“Boys,” Billy’s mom called from the foyer, “I heard a motor. I think the bus might be here. Kind of early, though.”
Billy jumped up and gave his father a helping hand off the floor. He loved the feel of the larger hand and the manly grasp, and he swelled with pride at his own ability to pull him up, even though his dad was at least five inches taller and maybe forty pounds heavier. Not much fat in Dad’s pounds, though. Billy made sure of that with their frequent tussles.
“Better keep working out, Dad! One of these days, I’ll pin you!”
His father pushed his fingers through his thick, reddish brown hair and laughed. “Not a chance.”
Billy didn’t bother with his own mussed hair and guzzled the rest of his juice. Just before he reached the hallway, he spun around, walking slowly backwards as he spoke. “Will you still be able to change tomorrow’s schedule so you can help me at the festival booth?”
“You bet. Remember what I said when you asked me before?”
Billy smiled and pointed his finger at his father, who pointed right back at him.
“Count on it,” they said at the same time while winking one eye.
They both laughed, and Billy turned again to try to catch the bus. He handed his mother the orange juice glass, gave her a quick peck on the cheek, and grabbed a backpack before dashing out the front door. She winced and rubbed her face, then quickly recovered and waved.
Even in his rush, Billy noticed her pain. He waved back and continued in a fast trot, but he couldn’t help thinking that he might have revealed his secret—the secret of his scorching breath. He had been careful to keep his mouth safely away while wrestling with his father; any slip-up could make it obvious.
Billy glanced down Cordelle Road, the two-lane street in front of his house, but the bus wasn’t in sight, only a dark blue Cadillac idling at the corner a couple of hundred feet away. Strange. Had he already missed the bus? He sprinted across the street to the stop and searched the other end of Cordelle. No bus that way either.
The Cadillac began rolling slowly his way, and Billy stiffened. Did this guy mean trouble? Maybe he was just lost. He squinted and tried to catch a glimpse of the driver, but the rising sun painted a glare on the windshield. A heavy uneasiness churned in his stomach, not nausea or indigestion; it was more a deep-seated worry, a nest of shivers growing in his belly, like a hundred hovering hummingbirds.
Billy was about to cross back to his home side of the road, nonchalantly, of course. He snapped his fingers and shook his head, pretending he had forgotten something, and he took a step onto the asphalt. The Cadillac gunned its engine, and Billy jumped back. The car lurched forward with a tire-biting screech, but at that moment the bus came around a distant bend in the road.
The Cadillac screeched again, this time stopping within ten feet of Billy. The driver’s door popped open, and a short, stocky figure stepped out. Billy turned and quickly stepped in the direction of the school, hoping the bus would pick him up a bit farther down the road.
Probably faster than trying to go home. Besides, I can’t miss the bus.
“Bannister!” the driver shouted. “Stop!”
He knows my name. But I don’t know him. Just keep walking.
Billy heard the bus engine, and he turned to see the yellow boxy truck pass the Cadillac. It pulled up to his side and stopped.
“Bannister!”
Billy turned. The Cadillac driver was now jogging in his direction. The bus doors swung open, and Billy hopped up the steps, feeling the hair on his neck sending a shot of tingles down his back. He waved at the bus driver. “Mr. Horner, close the doors quick.”
Mr. Horner pulled a lever, and the door’s two panels swung together. Billy looked out the vertical windows. The Cadillac driver stood on the sidewalk with his hands on his hips, staring at the bus. Billy couldn’t read his expression. Was he angry? Disappointed? As the bus pulled away, he leaned over and looked again. Would he run back to his car and try to follow?
Billy turned to the bus driver and gave him a questioning look, wondering if he noticed the man. Mr. Horner had never been much for words, but he communicated his thoughts with a masterful collection of at least a thousand prune-faced frowns, one for every negative human emotion imaginable. Today’s frown said, “Hurry up, Bannister. I spilled hot coffee on my pants, and I’m in no mood to watch you dawdle.”
Billy sighed and looked down the bus’s long center aisle. Out the back window he could see the shrinking figure of the Cadillac driver as he walked back to his car. The quaking he had felt in his stomach spread out into his limbs, and he shook all over.
Who was that guy? What did he want with me?
