B.u.g. Big Ugly Guy (9781101593523) (12 page)

“He's on his
rumspringa,”
Sammy said.

“
Rumspringa?
” Sammy's father asked.

“I think that's the word.”

“
Rumspringa,”
Gully said confidently.

At least
he
sounds like he knows what he's talking about!

Sammy looked at the golem, “You want to explain, or should I?”

Gully gazed benevolently back at him. “You explain.”

“When the Amish turn sixteen,” Sammy said, “they're allowed to leave the church and explore the outside world before deciding whether they want to rejoin as adults.”

There,
Sammy thought,
I've exhausted my knowledge of the Amish.

“Interesting,” Sammy's father eyed Gully in the mirror. “He's sixteen? And in your class?”

Ugh.
“Um, yeah. Apparently the Amish education system isn't all it's cracked up to be.”
Double ugh.

Sammy's dad chuckled. “Rumspringa. Sort of like an Amish bar mitzvah!”

“Bar mitzvah,” Gully said cheerfully. “Rumspringa. Sort of like.”

“Sort of like,” agreed Sammy as he helped the golem put the seat belt back on. But inside, he was disgusted with himself. The creature he'd made had just tried to punch out his dad.
And now I'm spinning lie after ridiculous lie to protect him.
Sammy knew that if he got asked any more questions, the lies were going to start piling one on top of another until they inevitably collapsed into a big, stinking heap of untruth, with Sammy and whatever was left of his integrity, dignity, and self-respect crushed underneath.

For the first time that he could remember, Sammy couldn't wait to get to school. At least there, separated from Gully—who would surely be put in the remedial classes—he'd be safe. From the lies.

But once they were left off near the school, Sammy remembered why he hated the place. There, in a row by the front door, looking like a police lineup, stood James Lee and the beat-em-up crew. They were hassling the younger kids, hustling their milk money, and laughing uproariously whenever one of the younger kids began to cry.

“Gully,” Sammy said, turning to the hulk by his side, “time to earn your living. And by that, I mean
living.
As in
life
! Okay?”

“Earn living,” the golem said. “Okay.”

But how much Gully really understood, Sammy could only guess at.

They walked side by side up to the stairs.

“James Lee,” Sammy tried to explain. “The big kid on the left. He's the really bad one.”

“Bad,” the golem said. “Left.” His head went back and forth, surveying the whole crew.

Sammy pointed. “That's left. And that . . .” he pointed to the other side, “is right. Got it?”
Honestly,
he thought,
it's like trying to raise a kid. A huge, ugly, hulking, bald kid.
“Oh, and turn your hat around so the front is the back.” He made a motion with his hand describing the hat and how to turn it.

“Okay.” Gully said. “Got it.”

How
much was okay and
what
did he get, Sammy still hadn't a clue, but at least the golem turned the hat around so the brim was at the back.

“Not a complete dork now,” Sammy muttered.

“Complete dork now,” Gully echoed.

Side by side, they marched up the stairs.

Waiting at the top, James Lee smiled broadly. “Well, well, well—welcome back, Sammy GreenBug. Got any money to pay the toll?”

Well, here goes nothing.
Sammy stopped, clenched his fists, and tried to give James Lee a manly stare. But he was still a step down and had to look way up, which was not a good angle.

Gully stopped, too. But even though Gully shared the step with him, Sammy noticed that James Lee had to look up to meet the golem's eyes. That lent Sammy courage.

“I think you mean pay the
troll
!” Sammy told James Lee. “And listen up, troll, I'm never paying you another dime ever again.”

“That so?” James Lee sneered. “Who's your ugly friend?”

“His name is Gully and . . .”

“He related to you, GreenBug?” said Erik, the boy Ms. Snyder had said was smart but as far as Sammy could tell was only smart-alecky. “He a GreenBug, too? 'Cause with him I bet the BUG stands for Big Ugly Guy.” He turned to James Lee. “Get it?” He started to spell it out, literally, and had gotten to the G when light seemed to dawn in James Lee's eyes.

“Yeah,” James Lee said, smiling at Erik. “Big Ugly Guy.”

“Yeah,” the rest of the Boyz parroted, “Big Ugly Guy.”

James Lee turned his attention back to Gully. “You don't want to hang around with losers, do you? Stick with us.”

