Dreamland Social Club (7 page)

Heart thumping with the thrill of discovery, she compared her mother’s entry to some others. Most of the seniors pictured had long lists—Math Team, Drama Club, Editor-in-chief of
The Siren
(which she gleaned was the school paper, though she hadn’t seen it yet) and on and on—underneath their names.

But not her mother.

It made sense on some level that her mom was a nonjoiner—the woman had practically un-joined her own family—but she had
started
the Dreamland Social Club? And it was still going after all these years? Something about discovering a legacy, even if Jane had no idea what it actually
was
, made her happy.

When the section for club photos turned up no picture of the Dreamland S.C., she went back to the beginning of the alphabet and started looking for other people who’d listed it among their extracurriculars. But the whole thing proved more time-consuming than she’d realized and, by the time the bell rang, she’d only gotten to the D’s and hadn’t found any other members.

The second she stepped out into the hall to head to her next class, a voice said, “Well, look who we have here.”

She turned to face Cliff Claverack, whose face was red, as if from a workout. He said, “We are going to make your life a living hell.”

As nonconfrontationally as she could manage, Jane said, “I didn’t know about the horse.”

He leaned in close to her, so close that she could see the pores on the face of the dragon tattooed on his neck. For a second she half feared that that tattoo was going to open up and breathe a stream of fire at her.

“Doesn’t matter whether you did or didn’t,” he said. “He was a piece of shit and shit runs in families.”

“But I never even met him!”

He’s not even really my family!
she almost added. But of course he was.

He covered his ears and said, “Not-listening-notlistening-not-listening,” then pulled his hands away and said, “Just turn over the horse and we’ll leave you alone.”

Fine,
Jane almost said.
I will!

But a voice came from down the hall—“Giddyup, Claverack”—and Cliff looked up and over Jane’s shoulder. Jane turned and saw a black kid walking down the hall. She recognized him as the guy who had no legs, but here he was. Walking. Wearing jeans and shoes.

“None of your business!”
Cliff sang in a sort of singsong.

“Is if I make it.” He was standing beside Jane now, taller than her by several inches. His teeth were straighter than any Jane had ever seen, and his arms were tight with muscle.

Cliff backed away. “That’s how it’s gonna be?”

Jane didn’t understand how it was possible, kept looking at those jeans, those shoes.

He said, “That’s how it’s gonna be,” with a crooked smile that made the teeth look even straighter.

Cliff clomped away then, and she turned to her savior and said, “Thanks.” But confusion must have tinged her features, because he bent to knock on his thigh and said, “Prosthetics.”

“Oh,” Jane said.

“I’m H. T. Astaire.” He held out a hand, which Jane shook. It was calloused, rough; felt the complete opposite of how the skin on his face looked.

“Officially Henry Thomas,” he said. “Unofficially, Half-There.” He hit his prosthetics again.

Jane put it together. “Half-There Astaire.”

“I dance”—he held up his hands—“mostly on these. Which might be the reason Claverack is scared shitless of me. You gotta use what you got, you know?”

“Well, thanks,” Jane said, not sure she had anything to use at all.

“He’s just a big, dumb bully.” He shook his head. “I got no time for that. And yo, do
not
give them that horse.”

“But their grandfather made it.”

“Doesn’t matter who made it. Doesn’t belong in their grubby mitts.”

A late bell rang, and Jane consulted her schedule. When she saw that she was expected in gym, possibly her most dreaded class in the history of the world, she thought about hiding in the bathroom. Then again, she’d need to be fit if she was going to survive that five-mile swim.

 

After school that day, Jane studied a bulletin board for information about
The Siren
, then found the offices, located in a far corner of the school’s basement, and dared to knock. She poked her head in after someone called out, “It’s open!”

She walked into a cement-walled room with rectangular windows and exposed pipes running along the ceiling and heard only the buzz of a printer or scanner. At a desk in a far corner, one covered with piles of papers, the giant stood up from his chair. A shadow fell over Jane as he blocked the lights like a big cloud in front of the sun.

