Fuzzy Mud Read online

  Once again, she examined the hole in her sweater. She had tried looping some of the threads back through the hole and decided that maybe it wasn’t all that noticeable.

  Tamaya had another reason for not wanting to go to the doctor in the morning. It was something she’d never admit to her friends.

  She had never missed a day of school. At the end of each school year, she’d been presented with a certificate for perfect attendance. Those certificates didn’t mean quite as much to her now as they had when she’d been in the second and third grade, but still, she hated to spoil her perfect record.

  Before going to bed, she said her prayers, and on this night, she included Chad Hilligas. She didn’t pray for anything bad to happen to him. She asked God to help Chad find the goodness that lived inside his heart.

  2 × 16 = 32

  2 × 32 = 64

  Tamaya slept. Marshall did not. As much as Chad had tormented him, he tormented himself even more.

  He lay in bed, desperate to fall sleep. He knew he’d have to be alert to deal with Chad, but sleep seldom comes to those who are desperate for it. It is something that has to be eased into gently.

  He’d gotten in trouble for coming home so late from school. He was supposed to have looked after the twins, and when he hadn’t shown, his dad had had to leave work early.

  “The only way we can afford to keep you at Woodridge is for everyone to do their part,” his father had reminded him.

  “Good. I’ll go to another school, then,” Marshall had answered. “I hate that place.”

  It didn’t make any sense to Marshall. If his parents couldn’t afford it, and he hated it, then why not let him go to another school? But that argument only made his parents angrier. Then, on his way back to his room, he’d accidentally stomped on the twins’ hippo village, which had just caused more yelling.

  “You’re lucky I didn’t step on you!” he’d told Daniela.

  The whole thing was his parents’ fault, Marshall decided. His birthday was September 29, and back when he was four years old, his parents had had to make a choice: either he could start kindergarten as one of the youngest kids in the class or he could wait a year and be one of the oldest. If they had waited, he’d be older, bigger, and stronger, and Chad Hilligas wouldn’t even be in the same grade.

  “How many members are in the U.S. Senate?” That was the question Mr. Davison had asked Chad.

  “Twenty-nine?” Chad had guessed.

  Andy was the one who had laughed, not Marshall. “How can there only be twenty-nine senators?” Andy had pointed out. “There are fifty states!”

  But then Mr. Davison had said, “Marshall, will you kindly tell Chad how many senators there are?”

  Right then, Marshall had known he was doomed. He had considered giving a wrong answer, and maybe he should have, but who knows? If he’d said something like “twenty-eight” or “a million,” Chad might have thought Marshall was mocking him.

  Instead, what Marshall had done was stare down at his desk and very quietly say, “One hundred, I guess.”

  It was only a short time later that Chad had nearly thrown him down the stairs. “We need to settle this once and for all. And you better be there, you thumb-sucking coward!”

  Now, as he lay wide-awake at two-thirty in the morning, Marshall tried to convince himself that since Chad had finally beaten him up, he wouldn’t bother him anymore. They had settled it once and for all.

  Except he knew the opposite was more likely. Now that Chad had tasted blood, he would come back for more. And he would come after Tamaya too.

  He imagined walking to school with her. She’s yammering away about Monica or Calvin Coolidge or something, when Chad grabs her hair, spins her around, and punches her in the face!

  “Leave her alone!” Marshall shouts.

  Tamaya is on the ground, crying. Chad is about to hit Tamaya again, but Marshall grabs his arm. “I said, leave her alone, Buttface!”

  Chad shoves him. He shoves Chad back. A crowd gathers.

  Chad comes at him with all he’s got, punching wildly, but Marshall holds his ground, ducking and hitting back.

  At first, Marshall hears everyone rooting for Chad, but as the fight continues, he starts to hear a few of his old friends root for him. “Get ’im, Marshall!” “You can do it, Marshall!”

