Colin Fischer (2 page)

Colin clutched his precious
, dog-eared Notebook to his chest. The Notebook had seen better days, though it had been fastidiously cared for. Its red cover was faded, the metal spiral down its side showed the wear of a slow but inevitable unraveling, and the holes in the cardboard were worn down from constant opening and closing.

The Notebook, in Colin’s way—unspoken, but demonstrated—was loved.

He pushed his way through the sea of humanity around him, sometimes bobbing, sometimes swimming, eyes downcast to avoid the gaze and attention of any predator that might hunt the hallway. Collisions with other students occurred, though infrequently, in spite of Colin’s best efforts. “Excuse me,” he would say without looking as someone brushed his arm. “Please don’t touch me,” as elbow met elbow. “I’m sorry.”

Colin’s eyes flicked upward, having counted every step before this last one, knowing there were precisely twenty-seven between his locker and the Boys’ Room. The heavy wooden door dwarfed him, and for a moment Colin fixed on the blue triangular sign just next to it. Colin didn’t like the color blue. It made him feel cold.

Still, he pushed against the door, taking care to
protect the Notebook from coming into contact with any part of it—especially the blue triangular sign.

The Boys’ Room was dimly lit and dirty. Colin carefully set his Notebook on a narrow black shelf and stood at the white porcelain sink. He noted with a wince that the sink itself was not very clean or well-cared-for, and after a moment’s hesitation turned on the faucet (one turn–
beat
–two turns–
beat
–three turns, now
wash
). Two drops of soap from the dispenser—blue, which Colin didn’t like, but there was nothing to be done about it.

It was only after rinsing his hands, when his bespectacled eyes met his own in the decaying mirror, that Colin realized he was not alone. Wayne Connelly stood behind him.

Wayne was a beast, Colin’s opposite in every way. He was broad, thick, giving the impression that he might have been carved out of solid rock rather than born from flesh-and-blood woman. Colin turned toward him, and Wayne smiled.

Colin scrutinized the smile. Analyzed it. What did it mean? He pictured a series of flash cards, each with a different sort of smile drawn on it, each carefully hand-labeled for proper identification:

FRIENDLY. NERVOUS. HAPPY. SURPRISED. SHY. CRUEL.

“Hello, Wayne,” Colin said, as if he were reading from a script. “How are you today?”

Wayne’s smile widened as he grabbed Colin, quick for someone of his size. His indelicate fingers twisted the material of Colin’s striped polo shirt, then hoisted him into the air and carried him toward a bathroom stall.

“My shirt,” Colin observed. “You’ll ruin it.”

“Bill me, Fischer,” Wayne answered. He kicked the stall door closed with a loud
clack
that made Colin shudder. “After you say hello to the sharks.”

CRUEL
, Colin decided as his head went into the toilet, thrashing but helpless. The smile was definitely
CRUEL
.

The Fischer house
was in every way ordinary.

Nestled in the northwestern corner of the San Fernando Valley, it more or less resembled every other house nestled in the northwestern corner of the San Fernando Valley: two stories, a beige exterior, and architecture that attempted (halfheartedly) to evoke Spanish colonialism.

The backyard contained one unique feature: a trampoline, well-used, bought for Colin when it was discovered that bouncing helped him relax, focus, and think. Here, reassured by intermittent weightlessness, he was free to imagine himself unbound by earthly concerns. Up-down, up-down, up-down…usually for hours, and always alone.

Colin stood at the gate, eyes fixed on the trampoline, his hair matted and his clothes soaked. In his hand, he clutched his Notebook, which had mercifully been spared Colin’s unexpected and unwanted encounter
with the toilet. For a moment, he considered losing himself to the trampoline’s elastic embrace—but then he thought better of it. His wet clothes would in turn make the trampoline wet, and that simply would not do.

Instead, Colin hurried up the walk and burst into the kitchen.

He barely registered the presence of his parents and younger brother gathered around the breakfast table, so he did not see their looks of surprise and concern, or in Danny’s case, the look of weariness, exasperation, and vague dread. Even if he had seen them, Colin would have had neither the time nor the inclination to process or understand them. Colin was on a very particular mission, on his own particular timetable.

Mrs. Fischer checked her watch: eight A.M. “That was a quick first day,” his mother observed, her irony as lost on Colin as it usually was. “Taking ‘homeroom’ kinda literally, aren’t we?”

Mr. Fischer nodded as he rose from his place at the table. He started after Colin like a border collie off to round up an errant sheep. “Whoa there, Big C.”

Colin stopped in his tracks, a learned response to his father’s kind but commanding voice. He turned toward his father, head tilted down, avoiding his gaze—not out of shame, but because Colin avoided any gaze unless absolutely necessary. It had the effect of making the boy seem perpetually sad, although he almost never was.

“Lose a fight with a fire hose?” Mr. Fischer asked, watching the water drip from Colin’s soaked polo shirt onto the tile floor.

His mother didn’t wait for the answer. She was already halfway up the stairs. Fourteen years of the unexpected had trained her to swing into action on a moment’s notice, even in the absence of complete information or explanation. “I’ll get a towel.”

Danny shook his head as he realized Colin’s predicament and what had likely brought him to it. “Holy crap,” he said. Then he saw his father’s reproachful look and turned back to his pancakes. “Yeah, yeah. ‘Eat your breakfast, Danny.’ I know.”

His mother reappeared a moment later. Colin took the towel she offered, careful not to touch her, and began to run it through his hair.

“So we’re waiting for the story,” his father said. He leaned against the kitchen wall with his arms folded, fixed on Colin with his particular, patient
CONCERN
, letting the suggestion hang there. You couldn’t push Colin to do or say anything, but if you made your expectations clear, he invariably gave you what he felt you needed—if not precisely what you asked for.

“I got wet,” Colin said, as if that explained everything. Which in Colin’s mind, it did. Then he turned and climbed the stairs toward his room.

“Way to crack the old whip,” Danny said, and went back to his breakfast.

The first thing
a visitor to the Fischer house would notice about Colin’s bedroom was the portrait hanging over his bed. It was a framed, black-and-white photograph of Basil Rathbone in a deerstalker cap and a houndstooth cloak with a long, curved pipe perched on the edge of his bottom lip. His pose was thoughtful and distant, as though he were aware of the photographer but possessed of greater concerns. He was in this portrait not Basil Rathbone at all—he was Sherlock Holmes.
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