Beastly (8 page)

Froggie:
why not??? theyr wet!!!!!

SilentMaid:
But you’re an amphibian.

Froggie:
So???

SilentMaid:
So you consider living on dry land to be preferable to water, even though you can breathe underwater. Why? I really want to know!

Froggie:
for 1 thing my stuf keeps floting awy!

BeastNYC joined the chat.

BeastNYC:
You all can start now. im here.

SilentMaid:
We started.

BeastNYC:
I wz kidding.

Mr. Anderson:
We can’t always be sure with you, Beast. But welcome.

BeastNYC:
I’m moving this wk. Not sure where.

SilentMaid:
I had a bit of an announcement today.

Mr. Anderson:
What is it, Silent?

SilentMaid:
I’ve decided to go through with it.

Froggie:
go thru w the trnsformtin?

SilentMaid:
Yes.

BeastNYC:
Why would u do a stupid thing like that?

Mr. Anderson:
Beast, that isn’t polite.

BeastNYC:
But it’s stupid! why would she risk a spell when she doesn’t have 2?

SilentMaid:
I’ve thought long and hard about this, Beast.

Grizzlyguy joined the chat.

SilentMaid:
I know there’ll be a risk involved, a huge risk. If I don’t get the guy, I’ll be reduced to sea foam. But I think it’s a risk I have to take for true love.

Grizzlyguy:
Sea foam?

Froggie:
tru luv is worth it

BeastNYC:
Can i say something?

Froggie:
Cn NE1 evr stop u?

BeastNYC:
All guys r jerks. U could be giving up your chance for some guy who doesn’t deserve it. No one’s worth being turned to sea foam.

SilentMaid:
You don’t even know him!

BeastNYC:
Neither do u. U r undersea & he’s on land!

SilentMaid:
I know all I need to know. He’s perfect.

Froggie:
im sur he is.

BeastNYC:
I’m just being realistic… he might not notice you. didn’t you say you have to give up your voice?

SilentMaid:
I saved him from drowning! Oh, forget it.

Froggie:
beest is a beest, slnt. Dont let him get u down.

SilentMaid has left the chat.

BeastNYC:
sorry but it’s really hard being a beast in nyc.

PART 3 - THE CASTLE

1

The next month, I moved. My father bought a brownstone in Brooklyn and informed me we were moving there. Magda packed my stuff with no help from me.

The first thing I noticed was the windows. The house had old-fashioned stick-out windows with fancy frames around them. Most houses on the block had windows with sheer curtains or shades that looked out on the tree-lined street. Dad obviously didn’t want me looking at trees – or, more to the point, anyone looking at me. Our house had thick, dark, wooden blinds that, even when opened, blocked most of the light and view from the front of the house. I could smell the fresh wood and the stain, so I knew that they were new. There were alarms on every window and surveillance cameras on every door.

The house was five stories, each story almost as big as our whole apartment in Manhattan. The first floor was a complete private apartment with its own living room and a kitchen. That was where I’d live.

A huge plasma screen took up most of a wall in the living room. It had a DVD player and the entire stock of Blockbuster. Everything an invalid needs.

In back of the bedroom was a garden area so bare and brown I almost expected tumbleweeds. A new-looking wooden fence stretched across the back. Even though there was no gate, there was a surveillance camera trained on the fence, in case anyone broke in. Dad didn’t want to take any chances someone would see me. I didn’t plan to go outside.

In keeping with the invalid theme, there was a study off the bedroom with another plasma screen, just for the PlayStation. The bookshelves were lined with games, but no actual books.

The bathroom on my floor had no mirror. The walls had been freshly painted, but I could see an outline where a mirror had been unscrewed and spackled over.

Magda had already unpacked my stuff – except for two things I hadn’t let her see. I took out two rose petals and Kendra’s mirror. I put them under some sweaters in my bottom dresser drawer. I walked up the stairs to the second floor, which had another living room, a dining room, and a second kitchen.

This place was too big for just us. And why would Dad want to move to Brooklyn?

The bathroom there had a mirror. I didn’t look at it.

The third floor had another big bedroom, which was decorated like a living room, but empty, and a study with no books. And another plasma screen.

