Better Than Weird (8 page)

His squirrel wasn't like all the other squirrels. It was different. It had a flash of white at the end of its black tail that made it easy to recognize.

In the fall he had watched his squirrel chew twigs off the tree, carry them to the top and stash them into a pile in the fork made by three branches. It collected leaves and huge mouthfuls of dry grasses to add to the growing structure. Sometimes he saw his squirrel pop its head out of the top of the nest and look around, just like the periscope of a submarine.

Sometimes his squirrel chased other squirrels that came into its yard.

“Don't fall. Don't fall,” Aaron had called out once when he saw his squirrel hanging from a twig. The twig sagged, dragged down by the animal's weight, but the squirrel didn't fall. It dropped to a lower branch, then made a flying leap to the fence. From there it chased the invading squirrel out of its yard.

My squirrel stands up for itself
, Aaron thought.
It
doesn't let anybody boss it around. Nobody. I'm not gonna
let nobody push me around either. I'm not.
Then he sighed, because he knew that wasn't true.

More snow fell. By the time Aaron got to school, everybody was excited.

“Just a reminder, boys and girls,” Mr. Ulanni, the principal, announced over the pa system before recess. “There will be no throwing snowballs in the schoolyard. Keep the snow on the ground. Teachers on yard duty, please send anyone caught throwing snowballs to the office.”

That day the snow lay deep. It was wet and heavy, and very sticky. In no time, more than a dozen snowballs grew to enormous sizes across the field, each one pushed by five, six, seven kids at a time. Other kids, the ones that weren't pushing, started cheering on their friends, shouting advice and bringing handfuls of snow to pack into cracks and dents to hold the snowballs together and make them evenly round.

Aaron stumbled from one group to another, checking out the progress of each. He watched and laughed, his laughter feeding on the excitement around him.

When the end-of-recess bell rang, nobody wanted to go inside. Handbells clanged as the yard-duty teachers hustled kids toward the building. Aaron was the last one in. Outside, it had been cold and bright. Inside, his glasses fogged up and everything looked dark. He stopped. He couldn't see a thing. He was groping his way forward when he was bodychecked into the wall. “Huh!” he grunted. “Watch it! That hurt!”

“You wreck our snowball, you die!” a voice hissed.

“I…I never,” he started, not sure who he was talking to.

The yard-duty teacher came through the doors. “You'll be late for class, boys,” he said. “Better get moving.”

“I…,” Aaron started. The teacher walked away.

Aaron blinked. There were more footsteps, then silence. It wasn't until his glassed cleared and his eyes adjusted to the light that he realized he was alone. Relieved, he climbed the stairs, but when he reached the upper hallway, he saw Tufan waiting beside the open door. “Today's the day,” he said as Aaron approached.

“Today? What day is it?” Aaron asked.

“The day you die.”

“I didn't…I didn't touch your snowball.”

“But you messed up my jacket when you jumped into your stupid puddle, and I got in trouble. It's gonna cost you. You're gonna pay.” Then he walked through the door and pulled it shut, leaving Aaron on the wrong side.

Around noon the snow stopped, but the sky didn't clear. In fact, new clouds moved in. They looked ominously dark, and even before the lunch break was over, it started snowing again. This time, flurries of snow, whipped by winds, were sent eddying in all directions.

At dismissal time, Mr. Ulanni came on the pa to tell everyone to go straight home. Aaron, who was hurrying to put on his hat and coat, noticed Tufan, dressed and ready to go, leaning against the wall as if he was waiting for someone.

Me
, Aaron thought.
He's waiting for me. Today's
the day.

He wanted to run. If he was a squirrel, he could run and jump right over Tufan. He'd get away. Maybe he'd even turn on Tufan. Chase
him
away. He glanced up. Tufan was still leaning against the wall. Waiting. Aaron felt sick.

