The Book of Joby (18 page)

“That’s not very respectful,” Joby murmured, looking down uncomfortably. “Father Crombie said Father Richter was a mentor, and . . . and I’m not sure we oughtta be makin’ fun of a priest when we’re fighting . . . you know—the enemy. He uses our mistakes, remember? Even little ones. Merlin said so.”

Hearing Joby sound so timid and girly made Benjamin’s anger so fierce that he wasn’t even sure anymore whether it was Richter or Joby himself he was angry at, and that scared him somehow.

“I’m your friend,”
Benjamin growled, as if saying it might protect him from the things he was feeling. “I’m your
friend.
That’s all I’m gonna say.”

“You boys ready to go?” Benjamin’s parents had arrived at last.

Benjamin blew out a big breath of frustration, wishing they’d come sooner.

At recess the next morning, Lindwald sent Joby sprawling to the ground, and got sent to the principal’s office for his trouble, while Joby was congratulated by Mrs. Nelson in front of the whole class for not letting Lindwald “get his goat,” whatever that meant.

But at their meeting that afternoon, several knights complained that if Joby didn’t put Lindwald in his place pretty soon, people would be laughing at the knights instead of at Lindwald. Laura insisted that Joby’s refusal to fight was very grown-up, and a good example for the rest of them, which had done nothing to improve Joby’s position. Having promised to take care of it, Joby had left the meeting wondering how.

“Just fight him, Joby,” Benjamin said as they rode home together on their bikes. “That’s the only way to make him stop for good.”

“Don’t you remember what happened last time I fought him? That’s just what he wants. There must be some other way to get to him. What would stop you, Benjamin?”

“I don’t know. . . . My mom and dad, I guess.
They
can make me do anything.”

“That’s it! Benjamin, you’re a genius!”

“What?”

“His
folks’ll
make him stop! I should have thought of that weeks ago!”

“You’re gonna
tattle
to his
folks
?” Benjamin asked in dismay.

“I’m gonna beat him without falling for his trap,” Joby said. “That’s all. We gotta find out where he lives.”

“Tony knows,” Benjamin volunteered despondently. “I heard him tell Duane that Jamie lives one street over from him. . . . I still wish you’d just beat the crap out of him.”

After school the next day, they got on their bikes and headed for the address Tony had given them. It was not a pretty neighborhood. The few trees on Jamie’s street were small and sickly looking. Front yards were hemmed in by chain-link fence, and waist high in weeds, or carpeted in dead grass cropped so short that bare dirt showed through like bald spots on worn carpet. Driveways were cluttered with rusty, half-assembled hulks, as if some forgetful mechanic had wandered off years before in the middle of a major rebuild. The paint was dingy and peeling on all but a few of the houses, and there were bars over most of the windows.

Jamie’s house was covered in ruined paint the color of old urine, and a woman sat on the porch, watching them come as if she’d been waiting. She was terribly thin, with stringy brown hair so greasy it looked wet. Her shapeless knee-length dress had been pink once, before someone had wiped a floor with it. She held a cigarette in front of her face, and smoke curled out of her half-open mouth, unstirred by any sign of breath. No one spoke. Her dark eyes were hard and flat, her closed face angry and sleepy all at once.

“Whadaya want?” she said at last, as if they were selling something distasteful.

“We’re . . .” Joby stumbled. “My name’s Joby. This is Benjamin.”

She looked away and took a long drag on her cigarette.

“You’re those little brats givin’ my Jamie such a hard time at school, ain’tcha.” She exhaled, then turned back to stare them down as if they were the worst kind of trash.

“Mrs. Lindwald—” Benjamin began.

“Spater!”
she snapped.
“Not Lindwald!”
Then, more calmly, “I ain’t the little bastard’s mother. Just his stepmom.”

“Mrs. Spater,” Joby said. “If Jamie told you we’re giving him a hard time, he’s—”

“You callin’ Jamie a liar?” she demanded, then leaned back and took another lungful of smoke, as if they’d gone away.

“Yes,”
Benjamin said, his fists clenched. “He’s been callin’ all of us names, and pushin’ us around, doin’ everything he can to make us fight. And Joby hasn’t touched him the whole time.”

“That what you call a broken nose?” the woman said without looking at them, or raising her voice. “I call that touchin’ ’im pretty good.”

“He
made
Joby do that!” Benjamin protested.

Her sneering smile revealed a line of crooked gray teeth. “Took your fist, and shoved it up his own nose, did he?
You boys
sound like the liars to me. You better get outta here,” she drawled, “ ’fore I call the law, and tell ’em to
make
you go.”

