The bathroom by the gym, where the lights hummed and flickered yellow, was usually empty right after the final bell. There was never gym class past sixth period, and if you wanted to participate in illicit activities—selling candy, sharing dirty magazines—the last stall at three p.m. was always a good place. Kids in the know referred to it as the Dungeon.
It was the third week of fifth grade—a Friday afternoon—and Alistair swung his backpack over his shoulder, closed his locker, and prepared to call it a day when he learned of the latest goings-on in the Dungeon. Trevor Weeks, practically dancing as he moved down the hallway, said, “They got Captain Catpoop in there! Atomic wedgies. Chocolate swirlies. The whole shebang!”
The hallway presented two roads for Alistair. One led outside, to where Keri was waiting to walk home. The other led to the gym, to the bathroom, to the Dungeon.
He hesitated, but he chose.
* * *
Ken Wagner, Dan Fritz, and Ryan Chen had Charlie cornered, though it appeared they hadn’t done anything to him yet. As Alistair and Trevor burst through the door, they found the trio cracking their knuckles and pounding their fists in their hands, like tough guys in some old movie. Charlie was sitting on the edge of the counter, next to the far sink where the hot water never worked.
“Reinforcements,” Charlie remarked with a smile. “But for which side?”
“I’m Switzerland, dudes,” Trevor said, showing everyone his empty hands.
Dan stopped cracking his knuckles—a boy like him couldn’t be expected to do two things at once—and asked, “Switzerwhat?”
“Neutral,” Charlie explained. “So what about you, Alistair? You gonna help me fight these guys?”
Alistair paused, checked the mirror to spy intentions in eyes. These guys were jerks, no doubt about it, but he couldn’t really believe they would beat Charlie to a pulp. And yet he didn’t want to antagonize them any further.
“What did he do?” Alistair asked.
“Not your concern, Cleary,” Ryan said. “We don’t have a problem with you.”
“Well then, what’s your problem with him?” Alistair asked.
“His ugly face,” Dan said.
“Nice,” Trevor said, licking his finger and tagging the air, as if keeping score.
“Here’s the thing, fellas,” Charlie said, rocking his feet back and forth like this was no big thing. “Smash my face in and it will become uglier. Then you’ll have an even bigger problem with it and you’ll have to smash it again. It’s a vicious circle, my friends.”
Ken shook his head and curled his lip up. “That’s my problem with you. Your smart ass.”
“Actually, my ass is quite dumb,” Charlie said. “It’s always talking out of turn and making a big stink.” He lifted a knee like he was about to let loose, furrowed his brow, and then shook his head. “Sorry, false alarm.”
Trevor cracked up, licked his fingers again, and tagged two points in the air for Charlie. Dan sneered and pounded his fist in his palm again. “We doin’ this or what?”
Ryan resumed some knuckle-cracking, but there was little left to crack, so he started pulling at his fingers, trying to elicit popping sounds. “You know what my vote is,” he said.
Alistair was watching most of this in the mirror—chin down, eyes up—but he still couldn’t escape Charlie’s gaze. Charlie was sneaking him a signal through the reflection, a message opposite of his bold words. A wrinkle in his brow. A twist in his mouth. Help. Please help.
“Excuse me,” Alistair said, in a soft, polite tone. And he headed straight for the door.
Gasping as he stepped into the hallway, he searched for witnesses. Deserted. There was a fire alarm mounted on the wall, and he went over and opened its panel. The red lever behind the panel almost seemed as though it was vibrating, begging him to pull it. He placed his fingertips on it.
“Fire alarms spray ink on whoever sets them off,” Charlie had told him once. “That way people don’t pull them as a prank.”
His hand shaking, Alistair withdrew. This wasn’t a prank, but it wasn’t a fire either. Leaving the panel open, he hurried down the hall. His sneakers squeaked on the faux-marble floor, the only sound, echoing like a baby’s whimper in a dark hospital.
Keri might still be waiting for me. I’ll go home. Pretend I was never there.
Around the corner, a janitor pushed an industrial broom that collected scraps of paper and dust balls as big as fists. The kids called him Lenny, but no one seemed to know if that was actually his name. It sounded like a janitor’s name, and he never objected to it. He hardly spoke at all. He communicated in nods, salutes, and sighs.
