Duck Boy (20 page)

Finger smoke.

Some sharp thought poked Steve’s thinking and forced him awake.

“Wait. Stop!” Steve shouted as loudly as he could.

The mask suddenly reappeared with a blink in front of him. “We are helping
you become perfect,” it said in a soothing tone.

“I don’t want or need that kind of perfection. Give me my finger back.”

“I’m sorry, but it is already a part of our world. It can never come back to
you.” Suddenly the force that was supporting Steve left him, and he collapsed
on the ground.

“Where are my mom and great aunt?” he yelled as he picked himself up.

“They have become part of our world,” answered the mask.

“Let them out!”

“I cannot, but you can go and live with them.”

“I won’t live with them. You have to let them go.”

“You are merely a Whole One. Against our entire world, what can you do? You
have no idea what to call us, or what we are. Yet we know you, and what you are.
You are just a collection of parts, borrowed from what we are. We are perfect.
You are not.”

Steve didn’t know how to respond. He stared at the mask. “I want my finger
back. What did you do with it?”

“You gave us your finger,” replied the mask. “You gave us your finger of
your own free will. You told us that you wanted to `live here with your mom,’
didn’t you? You promised us the rest of you, too. You belong to us now.”

Duck Boy. Duck Boy.

Steve backed away from the mask, frightened by its power and the realization
that he had given his life away. “I want my finger back,” he said in a squeaky
voice.

“I cannot give it to you.” The mask’s smile didn’t fade, but it suddenly
looked vacant and empty. “It is now more perfect than you could ever be.”

Duck Boy. Duck Boy.

Steve wanted to be strong. He wanted to demand that the mask give his finger
back, but he couldn’t.

“You must give us the rest of you, now,” stated the mask. “Your life now
belongs to our world.”

“It does not. My life belongs to me,” Steve said quietly.

“It belongs to us. You gave it to us,” insisted the mask.

“I didn’t give it to you,” Steve protested, unable to meet the mask’s vacant
eyes. “You misunderstood what I said.”

“A word spoken in our world is as good as the deed. You belong to us. Your
life is ours. You must join the ocean of pieces you see before you.”

“I won’t give myself to you. You said words weren’t really words —they’re
just shapes in a row,” Steve said quietly, as firmly as he could. “So what I
said couldn’t mean anything anyway.”

“You are whole, and you spoke whole words—you do not speak letters, as I do.
It is not a matter of giving or keeping yourself. You already gave it to us, so
your life is ours,” declared the mask with an empty smile. “You belong to us
now.”

Steve panicked and swung his backpack from his shoulders onto his arm,
grabbing his mother’s plaque. He plunged his hand into the bag to grab the
dictionary but accidentally touched his own notebook instead.

The mask didn’t betray any emotion.

Steve felt the electrical numbness work up his arms and into his entire
body. He fought the urge to release his notebook and his plaque. The landscape
flattened into a picture and he was surrounded by a whirlwind of light. The picture
grew smaller and smaller until it was the size of a small snapshot. The
whirlwind of light began to fade and the picture floated lightly to the ground,
disappearing into nothing.

“He’s in the bedroom,” a voice yelled. A herd of heavy feet trampled up the
hallway of his house to where Steve was standing, dazed and disoriented. It
took Steve several seconds to figure out that he was in his own house. “Put
your hands in the air where we can see ’em,” bellowed a man’s voice.

Steve pulled his hands out of his backpack and lifted them into the air. The
bag slid up his arm to his shoulder as his arms raised. Two officers entered
the room with their guns drawn, pointed at Steve. One of them slid her gun back
into her holster and pulled out a set of handcuffs.

“Cuff him.”

She wrenched Steve’s hands from the air and pushed them behind his back,
removing the backpack from his right hand and setting it on a table nearby. She
pushed the sleeves of his heavy coat away from his hands to expose his wrists.
Then she locked his hands together behind his back with a pair of handcuffs.
“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be held against you
in a court of law…”

“Could you make sure my backpack goes with us, please,” Steve asked as
sweetly as he could, knowing that this kind of request could be refused. He tilted
his head in the direction of the backpack.

