Anthony shook his head.
“Cat got your tongue?”
“No.”
“No what?”
“No, Leonard, the cat hasn’t got my tongue,” said Anthony.“We don’t have a cat.”
Anthony didn’t know where that one had come from.For amad moment, he was usurped from his own body, his dominion contested by some rogue self.Unfortunately, he was back inside his body when Leonard Levesque’s right hand slapped him so hard across the side of the head that his vision blurred.The second blow knocked him to the floor, so he was on his back when Leonard placed a foot on his balls and applied unwelcome pressure.
“You talk back to me like that again,” said Leonard, “and I’ll ripyourtongue out and make you swallow it.Do you understand?”
“Yes, Leonard,” said Anthony, and the weight on his groin eased.He stayed where he was for a few seconds, in case Leonard was tempted to hurt him again should he move.Only when Leonard turned his back did Anthony get to his feet.He was doing his best not to cry, but his eyes were prickling.
“There are no ghosts,” said Leonard.“Not here, not anywhere.Either you’re hallucinating like overexcited little girls, getting each other all worked up over nothing, or we have a liar in our midst.No one is going to drive all the way out here just to run around the grounds at night, so if someone is playing tricks, it’s one of you.And you’d better cut it out, y’hear?”
Mute nods, followed by a silent dispersal.Anthony risked a peek, only to catch Leonard staring back at him, those infant features marred by confusion.Whichever of the boys he might have expected to smart-talk him, it wasn’t Anthony Marshall, the little bedwetter.This meant Leonard had misjudged him, and action would have to be taken to maintain the status quo.Leonard Levesque would brook no dissent.
All this and more was communicated between the two boys in that look: Anthony, though he could not have said how, spotted that Leonard was worried.He wondered if Leonard, too, might have seen a boy at night but was reluctant to admit it.That little piece of theater, concluding with the naming of Stewie Daigle, was a distraction, or a test, because Leonard had relaxed slightly after Daigle’s name was mentioned.What Leonard might have feared to hear spoken was a different name, one Anthony had been tempted to utter before discretion overcame valor, only itself to be overturned by a foolhardy impulse to get in Leonard’s face.
You were afraid someone would name Scott Theriault.What did you do to him, Leonard?What did you do?
Chapter 31
On the edge of his bed, his feet dangling inches from the floor, Anthony Marshall’s bowels spasmed again.He had no idea what the punishment might be for shitting his sheets.Such an eventuality was not covered in the briefing he had received from Mr Renders, the assistant principal, on arrival at Spero, or in the less formal introduction given to him by Jamie Hanscomb after lights out.From this, Anthony could only conclude that bed-shitting was so unthinkable an occurrence as to be unworthy of mention.
Another spasm came, and this one sent a signal right down to Anthony’s sphincter.If he waited any longer, he wouldn’t make it to the toilet.He slipped into his Crocs and checked the other occupied beds, but his roommates were all sleeping.None of them moved as Anthony padded across the wood floor.Anthony didn’t make a sound, because another early lesson learned at Spero was which boards groaned, which doors squeaked when pushed too wide, and which windows opened while others remained stubbornly closed.This knowledge was added to the record of the personalities of the staff, their temperaments and trigger points, and the distinctive pattern of their tread.So much to be taught and remembered, even before one entered a classroom.
Anthony went down the stairs and paused by the main door, which was inset with a small panel of wired safety glass.Through it he could see the path, and at the end of it, the door leading to the showers, the stalls, and blessed relief.Another of those sphincter testers gave him the impetus he needed to move.He didn’t look left or right, but focused on the door ahead.Even had he risked a glance around him, he doubted he’d have beenable to spot much beyond the path.Those solar lights might not have done more than illuminate a narrow stretch of white gravel, but amid the greater dark of the campus and the Plains beyond, they were enough to screw with a person’s night vision.
Anthony reached the gym without incident and twisted the knob, but the door wouldn’t open.He tried again, making more of a racket than he would have liked.The knob turned, but the door was stuck fast.He resorted to bracing his right foot against the frame and pulling back hard, with the result that the door opened outward unexpectedly, nearly knocking him on his ass.What that might have done to his bowels didn’t bear thinking about, but seconds later, Anthony was sitting in a cold stall, and he wasn’t thinking about Scott Theriault or Stewie Daigle or Leonard Levesque, only that disaster had been averted for the time being.
But if Anthony Marshall was not thinking of Leonard Levesque, the latter was thinking of him.
Although Anthony could not have known it, and couldn’t have done much about it if he had, not with nature calling so urgently, Leonard was currently smoking a cigarette outside the building that housed the two smaller dorms, Longfellow and Homer.Leonard Levesque was a nocturnal animal.He’d always struggled to sleep at night, which drove his parents to exhaustion during his infancy and early childhood, until it became apparent that sleep deprivation was just one of a litany of challenges with which their son would present them, and by no means the worst.
