Chapter Twenty-one
That night I felt like cashing it all in. Thanks to my mom and what she did to us eight years ago I had gone from the victim of two bullies to public enemy number one. And the worst part was I could not tell a soul, not even my mother. If I had said anything to her she would have panicked, and I would have caught a huge lecture on how I had gotten her into trouble. Mr. Daniels knew what kind of girl I was. He knew I wouldn't tell anyone about his veiled threats or how the district had quietly railroaded me since the court of public opinion might have crucified them had they done anything in the open. I was stuck and I had no idea what to do, except finish my homework for my new class, which was log my shower time and how long I spent in the bathroom. Tomorrow's homework was learning to wash our clothes in, of all things, one of those new-fangled washing machines. Fun. I only hoped I could survive the section on how we had to separate colors from whites. Or maybe it was "proper fabric softener addition" that would do me in.
My sister was the one who noticed my foul mood that night during dinner. We were eating take-out pizza, and I had barely touched the slice on my plate. "What's with you?" she asked, mouth full of pepperoni and pizza crust. "You usually have one slice down by now."
I poked at my pizza and shoved my plate away from me. "I don't know; just not very hungry."
My mom looked at the uneaten slice of pizza and up at me. "Did something happen at school today? Did you have any problems?"
"No. It's just that..." I didn't know exactly what to tell her. "Mr. Daniels came back today."
"WHAT?" Mom jumped up, pushing her chair against the wall. "That man got his job back? You just wait until I go to that school tomorrow! I'll strangle him!"
"Mom, Mom!" I stopped her. The last thing I wanted was for her to go to that school and find out what he dug up on her. "His punishment was one month without a job and he served his punishment. As far as I'm concerned if his brat daughter keeps her big mouth shut it's done. It's over with. Can we just leave it at that?" Mom slowly sat back down, thinking over what I just said.
Aurora agreed with me. "Yeah Mom. You go down there screaming at the principal and you'll just make it worse for Mer. They already think she's nuts; if you go down there and show your butt they'll just think it runs in the family. If Mer is okay with it, don't push it, all right?"
The truth was Aurora was more worried about her own reputation than she was worried about mine, but for the moment I appreciated her for helping me out. Mom calmed down, turning her attention back to her pizza. But not without asking one final time, "Are you sure? I don't want that ass giving you a hard time because you got him suspended."
I wanted to correct her, to tell her "we" got him suspended. But that might force us into territory I wanted to avoid. So I simply said, "He hasn't said anything to me so far. I think he's afraid to." It was a complete lie; I knew it, and there was a good chance Aurora knew it. But I knew she wouldn't contradict me, and neither of us wanted Mom at that school screaming her head off. "Anyway, the worst part of the school day was the class change. I got swapped out of art." I figured I had to tell her that part. I wouldn't be bringing any large-scale art projects home anymore and she'd probably notice.
"What?" Once again she was preparing to jump. I stopped her.
"No, no. It's a normal class change. Everybody got switched. We get more courses that way. I just don't like the class I got swapped to."
"What class was that?" She demanded.
I was honest. "Life skills. It's a very lame class. I thought if I was going to swap, might as well pick an easy-A class. But it's boring. They're teaching us how to wash laundry."
Mom laughed. "But you already know how to wash laundry."
I kind of laughed myself. The idea of it was really absurd. "Yeah, but a lot of the idiots in that class don't."
Mom took a huge bite of pizza. "If you don't like it Mer, switch it. I'm sure there's still time."
I took a huge drink of water so I could come up with an answer. "Um, yeah. I'll try that. But I think I'm pretty stuck at this point. Besides, an easy A is an easy A, right?"
Mom nodded and the matter was closed. "Well, you just let me know if that jerk gives you a hard time. I'll be at that school in a second." I agreed, getting up to go to my room. "Gotta go write in my log book." It took me thirty seconds to do my homework. Shower: 5 minutes. Bonus points: I used soap and a wash cloth! I tossed that little bit of sarcasm in there for good measure, knowing the coach would never read the journal, and if he did he wouldn't catch my stab at being a smartass. Homework done, I sat in my room for the rest of the night, avoiding questions and the chance that I might screw up and tell them something I didn't want them to know. The one and only time I had a knock at the door was right before bedtime, when my mother wanted to know if I wanted to talk. I replied by saying, "Can't. Still doing homework." And she walked away, telling me to come to her if I needed anything. I was glad I spared her the knowledge they were calling her a child abuser at my school. Sometimes, on very rare occasions, my mom was a good mother. It didn't happen often, but it did happen. I had to protect her from this, even if it meant suffering through that last painful class until school let out. Besides, I could always keep up with my art; it just wouldn't be at school.
That night it took me a while to fall asleep. I stared up at the ceiling, wondering what kind of hell awaited me the rest of the year. Was this the only humiliation I would have to suffer, or since he had me pushed up against a wall, would he and his demon spawn make my life unbearable? I hated Mr. Daniels, I hated Sasha. I hated Jennifer, but at least she had that boarding school still hanging over head, so more than likely she would at least lay off for a month or so. Until then maybe I could come up with a new strategy. And Sasha's reign was about to end. A little over three months now and she'd be graduating, heading off to college where, hopefully, someone bigger and bitchier than her would put her in her place. And with the Terrible Two broken, perhaps my senior year would be a little easier. Things would work out, I was sure of it.
I woke up on the outskirts of Dream Land. I was on the side of the park that faced the forest, quite a distance away from the beach. Instantly I threw myself against the chain-link fence, worried that some of Calperal's guards might be on the lookout for me. It had been a mere 24 hours since I had been here in reality, but in Psitharis time it had been two days. I wondered how far ahead Roland was. Hopefully he was halfway up the mountain by now. I looked around and surveyed my immediate surroundings.
