Randy fixed himself five bologna sandwiches, using the last of the bread, even the ends, and started to pour a glass of milk. He looked at the glass, shook his head, then put it back in the cupboard and drank directly from the carton. He noticed that the carton was nearly empty. He found two large bags of potato chips and three Twinkies in another cupboard and took his snack to the next room to watch TV. He stretched out on the sofa, idly flicking the remote control while he gobbled his food. He paused at one of the afternoon talk shows. The announcer was saying, “We now return to ‘Teens Who Terrify’!” Randy had seen many talk shows like this. The host would interview parents who couldn’t handle their impossible teenagers, who were unbelievably rude or vicious or dangerous. Today a twelve-year-old dressed like a twenty-five-year-old stripper was cursing at her mother, every other word bleeped out by the TV station. The mother, who did not even try to correct the behavior, simply sat there and cried. “Kid needs her butt kicked,” Randy said to the cat. Another young girl, dressed in an outfit her mother said she wore to school-a skimpy tank top and a skirt that was short enough to be called underwear—pranced around the stage as if she was proud of what she was wearing. Her mother wept also. “This couldn’t be real—they’ve gotta be actors. Where do they get this stuff?” Randy complained to the cat, who had her eyes on what was left of Randy’s bologna sandwiches.
He watched as more parents reported how their children beat them or stole from them or stayed out all weekend getting drunk. “Unbelievable,” Randy muttered. “This is so fake!” The cat had decided to join him on the sofa.
“Our next guests,” the host announced with pumped-up excitement, using that phony, oily voice that only TV announcers use, “are twins who terrify their whole neighborhood!” Randy reached for the remote, figuring that even reruns of Barney were better than this, but suddenly the camera was focused on the unsmiling faces of Tabu and Titan Tolliver.
Randy jumped up, knocked over the carton of milk onto the floor, dropped the rest of his last sandwich, and ran to the telephone. The cat pounced on the sandwich and the spilled milk while Randy frantically dialed Yolanda’s number.
“Yolanda!” Randy said breathlessly. “Turn on Channel Twelve! Quick!”
“I already have it on. I was on three-way with Charlene and Delia, and we’re all looking at it! I’ll call you back! I’m taping it!”
Randy turned the volume up loud and sat back on the couch, stunned. These weren’t actors—these were real people. From his school. From his third-bell English class. “Unbelievable!” he muttered again, but this time it was for a completely different reason.
The commercial ended, and Mrs. Tolliver, the twins’ mother, a thin, tired-looking woman, showed pictures of them as three-year-olds—identically chubby little boys staring at the camera with faint smiles. The TV camera then focused on Tabu and Titan as teenagers, dressed in their usual black, looking defiant and uncaring. Randy listened in amazed silence.
HOST: So tell me, Mrs. Tolliver, how long have you been having problems with these two young men of yours?
MRS. TOLLIVER: Well, Preston, I think it started when they were born. I didn’t even know I was carrying twins. They were preemies—really tiny and sickly at birth. I went into labor early, and they were born at home. By the time I was able to get to the hospital, both babies needed oxygen. Maybe they missed something important those first few minutes of life. Maybe it’s my fault.
HOST: Let’s not place any blame here, Mrs. Tolliver. What happened next?
MRS. TOLLIVER: I took them home, but it was a struggle just to find enough food for them. My husband had been laid off, and we couldn’t pay the rent. We moved around a lot. It was awful.
HOST: How did they act as infants? How did they react to others when they were kids?
MRS. TOLLIVER: They were scrawny little things, but they were happy babies, I guess. Seemed like they just focused on each other and left me out, though. They cried when they were hungry, and sometimes that was pretty often. I feel so bad. I loved my babies—I didn’t want to be a bad mother, but I never felt I was giving them what they needed. When they got old enough, and I found me a job, I sent them to day care. I figured maybe they needed socialization. They didn’t seem to like anything or anybody but each other.
