Authors: Justin David Walker
“Hannah, get out of here!” I yelled, and then felt like a jerk when she stopped short, looking hurt.
“But, I…” she began. Chet took two quick steps and had her wrist in his paw.
“No, no, bro’,” he said. “Nobody’s leaving until we find out what’s going on. Besides, this saves me from having to hunt her down for butting in yesterday.”
Hannah struggled against Chet’s pull and even tried to kick him in the ankle. He laughed and stepped out of her way, holding her arm up so that she couldn’t reach him. Chet’s laugh was scary. For some reason, though, I stopped being scared.
“Let her go!”
The voice was loud. It was deep. It was powerful. Chet and Hannah turned to look where it came from. I almost did, too.
“Let go of her, Chet!” I shouted. “Now!”
Shock and anger flashed across his face. Chet stepped towards me, taking his time, pulling Hannah along. “Who are you?” he said. “Who are you to think that you can tell me to do anything?” He leaned in, shouting now. “You’re nothing!” Globs of his spit sprinkled my face.
I nodded and whispered, “I know, Chet. But you should let her go. She’s not part of this.”
“Then she shouldn’t have interfered. She needs to be taught to mind her own business.” Chet squeezed Hannah’s wrist and she hissed with the pain. I could tell that she was trying hard not to cry. I so wished that I could still turn invisible. I wished that I could bend the twins into pretzels. Quickly, I thought about Superman, the Hulk, Shazam, all of the strong guys. I thought about alien physiologies and red suns and gamma radiation and it was all very interesting, but I knew that it wouldn’t work. There was no warmth, no understanding, no super strength. I was stuck with Psychic Flavor Manipulation, which was absolutely useless.
“Now then,” Chet said, wrapping his other hand around Hannah’s wrist, “a rope burn, I think.”
I watched, utterly helpless. Hannah didn’t deserve this. She had just been sticking up for me. But there was nothing I could do except stand there with Chet’s spit drying on my…
Spit.
A memory flashed through my mind. A nasty memory. The creamed spinach memory.
I’m in kindergarten. It’s lunchtime. Little Nate stands in line with the rest of the runts, carrying his yellow tray. The lunch ladies put a hamburger and a pudding cup on the tray. Awesome! Then came “the vegetable.”
It is a blob of gray and green, oozing from the serving spoon. It looks like lawn clippings mixed with rancid tapioca pudding. Definitely not awesome. Still, Little Nate takes his tray and follows the rest of the runts to their table. Then the smell hits him. It is the smell of wrongness. If pop quizzes had a smell, if lumps of coal in a Christmas stocking had an odor, it would be nothing compared to the funk coming off of the creamed spinach. The odor crawls up Little Nate’s nostrils and burrows in deep. His stomach flips and churns. He manages to sit down. He manages to eat his pudding and a couple of bites of hamburger. The smell keeps hitting him, a heavyweight champ trying to drive him down into the mat. Little Nate can’t take it anymore. He stands up and walks towards the cafeteria exit. There are two ladies there, wearing rubber aprons, overseeing trashcans on wheels.
Little Nate makes it only halfway to his destination, though. His stomach is telling him that its time has come. Little Nate looks away from the putrid pile on his tray and up at the ceiling. The lights are so far away. They wave in the breeze. Little Nate looks down at the cafeteria floor and yarks all over it.
Kids laugh. Kids eww. Little Nate tastes the sour bile in his mouth, smells the spinach again, and expels some more. After forever, he is taken to the nurse’s office to wait until Mom can take the next train home and pick him up.
The memory completed its download. The smell of the creamed spinach. The smell of my vomit. The taste in my mouth. I experienced it all again with perfect clarity. I looked at Chet. I thought about the saliva drying on my check. I thought about the saliva in Chet’s mouth. Saliva that was, up until that moment, absolutely flavorless.
Hannah was trying to pull away from Chet without any success whatsoever. Chet’s muscles flexed as he prepared to twist the flesh on her arm back and forth.
Then he stopped. His mouth fell open and a sound dribbled out, sort of a “Glaaahh!” Chet let go of Hannah and she fell back onto the grass. He spun around and looked at me.
I was concentrating hard, my whole world narrowed down to my memory of that day in kindergarten and the clear fluid inside of my brother’s mouth. I managed to spare Chet a small smile, though. “That would be spoiled creamed spinach and vomit you’re tasting.”
