I ran my hand through my thick brown hair and wiped sweat from my forehead.
“Are you trying to get more detention time?” Holden asked.
“I…no. I thought I saw…didn’t you see it?”
“See what?” Holden asked with growing impatience.
I didn’t answer. I knew how crazy it would sound, because I was feeling pretty crazy.
She had no idea what I was talking about.
“Nothing,” I said. “I thought I…never mind.” I hurried to the upended desk and lifted it back into position. “Sorry.”
I felt Holden staring at me. She must have been as confused as I was, though I wasn’t sure if that was possible.
“Are you feeling all right, Mr. O’Mara?”
I wasn’t even close to feeling all right.
“I’m fine,” I said, and sat at my desk. “Sorry for that. I’ll get back to homework.”
Holden watched me for a second, then turned and went for the door. Halfway there she stopped, looked at me, then turned around and sat down at the teacher’s desk. I think she wanted to keep an eye on me.
No problem. I didn’t want to be alone anymore.
I opened my earth science book and took out a blank piece of paper. Holden must have thought I was going to take notes on magma. I wasn’t. I wanted to draw something. A key. I wanted to re-create the image before I forgot the details. I quickly sketched the four-inch-long key that I had seen for only a moment before my hand passed through it. Below the drawing I wrote the phrase that made about as much sense as any of the impossible things I had just seen.
Or thought I had seen.
Surrender the key.
“Detention?” my mother yelled in disbelief. “Again?”
She stood at the kitchen counter, holding a wooden pasta fork-spoon thing like a weapon. I thought she was going to wing it at me.
“The guy deserved it,” I countered. “He was being a bully and—”
“I don’t care if he stole your lunch money and made you stand on your head. You do not question the authority of your teachers.”
“But he was embarrassing this girl.”
Mom slammed the wooden fork down onto the counter so hard, I thought she’d break it. Or the counter.
“You realize these multiple detentions go on your permanent record.”
“I’m in seventh grade. There is no permanent record.”
“People remember. This kind of behavior is going to haunt you.”
“Who’s being haunted?” Dad asked brightly as he strolled into the kitchen.
I was, and it had nothing to do with Mr. Winser. But it wasn’t a good time to mention a phantom bull or a spooky guy in a bathrobe. Adding insanity to their list of my flaws would make a bad night even worse.
“Your son was given a week of detention for talking back to a teacher,” Mom said through pinched lips.
“Technically, I didn’t say a word,” I corrected.
“And now you’re being flip with us!” Mom exclaimed. “This kind of behavior might make you a hero to your friends, but it’s not going to help get you into a decent college.”
“What’s this got to do with college?” I shouted back in frustration. “I don’t even want to go to college!”
The two went rigid and stared at me with stunned expressions, as if I had just told them I was getting a Batman logo tattooed across my forehead.
“I can’t talk to you anymore,” Mom said, and stormed away. She then stopped and spun back, stabbed a finger my way, and said, “You’re grounded. Two weeks.”
“I thought you couldn’t talk to me anymore?” I said.
Thinking back, that probably wasn’t the smartest thing to say.
Mom gasped in disbelief.
I did too. I’d crossed a line.
She glared at my dad as if it was all his fault, then turned and stomped out of the kitchen, leaving Dad and me alone for a long, awkward silence.
“Seriously?” he finally said, exasperated.
“I’m sorry. That was a dumb thing to say, but she never listens to my side.”
“That crack about not going to college was uncalled for,” he said.
“I know, I get it, but why does everything have to be about how it affects my future? Why can’t I just live today?”
Dad sighed and went to the fridge to grab a can of soda.
“We’re just looking out for you, Marcus. You’re thirteen. Before you know it you’ll be in high school, and after that, well, you really have to go to college.”
“Jeez, Dad, I know. You’ve been drumming that into my head forever. But I’m not you. Or Mom. Maybe I want to do things differently.”
Dad stared at his soda can for a good long time. I think he was trying to come up with the right words. Or maybe he was just wishing he had cracked open a Sprite instead of a Pepsi.
“You know how much we love you, right?” he asked.
That was uncomfortable. Dad never said anything that sappy to me.
“Yeah,” I said. Though I wasn’t exactly sure how to measure love.
“Then let’s all try to get along, okay?”
“Sure. Can you start by ungrounding me?”
“Sorry. Your mother and I always stand united.”
“I know. I just wish you’d stand on my side for once.”
I headed upstairs to my bedroom. There wouldn’t be any dinner tonight. Mom had only gotten as far as taking out the pasta fork that she nearly clubbed me with. I was going to have to sneak down later for a little PB&J.
My parents cared about me. I knew that. Heck, if they hadn’t wanted to have me, they wouldn’t have, considering I was adopted. But sometimes I wondered what they expected. Did they want another human being in their lives? Or a robot they could dress up and mold into a clone of themselves?
I often thought about what my biological parents were like and if I was anything like them. There were times when I couldn’t imagine having different parents. Other times I imagined (okay, hoped) I had parents who wouldn’t be so obsessed with my permanent record and who might actually be proud of me for standing up to a bully, even if it was a teacher.
