The Fall of Never(115)

The assembly of emotions that swam across her mother’s face at that moment were too great to know what the woman was thinking, was feeling. She looked like she might begin to cry too, Kelly thought.

Her mother stuck a finger out at her. “I’m not your father, you little witch,” she said. “I’m not afraid of you. Don’t forget that.”

Her mother seemed to hang above her for an eternity before leaving. Staring straight at the kitchen wall, Kelly listened to her mother’s heavy footfalls slamming against the hardwood floor until they disappeared.

Glenda shuffled over, gathered the socks and stuffed them into the pocket of her apron. With one hand, she smoothed back Kelly’s hair and departed again for the sink. “Finish your breakfast, dear,” Glenda said without looking at her.



“You’re getting me in trouble,” she told him.

The boy was slinking behind some bushes, as if trying to hide from Kelly, yet being casual about it. Every once in a while he coughed, sounded close to choking, then she’d hear him spit repeatedly. “I didn’t do anything,” he said after a time.

“You did. You sneaked into my room through my window and stole my father’s socks. My mom found two that you must have dropped.”

“I wanted to try them.”

“You don’t need clothes.”

“I don’t care,” he said. Briefly, his eyes flashed up to meet hers. They were dark and calculating. And they looked blue now, not black. Was that possible? Was she now imagining his eyes as blue? “I wanted to try.”

“And my mother hasn’t noticed yet, but you’ve been taking other things from the house too. There’s food missing from the refrigerator, stuff I only eat so no one’s said anything about it. But I know.”

“I don’t like food,” he told her. “It is disgusting, the whole process. It’s painful and it doesn’t feel good. I’m crazy with it.”

She leaned forward, trying to peer over the veil of shrubbery. “What are you doing back there?”

He didn’t answer; she could hear him breathing loudly. Again, he coughed, sputtered, and spat on the ground.

“Are you all right? What’s the matter?”

She hopped down from her rock-throne and crossed over through the bushes. She paused as she reached the other side, not quite knowing what to make of the situation.

Simple Simon was crouched on the ground, leaning forward on the balls of his feet. His toes—now fully developed—lay splayed like fingers in the grass. His hands were up to his face, to his mouth, working with something like a squirrel packing acorns into its mouth. When she appeared before him, he poked his head up and watched her with insect-like eyes, unnaturally still. He held something white and plastic in his hands.

“What are you doing?” she repeated, this time with a hint of caution. “You don’t look well.”

“It’s making me crazy,” he muttered, refusing to move. His eyes drilled into her.

“What is?”

“How do you do it? I can’t stand it.” It was a plastic fork he was holding, she saw. Only three of the four prongs had been broken off.

“Do what? I don’t understand what’s wrong.”

“Food,” he said. “There are things in my throat now. Big, fleshy things. I got food stuck in them. It hurts, it’s driving me crazy.”

“Those are tonsils, I think…”

“I don’t want them. Why did you give them to me? Think them away.”

“I can’t…”

“Do it.”

“I never thought them there in the first place.”

She thought she would turn and run screaming out of the woods if he didn’t take his eyes from her, avert that piercing stare. The anger behind those eyes reminded Kelly of her mother—that fueled cocktail of anger, fear and confusion.

His eyes still trained on Kelly, the boy opened his mouth as wide as it could go—and for the first time, Kelly realized just how real he had become. She saw yellow, crooked teeth and a pink slab of tongue. She recognized the moisture of saliva, saw ill-looking gums. With a trembling hand, Simple Simon pushed the single-pronged end of the plastic fork into his mouth and all the way toward the back of his throat. His whole fist went into his mouth to the second knuckle. Slowly, he began to rotate his hand in small circles, the fork’s prong scraping along the back of his throat. Kelly could clearly hear it scraping through the mucus. Just watching him repulsed her.

“Oh my God,” she muttered, turning away. “Stop it. You’ll hurt yourself.”

Something snapped. He withdrew the fork with a wet, sucking sound. The prong had broken off. “I don’t hurt.”

“Stop it,” she repeated.

“It’s making me insane,” he said. “I can’t stand it. How do you stand it?”

“I don’t even feel it. I’ve never noticed it before.”

He stood, his meager body trembling. “I need more forks. Plastic ones, so I can break the other points off. Or anything else that will fit in the back of my throat—”

“Stop it!” she suddenly shouted, a well of anger erupting from her chest. The unexpected outburst surprised and frightened her. “I didn’t imagine you like this! You’re in my head! You shouldn’t be this real!”