The Revealers Page 5

  My mom did call the principal, but Elliot was right—nothing happened at all. Meanwhile, I didn’t see Richie the whole day. But I wasn’t so scared of him, either—which was weird, considering my face. I actually felt that as long as I looked this way, he would probably leave me alone. I wasn’t sure why I felt that, but I did.

  When school ended we were looking for Bethany, Elliot and me. Down the hall we saw Catalina open her locker. Then she reached down and picked up a piece of paper. It was folded up tight, like the note in the library. Without opening it she let it drop to the floor. She stood there a minute, like she was thinking, but you couldn’t tell anything by her face. Then she stooped to pick up the paper again.

  As soon as she had it open and started reading it she turned deep red and dropped it. Right then a group of girls swept past us from behind. In the center was Bethany. As they walked toward Catalina, we started following.

  The girls were whispering behind their hands. When they were almost to Catalina, they slowed down. Bethany rippled her hair and started talking, a little too loud. “Janice invited everyone worth inviting. Her dad rented the Holiday Inn pool. Any seventh-grade girl who didn’t get invited is a total loser.”

  They were just passing Catalina, who stood clutching her bookbag, staring hard into her locker. The girls bubbled over in hand-clamped whispering and laughter as they gaggled off down the hall.

  We stopped at Catalina’s locker.

  “What a bunch of … I don’t even know what,” Elliot said to her.

  She just stared into the locker.

  “You know what? They’re like sharks,” I said to Catalina’s back. “Cold-blooded and always moving.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “You don’t want to know them anyway,” Elliot said.

  Catalina started yanking books out of her locker and jamming them in her bag. She slung the bag on her shoulder, then she bent down and grabbed the paper off the floor.

  “You want to know about her?” she said. Her face was very red. “You want to know what kind of … stuff she comes up with? Here.” She shoved the paper in my hand. “You can have this one, too.”

  She slammed her locker and started to go. Then she turned back. “In fact, why don’t you keep all these from now on? You can share them with everybody.”

  She whirled and stalked away. I stood there with the paper in my hand.

  “What’d we do?” Elliot said.

  I shrugged. I started unfolding the note, with him looking over my shoulder.

  It was patterned with tight little folds, to make it small and narrow. Bethany must have had one of her friends slip it through the louvers on the locker door, and then they all waited till Catalina found it so they could walk by and say that lousy party stuff so she’d hear it right then. Which, when you put it all together, was a very nasty little plan.

  But then we read the note:

  Everybody knows why the weird girl had to leave where she came from.

  Because she was so EASY

  the boys wouldn’t even look at her in public anymore.

  She learned it from her mother. They have no morals there.

  That’s why the weird girl doesn’t belong here AT ALL.

  “Holy crap,” Elliot said. “Holy crap.”

  I folded up the paper and put it in my pocket. Elliot started stalking around the hall.

  “What would they do that for?” he was saying. “What would they say that for?”

  “I don’t know. ’Cause they’re girls?”

  “Holy crap,” he kept saying. “Holy crap!”

  “All right, Elliot. It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay!” he yelled at me. “All right? It’s not?”

  “Okay. Take it easy.”

  “I’m not gonna take it easy!” He was walking in strange, fast little circles. “I really hate this. How could they say that about her?”

  I didn’t understand this then, but now I think I do. Catalina was (along with me, more or less) the first kid who had been nice to Elliot in a very long time. She liked dinosaurs, and she was his friend. He never got mad about the rotten things kids did to him—I think he kept how he felt about all that stuff down deep, like he’d made a wall inside himself. But when those girls did such a nasty, evil thing to his new friend, the wall crumbled. It all started coming up.

  “Listen,” I said, “let’s go outside. All right? Let’s just go outside.” I took Elliot’s elbow and steered him out the doors.

  He kept saying, “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this!”

  We were walking up Union Street. Elliot was walking fast. Suddenly he turned to me and said, “You think she won’t ever talk to us again?”

  The cars were loud, going by. I said, “What?”