“There’s a toilet … by the gym … over … water over the rim … wasn’t me,” Alistair called out as he passed Lenny, not slowing down at all.
Lenny sighed.
* * *
The phone rang at 8:27. Alistair’s parents had a rule: no calls after eight thirty. Charlie was well aware of this rule.
“It’s you-know-who,” Keri said, handing Alistair the phone.
Alistair’s dad didn’t turn away from the TV, but tapped his watch with a finger.
“I get it,” Alistair said, moving out of the room with the mouthpiece pressed to his chest. “I’ll only be a few minutes.”
When he was out of earshot of his family, Alistair said, “Charlie, I’m—”
“Can you sneak out tonight? Meet me at the clubhouse around eleven?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never snuck out. My parents aren’t always asleep by then.”
“Twelve, then. Climb out your window. I’ll be waiting for you.”
Click.
* * *
A line of cats moved like a single enormous snake, weaving through the grass soundlessly and into the open door of the clubhouse. Kyle didn’t give a damn about the clubhouse anymore. “Have fun with it,” he had told Charlie a year before, and that “fun” had amounted to Charlie turning it into a hotel for stray cats.
A cat slid through his legs as Charlie stepped through the clubhouse door and out into his backyard. Alistair kept his distance—he hated that clubhouse—but he could tell that Charlie was carrying something.
“We’re swapping,” Charlie said as he tossed a balled-up object.
It struck Alistair in the chest, but it didn’t hurt. It was soft. It fell into the grass at Alistair’s feet. He bent over and picked it up. A T-shirt.
There were bloodstains on the collar, a small rip in the short sleeve. Charlie stepped forward. His bare chest, rippling with small fatty folds, was drenched in moonlight. “Now give me yours,” he said.
Alistair was wearing a black rugby jersey. It was expensive—at least that’s what he’d been told—and had a hand-stitched fern on the left breast. “It’s … this is … from my uncle,” Alistair explained. “He was all the way in New Zealand when he got it.”
Charlie blew a little raspberry, which must have stung a bit because his lip was red and swollen, and then he reached out a hand and made a come here gesture with his index and middle fingers.
Alistair peeled off the jersey.
“Lenny yelled ‘What in tarnation?’ when he came in and found those guys busting me up,” Charlie said with a little laugh. “What in tarnation! Janitor hardly ever speaks, and those are the words he decides to use. I thought only the Looney Tunes talked like that.”
Alistair tossed him the jersey. “I sent him in, you know. It’s all I could think to do.”
“I know,” Charlie said, catching it and pressing it to his chest. “That’s why we’re doing the swap. You think this jersey is big money? That T-shirt I gave you is a limited edition. It’s worth even more now because of the blood. You’re being rewarded.”
Closer inspection revealed that it was a shirt Charlie had made himself, using iron-on decals. White letters on green fabric read POPULAR. Charlie had worn it so much that Alistair no longer saw the joke in it. Now, bloodstained and ripped, it seemed more sad than funny.
“They call me Captain Catpoop,” Charlie said as he pulled the rugby over his head.
“I know,” Alistair said, trying on his new shirt, which was at least a size too big.
“I’m going to make a T-shirt with ‘Captain Catpoop’ written on it. If that’s what the people want, then that’s what they’ll get.”
The wind rustled leaves on the trees that edged the swamp—a soft, sarcastic round of applause. Alistair hugged himself to stay warm. “I’m so sorry,” he said.
Charlie bent over and picked up a cat that was sneaking past. Its coat was ratty and its eyes glowed a ghostly yellow, but as soon as Charlie had it in his arms, it unleashed a delicate purr. “Nothing to be sorry about. Like I said. That’s why you get the shirt. You sent in Lenny and he sent the guys scattering. In ten years, that shirt will be a collector’s item, something to frame.”
The only place Alistair had seen framed T-shirts was at a local restaurant called Hungry Paul’s, and those were usually advertising pancakes or a softball team, not really anything worth collecting. “Why will it be a collector’s item?” Alistair asked.
“Because I designed it, and people will never forget my designs,” Charlie said. He moved his hand down, as if to stroke the cat, but instead, he gave it a pinch. It hissed and Charlie dropped it. It scampered off into the dark swamp behind the clubhouse, and Charlie patted himself on the chest, feeling the fabric of his new shirt, and he purred too, in his own way, a deep, rumbling hum.