Chet threw up.
Actually, that’s way too polite of a term for it.
Chet blew chunks.
The hedges around Mr. Magellan’s yard were instantly painted. Hannah scuttled back with a shriek. Robert let go of me and leapt away. I held my ground, staring at Chet, still remembering. Chet continued to hurl, his mouth locked open, tears streaming down his cheeks. He turned around, looking for help, and I had to step out of the way of the oncoming stream. Still, I never took my eyes off of my brother.
The vomit kept coming, pooling around Chet. He had it all over him. Somehow, it had even gotten into his hair. His body went rigid with each wave of nausea, and he finally fell to his hands and knees, apparently empty. Only then did I break contact.
The sound of puking, one of the worst sounds you can hear, was finally over, replaced by Chet’s gasps for breath. He didn’t look like he was going to be going anywhere for a while. Robert was shaking, covering his mouth and nose.
I edged around the lake of sick and helped Hannah to her feet. She was looking awfully green. Couldn’t blame her. I was pretty sure I was going to see oat garbanzo clusters in reverse at any moment.
“Come on,” I said, leading her away, back towards the sidewalk.
Running a hand through his hair, Robert shrieked, “What’d you do to him? Get back here!” He took a step towards us. I stopped and looked him dead in the eye.
“Do you really want… a taste… of what I gave him?” I said.
Robert blanched and took a step back. That step, unfortunately for him, was into a puddle of vomit. He slipped and fell. Moments later, he added to the collection of stomach acid and breakfast cereal that was now killing a wide swath of Mr. Magellan’s lawn.
I turned away from it. When Hannah and I reached the sidewalk, she broke away from me. She ran back towards Rosenberg Street, stopping only long enough to pick up her basketball. She didn’t look back. I stood there and watched her disappear around the corner.
Chapter 9
T
he garage door was open. I looked at the stacks of
Highlights
magazines and the plastic cake decorations from birthdays past, not really seeing the mess that hadn’t been touched by my brothers.
I couldn’t unclench my fists. I could feel my heart hammering in my ears. My mouth tasted like I’d been sucking on a battery, and as I thought of that, the taste intensified to the point that I was worried I’d throw up all over a mildew-covered LP of Lawrence Welk’s greatest hits.
I breathed in and out. I realized that I was shaking. I breathed some more. The perfect memory thing was really getting to be annoying. I didn’t want to remember the look on Chet’s face as he was about to hurt Hannah. That memory only made me want to run back to Mr. Magellan’s place and unleash every foul taste I could think of on the twins until their stomachs…
Breathe. I didn’t want to remember the look on Hannah’s face when she ran away. She so did not deserve to have to go through that. She’d never want to see me again. Of course, it wasn’t like she and I were going to be friends. Why would she want to be friends with a guy whose brothers attack her and…
Breathe. On the workbench was an old book, a collection of
Peanuts
comic strips that Dad was using to hold up one end of a motor he’d stripped out of a malfunctioning blender. Mom had read that book to me when I was little, before I even understood half of the jokes. She used to read to me before bed, me in my pajamas, her in a flannel robe, smelling of shampoo.
I sighed. I managed to open my hands, flex my fingers and look at the nail-shaped indentations in my palms. Then I turned my back on the mess and walked into the house.
It was quiet. Kiki’s naptime. Mom was in the kitchen, folding laundry again. It’s amazing that one little girl can have so many tiny washcloths and socks.
“Hey,” I said.
She looked up with a yawn, “Hello. Did you have fun?”
I put on a concerned look. “Sure. Um, Mom? When I was walking home, I saw Chet and Robert in Mr. Magellan’s yard. It looked like they were sick.”
She stopped folding and stared at me. “What do you mean? Why were they in Mr. Magellan’s yard?”
“I don’t know,” I said, “but they were throwing up all over the place.”
“What?” Mom was already heading towards the door.
“Yeah, it was pretty gross. I figured I should come get you.”
She slipped on a pair of sandals and grabbed her car keys. “Your sister is down for her nap. Can you take care of her until I get back?”
“Me?” I’d never watched Kiki by myself before.
“Don’t worry,” Mom said, pulling her cell phone out of her purse. “I’ll call your father and get him to take the next train home. She’ll be asleep for another half hour.”
This had taken an unexpected turn, but what could I do? “Uh, okay.”
