Chapter Two
WORMS CRAWLED ABOUT on the paved recreational area behind Bristol Area Middle School. The chilly April rain had come around four in the morning, but had tapered off around seven, leaving a dense fog in its wake. As the sun rose, the fog dissipated. The ground, still wet, brought all the writhing pink crawlers forth, fresh from the loam that protected them from the usual predators. Some had been eaten by birds braving the weather. Some would perish on the pavement, separated from their place of sustenance by what, to them, proved to be a considerable distance.
As the morning's gym class assembled to listen to their teacher's instructions, one particular worm caught the notice of Kenneth Yardrow, known to his friends as Kenny, and known to his enemies by a variety of unpleasant nicknames.
The worm didn't look any different than the others wriggling about at the edge of the grass. In fact, its similarity to the others was what had caught Kenneth's attention. He had earnestly expected to see some of varying length, perhaps of varying color, yet when he glanced about, they all seemed the same to him.
He knelt before the worm, extending one thin finger to poke at it. The worm felt slimy to his touch and curled up into a ball when he made contact.
From past experience, he knew the worm would stay that way for some time, at least until it thought a perceived danger had passed.
Kenneth thought about putting the worm in his pocket-he had done so before-yet the day had only just begun.
He didn't want a repeat of last time when he'd forgotten about the worm he'd collected. He'd discovered that one squashed to juicy bits in his pocket when he'd put a hand in there.
He could think of only one thing to do.
He picked up the worm with two fingers and threw it, under-handed, back into the grass. He didn't know if a worm could survive such a throw, yet he hoped it did.
"Mr. Yardrow, care to join us this morning?"
The gym teacher had asked this question amidst silence, which to Kenneth meant that he'd been asked a previous question, one he hadn't heard.
Three girls standing together giggled at him.
The gym teacher, a thin, wispy woman known to Kenneth as Mrs. Wren, scowled at him. In her wrinkled right hand, she held an old wooden tennis racket with white tape about the neck. She'd judged the morning weather warm enough for all the students to go outside in their tight white t-shirts and loose green shorts, yet she herself had opted to wear a white windbreaker jacket with gray sweat pants and green sneakers. Her salt-and-pepper graying hair swayed in the morning breeze. Beside her sat a plastic barrel full of plastic tennis rackets. Another barrel, unopened, contained frayed white shuttlecocks.
The class was set to play badminton, as they had done the previous day.
Kenneth turned away from his study of the worms. He glanced at his teacher before looking down at the ground. "All right." He sighed.
"Good. Then let's start. You all remember the rules, right? We're short one net today, so you'll have to split into teams of three. Let's see, there are thirteen of you, so one person will have to be a substitute."
Kenneth, already knowing where this was going, sat down on the damp ground. The rest of the class, understanding all too well, pulled out rackets and shuttlecocks. Before long, the sounds of children playing badminton could be heard throughout the courtyard.
Kenneth noticed that one team only had two players. A tall girl with thick glasses had paired up with a boy who had yellow sweat stains decorating his armpits. The boy's left shoe was untied. The girl's hair appeared not to have been washed recently.
The student who was supposed to be their partner, a thin girl with a hole in the top of her sneaker, sat down next to Kenneth. Kenneth huffed.
"I don't want to do this either," the girl said.
Mrs. Wren, occupied with demonstrating the finer points of serving to a group of three, hadn't noticed her. The girl swiveled her head towards Kenneth. "I'm Savannah. You're Kenneth, right?"
"Only when I'm awake," Kenneth said.
Savannah pulled at one of her two pigtails, frowning. "I don't get it," she said.
"It's supposed to be a joke. You know, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? They both transform when they sleep by the dark of a new moon."
"What, both of them?" Savannah studied Kenneth's face intently, trying to discover if he was lying. "Who do they transform into?"
"They change into each other. They're like, what do you call it, alter egos. They're two people sharing the same body. You know what I mean? When I sleep, I turn into somebody else."
"I don't believe you. You're not a werewolf," Savannah said.
A short girl whose ponytail had come halfway undone took a clumsy swat at a shuttlecock. So close was she to the net that the object struck it, bounced off and dinked her on the forehead. She dropped her racket, falling to her knees, tears coming to her eyes as she began wailing. Mrs. Wren, having seen such episodes before, did not hurry to remedy the situation. The game continued in spite of the girl's crying.
"Like that, see? Like how Sarah there can turn on a dime into a weepy mess," Kenneth said, pointing.
"You don't turn on a dime. That's too small to turn anything on. Anyway, she's always like that. One time, in sewing class, she dropped her needle onto her shoe. She didn't even cut herself, but there she went. Stupid Sue, we all call her. Always crying about everything. That's not like sleeping in the presence of a new moon."
"Meh, you don't understand anyway. Why am I even talking to you?"
Savannah grumbled, "I'm the one who started talking to you."
"Why'd you do that?"
"Oh, I don't know. Maybe I thought I could stop you from being such a smelly face. I can see that I was wrong about that."
"If I have a smelly face, then you have a smelly butt."
"If I have a smelly butt, then you have a smelly belly button."
"How would you know that?"
Savannah said, "It's obvious, isn't it? Everything about you is smelly, even your belly button."
"What would you know? You're just a girl."
Savannah, who had heard this statement many times before, got up and joined the team she had left. By this time, Sue's crying, with the teacher's consolation, had subsided into sniffling sobs. Kenneth crossed his arms over his chest.
"Play all you want. See if I care," he said.