Authors: Terry Trueman
Inside Out
TERRY TRUEMAN
HARPERTEMPEST
AN IMPRINT OF
HARPERCOLLINS
PUBLISHERS
For Eric John
1
All I want is a maple bar, but I don't think these kids with the guns care about what I want.
I didn't even look up when they first walked into the coffee shop, even though the little bell on the door went
tingaling
. But now I look.
“This is a robbery,” yells the taller, older-looking kid, holding a black gun. He's around my age, maybe sixteen. The other kid's hand is shaking, and the little silver gun he's holding is shaking too; he looks younger than the first kid.
They both look mad, mean, too.
“We're just here for the cash registers,” yells the older kid. “You all just sit tight!”
I glance out the window, and I see a lady in a blue car. Her mouth has dropped open and she's staring straight at us. Now she's talking on her cell phone as she speeds away. I look back at the robber kids. I don't think they saw the lady in the car.
I look around at everybody else in this place, and they all look scared, so I'm trying to look scared too. I mean, I guess I'm scared, but this all seems so normal to me. The thing is, I'm used to seeing and hearing really weird stuff, so this doesn't feel that strange to me at all. It feels familiar. But it's probably weird to everyone else, 'cause they're freaking out.
The two suits sitting over at the table against the wall are white as ghosts. One of them is fat; I don't want to be rude, but he is. His white shirt is stretched tight over his big belly, and his tie doesn't reach his belt. The other one is skinny. They remind me of these two old movie characters, Laurel and Hardy, who were a skinny guy and a fat guy too. Laurel and Hardy are my favorites because they're always arguing and the fat guy yells and the skinny guy starts bawling like a baby. But the fat suit here in this coffee shop isn't yelling, and the skinny suit isn't crying ⦠at least not yet.
Two old ladies sitting at the table next to the two suits are quiet and sit very still. I have to stare at them for a few seconds to be sure they're even real. Finally one of them blinks, but I'm still not sure about the other one. The girl and guy who work behind the counter are frozen like statues. Even though I sit in here every day after school waiting for my mom, I don't know the guy's or girl's name and they don't know mine. A lady and her little daughter, who were ordering drinks when these kids with the guns busted in, are just standing with their faces all squinched up, which is too bad because the lady is pretty and her little girl is cute. They could be in a commercial about pretty moms and daughters.
One of the kids with a gun, the older-looking one, says, “Nobody's gonna get hurt if you just do what we tell you!”
I say, “Okay.”
He seems surprised at the sound of my voice and looks at me real fast, then away again.
He says, “We don't wanna hurt anybody.”
“Good,” I say.
He looks at me again, “You got a problem?” He asks. I
think
he sounds mad.
“Yes,” I say.
This surprises him too. “Oh, yeah?” he asks. Then he points his gun right at me. “What's your problem?”
I'm sort of surprised that he wants to know.
His gun is big and black, with a wide hole in the end of the barrel. It's like a tunnel.
I answer him as truthfully as I can. “I'm sick, that's my problem; I take medicine two times every day, thanks for asking.”
The younger kid yells, “Shut up or we'll hurt you.” He sounds like kids at school sound just before they do something like knock your lunch tray out of your hands.
I think about what the older kid said, about not wanting to hurt anybody. So now I'm confused by the younger one saying they might hurt me. “I thought you didn't wanna?” I ask.
“Didn't wanna what?” asks the older kid.
“Hurt anybody.”
“We don't.” He hesitates. “So don't make us.”
“Make you?” Now I'm
really
confused. Why would I try to
make
anybody hurt me? What am I gonna do, say something like “Come on, please, please, shoot me a few times”? And people call
me
weird?
The older kid says, “So just shut up and we
won't
hurt you.”
“Ohhh,” I say. “Okay.” I think, Close one, Zach, you almost screwed up again.
“
Zach
, y
ou're a stupid wong-gong, a long-gone wong-gong
.”