Leonard had formerly enjoyed his late cigarettes while sitting on one of the upper windowsills at Longfellow, leaning against the frame with a pillow for comfort.On cloudless nights, he would imagine himself adrift among the stars, like God before mankind was born; or if the moon was bright, he would pick out the contours of The Plains and add castles, barricades, and knights, transforming a prison into a kingdom.When he was very tense, or when he was concerned that the fury inside might be about to goad him into unwise actions, he ran figures through his head, calming himself by performing complex equations orsearching for prime numbers, but that stratagem didn’t work as well as before.He wasn’t a kid anymore, and had enough self-awareness to recognize that whatever was wrong with him wasn’t going to get any better as he got older.
But Leonard no longer smoked on the windowsill, not since the younger kids began whispering of a visitor who came at night.Leonard’s window faced the woods which, even in better light, were thick enough to prevent anyone seeing beyond the first rows of trees.Leonard didn’t believe an intruder would approach through the woods but instead would come from the main road, and he planned to catch them when they did.As for talk of ghosts, Leonard knew that kids liked scaring one another with campfire stories, even if he’d never seen the point, but he had to admit that the conviction of those who claimed to have seen figures where no figures belonged was perturbing.He’d always taken Austin Bernier for normal, but Bernier was seriously spooked and had taken to keeping a small cross in one of his trouser pockets, fingering it obsessively.And while Bernier was among those who first suggested that Stewie Daigle might have come back, Leonard knew opinion was changing, and the name that came up more often now, if out of Leonard’s earshot, was Scott Theriault’s.
Everyone at Spero was aware that Leonard and Scott hadn’t gotten along.Leonard viewed Scott as competition for top dog, and not without cause.Scott was as well built as Leonard, but neither as weird looking nor remotely as unbalanced.Also, breaking out of Spero earned Scott bonus points for rebellion, as opposed to Leonard who, for all his infractions, stayed within the school boundaries.Leonard was glad when he heard about Scott’s body being found, because it meant his rival was dead.As to how he got that way, Leonard chose not to speculate.Leonard Levesque could be blind, deaf, and mute when it suited him.
Nevertheless, it bothered him that any of the students might believe, seriously or not, in the return of Scott Theriault as a phantom.It implied Scott had unfinished business at Spero, and that kind of speculation needed to be nipped in the bud.One of those who was doing more whispering than most was AnthonyMarshall, in part because Scott Theriault had intervened more than once to save Anthony from his persecutors, Leonard included.Leonard thought Scott did this to spite him.The idea that one person might intervene to protect another because it was the right thing to do was alien to Leonard.Stepping in as a demonstration of strength was comprehensible, or on a whim to see how it might feel, like trying on unfamiliar shoes, or even because it offered the prospect of an advantage gained or a favor to be held in reserve, but not because it was good or honorable.Like all those untroubled by conscience, Leonard Levesque saw the world purely in transactional terms.To be without a conscience was to be without a soul, which is why, in stories, the devil did not threaten, but sought to make deals with men.The devil was the ultimate transactional politician, and the damned nominated themselves.
So Scott Theriault had saved Anthony Marshall to thwart Leonard Levesque, and now Anthony, deprived of his protector, was attempting to resurrect Scott as an otherworldly guardian: Scotty the Unfriendly Ghost.Upon consideration of the matter, Leonard had determined on three linked courses of action: intimidation, to silence the whispers; observation, to locate the night visitor and reveal their true identity, like inScooby-Doo; and finally, elimination, principally of the irritant represented by Anthony Marshall.Leonard would have enjoyed sending Anthony the way of Stewie Daigle, but if he couldn’t make Anthony’s life so miserable that he’d choose to end it, he could make him wish he was dead, which was the next best thing.
Leonard was just about to light a final cigarette from the butt of the previous, and was thinking that, damn, the nights were getting colder, when whom should he spy, bent crooked as he scuttled along the pathway, but Anthony Marshall himself, little smart-mouth piss boy, all alone, and Leonard Levesque in the mood for devilment.
Leonard killed the butt and went to see what harm he might do.
Chapter 32
Anthony was shivering.The freestanding ablution block, as it was termed in a hangover from its National Guard days, was poorly heated, and the lighting was barely fit for purpose, so Anthony hadn’t bothered to turn it on.He knew where he was going, and he didn’t want to see what he was doing; he could hear, feel, and smell it well enough.More importantly, he didn’t want to attract attention.He believed himself to have entered the block unobserved, and by now was almost convinced that he might have been mistaken about what he’d glimpsed from the dorm window.In case he wasn’t, it was better to toil in the shadows.Lights drew insects, and other things too.Enough moonlight shone through the narrow rectangular windows to content him.
He was just finishing up, and was about to flush the evidence, when the stall door exploded inward, catching Anthony so hard, with his pajama bottoms around his knees, that he lost his balance and fell.He looked up to see Leonard Levesque standing in the gap, making a wafting gesture under his nose with his right hand.
“I think we’re going to have to rename you,” said Leonard.“Piss boy isn’t going to cut it anymore.”