Gully shook his head. “I . . . I . . .” he stuttered.

Oh, no,
Sammy thought.
Real bad time for my golem to get nervous.

James Lee cackled at Gully's stuttering. “I . . . I . . . I . . .” He plastered an idiotic expression to his face, lips twisted up and eyes bugging out.

“I . . . I . . . I . . . Aye, aye, Cap'n!” He busted out laughing, and the Boyz joined in.

“I . . .” Gully went on as Sammy hung his head.

I hope the toilet's been flushed recently,
Sammy thought. And then something else came to him.
Won't unfired clay dissolve in a toilet bowl?

But Gully had already stopped stuttering, saying quite clearly, “I hang around the Sammy. He's tough for a little guy.” He glanced at Sammy as if seeking approval of his sentence structure.

Sammy gave him a small smile and nodded as Gully turned back to James Lee who merely looked confused.

“Tough?” James Lee reached out to grab Sammy's shirt with his right hand. Sammy shrank back, but he needn't have bothered. Two hundred pounds of golem was suddenly between James Lee's big hand, and Sammy's shirt and Gully's even bigger hand was wrapped around James Lee's neck. Slowly, James Lee's face began to turn a rather brilliant shade of red. His hands banged ineffectively on Gully's chest.

“Get him,” James Lee said in a strangled voice.

One of the Boyz—Brandon Overman—obeyed and leaped at Gully, but the golem seemed to just shrug and send him flying down the stairs. He managed to roll instead of tumble, which saved him from a cracked skull, but he didn't seem in a hurry to climb back up the stairs. None of the other Boyz jumped in.

Sammy—who was enjoying this way too much—noticed that James Lee's face was turning from red to blue, and his hands that moments ago had been pummeling Gully's chest were now fluttering aimlessly.

“Better let go now, Gully,” Sammy said.

“He's the really bad one,” Gully said. “On the left.”

James Lee's shoulders slumped. His arms dropped to his sides.

“Let go now!” Sammy managed to keep his voice
just
below a scream.

“Okay.” Gully let go and James Lee collapsed to the ground.
Now
his friends came to his aid, crowding around him and glaring up at Gully. Brandon even tried to tell Gully how lucky he was to have stopped when he did. But even he didn't sound as if he believed it.

A small cheer went up from the few kids not already inside the school. Then they hurriedly pushed past the Boyz who stepped back to let them go through the door.

Sammy grabbed Gully by the hand. “Time for class.”

“Class,” Gully repeated.

As they followed the kids into the school,
Sammy smiled, thinking:
Victory!
His first ever against James Lee.
First ever against anyone, actually.
He felt like a Western hero who'd just survived a gunfight and was riding into the sunset with his girl. He looked up at the big, gray golem who stared blankly at the group of boys he'd just backed down.
Well, close enough.

Then, right before they got through the door, Sammy looked over his shoulder and told James Lee, in a passable imitation of the old-time movie star his father loved, John Wayne, “New sheriff in town, pilgrim. Better get used to it.”

James Lee looked puzzled.

But then, thought Sammy, when he wasn't angry, he often looked puzzled, as if someone thinking differently than he did just didn't compute.

Giving James Lee no more thought, and pulling Gully after him, Sammy went into the school.

14.

Julia Joins

The first person to greet them was Julia Nathanson. She was grinning broadly. “That was awesome!” she said. “I watched through the window.” She pointed to the hall window where a knot of younger kids was still gathered. “We were
all
watching. It was like a Western shoot-out. Who's your friend?” She looked pointedly at the golem.

“Gully,” Sammy said. He was thinking about the hero riding off into the sunset with the girl. His voice cracked and sputtered, so he cleared his throat. Tried again. “Gully, this is Julia. She's one of the good guys.”

“On the right,” the golem said.

“Gully?” Julia asked. “What kind of a name is that?”

“Short for . . . um . . . Gulliver,” Sammy said.

“Gulliver,” Gully added. He was smiling and his gray teeth showed.

“Gulliver?”

“Well, it's . . . a family name.” Sammy was almost trembling. More lies. “And well, that's the kind of name other kids can make fun of. Like a cousin of mine who was going to be named Adam Scott Silverman until they figured out the initials and . . .”

Julia had to bite her bottom lip to keep from laughing, before saying, “You're making that up.”