  And then…

  As Marshall tried to fall asleep, he imagined the fight ending in different ways. Sometimes he was the winner, leaving Chad beaten and bloody, begging for mercy. Other times, Chad won, but only after a long, hard-fought battle.

  He envisioned himself lying on the pavement, barely able to move. Two pretty girls from his class, Andrea Gall and Laura Musscrantz, kneel by his side and tell him how brave he was as they dab the blood off his face with wet paper towels. Laura kisses his cheek.

  But even as he imagined all this, he knew it would never happen.

  If Chad attacked Tamaya, the best he could hope for was that a teacher would break it up before Tamaya got hurt too badly. Then maybe Chad would be expelled, and then maybe after Chad was gone for a while, the other kids would like him again.

  That was his best hope, and he hated himself for it, because he knew it was the pathetic hope of a coward.

  Excerpted from the Senate’s secret hearings:

  Senator Haltings: Of course, we all have great hope for a nonpolluting, inexpensive alternative to gasoline. But my big concern, Mr. Fitzman, is what will happen when your man-made ergonyms mix with the natural environment. How will they affect plant and animal life? And ultimately human life? We just don’t know.

  Jonathan Fitzman: I’ve got that covered.

  Senator Haltings: The smaller something is, the harder it is to keep it contained. You can put a tiger or a grizzly bear inside a cage, but it’s a lot harder to keep a tiny microorganism from escaping.

  Jonathan Fitzman: Not a problem.

  Senator Haltings: If you have your way, people will be filling their cars with Biolene at every gas station from Miami to Seattle. Tanker trucks will be hauling Biolene across the country. Drops will spill. Accidents will happen. Then what?

  Jonathan Fitzman: Look, you got it all upside down and backward. You’re all worried about ergonyms getting out, but really, it’s just the opposite. I’m doing all I can to keep the outside from getting in.

  Senator Haltings: I’m not sure I see the difference.

  Jonathan Fitzman: Ergonyms can’t survive in oxygen. Expose an ergie to oxygen, and poof!

  Senator Haltings: Poof?

  Jonathan Fitzman: It disintegrates. Poof. You don’t have to worry about ergies escaping into the air. At SunRay Farm, we had to build special vacuum-sealed hoses and tanks, just to keep the air out.

  Tamaya awoke to her favorite song. Cold air came through her window, purposely left open just a crack, making the warmth of the covers that much cozier.

  Her music came on at 7:08 every morning, because eight was her favorite number, and Monica’s favorite number was seven. Her best friend, Monica, also woke up each day at that exact time.

  Tamaya’s thoughts drifted back to last year. There was a huge fireplace in the back of her fourth-grade classroom. Her teacher had filled it with pillows, and when the students finished their work, they were allowed to go into the fireplace and read. The fireplace was so big, there was room in there for at least four kids, and she and Monica were usually the first two back there, side by side, reading their books and trying not to giggle.

  As Tamaya was thinking about this, a growing sense of dread slowly crept into her memories. The image of the pillowed fireplace gave way to the woods, her torn sweater, and Chad. His cold eyes staring at her as he said, “You’re next, Tamaya.”

  Her hand tingled. She brought it out from under her covers to have a look. At first she thought the rash had cleared, but as her eyes adjusted to the light, she realized the red bumps were still there, covered in some kind of powdery crust.

  There was powder on her pillow t
oo, and when she pulled back the sheets, she could see it all over the bed. It was a pinkish-bronze color, the same color as her skin.

  She leapt out of bed and hurried to the bathroom.

  The powder washed right off, but the rash had spread. Red bumps coated her entire hand and continued down to her wrist. Some of the bumps had turned into blisters.

  Looking at herself in the mirror, she could see a crusty area on the right side of her face. She splashed it with water, and then scrubbed the entire area very hard with a soapy washcloth and very hot water.

  There didn’t appear to be any bumps on her face. It looked a little red, but that could have been from her scrubbing so hard.

