Lost Boys (17 page)

Stevie chewed on this for a minute. Step pulled out of the parking place and then headed back into the street, driving home.

"But what if she really had a vision," asked Stevie.

DeAnne wanted to scream. She had no vision! She has poured poison into your ear, just like Hamlet's father! But she held her tongue, trusting Step to be calmer than she was, because he hadn't already had a run- in with Sister LeSueur today.

"Stevie," said Step, "if she really had a vision, and it really was from the Lord, she had plenty of chances to tell your mother and me about it today. But she didn't, did she?"

"Because the vision said you were unrighteous ," said Stevie. But DeAnne could hear a bit of sarcasm in his voice now. A bit more stress on the word said. She said you were unrighteous. He's beginning to mo ve over and stand with us against her. She isn't going to win this round.

"If it was a true vision," said Step, "she wouldn't be afraid to tell us right to our faces that we were unrighteous. The Lord's prophets are always brave about that sort of thing. They always tell wicked people about their wickedness, right to their faces. I mean, haven't we told you stories about that? Like Samuel the Lamanite?"

"They almost killed him!" cried Robbie. "He stood on the wall!"

"So you were listening on Christmas Eve," said Step.

"That's right," said Stevie. And now there was certainty in his voice. He had put the pattern together. "If it was true, she would have said it right to you, instead of sneaking around."

"Like Abinadi," said DeAnne.

"He got burned!" Robbie yelled.

"Bird!" Elizabeth screeched, looking around to see where Robbie might have seen one.

"Not bird, Betsy Wetsy," said Robbie. He explained to her the concept of fire, none of which she understood, but that was fine with Robbie, he didn't actually need other people to understand what he was saying as long as they'd sit still and listen. And with Elizabeth belted into her carseat, she was the perfect audience.

DeAnne could see that Step wanted to say more to Stevie-she understood, because she wanted to, too. But instead they both held their peace. Stevie understands. He sees how this woman has tried to manipulate him. So there's no need to say any more.

And yet when they got home, while Step was carrying Eliza beth in from the car, DeAnne couldn't resist adding one more bit of teaching. "Stevie," she said, "I want you to know something."

"What's that?" he asked.

She had the door unlocked and Robbie assigned himself to hold it open for Step and Elizabeth. She carried her lesson materials and the diaper bag into the kitchen and set it all on the table. Stevie was right behind her.

"What I want you to know is this." She got down on one knee, so she could look him in the eye. "You really are a special boy, with a wonderful future. I've known it from the start. I even knew it, I think, when you were still inside my tummy."

"Uterus," said Stevie. Step had given him the first birds-andbees lesson back last fall, and now he insisted on not using childish language.

"Yes, my uterus," said DeAnne. "But certainly when you were a baby, and ever since. You have a sensitive spirit. You know things. You know when things are right. It's like what you felt when she was talking to you.

Even though she was flattering you, you still didn't like her, right?"

"Yeah," said Stevie.

"That's because there's something inside you that knows, just knows when someone is good and when someone is not good. Or maybe you just know when you need to do something because it's right. And believing in Sister LeSueur's story just wasn't the right thing for you to do, and so you knew it. Do you understand what I mean?"

"Yeah."

"Stevie, trust in that place inside your heart that knows the right thing to do. Trust in it, and do what it tells you."

"Even if it tells me to disobey you and Dad?"

"It will never tell you to do something wrong, Stevie. I promise you that."

He nodded soberly. "OK," he said. Then he turned and headed out of the room.

She felt weak, shaky. What had she just said to her son? To trust in some feeling inside himself, in preference even to the things that she and Step told him! How could she have said something so irresponsible, so insane! Yet at the moment she had felt as if it could not go unsaid. Only how could they possibly counter this LeSueur woman, this Queen B, if DeAnne was giving Stevie permission to ignore them? No, not giving him permission. Insisting on it.

She headed for the kitchen to tell Step what she had just done and get him to help her clarify it with Stevie, but Elizabeth was alone there, rooting through the Cheerios that still survived inside the Tupperware box DeAnne always took to church in the diaper bag.

DeAnne went down the hall, looking into Step's office on the way. Not there. Not in Elizabeth's room. Not in the boys' room, where Stevie was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling. Poor kid, so much confusion, so many strange things in his life! How could he make sense of it all?

She expected tha t Step would be in their bathroom, but he wasn't. He was sitting on the bed, talking on the phone.

"I'm so sorry that she isn't feeling well," said Step. "But I can certainly understand it, Brother LeSueur, she had a very busy day in church. Listen, if she can't come to the phone, Brother LeSueur, perhaps you can simply relay a message to her for me. Can you do that?"

