Authors: Aaron Starmer
“I need to know what I'm promising,” I said.
“You're gonna be tempted to tell Mom and Dad about this,” he said, and he squeezed harder. “And you can tell them. But I need you to wait a few days. At least until I hear back from Jenny Colvin.”
Keeping stuff from Mom and Dad was sort of my specialty. I guess it's every kid's specialty at one time or another. But sometimes moms and dads need to know things.
“I'll make that promise under one condition,” I said.
“Name it.”
I struggled for the words. The best I could come up with was, “Tell me you're not ⦠that you aren't going to get hurt. Or, I guess I mean that if I keep this secret, you aren't going to hurt yourself?”
“Right now, I'm in more control than I've ever been,” Alistair said as he released his grip. I stretched my hands. My fingers felt slightly bent, though not as bent as my mind. I didn't know if Alistair was in control of his life, but at that moment, he seemed so much more in control of things than I felt.
“I promise,” I told him. “So tell me. What's this mysterious job that you have?”
“I am the guardian of the images and ideas,” he told me. “When daydreamers need the end, then I give them the end. I am the holder of the souls. And once I figure out how, I'm going to release them.”
“What? Who?”
“Fiona and Charlie. All of them.”
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In a small village, in some snowy mountains, lived a joke. She had arms and legs and a face, but she was a joke all the same. Not in the metaphorical sense. In the literal sense. When she walked into a room, her very presence told a story. People would shrug or gasp or sometimes laugh when she was around, but not only because of how she looked or what she said. It was because of who she was.
She was, to be precise, a dark and disturbing joke. Not excessively disturbing, but certainly not family dinner material. Consequently, she couldn't go certain places. To schools, for instance. To churches, synagogues, and mosques, obviously. Basically anywhere kids and sensitive folks were likely to be hanging out.
So she stayed by the railroad tracks, or in dusty old motels, or at truck stops and in back-alley bars. She was appreciated in those places, but she didn't particularly like them. They felt dangerous, and the laughs she found there were nasty ones, full of teeth and halitosis.
“I'd like to be a different kind of joke,” she said one night as she slept in her cabin in the mountains. “A pleasant joke. A respectable joke.”
The next morning, she set about transforming herself. She traveled to the valley where the puns lived and spied on them and their innocuous wordplay. She exercised, hoping a healthy body would lead to healthy humor. She burned her entire wardrobe, gave herself a makeover, draped herself in primary colors, in vibrant, inoffensive garb.
But she didn't feel any different. She still felt dark. She still felt disturbing.
Then one day, everything changed. She woke up and it was like a switch had been flipped. She felt lighter. She felt ⦠wholesome. Maybe all her efforts had paid off, but had needed time to incubate and take effect.
To see if she had truly changed, she decided to show herself in public, so she went to the local schoolhouse. She knocked on the door.
“Who's there?” a voice answered.
“A joke,” she replied.
“A joke who?”
“A clean joke,” she said.
There was silence for a moment. And then a reply. “Well, that's not very funny. Why are you wasting our time? We've got educating to do here.”
The reaction puzzled the joke. If only they had let her in, they would have realized that she was funny and, for once, agreeable. A simply wonderful joke.
She went home and considered what she had said wrong. Was it the words? Was it the tone? She hadn't even entered the school, so they couldn't have basked in her newness, in her pureness. Perhaps it was a mistake, so she gave it another shot a few hours later.
Knock knock.
“Who's there?” the voice answered.
“A joke.”
“A joke who?”
“A joke that children will love.”
“Don't waste our time.”
It continued like this all day. The joke rethought her approach, knocked again, and when they asked, “A joke who?” she said, “A joke that will brighten your day,” and “A joke both witty and wise,” and “A joke from the heart.” And every time, the voice responded with some variation of “go away.”
The joke knocked on the doors of other wholesome places, such as antique shops and petting zoos, but they turned her away too. She didn't understand it.
