“Mom, what are you thinking about?” Christopher whispered.
“Nothing, honey. Pay attention,” she said.
Right before Father Tom turned the wine into blood with a few well-chosen words, he told the flock that Jesus loved everyone, beginning with Adam and Eve. This prompted Special Ed to begin singing the jingle for Chili’s restaurant.
“I want my baby back baby back baby back! Adam’s baby back ribs!”
This was met with thunderous laughter, especially by Special Ed’s parents.
“Good one, Eddie. My baby is so clever!” his mother said, her fleshy arms jiggling.
Father Tom and the CCD teacher, Mrs. Radcliffe, sighed, as if realizing that Special Ed’s discipline was now entirely their job.
“First Holy Communion is going to be awesome,” Special Ed said in the parking lot after church. “We get money. And we even get to drink wine.”
“Really?” Christopher asked. “Is that true, Mom?”
“It’s part of Communion. But it’ll be grape juice,” she said.
“That’s okay. I can get wine at home. Bye, Mrs. Reese,” Special Ed said before leaving to hit up the bake sale table with his parents.
*
On the drive home, Christopher thought about mass. How Jesus loved everyone. Even mean people. Like Jenny Hertzog and Brady Collins. And Jerry. Christopher thought that was amazing because he could never love someone like Jerry. But he would try because that’s what you were supposed to do.
When they got back to the motel, Christopher held the door open for his mother, and she smiled and called him a gentleman. And when he looked up before going inside, he saw it. Drifting. A shooting star looked like a twinkle in its eye.
The cloud face.
Normally, Christopher wouldn’t have thought much about it. Clouds were normal. But every day when his mother drove him to school. Every time they drove past the Mission Street Woods. Every sunset when they drove to CCD. The cloud face was there.
And it was always the same face.
Sometimes big. Sometimes small. Once it was even hidden behind the other shapes in the clouds. A hammer or a dog or an inkblot like the ones the man showed him after his father accidentally drowned in the bathtub. It was always there. Not a man. Not a woman. Just a handsome pretty face made of clouds.
And Christopher could have sworn it was watching him.
He would have told his mother that, but she had enough worries about him already. He could stand her thinking he was dumb. But he didn’t dare risk her thinking that he was crazy.
Not like his dad.
Chapter 5
The rains began on Friday.
The thunderclap woke Christopher up from a nightmare. The dream was so scary that he instantly forgot it. But he didn’t forget the feeling. Like someone was right behind his ear. Tickling it. He looked around the motel room. The neon from the Laundromat outside turned the front curtains on and off like a blink.
But there was no one there.
He looked at the clock next to his mother sleeping in the other twin bed. It flashed 2:17 a.m. He tried to go back to sleep. But he couldn’t for some reason. So, he just lay there with his eyes closed and his mind going.
And listened to the pouring rain.
There was so much rain, he couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. He thought it would dry the oceans.
“Floods! Look at his pants! Floods! Floods!”
The words came to him, and Christopher’s stomach tied itself into knots. He would be going to school in a few hours. School meant homeroom. And homeroom meant…
Jenny Hertzog and Brady Collins.
Every morning, they waited for him. Jenny to call him names. Brady to fight him. Christopher knew his mother didn’t want him to fight anyone. She always said he wasn’t going to become some violent roughneck like the men in her family. She wouldn’t even let him have toy guns.
“Why not?” asked Special Ed during lunch.
“Because my mom is a packfist,” Christopher said.
“Do you mean a pacifist?” Special Ed replied.
“Yeah. That’s it. Pacifist. How did you know that word?”
“My dad hates them.”
So, Christopher turned the other cheek, and Jenny Hertzog was right there waiting to make fun of him and the other kids in the dumb class. Don’t say dumb, his mom would say. Don’t you ever say dumb. But in the end, it didn’t matter. He was in the dumb class, and Jenny was especially mean to the dumb students. She called Eddie “Special Ed.” Matt got the name “Pirate Parrot” on account of his lazy-eye patch. His twin brother, Mike, was the best athlete in the school, but Jenny liked to call him “Two Moms Mike” or “Mike the Dyke” depending upon her mood, since he and Matt had two mothers and no dad. But Christopher was the new kid, so he got it the worst. Every homeroom started with Jenny Hertzog pointing at his short pants and chanting,
“Floods! Floods!”
It got so bad that Christopher asked his mom for new pants, but when he saw in her face that she couldn’t afford them, he pretended that he was kidding. Then, during lunch, he told the cafeteria lady that he didn’t want milk, so he could save his fifty cents every day and buy pants on his own. Christopher had already saved up $3.50.
He just wasn’t sure how much pants cost.
He went to ask Ms. Lasko, but her eyes were a little bloodshot and her breath smelled like Jerry’s after a night at the bar. So, he waited until the end of the day, and went up to sweet old Mrs. Henderson.
Mrs. Henderson was mouse-quiet. Even for a librarian. She was married to the science teacher, Mr. Henderson. His first name was Henry. Christopher thought it was so weird for teachers to have first names, but he went with it. Henry Henderson.
So many e’s.
When Christopher asked Mrs. Henderson how much pants cost, she said they could use the computer to look it up. Christopher’s mom didn’t have her own computer, so this was a real treat. They went online and searched the word “pants.” They looked at all these stores. And he saw that things were a lot of money. $18.15 for pants at JCPenney.
“So, how many fifty cents is that?” he asked Mrs. Henderson.
“I don’t know. How many?” she asked.
Christopher was almost as bad at math as he was at reading. But like a good teacher, instead of giving him the answer, Mrs. Henderson gave him a pencil and a piece of paper and told him to figure it out. She’d be back in a bit to check on him. So, he sat there, adding up 50 cents at a time. Two days is 100 cents. That’s a dollar. Three days is 150 cents. That’s a dollar and fifty cents. With the seven dollars in his piggy bank, that meant he could…
hi
Christopher looked at the computer. It made a little sound. And there was a little box in the left-hand corner. It said INTSATN MSESGAGE. But Christopher knew that meant instant message. Someone was writing to him.
hi
Christopher turned to look for Mrs. Henderson, but she was gone. He was all alone. He looked back at the screen. The cursor blinked and blinked. He knew he wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers. But this wasn’t talking, exactly. So, he pecked with the pointer on his right hand. Peck peck.
“Hi,” Christopher typed back.
who is this?