THE FREAK HEARS THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF EARTH TALKING AT THE SAME TIME!
The hallway at any school on any given Monday morning is loud, but today it’s louder. Like the entire population of Earth talking at the same time.
The shoveler is swinging his shovel at a group of boys who have tried to take it from him.
“Get the fuck away from me!” he screams.
A discipline employee is running down the hallway, but he won’t get there in time.
The Freak saw this coming. She can sometimes hear the movies in the shoveler’s head and it wasn’t going well lately. Everything ended in anger. Everything caused frustration. The kid wasn’t doing well socially at his new school. Not like he’d tell anyone about it. Who does he have to tell?
His mother?
Mike the neighbor?
Marla and Gottfried Hemmings, who’re too distracted by paint color charts to give a shit about their own messed-up kids, let alone the social life of the cheap labor they hired to paint?
The Freak feels like she’s failed him as she watches the shovel graze a boy’s cheek—as she watches the shovel nick another boy’s arm. By the time the discipline guy gets him in an armlock, the boys grab the shovel from the hallway floor and start running with it.
That’s when The Freak steps in.
She holds the boys by their hair. She says, “Give me the shovel.”
“Who the—what the fuck are you?”
“Just give me the shovel.”
A boy approaches from behind her, and she lets out a kick that makes him tumble toward where he came from. The two boys in her hands try to squirm free, but she tightens her grip on their hair.
“Drop the fucking shovel,” she says one last time.
They drop the shovel at her feet. She tosses them, like two dolls, across the hallway. She picks up the shovel and walks slowly toward the main office.
Teachers try to get students into their rooms. Try to get the place to quiet down. None of the students listen. They mill around in circles like they’re in an enormous, angry blender, looking for more ingredients.
“It’s like a fuckin’ prison riot,” one teacher says to another.
“I don’t know how I do this anymore,” the teacher replies.
The Freak can’t flicker now. She’s got the shoveler’s shovel. She’s already underground and has nothing to lose. She walks into the main office, past the protesting secretary, and into the principal’s office and hands the shovel to the shoveler.
He looks up at her and says, “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
The principal nods at the discipline guy who’s still there. He walks toward The Freak and she closes her eyes slowly.
The shoveler yells, “No!” but she’s already gone.
The adults in the room all look like they need Easter break to come a lot sooner than a month from now. The principal is the only one who looks concerned for her own mental health. None of them ask the obvious question.
The Freak finds herself back in the tunnel she was in more than two weeks ago. Gray, rivets, lit only where she stands, and the sound of someone writing.
Scribble-scribble-scribble.
The Freak walks toward the sound. Everything in front of her is dark. Everything behind her is dark, but she trusts. Two right-hand turns later, she finds a lit piece of the tunnel ahead. A girl.
“Who’s there?” the girl yells.
The Freak stands still.
“Leave me alone!” the girl screams.
The girl gets up and starts running—in the direction away from The Freak.
“This is MY fucking tunnel! Stop chasing me! You’re not welcome!”
The Freak doesn’t know what to say. She’s never wanted to scare anyone, but she suddenly feels at fault for everything that’s happened today. The shoveler in the principal’s office. This girl, freaking out.
“I’m sorry!” The Freak says. Then she closes her eyes.
Lands in her bedroom again.
To the same old note.
You can’t just disappear without telling me where you went. I know your dad leaving has been hard on you, but we have to be a team now. I want your car keys on the kitchen table before dinner.