elliot said. “I read it.”
“What was good?” said Catalina.
We were at the lunchroom table in the corner by the sandwich counter, Bun Appetit. The usual lunchtime racket was clattering off the walls.
“He wrote down what happened to him,” Elliot told her. “He just wrote the facts.”
“Did you ever try it?” I asked. “I mean, after somebody did something to you.”
Elliot just looked down. He didn't say anything. Finally, I said, “So … what are you going to do with it?”
“Keep it! Hold on to it.”
I didn't get it. “What for?”
“I don't know—'cause it's information. We're scientific investigators, right? We need to collect data. That's what …”
“What scientists do. I know. That's what
you
say.”
Catalina was sitting straight backed next to Elliot, staring off like she was only partly there. I thought, What a pair.
“So,” Elliot said to her. “Maybe you could do the next experiment.”
Catalina blinked. “What?”
“Well, I mean … you could say something different to Bethany. Or do something different. See what happens.”
Catalina's eyes bulged. She whispered, “I can't.”
“Why not?”
“Well … I couldn't just go talk to her. She has never spoken to me. She only talks about me.”
“She does?”
I said, “Why you?”
Catalina shrugged. “I don't know”
“Well,” Elliot said, “what does she say?”
“I told you—she doesn't say it to me.”
Elliot turned my way.
“Don't look at me,” I said. “I don't understand anything.”
Elliot just sat there twirling the straw in his milk carton. Nobody said anything.
“Hey,” I said. “What if we listened to her?”
Elliot said, “To who?”
“To Bethany.”
“Bethany talks to you?”
“Of course she doesn't—that's just it. What if we listened anyway?”
Elliot peered at me. “How?”
“Look,” I said, leaning over the table, “Bethany DeMere does not see or hear us. Right?”
“Yeah.”
“She doesn't want to see or hear us. Right?”
He shrugged. “I guess.”
“So what if we kind of … shadowed her? We could be hanging around, in the hallways and stuff—just close enough
to hear what she says.” I leaned closer. “We could observe her in her
natural habitat.”
Elliot's eyes twinkled. “Like scientists,” he breathed.
“Yes.”
“Maybe we'll find her weakness,” he said to Catalina. “Maybe we can figure out what really gets to her.”
Catalina shrugged. But, staring off, she smiled, too.
 
Of course my face had been noticed. My eye was black and purple, with red accents. Fairly gruesome. When I came into homeroom that morning there were whispers all over. Heads turned as I ducked into my seat.
“Whoa, Trainor. What happened?” said Big Chris Kuppel, beside me. Our homeroom was a science classroom, so we sat in pairs at black lab tables.
I shrugged.
“Get beat up by your cat?”
“No.”
“Stumble into the shower nozzle?”
“No.”
“Miss your mouth with the milk bottle?”
“No!”
“Okay, I give up,” Chris said. His head looked like an acorn. He had his hair cut in this short bowl shape, which looked a little goofy because he was big. Chris and a kid at the next table, Jon Blanchette, were in the group of three guys who were Elliot's primary tormentors. They used to wait for Elliot after school. He called them the Jock Rots.
“So what did happen?” Chris said. “Or maybe I shouldn't ask.”
I shrugged. “I got slugged.”
“You? By who?”
“Richie Tucker.”
Chris's face bulged. “Richie Tucker slugged
you?”
“Uh-huh.”
“How come?”
I smiled at him. “'Cause I'm so bad,” I said. “I angered him.”
Big Chris leaned over and whispered the news to Blanchette, whose expression arced upward in the coolly humorous way he had. Then Blanchette tilted to pass the word across the aisle. In about one minute the whole class was buzzing again. Even the girls were glancing at me. It was kind of neat, in a way, although I couldn't help wondering if the only way I would ever get to be somebody in seventh grade was by getting myself brutalized.