HOST: Did day care help?
MRS. TOLLIVER: Not really. The teachers complained that they refused to play with the other children—only with each other. Plus, sometimes they would hit other children, and the teachers said they broke toys on purpose. I had to take them out. I don’t think it was their fault, though.
HOST: What do you mean—not their fault?
MRS. TOLLIVER: They couldn’t cope with their father’s death. How do you explain to three-year-olds that their daddy is dead?
HOST: Did you ever seek professional help for them?
MRS. TOLLIVER: I didn’t have money for that.
HOST: How did their father die?
MRS. TOLLIVER: In a storm. I don’t want to talk about it. Look, I work hard and I’ve tried to do my best for my boys. But I guess I’m failing.
HOST: Don’t cry, now. We’re going to see if we can get you some help. What happened when the boys got to kindergarten?
MRS. TOLLIVER: I moved from Minnesota to California when they were five. But it was all the same stuff. Even worse. I moved around quite a bit, trying to find work for me and a place they could be happy at, a place where they could just be kids. But it just got worse. I’ve moved to seven states in seven years. Maybe that’s the problem. We just moved to Ohio, and so far there’s been no real incidents, at least that I know of.
TABU: That’s ’cause you don’t know everything.
TITAN: Some stuff you don’t need to know.
HOST: Let’s talk to these young men. Your names are rather unusual. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone with names that are so . . . strong.
TITAN: Our daddy named us.
TABU: He wanted us to be tough.
MRS. TOLLIVER: Maybe things would have turned out differently if their father had lived.
HOST: Are you aware of the pain you’ve caused your mother?
TABU AND TITAN: So what?
HOST: So she’s your mother, and she obviously loves you very much, and your behavior hurts her—deeply.
TABU AND TITAN: Oh, well.
HOST: I notice you answered together. Do you often do that?
TABU AND TITAN: Yeah.
HOST: You say there are things your mother doesn’t know about. Things like what?
TABU: We’re always getting blamed for stuff, whether we did it or not.
TITAN: So we just decided to make it come true. Just wait and see.
HOST: I don’t understand. Can you help our TV audience understand what you mean? What you say is very disturbing and rather frightening.
TABU: Isn’t that why you’ve got us on this show?
HOST: No, we’re here to try and help you, and your mother.
TITAN: Don’t need no help. Just watch out. Leave us alone and nobody gets hurt.
HOST: What do you mean?
TABU: Don’t mean nothin’. Stuff happens.
HOST: Are you just saying these things because you’re on TV? Or are they real threats? These days, statements like yours have to be taken very seriously.
TABU: We ain’t threatened nobody. We’re on TV because our mother told us she’d pay us if we showed up.
TITAN: And ’cause can’t nobody beat us, so who cares?
HOST: Is this true, Mrs. Tolliver? Did you bribe them to come on the show?
MRS. TOLLIVER: I, I, didn’t know what else to do. I need help. The producers told me I could maybe get some psychological help for my boys if I got them to come on the show. I’d do anything to save my boys.
TABU: Save us?
TITAN: From what?
HOST: From yourselves. From jail. From death.
TITAN: Everybody gotta die.
TABU: Even you.
HOST: I think
it’s time to break for a commercial. We’ll be back after these messages.
Randy sat stunned in front of the TV. These guys needed to be locked up or something.
The phone rang, making him jump. It was Delia. “Did you see that? What are we going to do?”
“There’s nothing we can do. There’s no law against talking bad or being mean.”
“You mean we just have to wait until they do something terrible? Can’t the school do something?”
“Probably not. We just gotta be careful. Especially you girls. Don’t be walking alone after school.”
“You don’t have to warn me! Did they say somebody’s gonna die?”
“Not exactly. They never really said what they would do, or even might do. It sounded like it was part of an act.” “It worked. I’m scared.”
Randy took a deep breath. “I’ll take care of you, Delia.”
