Scorpion Shards (6 page)

Meltdown! Fleiderman lost it, and he lunged at Michael, grabbing him by the throat. Michael pushed him away, but Fleiderman lunged again, growling—baring his teeth like a mad dog. Fleiderman smashed the boy with the back of his hand, then threw Michael to the ground; Michael tried to scramble away, but Fleiderman was too fast. He was on Michael, pinning him to the ground; he raised his heavy fist, ready to bring it across Michael's jaw with a blow that would surely break it.

“Stop!” said Michael. “They're watching!”

Fleiderman's wild uneven breath gave way to a whine as he looked up to see that the fog had lifted just enough for the school windows to be seen all around them. Faces peered out from classrooms on all sides, as if this was a Roman circus and Michael was fodder for the lion.

“Kill him, Fleiderman,” shouted some kid from the third floor. “Kill the creep!”

Fleiderman could have—it was in his power, and it was certainly in his eyes; instead, the guidance counselor bit his own lip and continued biting it until it bled. Then he fell off of Michael and crouched in a humiliated heap, trying to find himself once more.

“My God!” muttered Fleiderman. “What am I doing? What's wrong with me?”

“It's not you,” said Michael, refusing to let his own tears out. “It's me. I turn people crazy. I'm like . . . a full moon, only worse.”

Fleiderman wiped blood from his lips as he crouched low, still unable to look up at Michael.

“You won't be going to this school anymore,” he told Michael, finally getting to the bottom line.

“I'm being expelled?”

“Transferred.” Which to Michael was the same thing.

Fleiderman began to breathe hard, fighting back words of anger. Michael could tell because his face was turning red, and although Michael felt like kicking Fleiderman in the gut, he didn't. Instead he dug deep within himself, to find a feeling that was decent, and when he found it, Michael took his hand and gently rested it on Fleiderman's hunched shoulder.

“It's all right,” said Michael. “You can say it if it makes you feel better—it doesn't bother me.”

“I hate you!”
said Fleiderman.

“Say it again.”

“I hate you
 . . .” Just saying the words seemed to release some of Fleiderman's steam. He quivered the tiniest bit.

Although those words hurt, they also gave Michael a sense of control. He could bring people down to their knees in love or hate, altering their very nature. He could turn a bright, sunny disposition into a storming fury. He could turn the heart of an ice-queen into hot steam. Such awesome power must be worth something.

Michael patted Fleiderman's shoulder and turned to leave. As Michael crossed the quad, his thoughts became a bit clearer and what fog was left in his own mind began to lift, along with the fog in the quad. Now that the worst was over, he felt relieved as he went back into school to clear out his locker.

As Michael left the quad, Fleiderman began to feel his fury fading. In a moment, Fleiderman's humanity came crawling back to him, and he began to condemn himself and obsess over
this awful thing he had just done—for no reason he could figure out. He felt ashamed and terrified.

Love and hate being two sides of the same coin, Fleiderman began to wonder if the unfortunate Miss Benson also felt this way once Michael Lipranski had been removed from her company.

T
HAT NIGHT, WHILE THE
rest of the Eastern seaboard was densely padded with storm systems, a patch of clear sky stalled over eastern Long Island, making it a perfect night for the annual star-watch. After sunset, four dozen kids gathered to spend an evening on Montauk Point with their science teacher, peering through his telescope, drawing star maps by flashlight, and calculating the speed of the earth's rotation.

Both Michael and Lourdes were advised not to come, which was more certain to assure their attendance than giving them a printed invitation. Michael, who had been sporting a fake license for almost a year now, drove up in his father's van, and no one was quite sure how or when Lourdes got there; at times she was amazingly stealthy for a girl of her size.

Montauk Point was a state park surrounded by cold, rough ocean on three sides, and the bluff beyond the lighthouse was the farthest east one could get in the state of New York. It was the tip of Long Island and simply as far as you could go. Unless, of course, you chose to take one step further east—off the cliff and into the sea.

