Pale (2 page)

“You’re so lucky to have a dad like that,” Sadie told me. “My dad’s just embarrassing. I wouldn’t be seen dead with him.”

“Yeah,” I said. My dad was pretty cool. We did a lot of stuff together. All the other dads I knew were like Sadie’s – boring and old. But I thought the world of mine. He was more like a friend than a dad.

As we walked on down the road to the movies, Sadie chatted about school and stuff. She was always so happy when she was with me.

I was thinking about how good she made me feel too as we stepped out into the road. I wasn’t paying attention to anything else. Maybe that was why I didn’t see the car until it was too late.

It was coming way too fast. Heading straight for Sadie. I heard the screech of brakes.

Then I moved. I dived forward and shoved her, hard. I pushed her out of the way of the car.

It hit me instead.

It was like I was a fly getting swatted by a giant metal hand. The blow stunned me. White light exploded behind my eyes. I went flying through the air. Then I was falling, like in a dream.

I hit the tarmac, and everything went black.

I opened my eyes. Things were fuzzy at first. I blinked. Every part of my body hurt. “Look,” said my mom’s voice. “He’s awake.”

Mom was just a blurred figure next to me. I was in a bed. Crisp sheets. The room smelled cool and clean.

It took a minute to realize where I was. I was in hospital.

Dad was standing over on the other side of the room, by the door. At least, I thought it was Dad. He was too far away to see very well. “Dad?” I croaked. My throat was so dry.

Mom took my hand. “Sssh,” she said. “Don’t tire yourself.”

I remembered being hit by the car. “Is … is Sadie OK?”

“Huh!” said my dad from the other side of the room. “She’s just fine.” He said it like he was angry about it.

I didn’t understand. Dad had always been fond of Sadie. But at least she was OK.

My eyes had adjusted to the light now, so I could see a little better. I could see Mom’s face. She looked so worried. That made
me
worried. How badly had I been hurt?

I wiggled my toes under the covers. I bent my legs. I shifted about a bit.

It hurt, but not too much. No bones broken.

So why was Mom looking so worried? “Dad?” I said again. “Am I OK?”

He snorted, as if that was a stupid question. I didn’t get it. Dad was always so nice to me. Why was he being so mean?

“You had an accident,” said Mom, patting my hand.

“I know, Mom. Am I OK, though?”

“It was a very
bad
accident,” she said, and she started to cry.

Now I was really scared. I thought they’d be happy that I hadn’t been killed. But they didn’t seem happy at all. Something was very wrong.

“Dad?” I asked. “Why are you standing all the way over there?”

“I just …” he began. But then he didn’t seem to know what to say. “Forget it,” he said. Then he pulled open the door and walked out of the room.

I was shocked. Why was he treating me this way?

“He’ll come around,” said Mom. “It’s hard for him. With his job, you know. People are going to talk.”

“Talk about what?”

She closed her eyes. “The accident … Jed, it was really bad …” She opened her bag, took out a mirror and gave it to me.

My eyes had cleared now. Enough so I could see the face in the mirror, looking back at me.

It was my face, but different, ugly. My hair had gone white. My cheeks had no colour, and you could see small blue veins underneath. My eyes were spooky. It was like seeing the ghost of myself.

But I wasn’t a ghost. I was something worse.

I was a Pale.

Sadie did it. She made me a Pale.

When the ambulance came, I was already dead. They didn’t have much time. So they asked Sadie what I would have wanted. And Sadie told them to bring me back.

What I didn’t understand was why. Why did she do it? She knew I didn’t want to be a Pale, and she got them to bring me back anyway. That question tore me up. Why didn’t she just let me die?

It would have been better than living as a Pale.

After I got out of the hospital, I stayed off school for a few days. But things at home were hard. Dad didn’t even look at me. Mom tried to be nice, but I could tell she was sad. I heard her crying when she thought I wasn’t around.

I didn’t feel any different to the way I was before. I still felt like the same old Jed inside. But Mom and Dad didn’t think I was the same. When they looked at me they saw a Pale. A Pale that looked like their dead son.

I couldn’t stand being at home. It was making me too sad. So I went back to school.

