Creature

  As always, Charlotte had sat in the group of celebrating parents, feeling terribly alone amidst the talk, which never varied from an unending replay of that afternoon’s game. Finally she let her mind drift away entirely, and Chuck had to shake her out of her reverie when the group at last began to break up.

  Then, when Jeff had come home an hour ago, it began again. Play by play, father and son had relived the game.

  At last they had come to the moment when Jeff plunged through the line, dropped on the other boy, and disappeared under a heap of other players.

  “Did you see it, Dad?” Jeff asked now, his eyes glinting with the memory, a wide grin spreading across his face. “Thought he had me, but I fixed him! Just twisted around and dropped on him. Put a knee right into his kidney!”

  Charlotte felt her stomach tighten, and suddenly knew she could put it off no longer. Wordlessly, she turned and left the room, went to the bedroom and closed the door. Taking the phone book out of the top drawer of the nightstand, she riffled through it, then dialed the number of the county hospital.

  “This is Charlotte LaConner,” she said. “I’m calling about the boy who was brought in this afternoon. After the football game?”

  There was a momentary silence before the voice at the other end spoke coolly and impersonally. “And what is your relationship to the patient?”

  Charlotte hesitated, then replied tightly, “It was my son who tackled the boy.”

  “I see,” the voice said tentatively. Then: “Perhaps I’d better connect you with the duty nurse.”

  A few moments later, after explaining once more who she was, Charlotte listened numbly as the nurse summarized Ricardo Ramirez’s injuries.

  “But—But he’ll be all right, won’t he?” Charlotte finally asked, the question coming out as a plea.

  “We don’t know, Mrs. LaConner,” the nurse replied.

  Slowly, Charlotte replaced the receiver, too unnerved to do more than sit still on the bed. Minutes passed as she tried to collect her thoughts. Then, when a raucous laugh echoed from the den, she made up her mind. She stood, straightened her back, and left the bedroom. She paused at the door to the den and waited until her husband noticed her. For a moment he seemed puzzled, but when he saw the expression on her face, his smile began to fade.

  “What’s wrong?” he finally asked. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

  “I just called the hospital,” she said. She turned to her son. “The boy you tackled. His name is Rick Ramirez.”

  Jeff frowned. “S-So?”

  Charlotte licked her lips nervously. “He might die, Jeff. His neck is broken and one of his lungs collapsed.” Despite herself, her voice hardened. “And when you put your knee into his kidney, apparently you ruptured it.”

  Jeff’s eyes widened, and Charlotte could see his fingers tighten on his beer glass. “Jesus,” he whispered. But then, as she watched, a curtain seemed to fall behind his eyes. “It wasn’t my fault,” he said, his voice taking on a note of belligerence.

  From his chair a few feet from Jeff, Chuck shot her a warning glance, but Charlotte chose to ignore it. “Not your fault?” she asked, no longer trying to contain the anger she was feeling. She moved closer to Jeff. “I heard you say you deliberately kneed him.”

  “Well, what if I did?” Jeff demanded, rising to his feet. He was big, nearly six-foot-three, and he towered over Charlotte’s five-foot-four-inch frame. “Shit, Mom, he’d just tackled me, hadn’t he? What did you expect me to do? Just stand there and take it?”

  Charlotte reached out to grasp her son’s arm. “But that’s part of the game, isn’t it? You try to get through, and he tries to tackle you. But you don’t try to hurt him on purpose …”

  Jeff’s jaw tightened and his eyes blazed with sudden fury. “And you don’t know a goddamn thing about football!” he shouted. Abruptly, he shook his mother’s arm off his own and hurled his still half-filled glass into the fireplace. The stein shattered against the bricks, then Jeff stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

  “Jeff!” Charlotte called too late. Already the back door had slammed as well. A moment later they heard his car start up and roar down the driveway. Furious, she spun around to face Chuck.

  “That’s it!” she snapped. “No more football! On Monday morning he’s quitting the team. I’ve had it.”

