The Monster Variations Read online

  When they got upstairs, Willie insisted on hearing about the funeral. He listened with huge eyes and absently scratched the scar on his neck, which wasn’t wet but always looked it.

  “What are they going to do with Greg’s drawings?” asked Willie.

  “His what?” asked James.

  “His drawings. On the walls outside the art room, with everyone else’s. Are they just going to throw them away or what?”

  “Forget his stupid drawings,” said Reggie. “I want his shoes. He had cool-as-hell shoes. You think his family will give all his stuff away? Or hold a big sale?”

  “I keep thinking of where he stood in line for gym,” Willie said quietly. He nodded his head like he approved of the memory.

  “What about his locker?” asked James. “I bet he left tons of stuff in his locker.”

  “Right,” said Reggie, his eyes lighting up. “Crap, man, there might be baseball cards in there.”

  “In gym, Greg Johnson—walking around in blue shorts,” said Willie. James ignored the comment. He was used to Willie’s fantasies. Secretly, James wondered if this was how Willie got hit by the truck. Isn’t it possible that Willie had been daydreaming again and wandered into the middle of the road?

  “He sucked in gym,” said Reggie. “The guy couldn’t catch a stupid pop-up. You ever see that kid try and catch a ball? It was embarrassing.”

  There was silence for a moment. The boys squirmed.

  Finally Reggie sighed. “There’s something I got to tell you guys.”

  James and Willie looked at him.

  Reggie paused mysteriously, then spoke. “This could be our last summer.”

  James looked at Willie, then wished he hadn’t. Willie’s face was pink and vulnerable and his arm stump was tiny and useless. Something in James’s stomach rolled nervously and he knew immediately what Reggie was talking about. Maybe they were next.

  “But the curfew,” James protested.

  “But the curfew,” Reggie mimicked. “What about the stupid curfew? Are we going to stay in our rooms every damn night and let the entire summer go by?”

  It was a challenge, maybe a threat. James looked at Willie; Willie looked at Reggie.

  “No?” Willie asked.

  “That’s right,” said Reggie. “I know I’m not.”

  “Yeah, but your mom’s not home at night, it’s easier for you to sneak out,” said James. “I got a mom and a dad, and now they got Louise on my back, too.”

  Reggie ignored the remark. “Look. Willie got hit in the daytime.”

  “Dusk, technically,” Willie said. He shrugged when Reggie glared at him.

  “All right, fine,” Reggie continued. “But it was still light out. Now, Greg Johnson, he got hit at night. That means going inside at eight won’t help because it could happen to any of us at any time and there’s nothing we can do to stop it, except run real fast if we see a silver truck coming. What, you guys want to just sit inside and get old? Not me. We have to get out there every night, this summer more than ever. Because—and I’m not trying to scare you here. But because this could be our last chance.”

  There was some truth in what Reggie was saying, and also some silly drama. But James couldn’t help it, he found himself nodding along.

  “We should do everything we ever wanted to do,” said Reggie. “We shouldn’t follow any stupid rules. We should—”

  “Take risks,” Willie finished. James looked at Willie, alarmed.

  Reggie nodded, and allowed himself a small smile.

  “Now,” he said. “I know there’s stuff we’ve talked about doing but were too scared. I been thinking about this. All day I been thinking. James: you used to talk about climbing the fence and getting in the old swimming pool.”

  “Yeah, but that was forever ago—”

  “And Willie, you used to talk about wanting to get on the roof of the MacArthur Building and see how far you could see. Remember? You used to yap about it all the damn time.”

  Willie was nodding dreamily.

  Reggie grinned with so many teeth that James felt his own face grin in return. He hated himself for it; this re action was just what Reggie wanted. Conversations like these were like fighting without fists, and James didn’t know how he was supposed to fight back. It was too late anyway—by now Willie was grinning, too, and nodding to himself, his arm stump twitching like some kind of newborn animal.