The other constable flicked on the lights in Steve’s bedroom and inspected
Steve’s bag. She opened the backpack and pulled out Steve’s notebook with the
two others, the mirror plaque, an alarm clock, and dictionary and rummaged
through the remaining items, smiling as she pulled out a pair of underwear.

Oops. Duck Boy.

“They’re clean,” she laughed to the arresting officer.

“The underwear or the backpack?” asked the other officer.

“Both,” she said. “We’ll bring it for you. It is the Christmas season, after
all. Though you are some kind of sicko.”

They pulled Steve’s hat and gloves from his coat pockets, after patting him
down and removing everything they could find, and wrapped him up for the
journey to the police station. Then all three headed into the winter white to
the police car.

“Good thing we left the lights goin’,” yelled the female officer into the
wind. “We’d a never found the car without ’em.”

She was right. The storm had swallowed the car entirely. The only thing that
stood against the winter blast was the lights. They loaded Steve into the
police cruiser. After a little trouble pulling out of the growing snowbank and
onto the road, they headed back to the station as the winter storm buffeted the
car.

“What time is it?” Steve asked. The woman officer glanced at her wristwatch.

“It’s a little after three-thirty,” she said.

After a slow and slippery ride, the car bumped over the curb and came to
rest in a growing bank of snow outside the station. The two officers led Steve
into the police building downtown; one of them carried his backpack for him.
Inside, they removed his gloves and hat, the handcuffs.

“We don’t need his fingerprints,” the woman said. “We got ’em
on file already, from when his mom left.” She didn’t bother to correct
herself.

Steve glanced down at his hands, as he remembered.

No pinky
.

He felt the space where his baby finger had been. His finger still felt like
it was there, but it wasn’t.

So it wasn’t a dream.

“Do you want a lawyer present?” the policewoman asked, almost monotone.
“Anything you say in the interrogation room can be used as evidence against
you. A lawyer makes sure that you don’t say anything that will get you in
trouble,” she explained.

“I don’t need a lawyer,” Steve returned quickly.

The policewoman shrugged. “I’ll probably need someone to OK this, since you’re
a minor, but if that’s your decision, we’ll proceed.”

“I’d like to proceed,” Steve affirmed. The woman nodded and handed him some
paperwork to sign. When she was done, she clacked the handcuffs back on his
wrists—this time in front of his body—and led him, still wrapped in his coat,
with his backpack, hat, gloves, to an interrogation room. She handed his bag to
a man who was waiting outside the interrogation room and led Steve inside.

The interrogation room was more like a prison cell with a table and chairs.
The room was scarred with abuse—holes in the wall, bruised and dented
furniture, the chairs and table all bolted securely to the floor. Steve sat for
a long time, waiting for someone to show up. His backpack was still outside. So
he just sat awkwardly with his hands, handcuffed, in his lap.

An hour later Detective Larry walked into the room, his eyes dopey with
sleep, his mouth set in an angry line. In his hand he carried Steve’s backpack.
He opened it and tossed it onto the table. Then he slammed the door; the sound
echoed in Steve’s ear. After he knocked on the backside of the door, Steve
heard the scraping sound of some kind of lock fixing it in place.

“Hello, Steve,” he snarled. “Thought you could outsmart us, huh?” He paused,
assessing Steve’s state and mood. “I’m going to ask you some questions, and you
had better give me some answers. Do you want a lawyer present? Have you made
your one call?”

“I don’t want a lawyer.”

“What you tell me can be held against you—you know that.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Where are your aunt and uncle?” Larry pursued. “What have you done with
them?”

“I don’t know where they are,” Steve protested. Larry’s eyes narrowed into
furious little slits at Steve’s words. “Is this being recorded?” Steve asked.

“Yes. All interrogations are recorded.”

“I’m going to explain some things to you, and I think you’ll find them hard
to believe.”

“Try me.”

“This situation is not what it appears to be.”

“Oh, really?” Sarcasm seemed to wake Larry up.

“My mom and Aunt Shannon weren’t kidnapped,” Steve declared. “They were
accidentally transported to another world.” The attitude of the interview
heated Steve up to fire-point inside his winter coat.