The fourth had three more bedrooms. The smallest one had some suitcases in it I didn’t recognize.

The fifth floor just had a bunch of junk in it – old furniture and boxes of books and records, all covered in a thick blanket of dust. I sneezed – dust stuck in my beast fur more than it did on regular people – and went back down to my own apartment and stared out the French doors at the garden fence. While I was looking around, Magda walked in.

“Knock much?” I said.

“Ah, I am sorry.” And then she started chirping, like a Spanish squirrel. “You like you room, Mr.

Kyle? I do for you – a good, cheerful room.”

“Where’s my dad?”

She looked at her watch. “He at work. News on soon.”

“No,” I said. “I mean, where’s he staying? Where’s his room? Is he upstairs?”

“No.” Magda stopped chirping. “No, Mr. Kyle. He no upstairs. I stay.”

“I mean when he comes back.”

Magda looked down. “I stay with you, Mr. Kyle. I am sorry.”

“No, I mean…”

Then I got it. I stay. Dad had no room because he wasn’t living here. He wasn’t moving to Brooklyn, only me. And Magda, my new guardian. My warden. Just the two of us, forever, while Dad lived a happy Kyle-free existence. I looked around at the mirrorless, windowless, endless walls (all painted in cheerful colors – the ones in the living room were red; mine were emerald green). Could they swallow me up so there was nothing left but the memory of a good-looking guy who’d disappeared?

Could I be like that one guy at school who died in an accident in seventh grade? Everyone cried, but now I’d forgotten his name. I bet everyone had, just like they’d forget mine.

“It’s nice.” I walked over to the night table. “So where’s the phone?” A pause. “No.”

“No phone?” She was a bad liar. “Are you sure?”

“Mr. Kyle…”

“I need to talk to my dad. Is he planning on just… dumping me here forever without saying good-bye… buying me DVDs” – I swept out my hand, catching a shelf and sending most of its contents crashing to the floor – “so he won’t feel guilty about ditching me?” I felt the bright green walls closing in on me. I sank to the sofa. “Where’s the phone?”

“Mr. Kyle…”

“Stop calling me that!” I knocked down more DVDs. “You sound like a moron. What’s he paying you to stay with me? Did he triple your salary to get you to stay here with his freak son, to be my jailer and keep your mouth shut? Well, your job goes bye-bye if I run away. You know that, don’t you?” She kept staring at me. I wanted to hide my face. I remembered what she’d said that day about being frightened for me.

“I’m evil, you know,” I told her. “That’s why I look this way. Maybe some night I’ll come and get you in your sleep. Don’t people in your country believe in that stuff – voodoo and Satan’s spawn?”

“No. We believe –”

“Know what?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t care about your country. I don’t care about anything about you.”

“I know you are sad…”

I felt a wave rising in my head, welling up in my nose. My father hated me. He didn’t even want me in the same house with him.

“Please, Magda, please let me talk to him. I need to. He’s not going to fire you over letting me talk to him. He couldn’t find anyone else to stay with me.”

She stared a moment longer. Finally, she nodded. “I will get the phone. I hope it will help you. I try myself.”

She walked away. I wanted to ask her what she meant by “I try myself.” That she’d tried to talk my dad into staying with me, to being human, but failed? I heard her trudging upstairs to her room, which must have been the one with the suitcases. God, she was all I had. She could poison my food if I got too obnoxious. Who’d care? I knelt on the floor to pick up the DVDs I’d knocked down. It was hard with claws, but at least my hands were still shaped the same, with a thumb like a gorilla’s, not like a bear’s paw. In a few minutes, Magda came back carrying a cell phone. So the place really did have no phone service. What a piece of work my dad was.

“I… I picked up most of the stuff I threw.” I gestured with my arms full of stuff. “I’m sorry, Magda.”

She raised an eyebrow, but said, “Is all right.”

“I know it’s not your fault my father’s…” I shrugged.

She took the games I was still holding. “You want I call him?” I shook my head and took the phone. “I need to speak to him alone.” She nodded, then put the games back on the shelf and left the room.

“What is it, Magda?” My father’s voice oozed irritation when he answered. It wouldn’t get better when he heard it was me.

“It’s not Magda. It’s me, Kyle. We need to talk about some things.”

