B.u.g. Big Ugly Guy (9781101593523)

DUTTON CHILDREN'S BOOKS

An imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

DUTTON
CHILDREN'S BOOKS

A division of Penguin Young Readers Group

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

Copyright © 2013 by Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple

 

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Published in the United States by Dutton Children's Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group

345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

www.penguin.com/youngreaders

 

Designed by Irene Vandervoort

 

ISBN 978-1-101-59352-3

For Karl Finger, who is teaching me to dance to the odd Middle European beats, from the Balkans to Klez; for Jody Shapiro, who frequently regales me with the numinous; and for that hard taskmaster Steven Meltzer
—JY

 

For Flip, who I could definitely see playing his blue fiddle in a klez-jazz-fusion garage band
—AS

There are rivers in the world, with their banks a particular type of clay. Form this clay into the semblance of a man, and place a piece of paper with God's ineffable name written upon it in Hebrew under the creature's tongue, and you shall bring forth a golem. And he shall not eat, nor drink, nor accept any pay, but he will protect you from harm and do your work and your bidding.

Until he doesn't . . .

Before

2008: In an underground research facility,
near Rehovot, Israel

Chaim crouched in the men's room in the dark and prayed. He wasn't particularly religious—he was a scientist, after all, in his first year of real work.

But this night was different from other nights. It was Passover. And it was definitely a night for prayer.

He shuddered as the sound of automatic gunfire rattled down the long hallways, accented by the booming reports of a single .50 caliber Desert Eagle.

Guns won't stop the protectors,
he thought.
The soldiers don't know what they're fighting.

Chaim knew, though.

“It's
keshaphim
,” he whispered into the dark. “Magic.”

But it had all started with science.

Chaim had always been good at science. Had a gift for it. Since grade school, he could see patterns in raw data that other people needed weeks to decipher. He had the ability to explain his results clearly to any audience.

When you have such a gift, Chaim felt, you should use it in service. Give back to those who had educated you. So when the secret service, known as the Mossad, came to him before he even started fielding offers from the private sector, he listened.

“There's money in the big companies,” they told him, “but there is no
kavod
, no honor.”

Remembering the recruiters' words now brought a cheerless smile to his face.
Where's the honor in waiting in the dark to die
?

Back then, it had seemed not just an honor but a joy to come to work every day. He was in the technology department. The equipment was cutting edge, the staff dedicated, and his bosses wanted him to think and act “outside of the box.” No idea was too wild to mention, and most of the time he was encouraged to follow up on even the craziest of them. So when he began seeing patterns in historical data pointing to something outlandish, unbelievable, even . . . mythical . . . he was still allowed to perform some experiments.

His boss, a man named Lev Spiegel, laughed as he signed the paperwork.

“Should I call you Rabbi Loew?” he said.

Rabbi Loew. The sixteenth-century chief rabbi of Prague. The one who created a creature from clay to defend the Jews in the ghetto. A creature called a golem.

“Let's see if it works first,” Chaim replied.

Lev was the first in Chaim's department to die. Then Nissa, his research assistant. Then . . .

Then the rest of them,
Chaim thought as the gunfire stopped.
There's nobody left but me
.

And now heavy footsteps were heading for his hiding spot. But instead of fear, Chaim suddenly felt strangely calm.

Kavod,
he thought.
If I am to die, I won't die in the bathroom. I will do it with honor.

He stood. Opened the stall door. Felt his way in the dark toward the exit. Toward the footsteps. When he stepped into the corridor, he could see again. Small fires were crackling where gunfire had set stacks of paper or garbage alit, illuminating the area.

Thwop . . . thwap . . . thwop . . . thwap.
Slow stone footsteps on cement floors.

They were coming.

Chaim shuddered but moved with a purpose to the nearest pile of papers strewn on the ground. Gathering them up, he fed them into one of the fires, then bent and grabbed more. He added those as well, and within moments, the flames were tall enough to lick the ceiling. As he turned to build another fire, he saw long shadows starting to creep around the corner. He scurried wildly around now, tossing papers onto every flame he could see.

