Croak

  Lex studied the little orb. “So how many years have you got left?”

  Uncle Mort let out an offended huff. “Sparks measure quality, not quantity. Right now I’m alive, so my life sparks are in motion. When I die . . .” He trailed off and cleared his throat. “Well, I haven’t died yet, so I don’t know what happens. But I’m sure it indicates death somehow.”

  Lex gave him a dubious look.

  Uncle Mort smiled at her. “Even I don’t have the answers to everything.”

  ***

  Word of Lex’s weekend plans traveled quickly. At Corpp’s that evening, Kloo and Ayjay barely mumbled out a hello before running off to slobber all over each other in the corner. Zara and Sofi, engaged in a fierce game of Skulls, ignored her completely. And Ferbus kept glancing at her with a very weird expression.

  Lex felt terrible. She had bent over backwards to avoid any reminders of her familial ties around her friends, yet now here she was, practically shoving it in their faces. She glanced at the bar, wishing Driggs would hurry up with the drinks. And where was Elysia?

  “Hey,” Ferbus said, taking a swig of his drink. “On this New York thing—you take care of Driggs, okay?”

  “Why?”

  Ferbus ran a hand through his moppy hair. “I’m pretty sure a jerk such as myself only gets one best friend in life,” he grumbled, almost sincere for once. “Once he’s gone, no free refills.”

  Lex was somewhat touched by this rare display of affection. So much so that she said, “Well then, I’ll be sure to shove him in front of the first bus I see.”

  “See that you do.” By now, Lex and Ferbus had tacitly come to understand each other better than any other pair in Croak. He was the best friend, and she was the threat. It was a healthy, demoralizing relationship.

  A moment of awkwardness passed. “Now I must pee,” Ferbus announced.

  He stumbled off to the bathroom, passing Elysia as she returned. “Hi, Lex!” she said, friendly as always. “I heard about your trip. Are you excited?”

  Lex hesitated.

  “It’s okay,” Elysia said, sensing her reluctance. “I won’t feel bad.”

  “Okay,” Lex started unsurely. “I’m kinda dreading it, to be honest.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, tons of reasons. I’ll be happy to see them, I guess, but you know how it is.” She shot her a nervous grimace. “Or maybe you don’t. Crap. Are you sure you don’t mind me talking about this?”

  “Lex, relax. What is wrong with you?”

  Lex sighed. “Everyone hates me all over again.”

  Elysia looked around at the embittered Juniors. “They don’t hate you,” she said. “It’s just all that baggage—it still hurts once in a while. They’ve had pretty rough lives, you know? Mine was tame by comparison.”

  Lex nodded, willing her mouth to stay absolutely closed.

  Elysia nudged her. “You’re insanely curious, aren’t you?”

  “Insanely,” she let slip.

  “I don’t blame you. It must be weird, meeting all of us sad young ruffians without having a sob story of your own.”

  “Yeah,” Lex said in a mournful, sarcastic voice. “It’s been really hard.”

  Elysia laughed. “The others may get all defensive, but they’ll come around. You’re one of us now, no matter where you came from.” She took another gulp of Yorick, then seemed to make a decision. “Okay. I was sixteen,” she began, “and dating the captain of the football team. Which made total sense, since I was the captain of the cheerleading squad.”

  “I knew it,” Lex said into her drink.

  “First week of junior year, homecoming weekend. We win the game. After the dance, one thing leads to another, my underwear ends up in a ditch somewhere, and next thing you know, I’m pregnant.”

  She took another sip. “Two weeks later I tell my parents and they kick me out of the house. I’m shocked. I mean, I guess they were always kind of conservative, but I loved my parents and I thought that . . . well, apparently it wasn’t mutual. So they grab a bunch of clothes from my closet, throw them out onto the front lawn, and lock the door.

  “All my friends—they’re disgusted. Which by the way is incredibly hypocritical, since they were all fairly raging sluts. But whatever. Every time I go to one of their houses, they get this snobby, superior look in their eyes, and I completely lose it. Like, scary. Throwing things around their houses, physically attacking them. None of their parents would allow me to stay. And who could blame them, really?

