The rains began on Friday.
The thunderclap woke Christopher up from a nightmare. The dream was so scary that he instantly forgot it. But he didn’t forget the feeling. Like someone was right behind his ear. Tickling it. He looked around the motel room. The neon from the Laundromat outside turned the front curtains into a blink.
But there was no one there.
He looked at the clock next to his mother sleeping in the other twin bed. It flashed 2:17 a.m. He tried to go back to sleep. But he couldn’t for some reason. So, he just lay there with his eyes closed and his mind going.
And listened to the pouring rain.
There was so much rain, he couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. He thought it would dry the oceans.
“Floods! Look at his pants! Floods! Floods!”
The words came to him, and Christopher’s stomach tied itself into knots. He would be going to school in a few hours. School meant homeroom. And homeroom meant…
Jenny Hertzog and Brady Collins.
Every morning, they waited for him. Jenny to call him names. Brady to fight him. Christopher knew his mother didn’t want him to fight anyone. She always said he wasn’t going to become some violent roughneck like the men in her family. She wouldn’t even let him have toy guns.
“Why not?” asked Special Ed during lunch.
“Because my mom is a packfist,” Christopher said.
“Do you mean a pacifist?” Special Ed replied.
“Yeah. That’s it. Pacifist. How did you know that word?”
“My dad hates them.”
So, Christopher turned the other cheek, and Jenny Hertzog was right there waiting to make fun of him and the other kids in the dumb class. Don’t say dumb, his mom would say. Don’t you ever say dumb. But in the end, it didn’t matter. He was in the dumb class, and Jenny was especially mean to the dumb students. She called Eddie “Special Ed.” Matt got the name “Pirate Parrot” on account of his lazy-eye patch. His twin brother, Mike, was the best athlete in the school, but Jenny liked to call him “Two Moms Mike” or “Mike the Dyke” depending upon her mood since he and his brother Matt had two mothers and no dad. But Christopher was the new kid, so he got it the worst. Every home room started with Jenny Hertzog pointing at his short pants, and chanting,
“Floods! Floods!”
It got so bad that Christopher asked his mom for new pants, but when he saw in her face that she couldn’t afford them, he pretended that he was kidding. Then, during lunch, he told the cafeteria lady that he didn’t want milk, so he could save his fifty cents every day and buy pants on his own. Christopher had already saved up $3.50.
He just wasn’t sure how much pants cost.
He went to ask Ms. Lasko, but her eyes were a little bloodshot and her breath smelled like Jerry’s after a night at the bar. So, he waited until the end of the day, and went up to sweet old Mrs. Henderson.
Mrs. Henderson was mouse-quiet. Even for a librarian. She was married to the science teacher, Mr. Henderson. His first name was Henry. Christopher thought it was so weird for teachers to have first names, but he went with it. Henry Henderson.
So many e’s.
When Christopher asked Mrs. Henderson how much pants cost, she said they could use the computer to look it up. Christopher’s mom didn’t have her own computer, so this was a real treat. They went online and searched the word “pants.” They looked at all these stores. And he saw that things were a lot of money. $18.15 for pants at JCPenney.
“So, how many fifty cents is that?” he asked Mrs. Henderson.
“I don’t know. How many?” she asked.
Christopher was almost as bad at math as he was at reading. But like a good teacher, instead of giving him the answer, Mrs. Henderson gave him a pencil and a piece of paper and told him to figure it out. She’d be back in a bit to check on him. So, he sat there, adding up 50 cents at a time. Two days is 100 cents. That’s a dollar. Three days is 150 cents. That’s a dollar and fifty cents. With the seven dollars in his piggy bank, that meant he could…
hi
Christopher looked at the computer. It made a little sound. And there was a little box in the left-hand corner. It said INTSATN MSESGAGE. But Christopher knew that meant instant message. Someone was writing to him.
hi
Christopher turned to look for Mrs. Henderson, but she was gone. He was all alone. He looked back at the screen. The cursor blinked and blinked. He knew he wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers. But this wasn’t talking exactly. So, he pecked with the pointer on his right hand. Peck peck.
“Hi,” Christopher typed back.
who is this?
“Christopher.”
hi, christopher. it’s so nice to meet you. where are you right now?
“I ma in teh library.”
you have trouble with letters, huh? which library?
“At scohol.”
which school do you go to? don’t tell me. mill grove elementary, right?
“How did yuo konw?”
lucky guess. are you liking school?
“It’s oaky.”
when are you leaving for the day?
Christopher stopped. Something felt wrong to him. He typed.
“Who is this?”
There was silence. The cursor blinked.
“Who are you?” Christopher typed again.
Silence again. Christopher watched the cursor blink and blink. The air was still and quiet. But he could feel something. A tightness in the air. Like staying under the covers too long.
“Hello?” Christopher asked the empty library.
Christopher looked around the stacks. He thought someone might be hiding. He started to get a panicked feeling. Like back in Michigan when Jerry would come home from the bar in a bad mood.