“I will burn this place to the ground!” he shouted at the shadows. “No one will know what happened here.”

He expected no response from the shadows or the creatures casting them. And he didn't get one. Just the slow, relentless approach of their footsteps.

Thwop . . . thwap.

“No one will repeat this deed!”

Thwop . . . thwap.

They were around the corner now and in full view, but Chaim didn't look up. He knew what they looked like. What they were.

“And if I survive,” he said softly, “I will leave this desert and move somewhere cold and wet.” He fed a last piece of paper to the flames. “And I will study the Torah every day.”

Then he looked up into the lifeless eyes of the creatures he'd created and started toward them.

He was thinking of the name of God.

1.

Another Day in the Boys' Room

Sammy Greenburg was head down in the boys' toilet. Again.

He knelt on the cold gray tiles until the laughter faded and the footsteps left his side. Until the boys' room door snicked shut. Until he stopped shaking with anger and fear.

He'd just sat back on his bottom, wringing his wet curly hair on the bowl's edge, when the door opened.

Not more,
he thought.
One swim a day in the porcelain pool is enough. And this time it wasn't just because he'd mouthed off at James Lee and his cohorts
. Cohorts
. He loved that word. Sounded like something full of ugliness and warts. And not because of a paper he'd been forced to write for James Lee which got James Lee a D plus. On purpose. After all, Sammy knew the teacher would figure out right away that James Lee hadn't read the book
Frankenstein
. All the references were to movies like
Young Frankenstein
and to actors like Boris Karloff. He was proud of that. It took a kind of warped genius to pull off.

“
My
warped genius,” he whispered
.

No, this time he'd been dunked because he'd stood up for Bobby Marstall, a seventh grader whose lunch money was about to get pocketed.
Did
get pocketed. So he'd
achieved
nothing but a dunking and it was the worst one yet. He really thought he was going to be drowned this time.

“I
am
nothing,” he said softly to himself in a frothy way, spitting out toilet-bowl water as he spoke. As he waited for yet another dunking.

“Are you, like, okay?” The voice was soft, concerned.

Sammy glanced up and snapped, “Do I look,
like
, okay?”

“You look, like, damp.” It was the new kid, his dark face and chocolate-brown eyes full of concern.

“I
am
damp.” Sammy squeezed more water out of his hair. “This isn't perspiration.”
Perspiration
was one of his favorite words. Other kids said sweat. But not Sammy.

“Come on,” the new kid said, “let's wash your hair in the sink. God knows what's been in that bowl.”

“God knows, and now I know, too,” said Sammy. “And it wasn't anything good.”
Better the sink,
he thought, not knowing whether the new boy was going to be
like
the rest of them.

Bending over, Sammy rinsed his hair out and then washed his face and ears. The new kid helped, directing the water flow by sticking his finger up into the faucet. It was freezing cold—but no colder than the water in the toilet.
And a lot cleaner!

“Here,” the kid said, when Sammy was done. He handed him a strange-looking narrow black metal comb with widely spaced teeth. “All I have.”

“Thanks.” Sammy tried to get his hair to part properly with the comb, failed, then handed the comb back. He thought a minute. Considered alternatives. Finally he said what was really on his mind. “Okay, level—why are you helping me? Trying to soften me up for another swim?”

“Oh, was that swimming?” the kid said. “It looked more like drowning.” He put his head to one side as if considering, then added, “Actually I was just coming into the bathroom for, like, other reasons. But recon in a new school is always helpful.”

“Recon?” Sammy wasn't sure he knew what that meant, which was strange. He was always the kid with the largest vocabulary in any school he'd ever attended. One of the other reasons he'd been head down again in the toilet. James Lee Joliette had called him a
backstabber
when the
Frankenstein
paper had come back, and when Sammy had replied, “Better than a
backwoods yahoo
.” He hadn't expected to get away with it. Even if it was true.

