The Gray House

THE HOUSE

INTERLUDE

The House had several places where Grasshopper liked to hide. One of them was the yard after dark. He liked his thoughtful places. That’s what they were for, those special spots where he could hide, disappear from the world and think. And in a strange way the places themselves influenced the thinking.

The yard distanced him from the House. When he was down there, the House allowed him to look at itself from a different angle, through different eyes. Sometimes it looked like a hive. Sometimes it turned into a toy. A painted cardboard box with a removable roof. Everything in it was real—the figurines, the furniture, all the way down to the tiniest things—and at the same time he could take off the cover and see who and what had moved where. It was a game.

He played it, and other games too, with their own thoughtful places. Behind the large sofa in the waiting room, smelling of dust, where the accumulated fluff, like pieces of a gray rag, floated away when he breathed on them or simply moved a bit. That’s where the heart of the House was located. Steps echoed through it, voices of those passing by reflected in it, but the estrangement and the invasive thoughts of others could not reach here, he was left alone with his own mind and his own games. He was in the belly of a giant, and he listened to the rumbling around him, felt the beating of the enormous heart and shook with the coughs. Part belly of the giant, part darkened movie theater, and also part Blind, a very small part, because it prompted Grasshopper to strain his hearing for the soundless stirrings, to guess the meanings of conversations by a few stray snippets, and the identities of people by their steps, all in the hazy slumber of thinking. The thoughts that came to him here were viscous, translucent, invisible; the strangest thoughts he ever had. To snap out of this game he needed to lie down on the floor. To feel the coolness of the boards and the slippery leather of the sofa’s upholstery. To reclaim his body and the world around him from the nothingness he dissolved them in.

He stretched his legs, probing the strange feeling of their length, their strength, the springs coiled inside. The power was everywhere, but the strongest part of it was lodged in himself, making him wonder how he managed not to fly apart—this much power could not possibly have fit in the slim body wedged between the wall and the back of the sofa. It yearned to whirl in a wild tornado, spiraling out of control, sweeping the lightbulbs off the ceiling, tying the floor rugs in knots. Grasshopper, tucked away in the giant’s stomach, became the giant himself. Then it faded, melted away, as did all of his games sooner or later. But when he scrambled out from behind the sofa he still remained light as a feather, felt small and insubstantial. He was a giant in the body of a mouse, and his giant power shrank to the size of a walnut and sneaked into the flimsy suede bump on a string around his neck.

The power was akin to an enormous genie reduced to a vortex to slip into a minuscule bottle. This game was his favorite. Its scent was that of the amulet, of Ancient and his room. All his secret games originated from Ancient’s room, grew out of his tasks that nourished Grasshopper’s amulet just as Ancient’s hand fed the triangular fish in the green tank. He played the game of the thoughtful places, the game of lookies, the game of catchies, and all of them he carried out of Ancient’s room, all of them were transparent and inconspicuous like the powdered food of the triangular fish.

Lookies required him only to look. Look and see more than those who were immersed in themselves and their worries. Turned out they didn’t see much at all if they didn’t look closely. If they didn’t need to. To play lookies, you had to watch not only someone you were talking to but also everything that was happening around you, as much as you could without turning your head or shifting the eyes from side to side. Who stood or sat where, and what they did. What was in its usual place and what moved or disappeared. The game was boring if he regarded it as a task, and exciting if he just played it. It made his eyes hurt and filled his dreams with jittery flashes. But he did start to notice things he hadn’t before. As he entered the room he now saw drops and splashes, indentations in the pillows, objects moved from where they were before—the traces of events that had happened in his absence. He knew that if he played it long enough he’d learn to uncover who left those traces, the way Blind knew them by their scent or breath. Blind had been playing hearies and rememberies since birth—the two invisible games, out of four, that were open to him.

Grasshopper waited. One day out of seven belonged to Ancient. On movie nights he performed his magic using words and cigarette smoke in the darkened room—the weary, cantankerous senior in a threadbare dressing gown, the red-eyed shaman privy to the mysteries of the invisible games. Grasshopper read the words on the door as if they were incantations: No knocking. No admittance. Then he knocked and admitted himself into the stuffy room, where both the Purple Ratter and the Dog That Bites lurked in the dark, and the shadows whispered Spring is the time of horrible changes, where the table lamp was wreathed in tendrils of smoke, and the Gray Shaman told him, “Well, here you are.” And dropped amulets against evil eye in wine puddles. Amulets stared at him through the red liquid, the fish stared through the glass of their tank. Grasshopper’s back broke out in goose bumps, and it was the scariest and the most beautiful time in the whole world.

When several hours later he was in his bed half-asleep, he imagined that there was something sharp living inside him, something that became sharper still with each visit to Ancient, who was slowly honing it on a magical whetstone.

Grasshopper and Humpback were observing the dogs. Humpback was also shaking snow and dirt out of his coat. Dogs sniffed at the earth under their feet. The most impatient of them had already bolted, run away to other places that also might somehow provide something edible.

“It’s not enough,” Humpback said. “Not even close to enough for them.”

“But it does give them a bit of strength,” Grasshopper noted, “so they can go and search for more food.”