  “Maybe she won’t talk to us anymore!”

  “Why? We didn’t do anything.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Because we know?”

  “Know what—that stuff they wrote? Look, they made it up,” I said. “Just forget about it.”

  Elliot stopped in front of an old red church that’s a part-time thrift shop. On the front steps it had some swollen cardboard boxes with old clothes spilling out of them. I remember that, ’cause that’s where Elliot went nuts.

  “I’m not going to forget about it!” he yelled at me. “I’m sick of what people do, okay? I’m SICK of it!”

  “Okay. Elliot, it’s okay.”

  “Stop saying that! It’s not okay—IT SUCKS! Somebody has to do something!” His face was all strange. “Somebody has to pay!”

  I just stood there. Elliot turned and started walking fast and jerky through the yard of the old church, heading for his house. Then he turned back and yelled at me one more time.

  “Somebody has to!” he hollered, standing on that scraggly lawn. Then he took off.

  BIRD BOY

  I’ve never figured out if Elliot planned to do what he tried to do the next day to a particular group of people, or if he was just ready to go after the first people who picked on him. Or if he had any plan at all. I’ve never asked him.

  But it was the Jock Rots. It makes sense, in a way. After all, they were his number-one tormentors.

  There were three Jock Rots, as I’ve said. After school they were always together, back then. Burke Brown was short, dark haired, and sharp faced—he was wicked fast and aggressive in sports, and sarcastically mocking with anyone who wasn’t. Jon Blanchette was the golden boy. He was golden haired and liquid good at every sport there is, and at pretty much anything else. Blanchette always looked like he was about to laugh, either at how easy life was for him, or at you. Burke needed to be cool—Blanchette just was.

  And there was Big Chris. Big Chris was big and acorn headed but not dumb at all, actually, just kind of loyal and there. At least, until this happened, he was there. After what happened that day, Big Chris never acted quite the same.

  Anyway. To go home, Elliot walks past the park. It doesn’t have a name, it’s just the park. It has tennis and basketball courts beside the road, and behind them a big open field, then a wooden footbridge over the river to the Little League fields. The river is not very big or wide, but it’s full of big rocks below the bridge, where a short little waterfall pours down. In summer kids mess around a lot down there below the fall and the rocks, where the water smooths out.

  All day Elliot had acted edgy, fidgety, like a nervous little bird. Catalina wouldn’t look at him or me or anyone. I knew they were both really upset. I had a bad feeling about almost everything.

  So when Elliot left school, I followed. I didn’t turn on Chamber, I didn’t watch for Richie. I just kept an eye on my friend.

  The Rots were on the basketball court at the park. When they spotted Elliot coming they sauntered out in the street.

  Casually they surrounded him. Blanchette slapped him hard on the shoulder; Elliot stumbled and Blanchette grinned. Then, from behind, Burke started unzipping his backpack. Elliot reached in hi
s jacket pocket and pulled something out.

  He took a step back. The something was dark and not very big, hanging from his hand. The three Rots were just standing there looking when Elliot swung this thing overhand, and it came down and smacked Burke on the forehead.

  Burke screamed and went down on one knee. He was holding his forehead and face in both hands. Blanchette looked at Burke and he looked at Elliot, then he stepped toward Burke. Elliot started to swing the thing at Blanchette, but Blanchette saw it so he jumped forward, grabbed Elliot’s hand, and jerked his own head back so the thing whizzed past his face. I just stood there, still a ways away; it was so unbelievable I just kept watching, like this was some weird scene on TV.

  Blanchette grabbed the thing and yanked hard. Elliot stumbled but held on; Blanchette pulled really hard and Elliot let go and fell in the gravel on the roadside. But he scrambled right up. He stood there, kind of crouched. Burke was howling, down on his knee. He opened his hands and looked for blood or something. Then he looked up at the object in his friend’s hand.