  But her husband was staring at her as if she had lost her mind. “Hey, slow down, honey,” he said, standing up and moving toward her. “Maybe he shouldn’t have yelled at you and thrown the glass like that, but how do you think he feels?”

  “Him?” Charlotte blazed. “What about Rick Ramirez?”

  “Jeff didn’t mean to hurt him,” Chuck replied. “In the heat of a game, these things happen. And whose side are you on, anyway? You just as good as accused him of trying to kill that kid. Your own son! How the hell do you expect him to react?”

  Charlotte was silent for a second, and when she spoke, her voice was tight. “I expect him to behave the way we brought him up. I expect him to be a good sport and to keep in mind the fact that he’s a lot bigger than most kids and could hurt someone. And if he can’t do that, I expect him to stop playing football.”

  Chuck LaConner gazed silently at his wife, then shook his head. “You mean you want to keep him tied to your apron strings and you don’t want him to grow up,” he said. “But you can’t do that, Charlotte. He’s not your little baby anymore.” Picking up his own empty beer glass, he left the room.

  Charlotte, not quite certain of what had gone wrong, but knowing that she had mishandled the situation very badly, began to clean up the shards of glass scattered across the floor of the den.

  4

  There was a sharp snap to the air on Monday morning, and as Mark Tanner stepped out the back door into the brilliant sunlight, the first thing he noticed was the sky. Cobalt blue, it had a depth to it that he’d never seen in San Marcos, where no matter how clear the day was, a vague haze always seemed to hang over the world. Here, the mountains to the east were etched sharply against the sky, and there was a different odor, too—not the pungent aroma of the bay, sometimes briskly salty, but more often carrying the faintly nauseating stench of the mud flats—but the clean scent of pine. Chivas, too, seemed to feel the difference, and uttered a joyful bark as he shoved his way past Mark and raced out to the rabbit hutch next to the garage.

  But as he fed the rabbits, Mark’s sense of exhilaration began to fade, for already he suspected he would have trouble fitting himself in with the rest of the kids in Silverdale.

  He had begun thinking as much Saturday evening, when he’d seen Robb Harris. He’d tried to pick up their friendship where it had been left three years before, but quickly realized that it wasn’t going to work.

  Robb had changed.

  He towered over Mark now, and it seemed he’d lost interest in a lot of the things they’d shared when they were growing up.

  The rabbits, for instance. Robb had glanced at them for a moment, then asked Mark—and Mark was certain he hadn’t mistaken the contempt in Robb’s voice—why he was still “messing around” with them. Mark had frowned.

  “You used to raise guinea pigs,” he’d pointed out.

  Robb had rolled his eyes. “Everybody did, when we were kids. Or hamsters, or gerbils.” Then he grinned, but it hadn’t been the kind of friendly grin Mark remembered from years ago. “Why don’t we let ’em go?” he suggested. “Then we could hunt them.”

  Though Mark had felt a flash of anger, he said nothing. From then on, though, the evening had gone downhill for him. He tried to pretend he was interested in the football game Robb had played in that afternoon, but it hadn’t really worked, and Robb finally asked what team he himself was going to try out for.

  Then it was Mark who had grinned. “I don’t know,” he replied. “Debating, maybe?”

  Robb looked at him as though he were some kind of alien. “We don’t have a debating team,” he replied. “And even if we did,
nobody would care.”

  Mark had fallen silent then; and yesterday, when his mother had suggested he go over to the Harrises’ and visit Robb, he’d shaken his head and made up an excuse. His mother had looked at him sharply, and it seemed she was about to say something but then changed her mind. So he had spent the day with Chivas, following a trail up into the foothills, enjoying the solitude and the majestic scenery, but already starting to worry about what would happen today.

  Suddenly Kelly burst out the back door. “Mom says if you don’t come in right now, you’re going to be late!” She planted her feet wide apart and put her hands on her hips. “And she has to take me to school, so hurry up!”

  Mark grinned at his little sister. “What if I don’t?” he teased.