This time he'd gone even further, trying to divert attention from little Bobby Marstall. Called James Lee “a backstreet bank robber with a degree in thuggery and a brain the size of a macadamia nut,” which even made some of his gang start to snicker. It had given Bobby time to run off after giving up his lunch money.
Which,
he thought,
probably
makes me some sort of a hero. Or some kind of idiot. Or a healthy helping of both.

“Recon,” Sammy said again, trying to parse the word. He hated not knowing the meaning.

“Reconnaissance.” The kid shrugged—almost an apology. “Dad was in the army. Like a major. He's out now. And none too soon, Mom says.”

Sammy wiped his face with the sleeve of his left hand.
What a terrific word,
he thought:
Reconnaissance
. He'd only seen it written, never spoken aloud. Except in war movies. And he didn't get to go to many of them. Or see them on TV either since they hadn't had a TV the past three years. His mother's decision, but neither he nor his father ever watched much TV anyway. They were all readers. He held out his right hand. “Sammy Greenburg. Thanks.”

“Funny last name.”

Sammy stiffened. That's what the other boys always said. In a town full of Joliettes, Arnettes, and Von Pattens, his name invited jokes about what part of him was green. His only edge in this place was his wit and his fast tongue. “You think Greenburg's a funny name?”

“No—but
Thanks
is.”

Sammy laughed. This guy was tongue-fast, too. Maybe he wouldn't be as bad as the rest.

The new kid held out his hand. “Call me Skink.”

“Isn't that a lizard?” Sammy was all ready to follow that with something snappy about lizards, though he wasn't actually sure what kind of lizard a skink was, when the new kid interrupted his thoughts.

“
Real
name is Skinner John Williams after my grandfathers. But everyone just calls me Skink.”

Admiringly, Sammy shook Skink's hand. “Okay, Skink. I'm named after my great-grandfather, too. Samson.” He made a face. “I'd rather you didn't tell anyone.”

“Like, would someone named Skinner make fun of a name?”

“Guess not. You'd just get landed with Skin-and-Bones and Skinny Minny and . . .”

“And Skinflint.”

“Really? Not around here. No one would know what that means.”

“You do,” Skink said. It wasn't a question.

“Yeah,” Sammy said. “A skinflint is a miser, someone who squeezes a nickel to get back change.” Back at his last school there was someone who had called him that. Even though Sammy really didn't have any money to speak of. He'd just assumed it was an anti-Semitic remark. Not one of the worst, of course. He could live with it.

“Well, Word Man, meet the Skink,” the new boy said.

Sammy grinned.
Word Man
. He liked that. Could own it!

Just then the bell rang for the start of classes.

“I'm in Holsten's homeroom,” Sammy said, starting to hurry down the hall. Skink was moving in the same direction, but Sammy's brief hope of actually having a friend in his homeroom was quickly crushed.

“Not me. I've got Lippincott.”

Sammy made a face. “Sorry. He's tough. Big, too.”

Shrugging, Skink said, “It, like, doesn't matter. Small school. I'm sure we'll have some classes together. If not, I'll see you at lunch!” Then he waved and turned down the hall toward Mr. Lippincott's room.

Waving back, Sammy ran to his first class.

Ms. Holsten was slim and blond and not bovine in the least. Not that this stopped her from being known as “Holstein,” to most of her students. With a name like Holsten in dairy cow country, what do you expect? But she remained pleasant and soft spoken and tolerant of all kinds of behavior, especially the stuff that could be expected from a classroom of unruly eighth graders. Like fart jokes and armpit noises, gossiping, occasional fits of the giggles, and an awful nickname.

Except for tardiness. Sammy knew she was never tolerant about tardiness. And Sammy was tardy.
A dip in the ceramic swimming pool can do that to you,
he thought. Not very tardy, mind you. Just a touch after the bell. A smidgen. A mere iota. But that little bit was enough for Ms. Holsten.

“Mr. Greenburg.” His name suddenly had a lot more syllables than Sammy remembered. Ms. Holsten drawled it out until the whole class was staring. “Are you late?”

“Only a little, Ms. Holsten. I had to . . . erm . . . wash my hair.”

There were sniggers from some boys in the back of the room. Giggles from the girls. Sammy wasn't sure which was worse.