  James couldn’t bear it anymore, he had to know.

  “What about you? What do you want to do?”

  Reggie laughed.

  “The school, dummy,” he said. “I want to hide out and spend the night at the school.”

  Everyone Just Leaves

  It was true. Reggie had wanted to hide out in the school for years. It had started one day when they were sitting together under the slide at recess eating candy from a paper bag, the chill of an early autumn snaking down their backs, and Reggie saw smoke coughing from a school chimney.

  “I never noticed a chimney,” he said.

  A few days later, while the class single-filed to the art room, Reggie overheard a conversation about the teachers’ lounge.

  “I never knew there was a lounge,” he said.

  The following week at lunch Reggie paused to get an earful of a custodian’s exchange with a teacher. The custodian was holding a box full of props left over from a Columbus Day play the fourth graders had performed for the school. Moments later, Reggie slid his tray down between James and Willie, his eyes shifting and lit.

  “Somewhere in this school is a costume room,” he said.

  Soon Reggie had sketched an impressive mental map of an alternate Polk Elementary, one with secret passageways and underworld chambers. Wouldn’t it be cool, Reggie said on repeated occasions, to hide somewhere inside the school, wait until all the teachers and custodians had gone home, and then go exploring in the night? They could scream and yell as loud as they wanted. They could read private student records. They could bounce kickballs off the principal’s door. They could roller-skate.

  It was summer, of course, and school was out. But that didn’t stop Reggie. Last year he had neglected to hand in dozens of assignments and was forced to suffer summer school, a strange daily ritual that Reggie described to his two friends as “just like normal school, except hardly anyone’s there, and you can get as many questions wrong as you want because the teacher just wants to go home.” Summer school had lasted for six weeks and, though Reggie had hated it, it had given him deeper insight into teachers. “Teachers are just like us,” he explained. “They hate school, too.”

  Neither James nor Willie hated school, but they’d nodded anyway. It was better not to get in Reggie’s way when he was caught up in one of his schemes. If you did, he was likely to turn against you, attack you for being too wimpy, a little girl unworthy of being included in his plan. He might hate you for days, even weeks. So James played along, but reflected how strange it was that Reggie was finally excited about school, only now for all the wrong reasons.

  With a vigor he never applied to his schoolwork, Reggie compiled a long, detailed catalog of all of the gear they’d need to bring along. Four flashlights (an extra in case one broke), extra batteries, a camera, two rolls of film, a notebook, pencils, snacks, soda pop, a blanket, a baseball, roller skates, a Frisbee, four or five books they could use to prop open doors (so they didn’t get locked inside), and a marker just in case they wanted to leave any mysterious messages inside the desks of any teachers—just to drive them nuts.

  “It’s going to be a little tricky,” he admitted, “because we’re not even supposed to be there. So step one is we’re going to have to sneak in.”

  They would use their usual alibi. Willie would tell his parents he was sleeping over at James’s house. James would tell his parents he was sleeping over at Willie’s. Reggie, whose mother worked too late to chaperone any sleepovers, claimed he could do whatever he pleased, and whenever, and so had no use for their lies.

  Wil
lie and James were roped into the plan before they had a chance to protest. When James saw that Reggie had already spent his meager allowance on spare batteries, he got that sick feeling in his gut again. This was really happening. If they were caught for trespassing, could they be expelled? Or even arrested? James didn’t know, but his stomach roiled when he thought of disobeying his parents. As exciting as Reggie’s plans were, he knew full well that they were part of the hole, not the donut. There was still one hope: it was conceivable that Willie’s parents wouldn’t permit Willie to sleep over, and James was counting on this to disrupt Reggie’s plan. Unfortunately, Willie’s parents thought it would be rude to turn down James Wahl’s invitation—the Wahls were so respected, after all, and they had such a big, pretty house. In fact, Mrs. Van Allen was sewing shut the left arm of a pair of Willie’s pajamas especially for the occasion.