Dad used to drop me off in his car in the mornings. But he didn’t want to do it anymore. It would look bad. He was an Afterlife lawyer, after all. His job was to take stuff from Pales. What would people say if they knew his own son was a Pale?

So I walked instead.

It wasn’t easy, going to my first class. Everyone stared at me. They’d all heard what had happened. I tried to stare back at them, to defy them. I was still the same Jed they’d known a few days ago! But I couldn’t help looking down at my feet. I felt so small. I knew what they thought of me.

Our first class of the day was with Mr. Grayson. He just looked at me as I sat down. He didn’t say anything, but there was a little smirk on his face. Then he wrote on the board. Five big letters.

“‘KARMA,’” he said. “Today, class, we’re going to learn the meaning of the word ‘KARMA.’”

Nobody spoke to me all morning. It was like they didn’t know what to do with me. The second class was worse than the first. I felt like I didn’t belong in my seat. I wanted to go home, but home was just as bad.

At lunch break, I went to the spot where we always met. They were all there. Kyle, Sadie and the twins. They were laughing and joking. I walked over to them.

One of the twins saw me coming. He nudged the others, and they stopped laughing. Kyle’s face went hard.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he said, as I joined them.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He pointed to the group of Pales on the other side of the schoolyard. They were muttering to each other and looking at me. “That’s where you belong now,” Kyle said.

I couldn’t believe it. “Kyle!” I said. “It’s me – Jed! Remember? Your best friend!”

Kyle shook his head. He looked really angry. “Jed died. He was hit by a car. You … you’re just a Pale.”

“I didn’t want to be a Pale!” I shouted. I pointed at Sadie. “She brought me back!” Sadie began to cry.

“Look what you’ve done!” Kyle said. “Get out of here!”

I ignored him. “Sadie!” I said. “Look at me! Why did you do it?”

“Leave her alone!” one of the twins shouted. He grabbed my arm, but I shook him off.

“Stay out of this!” I said, “She’s my girlfriend!” I stared at Sadie. “Why did you do it?”

“Because I loved you!” she said. There were tears running down her face. “Because I couldn’t stand to lose you!”

I couldn’t speak for a minute. She loved me? It was the first time she’d ever said it. It was the first time any girl had said it to me.

Sadie turned away. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter now,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter?” I shouted. “How can you say it doesn’t matter?”

Sadie wiped her eyes. “It doesn’t matter, because you’re a Pale. We can’t ever be together now. It just wouldn’t work.”

“You’re breaking up with me?” I said. “You brought me back to life, you made me a Pale, and now you’re breaking up with me?”

Kyle stepped between us. “You heard her,” he said. “It’s over.”

“Get out of my way!” I said. I tried to get past him, but he shoved me away. Hard. I tripped and fell to the ground.

“Jed is dead,” Kyle said. “Go hang out with your Pale friends.”

I lay there, stunned. My friends were looking at me like I was an enemy. My girlfriend had turned her back on me. Some kids nearby were laughing at me, there on the ground. They would never have dared to laugh at me before. The Pale kids watched me from the other side of the schoolyard. They could sense they were about to get a new member for their creepy little gang.

“I’m not like those guys!” I shouted at Kyle. “I’m different!”

“Are you?” he asked. “Funny. You all look the same to me.”

I couldn’t take it anymore. I got to my feet and ran. Out of the schoolyard and out of the school. I didn’t know where I was going. I just wanted to run. I kept running till I couldn’t run any longer.

When I stopped, I found myself on a wooded lane. I knew it at once. It was the same place we’d beaten up David Bloom a few days ago. The shortcut between the school and the Graveyard.

Why had I come here, I wondered?

And then it hit me. I had nowhere else to go. I wasn’t wanted at home. I wasn’t wanted at school. There was only one place where people like me belonged.

I hung my head and started walking down the lane.

Towards the Graveyard.

It was the middle of the afternoon when I reached the Graveyard. It was a dirty, rundown part of the city. A slum where nobody ever went. Nobody except Pales, anyway.

