Читать книгу Peeves - Mike Waes Van - Страница 10

As soon as I set foot on the bus, I knew I’d made a terrible mistake. The constant noise. The snotty faces. The weird smells. The bus was a travelling circus of potentially irritating things – and I was trapped in the centre ring. The door SWOOSHED shut behind me. The noisy one immediately started SWOOSH SWOOSH SWOOSHING in response. I watched helplessly as Mom pulled away in the other direction to go to her renovation site, our old house. What I wouldn’t have given then to be able to go back to it. Things were so much simpler there. But I had no choice but to face my fate.

“Where are we going? What is this thing? Why are you cringing?” asked the curious creature as the bus driver shot me an impatient look and jerked his thumb towards an empty seat at the front. Lucy was watching me with either disgust or concern. It’s hard to tell with her. But she had already taken a seat in the middle with her new soccer friends. I ducked into my seat, but with my three monsters stuffed in with me, it felt a lot more cramped than sitting alone usually does. “He has no friends,” said the tattletale. “He stepped in gum. He—”

I stuck my fingers in my ears and clenched my eyes shut and I stayed like that all the way to school. When I felt the bus lurch to a stop, I ran off it so fast I actually wondered if I could lose these hallucinations if I just kept moving. But when I dared to look back, there they were, bounding right after me. There was no escape. I came to a dead stop in the middle of the foot traffic herding towards the front door of the school. No one else noticed the three annoying monsters on the sidewalk. How could no one else see these things?!

Maybe I was finally, really going insane.

“Why aren’t you moving?” asked the curious one.

“He doesn’t like us,” responded the tattletale.

The curious one seemed shocked and hurt by this. It looked up at me with its big, wide eyes and asked, “Why don’t you like us?” It sounded so sincere I almost felt bad for it, like it was real. But, as if answering on my behalf, the noisy one went back to BEEP BEEP BEEPING as if it couldn’t not make noise and that was its natural default. I slumped my shoulders and dragged myself into school with everyone else.

Even under the most normal circumstances, school was a challenge. But normally when I had serious anxiety or a full-blown panic attack, the things that triggered it were just temporary – like the booger that Otis flicked on me. Eventually, I could get away. But that wasn’t the case with these furry figments of my imagination.

The noisy one mimicked every locker slam and bag zipping I heard, loudly and proudly.

The curious one bounced around in front of me asking questions without seeming to breathe. “What’s homework? Can I eat that? Why are they staring at you?” The kids in the hall were giving me strange looks as I unsuccessfully tried to swat and kick away the monsters no one else could see.

The tattletale had somehow tapped a whole vein of new secrets and it couldn’t spill them fast enough. “He wet the bed till he was seven. He’s wearing yesterday’s underwear. He hoards Twizzlers.”

Mortified to hear all my shortcomings catalogued at full volume, even though no one else could hear any of this, I swung my backpack off my shoulder, unzipped it, dumped my books out and snatched up the tattletale in one swift motion. Then I zipped it shut, which muffled the blabbermouth enough to make its monologue of my secrets almost bearable. Unfortunately, I did this right on the perfectly trendy shoes of Heather Hu and her clonelike horde, who looked at me like … well, like I was nuts. “Here we have a garden variety dork in its native environment,” said Heather as she recorded my behaviour on her phone like it was some sort of demented nature documentary. The trendoids who followed her were delighted. I was just annoyed.

And then it happened again. I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t stop it. I sneezed on her. And I have to admit it felt kind of good. She squealed and cursed and stomped away only to be replaced a moment later by a red-furred, blue-horned creature with an “over it” expression plastered on its face. The snarky-looking monster gave me a long side-eye glance and then rolled its eyes away and said, “Not even worth it.”

BRRRRING! The bell rang, warning me that I had to get to class. Heather’s horde stepped over my books, which I gathered frantically in my other hand as the curious creature wondered, “What’s a dork? Am I a dork? Is dork a bad thing?”

As I stumbled down the hall, I could hear the tattletale trying to comment on the situation, but thankfully its monologue was muffled inside my backpack. BRRRRING! I was already late! I started running past all the other kids who were still walking calmly to class and I tripped over someone’s bag on the floor, face-planting and skidding across the cold tiles to the utter joy of everyone who saw it. I rolled over to find the noisy one climbing onto my chest. It opened its trapdoor mouth and … BRRRRING! I smacked it away, splatting it against a locker. But by the time I got up and gathered my scattered books and dignity, the noisemaker had already peeled free from the lockers and re-formed like an inflating balloon. BRRRRING! But this time it actually was the bell and I actually was late.

