Crap Kingdom (7 page)

8

“DUDE?”

It was lunch period on Friday, the day after the first night of the fall play. Tom and his best friend, Kyle, were sitting at their usual table in the lunchroom, or rather, their usual corner of the cooler, older drama kids’ usual table. Last year they’d been, at best, tolerated after they staked out the very end of the table. Even though they’d gotten to talk to and be funny in front of a lot of the older kids during the fall play, they still sat in the corner. No need to push their luck.

Tom had his head resting on the metal bar behind him that corralled the line of kids waiting to get food and had been staring straight ahead for five minutes, his untouched chili cheese burrito cooling in front of him, when Kyle took it upon himself to say something.

“You okay, dude?”

“Huh? Yeah, yeah,” Tom said. “Just tired.”

“I sent you a text in second period.”

“My phone’s broken.”

“Yeah? That sucks! What happened?”

Tom thought long and hard about his answer. When he’d come home last night, or really very early this morning, he’d told his mom that he hadn’t answered her calls because his phone was broken. His story was that some juniors and seniors had gone over to somebody’s house after the show and he’d gone along and before he could even call her, he’d gotten thrown in the pool, and he was really sorry, and then he couldn’t get a ride back from anyone until much later, and he knew that he should’ve borrowed someone else’s phone and called her but he didn’t think, and again, he was really really sorry. She’d called Kyle, and Kyle hadn’t known where he’d ended up. He was home asleep when she called. Tom had told his mom that Kyle had left before the people went to the party. Then he’d taken back the word
party
. It wasn’t a party. It was just some people hanging out at somebody’s house, and there wasn’t any drinking there, and no, nobody was doing drugs.

Tom was shocked by how easily all this had rolled out of his mouth. He was even more shocked when his mom believed it. But of course she believed it, it was way more plausible than saying,
I was semi-kidnapped by a guy who was impersonating Dad and then taken to another world.
But he’d still lied to his mom, and he never lied to his mom. He hated to think about the world of lies he’d have to construct if he wanted to justify returning to the nameless kingdom every day. What concerned him wasn’t that she’d eventually catch on, what concerned him was that she would keep believing him and believing him and the awful knot he had in his chest would keep growing. She was mad and he was in trouble, but she still trusted him, and today was the first day since he was five and he’d lied about hiding cookies under the couch that he’d ever been unworthy of that trust.

He didn’t want to start lying to Kyle, too, so he said: “Doesn’t matter. Something dumb. Hey, sorry about my mom calling you.”

“It’s cool. Where did you end up?”

Tom just shook his head.

Kyle smiled. “Niiiiice.”

“No,” Tom said, “it wasn’t like that.”

Kyle knew Tom had been putting all his romantic efforts toward Lindsy Kopec. Tom’s romantic efforts included talking to Lindsy whenever she talked to him first, trying to make her laugh in these conversations, and furiously analyzing her every word and movement afterward. Kyle was sworn to secrecy about Tom’s feelings, and he was also under strict orders to keep a watchful eye on her interactions with other guys, Tom’s romantic rivals, and report back nonstop for the comparing of notes. So Kyle had to know that Tom wouldn’t have just randomly hooked up with some other girl. Kyle also had to know that if Tom had actually gotten anywhere with Lindsy Kopec, he would not have been silent for most of lunch with his head slumped against a metal bar, he would have been standing at the cafeteria cash register buying sodas and chips and snack cakes for everyone who came through the line, never mind the cost, high fives all around.

So he could tell Kyle it wasn’t a girl, but he couldn’t tell Kyle what it actually was. He wasn’t sure he knew himself. He didn’t even know what to call it. He wasn’t going to tell anyone, so that saved him from speaking its name aloud. But he still had to think about it. And he couldn’t just make a random noise in his head every time he thought about it, the way they did when they were referring to it: “Gghurrrghhpfp” or “Wrrrrrrrrrrrrt” or whatever. He’d asked his brain to come up with a temporary name for the kingdom so he could use it while thinking about whether or not he wanted to go back there. His brain had answered:

CRAP KINGDOM.