They walked away from the fence. Hoods hanging low, shoes squelching in the mud, they shuffled across the slush of the yard. The white markings on the asphalt peeked through where the snow had already melted. In summer those indicated the volleyball court. Humpback came up to one of the cars that some teacher had neglected to put inside the garage and prodded the iced-over fender with his finger.

“Cheap trash,” he said. “This car, I mean.”

Grasshopper liked old cars, so he didn’t say anything. He squatted to look for the icicles on the underside of it, but there weren’t any. They shuffled on, toward the porch.

“You know what? I feel much better now that we fed them,” Humpback said. “All the time that I think about them I feel . . . uneasy. But then when I feed them it goes away.”

“I see these black cats sometimes,” Grasshopper offered distractedly. “Sneaking under the bed. Or under the door. They’re really tiny. Strange, huh?”

“That’s from your fuzzy looking. Everyone keeps telling you to stop the fuzzy looking. But you keep doing it. I’m surprised it’s only cats and not, I don’t know, elephants running around. Like Beauty’s shadow, you know.”

“That way I can see much more,” Grasshopper said, trying to defend the lookies, more out of habit than to really convince Humpback.

Some tasks he couldn’t really keep secret. Poxy Sissies caught on to lookies almost immediately. And they hated it. It was very hard to hold a coherent conversation while playing lookies. Grasshopper still couldn’t, no matter how hard he tried.

“Yeah, right,” Humpback snorted. “More indeed. More of the black cats that don’t exist.”

“What’s the shadow that Beauty sees running around?” Grasshopper asked in a clumsy attempt to change the subject.

“His own. But it’s kind of alive. Don’t go asking him, though. He’s scared of it.”

They came to the porch and tapped their shoes on the steps to shake off the dirt. A senior girl was sitting on the railing, smoking and looking out into the yard. Witch. She didn’t have a coat on, only a suede vest over a turtleneck. Grasshopper said hello. Humpback did as well, but secretly crossed his fingers inside his coat pocket, just in case.

Witch nodded. Water was dripping off the roof and ricocheting right onto her pants, but she paid it no attention. Or maybe she just liked sitting in this particular place.

“Hey, Grasshopper,” she called. “Come here.”

Humpback, who was holding the door for him, turned around. Grasshopper dutifully approached Witch. She threw away the cigarette.

“You can go,” she told Humpback. “He won’t be long.”

Humpback shuffled his feet by the door, looking at Grasshopper sullenly from under his hood. Grasshopper nodded to him.

“Go. Look, you’re soaked.”

Humpback sighed. He pulled the door wider and entered it backward, not taking his eyes off Grasshopper, as if pleading with him to reconsider before it was too late. Grasshopper waited until he was gone and then turned to Witch. He wasn’t scared. Witch was the most beautiful girl in the whole House, and his godmother to boot. Not scared, but definitely uneasy under her fixed stare.

“Have a seat. We’ll talk,” Witch said.

He sat next to her on the wet railing, and her fingers pulled the hood off his head. Witch’s hair reached to her waist, like a shiny black tent. She never did anything to it, allowing it to flow freely. She had a very white face, and her eyes were so dark that the pupils flowed imperceptibly into the irises. Genuine witch eyes.

“Remember me?” she said.

“You were the one who named me Grasshopper. You’re my godmother.”

“Yes. It’s time we got acquainted more closely.”

She sure chose a strange place and time for it. Grasshopper was getting wet sitting on the railing. And it was slippery. And Witch wasn’t dressed properly. As if she’d rushed to get closer acquainted with him so fast she didn’t have time to grab a coat. He dangled one leg and touched the floor with his toe to steady himself.

“Are you brave?” Witch asked.

“No.”

“That’s too bad,” she said. “I wish you were.”

“Me too,” Grasshopper admitted. “Why do you ask?”

Witch’s black eyes flashed mysteriously.

“Getting to know you. You like dogs?”

“I like Humpback. And he likes dogs. Likes to feed them. And I like to see him do it. But I do like them too.”

Witch pulled one leg up, put the foot on the railing, and lowered her chin to her knee.

“You could help me,” she said. “If you’d like, of course. If you don’t want to, I’m not going to be angry.”

A drop found its way down Grasshopper’s neck. He shivered.

“Doing what?” he said.

This must have had something to do with dogs and being brave. Or maybe he just imagined that because she’d mentioned those things.

“I need someone to carry my letters to a certain person.” Her hair fell down over her face. “Do you understand?”

He did. Witch was of Moor’s people. Letters were for one of Skull’s people. That much was obvious. It was also bad. And dangerous. For her, and whomever the letters were for, and whoever would deliver them. It would have to be a secret from everybody. So that’s why she asked about him being brave. And that’s why the yard, the twilight, no coat, no hat. She must have spotted him out the window and rushed straight down.

“I understand,” Grasshopper said. “He’s one of Skull’s people.”

“Yes,” Witch said. “You got it.”

She reached into the pocket and took out cigarettes and a lighter. Her hands were turning red from the cold. He noticed loose threads hanging off the patchwork suede vest.

“Scared?” she asked.

Grasshopper didn’t answer.

“Yeah, I am too,” she said. Then lit the cigarette. Dropped the lighter, but didn’t pick it up. Hid her hands under her armpits and hunched over. Silvery water beads glistened in her hair. Witch swayed back and forth on the railing and watched him.

“You don’t have to,” she said. “I am not going to put a curse on you. If you believe that nonsense. Simple yes or no, that’s all.”