When he saw Jeremy hoist his backpack to his shoulder, he hurried to his side. Tufan wouldn't do anything if Jeremy was there. When Jeremy walked down the hall, Aaron followed. Together they clattered down the stairs. At the bottom, Aaron glanced back. The staircase was empty. Safe, he thought. I won't die today. Not today. But when they stepped out, Jeremy saw Karima near the schoolyard gate. “I gotta go,” he said. “See you.” And before Aaron could say anything, Jeremy took off, running.

Aaron looked back a second time. He was still alone.

The walk home wasn't easy. At times the wind blew into Aaron's face. He felt it cutting, biting, slicing at his skin. Then it shifted, and he felt himself pushed from behind. That made his heart clench.
Was it…? No. Still
safe. Still safe.

The snow that had built up on the sidewalk during the day was deep enough to reach the top of his boots. Walking was hard. He tried big-stepping over the drifts, lifting his feet high and stomping them down. He wished for wings.
If I had wings, I could fly over everything
, he thought. In spite of the wind and the snow, he climbed a snowbank, lifted his arms and jumped, but the flying part didn't happen. He fell and landed in a heap. It made him laugh. The laughter ended when he thought he heard a voice call his name.

“Aaaaaroooon.” It was a low sound. Lower than the wind. He wasn't sure. Did he hear it?

He turned and looked around; the sidewalk was empty.

Then he heard it again. “Aaaaaroooon.”

Aaron began to run.

Running was hard, but he kept going until his chest ached and a scratchy
CHROO-CHROO-CHROO
sound came from his lungs.
Like a train,
he thought. The image of an old-fashioned train with a cowcatcher at the front filled his head as his feet plowed through the drifts. The
CHROO-CHROO-CHROO
sounds grew louder. When he couldn't go any farther, he stopped, put his hands on his thighs and leaned forward, gasping. He peered under his arm to see who was behind him. Nobody. There was nobody there. He sighed with relief, then straightened and looked around.

That's when he saw it. A shadow behind a car parked on the other side of the street. It disappeared, only to reappear through the window of the car ahead. The sight of it made him whimper, the sound catching in his throat as he took off again, running.

This time he didn't stop until he reached the walkway to his house.
Home
, he thought.
Home safe.
But with his next step, his foot landed on an icy patch. His arms rose instinctively, whirling, struggling for balance. It did no good. The ground below him vanished, and he fell. Pain, red as a fireball, exploded behind his eyes. He yelped.

Behind him, the voice said, “Gotcha now.”

Frantic, Aaron scrambled forward on hands and knees and crawled up the steps to the veranda. At the top he glanced back to see a gray figure on the road behind him: a warrior preparing for battle; a warrior standing, legs apart, packing a snowball, taking his time.

Aaron rushed to the door, but the snowball whomped into the back of his head, making it snap forward, then back.
Ice ball,
he thought as his glasses flew off.

“Bull's-eye!” the warrior shouted. He laughed when Aaron dropped to his knees. “Praying won't help!” the warrior called.

Aaron picked up his glasses, but before he could put them on, a second snowball splattered the wall beside him, sending bits of snow and ice into his face. He squeezed his eyes shut and reached for the knob. When the door opened, he fell inside and scrabbled across the mat into the hallway. He turned then and shoved at the door until he heard the latch click shut.

“You can run, but you can't hide,” the voice called. Tufan's voice. He was sure now. Tufan's voice. “I'll get you tomorrow.”

Aaron groaned. He pushed his glasses back on his face and sagged against the door.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
The word echoed.
Tomorrow I die.

THIRTEEN

Aaron crouched on the hallway floor, his face dripping, his glasses fogged. He pulled them off, letting them drop as he blinked water out of his eyes. Then he lifted his hand to rub away the wetness. The movement sent waves of pain shooting to his shoulder and he yelped again.

“Aaron? Is that you, Aaron?” Gran's voice. “I'm in the basement,” she called. “I'll be right up.”

