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I recognized Tyro s car right away. The big
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white Escalade stood out from the Toyotas and
Hondas the teachers drove, as if it belonged to a
whole different species. Even Dr. Bratwurst s
Yukon looked puny beside it.
For a few minutes I stood there, motionless, in
front of Tyro s Escalade. I had to get over the eerie
feeling that the headlights and the grille were
looking at me, that they somehow knew what I
was going to do. I felt like myself and not myself.
Like someone else. Like an actor in a movie. I
even knew the name of the film: Miracle Boy s
Revenge. And the way I knew what do next was
that I d seen it in so many films.
I took my house keys out of my pocket and
dragged them along the side of the car door,
scratching off some paint. The first time, I was
hesitant, almost gentle. The groove didn t go very
deep, not because I was afraid to dig in, but
because some part of me didn t believe that it
would actually work.
It worked, all right. There was a thin little
scratch where there hadn t been a scratch before.
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I stood back. I liked the way it looked. I liked it so
much that I did it again. This time I made another
scratch, deeper and longer. I came at it from a dif-
ferent angle, and with the third scratch I made an
X, like spindly telephone wires crossing the snowy
field of the white car.
It was fun, in a way. I liked it. I knew it wasn t
a great thing to do. A compassionate thing to do.
But I enjoyed every scratch I made. I went around
to the front of the car, and I felt like a painter
who s just gotten a huge new canvas. Okay, let s
see what I could accomplish here. I had to stretch
and lean way over for this one, but I made a deep,
hard, jagged groove all the way across the hood.
Then another and another, then a sort of zigzag.
I kept looking over my shoulder. I was still
expecting to get caught. My heart kept skipping
beats. But then I stopped worrying about that. And
after a while I began to feel, inside my chest, a
whole different kind of heartbeat. Musical and
kind of trippy, as if a dancer deep inside me were
doing a fast, superjoyous salsa.
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Still, my little art project didn t feel finished.
So I began to write. I wrote every curse word,
every filthy disgusting word I d ever said, plus
some I d heard and never used, and some I
seemed to be making up on the spot. I wrote
Tyro s name again and again, so no one would
imagine that this was an accident, or that I d
picked the car at random, or that this had been
done by one of those ecoterrorists who burn down
housing developments and chain themselves to
redwoods and attack monster gas-guzzling-pig
SUVs. I knew why I was doing this: because of
what Tyro had done to me since I d started at
Bullywell, and mostly because of the text message
he d just sent me, supposedly from Dad. Because
he d taken what had happened to my father and
turned it into a sick, cruel joke. I was doing this
trying to make him sad and miserable because
of how sad and miserable he d made me feel.
Thinking about my dad suggested the finish-
ing touch, the final flourish. I started to write
Tyro one last time, and then I stopped after the
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first T and wrote Terrorist instead. I wrote Tyro
the Terrorist, and then I wrote it again.
The more I wrote it, the more brilliant it
seemed. Tyro wanted me to feel frightened, just
like the guys who d flown into the towers had
wanted us to walk around in terror. The size and
scale of the damage and loss didn t seem to matter
so much as the reason they did it: to hurt people,
to send a message, to spread fear just because
they could.
It was cold outside, but the temperature didn t
bother me. The steam my breath was making
seemed to be rising from the car, like some ghostly
smoke that was part of the magic trick I was doing.
It looked so good, I was so proud, it was such a
statement. I stepped back to admire my work. It
was excellent, but it wasn t genius, it wasn t
enough. I still had that boiling feeling inside me.
I bent down and picked up a chunk of cement
that had come loose from the pavement. I raised it
over my head and threw it through Tyro s wind-
shield. It was a beautiful sight to see, how the
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window didn t exactly shatter, and it was beautiful
to watch, how slowly it all happened. The glass
looked as if it was melting, softening, then sinking
in. The cement block disappeared, and in its
place appeared a jagged hole surrounded by a
huge, fantastic cobweb.
I stepped back again, thrilled with my work. I
was about to call it a day and head back into
school.
Just then, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I
turned and saw the sweating face of Dr. Bratwurst,
a few inches from mine. Behind him stood the
secret-service hall monitors awaiting his orders to
cuff me and throw me into a dungeon in the bow-
els of Bullywell, from which I would never
emerge to see the light of day again.
I didn t care that they d caught me. Let them
do whatever they wanted. I was proud I d trashed
Tyro s car. I d fought back. I d done something. I d
gotten revenge for the crimes that Tyro and his fel-
low terrorists had committed.
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CHAPT ER NI NE
eedless to say, I didn t get thrown into a
Ndungeon. I was sent home early from
school. I got my own private bus ride, and I
couldn t believe my good luck! I was given the
next day off. I would have been totally happy,
except that I knew: This time there wasn t a
chance that I would be able to keep Mom out of
the loop.
Dr. Bratwurst called that night and arranged a
conference for the next morning. The meeting
would include me and Mom, Tyro, his parents,
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and whoever else wanted to get in on the action.
For all I cared, they could sell tickets. Invite
the entire school. I was pretty sure I was out of
Bullywell. Bullywell and I were so completely over.
If I was sorry at all, which I mostly wasn t, it was
only because of what this might mean to Mom. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
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