“Am not.” Sammy let out the breath he'd been holding. The story about his cousin Adam, at least, was absolutely true.

“Then they shouldn't have named him Gulliver,” Julia said, her head nodding toward Gully. “It's
absolutely
going to be the school joke.”

“Don't tell,” Sammy said.

Gully added, “Don't tell.”

Julia put her finger to her lips.

Gully did the same.

And—just to be on the safe side—Sammy did, too.

At that moment, the first bell rang and Sammy, dragging Gully to the left, started down the corridor to his homeroom. Julia's homeroom was on the right. But before she'd even got a few steps down the hall, she turned and called back, “Sammy?”

He turned so quickly, he almost fell over, and Gully's hand shot out to steady him.

“I'd like to be part of the band. With you and Skinner.”

“Skinner?” His heart was beating like a drum. “Drum.” He said it out loud.

“No, silly.” She shook her head and her dark hair waterfalled around her long face. “Violin. I play the violin.”

“Sure,” Sammy said. And, as if his tongue had suddenly developed an echo pedal, he said it two more times. “Sure. Sure.”

“I fiddle around. Let's talk at lunch,” she said. Then added—before disappearing through the door of her homeroom—“That's a joke.”

“Drum,” Gully said.

Slowly, Sammy turned to him. “What?” His head was still filled with the idea of talking to Julia Nathanson. In the band. At lunch. Sitting with Julia Nathanson. At lunch.

“Drum,” Gully said again. “Silly—I play drum.”

“You don't even know what a drum is,” Sammy told him, and pulled him into homeroom. But suddenly, Sammy remembered the way Gully had slammed James Lee and the Boyz. Beaten on them.
Like a drum.

That's not a bad idea at all.
He'd never considered a drummer for the band.

Sammy had a story ready for the teachers when they asked about Gully:
He's a visiting cousin from Europe who is here to learn to speak English, and he can't stay home alone while my parents are at work.

He knew it wasn't a particularly
good
story. It was full of enough holes to be a golf course. And if anyone thought to confirm this with his parents, he'd be in serious trouble. But it would explain the way Gully talked, if not his looks. And if any of them asked Gully where in Europe he lived, he'd probably answer, “Europe, silly,” but it was all Sammy had come up with.
Maybe I'll say “Middle Europe,”
he thought, not exactly sure where Middle Europe was.
Except, probably somewhere . . . well . . . in the middle.
But his parents often talked about it because it was where their ancestors came from, before they lived in Hartford. Long before.

However, the thought of Ms. Holsten interrogating him in front of the entire homeroom class had Sammy chewing on his fingernails. The taste was awful because there was enough clay still embedded in them to make a meal, but still he chewed.

He introduced Gully to Ms. Holsten as she sat at her desk.

“Um, my cousin Gully. Gully Greenburg. From Middle Europe,” he said. “Gully, this is Ms. Holsten.”

“Poland? Slovenia? Czech Republic?” Ms. Holsten asked brightly.

“Czech Republic,” Sammy said, having no idea which one would be best, just relieved that she'd given him three choices.

Gully nodded. “Check,” he said. “Republic.”

The Holstein nodded again, almost cowlike. Sammy was surprised that she didn't moo as well. “Welcome, Gully.”

Why isn't she saying anything more?
Sammy thought, biting a hangnail so short that it started to bleed.
She has to be curious about where he comes from in the Czech Republic. And what grade he's in. And why he's so gray.

Then he had another thought—biting the hangnail again—
why did I ever think making a golem was a good idea. It's a
terrible
idea.

But whether it was some magic of the golem's, or Ms. Holsten's assumption that Sammy-the-Good-Kid must have the proper permissions to bring in a visitor, she made no mention again of Sammy's big, gray cousin except to have them get an extra chair and desk from the back of the room and sandwich it between Sammy's desk and Jason Fredericks, the goofy kid with the Coke-bottle glasses who sat on his right.

Ms. Holsten turned out to be the only real hurdle, because all of the teachers seemed to automatically assume that the teacher before them had cleared the visitor. Sammy only had to say that Ms. Holsten had said it was okay and that—it turned out—was the end of it. He'd even been ready to avoid lying outright by saying something like, “Ms. Holsten didn't say it wasn't okay.” But he never had to resort to that new lie.

In fact, he'd gnawed his nails down to nubs for nothing.