“Kyle, I’m in the middle of –”

“You always are. I won’t take long. It’ll be quicker to listen to what I have to say than to argue with me.”

“Kyle, I know you don’t want to be there, but really it’s for the best. I’ve tried to make you comf –”

“You dumped me here.”

“I’m doing what’s best for you, I’m protecting you from people staring, from people who’d try to use this to their advantage and –”

“That’s a load of crap.” I looked around at the green walls closing in on me. “You’re just protecting yourself. You don’t want anyone to know about me.”

“Kyle, this conversation is over.”

“No, it’s not. Don’t you hang up on me! If you do, I’ll go to NBC and give them an interview. I swear to God I’ll go right now.”

That stopped him. “What is it you want, Kyle?”

I wanted to go to school, to have friends, to have everything back the way it used to be. That wasn’t going to happen. So I said, “Look, there are a few things I need. Get them for me, and I’ll go along with what you want. Otherwise, I’ll leave.” Through the almost opaque blinds, I could see the sky was dark.

“What things, Kyle?”

“I need a computer with Internet. I know you’re worried I’ll do something crazy like tell the press to come over here and take my picture.” Tell them I’m your son. “But I won’t – not if you do what I ask. I just want to be able to see the world still, and maybe… I don’t know, maybe join an e-group or something.” This sounded so lame I almost had to cover my ears against its patheticness.

“Okay, okay, I’ll work on it.”

“Second, I want a tutor.”

“A tutor? You were hardly a star student before.”

“Now’s different. Now I have nothing else to do.”

Dad didn’t answer, so I kept going.

“Besides, what if I snap out of this? I mean, I got this way in a day. Maybe in another day, I’ll be better. Maybe the witch will change her mind and switch me back.” I said this even though I knew it couldn’t happen, and he didn’t believe me. In the back of my mind, I still thought maybe I could meet someone, a girl, maybe online. That’s why I wanted the computer. I didn’t really understand why I wanted a tutor. Dad was right – I’d hated school. But now that it was being taken away from me, I wanted it. Besides, a tutor would be someone to talk to. “It just seems like I should keep up.”

“All right. I’ll look for someone. What else?”

I took a deep breath. “The third thing is I don’t want you to visit me.” I said it because I already knew he wouldn’t. Dad didn’t want to see me anyway. He’d made that completely clear. If he did come, it would be because he felt like he had to. I didn’t want that, didn’t want to sit there, waiting to see if he’d show and getting bummed every day that he didn’t.

I waited to see if he’d argue, pretend to be a good dad. “All right,” he said. “If that’s what you want, Kyle.”

Typical. “It’s what I want.”

I hung up before I could change my mind and beg him to come back.

2

Dad was quick. The tutor showed up a week later.

“Kyle.” I noticed Magda had stopped calling me Mr. Kyle after I had screamed at her. This made her very slightly less annoying. “This is Will Fratalli. He is teacher.” The guy with her was tall, late twenties, and major geeky. He had a dog with him, a yellow Lab, and he had on worn jeans, too baggy to be fitted but not big enough to be cool, and a blue button-down shirt. Obviously public school, and not even cool public school. He stepped forward. “Hello, Kyle.” He didn’t run screaming at the sight of me. That was a point in his favor. On the down side, he didn’t look at me. He sort of looked to the side of me.

“Over here!” I waved. “This isn’t going to work if you can’t even look at me.” The dog let out a low growl.

The guy – Will – laughed. “That might be a bit difficult.”

“Why’s that?” I demanded.

“Because I’m blind.”

Oh.

“Sit, Pilot!” Will said. But Pilot was pacing, refusing to sit.

This was so totally alternative universe. My dad had gone out and found – or, most likely, got his secretary to find – a blind tutor, so he wouldn’t be able to see how ugly I was.

“Oh, wow, I’m sorry. Is this… this is your dog? Will it be living here? Will you?” I’d never met a blind person before, though I’d seen them on the subways.

“Yes.” Will gestured to the dog. “This is Pilot. We shall both be living here. Your father drives a hard bargain.”

“I’ll bet. What’d he tell you about me? I’m sorry. Do you want to sit down?” I took his arm.