Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance Page 6

  I looked over at Weylyn, who was still leaning out the window, blinking heavily as rain ran into his eyes. A bitter smile crossed his face, as if he knew I was watching him; as if he were answering the question that was on the tip of my tongue: Did you do this?

  * * *

  It rained for the remainder of the day and into the night, forcing the city to cancel the fireworks show. “The forecast said it was supposed to be clear,” I overheard Daddy saying to my mother in the hallway. “It’s like it just came out of nowhere.”

  That’s because it did come out of nowhere, I thought. Maybe I had just read too many Wandering Wizards books, but I couldn’t fight the feeling that Weylyn had had something to do with the rainstorm. I knew my ridiculous theory was most likely the product of boredom combined with three cans of Pepsi, but I just couldn’t shake it. If I was going to get any sleep that night, I’d have to ask Weylyn myself.

  After I heard my parents’ bedroom door click shut, I opened mine slowly and padded barefoot into the hall. I was about to knock on Weylyn’s door when I saw something move in the darkness. Whatever it was, it was small, no bigger than a chipmunk.

  As it came closer, I saw that it actually was a tiny brown chipmunk with a piece of tinfoil in its mouth. It scuttled toward me, then turned sharply to the left and darted under Weylyn’s door.

  How’d that little guy get in here? I wondered. Then I heard a strange squeaking sound through Weylyn’s closed door, the same one I had heard the previous night. I leaned in to listen through the door and heard other sounds as well: shuffling, clacking, grunting, and Weylyn speaking in hushed tones. I tried the doorknob. It was locked.

  Weylyn—and whatever else was in there with him—must have heard me because there was a sudden scrabbling sound. I ran back into my own room and looked out the window only to catch a furry flash of tail vanishing into the darkness.

  10

  MRS. MEG LOWRY

  “Those who can’t do, teach.” I hated that saying because it made teaching sound like it was just a fallback career for the runners-up of the world, like being a good teacher wasn’t a goal in itself. It implied that all you had to do to be a teacher was be smart enough for a child not to notice when you were wrong.

  I had wanted to be a teacher ever since my first day of school. I wanted to learn everything about everything so I could be the best teacher ever, but I ran out of time and ended up settling for knowing a little bit about everything—which is probably why Principal Evans asked me to take over the general education class.

  At first, I was crushed. I had spent the last ten years teaching freshman biology, and I had finally gotten the hang of it. I knew what labs my students would respond to, what experiments yielded the best results, what silly rhymes would get them to remember mitosis and which ones would later be mocked in the cafeteria. I wasn’t a great scientist myself, but I brought out the best in the students who were, and to me that was doing something. That was doing a heck of a lot.

  I taught in Suffolk County, a perfectly square patch of prairie land in rural Oklahoma with a total population less than the average city high school. I lived in the town of Paris, where most folks didn’t even know there was a city in France by the same name, and the ones that did thought we came first. Only half the population graduated high school, a handful graduated college, and almost 25 percent of the kids were homeschooled.

  What prompted the mass exodus of students from Paris schools was the reintroduction of dinosaurs back into the science curriculum—the subject had been previously removed in 1972 due to the volume of parent complaints. I heard from the other teachers that the homeschool parents got together and wrote their own textbook. Janet Crabtree—American history—got her hands on a copy and called it “the kind of book you’d find in a Cracker Jack box: completely devoid of substance and slightly racist.”

  Eventually, some of the parents got sick of their kids and reenrolled them. Academically, they were behind where they needed to be, but rather than holding them back, Principal Evans came up with general education, or the dummy class as the kids called it. The curriculum covered a broad scope of subjects: geometry, literature, biology, history, art, and so on. For one teacher to substantively cover all these subjects was hard enough, but with kids from seventh through twelve grade, it was nearly impossible. It’s no surprise that most general ed teachers lasted only a year, then moved to places as far away as Alaska.

  As soon as I heard the news, I immediately started applying for positions in other counties, other states. That was in April of that year. Three months and no offers later, I started prepping for my first year as a general ed teacher.

  “I don’t even know where to start!” A dozen textbooks lay on the kitchen table in front of me, covering everything from physics to physical education. My husband, Nate, peered over my shoulder. “Phys ed? Did you tell them the softball story?”

  Five years ago, Nate and I signed up for an adult softball league. In one season, I set the record for number of outs, foul balls, and times traveled around the bases in the wrong direction. “I think I’m just going to have them run laps while shaking tambourines. Kill two birds with one stone.”

  “They’re making you teach music, too?”

  “I have a box of kazoos in the car.”

  “That’s crazy! You can’t possibly teach all this in one year!” Nate was a good husband, the kind that knows how to program the VCR and does the laundry without being asked. But he was also a good man, which is harder to be, I think. Nate never did things just because they were easy. “I’m gonna talk to him.”

  “Talk to who?”

  He was pacing now. “Evans.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “I’m gonna go down there and shove a kazoo up his you-know-what!” He went for his shoes. I kicked them out of his reach.

  “You want to get me fired?”

  “Well, no, but he can’t treat you like this.”