“Yes,” Grasshopper said.

Witch nodded, as if she never expected a different answer.

“Thank you.”

Grasshopper was swinging his leg, soaked all the way to his underwear. And he didn’t care about being wet anymore. The yard was sinking into the deepening blue. He heard dogs howling somewhere. They might have been the same dogs Humpback and he had just fed.

“Who is he?” Grasshopper asked.

Witch slid off the railing and picked up the lighter.

“Who do you think?”

Usually Grasshopper liked guessing games, but right now he was too cold, and Skull’s people were too many to recall each of them one by one and try to imagine if she could have fallen in love with them or not.

“I don’t know,” he said resignedly. “You’ll have to tell me.”

Witch leaned closer and whispered in his ear. Grasshopper’s eyes opened wide. She laughed softly.

“Why didn’t you just say so? Like first thing! Why?”

“Shhh. Quiet,” she said, still laughing. “There’s no need to shout. It’s not really important.”

“How could you not say it?”

“To make sure you didn’t agree only because of that. I wanted you to think it over properly.”

“It will make me so happy,” Grasshopper whispered.

Witch laughed again, and again hid her face behind hair.

“Of course,” she said. “Of course it will . . . Still. Don’t you want to think about it?”

“Where’s the letter?”

She warmed her hands with her breath and took an envelope out of a vest pocket.

“Take this to your friend,” she said. “He’ll give you another one, bring it back to me. Tonight. First floor, by the laundry room. After dinner. I’ll be waiting. Or maybe you’ll have to wait a little. But be careful.”

“What friend?” Grasshopper said, surprised, but then understood. “Blind?”

“Yes. Try to do it so that no one sees you.”

“And you didn’t say anything about Blind either. Why?”

Witch put her hand in his pocket, stuffed the letter all the way down, and then buttoned the flap.

“You were testing my courage,” Grasshopper said. “Testing me. But I would have agreed anyway.”

Witch brushed his face with her fingers.

“I know.”

“Because you’re Witch?”

“I’m no witch. I just know. I know many things.”

She pulled the hood over his head.

“Let’s go. It’s getting cold.”

Grasshopper was not feeling cold at all. Quite the opposite.

“Tell me,” he whispered when they were climbing the stairs. “Tell me, what is it you know about me?”

“I know how you’re going to be when you’re older,” she said.

Black tent of hair and long legs. Sharp clatter of steel-shod boots on the steps.

“Really?”

“Sure. It’s obvious.”

She stopped.

“Run along, my godson. It would be best if we weren’t seen together.”

“Yeah!”

He took the rest of the stairs at a run and only turned back when he reached the landing.

Witch raised her hand in a farewell gesture. He nodded and took off again. He ran without stopping the rest of the way. The soaked jeans clung to his legs.

What does she know about me? What am I going to become when I’m older?

Blind wasn’t in the room. Magician, his bad leg propped on a pillow, absentmindedly tortured the guitar. Humpback’s bunk was topped by a triangular white tent. This tent, made from bedsheets strung over wooden slats, came crashing down every morning, and every night Humpback resurrected it. He liked his privacy.

Grasshopper looked at the tent. Someone was moving inside it now. The walls bulged and flapped. But the entrance was tightly closed, so that no one could peek in. Grasshopper sighed with relief. Humpback was in and busy with his own concerns, not keeping watch by the door armed with probing questions, as he’d feared.

Stinker was also busy, stringing pieces of apple, planning to hang them up for drying. Humpback’s coat, wet and plastered with dirt, lay on the floor.

Wolf dangled his feet off the windowsill.

“What we need in the yard is a field kitchen,” he said. “For all the stray dogs. Then you and Humpback could don those white toques and the dogs would form a line. Each holding a bowl in its front paws.”

“Wolf, can you see how I’m going to be when I grow up?” Grasshopper said.

“Some things, I guess,” Wolf said, surprised. “Why?”

“No reason. I just thought you might know.”

“You’re probably going to be tall. And thin.”

“And covered in spots,” Stinker squeaked. “All the seniors have zits. Face like a strawberry patch. You’re going to be sort of spotty reddish blond. Oh, and sideburns. The unkempt kind.”

“Thanks,” Grasshopper said darkly. “What about yourself?”

“Who, me?” Stinker waved the unfinished string of apples in the air and closed his eyes dreamily. “Yes, yes, I can clearly see myself! Six years from now. A fine specimen of a man. No one is immune from the overwhelming charms of my piercing gaze. Women go weak-kneed and drop at my feet. In droves. All I need to do is lean over and pick them up, the poor darlings.”

“When you do that, try not to trip over your ears,” Wolf warned. “Or they’d think a mosquito fell on them.”

Stinker turned away, scandalized. Humpback’s tent wobbled and produced a shaggy head.

“Wolf, this book is disgusting. This one run through with a sword, that one run through with a sword. I’ve had enough. I’m going to have nightmares about them now.”

“Then stop reading. It’s your choice, no one’s making you.”

Humpback pulled in his head and angrily fastened the flap. The tent shook again. Wolf and Grasshopper watched it with concern until it stopped listing to one side.

“They’re going to take me to the Sepulcher for a day or two,” Wolf said. “Tomorrow morning. But only for a short while.”

“Why?” Grasshopper asked. “I thought you were cured.”

