All Good Children - Catherine Austen [53]
Xavier leans backward as he walks, like he’s being blown by a fierce wind. He cracks his eyes half open and nods lazily when I ask if he’s okay. If I didn’t know him, I’d think he was either stoned out of his skull or the most premium kid on the planet.
“There’s the jail,” he mutters when we pass the little zombies lined up in rows.
“That’s the elementary school,” I say. “Ally’s old school. Remember Ally?”
He gives four slight nods while glancing at me sideways. “Fruits and vegetables,” he says. Then he squints like he’s in pain.
I pat his back. “Whatever you say, man.”
“I say I love you, Max.”
Christ, he kills me. He sounds just like my dad.
When we reach the high school, Dallas marches over and says, “Zombies eat brains.”
“I bet they taste good,” I answer.
“It’s nice to see you back at school, Xavier.”
Xavier squints and nods. “You can’t see me.”
“Is he one of us?” Dallas whispers.
“Nah,” I say. “He’s just nuts.”
Xavier hangs his head as if someone switched him off.
Dallas twists around to look into his face. “You okay, man? You’re drooling.” We walk him to a picnic table and sit him down. He looks at the sky and smiles, then closes his eyes in ecstasy.
“What is he on?” Dallas asks.
I shrug. “Whatever he used to be on plus whatever they gave him.”
“It doesn’t seem so bad.”
“Whispered words are never healthy,” Pepper says.
I jolt and shudder. She’s behind the bench, staring from me to Dallas with a look of absolute nothing on her face.
“That’s why we never whisper,” I say.
She squints. “You were whispering. I heard you.”
“If you could hear us, then we obviously weren’t whispering,” Dallas says.
“You were in a movie I saw,” Xavier mutters.
“It’s nice to see you back at school, Xavier,” Pepper says.
“Like all children, Xavier is lucky to go to school,” I say.
I jerk my head around like a robot. “Look at all these lucky children.”
Dallas bends his arms robotically and says, “We are lucky…to be training…for our futures.”
Pepper frowns. We might have gone too far.
“Xavier needs help getting to class,” I say. “Dallas and I recognize the needs of all our classmates. Goodbye, Pepper.”
We heave Xavier to his feet and steer him toward the door. He nods and mutters, “There will be consequences.” I’m sure it’s random but the timing scares me.
Xavier gets worse as the day goes on. Half the tenth graders are in one class now, over a hundred students, sitting at tiny desks shoved close together. It unsettles Xavier when students squeeze by him. He likes everyone in their place. He trembles and buzzes over each absence, staring at the vacant chairs in alarm. A few kids who were on psychotropics are off sick now. I haven’t seen Tyler Wilkins since Halloween. “Maybe he turned into a butterfly,” Dallas says.
Werewolf fills in for Mr. Reese in history. I hate him more than ever now that I can’t express it. He doesn’t seem to like us any better either. He tells us Montgomery is in the hospital having convulsions. “Shame,” he says like he scuffed his shoe. “He was one of the better students.”
Xavier gets up and sits in Montgomery’s chair. Werewolf tells him to go back to his own seat. “There’s another potential here,” Xavier says.
Werewolf snorts. “Just get back in your seat.”
Xavier docks his RIG into the desk port as if he didn’t hear.
“Back in your seat!” Werewolf booms.
Xavier holds his head and moans.
Werewolf gets off his hairy ass. He leans in front of Xavier, lays both palms on the desk, and repeats, “Back. In. Your. Seat.” He spits when he talks. It glistens on Xavier’s face. I feel my blood start to boil.
Xavier mutters something incomprehensible.
Werewolf grabs his arm and tries to haul him up. “Get out of this chair, you idiot!” he shouts.
Xavier snaps to attention. He never liked to be touched.
He grabs Werewolf’s middle finger and snaps it back. Crack. The sound of breaking bone echoes off the walls and pierces the surveillance camera. Werewolf emits a childish sobbing scream and holds his hand in the air like it’s a foreign object.
A look of fury comes over