Larry laughed out loud. “Oh, that’s rich. Pure gold. Magicians, right? Magic
wands? Muggles. Don’t tell me. Wait.” He slapped his hand on his forehead.
“Voldemort did it.”

Larry stopped laughing suddenly and focused on Steve. “You don’t have any
idea how serious this situation is, do you? You are implicated in a very
serious crime. You could spend a good number of years in a detention center. Or
worse. I could get your case moved to an adult court.” He paused and moved
close to Steve. “Do not mess with me.”

“I’m not lying to you,” Steve said in a quiet, but frustrated tone. “You
really don’t understand what’s going on here.”

“You can’t expect me to believe you, Steve,” Larry roared. “You’re just a
two-bit punk. And you’re upsetting me. I am finding myself getting very angry.”

“It’s the truth,” Steve insisted clearly.

“You liar. What kind of yank do you think I am?” Larry growled, as he
pounded his fist on the table in anger. “I’ve heard a lot of stories in my
career, but this tops them all.”

Steve felt his own anger rising. A fist of anger smashed through his icy
fear, but he didn’t speak.

“You’re stupid. You’re an absolute idiot. I can see why your mother left—she
couldn’t stand you.”

Steve couldn’t take any more. “Shut up!”

Larry looked up at Steve with a thin grin.

“Let me show you something that will make your day, Detective Garner.”

Larry nodded, with a sardonic smile.

“Could you pass me my backpack?” Steve asked.

Larry pawed through the bag’s contents, pulling out three notebooks, the
dictionary, the sturdy alarm clock, and Steve’s plaque, putting them on the
table with a knot of socks and underwear. With a casual eye he inspected it
until he was satisfied that there was no direct threat. Then he slid everything
towards Steve.

“You’re not listening to me, are you?” Steve asked, indignantly.

“What do you think I am—an idiot? Have you forgotten to take your
medication? Or, maybe your teenage hormones have addled your brain,” he
snarled.

“Can you unlock my hands?” Steve asked angrily. “Let me show you what this
stuff can do. The room’s already locked, so I won’t escape.”

“You’re an idiot, kid,” Larry retorted. Anger surged in Steve, and he fought
to control it.

“Just let me try something, will you?”

“Actually, you’ll have to do it with the handcuffs, because I’m not going to
undo them. You’d better get used to the feeling of cuffs. I have a feeling you’ll
be wearing them often.” He folded his arms and stood defiantly against the
wall. “Impress me.”

Steve raised his hands to hug the things on the table, and slid them close
enough to where he was sitting that he could reach them more easily.

“What did you do to your hand?” Larry asked.

Steve had forgotten his injury, but he ignored Larry’s question. He slid one
hand through the strap of his backpack, placing the three notebooks, the tiny
tough-looking alarm clock, and his Benu stone inside the bag’s open mouth one
at a time. And, finally, the underwear and socks.

“Where are you going?” Larry quipped with a laugh. “You look like you’re
packing things up and leaving.”

“I am leaving,” Steve said matter-of-factly.

“Whatever,” Larry said in a bored tone.

Steve shook his head. He reached out and grabbed the plaque and the
dictionary, one in each hand. The familiar warm, numbing electrical feeling
rubberized each arm. The whirlwind of light started moving slowly around him.

Steve watched Larry’s eyes grow large. The policeman stood up where he sat,
falling backward over the battered back of the chair. He crawled backward over
the floor toward the far wall. Steve found himself smiling.

“Help!” Larry screamed.

A wind blew around the interrogation room, the file flew open and pages of
the case circled madly around the room in a tornado-shaped funnel. Larry’s face
twisted with dread, as he thrashed against the wall, trying to dig his way out
of the room, thrashing against it. Fear froze his features with a look Steve
had never seen before—on anyone’s face. Steve was enjoying the moment so much
that he took a while to notice that the detective was fumbling for his gun. Larry
eventually worked it out of his holster and fired wildly into the mayhem.

Steve ducked. The room grew flat, like a picture, and the picture shrunk to
a small size. Steve checked himself for holes. The shots had apparently missed.
The picture fell slowly to the ground and dissolved into nothing.