  “We’ll ditch your pj’s on the way,” said Reggie impatiently.

  Naturally they would have to break the brand-new curfew. For some reason this detail went unspoken among the three friends, though it haunted James. Such concerns did not touch Reggie: he chewed his fingernails, swiped away pink eraser particles, and revised his two-page inventory with a stubby pencil clamped between his knuckles. Frowning, he crossed off “roller skates.”

  The plan was set for Friday. That way, when Saturday morning arrived, the school would be deserted and they could just crawl out a window, feel the warm summer sun heat their necks, and smile in the knowledge that they had just pulled a fast one—on their parents, their school, the curfew-makers, the hit-and-run driver, everyone.

  “If this is our last summer,” Reggie reminded them, “I don’t want to die without knowing what’s behind all those doors.”

  * * *

  Late Friday afternoon, James walked to the Van Allen house to pick up Willie, as always keeping an eye on every truck that rumbled down every side street. When he got there the sky was orange. The deserted tree house towered over him as he climbed the front stairs. James looked at it, saw branches move, heard boards whine.

  “That tree house has got to go.”

  James jumped. Mr. Van Allen was standing on the other side of the screen door, also gazing up at the tree. James felt his heart pound; he had not yet knocked. Mr. Van Allen said nothing and inspected the tree house, perhaps remembering when he’d built it: the coarse feel of the two-by-fours, the temperature of a nail after being struck by a hammer. James glanced at Mr. Van Allen’s hands. Thick curly hair swallowed up a giant class ring. The fingernails were notched and dirty. The hand gripped a beer can but had forgotten it—it tipped precariously and James tensed, waiting for liquid to start dribbling.

  “How are you, James?” It was said so quietly, James thought he might have imagined it.

  “Fine?” James answered.

  Mr. Van Allen nodded vaguely, his eyes still searching the tree house lumber.

  “You know I love you boys,” he whispered.

  James held his breath and watched beer gather at the rim of the can.

  “You know that. I know you know that.” Mr. Van Allen drew a long breath, jutting out his bottom jaw in an apparent attempt to summon strength. “We all make mistakes, James. Every one of us. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t love.”

  After a while Mr. Van Allen glanced at James with vacant eyes. An instant later, he walked away. James stood there, his chest thumping, his neck sweating. What was he supposed to do now?

  From somewhere inside the house, Mr. Van Allen’s voice: “Willie. Friend’s here.”

  Moments later, Mrs. Van Allen let James in, crying, “Well, hello there, stranger!” She came up next to him, taking hold of his shoulder and bouncing her hip against his side, her other arm searching for an opportunity to hug but dangling loose when James made none available. Mrs. Van Allen was a heavy woman with silver hair lopped short. She wore jewelry and makeup, and plenty of both. In years prior, James had thought this decoration made her glamorous, but not anymore. Her cheeks were caked with a substance tan and muddy, and her eyelashes were gloppy with something black and wet. Her mouth was bright red, but the paint went a little past her lips, coloring the surrounding skin so she looked like a clown. In the days since Willie’s accident, she was simply too much—too bright, too happy, too forceful, too talkative.

  “Come in, come in. How nice to see you! How are your mother and father? Will you tell them hello for me? They’re such wonderful people, Mr. and Mrs. Wahl.”

  “They’re fine.”

  “Oh, how wonderful!” she cried, before James had even finished responding. James glanced over at Mr. Van Allen, who now sat at the kitchen table, his back to them, clutching that sweaty beer in that hairy fist. James got the feeling Mrs. Van Allen carried on conversations only to somehow please her husband. It did not seem to be working. A newspaper lay dissected before Willie’s father. Certain portions of the print were circled in ink. The only sound was the frustrated ticking of an electric fan. There was a foul smell in the air, like turned meat.

  “Hi, James!”