With James Lee put in his place, and Gully looking like he'd be allowed to stick around, Sammy should have been nice and relaxed by lunchtime.

Lunchtime.

With Julia Nathanson

But apparently
that
was the thing he worried about the most. Including the fact that he could quite possibly have a heart attack by sitting too close to her.

Or embarrass himself by letting out a fart during a lull in the conversation. If there
was
any conversation.

Or spilling lunch down his front. Or even worse—spilling lunch down hers.

Still, the one thing he knew he wasn't going to do any more damage to were his fingernails. He no longer had any.

Lucky I play clarinet and not guitar.

Sitting up straight in his chair, Sammy tried to listen to what Mr. Lippincott, the science teacher, was talking about. Neurons. Or protons. Or some such
ons.

I have to look relaxed.
He must have said it aloud, because Gully repeated in his flat voice, “Look relaxed.”

The boy next to him, a pencil-thin geeky kid who knew all about science and not much else, broke out into giggles the way some kids break out in acne.

Sammy gave him a disgusted look and said, “Yeah, Gully—though in America we say: ‘Look cool. Calm. Collected.'”

And then the bell rang for lunch.

Sammy stood, his knees suddenly shaking.

Gully stood and put a comforting hand on Sammy's shoulder. They walked that way down the hall and to the lunchroom looking like two blind guys helping one another.

Julia Nathanson was already sitting at Sammy's table, looking—Sammy thought—cool, calm, collected. He could have pointed that out to Gully, a live vocabulary lesson, but it would have meant opening his mouth and letting real words, rather than a deep sigh, come out. Sammy simply didn't think he could manage it.

Instead, he gulped, and went right to the lunch line, though ordinarily he'd have taken off his backpack and left it at the table first.
Anything,
he thought,
to delay sitting down
. Which was decidedly odd since what he wanted to do—more than anything else in the world—was to sit down next to Julia.

He showed Gully how to take a tray and choose between mystery meat or “snap” sandwiches, which was what everyone called the toasted cheese sandwiches that were so hard, they could be snapped in two. And how to choose between green beans cooked until they were as gray as Gully or a small salad, somehow equally gray. And then there were the containers of different kinds of milk: whole, one percent, chocolate.

Gully took it all, slopping it onto his plate as if he could really eat the stuff, then carried both trays over to the table with one hand, an amazing feat.

Then finally—with nothing more to throw between himself and Julia—Sammy had to sit down next to her. He
had
to. His knees had suddenly become so weak, it was sit-or-fall-over time. He thought he might actually be having a heart attack.

There was a long, difficult silence, and then Sammy said to Julia, “This is my . . . um . . . cousin.”

“Not much of a family resemblance,” Julia replied.

Gully said to Julia. “I am Gully. The cousin. From Check.”

“Check?” Julia sounded puzzled.

“Czech Republic,” Sammy said. “He's gray from lack of sun and a condition called alopecia. He doesn't speak a lot of English, and he is the drummer in the band.” And having divested himself of all of his conversation openers at once, Sammy fell silent again.

“Hi, Gully,” Julia said. “Again.”

“Again,” Gully said, and nodded his head.

Only then did Sammy remember the conversation they'd had in the hall about Gully's name.
This is worse,
he thought,
than farting or spilling food, or . . .
Maybe the heart attack was a good idea. He wondered if a person could just will his heart to give out.

“The drummer?” Julia said. “That's great. Like I said, I want to be in the band, too. Can I try out?”

“Try out . . .” Sammy repeated, now sounding quite a bit like Gully, his voice flat and much too loud.

“You try out,” Gully said. “Look cool.” He grinned his gray grin. “We say that in America.”

Julia laughed. It sounded like tinkling bells.

Sammy resisted slapping his forehead with his hand, but only just.
I can't believe I just thought “Tinkling bells!”

“So can I try out?” Julia asked again.

Sammy nodded. He nodded so vigorously, he hoped his neck muscles were strongly attached. If his head fell off, he didn't know what he would do then.

They ate the rest of the meal in silence. Julia because she'd gotten what she wanted. Sammy because he had nothing sensible or amusing or interesting left to say. And Gully because without something to echo, he couldn't talk. And of course, though he ran his fork around and around the things on his plate, and even once held a forkful up to his mouth, Gully didn't actually eat any of it.