These Types of Bonding Experiences
Darkness. I reach out for the reassuring feel of leather. But my hands touch nothing. I open my eyes and see metal all around me. I’m standing in a tunnel, round, like a tube. To my left, I see light shining on piles of rusted junk in Headquarters’ backyard.
Two figures come out of the light, racing toward me. Metal monsters with grasping mechanical claws are close at their heels. When the two approach, I can see one is the girl with the auburn braid crown…and the other is Charlie! They come to a halt when they reach me and gasp in horror at something over my shoulder. I turn to see the tunnel shrinking rapidly, and just then the slick metal surface beneath our feet begins to rise up.
We fall to our hands and knees as the tunnel tilts further, and I see a giant black hole of an eye staring at us, blinking once, twice. It’s the Wolf’s eye. We are in the spyglass. The three of us try to scrabble up the tunnel toward the Wolf’s blinking eye, but we’re slipping and sliding toward the metal monsters instead. They wait below with hooks and blades slashing the air. The tunnel has tilted too far now, and so we fall to our fates: we will be sliced to pieces, flesh and bone.
I wake from my nightmare in a sweaty clench, trembling and shaking. Morning light filters in through the space around the zipper. I’ve slept in longer than normal, I realize, and today is Sunday. Sucker Day. After Morning Mess, I’m supposed to be confined to quarters until lunch. Which works out nicely for me. With my door locked, and with the Law of the Land on Sunday mornings requiring Freaks not to make a peep—even if the house is on fire—the chances of the Wolf finding me in the attic are zilch.
I climb out of the Bag to find an empty hallway. Nobody else is up yet. If I hustle, I can finish unBagging, get a quick shower, and be back in my room before Freak lockdown.
I move up and down the halls, unBagging as I go. When the Bags are all empty, I return to my room to grab my towel—which has the texture of sandpaper—and a bar of Headquarters-made soap—which smells like rancid oil.
Once safely inside the third-floor bathroom, it takes me a few minutes to get my gear off: my helmet, followed by my shoulder, chest, elbow, knee, and shinpads. I drop them all in a heap and duck into the shower. The water is freezing cold, as always. The Wolf insists that ice-cold showers build DISCIPLINE WITH A CAPITAL D. And Discipline, in turn, builds character. The Sucks are always complaining about the water, but it doesn’t bother me.
As I am working my hair into a soapy lather, I hear a pounding on the bathroom door. Fortunately, the bathroom doors, like the Freaks’ rooms, have locks. I finish scrubbing down, rinse off, then towel myself dry. All the while, the pounder keeps pounding.
“Whoever’s in there,” he growls through the door, “you’re Bagged!”
“Bagged and Dragged!” someone else shouts, which sends a shiver down my spine. Bagged and Dragged is bad, really bad. If the Wolf hears a Bag talking or sees one moving, even twitching, or if a kid unBags himself without permission—which is the ultimate crime of Failure to Find Discipline—they’re not only reBagged but also Dragged through the halls and up and down stairs to the Brig. Nobody knows exactly where the Brig is because victims go in and come out while Bagged. Even I don’t know.
Anyway, there’s a rule among Sucks that the older kids get first showers. At nearly eighteen, I’m the oldest kid in the house, but this rule apparently doesn’t apply to Freaks.
I get into my clothes and reassemble my pads. In my haste, my feet slide on a puddle—my heart seizes and I realize this is how I’ll die, in pieces on the bathroom floor. But I catch myself on the towel railing and manage to avert disaster.
“Open up!” the door-pounder shouts, “or you’ll be wearing the Old Tango Uniform when you come out of there!”
I open the door to find Corkscrew on the other side, his fist raised mid-pound. He freezes in surprise when he sees me. When our eyes meet, I can see he’s processing the fact that I Bagged him out him last night. Again.
“We’re first, Freak,” he says, finally recovering his cocky composure. “What are you even doing out of your cage on Sucker Day?”
“Sorry, forgot it was Sunday,” I mutter, moving past him into the hallway.
“You gonna apologize, Freak?” Corkscrew’s sidekick shouts at my back.
I keep walking as the boys bolt after me, inserting themselves between me and the door to my room.
“I said,” Sidekick says—he’s maybe ten, with drooping ratty hair and a crooked nose—“ain’t you gonna ’pologize.”
“I did,” I say quietly. “I said, ‘Sorry, I forgot it was Sunday.’”
This seems to stump Sidekick, who looks to Corkscrew for guidance.
I guess he gets it because he, shrimp that he is, cocks his fist and throws it toward my sternum, stopping just short of my chest protector. Pads or no pads, I flinch. Hard. Which excites him. So now he’s bouncing on his toes, shadowboxing me.
“Put ’em up, Fragile Freak,” he says.
I’m flinching and sweating and gasping for breath until I’m hyperventilating and getting dizzy fast. To avoid fainting and falling, I sink to the floor as the boys dance around, pretending to kick me to smithereens. They laugh and shout and have the time of their lives while I curl up into a ball and tuck my face between my knees.
I try to breathe slowly through my nose, the way Doc taught me, and count my breaths.
“Look at these losers,” another voice says.
I glance out between my fingers at two other boys approaching. One I recognize by his inward-turning right eye, a condition known as strabismus, which I read about in an old edition of Journal of American Medicine. His friend is a tall dark-skinned kid whose square head is topped with a thatch of thick black hair.
I know what’s coming, so I slowly edge away from the group on my behind.
“What’s your problem, Blockhead?” Corkscrew says. “Or should I say Blackhead?”
“Say that again,” Blockhead demands.
“What, Blackhead?” Corkscrew taunts.
Blockhead throws a punch, and before I know it all four boys are pummeling one another. I get to my feet, ease into my room, and lock the door. Now I can breathe again. I’m usually not much bothered by these types of bonding experiences with my orphan brothers and sisters, though I must admit I was the first time. Which was the day after my one and only attempt to leave Headquarters got that poor kid Bagged in the kitchen on the day Charlie got Discharged. He wanted revenge for that, so he started the Suck tradition of pretending to beat the holy hell out of me—which was the best he could do, considering the Wolf bans all Sucks from so much as touching me. But I guess it’s satisfying enough for smaller kids to watch me, at six feet tall and 175 pounds (or so Doc tells me), cringe and quiver like a baby. Ever since then, it’s become a Suck badge of honor to pretend to kick my ass.
Through the door, I can hear the Sucks fight until, suddenly, ZAP! ZAP! ZAP! ZAP! puts an end to it and four bodies hit the floor. Justice is served, I guess.
I polish off a bag of tasteless cereal I swiped from the Mess by stashing it in my chest pads. I keep the bag hidden under my mattress, so the cereal is crushed to bits, but it’s better than nothing.
After eating, I pull my blanket over my head and fall asleep. Just like that. But what seems like just a moment later, I’m startled awake by the Wolf banging on doors and shouting, “MUSTER TIME, SUCKS! FALL IN FOR MANDATORY FUN! TEN MINUTES! IF YOU’RE ON TIME, YOU’RE LATE! IF YOU’RE LATE? BAG CITY!”
Finally, I can safely snooze.
But then the Wolf adds, ominously, “FREAKS TOO!”