  Her mother’s jar of miracle hand cream was in Tamaya’s bathroom. The night before, she had dabbed a little bit on each bump and then gently rubbed it in. Now she went whole hog! She dug her fingers deep into the chalky ointment and pulled out a big glob of the stuff. She smeared it on thickly over the entire area.

  She returned to her bedroom, where she bundled up her sheets. Then she took them to the washing machine. She set the temperature gauge to hot.

  “You’re washing your sheets now?”

  Tamaya spun around.

  Her mother was already dressed, wearing a cranberry-colored skirt and jacket. Her eye shadow was the same color as her clothes.

  “Because of my rash,” Tamaya told her. “So it doesn’t spread.”

  “Let me see.”

  Tamaya held out her hand.

  “It looks a little better, I think,” her mother said.

  Tamaya knew that was because it was covered up by the hand cream, but she didn’t say anything. Her mother’s breath smelled like toothpaste and coffee.

  “Tell you what,” her mother said. “You tell Marshall I’ll be picking you up right after school today. I can give him a ride home too, if he wants, but then I’m taking you to see Dr. Sanchez.”

  Tamaya nodded, glad that her rash would get treated.

  2 × 64 = 128

  2 × 128 = 256

  She put on her backpack, positioning the straps so they covered the hole in her sweater, then walked quickly through the house and on out the door before her mother could get too good a look at her. She still didn’t know how she’d explain the hole.

  She reached Marshall’s house just as he was coming outside. He was wearing his old glasses.

  He had switched from glasses to contacts over the summer. She liked his glasses better. She had thought his face looked blank without them.

  “You’re wearing your glasses,” she said.

  He shrugged, then said, “I lost my contacts in the woods.”

  “Oh.”

  In her mind she could see Chad slugging him in the face, his contacts flying out of his eyes, although she realized it might not have happened that way at all.

  She could see no bruises on his face. He just looked tired and washed out, like he hadn’t slept for six days.

  He dragged his feet as he walked. On other days, Tamaya had to struggle just to keep up with him, but as they continued slowly up the sidewalk, she began to worry that they might be late.

  Her tingling sensation had become more of a prickling. It felt as if her hand were being stabbed by a thousand very tiny needles.

  “Oh, my mom’s picking me up after school,” she told Marshall. “She’s taking me to the doctor, ’cause I got a rash or something in the woods.”

  She showed him her hand, but he hardly glanced at it.

  “You didn’t tell her we went in there, did you?” Marshall asked.

  “No.”

  “Because if you did, we’d both be in big—”

  “I said I didn’t tell her.”

  “Good.”

  “She can give you a ride home too, if you want.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” Marshall said, but she knew he was glad for the ride, glad to be safe from Chad.

  They turned onto Richmond Road. There was a lot of early-morning traffic, and once again Tamaya realized how much safer Marshall would have been if they had just walked home the usual way. She wouldn’t have torn her sweater. He wouldn’t have lost his contacts. And she probably wouldn’t have gotten the rash either, she thought, although she wasn’t really sure how she’d gotten that.

  As they walked alongside the woods, that feeling of dread she’d had when she’d first woken up returned. It seemed to grow a little heavier with each step.

  She couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was she was dreading. She didn’t think she was all that afraid of Chad, as long as other people were around. It was something different. Something worse. It was as if she knew something terrible was about to happen, but it was so bad, her brain wouldn’t allow her to think about it.

  They reached Woodridge Lane. “This is where I was supposed to meet him,” said Marshall.

  There was an area of weeds and dirt between the sidewalk and the fence. Tamaya figured that Chad must have climbed the fence and gone into the woods when Marshall didn’t show up.

  “At least there would have been people around,” Tamaya pointed out. “It was worse in the woods.”

  “Don’t remind me.” He kicked at the ground.

  Tamaya felt sorry for him. She didn’t like feeling that way. She liked it better when she used to look up to Marshall.

  “Chad’s just a big jerk,” she said.