“Really?”
“For real. I got your back.”
“Thanks, Randy,” Delia said quickly. “You make me feel real good. Hey, I gotta go. My other line is beeping. I know it’s Charlene or Yo Yo.”
“Later.”
Randy got a dish towel and wiped up what the cat had missed from the floor. He wondered how big a threat the Tolliver twins could be. And he thought about Delia and how much he liked her. He chuckled to himself. He never would have had the nerve to talk to Delia like that if the Tollivers hadn’t freaked everybody out. He picked up the cat, who was now asleep on the kitchen table. But there was some stuff he couldn’t tell Delia or anybody else—stuff like he didn’t know where his dad was. He was getting really worried. He hadn’t seen his father in six weeks. He was running out of money and food. He was all alone. Except for the cat.
three
THE NEXT MORNING AT SCHOOL, EVERYONE WAS BUZZING about the Tollivers being on television. The twins were absent from school, which fed the fears and rumors even more.
“I heard they were planning to blow up the school!” asserted Yolanda, as if she had been told directly by one of the twins.
“You did not!” Delia retorted. “Don’t be starting no mess, Yo Yo.”
“Well, they could have,” Yolanda replied. “Who knows what they said after the show went off the air.”
“We just better watch our backs!” Jesse said. “Threatening folks on national TV!”
Yolanda, pleased that Jesse, her latest love interest, was close enough in the hall to join the conversation, laughed, looked directly at him, and said, “You are so right.”
“Did they really threaten anybody?” Delia asked thoughtfully. No one answered her.
“I DID hear that the teachers held an emergency meeting this morning,” Yolanda told the collected students in the hall. “I bet we get metal detectors and police in the halls!”
“I bet they’re scared,” Charlene said. “I sure am. I have two classes with the Tollivers.”
“Me too,” said Delia. She glanced at Randy, who smiled at her. It made her feel safe.
“Have they actually DONE anything?” Randy asked. “Does anybody have any proof of anything bad they have done? Anybody?”
Everyone was silent. But the fear remained nevertheless. The rest of the school day tiptoed by while everyone waited nervously for the return of the Tollivers.
Delia watched Yolanda breeze through her first few classes. Delia, however, felt every class was a struggle and was beginning to feel overwhelmed with the amount of work the teachers were requiring, and the amount of work it took to figure how to get around it all.
She and Yolanda walked down the back steps of the school toward an unoccupied bench. Lunch followed Miss Benson’s English class, and when the weather was nice they usually ate together outside rather than in the hot and crowded lunchroom.
Yolanda carefully unwrapped her egg salad sandwich and announced, “I shouldn’t be eating this. I’m allergic to eggs, you know.”
Delia said nothing.
“The last time I ate eggs I broke out in spots and my whole body swelled up like a balloon. My doctor told me the only cure was to eat gallons of chocolate to counteract the disease, so I will be forced to eat five candy bars after lunch!”
Delia usually enjoyed Yolanda’s stories because they were silly and they kept her laughing, but today she didn’t even smile.
Yo Yo never told the truth. Never had. Delia had learned to live with it—even looked forward to the latest tall tale that Yo Yo would come up with. They had known each other since first grade, when Yolanda, a six-year-old with extremely long braids, sat down next to Delia and said, “My name is Yo-lan, and I’m from Mars.”
“Well, I’m Delia, and I’m from Cincinnati.”
“Boring,” replied Yolanda. “Mars has bright orange-striped skies. And thirteen moons.”
“Weird,” mumbled Delia. But they became friends because Yolanda turned ordinary days into adventure stories. Through the years she had told Delia of her father’s village in Africa, her summers spent in homeless shelters, and her mother’s job as an airline pilot. None of it was true.
At first Delia was annoyed at Yolanda’s constant exaggerations and tall tales, but after many visits to Yolanda’s house, Delia figured that Yolanda lied because the truth about her life just wasn’t very pretty. Yo Yo’s father was loud and demanding—a former army man—and her mother always seemed to have either a cigarette or a drink in her hand when she came to the door.
