No doubt about it. His father’s voice can still send chills up and down the teenager’s spine and literally make the young man shiver. Timothy assumes it will take a long time for that reflex action to cease and desist. He’s determined, though, that it will.
“Timothy!”
Timothy stretches to press the volume button on the kitchen television’s remote control.
A lot of the local morning news, now louder, is devoted to the abduction and recovery of Timothy’s classmate Trish Remoth. Her assailant is thought to be a pervert … a madman … a druggie … maybe, even, a cult of druggies … or … when you come right down to it … no one is really sure; not even — it seems — Trish Remoth.
“Timothy!”
The momentary levitation of morning-breakfast PopTart within toaster slot, hot at cooking completion, almost cancelled that last holler from the bedroom across the kitchen, across the living room, and down the hall.
PopTart eaten, glass of milk drunk, Timothy fills a quart jar with tap water and grabs a box of cereal from the countertop.
He goes into his father's bedroom.
“About damned time!” Gyle Ranlin accuses his son from the bed.Timothy avoids his father’s reach and puts the quart of water on a bedside nightstand.
“What’s the problem?” Timothy asks. “The school bus is going to be here any minute.”
“What do you mean, what’s the bloody problem?” Gyle accuses.Timothy steps back, takes a good look at the way his father is locked in by the bed’s metal frame having been bent up and over to secure the man’s shins ever-so tightly to the mattress.
“This will really have to wait until I get back from school,” Timothy says. “In the meantime, here’s something to eat.” He tosses the box of cereal into bed with his father. Some of the box contents spill and look like bugs scattering among the rumpled blankets and sheets.
“Gregory won’t like this,” his father warns.
“Gregory is even older than you are. If he wants to keep in the game being played, he must rely on young people like me. I thought he already made that perfectly clear.”
Timothy leaves his fettered father and catches the school bus.On board, Jack Plenoc takes the seat next to him.
“Suppose you heard about Trish Remoth?” Jack says.
“I wonder if there’s anyone in Flicker who hasn’t.”
“I hear she was raped.”
Jack is a jackass! “I heard she wasn’t.”
At school, Timothy looks for Melissa Remoth. It’s harder to find her than it once was. The new building complex is large. Within the last year, there’s been more than a doubling of the student body.
He expects to find her in a crowd of curiosity seekers asking about her sister. He’s surprised to find her alone at her locker.
“Melissa,” he says. If not exactly on frequent speaking terms, they’ve shared classes together. Frankly, he’s surprised how cute she is. Before, his whole world centered on his father, he didn’t exactly have time to notice girls.
“Timothy,” she says. “Gril, right?”
“Can we talk for a minute?”
She checks her wristwatch.
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything more about what happened to my sister than what you’ve already heard on the news.”
“Actually, it’s not your sister I want to talk to you about but a certain girl in blue, with a blue candle.”
Melissa is obviously surprised but not nearly as surprised as Timothy would have expected.
She tilts her head slightly to one side. Her pretty blue eyes narrow as if to get a better look at him.
“Why is it, I wonder,” she says, “that I was led to believe you’d be Native American?”
Copyright 2009 W. MALTESE
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