I hurried into homeroom while Mrs Bowers’s back was turned and made it to my seat without getting caught for being tardy. I reached into my backpack to get a pen and inadvertently released the tattletale. It scrambled out and joined the other creatures all around my desk. As Mrs Bowers started roll call, I took a deep, cleansing breath, and tried to calm down and focus. I was almost getting used to the chorus of random noises and annoying questions and personal revelations from the monsters when a spine-tingling SNIFFLE cut through the ruckus. I looked at the noisy one accusingly, but its ears were aimed behind me, excited to hear a new noise to mimic.

I turned to glare at Otis Miller, and was surprised to see that this time he looked genuinely sick. He even had a mini-pack of tissues on his desk. Otis looked at me sheepishly. “My mom said without a fever I’m not contagious and can’t stay at home.”

Before I could respond, Mrs Bowers yelled, “MR PICKINGS!” I spun round to face the front and shouted “HERE!” while instantly fearing the use of my last name would inspire someone in this room to start in with the nose-picking taunts again. But Otis was too down with his cold to bother. Instead, he let out another shiver-inducing SNIFFLE SNIFFLE SNEEZE from behind me. I could feel little droplets of stray spittle hit my neck and reflexively spun round again to say something, but I just responded with a massive sneeze of my own.

“I knew I was contagious!” blurted Otis as he raised his hand. “Can I go to the nurse?”

Mrs Bowers dismissed him and Otis fled the room without even offering me a tissue. Normally I would have freaked out, but today I had way bigger worries. I just wiped my neck with my sleeve as the curious creature wondered, “If he’s contagious, what am I?”

“You’re annoying,” said the tattletale. “We all are.”

“That’s an understatement,” commented the snarky one.

The curious one looked almost as if its feelings were hurt again.

I tried to focus on the announcements Mrs Bowers was reading out loud, but then I heard the SNIFF SNIFF SNIFF start again. I looked accusingly at the noisy one, but it was busy BEEP BEEP BEEPING. I cringed as I realised what had just happened. I turned round towards Otis’s empty desk, terrified of what I knew I’d see – another translucent glob of goo. This one had sprouted fur and arms and was stretching its body upward. It had a big, pink nose to go with its droopy, watery eyes and floppy ears. It sniffled and sneezed and wiped its nose in its own fur. For a moment it looked content, but then it sneezed and started the whole process over again. It was one sticky-looking, snot-hardened, green-furred, monster hallucination.

“Why does that happen?” asked the curious one, observing its new colleague.

“Because he’s easily annoyed,” chimed in the tattletale. “He’s also pissing off the teacher,” it added as Mrs Bowers gave me another stern look.

I slunk down in my seat, trying to ignore the sniffling one too. But that was hard to do. The noisy one had latched onto its sniffle sounds and they were sitting on either side of my chair back. It was SNIFF SNIFF SNIFF in one ear and SNIFF SNIFF SNIFF in the other. Like an echo chamber of grossness that prevented me from actually paying attention to whatever Mrs Bowers was going on about.

Science class afforded me a bit of a break since everyone was focused on a test and that meant they were unlikely to create any new annoyances. The room was quiet, at least to everyone else. Me, I was swarmed by monsters. And the relative silence amplified the sloshing, chomping, gulping sounds Mr Schwartz made while eating a messy tuna sandwich at his desk. Every swallow seemed to last for ever down his ostrich-like throat. And the noisy one’s exuberant mimicry of the sound caused me to shudder and gag.

“As if you sound any better when you eat,” noted the snarky one with a dismissive face. “Also, you’re totally failing your test,” it said without even bothering to look at the test I was too distracted to work on.

The curious one made its way over to the Evolution of Man poster. It looked at me, then the poster, then at me again, suddenly understanding something and wondering, “If that’s what you came from, then what did I come from?”

“Boogers!” shouted the tattletale. And, as if on cue, the sniffling one perked up and sneezed right in my face. I wiped it off, totally grossed out. But as I did, my annoyance suddenly morphed into remembrance.

“I got sprayed. With PVZ! They said it … absorbs irritation,” I said to myself, causing Mr Schwartz to SHUSH me from the front of the room, which got the noisy creature SHUSH SHUSH SHUSHING me too.

“Is that how we got here?” asked the curious one.

“He’s figuring it out right now,” said the tattletale.

And it was right. I ducked down closer to my desk, mind spinning, replaying the events in my mind, piecing together what little information I had. Everything that annoys me makes me sneeze. Then I hallucinate a creature that does that annoying thing. And this didn’t happen to me until I got sprayed. “It had to be the PVZ,” I reasoned to myself. Then I said PVZ again, but this time, I sounded it out. “The … peeves.” I sat up in my desk with a grand realisation. “They’re peeves! Real-life peeves!”