“Why you look so bummed out, girl?” Yolanda asked finally. “Every time Miss Benson starts talking about the state proficiency test, you act like she’s announcing that all the Shoe Carnival stores are going out of business!”
“It’s nothing. I just hate tests,” Delia replied, nibbling on a carrot stick.
“I remember in elementary school, seems like you were always absent on days we had big tests.”
“Maybe.”
“This stupid test is really no big deal. We took it last year for practice, remember? It was a piece of cake. I passed all five sections—first try, didn’t you?”
“No.”
“I thought you told me you passed it too.”
“I probably did tell you that. But I didn’t. I failed it. All of it.” She looked at Yolanda. “All except the math part,” Delia added quietly.
“Well, it’s not important. It was just a practice test. I’m sure you’ll do okay on the real thing.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay. It’s cool. Hey! I almost forgot! I got something I want to show you. Look what Jesse got me for my birthday!” Yolanda dug in her book bag and pulled out a tiny box of candy and a pink, flower-decorated greeting card.
“Dude musta robbed a bank—spent all of three dollars for the card and the candy!” Delia laughed as she sipped her juice.
“It’s the thought that counts!” Yolanda insisted. “Read the card! It must have taken him a long time to find a card that said just what I wanted to hear!”
“You sure you didn’t buy it yourself? Seems like I remember last Valentine’s Day, you bought yourself ten Valentines and swore you had ten boyfriends!”
“That was last year when I was a child of thirteen and before I met my true love, Jesse.”
“Your true love? You don’t know anything about him!”
“I’ll find out if I decide I like him well enough to ask. ‘Never waste too much time on eighth-grade boys’ is my motto. But Jesse’s got potential. He’s got a bit of class-enough to pick out such a cool gift.”
“He coulda picked up the first card with hearts and flowers he saw and you woulda loved it! Your brain is noodle soup when it comes to boys.”
“Read it. Read it. I want to hear it out loud!” Yolanda jumped up from the bench and pretended she was holding a microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen! Words of love from Jesse Johnson to the lovely Yolanda Pepper!”
Delia frowned. “I don’t feel like it. Read your own stupid card.” She jerked away and started to stuff her uneaten sandwich back in
to the brown paper bag.
Yo Yo looked sharply at Delia, like she was determined to say something. She took a deep breath and asked, “Why, Delia?”
“I just don’t want to. I left my glasses at home. Leave me alone!” The softness of the sunny day was destroyed. Delia shifted uncomfortably. They still had fifteen minutes before the bell rang for the next class. “I gotta go to the bathroom. I’ll see you after school.” She started to get up from the bench.
“Delia?” Yolanda looked directly at her friend.
“What?” Delia looked at the sky.
“We’ve been best friends since first grade, right?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“You were there for me in third grade when my baby sister died.”
“Yeah, that was rough.”
“And I stood by you through all that mess when your mom and dad got divorced when we were in fourth grade.”
“Yeah. So?”
“So it’s okay if you admit to me, and only me, your very best friend, your secret.”
“What secret?”
“The only thing we have never talked about.” Yolanda sighed and continued. “I know you can’t read, Delia. I’ve known for a long time.”
Silence. Delia sat back down on the bench, stunned. Yolanda sat next to her. Cars whizzed by in the street beyond the teachers’ parking lot. Echoes of shouts from the lunchroom drifted toward them. A bird chirped nervously in a tree. An airplane flew overhead. But Delia was silent. She thought of denying it, but she was so tired of hiding, tired of pretending. She covered her eyes, and let her shoulders drop, and finally she began to cry.
This time Yolanda was silent. She waited.
“Then why’d you stick that card in my face?” Delia asked finally, wiping her nose on her sleeve.
“Fakin’ it. Just like you been doin’.”