  Willie stomped down the hall, an engorged backpack swinging from his good shoulder. Suddenly he lost equilibrium and dipped, his one arm flapping like a stricken bird, before righting himself and laughing. James watched his friend struggle against gravity every day, but it was particularly troubling that something as unthreatening as a backpack could take Willie down.

  “William, you have your special pj’s?”

  “Yes, Momma.”

  “And you have your toothbrush? You make sure to scrub those braces.”

  “Yes, Momma.”

  “And you’re sure you don’t want to take … your bear?”

  Everyone knew that Willie’s teddy bear was named Softie, but evidently Mrs. Van Allen was trying not to embarrass him. James scowled at her—she never should’ve mentioned Softie at all. This feeling was followed by frustration at Willie for still having the damn bear in the first place, which is exactly what Reggie had been saying for the last couple years: it was embarrassing, a kid his age.

  “No, Momma,” Willie said, his ears going red.

  “Okay, then, mister. Go kiss your daddy goodbye.”

  Willie glanced at James, then dutifully scuffed his way across the cluttered living room floor—it didn’t used to be this cluttered, James observed—and stood next to his father. It was a ritual James had seen a thousand times, one he was glad he didn’t have to perform himself: the parting kisses to Mommy and Daddy. Only this time Willie hesitated, just for a second, and James noticed a passing look on Willie’s face like he was about to put his lips to something revolting. The fan ticked and Willie’s hair swirled.

  “Bye, Dad,” Willie said, pecking him fast on the cheek. Mr. Van Allen did not stir.

  “Willie loves his daddy,” said Mrs. Van Allen, grinning down at James. There was a smudge of red lipstick on her teeth as if she had bit into something alive. But when she hugged Willie and kissed him on the ear, the too much of Mrs. Van Allen went away and James saw only goodness: her eyes and how tightly they were wrinkled shut, how her swaying arm muscles clenched in the intensity of the embrace, how she ruined her hairdo against Willie without worrying in the slightest.

  Willie broke away and called out one more goodbye, and then they were outside. When the two of them were past the tree house, down the drive, and onto the sidewalk, James threw one more peek over his shoulder. Mrs. Van Allen was still standing at the door, grinning and waving, but she was looking the wrong way, bidding goodbye to no one.

  * * *

  Just before five the three boys stood flat like burglars against a brick wall, behind the bushes. The school doors were not yet locked—the withdrawn bolts were visible even from this distance—and so they continued to wait, and pant, and blink away the sweat. They fixed themselves for an unbearable length of time, motionless in the very spot where they usually ran, silent where they usually shouted, waiting for some signal apparently recognizable to Reggie only.


  At last it happened: Reggie drew breath, nodded, extricated his skin from the wall, and moved.

  “Act like we’re supposed to be here,” he said. He lowered his head and moved like a bull. Seeing him so heedless of peril filled James with sudden courage. He slipped through the door first and Willie scampered in behind, thumping his backpack on the doorframe and once more nearly taking a dive. As usual, Reggie came last, and he took a moment to ensure the door made no sound when closing.

  The school’s primary hallway was not the familiar orchestra of noise to which they were accustomed. Now it was the open throat of a sleeping beast. After not even ten feet, all three boys stopped. For several seconds their footsteps continued to crash off hard surfaces. They stared down the empty distance, unwilling to turn to one another and recognize that frozen look of fright. They held their breath. The silence roared. Finally, they heard faraway thuds.

  “Custodians,” whispered Reggie.

  They moved. When they came to the elbow in the hallway, Reggie held a finger to his lips and moved off to the side. At his signal, all three boys dropped to a knee and removed their shoes, tied the laces together and swung them over their shoulders. When they stood, Willie’s knot didn’t hold and his shoes hit the floor. James winced. Reggie glowered. Willie grinned in embarrassment, angering Reggie even more, and tried again to tie his laces. It was impossible to do well with one hand, so James leaned over and finished the job.