A Simple Case of Angels (7 page)

15

—

The last day
of winter break, Nicola brought gingerbread and salmon cookies to reward June Bug for doing her tricks. She wasn't supposed to bring Mr. Milton food, but if he wanted to try some of June Bug's treats, it would be rude to say no.

Mr. Milton was feeling fine today, Glenda told them when she buzzed them in.

The girls sat side by side on the end of his bed with June Bug between them. Lindsay held the treats out for Mr. Milton, whose hand dipped robotically into the container.

Nicola unfolded the sheet of paper she'd brought.

“We figured out you were interested in angels. Then we found out about this famous book about angels written by another Mr. Milton. But we could hardly read it. So last night my mom told me the story. The part she remembers, anyway. I wrote it down.”

June Bug sniffed the paper in Nicola's hand, as though to read the story, too.

“Once upon a time there were some angels who decided they didn't like living in
h
eaven and getting bossed around by God,”
Nicola read.
“They wanted to be the boss of themselves. So they started a war with the other angels. But the good angels won and kicked the bad ones out. The bad ones fell from heaven, and when they hit the very bottom, that became hell. The fallen angels turned into demons who only wanted to get back at the good angels. First they thought of starting another war, but they got a better idea. They decided to visit earth and mess people up.”

“How does that get back at the good angels?” Lindsay asked.

Nicola lowered the paper. “I asked that, too. Because angels are on the side of people. The bad angels were actually pretty smart. If someone wanted to hurt me, the best way to do it would be to hurt June Bug. Because I love June Bug so much.”

Nicola continued reading.
“This was a long long time ago. There were only two people on earth then, Adam and Eve.”

Mr. Milton, who had slowly crunched through all the treats in the container, lifted one finger in the air.

“I think he wants to say something,” Lindsay said.

Nicola looked up from the page again.

“Entertain strangers,” Mr. Milton said.

“Do not forget to entertain strangers,”
Lindsay recited,
“for by doing so some have entertained angels unawares.”

Mr. Milton's eyes flew open. For a moment something shone out of them that Nicola recognized. June Bug looked at her like that whenever Nicola shook the treat container. Jackson wore the same expression on Christmas morning. Jared did, too, every time the phone rang.

What shone out of Mr. Milton's eyes was hope.

“But what does it mean, Mr. Milton?” Lindsay asked.

“Here,” he said, pointing to the bed. “Here — ”

June Bug, who had been waiting patiently for a treat, now realized she wasn't getting one. She decided to have some fun, which was the next best thing to a treat. She snatched the story out of Nicola's hand and leapt to the floor.

“No, June Bug!” Nicola cried. “I'm not finished reading it!”

Nicola made a grab for June Bug, who scooted under the bed. On her hands and knees, Nicola peered at her dog gleefully tearing the story to bits.

“Bad!” Nicola said. “Bad, bad June Bug!”

* * *

Really, until then, June Bug hadn't been so bad. She'd scratched under some doors. She'd bitten Pierre's nose. She'd licked out the mush bowls. Other than that, she'd almost been good.

And so Nicola had almost forgotten about June Bug's One More Chance.

Until that night.

After dinner, Nicola took a bath. Her parents made her, because of school the next day.

What Nicola liked about taking a bath was how June Bug would sit patiently on the mat, waiting for her to step dripping from the tub. Then she would spring up and lovingly lick the water off Nicola's legs with her tickly pink tongue.

What Nicola hated was leaving her wet hair down. Poor June Bug had no braid to chew until the next day. And her brothers always teased her.

“Ratpunzel, Ratpunzel, let down your hair!” Jackson sang.

“It's RA-punzel,” Nicola screeched.

Jared said, “Oh, Lady Godiva. Where's your horse?”

Lady Godiva was a lady in a story who rode naked on a horse with only her long hair covering her private parts.

“Mo-o-o-o-m!” Nicola wailed.

Mina was working on her crossword puzzle in the den. She glanced up, her eyes red from squinting at the tiny numbered boxes.

“Stop it, you two. Leave your sister alone.”

In pajamas, wet hair in a towel turban, Nicola fled to the kitchen where she poured herself a bowl of cereal. She remembered how hungrily Mr. Milton had crunched June Bug's treats. Did anyone in Shady Oaks Retirement Home get a snack before bed? Probably not.

Then a familiar cry rang out. “June Bug! Oh, June Bug! No!”

Nicola raced back to the den where June Bug was merrily shredding a section of the newspaper the way she'd shredded Nicola's story that afternoon. Mina stood gaping.

“No! June Bug!” Nicola cried. “That's Mom's puzzle!”

Jared, at the computer, swiveled in his chair to watch.

“Mom, I'm sorry!” Nicola cried. “I'll tape it back together. June Bug, stop!”

