Diorama

1

The locker door slammed against my spine, the metal vibrating through my whole body. Walt Gluegun's breath was hot and wet on my ear. "Think God can hear you in there, Puppington?" he sneered. His friends snickered, a sound like gravel scraping concrete. One of them kicked my feet out from under me, and my knees smacked the linoleum. I didn't make a sound. I just squeezed my eyes shut and pictured the inside of Walt's head, a tiny, empty room with no doors.I could see Doughy's shoes from the corner of my eye. His worn-out sneakers, untied. He was standing there, frozen, clutching his geography book to his chest like it was a shield. He always froze. It was like he was watching a movie of it happening to someone else."Hey, Latchkey," Walt said, turning his attention to him. "Who's at home to kiss your boo-boos when you're gone?"Doughy didn't answer. He just looked down at the scuff marks on his shoes. Walt shoved him, not hard, just enough to make him stumble. It was the casualness of it that hurt the most. We weren't even people to them. We were just things to be pushed.They finally left, their laughter echoing down the hall of Diorama Elementary. I pushed myself up, my legs feeling like jelly. Doughy still hadn't moved."You okay?" I asked, my voice raspy.He finally looked at me, but his eyes were somewhere else. "They're just... noise," he said, his voice completely flat. "Like the hum of the refrigerator. You learn to tune it out."I didn't say anything else. We just walked.Later, we were walking past the hardware store, the plastic bag with our diorama supplies swinging from my hand. The sun was setting, making the gray storefronts of Moralton look bruised."It's not enough, Orel," Doughy said, kicking at a loose pebble in the sidewalk. It skittered into the gutter."What's not enough?" I asked."The project. Making a little town. It's a lie. All of it."I knew what he meant. Mrs. Sculptham wanted us to build a perfect Moralton, with its smiling citizens and perfect, straight streets. She wanted us to glue little plastic people into a scene that didn't exist outside of her classroom."They want us to build a diorama of a place that doesn't exist," I said, the words feeling heavy in my mouth. "I hate the human race."Doughy stopped walking and looked right at me. For the first time all day, he seemed to be really there. "So let's build the one that does."A cold feeling, sharp and clear, went through me. It wasn't a bad feeling. It was the opposite of bad. It was the feeling of a puzzle piece clicking into place."What are you talking about?" I asked, though I think I already knew."We don't build their Moralton," he said, his voice getting lower, more intense. He gestured with his head toward the town. "We build this one. The real one. The one with the locker dents and the empty rooms and the people who just... watch."He looked at the bag in my hand. "We have the clay. We have the paint. We can make them see.""See what?""Everything," he said, and a tiny smile touched his lips, but it wasn't a happy smile. It was a sharp, dangerous smile. "I have a vision of death and I love it. We make the church, but we make the windows all black. Like nobody's home. We make the school, but we leave the doors wide open. And the people..." He trailed off, looking down the street. "The people don't have to be smiling. They can be... waiting. Or they can be gone. Just left little holes where they used to be."We started walking again, but we were walking faster now. The bag of supplies felt heavier. It wasn't just clay and paint anymore. It was a weapon."We could make the town hall all crooked," I said, the ideas starting to come fast. "Like it's tired of standing up straight. My belief is that if I say something, it goes. I'm the law.""And the library," Doughy added, his voice buzzing with a quiet energy. "The books could all be on the floor. Pages torn out. The world is a meat grinder, and you're either the meat or the grinder."