  “I don’t care about him,” Marshall muttered.

  “A big fat jerk!” she repeated, loud enough so that if Chad was hiding nearby, he would definitely hear her.

  They turned onto Woodridge Lane. The woods were on both sides of them as they headed toward the school.

  Tamaya quickened her pace. “We’d better hurry so we’re not late,” she said, but Marshall continued to lag behind.

  She walked faster and faster, and then something inside her made her want to run. It wasn’t just the fear of being tardy. She felt scared—although of what, she didn’t know.

  She was out of breath when she reached the line of cars backed up from the school. Only then did she stop running.

  She heard someone call her name.

  Merilee, Monica’s little sister, was hanging halfway out the window of her mother’s Mercedes, waving to her.

  Tamaya waved back using her left hand. She tried to keep her right one hidden. She waited by the curb as Merilee, and then Monica, climbed out of the car.

  “Where were you yesterday?” Monica asked. “I kept trying to call.”

  Tamaya wanted to tell Monica everything but didn’t dare risk it. She knew Monica would tell Hope, and then it would be all over the school. “I don’t know,” she said. “In and out.”

  “You need to get a cell phone,” Monica told her.

  “They’re not allowed at school,” Tamaya reminded her.

  “You can use it after school,” said Monica.

  “I was in and out too,” said Merilee. “And then I went in again, and then I went back out.”

  Monica told her sister to shut up. “So, you’ll never believe who I saw yesterday,” she said to Tamaya.

  “Mr. Beauchamps,” said Merilee.

  “Shut up. I’m telling her. Mr. Beauchamps. He was jogging, right in front of my house! He sees me and says, ‘Bonjour, Mademoiselle Monique.’ I swear I almost lost it.”

  Mr. Beauchamps had been their French teacher since the second grade.

  “You wouldn’t think a bald guy would have such hairy legs,” said Monica.

  Tamaya forced herself to smile.

  Marshall was relieved to see Tamaya safely enter the building with her friend Monica and with no sign of Chad. He wasn’t sure what he would have done if Chad had attacked her. He liked to think he would have tried to protect her, but he also knew he might not have.

  He reached the front door. The seventh grade was located in the basement. It had been the servants’ quarters, but everyone at school called it the dungeon.

  It felt like a dungeon to Marshall. He trudged on down the stair
s, doomed to whatever torture and misery awaited.

  Excerpted from the secret Senate hearings:

  Professor Alice Mayfair: When I was born, in 1975, there were four billion people living in the world. That’s a lot. A hundred years ago, there were less than two billion. But today as I speak to this committee, there are more than seven billion of us.

  Senator Foote: What does this have to do with Biolene?

  Professor Alice Mayfair: More than three hundred thousand babies are born every single day. Day after day, after day. Every one of them will need food, water, and energy.

  Senator Foote: Exactly why this country needs Biolene.

  Senator Wright: Excuse me, Professor. It was my understanding you were going to testify about possible disasters that could result from the man-made organisms being introduced into the environment. It sounds to me like you are in favor of Biolene.

  Professor Alice Mayfair: Oh, there will be disasters. Whether from Biolene or something else, who knows? By the year 2050, an additional two billion people will inhabit this planet. Nine billion!

  Senator Foote: Which is why we need Biolene.

  Professor Alice Mayfair: Unless we do something to control world population, nothing will help us, Senator. Not Biolene, not super-duper crops and fertilizers, not colonies on Mars.

  Senator Wright: Let me get this straight. You want us to keep people from having too many babies, all over the world?

  Professor Alice Mayfair: Yes.

  Senator March: [Laughs.] I’m afraid that’s just a bit beyond the scope of this committee.

  Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, the students in Ms. Filbert’s class had to write in their journals. Sometimes she let them write about whatever they wanted, but more often she gave them a prompt.

  Tamaya preferred the prompts. It was strange, but she found it harder to think of something to write when she could write about anything in the world.