My mother was angry. Nothing new there; I was used to it. What I wasn’t used to was hallucinating. That was a whole new territory.
What the heck happened at school?
I wished I could have talked to my parents about it. Most kids would have, I guess. But I didn’t want them to think any less of me than they already did. Finding out I was a step away from an asylum would have made their brains melt.
I went to my bedroom and sat at my desk. Being grounded meant no TV and no computer. I knew the drill. I actually wished I hadn’t done my homework during detention. It would have given me something to do other than stare at the walls, wondering if I was losing my mind. I grabbed my earth science book and slipped out the piece of paper with my sketch of the ghostly key.
“ ‘Surrender the key,’ ” I said out loud, reading the words that had been spelled out in bits of crushed glass. Or I thought had been spelled out in broken glass.
My sketch of the key was pretty accurate. I drew it to size, about four inches long. The handle had four ornate circles, like a four-leaf clover, with detailed carvings on each one. This sketch was the only physical record of the strange things I had seen that afternoon. Of course, I could just as easily have drawn a picture of Sasquatch, but that wouldn’t prove Sasquatch was real.
I tacked the sketch to the corkboard above my desk, next to the various ticket stubs, video-game promos, and pictures I had on display. I was already resigning myself to the fact that I’d never find an explanation for what I’d seen. It was a fluke. A brain fart. An unexplainable incident that would soon become a distant memory.
And then I looked out my window.
Standing in our yard, staring up at me, was the man in the bathrobe. He slowly lifted his hand and gestured for me to come outside.
I pulled away from the window, practically fl
ew across my room, and ran into the hallway. My pounding footsteps must have shaken the whole house, because my mother poked her head out of her bedroom door as I ran by.
“What are you doing?” she yelled, annoyed.
There was no time to stop and answer. I didn’t want that guy to get away again. I thundered down the stairs and nearly knocked my dad over on my way to the door.
“Hey!” he shouted.
No time to stop. I threw open the door and shot outside.
“What do you want?” I yelled…to nobody.
The yard was empty.
I ran to the spot where he had been standing and spun around, but the guy was gone.
Mom and Dad were right on my heels.
“What in God’s name?” Mom shouted as she ran up to me.
“What’s going on, Marcus?” Dad asked.
I took one last, desperate look around.
“I—I…saw…,” I stammered. “There was a guy out here. He was looking up at me in the window.”
“A guy?” Dad asked, glancing around.
“What do you mean, a guy?” Mom asked.
“A guy!” I shouted. “In pajamas.”
Mom gave Dad a suspicious look. I knew what they were thinking, because I was thinking the same thing: there wasn’t anybody there, and nobody could get away that fast.
“What are you doing, Marcus?” Mom asked in an exasperated tone that made my blood boil.
“Doing?” I shot back. “You think I’m making this up? Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know,” she said with frustration. “But there’s nobody here.”
I had seen him. He was real. But there was no use trying to convince my parents of that, because the only thing it would prove was that I was crazy. I pushed past them and headed back to the house.
“And no TV!” Mom called after me.
She didn’t have to say that. I think she liked pouring salt in my wounds.
All I wanted to do was sleep. I put on sweats and fell into bed but couldn’t stop thinking about the guy, and the bull, and the fact that I was going out of my mind.
“ ‘Surrender the key,’ ” I said aloud.
I wanted to surrender more than a phantom key. I wanted to surrender my memory of that entire day. I closed my eyes and rolled over to try and turn my brain off. It didn’t take long before I had calmed down and my body relaxed. Sleep wasn’t far off. There was nothing to prevent me from slipping into a state of unconsciousness…
…except for the strange scratching sound that came from under my bed.
“That sounds kind of, like, I don’t know, crazy,” Lu said between bites of her tuna sandwich. “Cool but crazy.”
Theo, Lu, and I had our own spot in the corner of the busy cafeteria, away from the lunchtime chaos.
“You say that like I don’t already know,” I said.
“All righty,” Theo said. “We need to examine the facts.”
Theo McLean, fact examiner. If I were harsh, I’d say he was a nerd, but it’s not cool to put somebody down with labels. But man, he was a nerd. He was smart too. Straight-A smart. Except for gym.
We were like three different pieces of a very odd puzzle. Between Theo, a black guy who looked as though he should be rubbing elbows at a yacht club; Lu, with her Asian roller-derby-girl look, black tights, plaid shirts, and bold makeup; and me, a white guy who wore the same jeans and T-shirts every day until they were so stiff, they could stand up in the corner, we looked like the cast of some kids’ show trying to cover all its ethnic bases. It would be a grand slam if we had a Hispanic friend. Or maybe a Tongan.
“What’s to examine?” I said. “I saw things that weren’t there.”
“But what caused it?” Theo said thoughtfully while squeezing his earlobe the way he always did when he was thinking hard. “You were stressed because of the whole Winser thing.”
“I wasn’t stressed. I was triumphant.”
“Yeah!” Lu exclaimed, and gave me a high five. “That was, like, awesome.”
“Why was it like awesome?” Theo asked, irritated. “If it was like awesome, then it wasn’t awesome. It was something else.”