  From where I was it looked like a little hanging dark thing, with a bulge at the end. Elliot was crouched like he was ready to run when Blanchette dropped the odd little weapon and lunged for him. Elliot tried to take off but Blanchette grabbed him. Big Chris grabbed him, too. They held him, their big kids’ hands clamped on each little arm, as Burke slowly got up and stooped over to the dark object on the ground.

  He picked it up and looked at it. It was limp. Something spilled out of it, onto the gravel.

  Burke flung the thing down and flew into Elliot’s face. He was screaming at him, screaming all the curse words you could say—then Elliot started screeching right back at him, swearing at him, too. He kicked gravel at Burke—then the two big guys lifted Elliot up off the ground by his elbows. Burke said something and they all took off across the courts and across the grass, the big guys hoisting Elliot between them while he twisted and kicked, flailing, trying his hardest to hurt somebody. Burke would dance backward just out of reach of Elliot’s kicks, then he’d poke his face in Elliot’s to mock and yell and curse at him.

  It was crazy.

  I ran up to the little weapon on the ground. It was a black sock … a little kid’s sock. It had something lumpy in it. I picked it up and some marbles fell out onto the gravelly sand. Colored marbles, cat’s-eyes. He’d loaded them into one of his socks. He probably got them from his old toy box.

  Marbles.

  They hauled him onto the bridge. The narrow wood walkway made clacking sounds as Burke hopped backward on it, then it thumped under the bigger guys’ heavy feet. They stopped in the middle. The big guys hoisted Elliot up and Burke grabbed his legs and squeezed his ankles together, then pushed them over the railing.

  “Hey!” I yelled. I started running. “Hey, don’t?”

  But the two big guys were leaning out and dangling Elliot over the river and the rocks. His feet were flailing around, whacking the wood slats of the bridge. I could hear the water swooshing loudly below. It wasn’t a long drop—maybe five or six feet—and it wasn’t a very deep river. But it was deep enough, and those were big rocks.

  I ran onto the bridge and stopped. They had him over the edge. I didn’t know what to do. “Don’t,” I said. “Don’t?”

  Burke was leaning over the railing, yelling in Elliot’s face.

  “Time to say you’re sorry, Geekowitz?”

  Burke’s neck looked like it was strung inside with tight wires, and his face was bright red as he yelled, “Say, I’m sorry, Mister Brown! I shouldn’t have done it, Mister Brown!”

  “You suck, Brown! You all suck! You’re all ganging-up suckhead coward asses, you know that?”

  “Geez—you can’t even swear normal, Geekowitz!” said Blanchette, smiling. “So, you want to fly, Bird Boy? Or would you like to apologize to the man?”

  Elliot’s head whipped around. He spat in Blanchette’s face.

  I yelled, “No!” and sprinted toward them.

  Blanchette’s head jerked back; his arm shot up to wipe his cheek. Elliot’s head dropped, Chris lunged, and then Blanchette went lunging, too. They were leaning down grappling and I got there just as Elliot, his hands grabbing upward and his face wide open, came loose and fell away.

  He was crumpled up in the rocks, partway down in the rushing water. Burke and Blanchette backed up and looked at me, wide-eyed. Then they turned and pounded off the bridge.

  They were gone.

  Chris grabbed my arm. “Come on!” he yelled.

  We ran the other way, the bridge shaking beneath us. We scrambled down the steep riverbank, and started hopping across the rocks.

  “Elliot!” I was yelling. “Elliot!” I couldn’t hear an answer.

  Out where the water kept them wet the big rocks were slippery. You had to stay on the dry parts or you could go down. Chris jumped ahead, from rock to rock. Out in the middle he put his hand on a rock and hopped down into water. I slipped and banged my knee—but I got there.

  Under the bridge Chris was in swirling water up to his waist. He was leaning back against the current and he had Elliot by the shoulders, trying to pull him out of the water. Elliot’s head was rolling around.

  I slid down and into the water. I guess it was cold; I didn’t notice. I got one of Elliot’s arms and Chris hauled on the other. We pulled him loose and hoisted him onto a rock. I was yelling at him, the water was rushing by, and my heart was pounding in my ears.

