Thirsty - M. T. Anderson [36]
The Thing with the One-Piece Hair appears and disappears without warning. Some days it is there, staring, following me to school, leaving no crushed footprints as it trudges across the grass. Sometimes I do not see it for days on end.
At night sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I get up and go to the window. The Thing stands there, below, beneath the lamppost, on the spot where Jon Edwards broke his arm two years ago on a skateboard while saying the words, “I go as fast as spitfire!”
When I am feeling all alone at two or three in the morning, sometimes I wave to the unmoving, unholy Thing. Hello, Mr. Thing with the One-Piece Hair!
As Chet promised, it does nothing to harm me now. It does nothing but watch and wait.
But still, I am wondering when it is going to make its move.
I am almost more worried when I don’t see it there.
Then it could be anywhere.
Jerk is worried about me. I can see it in his eyes. He’s no longer just hurt when I ignore him and walk an alternate route so that I won’t have to speak to him. He thinks I wouldn’t do that normally.
I hope I wouldn’t, but I feel so sleepy during the day — because I can’t sleep at night — that I don’t want to waste my energy. Of course, talking to Jerk is not a waste of energy, especially if you would like to hear an imitation of late night comedy show reruns, but I don’t see what there’s to gain from it.
I do feel bad that Tom has abandoned him, too. Tom doesn’t have an excuse. I guess the three of us are just growing apart. Tom is hanging out more and more with the cooler crowd.
It isn’t difficult to be a cooler crowd than Jerk. All you have to do is not sniff your own underarms at lunchtime.
Without me, Tom just doesn’t want to be around Jerk anymore.
Sometimes Jerk will see that Tom is talking to the other kids in that group he’s with, and Jerk will drift beside them. He’ll stand right there on the edge, behind everyone else, resting his hand nervously on one of the chair backs, and his eyes will flip from speaker to speaker, hoping one will say something he can add to. When they all start making jokes, he’ll make a quick one, too; he repeats his jokes four or five times, just to make sure everyone’s heard it. He punctuates them with “yeah!”; for example, “And then he falls and breaks his leg, yeah! Like, then he falls and breaks his leg, yeah! And then, like, he falls and breaks his leg.”
They are polite people, so they don’t tell him to go away.
I want to be one of them. They are good looking. They know secrets about one another’s dating lives. They laugh together in public spaces.
Plus, Rebecca Schwartz is one of them. I wish Tom would draw me over to talk with her. He knows I have this crush on her.
But Tom doesn’t want to be seen with me either. I still am sure he knows something, but the question is how much. He keeps saying that I haven’t been normal lately, that I’ve been completely weird. He says I need some sleep and that I’m always, like, a complete downer nowadays.
He is right. Tom is right on these points.
I am staring at my clock.
It flashes. It says 3:52.
3:52.
3:52.
That is no time to be awake. It is the rawest hour of the earthly day. There is no one to help you at 3:52. Many people don’t even exist at 3:52.
A crow caws somewhere.
My braces hurt. The ache is dull and continuous.
I push back my covers. I’m getting too hot.
I can’t sleep, and I’m so thirsty. I’m tired of those words, “I’m so thirsty.” They are dull, dull, dull. I don’t know what to do. That’s what I keep thinking. I don’t know whether to trust Chet. He could be a double agent. I don’t know what he’s doing if he is a double agent. I lie there wondering what he could be doing. Why would he ask me to place the Arm of Moriator, a device for the Forces of Light, in Tch’muchgar’s world if he is a servant of Darkness? Unless the Arm of Moriator is not what he said it was, and it is some dire magical engine with a dark purpose. Could be! I do not want