CHAPTER 17

I wanted onions just a minute ago, but not anymore. The onion voices are gone, and so is their smell. I sniff hard. Nothing but dust and dumpster. Was I imagining it?

“Yeah, what are you doing here?” says the guy with bright yellow hair.

“Yeah,” say the third guy and the girl together.

I shrug. “Nothing,” I say. That’s what every kid says when they’re caught with their hand in a jar of cookies. What are you doing? Mom asks, and you reply, with your mouth full, Nothing.

That’s how I feel now.

“I guess I’m lost,” I say. “I should turn around. Yup. I think I’ll do that now. Y’all go back to whatever you were doing, which I don’t know anything about, since I didn’t see it.”

Gangs are always getting up to mischief. I don’t want them to think I saw anything nasty or embarrassing. I mean, what if they were all playing with action figures, or knitting? Would they want me to know?

Though, when you think about it, a knitting gang would be pretty cool. The Purls — when you’re a Purl you’re a Purl all the way. On Friday nights, they’d rumble with the quilting gang.

“Why are you smiling?” says the guy with the neck tattoo.

“I was thinking about knitting.”

“Knitting isn’t funny.”

“You are right!” I say. “Knitting isn’t funny. It’s scary. Remember that movie Revenge of the Needles? Did you see it?”

The guy is glaring at me now. He was suspicious before. Now he’s mad. I keep talking, because, well, I don’t know why. “That scene where a pair of ghost needles came out of the TV set and started knitting up the girl’s sleeve all by themselves? Brrrr! I couldn’t watch!”

Seriously, why do I do this? Why do I say stuff that I know will get me in trouble? And, once I start saying the stuff, why can’t I stop?

“You should go back,” says the girl, waving at me. “Go back now!”

She flutters her fingers. Her long, black nails show up strongly against the paler skin of her hands. I wonder if the nails are real or fake? I watch her hands make ripples, up and down and up and down and up and down, like a flowing stream, like a flag in the breeze, like a bumpy road, like a snowboard going over moguls, like a see-saw or a swing or a pendulum or a pogo stick — you know I can never stay on one of those. Gale can practically read a book while pogo-ing but I fall off after three or four boinks.

Ripples in the air. Pale fingers, black nails that grow and twist like licorice whips. They have to be fake. I wonder where she got them. Is Tara’s a chain? Is there one on the island?

I don’t know where fear comes from, but it travels on a jet. It’s fast. One second after I smile at Tara’s Real Fake Nails, my heart starts pounding for no reason that I can work out. My insides fizz, like like they are filled with soda water. And then things get weird. I guess they’ve been weird for a while, but they get even weirder now. Buckle up. Ready? Okay.

The fake nails grow like vines, covering the girl’s hands, then her arms, then her whole self. She’s wreathed in black twisty chains, like some enchanted princess. Meanwhile, the guy’s neck tattoo is on the move. It’s a snake with its mouth open to show fangs. I watch, horrified, as it wriggles up out of the neck of his shirt, leaves his body, and falls to the ground. It’s enormous! The inky, slinky reptile sits in a coil with its head raised almost as high as mine, swaying, swooping, back-and-forthing, to-and-fro-ing, reeling and writhing, rocking and rolling.

My insides are fizzing worse than ever. My hands shake like I’ve been electrocuted. I’d run away but I can’t lift my feet. Why can’t I lift them? I look down. There they are, in black-and-white runners, just like I remember them. But useless! The good news is that I don’t pee my pants.

That’s about the only good news.

The clouds — remember the clouds? — cover most of the sky now. They’re moving fast. The blond guy puts his hand to his head. He checks his hand, wipes it on his pants, checks the sky, and says a bad word.

I look closer. Guess what? They aren’t clouds after all. The sky is full of seagulls. Like, full. Like, there’s no blue, only dirty white. That’s how many seagulls there are. A thousand? Ten thousand? A million?

It starts to rain, but not water.

Splat.

Splat.

Splat splat splat.

Rain makes that sound when it hits the sidewalk. That’s what’s happening now, only these aren’t raindrops. And the pavement is not getting darker like it does at the start of a rainstorm. White blobs crowd together as the seagull poop falls thicker and faster.

So many blobs that the pavement is soon white. So are my clothes and the gang’s clothes and their table and the nearby dumpsters. So is the dog that comes out from behind one of the dumpsters. A familiar dog — he was black, but I watch his coat turn white as the stuff keeps falling. The now-white dog runs away as the stuff keeps falling faster and faster. The whole lane is white. I can’t see the snake anymore, or the long licorice nails, or anything except the poop. Think of the heaviest snowfall you’ve ever seen. Heavier than that.

There’s so much of the stuff, and the lane is so narrow, that the level rises fast. In no time at all, the white is up to my knees. I take a step without thinking about my feet. I can move them now. The gang and I run — well, try to run, squelching and dragging ourselves through the white world.

Waist high.

Chest high.

Higher.

These seagulls have been eating their roughage all right. Now we’re floating, struggling to keep our faces clear of the sticky white poop.

How strong is the smell? Strong is a relative thing. Gale can push me around. But a gorilla could push Gale around. This smell is stronger than ten gorillas. This smell could stop a freight train.

Poop is halfway up the side of the buildings in the lane. And still splatting down. Is it a river or an avalanche? A bit of both. The white surface is dimpled with droppings. The girl gang member floats toward me. She calls my name.

Gus.

Does she know me? How does she know me?

Here comes the gang leader with the tattoo. He says hi to me too. The two of them float beside me calling my name over and over.

Gus Gus Gus.

I did not introduce myself. How do they know who I am?

Gus Gus Gus.

We float along on a thick and reeking river of white, under a sky of grey feathers and falling poop. What a strange day it has been.

When we reach the entrance to the lane, we spill out onto the main road. The poop is not as deep as a river now that it has a chance to spread out, but there is still a whole lot of it. White everywhere, about ankle high.

Good news: the smell is not so strong. Or maybe I have gotten used to it. Whatever. It is not making my eyes water anymore.

I pick myself off the road. A woman with a hairy little Pekingese dog in her arms turns toward me. The woman knows my name. Gus! she cries. A big police officer climbing out of her car points at me. Gus! she bellows. A little kid stares at me so hard he falls off his bike. Gus! he shrieks, getting to his feet. A gawky, bony guy cleaning the front of his shop flings a shovelful of poop at me. Gus! he shouts.

Everyone’s yelling at me. Everyone knows my name.

Here’s a clown holding balloons. He pops them all, one after the other, and each burst sounds like my name. Instead of bang, they sound like Gus. Pop-pop-pop. Gus-Gus-Gus. The little dog in the lady’s arms yaps my name, short and sharp. Gus Gus Gus. A clutch of sparrows under an awning chatter to each other about me. I overhear my name. Gus … Gus … Gus. A siren boops and beeps from a few blocks away, only the two tones are both my name. Gus-Gus, Gus-Gus. It’s like I’m everywhere.

These kinds of thoughts make my head spin. I close my eyes so I won’t see all the faces.

I can still hear my name echoing.

Gus. Gus. Gus.

Louder than ever.

“Augustus Constantine!”

I open my eyes. I’m lying on the sidewalk. The big police officer who got out of her car and yelled my name is now squatting beside me, holding my wallet.