  Kelly giggled, as she always did when he teased her. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I bet you’ll get in trouble!”

  “Then I’ll hurry,” Mark replied.

  He finished hosing out the tray and slid it back beneath the hutch, then added some water to the rabbits’ reservoir. In less than a minute he was back in the house, sliding into his place at the breakfast table. His father, already nearly done with his breakfast, glanced up at him.

  “I talked to Jerry Harris yesterday,” Blake said.

  Mark frowned, but made no reply.

  “He was thinking you might show up over there. Wanted to know if anything was wrong between you and Robb.”

  Mark shrugged, but still made no reply.

  Blake leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, and Mark felt himself tense. “I know this move is a big change for all of us,” Blake began. “We’re all going to have a lot of adjusting to do. But it’s a big opportunity.” He hesitated a moment, and finally Mark looked up. His father was staring straight at him. “Especially for you,” Blake told him.

  Mark shifted uneasily in his chair. What was going on? Had he done something wrong?

  “I want you to fit in here,” his father went on. “I know you’ve had some problems in the past—missing a year of school—and I know you’ve had some problems fitting yourself in. But this is a chance for you to start over again.”

  Suddenly Mark understood. “You mean you want me to go out for sports,” he said.

  Blake said nothing, but the long, questioning look he gave his son spoke for him.

  “I thought we already talked about that—” Mark began.

  His father silenced him with a gesture. “That was before—and you were right. In San Marcos, you probably wouldn’t have made the team. But this is a much smaller school, and Jerry tells me there’s room for everyone.”

  Mark’s eyes clouded. “But—”

  Once again, Blake didn’t let him finish. “All I want you to do is try. Okay?”

  Mark hesitated, then reluctantly nodded, knowing there was no point in arguing with his father right now. Still, when he left for school a few minutes later, he was already starting to think of a way around the decision his father had so abruptly made for him.

  “Hey! Wait up!”

  Mark was still two blocks from the school when he heard the girl’s voice. He ignored it until he heard the shout again, this time with his name attached to it, then stopped and looked back. Half a block away, running to catch up, was Linda Harris. She was breathing hard when she came abreast of him, and a sheen of perspiration glistened on her forehead. “Didn’t you hear me?” she gasped. “I’ve been yelling at you for two blocks.”

  “I didn’t hear you,” Mark protested.

  “You mean you weren’t listening,” Linda contradicted him, her blue eyes dancing mischievously. “I’ve been watching you, wandering along with your head in the clouds. You could have gotten run over by a bus, and you wouldn’t even have noticed.”

  Mark felt himself flush, but it was more with pleasure than embarrassment. For Linda, too, had changed since the last time he’d seen her. In three years she’d grown from a gangly girl with braces on her teeth and her hair in braids into a gently curved fifteen-year-old whose blond hair—a little darker than her brother’s—flowed softly over her shoulders. “There aren’t any buses in Silverdale, are there?” he countered, simply to make conversation. He fell in beside her as she started walking once more.

  “A couple,” she told him. “There’re a few kids who live out on ranches, and they have to go to school, too, you know.” She glanced at him curiously. “So what were you thinking about?”

  Mark hesitated. His first instinct was to tell her the truth— that he’d been trying to figure out a way around his father’s determination that he go out for football—but he wasn’t sure how she might react to that. And, with a jolt, he realized that he didn’t want Linda Harris to react badly to him. So he shrugged his shoulders amiably and smiled at her. “I don’t know. I guess I was just looking around. You know, getting the feel of things. I … well, I do that a lot,” he finished lamely.

  To his surprise, Linda nodded. “I know. I do that, too. Sometimes people think I’m weird, ’cause I just all of a sudden tune everything out. But just because people are talking doesn’t mean you have to listen, does it?” She looked at him so earnestly that he almost burst out laughing.

  “I guess not,” he admitted. “Not that I ever really thought about it, but I guess you’re right. And most people don’t seem to have much to say anyway. I guess that’s why I like animals better than people.”