  “So I go to the boyfriend’s house. He wants nothing to do with me. Not surprising, he was always a dick. But I flip out. I break the guy’s arm. How did I do that? I’m five feet tall, can barely lift my own backpack. How did I snap the bones of a two-hundred-fifty-pound quarterback?

  “So what am I supposed to do now, drop out of school? You gotta understand—up until this, I was a perfect kid. Straight A’s, president of the honor society, planning for college. I wanted to be a teacher. But now I’m just lost.

  “Eventually I wind up at my neighbor’s house. He’s around my age, goes to a different school. He sneaks me into his basement. I stop going to school. I leave during the day while no one’s home and shoplift stuff at the mall. Why? Out of boredom? I don’t know what’s making me do it, but I certainly don’t need five pairs of earmuffs, that’s for sure.

  “Then one day I can’t get off the couch. My insides feel like they’re ripping apart, and there’s blood everywhere. I wait until the family leaves, then run up to the bathroom and . . . well, that was the end of that. I cry for seven hours straight, the next day Mort shows up.” She downed the remains of her Yorick and gave Lex a weak smile. “And here I am.”

  ***

  As Lex lay in bed that night, trying to fall asleep, a flood of emotions surged at the thought of seeing her unconditionally loving family.

  And gratitude was now one of them.

  18

  “’Morning!” Driggs shouted at the surly bus driver. “Lovely weather we’re having, isn’t it?”

  But he and Lex could barely hear his reply for all of the rain pounding down upon the pavement. Uncle Mort had piled them both into the cheddar-yellow ’74 Gremlin that apparently lived in his garage and was to be used only for “field trips,” then rocketed out of town—the CROAK! POPULATION sign automatically switching from 85 to 82—and dropped them off with a disconcerting “Try not to die out there!” Twenty soggy minutes later, the bus finally rumbled up the street and pulled over to the muddy ditch in which they stood.

  Neither the weather nor the bus’s tardiness, however, had done anything to dampen Driggs’s exuberant mood. Not only had he never been to New York City (or any large city, for that matter), but this particular form of transportation was also a first for him.

  “I have a bus ticket!” he exclaimed upon boarding.

  The driver did not share his enthusiasm. “Yes. You do.”

  “Where do we sit?”

  “Right here,” Lex said, shoving him into the nearest open seat. “Now shut up before we get stabbed.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” she said through gritted teeth, “that probably half the people on this bus are carrying weapons. So just sit down— no, sit down!” He had gotten up to look inside the overhead storage compartment. She grabbed his shoulders and forcefully pushed him onto the seat. “Sit down, look out the window, and eat your candy.”

  Driggs took out a Snickers bar and happily munched away, occasionally pausing to marvel at the appearance of roadkill.

  “Flat as a pancake,” he’d say to the window.

  Lex closed her eyes and took a deep breath. If a plan existed, she didn’t know a thing about it. All Uncle Mort had said was that Driggs was to escort her home, and that her family would expect her at around one o’clock. Most likely they would not be aware that she had an eighteen-year-old boy in tow. She wasn’t sure how she would explain his presence, let alone how she might answer the questions that wo
uld inevitably surface regarding what she had been doing with herself all summer. And on top of all that loomed the Horrendous Atrocious Thing she had decided to tell them. She didn’t know what she was more worried about, saying it out loud or hearing their reactions . . .

  She bit at her nails.

  “Skunk,” Driggs reported.

  ***

  Upon their arrival at Port Authority, Lex sniffed the foul air with disdain. Driggs, meanwhile, gaped at the bus terminal in sheer delight, his excitement increasing as they entered the subway station and boarded a Queens-bound train. He hung on to a pole for dear life as he read the various ads.

  “This doctor sure hates zits,” he said. “And this community college has got it all—education, affordability, and convenience!”

  “Be quiet,” said Lex. “Where are your Oreos?”

  “I ate them.”

  “Already?”

  “I was excited!”

  Lex sighed and let her gaze drift to the floor. A newspaper lay crumpled into a corner, the word UNEXPLAINED the only part that she could see. She picked it up and read the headline.

