Feather Brain (8 page)

I made sure Kyle was around when I left the school; I kept glancing back at him, as if I was afraid and didn't want him to follow me. Of course he did. Which was perfect, absolutely perfect.

I walked around the school, and just before the corner, where there are lots of bushes growing under the windows, I accidentally-on-purpose tripped, flinging my books into the air and giving the leather bag a toss into the bushes. I scrambled around on my knees, picking up my books, glancing back at Kyle, who stood and watched with a huge grin on his face. Then I limped around the corner, clinging to my stack of books.

As soon as I was out of sight, I stopped and leaned against the school wall, panting. Then I peeked around the corner. I laughed at Kyle's blue-jeaned bum sticking out from the bushes. He straightened up with the leather bag in his hand and a smile on his face. I ducked back as he glanced around to make sure no one had seen him. He headed home, whistling, and I walked off in the other direction, whistling just like Kyle.

The next day Kyle came to school looking haunted. His face was pale, except for dark smudges under his eyes. He had scratches down his cheek, a gouge on his neck his collar couldn't quite hide and bandages on his hands. His arms were hidden by his long-sleeved shirt.

And he twitched. He jumped at every little sound.

I started explaining dinosaur cries to Jacob just so I could let out a screech like the beast's. Kyle leapt from his chair, hands up to guard his face, looking frantically around the room. I tried to look innocent when he glared at me, but I had trouble hiding my grin.

The next days were awesome. Kyle wore pants and long-sleeved shirts every day, even though it was spring and warm outside. Everyone else wore T-shirts and shorts, except me, of course. But I didn't care. My scratches were healing; I knew he was getting new ones every day.

His hands were a mess. Miss Dubois started to fuss over him, but he told her something about climbing trees, and she believed him enough to drop it. I just shook my head. Why didn't he wear leather gloves? And lock the beast in his closet? I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

The best thing was that Kyle stopped bugging me. He'd sit at his desk and glower, but as long as he sat, he didn't scare the other kids and they started to talk to me. Every day I wore a different dinosaur T-shirt, and every day they were admired. I brought books, too—my favorite books on dinosaurs—and at lunchtime I taught Jacob and Ian how to draw dinosaurs. They needed to pay more attention to how dinosaurs really looked, so I pulled out the books and we talked about skeletons while we drew.

And sometimes I just sat back and enjoyed it. I had read somewhere that revenge is sweet, but I didn't really understand, until now. It's true. Revenge is very, very sweet.

Then I learned that revenge is tricky too.

We had an early May heat wave, and everyone dug out their summer clothes and came to school in shorts and sandals. Everyone except Kyle and me. Together, we sweated in our long-sleeved shirts and jeans. Neither of us wore sandals. I had nasty scratches on my feet that were healing really slowly, and I guessed that Kyle had fresh ones.

While I was sweating and feeling cranky from the heat, I felt a twinge of sympathy for Kyle. But it didn't last long. He deserved it!

Kyle looked worse every day. He just didn't seem to be learning how to protect himself from the beast. Every day he had new gouges on his hands and scratches on his face. Why wasn't he keeping the beast locked away? And why didn't he wear gloves? What was his problem?

Kyle grew more and more pale, the shadows under his eyes darker and darker. Every day he had new scratches. Miss Dubois became really concerned, but Kyle made up a story for her.

“I want to be a tree-climbing champion,” he said, trying to smile at her. “So I climb every day. Sometimes I get scratched a bit, but I haven't fallen yet!” He said that with a flash of the old Kyle, and she smiled.

“Just be careful, okay?” she said. “I don't want you in here with a broken leg.”

I tried to convince myself that I didn't care, that he deserved it, but that got harder and harder. I started to hear the beast in my dreams, screaming and scratching, but at Kyle instead of me. I'd pull my pillow tight against my head, trying to silence the cries, but they echoed in my sleep.

And then one morning when we were playing basketball, Kyle's sleeve fell back and I saw his left arm. It was covered in a maze of red lines, some shallow, some deep. It looked like he hadn't cleaned them prop-erly—they were raised and red, like the welts Mom gets from pruning. I could hardly see any normal skin between the scratches. He yanked his sleeve down and glanced around to see if anyone had noticed. I just knelt to tie my shoelace.

But all day I felt like the most horrible person in the world. I had done this to him. I had set him up to steal the beast. I knew how to handle the beast, but I hadn't told Kyle. I'd let him get attacked day after day after day.

All his meanness suddenly seemed like nothing compared to mine.

