Authors: Doug Wilhelm

The Revealers (2 page)

BOOK: The Revealers

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I just stood there. Richie put the empty bottle in my hand and walked away.

“Recycle,” he said, without looking back. “Save the planet.”

By the time I got homeâin town, people kept turning to look at meâmy fingers were sticking together. My shirt was heavy and stuck to my chest, and my hair felt
really
weird. It was plastered down. My underwear was chafing and sticking at the same time.

Then I was inside peeling off the clothes, thankful for once that my mom wasn't home yet. I felt for stuff in the jeans pocket, and pulled out a soaked-brown folded-up square. The Daredevil picture.

I went into the kitchen where the garbage is, and slowly I tore itâthe paper fibers just pulled apartâinto little wet wads. Then I dropped the wads in the trash.

STREAMING

Well, that was it. That was enough. I had to do something. I just had no idea what. I mean, what do you do in a situation like this?

It was pointless to ask my momâit would only make things worse. I do my own laundry after school, so I was able to wash out the evidence.

I had to get myself home from school every day, right? I couldn't send for a helicopter. I couldn't climb into a limo with tinted windows that no one could see in. I liked thinking about that for a while, the limo, but it was also pointless. And I could not avoid or elude Richie just by going different ways.

All of a sudden he had this power over me. He was kind of lording it over me, tooâand that, frankly, was what got to me. I didn't want to be friends with this guy, or co-weirdos or whatever. Never mind wearing a stupid jacket; I wanted to figure out how to make him stop.

But how?

The basic trouble was, I had no idea what Richie would do next. I didn't understand him at all, even though most of
the time he was all I could think about: where he might be, what mood he would be in â¦ what he might do to me. It was kind of an obsession. And that, I suddenly realized, was exactly how he wanted it.

Hey, yeah!

But
why?

I had no idea. But I wanted to figure it outâI really wanted to. It suddenly occurred to me that I needed advice. Expert advice. I needed to talk to someone who had been in this kind of situation, and every situation like it, many many times before.

I needed to talk â¦ with Elliot Gekewicz.

I sat up straight. Yeah!

You know how there's always one kid in school who's the dirty one, one kid who's the smelly one, one kid who throws the ball over the backstop â¦ and one kid who it's okay for anybody, absolutely anybody, to trash?

In our school, that last kid was Elliot. Not that he was dirty or smellyâI don't mean that. I wasn't really sure why he was the one, but the fact was that in Parkland School seventh grade, no matter who you were, Elliot Gekewicz was lower on the social scale than you.

He was small, and that wasn't good; he had a horrible name; and he was smart, which only made things worse. And anyway somebody has to be on the bottom, and in our class it was him.

I had known Elliot since we were in kindergarten, and I had seen a lot of stuff happen to him. I never really joined in, but I never tried to stop it either, not that I could have. Kids had done all the usual things: called him names, stomped on his feet, played keepaway with his stuff, hung him by the back of his underpants on the cleat for the climbing rope in gym â¦ Kids poured water inside Elliot's backpackâwhile he was wearing it. They stuffed him in his
lockerâupside down. They took his milk in the cafeteria, soaked his sandwich with it, squirted in a packet of ketchup, squashed the red-white mess between two trays, took his cookie and walked away eating it while everyone else laughed. Kids would say stuff in the hall when Elliot walked by, like: “Where'd you get that shirtâfrom a Dumpster? Who cuts your hairâyour
mom?”

Elliot didn't get mad, he didn't cry, and he didn't seem (to me) to ask for it. He wasn't your classic bully magnet. I guess this stuff happened to him because it always hadâand because it had to happen to somebody, especially in seventh grade. And he is kind of funny looking. He looks like a little bird with a big bobbing head, scooting across the playground before he's spotted. People called him Bird Boy, sometimes. When he went by in the hall, certain guys would make “cheep cheep” noises.

They did other stuff, too, especially once our class started really getting into the Darkland spirit. Sometimes they played Surround and Pound. They'd trap Elliot on the playground (yes, we still had recess and we were still sent to the playground, in seventh grade), and they'd start closing the circle and shoving him back and forth. He'd try to shoot out between kids, and if they could grab him they'd throw him back. When they closed the circle all the way, they'd shove him like a rag doll between them. Once at recess when Elliot was on the monkey bar by himself, these two guys, Burke Brown and Jon Blanchette, snuck up below and pantsed him. They were the ones who hung him on the cleat, too, actually.