Wolf lay on the floor with his hands behind his head.

“They want to stuff me in this corset. So that I go around with the Sepulchral shell on my back. Like a tortoise. Old and wise.”

He tried to make it sound like a joke, but there was something in his voice that Grasshopper hadn’t heard for a long time.

“Are you scared?” he asked.

“I’m scared of nothing,” Wolf said.

His eyes became very angry. Grasshopper winced.

“Please don’t, Wolf . . . Your thoughts now smell different than your words. It’s so obvious.”

Wolf propped himself up on his elbows.

“Say again? Thoughts have a smell now? And you can hear it? I’d understand if Blind was saying this stuff. But the only one who talks like that is you. How come?”

Wolf was mocking him, but the sharp thorns in his eyes had faded away, and Grasshopper relaxed.

“Just a shitty turn of phrase,” Stinker mumbled.

“Shitty yourself,” Humpback countered from within the depths of the tent, defending his friend. “It’s beautiful. Grasshopper talks poetically.”

Grasshopper laughed. Humpback peeked out again.

“What do we do if they don’t let you out? Could that happen?”

“In that case I’ll send over a note with precise instructions,” Wolf said.

Stinker perked up.

“We’ll follow them to the letter,” he promised. “The House shall be quaking all the way down to the foundation, or my name is not Stinker. We’ll chain ourselves to the gates of the Sepulcher. Douse each other in kerosene and play catch with matchbooks. Top-notch treatment guaranteed.”

“I believe you,” Wolf said earnestly. “You’re just the type to pull it off.”

It was dark and lonely down at the laundry room. Grasshopper sat on the floor by the locked door, waited for Witch, and tried to think about nice things. And not about hearing someone’s ragged breath nearby. Or how that someone seemed to be creeping closer. Or how that hole in the wall glinted suspiciously. Like there was an eye behind it.

The hallway here smelled of bleach. The feeble lamp hardly illuminated it, and the library stacks a little farther on were shrouded in complete darkness. Grasshopper tried not to look in that direction, to avoid seeing the inky shadows of the revolving racks where seniors dumped old issues of magazines. He didn’t like those shadows a single bit. And the more they stayed motionless, the less he liked them.

The groaning of the elevator distracted him. Grasshopper listened intently. The doors clanked, and someone’s steps swished over the linoleum floor. He got up.

Witch stepped out into the pool of light.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said. “Must be scary waiting here all by yourself.”

The shadows of the cabinets and the eye in the wall went right out of Grasshopper’s head.

“What’s scary about it? There isn’t anyone here,” he said. “I have the letter in my pocket. And I gave that other one to Blind. Just as we agreed.”

Her hand slipped into his pocket and took out the envelope. Grasshopper expected her to hide it, but instead she ripped it open and began to read. Grasshopper kept his eyes down. The letter apparently turned out to be very long.

“Thank you,” Witch said as she finished reading. “I hope you weren’t too cold back in the yard. It was darn freezing out there.”

“I wasn’t.”

He watched as she produced a small lighter and put the flame to the corner of the envelope. The fire sprang up in her hands. She turned it this way and that with the fingers, dropped the last remaining scrap, and stomped on it.

“So that’s that,” she said, rubbing the ashes with her heel.

That was when Grasshopper got really scared. He knew that the letter was a dangerous thing to be carrying, but only now that Witch had burned it did he realize that he’d been walking around with that danger in his pocket and had even managed to forget about it sometimes.

“It’s all right,” Witch said, guessing at his horror. “Don’t think about it. We’ll try writing each other less frequently. But you and Blind shouldn’t be talking about it. Even when you’re alone.”

“Blind wouldn’t be talking about it even if we were alone in the middle of a desert,” Grasshopper said. “Blind never talks about things that don’t concern him. Or those that do, actually.”

“That’s good. Come out into the yard from time to time. After dinner. Alone. If you see me there, don’t try to talk to me, just walk by so I can put the letter in your pocket. Deal?”

Grasshopper nodded.

“Is it hard . . . being Skull’s girl?” he asked, blushing at his own indiscretion.

“I don’t know,” Witch said. “Compared to what? Probably not any harder than being Moor’s girl, I guess.”

Grasshopper chewed on his shirt collar a bit.

“You said you knew what I’ll be like when I grow up. Could you tell me? It’s kind of important.”

“It’s hard to explain,” Witch sighed. “It’s more like a feeling than a picture. But I can promise you that girls are going to like you.”

“They’re going to drop down at my feet,” Grasshopper said wretchedly. “Defeated and helpless. I’d only have to pick them up without stepping on my ears. My zits and patchy sideburns will drive them crazy.”

Witch gave him a puzzled look.

“I’ve no idea who it is you just described. It definitely has nothing to do with you. Go back. I’ll hang out here for a while.”

“Good night,” Grasshopper said.

She thinks I’m stupid now, he thought dejectedly. All because of Stinker.

Grasshopper was fighting the typewriter. He only had the first few lines of the letter: Hi, Wolf. How are you? We are good. Waiting for you. One day is already over, and the second is half-over. So tomorrow we are waiting for your note with . . . The word instructions was giving him trouble. Grasshopper had already found and discarded two different ways of spelling it. Humpback hovered over his shoulder, sighing loudly but not daring to offer help.

