Munmun(31)

She seemed familiar to me, I had no idea why.

“So these are the worst ones, for sure,” said Wilt to this girl. “The kid with the neckpuppy is a squadleader, baldy is addicted to everything, crazy eyes over here yells at ghosts, and then the frowny jacked one in the corner is just mean and stupid, we call him Grumpyrat, he stopped even talking months ago.”

“Hello boys,” said the girl, and the voice was familiar too, dark and rich, my mind spun like wheels in mud.

Nick immediately called this girl something terrible, Starling suggested ideas for how they could bang, Puppyneck and I stayed quiet.

“You see what I mean, these scumbags are awfull,” said Wilt.

But she opened her mouth, hesitated, then said, “They’re perfect. Guys, my name is Kitty, and I’m doing a schoolproject on dreams.”

She said this and I got a sick feeling behind the eyes, like I wanted to cry and couldn’t.

Puppyneck maybe felt what I felt, because he told her rightaway, “Sorry, richgirl. We don’t dream.”

She thought it was a joke, realized it wasn’t, slowly dropped her smile, turned to Wilt.

“None of them dream?” she said.

“Prettymuch, nope,” he said.

“Okay,” she said. “Well, that’s a problem, because for the project, I need to dream with them.”

“Look, you wanted to meet them, here you are, didn’t make any promises about what they could do,” said Wilt.

“Don’t any of you dream?” she asked us.

I should have spoke up, but didn’t, couldn’t, I don’t know.

To this girl I was Grumpyrat, the mean dumb jacked one who says nothing, and it broke my mouth, my tongue was dull and fat, my voicepipe had no tread to catch the air.

So I stayed shutup as Nick called this girl another horrible thing and Starling said, “Sure I dream, sweetieboo, everynight I dream about life in that tittycrack.”

“Well,” said Kitty and paused, and finally said, “thanks for your time, I guess, and sorry for bothering you.”

And she got up to go, a little creaky and shaky I guessed from disappointment or just crouching down to talk to littlepoors.

The guards took us back into Littlebighouse, dumped us back into our cages, laughed at these dumb scumbags.

Two or three days went by, sad days of trying not to think about how I used to dream, try not to try to remember how I know this girl, probably I can’t remember and anyway my memories are like a hot painfull Dreamworld, torture to enter.

Puppyneck was eyeing me from timetotime, having talks with the faceboys, maybe it’s time to bust my face and gutbones again.

Then he stepped to my bunk one evening.

“Warner, time for us to talk, bro to bro,” he said.

He was talking kind of low and he didn’t have his faceboys with him.

“Heck you want,” I said.

“No grief, no crap,” he said, hands open.

“Heck you want, face,” I repeated.

He twinkled his eyes and said, “Dave, I respect you. You’ve taken many pulpings from me and my guys, you’re tough as heck, I respect you and I like you even.”

“Get to the point, scumbag,” I said.

“In a week it’s my birthday,” he said. “I’ll be sickteen. So I’m headed to grownjail.”

“Congrats,” I said.

“I have one piece of unfinishedbusiness,” he said. “That’s you, dave. When I leave here, I need you to be one of two things. A faceboy, or not breathing anymore.”

“Is that right,” I said, deciding, be tough and who cares.

He was relaxed but not casual, a tough smart squadleader style.

“That’s right,” he said, “because if you’re neither of those things when I get to grownjail, they’re not going to be very happy with Puppyneck,” he said.

“That’s sad for you,” I said.

“It would be sad for sure,” agreed Puppyneck. “You know in grownjail they mix littles and middles. So if I don’t take care of my faceboy responsibilities, probably the way I die is, get eaten. I’ll get dunkfried by some faceboy with kitchenprivileges, then munched by some middles. That’s how I guess they’ll do me unless I finish my business with you.”

“Nice to think about,” I said.

“Goodnews is, you get to decide,” said Puppyneck. “So look into the future and tell me. Are you dead in a week or did I draw a face on you.”

“Funny, I’m not seeing either of those,” I told him.

Puppyneck smiled at me, the puppyface on his neck bulged and frowned.

“Warner,” he murmured. “Don’t waste yourself. It would be sad and needless. Don’t waste your brain, don’t waste your body.”

And he leaned closer to tell me, “I’ll make you a squadboss after I go. My guys respect you. You’ll run these cages, dave.”

I wasn’t expecting that and so I had to shut up and just think about it.

“Take tonight to think about it, then tomorrow tell me that you want to live,” said Puppyneck, and before I could stop him he squeezed a knot of my hair in his fist like we were bros, locked eyes, bumped skulls.

So my choices were death or scumbag life forever.