“Hello?” he called out again. “Who’s there?”
He felt this prickle on the back of his neck. Like when his mom used to kiss him good night. A whisper without words. He heard the computer beep. He looked over. He saw the person’s reply.
a friend
When Mrs. Henderson came back, the screen went blank. She looked at his math work and told him that he should ask Ms. Lasko for help. In the meantime, she gave him three books for the weekend to help with his reading. There was an old book with a lot of words. Then, there were two fun books. Bad Cat Eats the Letter Z and a Snoopy. Snoopy wasn’t as good as Bad Cat. But Snoopy was still great. Especially with his cousin Spike from Needles. That word. Needles.
So many e’s.
When the bell rang, Mrs. Henderson walked Christopher to the parking lot. Christopher waved goodbye as she and her husband got in their old minivan. Ms. Lasko got in her cherry-red sports car that must have cost a million fifty-cent milks. One by one, the teachers left. And the students. The twin brothers—“Pirate Parrot” and “Two Moms Mike”—threw their little plastic football as they got on the school bus. Special Ed blew a raspberry from the bus, which made Christopher smile. Then, the last buses left. And when everyone was gone, Christopher looked around for the security guard.
But he wasn’t there.
And Christopher was alone.
He sat down on a little bench and waited in the parking lot for his mother to come pick him up for Movie Friday. He tried to think about that instead of the bad feeling he was having. The feeling that something could get him. He was nervous waiting outside. And he just wanted his mom to get there early today.
Where was she?
The thunder clapped. Christopher looked at his math test. 4 out of 10. He had to work harder. He picked up the first book. A Child’s Garden of Verses. It was old. Kind of dusty. Christopher could feel the spine creak a little. The leather cover smelled a little like baseball gloves. There was a name in the front cover. Written in pencil.
D. Olson
Christopher turned the pages until he found a picture he liked. Then, he settled in and started reading. The words were scrambled.
Up itno the cehrry tere
Woh shuold cilmb but ltitle me?
Suddenly a shadow cut across the page. Christopher looked up. And saw it drifting overhead, blocking out the light.
It was the cloud face.
As big as the sky.
Christopher closed the book. The birds went silent. And the air got chilly. Even for September. He looked around to see if anyone was watching. But the security guard was still nowhere to be seen. So, Christopher turned back to the cloud face.
“Hello? Can you hear me?” he asked.
There was a low rumble in the distance. A thunderclap.
Christopher knew it could be a coincidence. He may have been a poor student, but he was a smart kid.
“If you can hear me, blink your left eye.”
Slowly, the cloud blinked its left eye.
Christopher went quiet. Scared for a moment. He knew it wasn’t right. It wasn’t normal. But it was amazing. A plane flew overhead, shifting the cloud face and making it smile like the Cheshire Cat.
“Can you make it rain when I ask you to?”
Before he got out the last word, sheets of rain began to pour over the parking lot.
“And make it stop?”
The rain stopped. Christopher smiled. He thought it was funny. The cloud face must have understood he was laughing, because it started to rain. And then stop. And rain. And then stop. Christopher laughed a Bad Cat laugh.
“Stop. You’ll ruin my school clothes!”
The rain stopped. But when Christopher looked up, the cloud started to drift away. Leaving him all alone again.
“Wait!” Christopher called out. “Come back!”
The cloud drifted over the hills. Christopher knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t help himself. He started walking after it.
“Wait! Where are you going?”
There was no sound. Just sheets of rain. But somehow, it didn’t touch Christopher. He was protected by the eye of the storm. Even if his sneakers got soaked from the wet street. His red hoodie remained dry.
“Please, don’t leave!” he yelled out.
But the cloud face kept drifting. Down the road. To the baseball field. The rain trickling on the clay-caked dirt. Dust like tears. Down the highway where cars honked and skidded in the rain. Into another neighborhood with streets and houses he didn’t recognize. Hays Road. Casa. Monterey.
The cloud face drifted over a fence and above a grass field. Christopher finally stopped at a large metal sign on the fence near a streetlight. It took him a long time to sound out the words, but he finally figured out they said…
COLLINS CONSTRUCTION COMPANY
MISSION STREET WOODS PROJECT
NO TRESPASSING
“I can’t follow you anymore. I’ll get in trouble!” Christopher called out.
The cloud face hovered for a moment, then drifted away. Off the road. Behind the fence.
Christopher didn’t know what to do. He looked around. He saw that no one was watching. He knew it was wrong. He knew he wasn’t supposed to. But Christopher climbed under the construction site’s fence. Snagging his little red hoodie. Once he untangled himself, he stood on the field, covered in wet grass and mud and rain. He looked up in awe.
The cloud was HUGE.
The smile was TEETH.
A happy SMILE.
Christopher smiled as the thunder clapped.
And he followed the cloud face
Off the cul-de-sac.
Down the path.
And into the Mission Street Woods.