Nicola caught a corner of the paper. June Bug pulled back, growling. She sounded fierce, like she was prepared to rip off Nicola's arm to keep the paper.

“There's Chance Number Three!” Jared hooted. “One, Two, Three! That dog is out of here!”

Nicola sank to the floor, sobbing. June Bug forgot the crossword puzzle and clamped onto the corner of the towel instead, tugging until she managed to pull it off Nicola's head. Gleefully, she pranced out of the room dragging the towel.

Jared kept chanting, “One, Two, Three! One, Two, Three!”

“Stop it,” Mina told him. “You, too, Nicola. It's time for bed.”

Still weeping, Nicola collected the scraps of puzzle. Jared put his foot over one. Unable to pry it off, she crawled under the desk and flicked the switch on the power bar.

“Hey!” Jared roared. “I was in the Seventh Circle! Now I'm back to the Sixth!”

Nicola ran with all the pieces gathered in her pajama top. She found her mother in her bedroom with June Bug, trying to make her give up the towel. Nicola took the treat container off the shelf and shook it.

June Bug let go of the towel. She Sat and Waved.

And Mina laughed.

“I'm sorry, Mom. Please don't send her away. Please don't let that be her Last Chance.”

Mina pulled Nicola close. “Nicola, we would never send June Bug away. We love her. You were the one who came up with the idea of the Three Chances.”

“I was?”

“Yes.”

“Because Dad said it wasn't working out. He said he'd take her to the SPCA if she was bad.”

“He was frustrated, Nicola. Getting a dog hasn't been the easiest thing we've done as a family. Frankly, having Jackson was easier.”

Mina shook a treat into her hand and held it out to June Bug. “I was supposed to be relaxing over the holidays. Instead I spent all day running to the computer. Running to the dictionary. Twice I woke up in the middle of the night with a crossword answer. I went downstairs to fill it in then couldn't get back to sleep. It was worse than work.”

“So June Bug did a good deed?” Nicola asked.

“I'd say so.” Mina turned to the little black-and-white dog still waving one paw in the air. “Thank you, June Bug. I'm free at last.”

16

—

That night
Nicola slept peacefully — a long dreamless sleep that left her feeling so light in the morning, it seemed she'd grown wings. Because June Bug was safe. She wouldn't ever be sent to the SPCA despite all the bad things she did.

At school Ms. Phibbs had changed the seating. Now Lindsay sat all the way on the other side of the room.

She waved her hand in the air. “Ms. Phibbs? Excuse me? Can I still sit beside Nicola? Please?”

Ms. Phibbs looked up from her lesson book, her eyes a little bloodshot, the sides of her nose chapped.

“Why?”

“We're friends,” Lindsay said.

Nicola glanced over at Lindsay, no longer the girl who sat next to her chattering away about brides. Nicola was grateful Lindsay had helped her over the holidays, but she wasn't sure she wanted to hang around with her at school.

“I'm okay here,” Nicola said.

“There's your answer,” Ms. Phibbs said. “No.”

Lindsay stared at Nicola, her hurt eyes framed in pink. When she turned away, the airy feeling began to seep out of Nicola. A heavy feeling replaced it. A sinking feeling that weighed her down in her chair and caused her to tilt slightly to the left.

Ms. Phibbs called out names. If she called you, you had to write a homework answer on the board. Last year they corrected their homework in groups, but this year they did it in this boring way. Meanwhile, a bad taste filled Nicola's mouth.

She looked around at the new classroom arrangement. There was a wide aisle not quite down the middle of the room. It was a split class, but the aisle didn't separate the two grades. Some other logic had placed Gavin Heinrichs, who threw the Murder Ball so savagely, on the same side as Margo Tamm, who was known to “accidentally” bump and kick people and when they said, “Ouch,” reply, “Do you think I care how you feel?”

Nicola was on their side, not Lindsay's.

At lunch Lindsay found Nicola, who was more or less hiding from her in the crowd of kids milling in the cold around the cordoned-off playground equipment.

Lindsay said, “Are we visiting Shady Oaks today?”

“Actually, June Bug doesn't need to go anymore because my mom promised they'd never send her to the SPCA.”

“Oh,” Lindsay said, squinching so the pink glasses rose and fell on her face. “What about her going to hell?”

“There's no such place.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Mina had answered this same question. She'd said she wasn't sure. So had Ignacio, back in the fall. The horrible taste welled up in Nicola's mouth again and made her feel like spitting.

“And what about Mr. Milton and the others?” Lindsay asked.

“I was only going for my dog.”

Nicola felt miserable the whole rest of the day.