“Hey.” He held out an oversize hand. “I’m Legs Malstead.”

She went to shake it but her hand barely covered the span of his palm; it was more of a high-five than anything until Legs enclosed her hand in his other hand to hold in there long enough to have a proper shake. Jane was grateful he had a system.

“I’m Jane,” she said. “Dryden.”

“I know.”

“Oh.” She figured she should just cut to the chase. “I was wondering, do you keep archives?”

He bent down on one knee and, irrationally, Jane thought he might propose. Instead he said, “We do.” And then he seemed a little bit irrationally excited when he said, “What are you looking for?”

Jane felt her cheeks tighten at the thought of having to say any of it out loud, so she kept it short and sweet. “My mom went to school here.” Talking about her mother out loud, with a stranger—and a giant, no less—took the wind out of her. She had to concentrate hard in order to speak again. “I wanted to see if she was ever written up in the paper.”

And of course the founding of a new school club seemed potentially newsworthy, but she didn’t feel the need to elaborate. Not until she knew more, anyway. Not until she could breathe again.

Legs nodded quickly and said, “Just give me one minute to finish something up. . . .” He handed her an issue of the paper. “Read while you wait.”

Jane’s eyes landed on a Faculty Q&A in a box on the first page of the paper. It definitely offered up some interesting facts about Coney Island High’s chemistry teacher—like that he worked at the Coney Island Sideshow during the summer, as Garth the Human Garbage Disposal—but the reporter hadn’t asked the questions Jane would have asked. Then again, she probably wouldn’t have chosen a teacher to shine her spotlight on. She wished for a spotlight on H.T. or Leo, even one about Babette. Because she couldn’t just flat-out ask her new classmates things like “What’s the best thing about being a goth dwarf?” and “What’s the worst?” Or “Why do you get tattoos?” Or “Do you envy people with legs?” She’d be tagged a Looky Lou forever. And besides, the core question behind every question she wanted to know the answer to was unanswerable. It was “What’s it like to be you?”

She sort of felt like it was the only question ever worth asking anybody. Not where are you from? Or what do your parents do? Or what do you want to be when you grow up? Or any of the usual bunk. Just what is it
like
? What are
you
like?

It was a question she couldn’t answer.

Or you don’t.

“Okay,” Legs said finally, putting some papers in some sort of courier bag. “So. Archives. They’re definitely not complete. Come this way. . . .” He walked toward a door at the far end of the room and opened it. Boxes upon boxes filled tall metal shelves. “But you’re welcome to have a look.”

Right then the genius toddler came through the office door, walked over, and jumped up onto Legs’s knee and kissed him. So, apparently, she wasn’t a toddler.

“Oh, hey,” Legs said, almost falling over. He indicated Jane. “This is Jane Dryden; Jane, this is Minnie Polinsky.”

“His girlfriend,” Minnie said, in a high-pitched voice. She gave Jane a smug look, then turned to Legs and said, “Come on. We’re going to be late.”

“Oh,” Legs said, then he looked at Jane, then back at-Minnie, and said, “Jane here wants to look through the archives. Isn’t that interesting?”

“Yeah,” Minnie said, sort of slowly and suspiciously. “Sure. I guess. But we still have to go to . . . you know.”

Legs sighed. “Jane? Can you do this another time? There’s someplace I have to be and I can’t leave you here alone. We can set a time. I can help.”

“Sure,” Jane said. “No problem.” She nodded. “That’d be great.”

She followed them out into the hall, then said goodbye and started walking away down the hall in the opposite direction. When she heard them open a door and disappear into a classroom, though, Jane doubled back.

Muted laughter came from Room 222, and she stopped near the closed door.

The Dreamland Social Club was meeting.

She walked by the room a few times—back and forth, back and forth, as casually as she could—and caught glimpses through a small window in the door of Legs and Minnie and H.T. and Babette and some others—was Leo there? She couldn’t be sure—but then the bearded girl came into the hall and Jane panicked and rushed down to the main floor and out the front doors into a wall of hot, salty air.