“I think it has two i’s,” he blurted finally.

“You mean iinstructions?” Grasshopper said acidly.

Humpback went red.

“No. I didn’t mean that. Not both of them in the beginning.”

“Keep it to yourself, then.”

“Send my regards,” Stinker squeaked from the bed.

“I haven’t gotten to the regards yet. And stop interrupting! Or I’ll never finish.”

Grasshopper conquered “instructions” and paused to think about what was next, absentmindedly gnawing at the finger of his prosthetic hand.

“You’re going to break it,” Humpback warned in a whisper.

Grasshopper put away the finger.

There was a knock at the door.

“Enter,” Stinker yelled in a high-pitched voice.

The door squeaked and admitted bashful Siamese, the pride and horror of Stuffage. Both of them at once, pressed against each other.

Grasshopper directed a panicky look behind their backs, waiting for Sportsman to come barging in on their heels, and the rest of Stuffage with him. But the twins were alone. They took a few more steps and froze, still inseparable, glued together. Same clothes, same face—indistinguishable like two coins.

“What do you want?” Grasshopper asked.

Blind stopped caressing the book with the indented pages and raised his head.

“We need to talk,” Siamese said.

“Very suspicious,” Stinker noted. “I don’t think I like the sound of that at all.”

Siamese apprehensively shuffled their feet. Tall, lanky, thin lipped, and . . . kind of hinged, Grasshopper thought unkindly. Aquiline noses peeking from behind flaxen bangs, round gold-colored eyes, cold and unblinking, almost a seagull’s stare.

“Did Sportsman send you, or are you by yourselves?” Blind asked.

“By ourselves,” Siamese said in unison. “We came because . . . we wanted to ask . . . could we also . . . move to your room?”

They seemed to press their sides against each other even tighter. Sighed loudly several times and fell silent.

“Where did that come from?” Humpback said.

Siamese didn’t answer. Outside of their domain they looked subdued and not as ghastly as they usually did, but nowhere near pleasant either. The elbows of their white hoodies were of a blackish tint, and each had a badge on a chain around his neck. One with the letter R, and the other with the letter M. The badges always turned themselves blank-side up, making them pretty useless for distinguishing which of Siamese was which.

“So you’re not letting us?” the left Siamese asked glumly.

Grasshopper didn’t have time to answer. The door slammed open and excited Magician, looking past Siamese, waddled into the room.

“Wolf’s coming!” he shouted. “Honest! They let him go!”

“Hooray!” Stinker said.

Everyone transferred their attention to the door. Grasshopper thought with relief that now he didn’t have to finish typing the letter. Humpback huffed jubilantly right behind him. Stinker grabbed the binoculars, for some reason. Siamese stealthily shuffled to the side, whispering among themselves and throwing sullen glances at Grasshopper.

“I am the knight in armor of purest plaster!” Wolf declared, appearing at the door. “And I seek a squire, loyal to the end and properly fit to kneel and bind my shoelaces, for I, clad thus in armor, am akin to a tortoise fettered by its carapace.”

He approached Grasshopper and poked him with an umbrella handle.

“Come, be my squire, noble youth. A bag of gold rewards each year of your service. And should I perish, this splendid armor passes on to you, and you can fetch good coin for it.”

Wolf lifted his sweater and tapped on the plaster.

“You won’t regret it. Your life shall be filled with wonders beyond measure.”

Grasshopper nodded.

“I gladly accept. But we have Siamese here . . .”

Wolf squinted at the twins.

“My trusty helmet obscures my vision,” he said. “But tell me, noble youth, isn’t this just evil spirits tempting me by choosing to assume two visages so like each other and reveal them to my gaze?”

Siamese exchanged glances.

“Spirits, of course.” Stinker giggled. “Who else? And now they want to live with us. If we agree.”

Wolf thumped the umbrella on the floor. It opened.

“Sorcery,” Wolf muttered, closed the umbrella, and turned to Stinker. “Your words are indeed puzzling to me, young friend. This cave where we have assembled does not belong to us. By God’s infinite grace any vagabond is allowed to enter, dry his cloak by the fire, and regale us with tales of his adventures. Thus he repays us for our hospitality. If these two are not an infernal apparition, even though the similitude of their faces burdens my senses heavily, by all means do invite them closer to the fire and assure them of our goodwill.”

Siamese gaped at Wolf, dumbfounded, their seagull eyes unblinking.

Wolf tapped the floor with the umbrella again.

“Are you of low birth? For what reason do you conceal your names from us, as if ashamed? Could it be that you have covered them with dishonor? Could it be that you are in fact Cain’s issue, cursed to forever roam the world?”

“Nnnooo . . . ,” one of the Siamese moaned. “We’re . . . We’re not that at all!”

“Knights is what we are,” the other offered brightly. “Caught in a storm.”

Wolf lifted an eyebrow and fixed the brothers with a suspicious stare.

“Warm yourselves, then,” he said finally, “and relate your story to us.”

He sat down on the floor. Magician, Humpback, and Grasshopper quietly took their places around him. Siamese exchanged glances and sat down too, cross-legged and identically hunched.

“Are you in trouble, knights,” Humpback whispered. “Wolf can keep up this charade until lights out.”

Magician, without even waiting for further instructions, placed the guitar down at his feet, propped it up with a chair, and strummed it a couple of times.

