“Doing anything this weekend?” Bill-E asks.
“Not a lot. Maybe practising some wrestling moves with Loch.”
“Oh. I was thinking of coming over to watch some movies… if that’s OK…”
“Hell, you don’t have to ask.” I laugh uneasily. “You can drop in any time you want. It’s your house as much as mine.”
“Coolio!” Bill-E’s smile resumes its normal shape. “You want to watch a movie with me?”
“Maybe. But I might have to go over to Loch’s and practise. You know.”
“Yeah,” Bill-E says quietly. “I know.”
The bell rings and everyone files back to class. Hundreds of kids groaning, shouting, laughing. Bill-E heads off in his own direction. He doesn’t say goodbye. I watch him walk alone and lonely in the crowd and I feel twisted and vile, like something a maggot would crawl out of its way to avoid.
Bill-E Spleen was my best friend before Loch Gossel hit the scene. When I moved here after my parents’ death and my spell in the nuthouse, he made me feel like I wasn’t all by myself in the world. He helped me establish a life again. Settled me in at school, kept me company during lunch when everybody else was wary of me. Fought by my side on the Slawter film set—and it wasn’t fire we had to contend with. Tried to help when my nightmares kicked back in hard not long afterwards, even though his own mind was in turmoil.
How do I repay him? By abandoning him for the friendship of Loch, Reni and our little group. Cutting him loose. Being a Judas.
It’s wrong but it’s the way things go. When an old friend doesn’t fit in with your new pals, you cut him loose. It’s the law of school. I’ve dumped other friends in the past, and several have done it to me. The difference here is that Bill-E’s my half-brother. Even though he doesn’t know it.
→Chemistry. I usually find it interesting but this afternoon I can’t concentrate. I keep thinking about Bill-E. I didn’t mean to give him the big brush-off. When I first met Loch, I had time for Bill-E. I’d only see Loch occasionally after school. I still hung out with Bill-E a lot.
That gradually changed. Loch began inviting me round to his house and coming over to mine. Through Loch I became friends with Frank Martin, Charlie Rall and Leon Penn. And through them I got to know Shannon Campbell and Mary Hayes—and, of course, Reni.
Reni makes me forget about Bill-E for a few minutes. Daydreaming about her shoulder-length auburn hair, long eyelashes, light brown eyes, her curves… She’s not perfect by any means – big and sturdy like her brother, with a ski-slope of a nose – but everybody thinks she’s one of the hottest girls in our school.
I shake my head to stop thinking about Reni and my thoughts drift back to Bill-E. All those new friends made demands. It was exciting to be accepted by them, included in their conversation, treated as an equal. It had been a long time since I was part of a crowd. I hadn’t realised how much that mattered to me or how much I’d missed it.
I wanted Bill-E to hang out with us but he just didn’t fit in. I’m not sure why. He’s younger than most of us – he started school a year early – but Leon isn’t a lot older than him. He’s small, but Frank’s no giant either. He uses corny words like “Coolio!” but Robbie’s favourite exclamation is the seriously uncool “Radical!” He has a lazy left eye, but Charlie has buck teeth, Shannon has an ugly facial mole, I’m built like the Hulk… We’re all a bit odd, one way or another.
Bill-E is clever, funny, a much better talker than me. But he never found a niche at school. I didn’t realise it when I first started. Bill-E seemed like the most normal kid around. I knew he didn’t have a lot of friends but I was certain he fit in more than I did.
After a while I began to notice things. Like how Bill-E never went to anybody’s house after school. How people made jokes about him and aped him when he said things like “Coolio!” How he was bullied by boys like Loch Gossel.
I’m not blind to how Loch treats Bill-E. He teases him all the time, like with the fake hand-shake and headlock today. It’s different to the way he treats Charlie. Nastier. He embarrasses Bill-E in front of others, makes him feel small and unwanted.
I often thought of challenging Loch and the others who pick on Bill-E. If any of them hurt him, I’d have definitely taken them on. But teasing is harder to deal with. You can’t punch a guy for being sarcastic to somebody… can you?
I’d have worsened the situation if I’d interfered, made Bill-E look like a weakling who couldn’t stand up for himself. Besides, it wasn’t so bad. His life wasn’t a walking misery. And he always had me to cheer him up.
Class ends. English next. I walk to it by myself, quiet, thoughtful.
I feel ashamed. I should go up to Bill-E this afternoon. Invite him back to my place. Free up the weekend to be with him. Watch movies, eat popcorn, go searching for Lord Sheftree’s buried treasure. Like we used to.
But I won’t. Instead I’ll just suffer the guilt, wait for it to pass, then let things go on as they have been. Lousy, yeah, but that’s the way it is. Misery Mauch wouldn’t understand if I tried to explain, but I’m sure anyone else in the school – or any school in the world – would.
→“Of course I have nightmares—who doesn’t?”
I brushed Misery off with that line, but it followed me home from school like a stray dog. I live a couple of miles outside Carcery Vale, in a massive old house three floors high, filled with antiques and mystical knick-knacks. It was once the property of a tyrant called Lord Sheftree, a charming chap who enjoyed chopping up babies into little pieces and feeding them to his pet piranha. But these days it belongs to my uncle, Dervish Grady—as rich as Lord Sheftree, much more powerful, but without any of the nasty habits.
Dervish is munching a sandwich in the kitchen when I get home. “Good day at school?” he asks, handing me half of the sandwich.
“So-so,” I reply, taking a bite. Chicken and bacon. Yum!
Dervish looks much the same as when I first met him. Thin, tall, bald on top, grey around the sides. A tight grey beard which he shaved off a year or so ago but has grown back. Piercing blue eyes. Dressed all in denim. The only real difference is his expression. His face is more lined than it used to be, and he has the look of a man still recovering from a haunting. Which he is.
“Bill-E said he might come over this weekend,” I tell him.
Dervish nods and goes on munching. He knows things aren’t the same between Bill-E and me but he’s never said anything. I guess he doesn’t think there’s any point—nothing he says could fix the situation. It’s best for adults to keep out of things like this. It’s widely accepted that we can’t solve their problems, so I’ll never understand why so many of them think they can solve ours.
I tell Dervish about my session with Misery. He’s only mildly interested. “Mauch is a nice guy,” he says, “but not much up top. If he gets too inquisitive, let me know and I’ll have a word.”
“It’ll be a cold day in hell when I can’t handle the likes of Misery Mauch myself,” I snort.
“Oh Grubbs, you’re so manly!” Dervish gushes, fluttering his eyelids.
“Get stuffed!” I grunt.
We laugh and finish our sandwich.
→Of course I have nightmares—who doesn’t?”
I can’t get the damn line out of my head! All the way through homework, while watching TV, then listening to CDs and flicking through a wrestling magazine of Loch’s.
Everyone