It fit. He knew, and frequently used, words way stronger than “crap,” but it wasn’t like this nameless kingdom was so offensive that a stronger word would even apply. It was bad, but no effort had gone into its badness. It was just plain
crap
. It would have to try harder if it wanted any other swear-word name.

He didn’t like that he thought of it that way. Every time he thought of it as Crap Kingdom, it seemed crappier. It was like the time an elementary school friend of Tom’s had gotten tagged with the name “Stinky,” and though Tom had never thought of him that way, the more other kids called him that the more Tom started to notice,
Hey, you know what? He is kind of stinky.
And Tom was never sure if it was just that he’d heard him called that so many times that his mind suddenly tricked him into thinking this kid who had once been his friend really was stinky, and it didn’t really matter, because if you kept hanging out with Stinky you might get tagged with a mean name yourself. “Stinky 2” or something.

Tom had always felt awful about that and he hoped he was now mature enough not to let a nickname for a thing come to stand in for the thing itself. He was almost an adult. He couldn’t wait to be an adult, in fact, and adults took things as they came. They realized that everything wasn’t always going to be exactly how you wanted it, even fantasy worlds. After all, it was still a magical universe that was a secret to everybody but him. Wasn’t that enough?

CRAP KINGDOM,
his mind answered.
CRAP KINGDOM.

“Do you need to talk about anything?” Kyle said.

It was a weirdly mature question coming from Kyle, and Tom felt bad for making their friendship, which consisted mostly of penis jokes and quoting
The Venture Bros
., so momentarily serious.

“No,” Tom said. “I’m okay.”

After eating just about nothing at lunch, Tom went to his fifth-period class, American History, and continued staring into space, thinking and worrying. He wasn’t missing much by not paying attention, because his teacher, Mr. Marshall, had turned what was supposed to be a lecture on Patrick Henry into a slide show of pictures of himself and famous basketball players he’d had the pleasure of teaching summer youth sports workshops with. The lights were off, which made it even more jarring when the door opened and the room flooded with light, and standing in the doorway was a police officer.

Mr. Marshall paused in the middle of a story about one of his famous basketball buddy’s hilarious golf cart antics and nodded to the police officer. The cop nodded at Mr. Marshall, then looked out at the class.

“Tom Parking?”

Tom’s stomach, not weighed down by any lunch, jumped all the way into his chest.

It was the middle of the period, so there weren’t a ton of kids around to stare at Tom as he and the police officer made their way down the hall. But the kids they did pass, all of them swinging oversized cardboard hall passes in one hand, stared at Tom and his police escort hard enough to make up for it.

Tom wondered what he was accused of. Was it illegal to climb into clothing donation boxes in the Kmart parking lot? Maybe it was one of those wacky laws they printed on kids’ menus at buffet restaurants, strange stuff from cowboy days that was still on the books, like, did you know it’s illegal to hitch your horse up outside of a post office? Did you know it’s illegal to climb into a clothing donation box with a man who’s about to accidentally set himself on fire once his magic spell goes haywire?

They entered the front office. Secretaries stared at Tom with a mix of fascination and disgust. Principal Scott stood outside of his office, dwarfed by a tall man in a suit standing across from him. The principal looked excited to be in a situation that required him to be serious. The man in the suit was rattling off a list of words that Tom might have thought were exciting if they weren’t being said about him.

“. . . arson, car theft, possession with intent to distribute. The kid’s a one-man crime factory, moving on a Federal level.” The serious-looking man seemed to be purposely speaking loud enough for everyone in the office to hear.

There must be some kind of mix-up,
Tom thought. Then he realized that’s what guilty people always said. No matter what happened, he needed to remember not to say “There must be some kind of mix-up.”