I ignore this, but while I'm sitting here being quiet, my palms are sweaty and my throat is dry. I need to decide if this situation is real or not; I need to decide that right now. Sometimes I understand what's going on, and other times I don't have a clue. If I don't figure this one out, I could be in trouble.
So I look closer at the kids with the gunsâthey're not much bigger than I am. They're both wearing blue jeans and the older one is wearing a baseball hat and a black T-shirt. The younger one doesn't have a hat on and his T-shirt is yellow. Their faces look pretty normal: noses, eyes, mouths, ears and hair and eyebrows. So far so good. If I were just imagining them, they'd probably be missing some of those parts. So I think that probably I'm not imagining them. I think these are real kids with real guns. After all, it looks like the other people sitting here see them too. Dr. Curt always tells me to use all my senses when I'm trying to figure out “reality.” Like if I'm hearing too much stuff and my ears are being used up, then I need to use my eyes and nose, my sense of taste and touch to figure if things are real or not. But sometimes I can't trust any of my other senses either.
The thing is,
I
am not normal. I'm
not
, and I can't help it. I get massively confused. I've got two psycho-killer enemies named Dirtbag and Rat after me. My body, most of the time, feels like a foreign country. Like I told the kid with the big black gun, I'm sick.
“Hey, Zach, think, think, shrink shrink, wong-gong
.”
And then, of course, there's that crap.
I mutter back, “Up yours.”
The younger kid points his gun right at me and says, “I thought we told you to shut up!”
“Yeah, you did, really, honestly, you did tell me that,” I say. “You said shut up and no one will get hurt.” I'm surprised he forgot.
“So why are you still talking?” he demands. Maybe this is one of those times when someone asks a question but doesn't really care about the answer. He's not really
expecting
me to answer. I better shut up just to be safe.
“Hey, Zach, wing-wong, wing-wong, long gone.”
This bounces around from one side of the room to the other. I know that no one else can hear thisâno one else ever does. I glance at the two businessmen across from me. The skinny one just stares at the table; he looks pale and he's shaking. The fat one looks like
he
would shoot me if he had a gun. Somehow I always make people mad. I don't know why.
I point over at the fat suit, and I say to the robbers, “Does he look mad to you?” The robbers, both of them, turn and look, pointing their guns at him.
The older kid asks the fat suit, “Are you a hero? You gonna give us a problem?”
When the fat suit opens his mouth to speak, his words squeak out of him. “No way! No, sir!” He looks back at me again, his face all twisted up, his mouth pinched real tight and his eyes bulging even more than before. I can't tell if he's sorry or if he wants to kill me. When I look at other people, I usually don't know what they're feeling. Hell, most times I can't tell what
I'm
feelingâhow am I supposed to know what's happening with anybody else? It sure would be good to know though, especially right now.
The older kid turns back to me. “Just try to shut up, okay?” he says. Then he adds, actually sounding kind of nice, loud enough for everybody to hear him, “We'll be done here in just a second, then you can all go home.”
When he says this, I glance at my watch and I know that won't work for me. I say, “My mom won't be here till three thirty.” I look at my watch again. “It's only three twelve. I have to wait for her.”
The older kid says, “Okay.”
I say, “I can't leave until she comes to pick me up.”
He shifts his gun a little in his hand and says, “Yeah, okay, that's fine. You can stay here until three thirty and wait for her.”
I say, “Yeah, I gotta wait here. I can't be home alone anymore, even though she got rid of our rifle. So this is where she meets me. She picks me up here every day after school, then I take my medicine right away. I have toâ”
“SHUT UP!” the younger kid screams.
The whole room jumps, even the statue ladies.
His words echo. “
SHUT UPâSHUT UPâSHUT UPâSHUT UP!!!!!”
I do it. I shut up right away.
The older kid says, “You've gotta be quiet, okay?”
I nod my head yes, so that I won't have to be talking.