As he stepped toward the seats, images from the weird dream once again haunted his thoughts. He remembered his hot breath and his mom’s pained expression, and he winced at the boiling cauldron still simmering in his stomach. He felt pursued by phantoms, a swarming host of invisible fears. And now a physical stalker lurked close to home, bold and real.
Billy shivered and pulled his backpack up higher.
I feel like a hunted animal, but who’s the hunter?
Chapter 2
Billy searched across the sea of faces for his best friend. After a few seconds he spotted the back of his familiar head and his unmistakable, food-stained baseball cap. Billy stepped over a kid’s outstretched leg and called, “Hey, Walter.”
Walter jerked around toward the front, his brow wrinkled and his chin taut. “Hi, Billy.”
Still standing, Billy leaned over to get a glimpse through the back window. “What’cha lookin’ at?” He saw only empty pavement. The Cadillac was out of sight.
Walter spoke up to be heard over the din of the other students. “The car that was back there. I saw it cruising around our neighborhood earlier this morning. Do you know that guy?”
Billy sat in the aisle seat that Walter had saved for him. “The driver? I don’t think so. Do you?”
“Never seen him before this morning.” Walter’s probing blue eyes stared at Billy from under the brim of his cap, his bushy eyebrows turning down toward his slightly crooked nose. “He came by my house and told my dad he was a reporter doing a story on people in the neighborhood and unusual things they do. He started asking personal questions about your family, so my dad told him to get lost.”
“About my family? Like what?”
“Like where your dad came from before he lived in Castlewood.”
Billy dropped his backpack on the floor in front of the seat. “Dad won’t even tell me that one. He’s pretty quiet about the past, and none of the pictures in the photo album go back before I was born, so I just stopped asking.”
“Well, my dad said he’d call your dad, so I guess they’ll figure out what’s going on.”
Billy tore open his Pop-Tart and blew slowly on the corner before he bit into it. As he repeated his blowing and biting routine, he felt Walter’s curious eyes searching for an answer.
Walter finally blurted out his question. “What’re you doing?!”
“Blowing on it to heat it up.”
“What? One-and-a-half degrees?”
Billy tried to hide a smile as he took another bite. “You’d be surprised.”
“Whatever,” Walter said coolly, “but if you hate being called Dragon Breath, you’d better stop doing stuff like that.” He looked out the window at the passing scenery and then back at Billy. “You want to go up to Hardin’s Pass again this weekend? Last time the fish bit better than the mosquitoes for a change.”
Billy took another bite and finished chewing before he replied, making sure to look straight ahead. “Sure. Why not?”
Walter shoved Billy’s shoulder. “What’s with you today? Can’t you talk? You’re acting like I’m a leper. Do I have bad breath or something?”
Billy had to laugh, but he kept his face forward. “Not you, buddy. Do you want to smell mine?”
Walter put his two index fingers together to form a cross and pushed them toward Billy’s nose. “Back, foul vampire. It’s a wooden stake for you if you get any closer.”
Billy pushed Walter’s fingers down. “Halloween’s over and Thanksgiving’s coming, so don’t be a turkey!”
“Well, you know how I like to gobble.”
“Yeah, I know. I remember what you did at the Boy Scout picnic.”
“You mean the hamburger incident?” Walter asked.
“That’s what you call it, but I call it the hot dog, hamburger, baked beans, coleslaw, potato chip incident.”
“Well, yeah. I guess that describes it. I still don’t see what the big deal was.”
Billy noticed at least three other bus riders listening in, so he pulled down the bill of Walter’s cap and pumped up his vocal volume. “All that stuff on one hamburger bun? And then you left it on Mrs. Roberts’s seat. Don’t you remember? She jumped up and screamed so loud, six different people called 9-1-1 on their cell phones. One was even three blocks away. Then Dr. Franklin’s bassett started licking it off her dress, and she screamed even louder. To this day Mrs. Roberts will hardly sit anywhere but in her own chair, and she always looks down before she sits.”
A hail of derisive laughter pelted their ears, but Walter just shrugged it off. “I didn’t leave it there on purpose.” After a few quiet seconds, he looked at Billy’s hands and then at his backpack. “So, you got another Pop-Tart on you?”
Billy shook his head. “With your appetite, I don’t see how you keep from getting a lard belly. But don’t worry, you’ll get plenty to eat at the festival tomorrow night.”