  VULCANIZING

  “Why?” Catalina said. “Why’d he do it?”

  We were sitting in the emergency room on colored plastic chairs, the kind with a shiny square bar underneath the whole row.

  “Well, he was mad about what happened to you,” I said. “But I also think it was all the stuff people’ve done to him for years.”

  “People have really been doing things to him for years?”

  “Oh yeah. It’s always been open season on Elliot.”

  She shook her head. Her face was flushed. “And those two just ran away?”

  “Yeah. When they lost him and he fell, they got scared.”

  “They could have killed him.”

  “Well … it wasn’t that far to fall.”

  “But he hit his head.”

  “Yeah.” I couldn’t argue with that. When we pulled Elliot out, his eyes were rolling back and he didn’t know where he was. He didn’t know who he was.

  Catalina was looking down the hall where they’d taken Elliot. His mom was in there with him. His two older sisters, Jaimie and Hannah, were looking up at the TV that was hanging in a corner. My mom sat next to them, paging through a magazine.

  After we got him out, after Chris ran to the house next to the park and called for the ambulance and came back, I went and called my mom at work. I asked if she would try to find Catalina’s number, and call her. The ambulance came, then my mom picked me up and took me home so I could change, then we picked up Catalina and drove to the hospital. Chris didn’t come. He was pretty upset. “We didn’t mean to,” he kept saying while we were waiting for the ambulance. “We didn’t mean to.”

  “Catalina?” My mom was looking up from her magazine. “Do your parents know you’re here?”

  “I left a note for my dad.”

  “Oh,” she said. “What about your mom?”

  Catalina looked away. “She’s not here,” she said softly. “She’s back home.”

  “Back home?”

  “Yes. I am from the Philippines.”

  My mom looked interested, but you could see she decided to ease up, thank god. She went back to her magazine.

  I felt bad. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  Catalina looked up quickly. “About what?”

  I could feel my face heat up. “About … you know … about what happened. What those girls wrote. That was totally wrong, for them to say that.”

  She was looking at me. “You think it was true, don’t you?”

  “No! I mean … it doesn’t matter.�
��

  “What do you mean it doesn’t matter?” The mask was gone, that’s for sure. She was really upset. She whispered, “What if they told everybody? What if everybody thinks it’s true?”

  “Everybody wouldn’t.”

  “But they don’t know.” She looked around. Nobody else was listening. “You don’t know,” she whispered.

  I thought about that. “I guess that’s why they could say it,” I said. “’Cause nobody knows what’s really true.”

  She sat there, staring ahead. “I know it,” she said softly. She turned to me. “I know what’s true.”

  “Okay. It’s okay.”

  But of course it wasn’t okay, and I knew it wasn’t. Why did I keep saying things were okay when nothing was?

  Mrs. Gekewicz came out. My mom popped up, and the sisters forgot the TV.

  “It’s really not that bad,” Elliot’s mom said. “He’s got a minor concussion, an abraded arm, and a badly sprained ankle. The doctor says the worst thing is he’ll be on crutches for a couple of weeks. And he may be a little spaced out.”

  Hannah looked at Jaimie, the older sister, and said, “How will we tell?” But Jaimie frowned.

  My mom went over and took Mrs. Gekewicz’s hands. Elliot’s mom squeezed them, then she came up to me.

  “Thank you, Russell,” she said. “Thank you. You probably saved his life.”

  I didn’t know what to say. “It wasn’t just me,” I said, but she had already turned to take Catalina’s hand, too. “I wish you could have seen his face when I told him you were here—both of you,” she said. “Getting together with you two has made such a difference for him.”

  It has? I thought, Wasn’t he better off before? I remembered him paging through those dinosaur books in the library, looking up excitedly to show me stuff before this whole thing started. Then I thought about his little marbles and his little black sock, lying in that gravel.

  I got him into this, didn’t I? This is just another total screwup by me. This whole, total disaster. It’s my fault.