  “He didn’t call me names or punch me in the face. He reassigned me. It happens all the time.”

  He finally stopped pacing. “No word from the other schools?”

  I shook my head. “Maybe this will be good. A new challenge, at least.”

  “You’ll be great.” He kissed me on the forehead. “Those kids are lucky they’re getting a second chance with a teacher like you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m guessing you can’t use the D-word?”

  “No dinosaurs.”

  “That stinks. Dinosaurs are the coolest.”

  I opened the book nearest to me, chemistry, and scribbled notes in the margins while Nate made hot chocolate.

  * * *

  Nate and I got married in our forties, too late to seriously think about having kids, so we collected dogs—seven so far. With our friends, we joked that they were kind of like trading cards, we needed one of each breed to complete the set. They laughed out of pity, then invited us to their kid’s birthday or soccer game or recital, so we could get a taste of what real parenting was like and maybe we’d stop letting our dogs eat from the table.

  The summer after Nate and I were married, I babysat my friend Anita’s son, Jasper, while she and her husband vacationed in Italy. Jasper was as tightly wound as a yo-yo and would run in circles around the coffee table for an hour before passing out on our chocolate Lab, Milo’s, doggy bed. He carried one of his mom’s old purses with him everywhere he went and stuffed it full of treasures: rocks, leaves, pinecones, bottle caps, coins, and so on. At the end of the day, he would dump everything he collected in a pile on the sidewalk and just walk away. I picked out the coins and kept them in a jar for him.

  One day, he decided it was Halloween and walked right up to strangers at the outlet mall, holding out his purse and shouting, “Twick or tweeeeat!”

  “They don’t have any candy because it’s not Halloween,” I explained and bought him a Milky Way. Jasper put the candy bar in his purse and later dumped it on the sidewalk along with som
e paper clips and a Chinese take-out menu.

  I was a little heartsick after he left. I spent the following day browsing adoption pamphlets and trying to picture myself pushing a stroller alongside moms half my age. In Paris, it’s normal to be a grandmother in your forties. You usually see all three generations together at the grocery store. Mom and Grandma arguing over something pointless while the baby screams in the shopping cart. After a trip to the store to get some milk, I threw away the pamphlets and took my dogs on a walk.

  The next day, however, I dug those pamphlets out of the trash and laid them out on the kitchen counter for Nate to find. I broached the subject with him several times, but every time he just shrugged and said, “I have you, and that’s more than I thought I’d get. I’m happy with the way things are.” The first time he said this it was sweet. The second time it was disheartening. The third time I almost wept and shouted, I want a baby! Don’t you get it? After the fourth time, I gave up and never mentioned it again.

  11

  LYDIA KRAMER

  Weylyn was the inspiration for Daddy’s sermon this week: tolerance. He read a passage from Romans 16:17, “Watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught.” Then, with emphasis, “Avoid them.”

  Weylyn was quiet and attentive, sitting like a yogi on the red carpet, an act that didn’t go unnoticed by the rest of the congregation. Out of the general rumble, I picked up words like blasphemous and disgraceful. Mama insisted he sit on a pew, but when that failed, she made her rounds, apologizing for Weylyn’s unchristian behavior. When Daddy quoted Romans, I could feel some of his flock slipping away. A dozen or more wouldn’t be back next Sunday, but it was a risk I was proud he took.

  Mama was in tears when we got home. She said she had never been so embarrassed. Daddy looked her square in the eye and said, “Me, too. Don’t ever speak to my congregation on my behalf again,” then disappeared into his study and didn’t come out the rest of the night, even for dinner.

  That night, after several days of weird sounds coming from Weylyn’s room, I decided to solve the mystery once and for all. I figured that whatever creatures were making those noises were coming and going from Weylyn’s window and were probably climbing the tree outside to get to it. So I did what all clumsy, athletically challenged teenagers should do once in their lifetime: I climbed a tree.

  To an outsider, it would have been akin to watching a cow attempting the same feat. I’m not saying I’m as big as a cow, just that I have the agility of one. My hands might as well have been hooves because my grip was shockingly inadequate, and I wasn’t limber enough to get footholds on the higher branches. Needless to say, it was a slow process.

  I finally reached the branch that armed out to Weylyn’s open window and peered inside. What I saw wasn’t wolves but nearly every other native species gathered around Weylyn: raccoons, squirrels, chipmunks, opossums, mice, birds, and moles, just to name a few. I even spotted the striped tail of a skunk.

  In front of Weylyn was a pile of what looked like trash: candy wrappers, foil balls, bottle caps, and broken glass. A raccoon I could swear was Marcel was holding something glittery out to Weylyn with his tiny black paw. Whatever it was, it wasn’t trash. Weylyn looked uncertain but took the gift, anyway, and put it in his pocket. The raccoon sat back on his haunches, pleased.

  I shifted my weight, and the branch beneath me creaked. Weylyn and his friends looked at me all at once.

  “Hey…,” I mumbled awkwardly, then screamed as the animals clambered out the window and down my back to the branches below. I nearly fell, but Weylyn reached out the window and put a hand on my shoulder to steady me. I looked up at him sheepishly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin the party.”