“It’s a public sidewalk!” Benjamin objected.

“Benjamin,” Joby said quietly. “Forget it. This isn’t going to work.” He stood on his pedals, preparing to ride.

“But—”

The woman laughed to herself, and murmured, “You’re every bit the little wimps he said you were.”

There was a shuffling racket from inside the darkened doorway behind her. The patched screen lurched open, and Jamie stepped out looking startled and angry to see Joby and Benjamin. His stepmom looked at him with even less sympathy than she’d shown the other boys. “You’d best go back inside, Jamie.”

“What’re they—”

“Make yourself scarce, boy,”
she hissed.

Jamie grew visibly pale and vanished back into the darkness, the screen banging shut behind him.

The woman rose lazily, took one last pull on her cigarette before tossing it casually onto the porch. “I’m goin’ inside to call the police. You’d better be outta here before I finish dialin’, or I swear, you’ll be callin’ your folks up from downtown.”

She didn’t wait for a reply, and when Benjamin had pried his angry stare from her retreating back, the boys didn’t wait to find out if she meant it.

“She was
bluffin’
!” Benjamin insisted as they pedaled away down the dismal
street. “She can’t get someone arrested just for standing on the sidewalk, can she?”

“I don’t know,” Joby said. “But you know what? I think Jamie’s whole family works for the devil.”

“
I’ll
tell
you
what!” Benjamin replied. “I think his stepmom
is
the devil!”

Lindwald came to school the next morning as close to elated as he had ever felt. Joby had finally handed him precisely what he needed! Knowing that his master wouldn’t want Joby getting in trouble again, however, Lindwald had been forced to wait until school got out before cashing in.

“Hey, Joby!”
he hollered, charging angrily across the playground as everyone headed toward the bus stop or their parents’ cars in the parking lot.
“Who the fuck didja think you were—comin’ to my house, an’ tellin’ my folks a bunch a lies!”

The crowd of kids between them parted like milk before a chopping maul, and before Joby could react, Lindwald rammed him into the air and sent him flying for the second time in three days.

“Stop it!
. . .
Stop it this minute, you PIG!”

To everyone’s amazement, Laura Bayer had leapt into Lindwald’s path, planting herself firmly in front of Joby.

“I’m
sick
of this!” she yelled. “Who do you think you are!”

“Laura,” Joby began as he stood up, clutching a skinned arm, “don’t—”

“No!”
she insisted. “If he wants to fight so bad, he should have to fight us
all
!” She tilted her head back, and peered belligerently up at Lindwald. “You that brave, mister jerk, bully, fat face?”

She stood there, a slight little girl in thick-rimmed glasses, wearing her cast like a shield of invulnerability, and Lindwald realized that she really didn’t think he’d hit her. It was all he could do not to laugh. These little specks of dung dust were so
clueless
! He drew one arm back and hit her hard in the stomach. Joby would
have
to fight him now.

There was a horrified gasp from all around as Laura folded and fell, her mouth open, but no voice to fill it. Then every boy there lunged at Lindwald.

“Back!”
Joby barked. Something in his voice froze all those angry arms and knees as if time itself had stopped, and Lindwald had just enough time to remind himself to make it convincing before Joby was on him like a crashing plane.

“Convincing” turned out to be no problem. Trapped in the illusion of flesh, stripped of any special power, Lindwald could do nothing to deflect
the blows or mute the pain, and the unrestrained fury of Joby’s assault was somehow far more frightening than the coldly calculated torments inflicted by his “parents” each night. His sudden panic was as genuine as it was unexpected.

“Stop it! I give up!”
Lindwald wailed, falling to the ground, his head cradled under his arms.
“You’re killing me!
. . .
HELP!”
he screeched.

Lindwald vaguely registered the confusion around them, some voices calling for Joby to stop, Laura’s among them—others cheering Joby on. But Joby seemed too lost in rage to heed anything but his one horribly singular purpose.

Suddenly, Lindwald found himself in a room he had not so much as thought of in three hundred years, trying to press himself through a stone wall as his mortal father hammered relentlessly at his back and limbs with an iron hearth tool on the night that Jamie, himself, had died. It wasn’t
fair
! He was already
dead
! They
couldn’t
make him go through this
again
! The numb strength of pure transcendent terror possessed him then. Leaping up, Lindwald dimly felt Joby’s weight tumble from his back like a load of wet leaves. Then he ran.

In seconds he was through the playground gate and into the field behind the school, but he heard Joby and Benjamin shouting right behind him. They were
never
going to let him go!