I walked with hunched shoulders and kept my head down. It was scary to be surrounded by so many Pales. I felt like they knew I wasn’t really one of them. Like they would see me and know I shouldn’t be there.

Everything was shabby. The windows had a layer of grime on them. Litter blew down the street. Pales wandered here and there, wearing cheap gear. Stuff from outlet places and Good Will. Some of them looked like bums.

It wasn’t like home. Mom and Dad lived in a nice street, lined with trees. We had a big house. The garbage truck came on time. You never saw a bum there, Pale or not.

I wanted to go back there so badly. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t face Dad. And I didn’t want to make Mom cry.

But now I was here, I had no idea what to do. I just walked around. I looked in the windows of empty shops. I kicked stones that had fallen off ruined buildings. I tried not to look anyone in the eye.

In the end I sat down in a shop doorway. The shop was closed, like all the shops here. No one had any money.

It was getting cold and dark. I was only wearing my school clothes. I began to shiver. I was hungry, too.

Until that moment, I didn’t think Pales felt hunger or cold. I just thought they were like zombies. The undead. But now I knew. Nothing was different after you died. Nothing except the way people treated you.

The whole thing made me angry. How could Sadie do this to me? She would have been dead if I hadn’t saved her. Instead it was me who died. It wasn’t fair!

I was the same Jed she loved before I was hit by that car. It was only the outside that had changed. But she couldn’t see that. She only saw a Pale.

Why didn’t she just leave me dead? It would have been better than this!

In a while night fell. I was getting really cold. I needed to move, to keep warm. I could smell food cooking somewhere, so I went to find it.

The Graveyard was all yellow light and black shadows under the street-lamps. In the middle of one road, I found a soup kitchen. Pales were lining up with bowls. Three women were giving them broth and dumplings. Normal women, not Pales. What were they doing in the Graveyard?

I got in line. I was too hungry to be afraid now. It freaked me out to have Pales standing so close to me. But I wanted that food.

I didn’t speak to anyone until I got to the front. One of the women looked down at me. “Where’s your bowl?” she asked.

“I don’t have one,” I said.

She gave me a kind smile. “You’re new, eh?” Then she found me a bowl, and filled it up. She put in an extra dumpling.

“That’ll keep you going,” she said, winking.

I mumbled a thank you and shuffled off. It was strange to see normal people being nice to Pales. I was used to people picking on them, the way I did.

I took my bowl and headed towards some tables by the side of the road. I planned to find a place to sit on my own. But then a group of Pales walked up to me. Three older boys, and one kid my age. A kid I knew.

“Remember me?” he said.

I did. It was David Bloom. The kid that me and Kyle beat up. I looked at his friends. All of them were bigger than me.

The tables had turned now. I was on his turf. This wasn’t going to go well.

“Listen, about what happened before,” I said. “I’m … sorry.”

“Now you are,” said David.

I knew what he meant. I wouldn’t have been sorry if I hadn’t died. I would have kept on beating up Pales.

I hung my head. “Well,” I said. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Get what over with?” David asked. 

“You’ve come for payback, right?” I asked.

David shook his head. “No,” he said. “You’re one of us now. We need to look out for each other. No one else is going to.”

“I’m not one of you,” I said. I still couldn’t think of myself as a Pale.

“Everyone says that at first,” David told me. He put his hand on my arm. “Come on – sit down. Eat with us. I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.”

I stayed with David after that. He told his dad I was a friend from school. He never said anything about how I used to beat him up. His dad said I could stay for a while, if I wanted. I had to sleep on the floor, but it was better than nothing.

David looked after me for a whole week. He told me who people were. He showed me where to get warm clothes and meals for free. He let me hang out with him and his friends.

At first it was strange. I didn’t feel like I was one of them. But they didn’t mind me being there. At first I hardly said anything. After a while, I started joining in. Soon, it didn’t feel strange anymore.

All the time, I was thinking about Sadie. Sadie, Sadie, Sadie. I think I must have been in love with her all the time, like she said she was in love with me. Even though I didn’t know it. Otherwise it wouldn’t have hurt so much, what she did.

After that first week at David’s, his dad told me I’d better go back to school.