The Nix(47)

“Grab your side.”

They slid the block off the post. It was surprisingly heavy and dense. They carried it toward the headmaster’s house.

“I don’t think I want to do this,” Samuel said.

“We’re almost there.”

They walked slowly, the big gray block between them, around the headmaster’s pool and up the two steps to the hot tub, which was steaming, gently circulating, a small light at the bottom shining blue.

“In there,” Bishop said, pointing his chin at the hot tub.

“I don’t think I want to.”

“On three,” he said, and they heaved forward, then back, once, twice, three times, and then let go. They tossed the block into the water, where it was swallowed with a splash, followed by a low thud as it landed at the bottom of the tub.

“Good job,” Bishop said. They watched the block come to rest down there, its image distorted by the shimmering water. “That’ll dissolve by morning,” Bishop said. “No one will know.”

“I want to go home,” Samuel said.

“Come on,” Bishop said, and taking him by the arm, they walked back down the street. When they reached the house, Bishop opened the TV-room window, then stopped.

“You want to know what happened in the principal’s office?” Bishop said. “Why I didn’t get spanked?”

Samuel was holding back tears, wiping his runny nose with the sleeve of his pajamas.

“It was actually really easy,” Bishop said. “The thing you have to understand is that everyone is afraid of something. As soon as you know what someone fears most, you can make them do whatever you want.”

“What did you do?”

“So he had his paddle, right? And he told me to bend over the table, right? So I took off my pants.”

“You did what?”

“I unbuckled my belt and took off my pants and my underwear and everything. I was naked from the waist down and then I said, ‘Here’s my ass. You want it?’?”

Samuel stared at him. “Why would you do that?”

“I asked him if he liked my ass and wanted to touch it.”

“I don’t understand why you would do that.”

“He got pretty weird then.”

“Yeah.”

“He stared at me for a long time and then told me to put my clothes back on. Then he took me back to class. That was it. Easy!”

“How did you even think to do that?”

“Anyway,” Bishop said. “Thanks for your help tonight.” He climbed through the window. Samuel followed and padded through the dark house, returning to the guest bedroom, getting into bed, then getting out again and finding a bathroom and washing his hands three, four, five times. He could not decide if the burning sensation in his fingers was from the poison or if it was in his mind.





9


THE INVITATION APPEARED in the mailbox, in a square envelope of heavy, cream-colored paper. Samuel’s name was written on the front in very precise girl handwriting.

“What’s this?” Faye said. “Birthday invite?”

He looked at the envelope and then at his mother.

“Pizza party?” she said. “At the roller rink?”

“Stop it.”

“Who’s it from?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe you should open it.”

Inside was an invitation printed on expensive card stock. It shimmered, as if flecks of silver had been added to the pulp. The writing looked like it was pressed in gold leaf, a swirling, swooping cursive that said:

Please join us at the Blessed Heart Academy Cathedral

as Bethany Fall performs

the Bruch Violin Concerto no. 1



Samuel had never been invited to anything in this manner: lavishly. At school, the invitations to birthday parties were generic, slipshod affairs, cheap thin cards with animals on them, or balloons. This invitation felt actually physically heavy. He handed it to his mother.

“Can we go?” he said.

She studied the invitation and frowned. “Who’s this Bethany?”

“A friend.”

“From school?”

“Sort of.”

“And you know her well enough to get invited to this?”

“Can we go? Please?”

“Do you even like classical music?”

“Yes.”

“Since when?”

“Since I don’t know.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Mom.”

“The Bruch Violin Concerto? Do you even know what that is?”

“Mom.”

“I’m just saying. Are you sure you can appreciate it?”

“It’s a very difficult piece and she’s been practicing for months.”

“And you know this how?”

Samuel then made an angry, abstract sound meant to convey his frustration and unwillingness to further discuss the matter of the girl, which came out something like “Gaarrgh!”

“Fine,” she said with a satisfied little grin. “We’ll go.”

The night of the concert she told him to dress nice. “Imagine it’s Easter,” she said. So he put on the fanciest things in his closet: a stiff and itchy white shirt; a black necktie bound noose-tight; black slacks that popped with static electricity when he moved; a shiny pair of dress shoes that he shoehorned himself into, so granite-hard they removed a layer of skin on his heel. He wondered why adults felt they needed to be at their most uncomfortable for their most cherished events.