“So you’re not, like, annoying?” Lu asked him. “You’re just annoying?”
“Exactly!” Theo declared. “Wait, what?”
“Nerd.”
“Can we get back to my problem?” I asked.
Theo continued in his best “I’m giving a lecture to those less gifted than me, so I must speak slowly and clearly” voice. “It’s not just about Winser. You’ve been having issues with your parents.”
“Issues? Is that what you call it? We’re at each other’s throats twenty-four seven.”
“I’d call that an issue,” Lu said with a wink.
“The mind is an amazing thing,” Theo explained. “Maybe you’re seeking shelter in some kind of fantasy that you know isn’t real but offers a form of relief.”
“How is being chased by a raging bull supposed to give me relief?”
“The bull could represent your mother,” Theo explained, in full professor mode. “She’s charging at you all the time. And the guy in the bathrobe could be your father. He’s quiet most of the time, but it sounds like he’s trying to communicate with you. Maybe give you a message.”
Lu and I sat staring at Theo for a solid ten seconds.
“That’s deep,” Lu finally said. “Totally stupid, but deep.”
“It’s not stupid,” Theo snapped. “You two are suggesting that something supernatural is going on here, but this isn’t a horror movie. In real life there are always logical explanations.”
“Maybe the logical explanation is that something supernatural is going on,” Lu said, suddenly sounding very serious.
“I do not accept that!” Theo shot back angrily.
“Jeez, take it easy, professor,” Lu said. “We’re just trying to figure this out.”
Theo had suddenly gotten really upset. I didn’t know why. It wasn’t like he was the one going through the weirdness. I stood up to put an end to the debate.
“Stop! You guys are no help,” I said, and tossed my brown lunch bag into a distant trash bin. Three points.
“What are you going to do?” Lu asked me.
“Pretend like it didn’t happen.”
“What if you see something else weird?” Theo asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess it’ll mean I’m, like…crazy. Or just plain crazy. Later.”
I lied. I couldn’t pretend as though it hadn’t happened. For the rest of the day, my eyes kept wandering to classroom doors and windows. I was afraid that I might see the guy in the bathrobe. It was a good thing none of the teachers called on me, because I wasn’t listening to anything they were saying.
When school ended, I showed up for my second day of detention. I was told to go to the computer lab, and when I got there, who did I see was my detention monitor?
Winser.
Great. Just what I needed.
“Four more days, Mr. O’Mara,” he said without making eye contact. “It’ll give you time to think about how to change your belligerent attitude.”
I didn’t say a word. I had more things to worry about than sparring with an old bully with ugly neckties.
The computer lab was empty. Once again I was the only one in detention. What was up with that? Didn’t anybody else in this school get in trouble?
“Use your time wisely,” Winser said. “Go online and do homework. I have better things to do than babysit you.”
With that, he left the room, and I was alone.
Yes! An hour of uninterrupted online time. There were two long rows of desks, with a laptop on each. I sat at one in the dead center, cracked my knuckles, and went to work. I started by going to some sports sites. From there I went to YouTube, but it was blocked. So were gaming sites. And Instagram. Block. Block. Block. The school made sure that any site worth going to was off-limits. Then I got an idea. Maybe it was desperate, but it was
worth a shot. I went to Google, and in the search box I typed the words Surrender the key.
I hit Enter…and the computer screen instantly went blank.
Odd. I hit a few more keys, but nothing worked. I was about to flick the power switch to do a restart when the screen flashed back to life, along with all the others. Each and every monitor flashed multiple images, as if a high-speed search engine had kicked in. I got fleeting glimpses of pictures, Web pages, and text that blew by in a blur. Then, one by one, the computers settled on a page. The same page. It started with the computers farthest away from me, followed by the others. Every computer stopped on the same Google search page.
The top result read: WEST SIDE MAN PLUNGES TO HIS DEATH FROM ROOF OF APARTMENT BUILDING.
It seemed as though some poor guy was killed when he jumped off a building in New York City. I clicked on the top search result. It was as if all the computers were synced up, because as soon as I hit the link, they all simultaneously changed to the same Web page.
It was a newspaper website. In bold letters the top headline read: FATAL PLUNGE! It was dated a few days ago. I scrolled down to read the following story:
At approximately midnight on Friday, Michael Swenor, 33, a New York City firefighter, fell from the roof of the apartment building where he lived with his wife and young son. He was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics, who were alerted by a 911 call. The incident is being investigated, though foul play is not suspected. Authorities are not ruling out suicide.
What a horrible thing. The guy died a nasty death, and nobody knew why.
I scrolled down to see a picture of the guy, and my heart stopped. At least, that was what it felt like. I threw myself back into the chair as if the picture were radioactive.
It was the guy in the bathrobe.
No mistake. It was a black-and-white shot of a guy in a firefighter’s uniform, looking straight at me, just as he had in the classroom. And in my yard.
“O’Mara!” Winser shouted as he entered the room.
My computer screen instantly flipped and turned to fuzz. The other computers did too. Pop! Pop! Pop! I hadn’t touched a thing, but they all started going snaky. One by one they winked off and went dark.