 
My mom did call the principal, but Elliot was right—nothing happened at all. Meanwhile, I didn't see Richie the whole day. But I wasn't so scared of him, either—which was weird, considering my face. I actually felt that as long as I looked this way, he would probably leave me alone. I wasn't sure why I felt that, but I did.
When school ended we were looking for Bethany, Elliot and me. Down the hall we saw Catalina open her locker. Then she reached down and picked up a piece of paper. It was folded up tight, like the note in the library. Without opening it she let it drop to the floor. She stood there a minute, like she was thinking, but you couldn't tell anything by her face. Then she stooped to pick up the paper again.
As soon as she had it open and started reading it she turned deep red and dropped it. Right then a group of girls swept past us from behind. In the center was Bethany. As they walked toward Catalina, we started following.
The girls were whispering behind their hands. When they were almost to Catalina, they slowed down. Bethany rippled her hair and started talking, a little too loud. “Janice invited
everyone
worth inviting. Her dad rented the Holiday Inn
pool. Any seventh-grade girl who didn't get invited is a total
loser.”
They were just passing Catalina, who stood clutching her bookbag, staring hard into her locker. The girls bubbled over in hand-clamped whispering and laughter as they gaggled off down the hall.
We stopped at Catalina's locker.
“What a bunch of … I don't even know what,” Elliot said to her.
She just stared into the locker.
“You know what? They're like sharks,” I said to Catalina's back. “Cold-blooded and always moving.”
She didn't say anything.
“You don't want to know them anyway,” Elliot said.
Catalina started yanking books out of her locker and jamming them in her bag. She slung the bag on her shoulder, then she bent down and grabbed the paper off the floor.
“You want to know about her?” she said. Her face was very red. “You want to know what kind of … stuff she comes up with? Here.” She shoved the paper in my hand. “You can have this one, too.”
She slammed her locker and started to go. Then she turned back. “In fact, why don't you keep
all
these from now on? You can share them with everybody.”
She whirled and stalked away. I stood there with the paper in my hand.
“What'd
we
do?” Elliot said.
I shrugged. I started unfolding the note, with him looking over my shoulder.
It was patterned with tight little folds, to make it small and narrow. Bethany must have had one of her friends slip it through the louvers on the locker door, and then they all waited till Catalina found it so they could walk by and say
that lousy party stuff so she'd hear it right then. Which, when you put it all together, was a very nasty little plan.
But then we read the note:
Everybody knows why the weird girl had to leave where she came from.
Because she was so EASY
the boys wouldn't even look at her in public anymore.
She learned it from her mother. They have no morals there.
That's why the weird girl doesn't belong here AT ALL.
“Holy crap,” Elliot said. “Holy crap.”
I folded up the paper and put it in my pocket. Elliot started stalking around the hall.
“What would they do that for?” he was saying. “What would they
say
that for?”
“I don't know. 'Cause they're girls?”
“Holy crap,” he kept saying. “Holy crap!”
“All right, Elliot. It's okay.”
“It's not okay!” he yelled at me. “All right? It's
not?”
“Okay. Take it easy.”
“I'm
not
gonna take it easy!” He was walking in strange, fast little circles. “I really hate this. How could they
say
that about her?”
I didn't understand this then, but now I think I do. Catalina was (along with me, more or less) the first kid who had been nice to Elliot in a very long time. She liked dinosaurs, and she was his friend. He never got mad about the rotten things kids did to him—I think he kept how he felt about all that stuff down deep, like he'd made a wall inside himself. But when those girls did such a nasty, evil thing to his new friend, the wall crumbled. It all started coming up.
“Listen,” I said, “let's go outside. All right? Let's just go outside.” I took Elliot's elbow and steered him out the doors.
He kept saying, “I can't believe this. I can't
believe
this!”
We were walking up Union Street. Elliot was walking fast. Suddenly he turned to me and said, “You think she won't ever talk to us again?”
The cars were loud, going by. I said, “What?”
“Maybe she won't talk to us anymore!”