Then she was gone, hustling off to the mini-van. I stood there and watched her go, feeling a little better. Of course I’d told Mom about the twins because I was genuinely worried about their well-being, with the puking and all. I certainly didn’t tell her because I hoped that, eventually, she would bust them for not cleaning the garage. Honest.
Either way, the twins would be occupied for a while. After that… well, I imagined that they’d kill me. I mean, I hadn’t just pranked the boys. I’d hurt them. I’d made them suffer in a pretty spectacular way. There was no way that Chet was going to let that slide. So I’d have to be on guard. No big deal. Story of my life. But if I slipped up, if Chet managed to ambush me again, I didn’t think that making his spit taste funky would work a second time. With that thought, the anger pretty much left me, replaced by that familiar, fluttery feeling in my chest.
I told myself to breathe again and headed into the kitchen for a comfort cookie. When I pulled the package of Oreos out of the cupboard, however, my stomach gurgled and let me know that it hadn’t quite recovered from the scene at Mr. Magellan’s house. With a sigh, I put the cookies back.
Through the baby monitor, I heard Kiki start to fuss. So much for a half hour. I hustled up to get her. She babbled happily when she saw me and held out her arms to be picked up. I changed her diaper, which normally would have grossed me out, but after what I’d just seen, no big deal. I took Kiki downstairs, put her in her bouncy seat, gave her some Cheerios and put on one of those DVDs that are supposed to teach toddlers their colors and stuff but which really just give parents a moment’s peace. I sat down on the floor beside my sister and we watched puppets dance around to classical music.
When that was done, I read to her from a library book while I popped Cheerios into her mouth. Strangely, she liked the Cheerios that tasted like chocolate-peanut butter ice cream just as much as the Cheerios that tasted like shrimp tempura. Girl’s got a strange palate.
We were halfway through the chapter, and most of the way through the box of cereal, when Dad came in the door. He was carrying two briefcases, his cell phone pressed to his ear.
“Uh huh,” he said, pulling his key from the lock and dropping the briefcases on the couch. “Yeah,” he continued as he swept across the living room and pulled Kiki into his arms. She tried to grab at the phone. “Yes, Bob, I’ll have it for you tomorrow. If I end up working from home, I’ll just fax it to you. Gotta go. Right. Bye.” With a practiced flip, Dad closed the phone and attached it to his belt. “Hey!” he said, lifting Kiki high in the air. He blew a raspberry on her belly. She laughed and drooled on his head.
“Hey, Dad,” I said, tossing the book on the coffee table.
“Have any problems?” he asked, balancing Kiki on one hip.
“Nope.”
Dad glanced at the book. “You’ve been reading her
The Hobbit
?”
I nodded. “She likes it. I think she relates to the hobbits. You know, with the sleeping and the eating all the time.”
Dad started to laugh, but was interrupted by his phone. Instantly, it was pressed to his ear. I could tell that it was Mom on the other end.
“So, how long? Really. Wow. So you’ll… Yeah, I can do that. Okay. Okay, see you later, hon.” Like a gunfighter reluctantly holstering his pistol, Dad put the phone back on his belt and sighed.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Chet’s going to have to be in the hospital tonight.”
My stomach lurched and pulled me to my feet. “What? Why?”
“Well, he got pretty sick. I haven’t been over to Mr. Magellan’s house yet, but your mom said that she’s never seen so much pu…” Dad glanced at Kiki. “Well, you know.”
I nodded and waved for him to continue.
“Anyway,” said Dad, starting up the DVD player again, “they’re not really sure if it was a virus or the flu or food poisoning or what. The doctors want to check him out. Plus, with all that throwing up, he’s pretty dehydrated. They’ve got him on an I.V.”
I sat down hard on the coffee table. The book shifted and fell to the floor. A bowl full of potpourri rattled. Dad frowned and I managed to move over to the couch. On the television, a dragon puppet with a long, red tongue danced around to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Dad put Kiki back in her bouncy chair and she screeched with delight, waving to Mr. Dragon. Dad walked into the kitchen and started opening cupboards. I sat where I was and tried to focus on what I’d just heard.
I put Chet in the hospital. A ball of laughter, all nervous and high pitched, wanted to explode out of me. Down, boy. Keep it down. It finally dissolved, replaced by a sick feeling, a creamed spinach on the yellow lunch tray kind of feeling.