The Despairing Tribulations of a Doomed Boy

Chapter 15

Otto stopped to catch his breath. He had a stitch in his side and his nose casing was making him feel like he was suffocating. When he thought he could talk, he motioned towards one of the smokers to get his attention. "What--" he gasped for air, "What is this place?"

"You ran all the way here just to ask what this place is?" A young man raised his pierced eyebrow at Otto.

"No, I..." Otto didn't know how to answer him. It was hard for him to talk, anyway. "I... Can I come in and get some water or something?" He felt in his back pockets to see if Ruskin left some money in there. There was none.

The group looked at each other and then shrugged their shoulders. "Are you under 18?" The same young man asked.

Otto nodded.

"Then here," he pointed towards a shadow at the door way, "He'll stamp your hand." The shadow moved towards Otto with an ink stamp in his hand.

Once inside, Otto found the bathroom and locked himself in it. The smokiness of the bar wasn't helping his breathing and he needed to take off the nose casing. The music, he found out, was coming from a live band playing in the back of the bar. They were awful. The off-key pounding hurt Otto's head. But he was too afraid to leave the bar. So he stood in his bathroom stall, leaning against the flimsy wall until the music stopped.

Tuesday

On Tuesday, it rained. It started out as a cold drizzle in the night that created a layer of tiny water droplets on Otto's clothes without sinking through the fabric. But as the gray light of a dreary day dawned, the rain drops grew. Before any of the shops opened up, Otto was soaking wet and numb from the cold.

He had spent the night curled up against a brick wall in an alleyway several blocks from the bar, but when his fingers and toes went numb, he started walking—any direction except back towards Ruskin's house. Poor Ruskin, Otto thought, I hope what I told him will work.

A woman ran across the street holding her silver nose-button down. She had no umbrella, but Otto could clearly see what looked like a glass bubble around her, keeping the rain at bay. I wonder if it's heated too, he thought. The woman ran to open the doors of a large, stone building, keeping one hand on her nose-button as she fiddled with the door lock. Otto looked up at the giant metal letters that ran down the side of the building: LIBRARY. Huh. I never knew this was here. He looked around to see if he even knew where "here" was. He didn't.

He followed the woman inside and stood dripping in the space between the glass doors. It was only slightly warmer in here, but at least it was dry. The woman eyed him suspiciously as she went to the front desk computer. Otto smiled and waved his fingers to prove his friendliness, but it only made her narrow her eyes at him in a look that was something between disgust and confusion. Luckily, she didn't throw him out—perhaps out of pity. Otto was allowed to stay in the space between the doors and watch the day pour down while he considered his new options for life.

Nurse Vickers's voice saying, "Oh, no!" and "Otto, run!" kept playing over and over in his head. He had never imagined her sounding so desperate. She was the one that always had a plan—was always in control. She had her "ear to the ground" and had contacts all over the city. How could she get caught? And now that she was, what was he supposed to do? He had nothing and no one left to turn to.

The sun broke through the clouds as the town came awake. Otto watched the cars go by on their way to work. A school bus passed and for the first time, Otto wished he was on it. At least it would be warm and familiar. Across the street, a tall, lanky man dragged himself down the sidewalk. He was as sopping wet as Otto and looked pale and sickly. That's how I'll be soon, Otto thought. In fact, the man looked oddly familiar. His dark hair dripped over his face like an oil spill, but underneath his curtain of bangs was a distinctly white nose-button. Pieter!