“Why? We didn't do anything.”
“I don't know,” he said. “Because we know?”
“Know what—that stuff they wrote? Look, they made it up,” I said. “Just forget about it.”
Elliot stopped in front of an old red church that's a part-time thrift shop. On the front steps it had some swollen cardboard boxes with old clothes spilling out of them. I remember that, 'cause that's where Elliot went nuts.
“I'm not going to forget about it!”
he yelled at me. “I'm sick of what people do, okay?
I'm SICK of it!”
“Okay. Elliot, it's okay.”
“Stop saying that! It's not
okay—
IT SUCKS!
Somebody
has
to do something!” His face was all strange.
“Somebody has to pay!”
I just stood there. Elliot turned and started walking fast and jerky through the yard of the old church, heading for his house. Then he turned back and yelled at me one more time.
“Somebody has to!”
he hollered, standing on that scraggly lawn. Then he took off.
I've never figured out if Elliot planned to do what he tried to do the next day to a particular group of people, or if he was just ready to go after the first people who picked on him. Or if he had any plan at all. I've never asked him.
But it was the Jock Rots. It makes sense, in a way. After all, they were his number-one tormentors.
There were three Jock Rots, as I've said. After school they were always together, back then. Burke Brown was short, dark haired, and sharp faced—he was wicked fast and aggressive in sports, and sarcastically mocking with anyone who wasn't. Jon Blanchette was the golden boy. He was golden haired and liquid good at every sport there is, and at pretty much anything else. Blanchette always looked like he was about to laugh, either at how easy life was for him, or at you. Burke needed to be cool—Blanchette just was.
And there was Big Chris. Big Chris was big and acorn headed but not dumb at all, actually, just kind of loyal and there. At least, until this happened, he was there. After what happened that day, Big Chris never acted quite the same.
Anyway. To go home, Elliot walks past the park. It doesn't
have a name, it's just the park. It has tennis and basketball courts beside the road, and behind them a big open field, then a wooden footbridge over the river to the Little League fields. The river is not very big or wide, but it's full of big rocks below the bridge, where a short little waterfall pours down. In summer kids mess around a lot down there below the fall and the rocks, where the water smooths out.
All day Elliot had acted edgy, fidgety, like a nervous little bird. Catalina wouldn't look at him or me or anyone. I knew they were both really upset. I had a bad feeling about almost everything.
So when Elliot left school, I followed. I didn't turn on Chamber, I didn't watch for Richie. I just kept an eye on my friend.
The Rots were on the basketball court at the park. When they spotted Elliot coming they sauntered out in the street.
Casually they surrounded him. Blanchette slapped him hard on the shoulder; Elliot stumbled and Blanchette grinned. Then, from behind, Burke started unzipping his backpack. Elliot reached in his jacket pocket and pulled something out.
He took a step back. The something was dark and not very big, hanging from his hand. The three Rots were just standing there looking when Elliot swung this thing overhand, and it came down and smacked Burke on the forehead.
Burke screamed and went down on one knee. He was holding his forehead and face in both hands. Blanchette looked at Burke and he looked at Elliot, then he stepped toward Burke. Elliot started to swing the thing at Blanchette, but Blanchette saw it so he jumped forward, grabbed Elliot's hand, and jerked his own head back so the thing whizzed past his face. I just stood there, still a ways away; it was so
unbelievable I just kept watching, like this was some weird scene on TV.
Blanchette grabbed the thing and yanked hard. Elliot stumbled but held on; Blanchette pulled
really
hard and Elliot let go and fell in the gravel on the roadside. But he scrambled right up. He stood there, kind of crouched. Burke was howling, down on his knee. He opened his hands and looked for blood or something. Then he looked up at the object in his friend's hand.