If the front of the park had suffered from years of neglect, the back of the park looked to have suffered through a war. There were broken ride parts littering the entire bottom half of the mountainside. Old vending stands leaned on their sides or sat in a broken pile. It looked like a junkyard that went up until it disappeared into the forest. Toys from when the park had been my refuge lay scattered like forgotten corpses, so old and decayed some of them blended into the mud they were carelessly tossed into. I ventured out carefully from the fence, walking through a small path that remained, despite the years of stockpiling and hoarding trash. The air was thick with insects, more than likely from all of the old, discarded food. It was a frightening place, scarier than any graveyard at midnight or horror movie lakeside scene. I was treading lightly, sinking into the mud every now and then. At one point I tripped and landed against a pyramid of old coaster pieces, which caused a chain reaction that brought the entire pile crashing down. I ran like a scalded dog to avoid being buried by old coaster cars and twisted, rusty track. Shit, I thought, they're coming now! I made a run for it, getting deeper and deeper into the fun park graveyard and now heading up a slight incline as the base of the mountain came into view. I ran until I was completely out of breath, and I found an old photo booth to hide in.
The interior of the booth was still in decent condition. Mold threatened to take over the bottom corners of the booth, but it had not gone any further along the walls. There were old pictures of past patrons lining the walls. I took some of them off the wall and grinned. These people were happy. They were smiling. They weren't the same zombies I witnessed during my brief span as the music box dancer. I leafed through the strips of four pictures. There were couples kissing and holding hands, there were kids making rabbit ears and sticking their tongues out. These were the people I remembered, the happy people. The people I created in my head to keep me from drowning in my childhood loneliness. They talked to me, they understood me. And now they were either dead or wishing they were dead. My grin turned into a frown and sobs began to emanate from the innermost part of me. I slumped over to one corner and clutched the pictures in my hands, crying my eyes out. I did this. I put these people in this despair. They were just as miserable here as I was in real life. How in the hell was I going to get them out again when I couldn't even get myself out?
Suddenly an arm reached in and grabbed me, jerking me out of the photo booth in one clumsy pull. I tried to get to my feet so I could defend myself, but then I noticed I wasn't being held by a goon, and this grip was so familiar. Only this time instead of holding me fast, Roland let me go the moment my feet were on steady ground again. "You don't want to stick around here, especially when it gets dark."
I brushed the dirt off my bottom and threw the pictures down on the ground. After all, they weren't going to do me much good. I did decide to put one particular set of pictures of two happy children in a pocket in my jacket, as a reminder of what I needed to do next. "Why? What happens here after dark?"
Roland was already walking in the direction of the hillside. "This place is a graveyard. There are ghosts here. Scary things happen in this place. Besides, you don't want to get caught by Calperal. He's ready to have you skinned alive."
"So, you gonna follow me around with that thing pointed at my back?" I quipped, glancing down at the sword sheathed at his side.
"Nah." Roland smiled. "You saved my life. I figure I owe you a little trust. Besides, what's the point? You're probably going to disappear anyway at some point. But somehow we always find each other." I smiled back and nodded, but that comment stuck with me. It was true; we did always somehow find each other. It wasn't just a fluke. We were bound in this world together whether we liked it or not. And I for one was beginning to like it, even though he was a bit on the pompous side.
I followed Roland for a mile or so, until the junk from days gone by begin to trickle into little more than an image at the bottom of our horizon. There was a fence at the boundary of the junkyard, but not much of one. We were thoroughly ensconced in the woods before he felt an inclination to stop. We made camp in a small clearing, just as the sun was setting. I would have given anything for a fire, but it was no use. Roland wouldn't build one; a glowing spot on the mountainside would have been a dead giveaway. We would have been caught before the last ember burned, and since he didn't know what his official status was with the queen, capture was simply not any option for either of us. I curled up in the corner of the clearing, my feeble jacket providing little protection from the cold. Roland had it worse. He was only wearing the sparse uniform of the lowly slave, and as it often reached temperatures of over a hundred degrees in the tunnels they were inclined to wear as little as possible. He was dirty and there were grease marks all over his nearly-bare chest. I didn't want to admit it, but he was so handsome. But didn't I hate this guy? I had to hate this guy! He was taking me to my death! Calm down Medora, I reminded myself. Good looking guy equals bad guy. Trying to divert my attention from looking at this half naked man, I looked around at our surroundings while we had just a small amount of light left. "So," I began, "do you think we'll be okay here?"
Roland almost smiled. "Yeah. Calperal's guards are big and fierce, but they're deathly afraid of the dark, especially the dark in the graveyard. Too many noises, too many apparitions." I could see in the coming darkness my would-be warden trying to shrug off the cold, without success.
"Listen. We're going to freeze to death if we don't at least huddle together to keep warm." He looked apprehensive at this plan. "If you don't try anything, I won't try anything. I'm pretty sure I can control myself." Laughing, he maneuvered over to my side of the clearing, putting his arm around me as he nestled into my side. Instantly it was a lot warmer; as a matter of fact it got rather hot. I felt like this heat could make me melt. Why was I so warm all of a sudden? Eh, who cared? Warm to the point where I could have started sweating, I snuggled beside this guy who was supposed to be my arch enemy and eventually my eyes started to droop. "Remember," I said, sleep threatening to overtake me, "if I disappear, don't go far. I'll return."
"Yes, yes. I remember." Roland replied, sounding as tired as I did. And as strange as it sounds, I wound up falling asleep...in my dream. Roland was so warm and, as bad as the cliché sounds, he made me feel safe. Unfortunately it wasn't long before my mom's voice intruded on my nap, and when I opened my eyes I was cuddled up to my pillow, still feeling the heat of the body that had just been beside me.