  “Look at this,” she said, showing it to Driggs.

  “Fifth mystery death this month,” he said, skimming the article. “Authorities still baffled, Centers for Disease Control rumored to soon declare an epidemic—gimme that.” He stuffed it into his bag. “Souvenir for Mort.”

  When at last they arrived, Lex dragged Driggs off the train and began walking the short distance to her house. “Okay. Okay.” She was almost hyperventilating. “So when you get back from the interview—I still don’t know how to explain who you are. Suspicions are going to rise. I can’t necessarily guarantee that my father won’t threaten you with a shotgun.”

  “He won’t.”

  “Are you kidding? This is a man who wouldn’t even allow our Barbies to play with Ken dolls.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I’m not going to meet him.” He grinned. “Mort said it would be cruel and unusual punishment to subject his brother’s family to both of us at the same time. After the interview, I’m on my own until we meet up again tomorrow.”

  “I—huh? What are you going to do with yourself?”

  Driggs unfolded a subway map with one graceful snap of his wrist. “I read somewhere that Hershey’s and M&M’s both have gigantic flagship stores in Times Square. I plan to clean them out.”

  She stifled a laugh. “But where will you sleep tonight?”

  “Don’t worry about me, Lex. I’m a fully functioning adult.”

  Lex seriously doubted this claim, but she couldn’t deny the relief that was already flooding through her panicked system. One less thing to worry about. “This is it,” she said, coming to a halt a few yards away from her front stoop.

  He looked the house up and down, a wistful look on his face. “It’s nice. Homey.”

  “No, it isn’t. It’s a crapshack.” She was pacing back and forth now.

  Driggs grabbed her arms and made her stop. “Relax, spaz.” He gave her a sideways smile. “Why are you so nervous?”

  “Because I miss them, and because they miss me probably more than anything in the world, and because—” Her shoulders drooped. “Because they’re going to flip out.”

  “It’s just four little words.”

  “I know.” Lex pointed to the train. “Just go. They’re inevitably going to look out the window, and you can’t be here when they do.”

  “Okay. Meet you back here tomorrow?”

  “Yeah. Wait,” she said, reaching for his collar. “Your tie is crooked.” The suit that Uncle Mort had lent him for the interview was a tad too big . . . but it was still a suit. Lex had caught herself staring more than she cared to admit.

  “How do I look?” he asked.

  Lex, who could have sworn she caught a whiff of cologne, grew very hot as her mouth tried to remember how to form words. “Fine,” she eventually stammered, stepping back. “Grown up.”

  He snickered. “God forbid.”

  “Okay, go,” she said, unable to keep it together for much longer. “Good luck with the reporter.”

  “Thanks. Good luck with the folks.”

  What happened next was an odd conglomeration of each of them moving in to give the other a hug, each thinking that the other was moving in to do something more, a subsequent dual retreat in the form of an awkward, octopus-like limb flailing, and a grand finale of something that could only be described as a clumsy, platonic chest bump.

  It wasn’t pretty.

  After murmuring a humiliated goodbye, Driggs took off for the train and Lex headed back to her house. Her insides churned, all thoughts of Driggs and Croak and everything else evaporating as she remembered what she was here to do. She looked around in anxious bewilderment. How could her neighborhood look so familiar and so foreign at the same time?

  “You can do this,” she said to herself as she climbed the steps to the front door, took a deep breath, and rang the bell. “They’ll despise you forever and possibly set fire to all of your earthly possessions, but you can do it.”

  “What’s she ringing the doorbell for, she lives here, doesn’t she?” Lex heard her mother rambling as she flung open the door. “OH MY SWEET BABY!”

  “Kugk.” Lex fought for air, her airway choked off by the force of the hug. “Happy birthday, Mom.” Her father and Cordy came to the door a few seconds later, and by the time all of the embracing had concluded, Lex was already exhausted.

  “What happened to your hair?” Cordy said, aghast.