From where I was it looked like a little hanging dark thing, with a bulge at the end. Elliot was crouched like he was ready to run when Blanchette dropped the odd little weapon and lunged for him. Elliot tried to take off but Blanchette grabbed him. Big Chris grabbed him, too. They held him, their big kids' hands clamped on each little arm, as Burke slowly got up and stooped over to the dark object on the ground.
He picked it up and looked at it. It was limp. Something spilled out of it, onto the gravel.
Burke flung the thing down and flew into Elliot's face. He was screaming at him, screaming all the curse words you could say—then Elliot started screeching right back at him, swearing at him, too. He kicked gravel at Burke—then the two big guys lifted Elliot up off the ground by his elbows. Burke said something and they all took off across the courts and across the grass, the big guys hoisting Elliot between them while he twisted and kicked, flailing, trying his hardest to hurt somebody. Burke would dance backward just out of reach of Elliot's kicks, then he'd poke his face in Elliot's to mock and yell and curse at him.
It was crazy.
I ran up to the little weapon on the ground. It was a black sock … a little kid's sock. It had something lumpy in it. I
picked it up and some marbles fell out onto the gravelly sand. Colored marbles, cat's-eyes. He'd loaded them into one of his socks. He probably got them from his old toy box.
Marbles.
They hauled him onto the bridge. The narrow wood walkway made clacking sounds as Burke hopped backward on it, then it thumped under the bigger guys' heavy feet. They stopped in the middle. The big guys hoisted Elliot up and Burke grabbed his legs and squeezed his ankles together, then pushed them over the railing.
“Hey!” I yelled. I started running. “Hey,
don't?”
But the two big guys were leaning out and dangling Elliot over the river and the rocks. His feet were flailing around, whacking the wood slats of the bridge. I could hear the water swooshing loudly below. It wasn't a long drop—maybe five or six feet—and it wasn't a very deep river. But it was deep enough, and those were big rocks.
I ran onto the bridge and stopped. They had him over the edge. I didn't know what to do. “Don't,” I said. “Don't?”
Burke was leaning over the railing, yelling in Elliot's face.
“Time to say you're sorry,
Geekowitz?”
Burke's neck looked like it was strung inside with tight wires, and his face was bright red as he yelled, “Say,
I'm sorry, Mister Brown! I shouldn't have done it, Mister Brown!”
“You suck, Brown! You all suck! You're all ganging-up suckhead coward asses, you know that?”
“Geez—you can't even swear normal, Geekowitz!” said Blanchette, smiling. “So, you want to fly, Bird Boy? Or would you like to apologize to the man?”
Elliot's head whipped around. He spat in Blanchette's face.
I yelled,
“No!”
and sprinted toward them.
Blanchette's head jerked back; his arm shot up to wipe his cheek. Elliot's head dropped, Chris lunged, and then
Blanchette went lunging, too. They were leaning down grappling and I got there just as Elliot, his hands grabbing upward and his face wide open, came loose and fell away.
He was crumpled up in the rocks, partway down in the rushing water. Burke and Blanchette backed up and looked at me, wide-eyed. Then they turned and pounded off the bridge.
They were gone.
Chris grabbed my arm. “Come on!” he yelled.
We ran the other way, the bridge shaking beneath us. We scrambled down the steep riverbank, and started hopping across the rocks.
“Elliot!” I was yelling.
“Elliot!”
I couldn't hear an answer.
Out where the water kept them wet the big rocks were slippery. You had to stay on the dry parts or you could go down. Chris jumped ahead, from rock to rock. Out in the middle he put his hand on a rock and hopped down into water. I slipped and banged my knee—but I got there.
Under the bridge Chris was in swirling water up to his waist. He was leaning back against the current and he had Elliot by the shoulders, trying to pull him out of the water. Elliot's head was rolling around.
I slid down and into the water. I guess it was cold; I didn't notice. I got one of Elliot's arms and Chris hauled on the other. We pulled him loose and hoisted him onto a rock. I was yelling at him, the water was rushing by, and my heart was pounding in my ears.
BOOK: The Revealers
5.47Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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