Harvest of Changelings (13 page)

R
USSELL STROKED THE GLOW-IN-THE-DARK BATMAN symbol on his new T-shirt as he rehearsed what he would say when he had to share his summer vacation with his new fifth grade class.
And where did you go on your summer vacation?
Russell rolled his eyes. He could just hear the teacher's sing-song first day nicey-nicey voice. As if by the time the twentieth kid told about a trip to the beach the teacher wasn't bored out of her mind.
I
worked all summer for my stepmother's parents. They hate me; I hate them. I had a great summer. I hate my stepmother. She hates me.

He looked over at Jeanie who was driving him to his first day at his new school, Nottingham Heights Elementary. She had taken Russell shopping for new school clothes on Saturday, at the Kmart in Garner. She had at first refused to let him get the Batman T-shirt, but had given in. Even so, this morning Jeanie had not been happy to see Russell wearing it.

“You are hell-bent on wearing that T-shirt on your first day, aren't you? Russell, we got you some nice clothes for school and you want to wear that. If that don't beat all. Haven't you got any sense? I swear, I don't know why I bother. I should have never let you talk me into buying it. I treat you as if you were my own . . .”

She had kept talking all through breakfast and out into the car. Not even another fire in the kitchen trash can, a small one this time,
slowed her down.
Damn, if that wasn't the strangest thing–
I wonder if there is something in the can's metal, maybe I should call the fire department—come on, Russell, let's go, it's out, get in the car . . .
Russell wondered if she slowed down to breathe. He was trying hard not to listen to anything she had to say to him on the way to school. Now she was talking about how tired she was with the twins coming and all and she couldn't always drive Russell to school, but since it was the first day and all, well. Russell nodded and uh-umed and tried to focus on the radio. It was on a top 40 station and he wanted to turn it up, but the last time he had done that in the car his father had popped him.

Focusing on the radio didn't work; he could still hear Jeanie talking. Maybe closing his eyes and trying to remember last night's dream would shut her out. He had had another good dream, not like the ones he usually had. Sometimes he would be in front of his class in his underwear or in nothing. Or the teacher would be yelling and yelling as he cowered under his desk. He would be sitting in a reading group, stumbling over words in the simplest book, words he knew he knew. Or his father would be chasing him through the house, the yard, into the woods. And lately there were dreams that left him with stained sheets in the morning. Russell looked over at Jeanie as casually as possible. Six months pregnant. She looked like she had swallowed half-a-watermelon. Looking at Jeanie and thinking about her being pregnant and how she got pregnant made Russell feel the way he felt when he woke up from the stained-sheet dreams. He hadn't been sure where each part fit but after discovering a stack of old
Playboys
and
Penthouses
in the corner of the attic, he now had a pretty good idea. Looking at the pictures and at Jeanie and thinking about her and his father made Russell want to touch himself. And that made him think of other things, of things that scared him, that it was the naked men in
Penthouse
that he had looked at the longest. No, he would just have to be sure he was looking at naked women the next time, that's all, that would do it. As for who was in the sheet-staining dreams—no, he wouldn't remember. He couldn't even get his mind around that. He was a boy, so it was impossible, end of story.

Russell shook his head. Last night's dream hadn't been one of the sheet-stainers. It had started with his father chasing him, yelling and throwing rocks. Russell had run into the woods and hadn't stopped running until he came to a meadow and could no longer hear his father's voice. And as he stood there, Russell knew he had escaped from a bad dream into a good one, as all around the edges
of the meadow were the white trees. A winged horse stood in the meadow grass, waiting for him, and said for Russell to climb on his back. They had flown high above the trees and Russell could remember the cold air on his chest and in his hair. He could feel the horse's sides against his legs and hear the beating of the great wings. And the horse's voice: throaty and rough.

He had found bruises on the insides of his thighs this morning in the shower. Russell had examined them in amazement, even pushing at them to the point he had cried out in pain, as the water beat on his head.

I was really there.

“It's going to be another hot, sticky day, with highs in the mid-nineties, and lows tonight in the lower seventies . . .”

“We're there. Russell, at least run a comb through your hair,” Jeanie said.