“Ah,” Wolf said. “The splendid minstrel and his harp. You are here as well.”

Magician nodded smartly, picking at the strings.

“And there is the captive monster, once the devourer of innocent maidens, but now repentant.”

Stinker contrived to look deeply repentant. He did it mainly by hanging halfway off the bed and sounding a mournful wail.

“It rues its misdeeds greatly,” Wolf translated. “Daily it recounts the unfortunate girls in its prayers, imploring mercy from their enraged shadows.”

“Oh . . . Oh . . . ,” Stinker moaned. “Theresa, Anna, Maria, Sophia . . .”

“Let us not dwell on that,” Wolf interrupted. “We have visitors.”

Now everyone was quiet. Magician continued strumming the guitar. The hamster stomped over Humpback’s sweater, sneezing from time to time. Siamese felt the collective attention on their persons and shifted uneasily.

“You said you didn’t need tough guys,” the left Siamese said to Wolf. “And we’re not. We don’t like them either. And they don’t like us. We’re by ourselves. If no one picks on us, then we don’t pick on anyone. And they call us thieves any chance they get. And they do pick on us. And now those newbies.”

He sighed.

“But you’re not going to take us in, I know.”

And he threw a sideways glance at Grasshopper.

Because we used to beat you up, Grasshopper completed the sentence in his head.

“Could you take Elephant, at least? He’s scared of that newbie, Spot. He spooks all the time and starts bawling. Take him in, huh? He’s very quiet when he’s not scared. He just plays all day by himself.”

“Would he go without you?” Grasshopper asked. “He likes you.”

“We’ll talk to him,” Siamese promised. “He’s a very reasonable kid.”

This was Max. Grasshopper managed to distinguish the letter M on his badge.

“Just show him this wall.” Rex giggled. “You won’t be able to pry him off it.”

“Until after dinner,” said Blind, who had been sitting silently in the corner all this time. “Then he’s going to remember about you and start bawling. And then it’s either take him back or take you in. Or jump around him all night with handkerchiefs at the ready.”

Siamese blushed and pressed even closer together.

“Bring Elephant,” Wolf said, “and you both come too. Just quit confusing us. And using Elephant to guilt us.”

Rex stood up and helped up his brother.

“Thank you,” he said with a smirk, “O Plaster Knight.”

It was a crooked smirk. The only kind Siamese were capable of. Rex wanted to say something else, but his brother tugged at his sleeve.

They’re completely different, Grasshopper thought, surprised. You only have to look closer.

The twins departed. Humpback looked over the beds and whistled.

“Now we are ten Sissies. Full complement. But they’ll never be able to climb the top bunks. Them, or Elephant either.”

“I’ll move upstairs,” Wolf said reluctantly. “And Blind will also have to. There’s no other way.”

Stinker swayed on the pillows.

“They are burglars,” he said. “And thieves. They’ve got a crapload of lockpicks and other things that are useful to have around. They can rob us clean and sneak back to Stuffage. We’d be left with nothing.”

“Let them try,” Wolf said. “We’ll set your goblin loose on them. Hey! Speaking of which, cover it up quick before Elephant comes. Or the entire House is going to come running here when he starts wailing.”

Humpback and Magician pushed the nightstand against the goblin and then placed a salad bowl on top. The radio went on top of the bowl.

“There’s only this ear peeking out,” Magician said. “But you can’t see whose ear it is, so he won’t be afraid of it.”

“This is the way art is suppressed nowadays.” Stinker sighed. “I only poured my entire heart into that goblin.”

“That much is obvious,” Humpback said. “Your black soul is right there for everyone to see.”

“It sure is noisy in there,” Blind said. “In the Stuffage, I mean. I’d even say raucous.”

“Could it be they’re not letting them go?” Grasshopper said hopefully.

“Something like that,” Blind said, creeping closer to the wall and pressing his ear against it.

Magician turned down the radio. Now all of them could hear the noise behind the wall.

“Tell us, Chief Keen Ear, what’s the news?” Wolf said.

“Keen Ear yourself,” Blind shot back. “Sounds like they’re getting beat up. But I can’t tell for sure. Can’t hear much besides Elephant raging.”

“So that wasn’t a ruse,” Wolf said contentedly. “Them coming here, I mean.”

Wolf looked at Grasshopper. Grasshopper frowned miserably.

“They’re kind of ours now,” he said. “They’re Poxy Sissies too.”

Wolf nodded. “Exactly what I was thinking.”

“We have to go fight for them,” Grasshopper sighed. “If they’re ours.”

Running to the rescue of Siamese was the last thing he wanted to do.

“You mental?” Stinker said indignantly. “There’re only five of you. They’re going to dispose of you and then mount an assault on the room. And take all the useful things. It might even happen that I could suffer as well.”

Grasshopper slipped his foot into his shoe and extended the leg toward Wolf.

“Could you tie this up, please?”

Humpback was already holding the second shoe.

“Come on, hurry up, let’s go,” he said. “They’re two against them all.”

Magician armed himself with a spare guitar string. Blind peeled his ear off the wall.

“They’re already out into the hallway,” he said in a featureless voice. “No need to rush.”

Humpback slapped the other shoe on Grasshopper’s foot and ran for the door. Grasshopper, tripping over the laces, dashed after him. They raced each other out of the room.