T
HE SPIDER PLANT THAT HUNG by the one window in the painfully dark living room seemed to be straining toward the glass for survival. On the TV in the corner a black-and-white woman pointed at a man with no arms or legs and screamed, “But is it
human
?”

“Look,” Marcus said. “It’s a movie about our school.”

“Not funny,” Jane said. “Where
were
you all day? I looked for you everywhere.”

He shrugged.

She plopped down on one of Preemie’s old couches. The cushions were less cushy than she’d expected and she’d plopped too hard. It hurt. “You’ve got an admirer,” she said. A dwarf had just appeared on-screen.

“Oh yeah?” Marcus didn’t even look up.

“Babette,” Jane said.

Marcus frowned. “Not my type. Now that other little one, I could maybe . . . well, never mind.”

“Anyway, Babette told me something weird.” She tried to get more comfortable on the couch and puffed up some dust; she sneezed, then rested her head against the sofa back. “That Harvey guy and his brother, Cliff?”

Now Marcus looked up.

“Their grandfather had this long-standing battle with Preemie about that horse.”

She nodded at the horse, and a car alarm sounded on the street:
Woo-oooh-ohhh-ohh.

Marcus’s face scrunched up. “
What?”

“Their grandfather made it. He built the carousel. And he wanted to buy it from Preemie but Preemie wouldn’t sell, and he taunted the Claveracks about it for years.”

Marcus shook his head and paused the movie. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it?” Jane said. “What do we know?”

Whoop-whoop
. The alarm clicked off.

Marcus tossed the remote aside, got up, and went into the kitchen, and Jane followed. “It’s chained to the radiator, Marcus. Doesn’t that strike you as a little bit
strange
?”

“Jane,” he said sternly as he opened the refrigerator and then closed it, having found nothing worth eating or drinking. “Didn’t Dad say it enough times? We’re just here for
one year
. So just go make some friends who are into what you’re into, whatever that is, and suck it up and keep your head down and then we’ll be on our merry way.”

“You’re not even a little interested in the fact that our grandfather had a mortal enemy whose grandkids are in school with us?” Jane followed him over to the cabinets by the sink, which didn’t reveal anything worth his stomach’s attention either.

He closed the cabinet doors, looked at his watch, then headed back toward the living room and sat down. “I just don’t know if I’d believe everything a goth dwarf told me. And I mean, whatever. They can have it, right? I seriously couldn’t care less.”

He started the movie again, and Jane settled in to watch. A woman dressed like a bird—big, pear-shaped costume and feathered headdress—walked on-screen. “Is that Grandma?” Jane asked.

Marcus gave her a look. “That’s Birdie, yes.”

“What?” she said defensively. “She
was
our grandmother. Where’d you find it?”

“Around.”

Jane tried to focus on Birdie alone—tried to study her countenance and manner for signs of some kind of family relation—but it was hard not to be distracted by the man who was just a torso. She wondered whether this man with no limbs had ever met the girl with no limbs from the Dreamland Social Club. She thought about telling Marcus that their mom was listed in her yearbook as the founder of their school’s Dreamland Social Club, but if he didn’t care about the history of the carousel horse, he’d hardly care about some dopey club.

The conjoined twin brunettes who kept doing interstitial song and dance numbers, their voices all warbly from the warping of the tape, gave Jane the chills, and when the final scene played out and the new sideshow act, a person with a skull that turned pointy at the top, a “pinhead,” was revealed to be Martian—
not human after all
—the credits rolled and Jane sighed with relief. Black-and-white movies always made her queasy, and she decided it must be because everyone in them—every actor and actress she’d seen, every name on the final credits, every orphan in the surf—was dead.

When the film ended and Marcus left the room, Jane approached the horse and ran a hand down its long mane. She thought about climbing on, but it seemed disrespectful to treat it like a toy, even though that’s basically what it was. Instead, she bent to study the lock. Picking it up—and wow, was it heavy—she tugged at the closure but it wouldn’t budge. She’d have to look around for an old key but wasn’t very hopeful.