DeAnne waited, holding her breath, to hear what Step would say, especially since poor Brother LeSueur probably hadn't a clue about what his wife had been doing today. DeAnne rather imagined that he hadn't a clue about anything his wife did, ever.

"OK, here's the message. She raised a doctrinal question with me today-about what a father should do if someone tried to steal away his children." Brother LeSueur must have said something, because Step paused a moment and then answered. "No, it wasn't in class, it was after the meeting. Anyway, here's the best answer I could come up with. I truly believe that if someone tried to steal away a man's children, that man would be completely justified in anything he might do to protect his family . ... Yes, that's right, anything at all ... even killing, yes. I don't think it would be murder, I think it would be defense of the helpless. Don't you think so, Brother LeSueur? ... Yes, I thought you'd agree with me. Why don't you tell her that, then-that you agree with me, too, that a man would be perfectly justified in killing someone who tried to steal away his children? I think she'll be quite satisfied with that answer . ... Yes, I think that particular question will never come up again . ...

Thanks so much, and tell her I hope she gets well soon and lives a long and happy life . ... Oh, thank you! Bye!"

Step looked up at DeAnne and grinned. "He said he liked my lesson a lot."

"I can't believe you said that to her own husband!" said DeAnne.

"Yes, well, I said it because I wanted to make it clear to her that this was the last time she ever pulls a stunt like this."

"She really is an awful woman," said DeAnne. "Jenny tried to warn me, but I never thought anyone would be so low as to try to get to the parents by poisoning the hearts of their children against them."

"Oh, heavens," said Step, "people have been doing that for years. The Nazis did it, and the Communists, and a lot of divorced parents do it, too."

"All right then," said DeAnne, "I guess a lot of people are just that low. But she's certainly one of them."

"Oh, yes," said Step. "She definitely crawled out from under a rock."

"How can you be so calm about this? Aren't you angry?"

Step only smiled-a tight little smile. "Hey, Fish Lady. I just got a man to deliver to his wife a message that if she messes with my family again, I'll feel perfectly justified in killing her. You think I'm not mad?"

"But you wouldn't really do it," she said.

"Wouldn't it be sad if Sister LeSueur thought the same thing," said Step.

"You aren't a violent person."

"I've been thinking about that," said Step. "And I think that maybe I'm only pretending not to be a violent person. Because the need for violence simply hasn't come up till now."

"Well, I really don't think violence is the answer against her."

"Oh, I know," said Step. "The real answer is to keep our children away from her and then teach people the truth every chance we get. That's the thing we have going for us-she really is wrong, and we really are right, and so good and wise people will eventually see through her and recognize what she really is."

She walked over to him and sat beside him on the bed and then laid her head in his lap. "I liked it when you talked on the phone about killing people," she said. "I must be the most terrible person in the world, but it just made me feel so-delicious."

"Me too," said Step.

"Aren't we awful?" said DeAnne.

"Personally," said Step, "I think we're terrific."

Late that night, she awoke suddenly from a dream, but the dream slipped away even as she tried to cling to it. She rolled over and saw that Step's bedside lamp was on, and he was reading.

"Can't sleep?" she murmured.

"That was some dream you were having," said Step. "Didn't understand a word you were saying, but you sounded very firm."

"Don't remember," said DeAnne.

Then she did remember. Not the dream, but something else that she had wanted to talk to Step about, and she hadn't done it. She confessed to Step how she had as much as told their oldest son that he should trust his own judgment more than his parents' instructions.

"Well," said Step. "Well."

"That's it? Just `well'?"

"No, not jus t 'well.' I distinctly remember that I said, `Well. Well.' Two wells."

"I'm serious, Step."

"DeAnne, it's like you told me. It was just something that you had to say, right up till the moment it was said, and then you sud denly couldn't understand why you had to say it."

She was still half asleep, that must be why she didn't get the point of what he was saying.

"Fish Lady," he said patiently, "you were following your own advice. You did the thing that you knew, in that moment, was the right thing to do. You told Stevie something that you would never have dreamed of saying if you were in your normal mind."

"So I'm going crazy?"

He sighed.

"Do you really think I might have been inspired to say that?"

"How should I know?" asked Step. "We believe it's possible, don't we? And in the meantime, I'm certainly not going to say anything to Stevie to get him to doubt what you said. Because the fact is that what you said is true. In the long run, every human being is accountable for what he chooses to do. Stevie won't be able to hide behind us and say, But I did what they said! He'll have to stand before the judgment bar of God and say This is what I did, and this is why I chose to do it."

"But he's only seven."

