Part 12 (1/2)

The trees really are beautiful in this light, the faint pall of the full moon casting a halo over this would-be forest. You walk between two trees that are leaning just a fraction of an inch toward each other in silent conversation (something Dad will rectify and chastise the gardener for when he spots it). You lie down between the trees, savoring the feeling of fresh mulch against your back. And you close your eyes.

You wake up to the water from the sprinklers. .h.i.tting your face. Before you can even open your eyes, you're soaked. Morning light pours in through the open atrium roof, but you can barely see the gla.s.s ceiling through the chaos above you.

Where the tame little matching trees had been before is only savage wilderness. Their trunks have exploded outward, no longer smooth matchsticks but spiny columns of wood as thick as baobabs. They were dwarfed by the high cathedral ceiling of the atrium yesterday, but somehow overnight their branches snaked their way up to the 145 roof, twisted jagged things with huge leathery leaves that look like Jura.s.sic ferns. They have nearly blotted out any sign of the sky above.

In fact, when you stand up and brush the mulch from your back, you discover gla.s.s littering the earth around you. The trees, in their supernatural growth spurt, have pierced the roof of the structure, with no intentions of stopping there.

A shadow looms over you. It is Father, and his normally crisp pin-striped suit is damp from ankle to knee.

You don't have enough time to raise your arms and protect your face as his hand comes down.

ROLFE HANSSEN.

”I told you it smells like you, Rolfe,” Biscuit says, holding you in place over the open manhole. ”Take it in, d.i.c.kwad.”

”I think the little runt likes it,” Dozer says, on your other arm. ”Look at the face he's making. Like home-made apple pie, huh, Rolfey?”

The face you are making is not one of pleasure.

”What I don't get,” Biscuit says, ”Is why a smelly little fish like you can get attention from a girl like Katie Burton. I'm stronger, my parents aren't practically home-less like yours, and I play Pop Warner.”

You know you're going to regret it, but you smile at the larger boy through your blood-tinged teeth. ”Let's 146 start with the fact that they call you Biscuit. Maybe she doesn't want to have children who sound like they're fresh from the f.u.c.king bakery.”

The blow from Biscuit's knees rattles your brain, and your eyes swim with worms of light.

”It's not my real name, dips.h.i.+t,” he growls at you.

”I guess it's a step up from Bradford,” you say.

You wait for the second blow, which you know is imminent. But it doesn't come. Instead the rumble of an approaching engine interrupts your merry meeting of boys.

”s.h.i.+t,” Dozer says. ”What if it's the cops?”

The pressure on your shoulders releases, and you drop to the cement. Your knees. .h.i.t first, hard. But where your head and chest should have painfully struck pavement too, there is only the horrible sensation of open air, and falling.

Like that, you slip headfirst into the manhole.

The fall isn't anything prolonged like it is in the car-toons. Almost as soon as you know you're falling, you feel the awful wetness of the shallow sewage lining, followed instantly by the impact of the hard concrete underneath.

One of your fingers snaps, but you have only a moment to experience the agony before your head thuds to the ground too.

Darkness ensues. As you fade in and out, you catch fragments of the conversation transacting up top, the rest of it lost in the static of semi-consciousness.

147.

The whoop of the police siren as the cruiser comes to a halt.

Interrogations of whether or not the boys had removed the manhole cover.

The stammering protests from Biscuit. Dozer's com-plicit silence.

The harsh order from the cop for them to beat it.

The pause before their feet skitter away.

And then a grunt and the awful grating as the metal cover sc.r.a.pes against the asphalt, followed by the thunk as the lid drops into place.

You wake up. Could be several minutes later, could be several hours. No way to know in the darkness. There's only the pervasive stink of the sewage.

Two choices. You can either try to escape through the manhole or you can look for another way out. You opt for door number one. You hop for the manhole with your good hand raised-the other is still mangled from the fall-but it's high enough that your fingertips only brush it. When your feet and calves tire from that game, you start yelling until your voice gives out. Then back to jumping again.

When you've exhausted the possibilities of escaping the same way you entered the sewer, you start to make your way down the pipeline. Your hands grope along the slimy wall for guidance.

You make it only twenty yards down the sewer main before you collapse against the wall, sliding down until 148 your a.s.s is entrenched in the muck, your arms wrapped around your knees. Your eyes well. Your fingers throb on your broken hand. So this will be your tomb, this foul-smelling catacomb, and all because Katie Burton pecked you on the cheek in the hallway.

Despite your situation, you grin softly in the dark.

Almost worth death, that kiss. Almost.

Something rattles to your right, in the direction from which you came. You know you should cry out for help, but a strong calm has flowed over you, like an armor.

Now you hear voices-familiar voices-and more grating and grunting as the sewer lid is moved up and over the cement.

”Hey, dumb a.s.s,” you hear Biscuit hiss. ”You down there?”

You open your mouth to say, Yes, yes I am. But you close it without a sound, and instead take a tentative step toward the manhole.

”Okay,” Biscuit says, his voice quivering with panic.

”You happy now? He's probably dead and washed halfway out to sea.”

”This is the old sewer, moron,” Dozer says. ”If he's .

. . if he's gone, he wouldn't have washed anywhere. We gotta go down and check.”

Biscuit says nothing.

”This was your idea, Biscuit. You found the manhole.

You go down there and check, or so help me G.o.d, I'll throw you down there myself.”

149.

There is a shuffling, and a flashlight beam dips through the manhole. ”It smells awful. I can't do this.”

”Get down there!” Dozer barks.

After a hesitation there is a splash, and Biscuit lands in the sludge. ”My new shoes,” he groans.

”Move over,” Dozer orders, and there is a second splash and a simultaneous thump as he collides with Biscuit, then a secondary splash and a rattle of something rolling toward your feet.