Siamese were indeed there. Them and the entire Stuffage. One Siamese was visible. He held off the attackers with a duffel bag. Next to him on the floor, where the other one appeared to have been tripped, something spiderlike was whirling about, waving its multiple arms and legs. Humpback let out a battle cry that sounded like a car alarm going off, and jumped right into the thick of battle. Grasshopper swung his leg at someone’s backside sticking out of the spider and continued to punch whoever came up to the surface. Blind sneaked by, but Grasshopper was too busy to trace his further movements. The seething mass was already whelping enemies—Muffin rose up, groaning, and Crybaby readied his fists. Looking at them, Grasshopper suddenly realized, to his horror, that he’d forgotten to take off his prosthetics. This was the most important thing, more important than the shoes, more important than anything in the world!

“Don’t you dare!” he screamed at the top of his lungs into the closest face and swung at it with his foot. The face disappeared, but another one took its place, which Grasshopper also hit, yelling, “Don’t you dare!”

I broke his nose! I wonder whose nose?

The battle raged around him. Grasshopper tried to get to Wolf, who was fighting nearby, but someone’s hand grabbed his ankle. He stomped on it with the free foot; the untied shoe flew off and immediately was lost in the melee.

All Grasshopper could think about was that they mustn’t break the prosthetics. Someone shoved him in the back, he fell over on top of Crybaby, and then someone fell on top of him. Someone heavy. Crybaby squealed. Grasshopper writhed, knocking his knees against him. Someone was sitting astride Grasshopper’s back and pummeling him. It hurt, but judging by his whimpering, Crybaby was hurting even more.

“Look out!” somebody screamed.

He saw spinning wheels. Stinker’s wheelchair came to a stop right by his nose.

“Look out,” Stinker squeaked again and brandished an umbrella.

Muffin loosened his grip and Grasshopper, now freed, was able to roll aside.

“Take that, fiend!” Stinker exclaimed and speared Muffin with the umbrella.

Grasshopper kicked Muffin in the belly. Muffin, defeated, crawled off, but there appeared Whiner, swinging a hockey stick at Grasshopper. Grasshopper managed to kick him, but the unshod foot could not do much damage. The stick struck Grasshopper in the ear. The ear flashed. The second blow landed on the prosthetic.

“You broke it,” Grasshopper whimpered and rushed Whiner, forgetting all about the stick. For some reason Whiner threw the weapon away and bolted. Grasshopper ran after him. Somebody tripped Whiner, he tumbled, rolled over onto his back, and squealed, terrified. Grasshopper was bearing on him inexorably, like a comet, leaving trampled hands and feet in his wake, the enemies scattering around.

Then someone grabbed him and lifted him off his feet. Grasshopper started kicking, attempting to free himself.

“OK, cool it down,” a grown-up voice said.

Suspended above the field of battle, Grasshopper saw Magician using his crutch to beat back Rabbit and Crook, Stinker’s overturned wheelchair, Stinker himself wildly flailing the umbrella in all directions, Sportsman rolling on the floor tangled with someone—and seniors. Lots of them. Swearing and laughing, they were pulling the boys apart.

The back of Grasshopper’s head pressed against something sharp. He froze, struck by a sudden realization, and turned around. A small skull on a chain scraped against his cheek. Grasshopper couldn’t make himself look farther up.

I kicked Skull!

His head spun. He felt faint and sick to his stomach.

Skull turned him around and lowered him to the floor.

“Well? Better now?”

Grasshopper swayed on the spot. A tattooed arm shot out and steadied him.

“I didn’t know,” Grasshopper whispered. “I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t know what?”

Skull’s gray eyes were sprinkled with tiny dots.

He’s got speckled eyes. Dappled. How curious.

The seniors shoved the boys into the dorms. The door of the Stuffage bristled with grimacing faces. The faces spat and shouted abuse.

“Shoo!” the seniors yelled back.

Sportsman and Blind were the last to be pried from each other. Magician and Humpback, holding the tattered remains of their shirts, disappeared into the Poxy dorm. Siamese crawled on the floor, picking up the spilled contents of their bags. Elephant followed them one step behind, drowning in tears.

“Outrageous!” Splint, the counselor, was screaming. “All of you! To the principal! Right now!”

Elk was stuffing Stinker into his wheelchair. Stinker was putting up a fight. Grasshopper had some time by now to collect his thoughts. He turned back around, planning to apologize to Skull, but found that he wasn’t there anymore. He was already leaving with the other seniors. Grasshopper caught a glance from one of them, and then heard: “That armless squirt, he was fighting like a tiger!”

The seniors laughed. Skull stopped and looked back at Grasshopper. Very somberly. He was the only one not laughing.

“To your dorm, on the double,” Splint hissed in Grasshopper’s ear, and he ran, limping on the shoeless foot. He was burning with shame. The seniors didn’t know that he only fought like a tiger because of prosthetics. They would have laughed even more if they knew. Except maybe for Skull.

“Principal’s office in half an hour!” Splint shouted behind him.

The sinks in the bathroom were mobbed by the casualties. There was water all over the floor. The sock on Grasshopper’s unshod foot got soaked through.

“The plaster armor is like the most useful thing to have around. The enemy forces disable themselves, you don’t even have to do anything. Just get yourself open and wait for someone to take a swing at you.”