"He's not just a seven- year-old," said Step. "You know that. It's something my mother once said to me. That there were moments that she thought, Maybe, before we were all born, when we lived with God in the pre-existence, maybe her children were older than her. Maybe they were very old and very wise, and God simply saved them till now because he needed to have some of his very best children on the earth during the last days. Maybe Mom was right. Not about her children. About ours."

"He's seven, Step, even if his spirit is very old."

"You said what you said, and Sister LeSueur said what she said. And you know what, Fish Lady? I like what you said a lot better. She said to him, Depend on me, lean on me, do what I tell you to do, and I'll make you a great man. You said to him, Stand on your own, make up your own mind, you already are a man, and maybe you'll make yourself into a great man by and by. What's so wrong about that?"

"You make me feel so good, Junk Man," she said.

"It's my job," he said. "It was written into the marriage contract. When wife wakes up in the middle of the night and needs some reassurance, husband must provide it or go without hot meals for a week."

"Oh," she said. "Well, then, you're living up to the contract."

"I do my best," he said. "But I still miss most of the hot meals."

"Not because I don't prepare them," said DeAnne.

"Maybe the contract will come from Agamemnon. Maybe tomorrow."

"Even if it doesn't come, Step, even if Mr. Agamemnon or Akabakka or whatever-"

"Arkasian."

"Even if he changed his mind or couldn't do it or whatever. Even if that comes to nothing, things will still work out."

"I hope you're right, Fish Lady."

"I am. You can count on it. Because I get inspiration, don't I?"

"Sometimes you just give it," he said. "To me."

She nestled closer to him in bed and closed her eyes, feeling comforted now, feeling ready for sleep. "You make me feel so good, Junk Man."

He leaned down and kissed her forehead. Then she must have fallen asleep, because she remembered nothing else till morning.

This is what happened with Stevie's second-grade project: He brought home a one-page ditto that listed the requirements, which were not very specific. The end-of-year project had to show "an environment" and the creatures that lived in it. It was due on April 22nd, and it had to include a written report and a "visual depiction."

"Most of the kids are doing posters," said Stevie, "but I don't want to." He had been reading about octopuses, and he wanted to do his project about the undersea environment. And instead of cutting pictures out of magazines and pasting them to posterboard, he got his mom to buy some colored clay, which he shaped into fishes, clams, coral, and an octopus. He arranged them on a cardboard base that DeAnne cut from the side of one of the boxes they had used in the move. Then he wrote his report, typing it himself on Step's word-processing computer and stapling it in the corner.

It was the first thing Stevie had shown any real interest in dur ing his whole time at this school, and DeAnne showed it off to Step with real pride, the night before Stevie took it to school.

"This is incredible," said Step. "You didn't help him?"

"I did nothing. In fact I advised him against doing something so hard. Who knew he could make fish that looked like fish?"

"Not to mention an octopus that looks like an octopus," said Step. "And look at the clam. There's a starfish prying it open!"

"He still never talks about school," said DeAnne. "Not even when I ask. But he did this, so it can't be all bad."

Then came DeAnne's new calling, and she was so involved with preparing her spiritual living lesson that she didn't think about Stevie's project now that it had been turned in.

On the first Monday in May, however, her lesson was over, and as she drove Stevie to school she remembered his project and asked what the teacher thought of it.

"She gave it a C," said Stevie.

"What?" asked DeAnne.

"And it got mooshed."

"It got mooshed! How! Did somebody drop it?"

"No," said Stevie. "They put them all out on display in the media center, and when the other kids walked past it they mooshed it."

"On purpose?" asked DeAnne.

"Yeah," said Stevie.

"How can you be sure? Did you see them do it?"

"Raymond said, 'Tidal wave!' and then after him they wadded it up even more so finally it was just a big mess of clay."

"Where was your teacher when they were doing this? Where was the librarian?"

"Mrs. Jones was there."

"And she didn't do anything?"

"No," said Stevie.

"She must not have seen what they were doing."

"She saw," said Stevie.

"She saw? And she didn't stop them?"

"No," said Stevie.

DeAnne felt sick. No, she thought. Stevie just misunderstood the situation. The teacher hadn't really been watching. She could ne ver have let such a thing happen.

"I'm going in to talk to your teacher," said DeAnne.

"Please no!" said Stevie, urgently.

"This has to be cleared up. There was no way that your project deserved a C."

"Please don't come in!" he pleaded.

"All right," said DeAnne. "But why not?"

"It'll just make things worse if you do," said Stevie.

"Worse?"