She fell into a deep depression. All her efforts had been for nothing. She figured she'd just accept her life as it once was. That night, she went down to the local tavern where she'd always been welcome.
Knock knock.
“Who's there?” shouted the tavern keeper.
The joke had been here so many times before, she decided not to answer. She barged right in. But this wasn't like those other times, and she was not treated to the typical hoots and hollers. Blank, confused faces stared back at her as the door swung shut.
“What happened to you?” the tavern keeper asked her when she approached the bar.
“What do you mean?” the joke replied.
Polishing a glass, the tavern keeper eyed her up and down. “You've changed. You've become a ⦠knock-knock joke?”
The joke didn't really know what a knock-knock joke was, but it sounded perfectly pleasant. “I guess I am. So whattya think?”
The tavern keeper lowered his eyes. “I liked you better when you had a punch line.”
There were cheers of “Ain't that the truth!” and “You said it!” from the tavern's regulars. The joke was stunned. No punch line? A joke without a punch line was a joke without a soul.
“I ⦠I⦔
“I think it's best if you left,” the tavern keeper said. “You're making us uncomfortable.”
The joke had no choice. She turned tail and walked out. But she lingered by the tavern door for a moment, contemplating whether to make a more memorable entrance. As she held her hand in front of the door, she realized that she didn't have a clue who she really was. She realized that while she might have cleaned up her act, she was soulless, and for the first time in her life, she was not funny.
So the joke climbed onto the roof of the tavern. She stood there and tried to yell her name into the breeze to test her own existence, but the words that came out made no sense. So she jumped off, which, funnily enough, was pretty dark and disturbing.
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MORNING
I spent all day yesterday wondering whether Alistair was joking. If he was, then what was the punch line? That he knows where Fiona and Charlie are? That he was, maybe, responsible for their disappearances? That's beyond dark and disturbing.
Point is, you're going to try to read something into what I'm saying. Don't. What I'm telling you is the plain and simple truth.
When your brother says that, you do read something into what he's saying. You read everything into what he's saying. At least I have. Including that he might be telling the truth.
Here's the thing about believing: sometimes it's a question of will. You work at it. You keep telling yourself to believe in something, and eventually your brain surrenders and lets the belief in. Sometimes it's like a switch being flipped, an overnight thing, a wake up and look at the ceiling and say
This is how the world works now and I guess I'm okay with it
sort of thing.
I want to believe my brother. I want to work hard at it. But I don't have time to work hard. I need belief to simply happen.
Presto chango!
Still waiting ⦠still waiting ⦠still waiting â¦
I'm scared. I'm scared that somehow he really does know about the images that pop into my head, that linger in my dreams. I'm scared that he actually believes in magical worlds. I'm scared that this isn't a joke. Because this is not how Alistair jokes. He's not that cruel. I'm scared that this isn't some elaborate lie. Because this is not how Alistair lies. He's a terrible liarâall sweaty and stutteryâand yesterday, he was calm.
If it's not a joke and not a lie, then what is it? Dad has a stack of psychology books that probably explain why my brother would talk like this and why I would want to fall for his nonsense, but explanations don't matter right now. All that matters is that I made a promise, and I like to keep promises. I won't tell our parents. Not yet.
That night, right after Kyle was shot, I made another promise. Alistair asked me to “make sure they know it's not how it looks.”
I'm going to keep that promise too. That's what I'm making sure you know, Stella. It looks really, really bad. Insanity bad. But Alistair wants the world to know that it's not how it looks. And by the love of god, I want to believe him.
EVENING
All that thinking about Alistair has been a bit much to handle, so that's why I had to get out of the house earlier today. I had Mom drop me off at Mandy's, and Glen showed up there because even though he walks me home all the time, I haven't exactly been comfortable with him hanging out at my place, especially since Alistair is always there.
So we hung out in Mandy's room, with me and Glen sitting on the bed and Mandy sitting at her desk. Her desk is supposed to be for homework, but mostly she uses it as a station for making collages. She has all these ancient magazines full of pictures of old movie stars and she cuts them up and makes posters with them. Party scenes, usually, with dashing men in black-and-white and va-va-voom women in full color.