  They turned the last corner and Mark stopped short. “Jesus,” he breathed. “Is that the high school?”

  Linda stared at him blankly. “What’s wrong with it?” she asked, her voice taking on a defensive note.

  “N-Nothing,” Mark stammered. “It’s just—well, it’s just not what I was expecting.”

  Without even thinking about it, Mark had supposed that the school in Silverdale would look like all the others in the innumerable small towns they had passed through since leaving San Marcos—a simple wood-frame structure, its paint peeling, sitting in the midst of a dying lawn on a dusty block on the outskirts of town, with a dirt playing field behind it.

  But Silverdale High School resembled nothing he’d seen before. It was a red-brick building, rising three stories high in its central core, with two-story wings jutting out from it to form an imposing V shape. All the windows were framed by white shutters, and the high, peaked roof of the core structure was supported by six soaring columns.

  The columns were made of white marble.

  The building faced a velvety lawn that was crisscrossed with winding brick paths, and in front of the building were gardens that, even in September, were ablaze with brightly colored flowers.

  A flagpole stood in the center of the lawn. As Mark watched two boys slowly ran an American flag up the pole, as the strains of “The Star-Spangled Banner” began to sound. Next to him, Linda stood still, facing the flag, and a moment later Mark realized that on the lawn in front of the school, and on all the pathways, too, the other students had stopped as well, as though frozen in place, their eyes fastened on the flag. It rose slowly in the morning sun, then, as it reached the top, it began flapping in the breeze just as the last notes of the anthem sounded from the public address system. Only when the music had died away did the school come to life once more.

  Mark blinked, then looked at Linda in puzzlement. “Everyone does that every day here?”

  Linda frowned for a split-second, then nodded. “I guess it seems kind of dumb to you. Robb said it really bugged him when we first came. But it’s a tradition now.”

  “And everybody does it?” Mark pressed. “They just all stop and face the flag?” He was trying to picture the kids at San Marcos High—the ones with their hair dyed green and orange, and rings through their nostrils—stopping their talk for the raising of the flag. But of course they wouldn’t have: They would have turned their ghetto blasters up louder and kept right on with whatever they were doing.

  But then, as he and Linda started across the wide lawn toward the school building itself, he rea
lized that none of the kids here wore punk hairstyles, or leather jackets covered with studs. Everywhere he looked he saw only boys in chinos and sports shirts, and girls in sweaters and skirts or carefully pressed slacks and crisp blouses.

  They mounted the flight of steps that led to a wide, terracelike porch between the marble columns and the main doors of the school. “Well, do you like it?” Linda asked eagerly.

  Mark grinned. “What’s not to like?”

  Linda waved to a group of her friends who were standing next to one of the columns but made no move to join them. Instead, she took Mark’s arm and edged him toward the door. “Come on, I’ll show you where the office is.”

  Inside the front doors was an enormous hall whose ceiling rose the full three floors to the roof. A broad staircase at the end of the hall rose to the second floor, and above that, split into two narrower flights, one on each side of the hall that led to the third floor. The ceiling itself was made of white plaster, but was decorated with an ornate molding around its edges.

  The floor beneath Mark bore a complicated geometric design of black and white marble. He paused for a moment, trying to take it all in, but Linda urged him on. “The principal’s office is down this way,” she said, leading him off to the right. A moment later they’d stepped through a white paneled door with a fanlight above it and were facing a smiling secretary.

  “This is Mark Tanner, Miss Adams,” Linda said. “He’s starting today.”

  The secretary nodded. “Your father called me last week,” she said, then turned to Mark. “Did you happen to bring your records with you?”

  Mark shook his head blankly, but the secretary seemed unconcerned. “Just start filling these out, and I’ll have them before you’re done,” she said. She pushed a small stack of forms and cards toward Mark, then turned to a computer terminal on her desk. Her fingers flashed over the keyboard, and a few minutes later a printer on a table next to the wall clattered to life.