Elliot himself was obsessed with dinosaurs. Had been for years. He was always lugging around big dinosaur encyclopedias, and he had dinosaur stickers on his notebooksâeven then, in seventh grade; and when he had any kind of school project he'd relate it to dinosaurs if he could. (You can even
do this in math, if you're Elliot. Once when we had to do something on probability, he did “Estimating the Life Span of Triceratops.” He said that was probably the last dinosaur to die out, so they know more about it.)

For all I knew, dinosaurs were the only thing Elliot ever thought about. And I could understand this. I mean, if you're Elliot Gekewicz, spending your days lost in your mind among giant prehistoric reptiles probably has a lot more appeal than being awake to the realities of Darkland Middle School.

So anyway, I called him. I had to take a deep breath first, because this was really depressing, in a way. But I told myself I wasn't going to be
friends
with Elliot, I only wanted to ask him a few things. It was like being a detective. I had a mystery, and I was looking for clues.

One of his sisters answered the phone. When I asked for Elliot, there was a long silence. I heard whispering.

Finally she said, “Who is this, please?”

“It's Russell Trainor.”

“Oh. O â¦
kay
â¦”

I heard more whispering. The phone was set down â¦ then it was picked up and Elliot said, “Hello?”

“Hi,” I said. “It's Russell.”

“Oh. Hello.”

“I had to like pass a security check to get to you.”

“Oh. Well â¦ I guess I've been getting some not very nice calls.”

“Huh. Ah, listen, Elliot. Could I ask you about something? I'm kind of looking for an expert.”

“An expert?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Me?”

“Oh, definitely.”

“Hey, sure!” he said. “When'd you get interested in dinos?”

“It's not
dinosaurs,
Elliot. It is kind of about predators, though. I'm suddenly sort of the target of one. If you know what I mean.”

“A predator?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

There was a long pause. Finally Elliot said, “Could we do this Streaming?”

“Uh, well, okay. I guess so. Why?”

“It's more secure.”

“Okay, I'll get on-line. What's your address?”

“Troo.”

“What?”

“T-R-O-O. For troodon,” he said. “It's small but sharp-eyed, with an unusually big brain area. And slashing claws.”

“Oh. O â¦ kay.”

I hung up the phone and turned on the computer.

Our school has a LAN, a local area computer network. Officially it's called SchoolStream, but everyoneâevery kid, at leastâcalls it KidNet. Everyone in school has an account, and a password that you keep to yourself. You can access your account from any computer in the school, or from your computer at home, if you have one. You can send any other kid e-mail, and you can send mail to your teachersâyou can ask about homework, or other questions. If you're sick they e-mail your homework to you. (Isn't that great?) You can also access encyclopedias, and you can download practice problems for math tests, challenge quizzes for social studies, stuff like that. There's a lot you can do.

One thing is MidStream. We called it Streaming. That's where you and other kids get on together and talk by typing. Other networks call it Chat, or Instant Message, or whatever.
Nobody can break into or eavesdrop on your conversation without everyone else knowing about it. I guess that's why Elliot wanted to talk this way: he could tell if anyone else was lurking and listening, like if I was the front person for some new plot to humiliate him.

For your address on our system you get up to five letters. Mine was RussT, which I thought was pretty good.

Are you there?
Yes. What predator?
A guy. Eighth grade.
Oh.
So when someone's after you, what do you do?

For a minute there was nothing. Then finally:

I don't know.
You don't KNOW?
Best thing is not to be there.
What if he's always watching? If he always knows
where you go?
Who IS this?

I sighed. Finally I typed:

R Tucker.
Whoa. Tyrannosaur!
Yes. Why's he do it?
Don't know. Ask him?
Oh right. How can I get him to stop?
You can't.
I CAN'T?
Tyranno doesn't stop. Maybe you can get him to find somebody else, but tyrannos don't STOP.
Must be SOMEthing I can do.
Don't be where tyranno is.
But he's everywhere. Outsmart him? Somehow?
Tyrannos are smarter than people think. Proportionately larger brain cavity than any known tyranno prey.
What?
True.

Like I said, Elliot pretty much lived in the reptile ages. I realized if I was going to get anything out of him, I had to go there, too.

What DID tyranno prey do?
Depended on what they could do.
Did tyranno prey survive?
Not many, but hey. Did tyranno survive?
But how DID some prey survive? I want to know.
Meet me in school library tomorrow. After school.
Why?
I can show some stuff.
What about tyranno?
Tyranno never goes in library!

I thought for a minute.