“Yeah, but I’m running the Boy Scouts’ dunking booth, so I have to count on good friends to bring me stuff.” Walter nudged Billy in the side. “So, are you going to the festival, ‘good friend’?”
“Yeah. I’m doing the caricature booth.”
“Caricature? Is that like one of your animal drawings?”
“No. It’s a sketch of a person’s face, except that I exaggerate. If a guy has a big nose, I draw it the size of a baseball, and I make big ears look like Dumbo ears.”
“And people like stuff that makes them look weird?”
“You’d be surprised. But I also draw their pets. I usually get big tips for those.”
Walter held out a hand and rubbed his thumb over the tips of his fingers. “So, you make a lot of money?”
“Quite a bit, actually, but I send it to the Humane Society. I keep just enough to buy my pens and pencils and stuff.”
“I’ll bet the dunking booth’s more fun. Did you hear that our very own history teacher volunteered to take the plunge?”
Billy laughed so hard he almost choked. “Mr. Hamilton getting dunked? Are you kidding?”
“No kidding! Can you believe it? I heard him say that it’s ‘for a good cause.’” Walter mimicked Mr. Hamilton’s voice, a resonant tone with a dignified British accent. “He said, ‘Scouting is a fine way to make gentlemen out of the young males in our town.’”
Billy wanted to stop laughing, but Walter’s impersonation was too good, filled with hysterical exaggeration, and he kept it up. He even mussed his hair and widened his eyes, just like their teacher’s.
“You have to go to the water closet?” Walter continued. “Did you forget to go before you left home? Did you have a bit too much tea this morning?”
“Stop!” Billy cried, holding his sides. “I like Mr. Hamilton! Stop!”
Walter finished with another British-soaked quip. “Whatever you say, Mr. Bannister.”
Billy finally caught his breath, and he wiped a tear from his eye. Walter’s act made him forget his problems, at least temporarily, but when his hand passed his mouth, he once again felt his breath’s intense heat. He turned again toward the front and stared at the road ahead.
The droning of the bus engine and the all-too-familiar buzzing of student chitchat and chaos made the boys drift away in their own thoughts, and the two sat in silence for the rest of the trip. Walter gazed at the mountains, and Billy found himself dwelling once again on how to hide his atomic-powered breath. He could still see his mom’s wincing face, and he didn’t want to keep talking to Walter and risk his finding out how bad it was getting.
When they arrived at school, the boys shuffled down the bus exit with the rest of the troop. Their bus dropped them off precisely twenty minutes before first period, giving them plenty of time to get inside. Walter and Billy followed their Thursday routine, each buying a root beer from the outdoor vending machine. Next, they would go to the cafeteria and exchange belches and impossible stories with the other guys. Billy paused on the sidewalk, his can of root beer dangling at the end of his drooping arm and fingers. He stared mournfully at the school.
“Aren’t you coming?” Walter asked.
“Go on ahead. I have to do something.”
“You sure? You need any help with anything?”
Billy nodded. “I’m sure.”
“I really have to go,” Walter said, beginning to walk backwards toward the school. “Frank said he was going to tell about the time he went on a safari and wrestled a lion.”
“And you have one to top it, right?”
Walter grinned. “Yeah. I have a lion story, too.”
“Oh, no,” Billy said, covering his face with his hand. “Not the one about you getting killed and eaten at the zoo!”
Walter had already turned his back. “I’ve got the teeth marks to prove it!” he called as he hurried away.
Billy shook his head. Walter was such a hoot! A morning of trading tall tales would have been great, and Billy had the perfect opening line about swallowing a blowtorch that still worked down in his stomach. But it would’ve been too real. The boys didn’t usually bring props, and his breath would’ve raised too many questions.
Billy crossed the street and climbed a grassy hill on the other side, leaning forward to plant each foot while struggling against the steep incline. After reaching the top, he sat on a conveniently placed stone and pulled a small, spiral-bound notebook from his pant leg pocket along with a mechanical pencil.
Knowing about his artistic talents, the school had asked him to make a poster of the campus, something funny to attract people to the school’s fund-raising booth at the festival. He had already made two drawings that were hanging in the school hallways, but this new one had to be his best work yet, something that would grab people’s attention when they entered the festival gates. Billy decided now was a good time to make a quick sketch; he would transfer it to poster board tonight.