Russell blinked and sat up to read the neatly lettered sign on the hill just above where they were parked: NOTTINGHAM HEIGHTS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. The building looked like every other school Russell had ever seen, in Oklahoma, Kansas, and North Carolina. It was one story, brick, with two wings spreading out from the center. A limp American flag hung on the flagpole. Tall pine trees grew around the building and brown needles and pine cones covered the side walk and the grass. Pine needle littered steps led up to the front door. Evergreen shrubbery lined the sidewalk and hugged the walls.
Maybe I'll tell them I went to the beach for two weeks and got up every day to go swimming and ride the waves and fish off the pier and look for sea shells and build sand castles and at night we'd go out to
a
seafood restaurant, Captain Bill's, for a big dinner and
...

“I swear, Russell, will you wake up? I ain't got all day,” Jeanie snapped, her hands on her hips, from the top of the stairs. He tried to walk as fast as she was, but he couldn't. Russell was walking into a new school and each step was bringing him closer to the questioning and frowning teachers and the laughing and whispering students in his worst dreams. He wasn't entering a safe place. He almost bolted when the front door closed behind them.

“Wait here,” Jeanie said, and after pushing back her blond hair, went into the office. Russell sat down at a round table between the front door and the office door and turned to face a line of kindergartners looking him over. Russell was sure they were whispering about how big his feet were. At least they didn't know he was twelve and in the fifth grade. The kindergarten teacher came back from wherever she had been and stood in front of the line, one hand high in the air,
the other shushing. The kids copied her and trotted off obediently down the hall. Russell looked into the office. Jeanie was talking with a small, dark woman, her hands moving like birds just startled by a hunter. If Jeanie's hands were cut off, Russell thought, she wouldn't be able to talk.

He could her muffled voice through the glass. “You know, Miz Bigelow, the child failed kindergarten and first grade 'cause his daddy and mama split up. That woman drove his daddy crazy, what with all her boyfriends and one day she just up and took the baby and left, didn't say kiss my foot . . .”

Looking straight down I could see into the forest. The golden and silvery leaves and the white trunks were shining in the moonlight. A few trees, like dark flowers in the silver and white, had green leaves, so dark a green they were black. Here and there, I saw fir trees, sort of like spruces, blue-green-silver. Two moons shone in the sky ...

Finally Jeanie stopped talking and started filling out and signing forms. A few minutes later, she and the small, dark lady came out into the lobby. “Russell, this is Miss Bigelow, the principal here,” Jeanie said. “She'll tell you which bus to take to get home. You know where the key is. Stay inside and do your homework when you get home. I'll get home about when your daddy does, around six or so. Behave yourself, bye.”

Russell rolled his eyes when she finally left for Food Lion. He let himself relax the tiniest bit—but not too much. He couldn't in a school; he wasn't safe. Miss Bigelow closed the door behind Jeanie and turned to face Russell. He was alone with her and the silence. The halls were empty. Inside the office, a black lady, Trudy Anderson according to her name plate, sat behind a paper-cluttered desk and typed, the phone cradled on her shoulder. Russell looked up at Miss Bigelow, his hands tight in his lap beneath the table. She really was little; Russell could tell he was already taller. She had short, streaked blond hair that somebody seemed to have whacked off and leathery skin. Miss Bigelow had a clipboard in one hand and a pencil in the other and she was nodding her head as she gave Russell a sharp appraising look.

“Well, now that we have checked each other out, are you ready to go to your new classroom?” Miss Bigelow asked in a quick voice. “I'm not gonna bite you and you aren't gonna bite me—you aren't, are you? Ready?”

“Uh, no, I mean, I'm ready. Yeah, let's go,” he said. Russell followed Miss Bigelow down the hall. She talked a mile a minute about the school: here was the library, over here was the computer
lab, the art room, this was a second grade, and Nottingham children were expected to behave, walk on the right side of the hall, and when a teacher raised her hand, that was the signal to be quiet. Got that? Her tennis shoes made no sound on the linoleum. (Russell had never seen any teacher, let alone a principal, wear tennis shoes at school.) All he could hear was her voice until she opened a door at the end of the hall, Mrs. Collins's fifth grade, here we are.

Russell felt like an idiot standing in front of the class while the principal and Mrs. Collins huddled together over his thick folder. He knew every kid in the room was watching him.
So look at something else, huh? Stare out the window, why doncha? Just leave me alone, okay?
Russell stared back, especially at a brown-haired girl wearing glasses in the second row. She was small and slight and looked really smart. You could tell. After she looked away, Russell knew he could make her miserable. It would be easy.