OK. After school.

At least I'd be safe, for a little while. And maybe, just maybe, there might be something I could figure out.

POP QUIZ

When I came into the library, Elliot already had a table spread with dinosaur books. I wondered if anyone else ever got to look at the dinosaur books. But who else would want to, in middle school?

He had each book open to a picture. When he looked up, his eyes were bright; then he quickly checked to see if I'd come alone. I thought how Elliot really does look like a birdâespecially those tiny birds you see on beaches, darting back and forth on stick legs inches from waves that you think are going to drown them, but never do.

“Look at this,” he said before I was even sitting down. He was pointing to a picture of a scrawny dino. It looked like an underfed naked chicken.

“That's gallimimus,” he said. “He didn't have teeth or claws, but he could run at forty miles an hour.”

“Wish I could,” I said, slumping in the chair.

“Now
these
guys, the really big sauropodsâthe brachiosaurs and the diplocidsâthey could swing their tails at attackers.”

“Elliot â¦”

“I mean probably.”

“Huh?”

“We don't know for sure,” Elliot said. “It's even possible they could rear up on their hind legs. See this picture? I mean, can you imagine an eighty-ton brachiosaurus pounding down on you? Even a tyranno would have taken off.”

“Speaking of tyrannos â¦”

“But I think it's also possible they stayed mostly in the water. They could be in pretty deep water, when you think about it. It's conceivable the big meat-eaters didn't like water. They might even have been afraid of it.”

He nodded proudly. “That's one of my own hypotheses. What do you think?”

“Well, I mean, for me â¦ swinging tails, deep water, massive tonnage â¦” I shook my head.

“I knowâthey don't seem like
defenses,”
said Elliot. “But the plant eaters used what they had. You know?”

I shrugged. Elliot was opening more books, going right to certain pages. I was starting to wonder what I was doing there.

“Of course, stegosaurs had a spiked tail,” he said. “Wouldn't that be something? And ankylosaurs, the armored dinos, they had a round bony club on their tails. Swing it around and, ooh â¦ fractured
skull.”

He grinned. I reached over and shut his book. His smile did a puzzled fade.

“I want to know what I can do,” I said. Elliot blinked. “You knowâin real life? Like I told you?”

He blinked again. I looked around, and leaned over the table.

“Okay,” I whispered. “This one guy is bent on basically destroying my life. He wants me to be scared
all
the time.
What do you â¦ I mean, no offense, but what do you do in a situation like this?”

Elliot didn't say anything. He just looked down.

“Okay,” I finally said. “So â¦ you're talking about survival strategies?”

“Yeah! See, like dromaeosaurs. They had a huge sharp claw, just one claw, sticking forward from their back feet. They could slash a bigger dino's belly right open.”

“Right open.”

“Yes,” he said, with a kind of dreamy look.

I sat back while Elliot started rummaging again in his books. At least I'm safe in here, I told myself Nothing bad can happen in a library.

“Hereâsee this?”

Elliot held up a picture of a huge striped head. It had a fan growing behind it, and a crown of spikes and a giant nose horn. It was, I had to admit, amazing.

“That's styracosaurus,” he said. “He'd just have to turn and
look
at you with that head. I think you'd go find someone else to pick on.”

“Yeah, but what about the dinos that had no horns, or armor, or spikes or clubs or claws? And no speed and no hugeness. There were dinos without any of those things, right?”

“Oh, sure. Lots. Big ones
and
little ones.”

“So what'd they do?”

“Traveled in herds, mostly. They'd keep the young, small, and weak ones in the middle.”

“And that kept the killers away? Really?” I had this sudden mental picture of a whole bunch of kidsâskinny kids, little kids, gawky kids, fat kids, kids with funny hair, kids with thick glasses, kids who trip over cracks in the sidewalk. They were trooping through the halls together, all wearing white T-shirts that said: NERD HERD.

I was not in this group. I was definitely not in this group.

“Predators might wait until they could pick off a straggler,” Elliot said. “But they probably wouldn't attack a whole crowd.”

“Why not?”

“Most predators' brains weren't very large. If a crowd scattered in all directions they probably got disoriented.”

I sat back and imagined this big dumb kid charging into the white-shirted crowdâand kids stumbling all over each other, scrabbling on the floor for fallen-off glasses and tossing lunches and electronic equipment out of their backpacks to appease the rampaging beast, who becomes confused and stands there with his big head twitching all around, surrounded by wire-rim glasses and graphing calculators and bologna-and-peanut-butter sandwiches.