  “It’s fine. Here, let me help you.” He held out his hand and pulled me inside. I looked around Weylyn’s room for any furry stragglers, but it appeared that I had scared them all off. Before I could address the elephant in the room, Weylyn beat me to it. “Those are my friends. They only visit after Mrs. Kramer has gone to bed because they’re scared of her.”

  “Aren’t we all?” I said. “So, you can communicate with other animals, too? Not just wolves.”

  “Kind of,” he mumbled, fussing with a pile of shiny garbage on the floor.

  I sat cross-legged on the floor next to him. “Can you do anything else?”

  “Like what?”

  Summon a rainstorm? “Oh, I don’t know … stuff that normal people can’t do.”

  Weylyn looked back at me, blankly.

  “Forget it,” I said, feeling stupid. “What’s with all the trash?”

  “It’s not trash,” Weylyn said crossly. He pulled out one of Mama’s empty hatboxes from the closet and began transferring the garbage into it.

  “Did your friends give you this stuff?”

  “They bring me things they think I’ll like.” He placed the last piece of trash in the box, then put his hand in his pocket and wrapped his fingers around the gift Marcel had given him.

  “What’s that?” I prodded.

  Weylyn hesitated. “Something I’m probably not supposed to have.” He pulled the item from his pocket and showed it to me. It was a tennis bracelet, diamond, the one Mama gave Emily for her sixteenth birthday.

  “Holy shit! That’s Emily’s.” I giggled gleefully.

  Weylyn’s eyes went wide with panic. “Oh no. What do I do?”

  “Throw it in the box with the rest of your stuff. Hide it. We’ll put it back in the morning, and she’ll never know it was gone.”

  * * *

  It sounded simple. It should have been. What I hadn’t accounted for was Mama’s keen snooping ability. She wasn’t a casual snoop, one who checks sock drawers now and then for drugs or condoms. She was more methodical than that. She could tell when and where to look based on what you ate for breakfast that morning. I once ate oatmeal, and she raided my backpack for candy. Sure enough, she found three candy bars and a bag of chips. I thought a healthy bowl of oatmeal would put her off my scent, but it only attracted her, like a moth to a flame.

  It was the hair that tipped her off. Weylyn’s hair was usually a mess, but that morning, it was neatly combed. She found the box in less than three minutes and the bracelet inside. “Weylyn! Would you care to explain what this is doing in here?” She held the contraband in the air like a witch holding your own heart up for you to see.

  Weylyn froze and opened his mouth to reply, but no sound came out. I jumped to his rescue. “We didn’t want to get Emily in trouble.”

  “Emily?” she scoffed.

  “Yeah. We found it on the lawn. She must have lost it playing volleyball at the barbecue. Weylyn and I were going to put it back in her room without her noticing.” It was a clever pitch, but Mama was sharp. It was hard to get things past her. It felt like a full hour before she replied.

  “I told her not to wear it outside.” Her expression went from severe to stern as she turned back to Weylyn. “There’s still the matter of the trash in my sewing room.”

  “Weylyn’s room,” I corrected her.

  A new fire flared behind Mama’s eyes. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes. If this garbage isn’t gone by then, there will be consequences.”

  Weylyn reluctantly threw away his all treasures, save one piece of green glass. But there were consequences, anyway. Mama sent him to some kind of “gentleman training” camp in Marble Heights for the rest of the summer—the kind that teaches boys how to mix a proper martini and groom the facial hair they don’t have yet. Unless that camp also taught boys how to refrain from speaking to animals and controlling the weather, Mama was unlikely to get her money’s worth.

  When Weylyn returned a month later, he handed out business cards printed with nothing but his name in plain black type.

  “What are they for?” I asked. “You don’t have a job or a business.”

  “I will someday,” he said proudly as he topped off Daddy’s martini with an oliv
e. He had passed every test with flying colors, except he still wouldn’t sit in a real chair. Sir Priestley—not a real knight—said he tried everything he could, but the boy flat-out refused. So, despite his otherwise stellar performance, Weylyn would not be earning his graduation bowler this year.

  “Well, I’m proud of you, anyway,” Daddy told Weylyn at the dinner table. Daddy had found him a crate he could sit cross-legged on so he wouldn’t have to eat off the floor.

  “What’s he going to do when he goes to school?” Mama objected. “He won’t have any crates to sit on there!”

  But Daddy ignored her, as he usually did. It was easy to take Daddy’s side in those days, but since then, I’ve sometimes wondered if he ignored her because she acted out or if maybe she acted out because she was ignored.

  The next day was my first day of junior year, and Weylyn would be starting the seventh grade. He would put on the clothes Mama laid out for him and eat the lunch she pretended she’d made for him. He would find out what teenagers were willing to do and say to each other to fit in. He might try to do the same, but probably not, so he’d get left behind. They’d laugh at him, I was sure of that. They’d call him Wolf Boy and howl at him in the hallway, but he’d get used to it. I redrew the picture of him with a wolf’s ears and tail—on paper this time—and added a pair of fangs. That morning, I tucked it into his pencil case for good luck and hoped he wouldn’t need it.