But they had just reached the turnaround in front of the school, and Stevie bounded out the door and raced for schoolthe first time she had ever seen him hurry toward class. Somehow it didn't make her feel any better.

There was something seriously wrong here, and not just his moroseness because of the move. Mrs. Jones could not have given that project a C. No teacher could have stood by and let the other kids destroy a child's project, either. It simply couldn't happen.

Well, if she couldn't talk to Mrs. Jones, she could at least talk to the librarian and find out from her what had happened. "Come on, kids, we're going in," said DeAnne.

DeAnne pulled the car into the teachers' parking lot, where a visitor space was open, and within a few minutes she was leading the kids down the hall to the media center. DeAnne supposed that she ought to check in at the office, but the receptionist there was so snotty, and DeAnne was already so upset, that she decided that if she wasn't going to get really furious today she'd better pretend that she didn't realize she needed to stop in at the main desk.

The librarian was a sweet-voiced older lady, and when she smiled DeAnne thought for some reason of the time she had an eye injury and when the bandages were on and she couldn't see, someone laid a cool damp cloth on her forehead. "I'm so glad when parents come by the library," said the librarian.

"Oh, I thought it was a media center now," said DeAnne.

"Well, so it is. We have two video carts and an Apple II computer, so we are a media center, but look at all these books. Wouldn't you call this a library?"

"Yes I would," said DeAnne. "And I like it all the more, knowing that you call it a library, too."

The librarian smiled and patted DeAnne's hand. "Aren't you the sweet one." Then she bent over- not far, because she wasn't very tall- and soberly greeted Robbie and Elizabeth with a hand shake each. "When will you be a student here, young man?"

"I start kindergarten next fall," said Robbie.

"Oh, and I see you have been well taught," she said. "You said kindergarten and not kindy-garden."

Robbie beamed.

The librarian turned back to DeAnne. "Did you just stop by to visit? Or is there something I can help you with?"

"I understand that the second-grade projects were displayed here."

The librarian looked mournful. "We just barely took down the display over the weekend. I'm so sorry you missed it. We're so proud of our second graders."

"It is rather remarkable, to have second- grade projects," said DeAnne. "I've actually never heard of such a thing before. I don't think we even had senior projects in high school when I was there."

"I think it's because our school is only K through 2," said the librarian. "Dr. Mariner wanted our students to mark the children's departure from our school in a special way-something they would remember, perhaps, in time to come."

"That's certainly the way my oldest boy responded to the assignment," said DeAnne. "Perhaps you noticed his project when it was on display."

"Oh, I don't think I'd remember any one in particular, Mrs . ... um ... "

"I'm DeAnne Fletcher."

Suddenly the librarian's eyes grew wide, and she flashed her wonderful smile again. "Oh, you must be Stevie Fletcher's mother!"

"I am," said DeAnne.

"What a very special boy," said the librarian. "I do remember his project, in fact. It was a sculpture garden-an undersea environment, I believe. With an octopus and that clam with the starfish opening it-and I noticed that the shark had a tiny little fish that the shark was swallowing. A little gruesome, perhaps, but very creative. You must have been proud for your son to be given the first-place ribbon."

"First place? Stevie told me the project got a C."

"But how could that be possible? Dr. Mariner came here and judged them all herself, and before she had even seen the rest of the children's posters, she laid the blue ribbon down beside Stevie's project and said, `This will stay here until I find something that makes me take it away again.' And of course she never did, because he ended up receiving it. Isn't it just awful what those other children did? They were so jealous, I suppose, but still, I think it was churlish of them to moosh it up that way."

So that part of Stevie's story was accurate. And the word moosh was apparently current enough in Steuben that a gracious, educated lady like this one could use it. "Yes, Stevie was rather disappointed, I think," said DeAnne.

"He's such a quiet boy," said the librarian. "He spends every recess here, did you know? I think he must have read half the ... um, media ... in my little ... um, media center." She winked.

"Every recess?" said DeAnne. "I know he loves reading, but I had hoped he would play with the other children."

"I know," said the librarian. "I think it's better when children play together, too. But as long as he keeps to himself, better to have the company of a book than no company at all, don't you think?"

"Oh, yes," said DeAnne. "Well, I didn't mean to trouble you. And I can't wait to tell Stevie's father about the blue ribbon. I wonder where it is!"

"Well, of course it was given to Mrs. Jones to display in Stevie's classroom. They usually keep them there until the end of the year, and then send them home with the student who won."

DeAnne made her polite good-byes and left, feeling much better. Except that Stevie hadn't told her the truth about his project. Was it possib le that he was still trying to make his parents feel bad about putting him in this school? Was it possible that he was refusing to let them know anything good about his experience there, so that they'd continue to feel guilty? That just didn't sound like Stevie, but what other explanation could there be? He must be so angry.