“Of course,
tyranno
was different,” Elliot said. “He'd lie in some undergrowth near a clearing or a stream bed. When prey came along, he'd charge out with his jaws wide open. Tyranno didn't care how big a herd was! He'd always get somebody.”

Suddenly in my mind I saw only Richie's face. He was looking right at me. He raised his eyebrows.

I sagged in my chair.

“Right,” I said.

A girl came in and sat down at a table between us and the door. She was in our grade, a girl named Catalina. She was new this year, and different looking: tall and skinny, with big squarish glasses and straight, extremely dark hair, almost black, that hung below her ears. Her face was the color of coffee ice cream, and behind her glasses it was expressionless.

I first noticed that about Catalina, the blank look she had, at the beginning of the year, when she was the new girl being
introduced in our social studies class. Ms. Hogeboom, who knew a Learning Opportunity when she saw one, asked the new girl to tell a little about herself

The new girl stood up. People started whispering.

“I am from near Manila. In the Philippines,” she said, and sat down. The whispers turned into giggling.

“There's no need to stand when you're called, Catalina,” Ms. Hogeboom said. “Is that what students do in the Philippines?”

Catalina started to stand again, but stopped partway. “In my school, yes,” she said, bent over like a grasshopper. More giggles erupted. She sat down fast.

“Excuse
me, please,” Ms. Hogeboom said loudly. When the class settled down she said, “Now, Catalina. How did you happen to come to this country? You don't have to stand.”

“My father is from Ohio,” she said. “He was in Manila for his company. He decided to come back.”

“Oh. I see,” Ms. Hogeboom said, and she turned to the rest of the class with a pleased expression, as if to say: See how totally we can embarrass someone when we all work together? Because by then half the kids in classâmostly the girlsâwere whispering and giggling again. Everyone was looking at Catalina, who sat bolt upright and looked straight ahead, with no expression at all.

Catalina sat down now at the library table and unloaded a bunch of books from her shoulder bag. I was watching her over Elliot's shoulder. He was deep in his books. Catalina opened a book and then she was deep in hers, too. Through the doorway behind her came a gaggle of seventh-grade girls.

There were four of them, walking close together and almost tiptoeing like they were holding their breaths. They came our way stealing quick glances at Catalina, who sat
with her back to them. In the center of the group was Bethany DeMere.

Bethany DeMere is the ruler of the top clique of seventh-grade girls. She's popular, and she's one of those people who knows just what to say to cut you down. A lot of times she doesn't say anythingâshe just looks away and shakes her head so her hair ripples down her back. She has this long, wavy blond hair that she knows is pretty eye-catching. If she wants to show you that you are not worth seeing or hearing, she shakes her hair as she turns away and sighs or rolls her eyes at somebody who is worth seeing and hearing. Of course, to her I did not exist. I didn't even have hair-shaking status.

Bethany and her crew crowded past us looking pressurized, like they could barely contain themselves about whatever they were up to. They went into the stacks and I heard whispering, and stifled giggling.

Before long Catalina stood up and walked over to the catalog computers. About two seconds after she was gone, the DeMere clique came out from the stacks. The girls quick-stepped till they were just passing Catalina's books and notebook, where one of them lifted her arm above the table's edge.

She dropped a folded piece of paper beside Catalina's books. It bounced once, and then lay there.

As soon as the girls had veered out the door they burst into fierce laughter. Then their fast steps faded down the hall.

Elliot was still burrowing in his books. “Hey, look at this,” he said.

I held up my hand. His forehead crinkled. I put my finger to my lips, and pointed over his shoulder.

“What?” he whispered. I pointed at the note.

“What?” he said. “That?”

I nodded.

Catalina came back. Elliot shrugged and turned back to his books. I lowered my head, but I still watched.

At her table Catalina stopped. She definitely spotted the paper, and she froze. Then she carefully, steadily gathered up her books, slid them into the shoulder bag, slung it on her shoulder and walked out.

She left the folded paper on the table.

“Psst,”
I said.

Elliot looked up. I motioned with my head over his shoulder, toward the paper. He twisted his head to look, then turned back and shrugged.

“Grab it,” I whispered.

“Why?”

“Because you're closer.”

“But why?”

“Just â¦ I just want to see it. All right?”

He looked around, ducked to the table, grabbed the paper, and ducked back.

With one finger he slid it over. It was folded neatly, tightly, carefully. I slowly unfolded it.

It said:

Pop Quiz