It was around eleven that night that Michael Lipranski stood at the tip of the lighthouse bluff, contemplating that final step east that would send him plunging to his death in the cold breakers.

For Michael, the evening hadn't begun with such thoughts, but it had begun desperately. The star-watch was a great
make-out opportunity—and on his last day at this school, Michael felt compelled to take advantage of that.

Upon arrival, Michael had set his charms on Melissa Brickle, who was, by nature, the school's wallflower. One smile from Michael changed her nature considerably. He took her to the high bluff behind the lighthouse—the most easterly place—and there, to the sound of waves and the pulse of the spinning light arcing over their heads, Michael got down to business.

Michael's kisses were more frantic than passionate, more compulsive than romantic, but Melissa did not notice, for, as Michael knew, no one had ever kissed Melissa Brickle this way before, and her own new and overwhelming feelings blocked out everything else. Michael could feel himself trespassing in the dark places of her mind, releasing those feelings like wild beasts from a cage. A thin ground fog carpeted the grass around them, slipping off the cliff in a slow vapor fall. The mist seemed to be flowing from the two of them.

Through it all, Michael's mind and body were exploding with emotions. Frustration, anger, confusion all fought for control—but what he felt more than anything tonight was futility. No matter what he did, no matter how many girls he lured into secret corners—even if he took them all the way and absolutely gave in to all of his urges—he still would not be satisfied. Instead his urges would only increase—they would grow and drive him insane. Michael's grip on Melissa grew stronger as they kissed—so strong that it must have been hurting her, but she didn't notice. She wouldn't notice even if Michael really did hurt her.

“Tighter,” she said. “Hold me tighter.”

And as he tightened his grip, Michael came to understand that this frenzied necking was a violation of the girl. He had, in some way, entered this girl's mind—he
made
her want all
the things that he could do to her, and this was a violation as real as any other. Michael was terrified of what he was turning into, and what awful things he might be capable of.

Before it went too far, Michael pushed Melissa away.

“What's the matter?” she asked. “Did I do something wrong?”

She moved toward him again, then this shy, sweet girl slipped her hand into his jacket, and shirt, shamelessly rubbing his chest.

Michael gently grabbed her hand and placed it back down in her lap. “Better stop,” he said.

“Better not,” she whispered. She tried to snuggle up to him, but Michael stood up.

“Just go!” screamed Michael. “Get out of here!” But she did not move—so he reached down, picked up a clump of dirt and hurled it at her shoes.

Confused and humiliated, Melissa ran off in tears.

Good
, thought Michael. Because there were worse things she could feel than humiliation.

Soon the sound of her footfalls faded, and Michael was left alone with his bloated, malignant urges. But those urges could be killed, couldn't they? The sound of the crashing ocean made him think of that. Those soul-searing urges that ate him alive could be destroyed by one single step east. Right now anything seemed better than having to feel That Way anymore.

And so, before he knew what he was doing, Michael found himself leaning into the wind at the edge of the cliff, daring his balance to fail him, and gravity to pull him down to his end.

“Do you really think anyone cares if you jump?”

The voice came as such a shock, Michael almost did lose his balance. He stumbled backward, away from the cliff, into
the grass. His life did not so much flash before his eyes, as slap him in the face.

“If you jump, people might freak, but they'll forget soon enough,” said a voice that was dense and wet, like liquid rubber. Lourdes Hidalgo lumbered out from behind a bush like a buffalo, and Michael wondered how long she had been watching.

In truth, Lourdes had been watching from the moment Michael had brought Melissa to the bluff. Lourdes enjoyed watching the other kids make out—and wasn't ashamed of it either. She had enough things to feel ashamed of—peeping was low on her shame list.

“I don't care if everyone forgets me,” said Michael. “I'm just sick of feeling This Way, okay?”

“What way?”

“You wouldn't understand.”

“How do you know?”

Michael looked down at the bulge in his pants. They were too tight down there, as always, and in this warped little moment, he didn't care who he told or how dumb it sounded.