Leaning against the door, he pushed himself to his feet before he staggered along the hallway and up the stairs to the bathroom.

Once inside, he locked the door and shrugged off his coat. “Ow! Ow! Ow!” he moaned as the weight of the coat slid down his arm. He took a deep breath and gingerly hiked up the sleeve of his sweatshirt. The hurting part seemed to be at the back of his arm, but it was hard to see. He tried looking over his shoulder into the mirror, but the hurting part stayed just out of sight.

I need eyes on the back of my head,
he thought, remembering something Gran often said. Her words had always made Aaron giggle as he tried to imagine how hard it would be for ‘back of the head' eyes to see through all the hair. Now he wished his head had extra eyes.

“Aaron! Are you upstairs, Aaron?”

He groaned. There was anger in Gran's voice and in the thump of her footsteps as she came up the stairs.

“Do you know where you left your glasses? You left them on the floor beside the front door! And the carpet is soaked. Did you go upstairs wearing your boots? What's the matter with you? Where is your head today?”

Aaron looked into the bathroom mirror. His head was where it always was. He looked down. A puddle was forming on the bathroom tiles.

“Uh-oh,” he muttered. He kicked one boot into the space beside the toilet, the other against the cabinet, before he picked them up and dropped them into the bathtub.

“Aaron! Open the door!” Gran ordered.

“I have to go,” Aaron called out as he pulled a towel off the rack. He dropped it to the floor and stepped on it, hoping to soak up the water so Gran wouldn't notice.

“Aaron! Open this door!” Gran was shouting now.

“Jeez! Give me a minute!” he called back, giving the floor a last swipe before tossing the towel into the cupboard.

“It…I had an emergency,” he called out. “I couldn't wait,” he said as he stepped out.

“Where are your boots?” Gran asked.

Aaron pointed to the tub. “I put them in there. I didn't know where else to put them.” He did his best to look as if he'd been trying to be helpful.

“Oh, for goodness sake,” Gran said. “Pick up your coat and take your boots downstairs to the mat.”

She watched as he bent to pick up his belongings. It was a lot to hold with one hand, and when a boot slipped from his fingers, his right hand reached for it instinctively. The pain of it made him yelp again.

* * *

“How did you hurt your arm?” the triage nurse in the emergency department asked. Aaron told her about slipping on the walkway. She nodded and checked the rest of him. Nothing else hurt until she ran her fingers over the back of his head. Then he flinched. “What about this lump?” she asked.

“Lump?” Gran said.

“There's a lump?” Aaron asked. He ran his fingers over a swelling on the back of his head.

“Did your head hit the pavement when you fell?”

“No. Yes. Maybe. I guess.”

“That's a lot of answers. Which one would you like to go with?” The nurse smiled, but there was something about her voice that made Aaron nervous.

He squirmed, trying to remember. Had his head hit the sidewalk when he fell? He wasn't sure. He
was
sure about the ice ball. Did that make the bump? Should he tell?

I could rat him out
, he thought.
I could tell, and
Tufan would be in trouble.
For a moment, the thought of Tufan in trouble felt good. But that thought was followed by a jumble of others:
He'll get mad all over
again
. “I don't get mad, I get even.” That's what he'd said. But Aaron knew better. He had seen Tufan get mad. And he had seen him get even.
He's done it before.
He'll do it again. That's what he'll do. He'll get even all
over again.

“My head hit the pavement when I fell,” he said, echoing the nurse's question.

She frowned. “Not sure how that could have happened. The bump is pretty low down. Did you fall on something? Was there something sticking up? A brick? A stone? Did somebody hit you with something?”

“Nobody hit me!” Aaron said.

The nurse frowned. She went to get an ice pack and showed Aaron how to hold it up to the lump. Then she kept asking questions until Gran started to frown and question him too. But no matter what they asked, Aaron kept saying, “Nobody hit me. Nobody.”