Part 2 (1/2)

Nathan understood death as a vague concept. He knew, for example, that when he crushed a beetle its guts came out and it stopped moving. This had made him sad, and he'd made it a point not to crush any more beetles.

Dad had read him a book about a little boy with two dogs, great dogs, hunting dogs, and at the end of the book both of the dogs had died. Dad was crying while he read it-not sobbing, but several tears trickled down his cheek-and Nathan had found the book overwhelmingly depressing, even if he didn't quite get it.

He knew immediately that his parents were dead.

Still there, but gone.

Nathan poked Mom on the arm, trying to get her to come back to life. ”Mom...?”

He didn't know what to do.

He cried for a while.

Then he got scared. He knew he shouldn't be frightened of his own mom and dad, even though they were dead, but he couldn't help it. He went outside and sat in his front yard and cried some more.

He didn't want the candy anymore. In fact, Nathan Pepper would never again eat candy of any sort. Licorice sticks, lemon drops, chocolate bars-the idea of all of them would be forever repulsive to him.

Nathan sat outside for five hours. He only cried for about two of those hours, off and on, but fortunately he was weeping when the postman arrived with the day's mail. Though Kirk Keller heard plenty of bawling kids on his route, this sounded different. He knocked on the door to the wooden fence, got no answer, briefly considered continuing with his route as if nothing happened, and then decided to go inside.

Kirk would become something of a hero at the Hammer's Lost post office for the next couple of weeks. After all, none of the other carriers had ever discovered a pair of corpses while en route. He would retell the story countless times throughout his life, gradually exaggerating the level of decomposition until it became a tale of his discovery of two human-shaped piles of goo.

The police came to investigate. They asked Nathan many questions, but he kept his mouth tightly closed and never said a word.

”Perhaps we should adopt the boy,” said Dr. Thompson, lying in bed with his wife.

”Is it because you want to do experiments on him?” asked Mrs. Thompson.

Dr. Thompson was silent for a long moment.

”Perhaps,” he finally admitted.

”Then no,” Mrs. Thompson said.

The Bernard Steamspell Home For Unfortunate Orphans was run by Bernard Steamspell, a man who was very impressed by his own accomplishments, despite their scarcity. Over the past thirty years, he had engaged in thirty-two different business ventures, all of which had failed. He'd won the Our Lady of The Weeping Statue Orphanage in a bar bet over who could inhale the most black pepper. He'd renamed it after himself, as he had all of his other businesses, and immediately sought to figure out how he could make this non-profit establishment more profitable.

There were plenty of expenses that could be cut. The Our Lady of the Weeping Statue Orphanage had never exactly served gourmet meals, but under Steamspell's leaders.h.i.+p, its dining experience only rose above the level of ”vile slop” on Thursdays, which he reluctantly allowed to become Taco Night. He sold the current twenty-eight mattresses and used the proceeds to purchase fifty-four much worse ones. Hot water was limited to his private bathroom.

These were easy changes to make, because Steamspell loathed children. Whether they were well-behaved or rambunctious, intelligent or rock-stupid, fat or thin (though they would all eventually become thin in his care), Steamspell hated them all. Rotten brats. If they weren't awful little things, they'd still have parents.

Though Steamspell did not beat the orphans without justification, he found this justification remarkably easy to find. He had a large wooden paddle that he used to administer the beatings, but liked to turn it sideways, to better focus the pain. Every orphan under his roof had been beaten at least thrice, and a couple of the worst troublemakers were well into the triple digits. Despite his best efforts to control the impulse, Steamspell often burst into maniacal laughter as he struck them with the paddle.

Nathan had tried to be brave as he rode in the front of the police car that drove him to the orphanage. The officer he'd been with the most, a gentle-eyed man named William, had told him that it was time to be a big boy, and a.s.sured him that while he'd be sad for a while, he'd make plenty of friends at his new home.

The police had seen his teeth, of course. The reactions were evenly divided between horror and fascination, though those who fell into the ”horror” category did not express this in front of Nathan, out of courtesy for the fact that he'd just lost his parents.

”His name is Nathan,” said William, giving him a gentle shove forward to his new caregiver.

”Nathan, eh?” Steamspell asked. ”Do people call you Nate? That would be easier.”

Nathan shook his head.

”Well, we can make do with Nathan for now.” Steamspell hated learning the children's names, and preferred to go with identifiers like Kid With Cowlick, Boy With Two Moles on Chin, and Blond Gawky Whiner.

”He's quiet but very polite,” said William. ”But before you take him into your care, you should be aware of his oddity.”

Steamspell frowned. ”Oddity. He'd better not be a bed wetter. I won't tolerate that.” He glared at Nathan. ”I've put many lads before you in diapers, and if you think they only have to wear them overnight, you're sorely mistaken.”

”I don't wet the bed,” said Nathan, softly.

”Did I just see what I think I saw?” asked Steamspell. ”Open your mouth again, boy.”

Nathan did as he was told.

Steamspell let out a long, harsh laugh. ”Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned! I've never seen such a thing. The children I get are rarely top quality, but this...”

”He's a very nice boy,” said William.

”Oh, I'm sure he is!” Steamspell held his sides as he laughed. ”What a tragic young man you are! My G.o.d, the other children will eat you alive when they see those things. I don't mean that literally, of course. In a literal sense, it's much more likely that you'll eat them.” He laughed some more, and committed that joke to memory with the intention of using it at least five or six more times.

”Are you going to be okay?” William asked Nathan.

Nathan was relatively certain that he was not going to be okay, but he nodded. ”Yes, sir.”

”Good.” The police officer shook his hand, and then left.

Steamspell briefly glanced at a piece of paper inside a folder. ”Parents killed themselves, did they?”

”No, sir.”

”Boy, when you address me, you will say 'sir.' Do you understand?”

”I did say 'sir.'”

”Then say it in such a way that I don't immediately forget that you said it! I will be treated with respect. If you wish to eat and be sheltered from the rain and sleep without being bitten by snakes, you will need to learn that I am the most important person in your life.”

”Yes, sir.”

Steamspell struck him on the side of the head, an open-palmed blow that made Nathan's ears ring.

”I said 'sir'!” Nathan insisted.

”I know you did. I'm not deaf. That was for all of the bad things you did before you came to live with me. I think we can both agree that a slap to the ear is an extremely mild punishment for all of the sins you've acc.u.mulated, right?”