“Do you know what it's like to feel totally crazed all of the time? To wake up That Way, and go to class That Way, and not be able to sleep at night because of Those Thoughts going through your head, and then when you do sleep, to be invaded by Those Kind of dreams? They say we got hormones, right? Well, I don't have hormones, I
am
a hormone—one big mutated hormone with a thousand hands and a million eyes. It's like that hormone has eaten me alive, and there's nothing left of
me
. Do you know how that feels?

Lourdes, to her credit, took the question very seriously. “No,” she said. “But I do know what it's like to be fat. So fat that I can't sit down in a movie theater. So fat that I have to
ride in elevators alone. So fat that when I take a bath, there's no room for any water in the tub. If anyone should jump into the sea, it should be me.”

Michael shrugged, feeling embarrassed. “Naah. You'd probably bounce.”

Lourdes considered this. “Or splat like a water balloon.”

“Gross!” Michael looked at Lourdes. She was truly hideous to behold, even in this dim light.

Lourdes smiled at him and Michael backed off. Was this a trick? Was she just after him like all the other girls? After all, she could not be immune to his full-moon effect, could she?

“Nice try,” said Michael. “I'm not going to kiss you, so get lost.” He turned toward the edge of the cliff again, contemplating it.

“Kiss you? I don't want to kiss you, your breath smells like onions.”

This got Michael's interest. “What do you mean you don't want to? Don't you find me irresistible?”

“I can resist you just fine,” said Lourdes. “I mean, you don't use enough deodorant, your clothes are ugly, your hair is stringy—”

Michael grinned, unable to believe his ears. “Go on! Tell me more!”

“Let's see. You've got a crooked lower tooth, your eyebrows are like caterpillars, you got no butt at all . . .”

Michael practically jumped for joy. “That's great,” he said. “Do you know how long it's been since I've been able to talk to someone without them either wanting to beat the crap out of me, or make out with me? Do you know how long it's been since
I
could talk to a girl without feeling you-know-how? This is great!” Michael could have gone on for hours contemplating the deep ramifications of their mutual lack of attraction,
but hearing about how unattractive Michael found her didn't seem to make Lourdes too happy. He looked at her swollen form and wondered how a girl could get this way.

“You know, you'd probably lose weight if you ate less,” offered Michael.

“I'll tell you a secret,” said Lourdes. Her head rolled forward on her neckless body, and she whispered in her cotton-padded voice: “I haven't eaten in months.”

“No way!”

“It's true—not a bite, and still I get fatter. Almost a pound every day.”

“That's wild!”

Lourdes smiled. “As wild as your man-eating hormone, maybe?”

They looked at each other, both beginning to realize that their similarities ran far deeper that they could have imagined—and then, without warning, the sky exploded.

A burst of green, and then a strange pink light lit up the heavens; it shook Michael and Lourdes to the core of their very souls.

“A supernova!” exclaimed Mr. Knapp, the science teacher. “My God! I think it's a supernova!” He frantically cranked his telescope toward the constellation of Scorpius, then flipped through his astronomy book to identify the star.

In a matter of minutes, a star in the tail of the scorpion flared to a fourth the size of the moon. Michael and Lourdes stepped out from behind the lighthouse to see everyone crowding around Knapp, who compared his star chart to the heavens above him.

“Mentarsus-H!” he announced. “It says here that it's sixteen light-years away—that means it blew up before most of you were born!”

Knapp immediately started to explain, “It took all those years for the light of the explosion to reach the earth. Like when you're in the bleachers at the ball park, you see the player swing, but don't hear the crack of the bat until a second later. Space is so vast that light takes years to get from star to star. That star blew up over sixteen years ago, but we're just finding out about it now.”

While everyone else marveled at this grand cosmic display, Michael and Lourdes lingered beyond the fringe of the crowd—touched by the nova with an intensity none of the others felt. It was as if the light illuminated some part of themselves that had always been hidden in shadows.

“I have to go!” Michael suddenly exclaimed. “I have to go now!” He was already fumbling in his pockets for the keys to his van.