Everyone and everything, it seemed, had been conspiring against our finding out the truth about the Purdy House.
Two days had passed since our first Monster People meeting at the library, and Karim was still staying at my house. The three of us had tried to get together on Monday after my lunch shift at Lily Putt’s, so we could read the next article Bahar had saved for us, but Mom insisted on taking me to the big mall in Uniontown so she could buy new high school clothes for me. Worst of all, Mom asked Karim and Bahar if they wanted to come along, which was incredibly embarrassing, just thinking about Bahar watching my mom pick out things for me to wear. And I knew Mom would make me try on everything and show my friends how I looked, and Bahar had very strong opinions on what kinds of clothes boys in high school should wear, despite the fact that Pine Mountain Academy had strict uniform and ties-for-boys rules. The fact that I didn’t care—or even think—about my clothes made me feel kind of inadequate around Bahar too.
It was like I was going to be on display or something, modeling all those creased khaki school uniform slacks, cardigans, and stiff-collared white shirts, because Dylan and Evie were there too, contributing to the size of my clothes-shopping audience.
I knew something terrible was going to happen, but over the last year in eighth grade I’d gotten pretty good at not telling anyone when I felt doom heading my way. I was sweaty and shaking, and hardly said a word while Mom led us through the section with the big hanging sign overhead that said BACK TO SCHOOL, BOYS!
Bahar nudged my elbow and said, “Are you okay, Sam? You don’t look right.”
To be honest, I think I said something to her, but I can only picture my mouth opening and closing like a goldfish pressed against the side of its bowl.
Then Mom handed over an armful of stuff that smelled like the inside of a new car and told me, “Go try these on. And let us see how every one of them looks. We’ll wait here.”
I noticed that Bahar was looking at me, but I didn’t quite understand why. I felt awful, suddenly caught up in worrying about all the things I’d never get to do here in Texas again, and then getting mad at myself because what was I thinking? I’ve never been clothes shopping with Bahar—not once in my life—and it was something I never wanted to do again.
Never.
Bahar held Dylan’s and Evie’s hands, half in an attempt to keep them from following me into the dressing room. She said, “Don’t worry, Sam. It’ll be okay.”
So they all watched me like I was some kind of knight about to enter a cave filled with dragons, while I stood there, face-to-face with the hungry black mouth of a department store dressing room.
What I should have done was said, “Mom, maybe we could go in there together so you could check if there’s a changing room with a window in it.”29
Or I could have said, “Can Karim go in with me?”30
Or I could have said, “I trust the accuracy of modern clothes manufacturers. When they say size M, you can bet they are a spot-on match for a kid my size! I mean, look at me, Mom. I am the walking, talking poster child for an eleven-year-old boy who is size M!”
Which is what I did say, but then Mom shoved my shoulder playfully, nudging me in the direction of the hungry black mouth, and said, “Don’t be silly, Sam! We won’t have time to come back here again before we leave for Oregon.”
Which is also when all the spiders in my stomach rose up in some kind of wild, flailing polka dance.
I took a deep breath and went inside the changing room.
Alone.
Well, alone not counting the ten thousand spiders.
The dressing rooms were like tiny prison cells made from windowless, floor-to-ceiling flat panels of pale-blue indoor-outdoor carpeting that seemed to suck all the sound out of the air—probably to muffle the anguished screams, I thought.
I headed left (that was the direction that said ←MEN AND BOYS) and then turned right, down a narrow hallway with three doors. The hungry black mouth vanished behind me, like I had been swallowed and was on my way to its stomach.
The clothes I had draped over my arm suddenly became unbearably heavy.
I concentrated on taking deep breaths, but it felt like there was no air in the air.
I could do this, I kept telling myself. If I couldn’t, I’d end up ruining everything.
I tried the first door, but when I rattled the knob, it was locked, and a kid’s voice came through the panels of indoor-outdoor carpeting.
“Stay out, you weirdo! Can’t you see the door’s shut? I’m putting on pants!”
“Oh. Sorry.”
He was probably mad at his mom, too.
The second room was unlocked, the door halfway open.
Back when I was in grade school, my parents brought me to a therapist to help me with my claustrophobia. My therapist was named Dr. Greene, but he always insisted I call him Matt, which made me feel weird because I didn’t call any grown-ups “Matt.” Kids in Texas are not allowed to call adults anything that doesn’t start with an official title, like “Mr.” or “Dr.” or “Officer” or “Coach.”
As far as I knew, no grown-ups in Texas even had first names.
I practically needed another therapist to help me get over calling Dr. Greene “Matt.”
Matt gave me a couple of tricks to use when I started to feel my claustrophobia coming on. Matt told me I should think of something really boring, so I thought about Science Club at Dick Dowling Middle School, but it wasn’t working. The clothes in my arms were getting heavier, and the dressing room—the stomach—seemed to be getting smaller. Matt also said that I could try to imagine doing something that made me very happy, so I thought about staying up after bedtime, making and eating popcorn, and watching the Cooking Channel while it rained outside. That was one of my favorite things to do.
But even that wasn’t helping me.
In Mom’s defense, I think it was easy for everyone in Blue Creek to just assume that Sam Abernathy—forever the Little Boy in the Well—had grown up and out of those feelings of being lost and closed off from everything. Sometimes I got lucky, and I didn’t have to remind them—like when Mom and Dad decided to drive to Oregon instead of taking me to school on a plane. I could never get inside an airplane.
So I should have said something about not wanting to go into those dressing rooms that day, instead of just expecting that Mom might have known better. But to her, Dylan, Evie, Karim, and Bahar, I’m sure everything that day just seemed so perfectly back-to-school-shopping-ish, while in my mind I was trapped in the dark just like I had been when I was four years old.
It was a nightmare.
Cooking Channel, Science Club, Cooking Channel, Science Club…
Maybe I could just leave the door open, I thought.
And right about then, everything went black.
29. But that would have been weird because nobody ever wants a window in their changing room.
30. But that would have been SUPER weird, and besides, Karim would never stop making fun of me if I said something like that.