Lindsay spoke to her one more time at the end of school, after the class had finished their detention for not doing a page of homework that Ms. Phibbs hadn't even assigned. The girls were in the cloakroom where their coat hooks were still side by side.

Lindsay whispered, “Why is Ms. Phibbs so mean?”

She seemed to have brushed off Nicola's rejection. Nicola was relieved.

“I had Ms. Phibbs last year and she wasn't mean at all.”

Lindsay said, “I bet she's getting divorced.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Because that's what happens when you get a divorce. You feel really, really sad.”

“She doesn't seem sad,” Nicola said. “She seems mad.”

“You feel sad and mad.”

They went downstairs and out the door of the school.

“What are you doing now?” Nicola asked.

“Going to Shady Oaks.” And Lindsay turned and walked off, leaving Nicola standing in the cold until her eyelashes stuck together.

* * *

They had library time during school to work on their wildlife PowerPoint presentations, but not nearly enough. That night Nicola had to ask her mother to make Jared get off the computer. He slumped on the couch in the den doing his own homework, announcing every few minutes how much time she had left.

“Twelve minutes.”

Coyotes, like all dogs, can hear sounds from four times as far away as humans
, Nicola typed.

“Ten minutes.”

Coyotes can detect smells at a concentration 100 million times lower than humans
.

When her thirty minutes were over, Jared muscled her off the chair.

“I have to save it!” Nicola shrieked.

Then she stood behind him watching him play.

“You said there were nine kinds of angels.”

Jared rattled them off. “Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels, Angels. They all have special powers. ­Seraphim blow fire. I'm on the Principalities now. They join with other Principalities to form armies.”

“But not in real life, right? In the game?”

He pounded the keys, ignoring her. “Die! Die! Yes! Here we go!”

On the screen the game opened into something different. One of the flaming blobs crashed down in a rocky ravine. Once the smoke cleared, Nicola saw that the blob had become a creature with horrible charred bat wings. It got to its feet and loped choppily away.

“See what he's doing?” Jared asked.

Lifting its hand to its blackened face.

“He's covering his nose. Because it stinks in the Seventh Circle. See the steaming piles everywhere? No one poops and scoops in hell.”

“Is this hell?” Nicola asked.

“It's the First Ring of the Seventh Circle, where the violent are condemned.”

“I guess that's where you're going,” Nicola said.

“I hope so. It's my favorite circle so far. You should see where the annoying people end up. I don't think you're going to be too comfortable there.”

A monster reared up from behind a boulder, giving Nicola a start. It had a hairy body even more muscley than Pierre's, a bull's horned head and red glowing eyes. A double-headed ax was slung over its massive shoulder.

The black angel and the monster began to fight. Nicola turned away. “There aren't any dogs in hell, are there?”

“In the Third Circle. A three-headed dog. You're not leaving? You have to see the boiling river of blood.”

How could Jared sleep after that? In bed, every time Nicola closed her eyes, she saw that murky underground place, its sunless sky. She saw swarming flies and dueling monsters. The boiling river of blood, she imagined.

When she couldn't stand it any longer, she dragged her duvet to where there was someone who would keep her safe and warm. Someone small and black and white.

Much later, the kitchen light flicked on.

“Nicola?” Terence said.

Nicola sat up blinking. The tears came right away. “I can't sleep!”

Terence, in a T-shirt and boxer shorts, got down on the kitchen floor. He pulled Nicola's duvet over his bare legs. June Bug wriggled between them and sighed.

“What's bothering you?” he asked.

“Jared showed me Inferno 2! It was horrible! Is there such a place as hell?”

“Yes,” Terence said, and Nicola collapsed into him and sobbed.

“But it's not like that game. That game is a metaphor.”

“What's that?”

“A way of explaining something to make it easier to understand. What happened in the game?”

“An angel fell from heaven and landed in hell. Jared said that was where the violent people went. Then the horriblest monster appeared with a horrible ax thing. And I didn't even wait to see the boiling river of blood.”

“You see? In the game, violence punishes violent people. In real life, violent people are tormented by their violent thoughts. And if they're not too terrible, if they actually feel bad about the things they think and do, they're tormented by their conscience.”

“They feel guilty.”

“Yes. There's no actual place called hell. It's here.” He tapped her head. “Does that make sense?”

“Sort of.” Nicola sniffed.

“Is there any gingerbread left?”

“No.”

“So there's another hell,” Terence said, smiling.

“There's more than one?”

“There are many. Mine, at this particular moment, is waking up in the middle of the night with a powerful yearning for my daughter's gingerbread, only to discover there isn't any left. I guess I'll have cereal. Do you want some?”

Nicola said no. “I'm going back to bed. Thanks, Dad.”

She kissed him goodnight. And she kissed her little dog, who had slept right through this Comforting Talk about What Hell Really Is.