From the hilltop, the entire school campus lay before him in a mosaic of bricks, pavement, and teeming students. Imposing as it was at ground level, the complex now seemed small for the number of students it handled, filling only one neighborhood block. And in that area they squeezed in a parking lot, a ball field, and a basketball court. Most of the kids called it a dump, but it didn’t look so bad, especially from Billy’s vantage point. From this distance he could see how the mountains behind the school framed the campus perfectly. The colorful background of dazzling autumn leaves had faded in the last few weeks, but the scene still resembled one of those landscape photographs in a travel magazine. West Virginia had its drawbacks, but the mountains weren’t one of them.
Billy took a long guzzle from his root beer can and watched his peers mill around the schoolyard. Most of them were covered by dim shadows cast by the buildings that blocked the brightening sky. With a firm grip on his favorite pencil, he let his imagination take control, working long strokes and studious doodles together to create his new masterpiece. He sketched the students as tiny escapees, running from the graphite shadows being created by the school building’s caricature, an upside-down monster, a burrowing beast that had drilled its head and upper body into the ground.
The school’s narrow bell towers on each side served as the monster’s legs, and three sets of double doors in the middle of the first floor became a gaping hole in the giant’s huge stomach. Billy drew the underground eyes of its hideous face, sinister and beady. A bell sounded, and the monster smiled greedily as its doors closed to imprison the hundreds of children it had sucked into its hungry belly.
Billy held the sketch at arm’s length and admired his work, but only for a moment. The echoes of distant laughter had quieted, allowing him to hear the autumn breeze whistle past his ears.
How long have I been up here? Is it class time yet?
He downed the last swallow of his soda and dropped the notebook and pencil back into his leg pocket.
Standing at the crest of the ridge, he looked down at the sidewalk and street, thinking about making a two-footed slide down the slope, but just as he was about to throw himself into his plunge, he stopped. A car crept slowly down the road, the same dark blue Cadillac that had stalked him earlier.
Billy waited a minute to see what it would do. It wasn’t a good idea to slide right into that guy’s path and get smashed into a messy pile of Bannister roadkill. And he didn’t feel like having a chat with a stalking stranger. Although time was probably running short, he decided to wait and let his inquisitor move along.
I guess Dad’s probably talked to Walter’s dad about it by now. I can ask him when I get home.
When the Cadillac passed the schoolyard and turned at the next corner, Billy jumped down the grassy slope, his shoes sliding as he surfed the hillside. After crossing the street, he hustled up the concrete entrance staircase, jumping as many steps as he could, but a familiar voice made him stop at the halfway point.
“Hey, Dragon Breath!”
It was Adam Lark and his clinging cohorts. Adam, the ringleader, continued his verbal assault. “How many girls’ lips are you gonna shrivel today?”
While Adam and his pals laughed, Billy fumed. Walter was right; Billy hated his new nickname. He regretted Tuesday’s science lab when someone had seen him try to secretly blow on a test tube to heat it up when his Bunsen burner wouldn’t work. His fears were coming true; the news was spreading. He came up with a witty retort, but he thought better of using it. Maybe if he kept quiet, people would just drop the subject.
Adam and company moved on, still throwing verbal jabs as they walked away. Billy continued up the steps, ran through the doorway, and then jogged down the hall, stopping for a drink at the water fountain before continuing on his way to Room 107.
Maybe the root beer and water will keep my breath under control for a while.
When he swung the door open, he gulped at the sight of thirty other young teenagers; they were already seated, books open and pens in hand. As if guided by remote control, every head swiveled to catch a glimpse of the offender, and a rather loud voice called out.
“Students! Unless you think the exam will ask about Mr. Bannister’s clothing choices, I suggest you focus your attention on your lecturer.”
The unmistakable British accent held sway over the studious automatons, and their heads swiveled toward the front again.
The teacher took a step toward the door, tapping his chalkboard pointer on his palm. “Mr. Bannister, I never thought I would see you join the ranks of the tardy.”
Billy felt Mr. Hamilton’s perfectly enunciated rebuke drilling through his ear like a broken pencil grinding in a sharpener. It wasn’t finished yet.
“Would you care to explain to us why you are late?”
A surge of warmth radiated through Billy’s cheeks. At first he thought he was in for detention, but he noticed a gleam in the teacher’s eye and maybe even a hint of a grin in his pursed lips. His confidence buoyed. “I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.”