A very small blond-haired boy looked at Russell in frank recognition, as if he had always known Russell and had just seen him the day before. Russell had never seen anybody with eyes like the boy had, almost the color of a dog's, a golden brown.

“Third new one this morning, Mrs. Collins. Mrs. Markham got the first one, filled her up, you got the last two. Have a good first day, Russell; I'll check on you this afternoon,” Miss Bigelow said and she left, closing the door behind her.

“Class, we just met Malachi; this is Russell White. Russell, why don't you sit over there by Malachi in the third row. Mrs. Perry, could you get Russell his books?” Mrs. Collins said. Russell saw an older, grey-haired, heavy woman, in a bright flowered dress, heave herself up out of her chair in the back of the room. She smiled in his direction and he sat down by the funny-eyed Malachi who was very intently reading his spelling book.

Mrs. Perry looked like Miss McNeil, Russell thought. Almost just like her. He wondered if she would be as nice as Miss McNeil.
From Thanksgiving to Easter, in first grade, Miss McNeil had been Russell's teacher. She was a big, dark-haired woman who was con - stantly dieting. She ate celery sticks and peanut butter for snacks and Carnation Breakfast bars for lunch. Russell and his little brother had then been living with their grandmother. She took Russell to school his first day.

“This is my daughter's boy, Russell,” his grandmother had said and left Russell at the door. (He had written his grandmother once after moving to North Carolina. The card had come back marked Addressee Deceased. He had sent a birthday card to his mother in
Arizona at the same time; that card had come back marked Addressee Moved, No Forwarding Address.) Russell stood in the doorway for a long moment until Miss McNeil crossed the room and took him by the hand.

“Russell. Did you know your name means red-haired, like a fox? And your hair sure is red. We're studying names right now. Let me show you a picture of a fox in this book. See, he lost his tail and he's trying to get it back. He has to ask three people. to help,” she said and she sat down in a small chair in front of the blackboard. She patted a chair beside her and Russell sat down. “After Christmas, when we study Indians—there are lots of Indians in Oklahoma, you know—you can be Red Fox.” Russell leaned over to look at the book. He inhaled her peanut butter aroma.

Each day had been like that. Russell would wake up early and be out the door, zooming through breakfast to catch the bus. The wait on the playground before the first bell took forever. Miss McNeil was always there when he raced in the classroom door. He signed Red Fox on all his papers, printing in big block letters—

“Russell. Russell? You need to open your social studies book now. Put the rest in your desk. Now. Let's get off to a good start, shall we?”

Russell sighed. Mrs. Collins was staring fixedly at him from her desk. He looked away quickly and pulled his social studies book out of the stack still on top of his desk. Her eyes were hard and cold and dark.

“First page, the bottom,” someone whispered.

It was the golden-eyed boy. Russell managed a half-smile in thanks and opened his book.

Jeff's seat was in the back of the room. Mrs. Markham, his new teacher, had been very apologetic about having to put him at the very back, but Jeff didn't care. He liked it in the back, especially today his first day in a new school, the first day after summer vacation. He had sat in the back at his last school and the school before that. Jeff could be invisible in the back and dissolve into the pale green wall, where no one and nothing could touch him. When the teacher asked a question, she wouldn't even see him. His last teacher hadn't, until everything had happened, of course, and everybody knew. After that, he would look up to find her watching him. She would look away quickly, sighing guiltily.

He was pretty sure Mrs. Markham knew, too, but she wasn't sneaking looks at him as if he were some strange bug dropped in her class.

Mrs. Markham's class was having art. Earlier in the morning, Mrs. Markham had had sharing so everybody could tell the class about at least one thing they had done for summer vacation. When she had looked at Jeff, he had shook his head: no. It wasn't that his foster parents, the Clarks, hadn't taken Jeff swimming and to the movies, and even for one week, to the beach; rather it was that Jeff didn't want to talk. Besides, for the rest of the summer, after leaving his father, Jeff had felt as if he were watching a very long, long movie, one in which his character seemed to have a very small part.