Word gets around quickly. These weren't even the boys who'd dunked him. Dunked him because he'd gotten in their way. Because he stood up for someone who couldn't stand up for himself.

Nah,
Sammy thought, having one of those revelations that comes after a near-death experience.
They dunked me because I'm different. Because I'm not one of them. And because . . . they can.

In fact, it had taken James Lee less than a week to decide that Sammy was different. Sammy's name was one indicator. And he didn't go to church, either. Not James Lee's Baptist church, or the smaller Catholic church at the end of town.

“You must be one of them furrin immigrants,” James Lee had said to Sammy the first week of school.

Not realizing that James Lee was someone you didn't want to butt heads with, someone who had absolutely no grasp of irony, had never spoken anything with the sarcasm font, Sammy had replied, “Yeah, I immigrated all the way from Hartford.”

“Where's that at?”

“Connecticut.” And then Sammy added—which was another big mistake, since he was not only dissing James Lee, but where he lived—“It's one of the earliest states in the USA, in case they don't teach that here. One of the original colonies. More American than the Midwest. Those thirteen stars on the first American flag? Connecticut was one. I was born there. And my parents. Both of them. And my grandparents. We're not the foreigners.” He pronounced it properly and with particular care and compounded the mistake by pointing at James Lee. “You are.”

He didn't add that since his birth, they'd moved six times, each time farther and farther away from Hartford so his potter father could find a big enough and cheap enough place to build his pottery. Though his dad sold pots to major stores all across America, room for an outsize studio and a stand-alone wood-fire kiln was hard to find in their budget which, as far as Sammy could tell, was one step above the poverty line. One small step.

That time, James Lee had pushed Sammy down, stepped over him, and at the same time had laughed. “Furriner. Can't fool me. Catch that name? Greenburg. BURG! Leave out the r and what do you have?”

When his friends looked blank, he added, “BUG, that's what. He's a green bug. And you know what we do to them?”

If anything, the blank stares got blanker.

“We squash 'em!” And James Lee had laughed.

Only then did his friends laugh with him. “BUG!” they shouted. And from then on, that was what they called Sammy. They'd been shouting it when they'd sent him swimming in the porcelain pool.

“Sammy!” Ms. Holsten snapped, and Sammy realized he'd missed whatever she'd said next.

“Oh, sorry, Ms. Holsten. What did you say?”

“I said, since it's you, no detention.” There were mutters from the back of the room. Sammy could just make out the words “teacher's pet.”

This day just keeps getting better.

He sighed. “Thank you, Ms. Holsten.”

She gave him a thin smile. “Don't let it happen again.”

At least, he thought, there would have been some dignity in detention. The cool kids seemed to get detention as a matter of course; they did whatever they wanted and their school day was just a half hour longer. Sammy could have sat in detention and hung out with them. Explained that he had nothing against them, and shown that he got in trouble, too.

But he knew instinctively things would never happen that way. He just couldn't resist talking back to the bullies. Cutting them down with his tongue. If he could only learn to suffer in silence, they'd probably get bored and turn on someone else.

Being quiet's just not in my DNA,
he thought, all the while doubting that any of the boys who had dunked him had a clue as to what DNA was.

Besides, he told himself, by missing detention I can get home before they get out. Because most of them are in detention every day. And that's in
their
DNA.

Then he had a darker thought. Better watch out at lunch.

Lunch was a jostling, shoving scrum, where kidney punches could be delivered with no teacher the wiser. Besides, the food could be spit on, sneezed on, boogered, soiled. And there was the long, lonely walk while carrying a tray full of food back to his seat, dodging legs that suddenly shot out to trip him.

Yes—lunch could turn out to be even worse than the trip home on the bus. At least there, the driver—a hairy man named Baer who looked like he really did have bears somewhere on his family tree—kept order by turning his head and growling at any misbehavers. Sammy had actually considered bringing him a jar of honey but had resisted the idea at the last moment. He wasn't sure Mr. Baer's sense of humor was any more advanced than the Boyz.