At recess, I waited outside for Kyle. When he came out of the school, I knew he didn't want to talk to me. I think he was too miserable to want to talk to anyone. But I stood in his path and said, “You need to come to my house. I have something to show you.”

Kyle was immediately suspicious. “Why would I want to go to your house?”

I yanked up his sleeve, exposing the long scratches up his arm. “That's why.”

He flushed and tugged down his sleeve. “That's none of your business,” he said, his voice angry.

I rolled up my right sleeve. When he saw the partially healed scratches up my arm, his mouth fell open and he stared at me in silence.

I pushed his chin up to close his mouth and said, “My place, after school.”

He gulped and nodded.

I walked away shaking—why did I do that? I really didn't want to have anything to do with Kyle or the beast. Maybe he won't come, I thought, and that was my only comfort all afternoon.

But Kyle was waiting for me after school. We walked to my house without talking. It was another great day, sunny and clear. But I stared down all the way home, wondering how I was going to explain this to Kyle, how he'd react, what he'd do when he realized I'd set him up.

Mom was in the front yard raking. When she saw us, she leaned on her rake and smiled.

“Hi, Mom,” I said. “Is it okay if Kyle comes over? We need to work on a project.”

“Of course you can have a friend over,” Mom said, trying to control her grin. “If I'd known, I'd have baked some cookies.” She reached down to pick up a green garbage bag. “Make sure you guys have a snack before you head upstairs.”

She knelt by a pile of dead grass and called out to us as we walked away. “Kyle, does your mom know where you are?”

Kyle flushed and then muttered, “I'll tell my dad.”

As we walked into the kitchen, I pointed at the phone. “Need to use the phone?”

Kyle looked blank.

“To call your dad?”

“Oh, I'll call him later.”

I shrugged and opened the fridge. “What do you want to eat?”

This time Kyle shrugged. “Anything's fine.”

“No, really, would you like crackers? Fruit? Cookies?”

“Whatever,” he said, staring at the floor.

I rolled my eyes, grabbed a bag of chocolate chip cookies and poured two glasses of milk.

When I sat at the table, Kyle crossed his arms and glared at me. “Clarke, I didn't come here for milk and cookies,” he said.

I pushed a glass toward him. “Yeah, I know, but I'm really hungry and Mom won't let me take food up to my room. So eat. Then we'll go upstairs. I have something to show you.”

Kyle sat with a sigh, gulped down the milk and devoured seven cookies. While he ate, he looked around the kitchen. Mom had just cleaned it, in her annual post-tax-season cleaning binge. “Nice place,” said Kyle. I wasn't sure what I heard in his voice; it almost sounded like envy.

“Yeah, it's okay,” I said, shrugging. It seemed pretty regular to me.

“Is your mom home all the time?” he asked.

“She works from home,” I said. “She's an accountant. She just finished tax season, so now she has time for other things.”

Kyle stuffed in another cookie. “And your dad?”

“He's an engineer. He works downtown. What does your dad do?”

“He's in construction,” Kyle said as he jumped up. “Come on, Clarke, we've eaten half the bag of cookies. Let's get on with it.”

I could have sat eating cookies all afternoon. Not because I love cookies that much—well, I do—but to avoid telling Kyle what I'd done. My body felt like lead as I dragged it up the stairs.

We dropped our backpacks inside my bedroom door and I turned on the radio. I figured once I told
Kyle what I'd done, it would get as noisy in here as when the beast was loose.

I wasn't sure how to explain all this to Kyle. I finally decided to start by telling him about howweirdcan youget.com.

After I described it, Kyle just said, “You found it on your mom's computer? You don't have your own?”

“No, I don't have my own,” I said. “You act like I'm some kind of spoiled brat. But look around: no computer, no tv, no cd player.”

Kyle looked around my room, his face still. My room was pretty clean for once: bed made, only a few clothes on the floor, shelves loaded with books, dinosaur models hanging around the room. He just shook his head and shrugged. Then he sat on my bed. “So you found a website. Big deal.”

“Yeah, well, it turned out to be a really big deal.” I dug around until I found the test tube of liquid and the paper explaining how to use it.

Kyle tipped the test tube back and forth; then he shook it. My fingers twitched, worried he'd break it. But he handed it back and read the paper. Then he started to laugh. “Oh, come on. You believed this!?”

“No,” I snapped. “I didn't believe it.” I started to look for Stegy, checking behind my boxes and then
dropping to my hands and knees to search under the bed. I had to lie flat to reach him. I squirmed out with him in my right hand.