For the first time DeAnne wondered if they shouldn't perhaps find a therapist who could talk to Stevie, who could help him find his way through this thicket of problems. Imaginary friends. And now lying. She called Step at work and he agreed not to be late tonight.

None of Step's usual rides would be able to take him home today- not if he was leaving at five, because none of the programmers ever left until well after seven. So he hitched a ride with two of the phone girls, the ones who took orders for Eight Bits Inc. software on the 800 number. All the way home he kept thinking that there was something strange about the drive, and it wasn't because of the two girls chattering in the front seat or the fact that in the back of a Rabbit his knees were up around his ears. Not until they pulled up in front of his house and he realized that the lawn was overgrown and very badly in need of mowing did it occur to him what was so strange. It was daylight! In the two months that he'd been working at Eight Bits Inc., he had never once come home in daylight.

He thanked the girls for the ride and came into the house. DeAnne was in the living room, playing the piano while Robbie sang and Elizabeth hooted and beat two rhythm sticks together. The song was "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam."

"Somehow I never thought of this as the sort of song that needed a percussion section," said Step.

"Daddy!" cried Robbie.

"Robot!" answered Step. Robbie ran to him and Step tossed him in the air and caught him.

"Daddy!" screamed Betsy.

"Betsy Wetsy!" answered Step.

"Someday you're going to smack their heads into the ceiling," said DeAnne.

Step tossed Betsy into the air. Then, after catching her, he lifted her up and bumped her head against the ceiling. "Owie ow ow ow!" howled Betsy.

"Don't be a poop, Betsy," said Step. "That didn't hurt at all, I was just teasing."

"Owie ow!" Betsy reached for DeAnne.

"What did I tell you?" said DeAnne.

"Betsy's a poop!" shouted Robbie. "Betsy's a poop! You can bump me into the ceiling, Daddy!"

"Better not," said Step. "Your head might cause structural damage." '

"I don't mind!" insisted Robbie.

"I can't believe you came home so early," said DeAnne.

"I said I would, when you asked me to," said Step.

"I never thought it would be a quarter after five," she said. "Or were you fired?"

"Not yet," said Step. "Though I may be, after today."

"Because you left at five?" asked DeAnne.

"The lawn is really overgrown," said Step. "I never noticed that before."

"Well, that's because it wasn't as overgrown yesterday as it is today. Why might they fire you after today?"

"Because I finally worked up the guts to go in and make Cowboy Bob give me a copy of that agreement I signed with him."

"You mean you only just got it today? I assumed you had that weeks ago."

"I asked for it right after San Francisco. Well, not right after, or somebody would think that I was doing exactly what I'm doing. But the Friday after."

"And they didn't send it to you till today?"

"They didn't even send it to me today. I had to go get it. And not from Cowboy Bob, in fact, because he wasn't in and his secretary was on lunch and so it was somebody else's secretary who got it for me out of my personnel file and made a copy for me."

"So you only have a copy?"

"They weren't going to give me the original!" said Step. "Anyway, I have it, and it's possible that Cowboy Bob doesn't know that I have it even now."

"Well, then you won't get fired."

"Except what if he finds out that I came and got it behind his back? Then he'll be really suspicious."

"Well, I've got to admit, it wouldn't break my heart to have you home every day," said DeAnne. "This is such a treat, Step."

"Treat!" scoffed Step. "Hardly. It's where I ought to be, and it makes me sick that you actually had to call me and practically make an appointment to get me home to talk to my own son. I'm living like one of those high-powered stockbroker types, like a Madison-Avenue live-for-the-job hyper-ambitious robot, except that I'm not getting the money they make. Where is Stevie, anyway?"

"He's either outside in back, playing with-Jack and Scotty-or he's in his room."

Step nodded grimly at her mention of Stevie's imaginary friends. And now lying to her ... I've just been too cut off from the family. I'm practically a stranger here.

Stevie was in his room, lying on the top bunk, reading a book.

The conversation did not go well at all. Step leaned on the safety bar and said, "Your Mom tells me that your undersea project did really well."

"No it didn't," said Stevie.

"She said it got the blue ribbon."

"J.J. got the blue ribbon," said Stevie.

"Well, the first-place ribbon, anyway, she didn't actually say what color it was."

"First place was blue," said Stevie.

"Stevedore, I've got to tell you-your mom went to the school and checked. Dr. Mariner gave your underwater garden the firstplace ribbon."

"My project go t mooshed," said Stevie. "So it couldn't get first place."