“Who are all those people?” Glen asked, checking out the posters on Mandy's walls.
“Well, that's Clark and that's Rita. And over there are Peter and Lauren.”
“They're your ⦠friends?” Glen asked. I couldn't believe he was seriously asking that, even though Mandy was speaking in a tone someone would use when talking about friends.
“For sure,” Mandy said. “Every night is an Oscars after-party, and we gossip until dawn.”
“Oh,” Glen said. “They're movie stars. Obviously.”
“From a long time ago,” I told him, and I rubbed his back to show him I was okay with his mistake. “Most are dead, and so that's why you wouldn't recognize them.”
The door to her room was closed and her parents were on the other side of the house, but Mandy still thought she should cup her hands around her mouth when she whispered, “You two should kiss.”
“We should ⦠what?” I said.
“Look at you,” she said. “Being all lovey-dovey like a couple of love doves. You should kiss. I mean, for real kiss.”
“Oh ⦠we do ⦠we do do that ⦠all the time,” Glen said, which wasn't exactly a lie but was definitely a stretch. We had kissed. Twice. But since they weren't much more than pecks, I hesitate to call them real kisses. Do you count a peck as your first kiss?
“Good,” Mandy said. “Then that means you should be cool with it. So⦔ She leaned back in her desk chair with her hands behind her head.
“Now?” I asked.
“No time like the present,” she said.
Glen's body went rigid, like he was sitting on the table in a doctor's office. He was obviously ⦠raring to go?
“Why do you want to see us kiss?” I asked.
“Because it's romantic,” Mandy said.
“It's weird,” I said.
“Not if you love each other,” Mandy said. “You two love each other, don't you?”
It was hard to tell if she was being genuine or teasing us. That's Mandy in a nutshell. Existing on an edge that even her best friend can't see.
Now obviously, Stella, I would have told you if Glen and I had used the word
love
yet. We hadn't. Not face-to-face, at least.
But then Glen said, “We do. We do love each other.”
And that was suddenly that. We. We? WE! I hadn't agreed to any plural pronouns!
“So romantic,” Mandy said. “Let the kissing commence.”
I turned to Glen and I could see in his eyes how excited he was. For a moment, I hated Mandy, and then for a moment, I felt sorry for her. The combination of the two made me lean in and kiss Glen. Really kiss him, with my mouth open and everything. His lips were a little drier than I expected, but as we moved our mouths, things got wetter and our tongues touched and our teeth tapped together, and I guess that made it qualify as frenching.
They say that first kisses are supposed to be insanely memorable, and I know I'll remember this moment forever, but the kiss itself was sort of plain. Nice and all, but plain.
“So gross,” Mandy said, her body wiggling like she was covered in ants.
“Shut up,” I said as I pulled away from the kiss and fell back onto the bed. Glen was instantly red in the face, but his eyes were shooting lasers into Mandy.
“Kidding,” Mandy said. “Kidding. That was so adorable. I loved it so much.” She gave us a polite round of applause.
“Who have you kissed?” Glen asked with more annoyance than even I could spit out at that moment.
Eyes wide, Mandy bent over her desk and started kissing some of the pictures she had recently cut from a magazine. “I've kissed James and Cary and Rock.”
Nobody
is the true answer. Mandy has kissed nobody.
“Let's all get out of here,” I said, jumping from the bed and reaching back for Glen's hand.
“Fantabulous idea,” Mandy said, sliding off her chair and intercepting my hand. “Come on, I have to show you guys something.”
We went to her brothers' room. Mandy has two older brothers. Twins. Chad and Dan. They're sixteen and can drive, and so they were out cruising for the day. Their room is actually a converted attic with beds on either side and all sorts of crazy stuffâdeer heads, guitars, fishing netâhanging from the ceiling and walls.