Wolf emerged from under the faucet and looked at Grasshopper.

“Oh. There you are.”

“There he is!” Stinker screamed. “The Vanquisher of Stuff! The Avenging Foot! The Heel of Death! Yay!”

“The crutch is useful too,” Magician bragged. “You should have seen the way I caught Crook with it.”

Humpback splashed loudly, bathing his busted lip. One of the Siamese, a little worse for the wear, probed a loose tooth.

“They accused us of stealing,” he said, extracting the finger from his mouth. “And we like never even saw those pins of theirs.”

“I’m not sadistic,” Stinker said in a singsong voice. “No, I am not. But I can be quite severe when roused. Part of my character. My own part.”

He wheeled over to Grasshopper.

“There’s a streak of severity in you as well when roused, old man,” he said. “But still, you can’t hold a candle to me in that regard. All shrink in fear before me.”

Stinker was completely unscathed, so he didn’t really have any business in the bathroom. He just wheeled around on the wet tiles, splashed water from the low sink on everyone, and sang an elaborate ode dedicated to his own heroic exploits. The boys, covered in scrapes and bruises, proudly pressed wet towels to their wounds and studied themselves in the mirror. Grasshopper took a look as well. His ear was livid, and blood caked under his nose. He liked what he saw.

“Hark, knights,” Wolf said. “Tonight at the round table we shall recount the glorious battle. Praise our valor and mourn our losses. Sing war songs and bring together our chalices in honor of the fallen.”

“Stinker seems to have started already,” Humpback said.

“I didn’t start anything! And quit admiring yourselves, it’s my turn now.”

Stinker wheeled at them from behind and pushed them away from the mirror.

In the dorm, the other Siamese was comforting Elephant, Elk was stuffing cotton wool in Blind’s nostrils, and Beauty was pacing the room, gnawing at his fingernails.

“Get yourselves cleaned up,” Elk said. “Then we’ll go visit the principal.”

“Us?” Magician said indignantly. “What about them?”

“Them too, don’t worry. Where’s your shoe?” said Elk, glancing at Grasshopper’s feet.

“I’ve got it,” said Stinker and fished it out of the wheelchair, followed separately by the dripping shoelace. “I kept it as a remembrance. A souvenir.”

“Couldn’t whatever problems you had be solved peacefully?”

The knights kept silent.

“Right,” Elk said, looking at his watch. “Be at the principal’s office in ten minutes. We’ll talk.”

He walked out.

“Hey, what’s that?” Humpback said and touched Grasshopper’s shoulder.

Elephant, sitting on the blanket, was surrounded by pins forming a colorful mosaic.

“Here! Look at this one. Pretty, huh?” Siamese implored, bringing the pins one by one closer to Elephant’s wet face. “Just look at it . . .”

Siamese’s contribution to the wall consisted of a stork and a crocodile. The stork was standing on one leg and therefore occupied very little space, while the crocodile was apparently flying, splayed above the wolf and the owl. Elephant worked for a long time, and when he finished painting there was a flower in the corner, looking very much like an inkblot.

Stuffagers threw the pot with the broken plant out into the hallway. The only thing belonging to Siamese that they didn’t manage to bring over. Siamese found it on their way back from the canteen, picked it up and tried to revive it, but it withered anyway, so they had to bury it in the yard in an old shoebox.

Everyone was quietly preparing for the next fight. Stinker mended the umbrella. Siamese grew out their nails. Magician whittled himself a cane. Every night they had a war council. The time spent in the canteen was taken up by threatening stares and scary faces. Then they grew tired of all that.

Wolf joined the music club and started disappearing with the guitar after lunch, and then tormenting Sissies with monotonous chords for hours on end. Magician dug up the book titled The Illusion of Reality in the library, fashioned a top hat out of cardboard, and tried to make the hamster disappear under it. Hamster refused. It just startled and crapped more than usual. Beauty pressed juices. Stinker composed long, heartfelt letters to charitable organizations and private citizens. The letters featured the unfortunate paralyzed boy, the poor orphan preparing for dangerous surgery, and the sightless baby who loves music more than anything in the world. Every letter was accompanied by heartrending drawings. Stinker’s hope was to acquire a plethora of things that might be useful to have around.

Siamese Max wrote letters too. To himself. He did them in pencil on sheets of toilet paper and sorted them in envelopes with strange legends: When You Want to Cry, When You Want a Bicycle, When You Think You’re Ugly, When You Envy the Leg. The leg in question was most likely his brother’s second one. The one Rex had, and Max could have had. Stinker showed his letters to everybody. Max never showed his to anyone. He only ever read them to himself, and rarely, at that, only when his mood corresponded to the legend on one of the envelopes.

Grasshopper came out into the yard every night. When Witch showed up, he went in search of Blind, a letter deep in his pocket. Sometimes it was Blind who passed a letter to him—then Grasshopper went down to the ground floor and waited by the laundry-room doors. He got so used to it that he kept forgetting about the danger, only remembering when he saw Witch burn the letters in front of him.

Blind took to disappearing at night. Humpback tried every possible way of constructing the tent, but it still crashed. Then came the rains. Elk said of them that they smelled of spring. The yard became a muddy mess. Humpback’s dogs stopped coming. They were thinking about having offspring and were therefore too busy. Siamese Max got knighted.