“Mr. Parking,” the principal said.

“Mr. Parking,” the serious-looking man said. “I’m Agent Taylor. Principal Scott, is there an office we can utilize?”

“Of course,” the principal said. “Right this way.”

The principal stared at Tom with that same mix of disgust and fascination as he led them down a little hallway to a conference room lined with posters about the importance of good nutrition and exercise and character, all of them featuring either ducks, apples, muscular people rowing boats, or the White House.

“You may want to wait outside,” Agent Taylor said to the school police officer. “Frankly, we have no idea what this child is capable of.”

The agent opened the conference room door and nodded for Tom to go inside. The school police officer looped his thumbs in his belt and gave Tom a good final dose of staring.

Tom walked in. He heard the door shut.

“Have a seat,” Agent Taylor said.

Tom sat. Agent Taylor walked slowly up to the table. He leaned on forward on it. He looked at Tom and smiled.

“Fun, right?”

Tom was silent.

“It’s me!”

“I . . . don’t . . .”

“Gark!” Agent Taylor said.

“Oh,” Tom said. So he wasn’t about to go up the river for crimes he did not commit. Tom realized he could relax.

Then he realized he could not relax.

“
What?
” Tom said.

“Yeah, just coming to see if you’d given any thought to our offer!” Agent Taylor who was Gark said. “Hope you don’t mind if I keep this face on. Figure I’m gonna have to walk out of here, and I wouldn’t want to embarrass you.”

“You wouldn’t want to embarrass me?” Tom yelled. “That’s why you took me out of class and told everybody in school that I’m some kind of criminal mastermind?”

“You’re lucky that sarcasm is our main form of communication, or I don’t think I would know you weren’t being serious right now,” Gark said. He lowered his head like a moping child, which was a really strange thing to see a movie-star-handsome FBI agent do. “You didn’t like me pretending to be your dad, right?”

“Right.”

“So I figured why not do something that would justify you being gone from school for a long time, which you probably will be when you’re spending more and more time as our Chosen One,” Gark said. “Plus, I thought you’d think it was cool. I thought you guys thought criminal masterminds were cool.”

“It’s a cool thing to read about, not a cool thing to be,” Tom said. “I still have to live here. I can’t just disappear. And even if I could just disappear, I don’t think I’d disappear just so I could come with you and eat rat-snot!”

“You don’t
have
to eat it,” Gark said. “I was very clear about that! They have these tongs now—”

“That’s not the point. The point is . . . my phone broke. I got in trouble. I had to lie to my mom. And if stuff like this is gonna keep happening, I don’t know if I want to go back.”

Now Gark was silent.

Tom hadn’t wanted to decide anything until he’d at least had a full night’s sleep, but Gark’s coming here now had forced him to pull out a rough draft of his thoughts on the subject and pass them off as the final project.

“How about this,” Gark said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I pretended to be your dad. I’m sorry I pretended to be this.” He gestured to his face. “Just . . . think it over a little more. And when you come to a decision, just write it down and drop it in the box. I’ll warn the guys on the lake to be on the lookout for it. They’ll do me a favor. They love me.”

“Okay,” Tom said.

Tom got up. Gark opened the door for him.

“Everything go all right?” the school cop said to Gark who he thought was Agent Taylor.

“Yes, it did,” Gark said.

Tom looked at Gark.

“Oh, by the way,” Gark said, addressing the principal and all the staring secretaries. “There’s been a huge misunderstanding. This boy is innocent of all charges. It was . . . another boy.”

“Oh,” the principal said. “Well, I’m glad that’s sorted out.”

“I’m just gonna head back to class,” Tom said. He looked at Gark one last time. Gark looked back at him.

“Well,” said Gark as Agent Taylor. “See you later, Tom.”

Tom didn’t say anything. He half smiled at Gark. He wasn’t good at smiling even when he was happy, so he was definitely struggling now.