Jeff watched the art teacher, Miss Melton, as she passed out huge sheets of white drawing paper. He liked how smooth and clean the paper felt. Jeff carefully printed his name in the lower left-hand corner. She handed out crayons next and then started explaining just what today's art project was . . .
Jeff stood on the sand, on the crest of
a
dune; he was on the same beach. Above him was the same star-crowded sky as before. Jeff inhaled and then exhaled in a loud whoosh. In, out, in, out. There. Finally he started walking through the sand and the dune grass; he liked the wet way the grass licked at his leg.

“I wonder how this place looks in daylight,” Jeff whispered. He had never felt so safe as on this beach, but still Jeff knew things hid in the shadows and the corners and came out when the sun was down. And once they were out, there was no way to send the things back.

What was that shadow—a dragon, a flying dragon? Yes. Great bursts of yellow and orange flame shot out of the shadow's mouth and its huge black wings blocked the stars. The dragon circled the beach and then landed half-way between the dunes and the surf. A black tidal pool was between the dragon and Jeff He watched as the dragon settled down, folding its wings and tucking in its tail. Its eyes glowed molten gold and bright sparks fell out of its mouth. He could hear some of the sparks hissing on the wet sand.

Jeff had no idea how long he stood there, watching the dragon watch him, its hot eyes half-open, hazy smoke from its nostrils blurring the air. There was nowhere to run—and how could he outrun a creature that could fly and breathe fire? The only place he could begin to be safe was in the water and the dragon lay right beside the pool and between Jeff and the sea. The dragon's tail had come untucked and twitched back and forth, the way a cat's tail would, drawing huge patterns in the sand. Its green scales glittered in the double moonlight and starlight.

Finally he made his way down the dune, slipping and sliding until he was on the hard-packed wet sand. He took another deep breath and walked toward the dragon—this was a dream, after all, wasn't it? He couldn't be hurt in a dream, could he? Not really, right? The water in the tidal pool came up to his knees and felt warm on his feet, like bath water. The dragon watched him as he waded across the pool. Jeff stopped, still in the pool, but now less than ten feet from the monster. Jeff was sure the dragon knew his name and all about him—even what had happened in the dark. How and why, Jeff had no idea.

“Okay, dragon, here I am. You aren't going to eat me, are you?”

When the dragon spoke, its voice sounded the only way Jeff had thought a dragon could sound: low and deep, like slow thunder. “No, Human Boy, I am not going to eat you. I want you to look down in the water. What do you see?”

Jeff looked down to see his face in the dark water and wavery reflections of the two moons. He saw his black hair, all shaggy and rough about his face. The face that looked back was pale and his hazel eyes looked greener and deeper. His ears—what had happened to his ears? Both his ears were pointed. Jeff touched each point gently, pulled at each one—they were real. He traced the shapes of his ears with his fingers
—
what? His ears felt smooth
—
yet looked pointed. And he had felt the points.

“Dragon,” Jeff said and held up his hand to ask a question. The monster nodded and Jeff took a step forward and fell into the pool and kept falling. And falling, falling, through the water, through a close darkness. He couldn't see or hear or touch anything, not even his hands, his own face. He tried to scream but found he had no voice or even a mouth. His corporeal self was gone. Finally, Jeff heard a sound, a loud tearing, and with a thud, he hit the floor and he could find his hands and feet, his head, and he could see. He was in his bedroom, on the floor, surrounded by his dinosaurs
...

“You must be the new boy Mrs. Markham was telling me about.”

Jeff looked up to see the art teacher standing over him. A blue pencil stuck out of her hair and green and red chalk was smeared on her cheek.

“May I see your drawing, Jeff? I don't think I have ever seen anything quite like it.”

Jeff handed her his drawing and the woman held it out at arm's length.

“Tell me about it, Jeff. Have you been to this beach before?”

“Just once, this summer, for the first time,” Jeff said very slowly. “I just drew what I remembered and added the dragon for fun.”
Please don't ask me any more questions, just give me my drawing back. Or you can have it; just don't ask me any more questions.

“May I put this up for the rest of the class to see? It's really good.”

Jeff shrugged; it didn't matter what she did or what he might say. Adults always did whatever they wanted. Jeff sank back in his seat and watched as the art teacher showed the drawing to the class, talking about its strong colors and shapes and imagination. Jeff wanted to drop through the floor.