  “Look at her,” said her mother to her father, as if Lex were not capable of hearing. “She looks different. She looks good!” she cried, surreptitiously stashing a handful of jump rope restraints behind her back.

  “What are those for?” Lex asked warily.

  “Just a precaution. Look at her eyes, dear! She doesn’t hate us anymore!”

  Lex shifted uncomfortably. “I never hated you.”

  “You haven’t been getting into any trouble up there, have you?” her father asked in a stern voice. “I told Mort to call the second you became a nuisance.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Dad.”

  “You punch anyone?” Cordy asked.

  “Only on the first day,” Lex said. “But he deserved it.”

  Her mother flinched. “What?”

  “I’m just kidding,” Lex quickly lied. “So, how are you guys?”

  A flurry of activity carried them all into the dining room, where they sat down to a meal of Lex’s favorite foods, making her feel infinitely worse. Her parents talked at length about their summer so far, including a fifteen-minute tirade on the slovenly neighbors and the “illicit” trash that often flew in from their yard. Her father had also just gotten a raise, and her mother was staying busy teaching summer school classes.

  “And how’s your job?” Lex asked Cordy.

  “Unfulfilling.” Cordy irritably shoveled a forkful of corn into her mouth. “If I have to stare into the sticky face of one more spoiled brat as it asks for extra ‘spwinkles,’ I’m gonna drown myself in a bucket of hot fudge.”

  Lex cringed. She loathed children.

  “Tell her what else you’re doing,” their mother said.

  “Oh yeah, I’m volunteering at the nursing home down the street.”

  “Ewww.” Lex gagged. The only thing more repugnant to her than children were the elderly. “Gross.”

  Cordy shot her a deprecating glower. “They’re not gross. Just old.”

  “Same difference.” Lex thought of all the wrinkly geezers she had touched over the past few weeks and shuddered. “Well, more power to you,” she said. “Someone’s got to prevent them from operating kitchen appliances, right?”

  Cordy rolled her eyes. “They’re perfectly delightful people, Lex. Just because you aren’t capable of—” She stopped and pointed accusingly. “What’s wrong with your hands?”

  Lex hid her pale, emaciated fingers beneath her napkin. “Nothing. Cor
n, Mom?”

  The afternoon steadily progressed with more talk of the neighbors and their dreadful transgressions. By second helpings, Lex had become such a quivering blob of nerves she didn’t know what to do with herself. Why weren’t they asking about her summer? How could they torture her like this? So much time had elapsed that she began to entertain the ridiculous notion that they hadn’t cared about her absence at all.

  This, of course, was laughably erroneous. She had just spooned a mountain of mashed potatoes into her mouth when her father cleared his throat. “So, Lexington. Were you planning on telling us about your summer, or are we just supposed to guess?”

  Lex slowly worked the mush around her gums, its wet, smacking noises echoing conspicuously in the otherwise silent room. Her parents looked at her, then at each other, then back at her again. Eventually she swallowed.

  “I . . . have been . . . working,” she said, carefully choosing each word.

  Cordy narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “With cows, right?”

  “Yes,” Lex said to her parents, ignoring Cordy. “With cows. I milk them. And stuff.”

  They exchanged confused glances. “And stuff?” her mother asked with a small frown. “Can you elaborate?”

  “Um, I clean the pigpens,” she said with forced enthusiasm. “The goats, also . . . I feed.”

  Her father looked perplexed. She was losing them. “Oh, and I collect the eggs from the chickens,” she said with more confidence, shoving another dune of potatoes into her fraudulent mouth. “Yeah, there’s this one rooster who’s really awesome. He’s always, like, strutting around and displaying his plumage.”

  “His plumage,” her doubting father repeated.

  “Yes.” She slapped on the most innocent face she could muster. “His plumage.”

  Cordy crossed her arms. “What’s his name?”

  “Mr. Frizzle.”

  Her parents stared. Cordy coughed.

  “Well,” their mother said after a moment, “I think that’s wonderful. You seem to be doing marvelously, you haven’t gotten into any trouble, and you made friends with a chicken!” She beamed at her daughter. “What a wonderful opportunity you’ve had, Lex.”