The creatures all nodded like this was news to them, but made total sense. They were furry little living embodiments of my personal peeves. Noisy Peeve – the purple one with the satellite ears and throat like a bullfrog; Asking Peeve – the blue one with massive eyes and perpetually perplexed expression; Telling Peeve – the pink fluffy one with a Muppet-like blabbermouth that spewed my actual thoughts and feelings; Snarky Peeve – the blue-horned red devil-looking thing with the bad attitude; and Sniffle Peeve – the sticky, crusty green one with the perpetually runny nose.

“I’m sneezing peeves,” I said out loud. “I’m—”

“Disturbing the class,” interjected Mr Schwartz, who was now looming over me as if he’d been trying to get my attention for far too long. The whole class was staring at me, snickering. And that’s when I realised I had been audibly mumbling like a madman. Mr Schwartz ended that with a definitive, “Stop it!”

As I made my way to social studies, I was still trying to wrap my head round the big revelation. I was seeing actual peeves. I had to call Dad. I had to let him know what the PVZ did to me! I stopped outside the classroom and pulled out my phone, which I knew was not allowed while classes were in session – but kids did it all the time. No one ever got in trouble. Seriously, no one – until, of course, I did. Principal Waters came round the corner and snatched it out of my hand as if this were his brand-new mission in life. “No phones, Steven. Or was it Steve?” he asked.

“Slim,” I corrected him. “And this is an emergency! I had an experimental anti-anxiety treatment blow up in my face and now I’m seeing …” I stopped myself because a well-worn “heard-it-all-and-doesn’t-buy-it” expression quickly crossed Principal Waters’s face. He never would have believed me if I had told him the truth. “I need to call my dad,” I said. “I’m … sick,” I added, with an unconvincing cough.

“Looks like a case of ‘new-kid-itis’ to me,” said Principal Waters as he turned me round and opened the door to social studies for me. “The only cure for that is to go back to class,” he concluded. “You can have your phone back after school.”

I watched him disappear down the hall and realised I’d just have to make it through the rest of the day on my own. Dad would take me back to Clarity Labs after school. They’d have a cure there. They had to, I figured. Because if they didn’t, I was pretty sure I’d really go crazy.

In the meantime, I’d been assigned to work with genetically gifted Chance Chandler on a project exploring the chapter on “Individual Development and Identity”.

“Do I develop? Do I have identity?” asked Asking Peeve as Ms Mayfarb walked around the room in her oversize cardigan and waist-length dreadlocks, spouting off her own questions to “help inspire” our projects.

“How do individuals grow and change? Why do they behave the way they do? What factors in society and politics and culture influence how people develop over time?” she asked as she pushed Chance’s feet off his desk and removed his baseball cap.

“Sorry, Ms Mayfarb. I just like having my thinking cap on,” he said with a flawless smile. And I swear half the class swooned. Even Ms Mayfarb softened and put the hat back on his head. Right before she looked at me and said, “Take notes from this one, Slim. He’s a charmer.”

And once she had moved on, Chance pushed his work my way and said, “She’s right. You should take the notes.” Then he reclined in his seat with another self-confident grin I couldn’t relate to and added, “I can tell from your expression that you’re more of the thinker type anyway.”

“More like an overthinker type,” snorted Snarky Peeve from below our pushed-together desks. And neither one of them were wrong. I was thinking so hard I had actually broken a sweat. How could I be expected to work with Noisy, Asking, Telling, Snarky and Sniffle Peeves on my case? And with no help from Chance, who was apparently so well liked he could get away with doing anything – and by anything, I mean he could get away with doing nothing. He might be popular, but he’s also lazy.

“Thanks, bro,” added Chance as he tipped his baseball cap over his eyes to nap. Good thing he did, or he would have got a sneeze in the face.

As I left social studies, I had roly-poly Lazy Peeve literally hanging off me. Three times the size of the other peeves with tiny ears and sleepy eyes, Lazy was like a gravelly-grey-coloured blob of extra-heavy deadweight. It couldn’t even be bothered to keep its own tongue in its mouth. It just lolled out of the corner from exhaustion as it forced me to drag it around. I’m not even sure how I made it to the gym with it clinging to my leg. I was just relieved to discover that we had a chilled-out student teacher sub for phys ed, who excitedly announced, “Wallyball!”

With six peeves swarming me, bugging me and hanging off me, I was getting desperate and Wallyball gave me an idea. Just in case you’ve never played, Wallyball is kind of like volleyball, except you play with a big beach ball that you can hit off the walls before you hit it over the net. It’s totally disorganised and totally out of control. At least, that’s how it was with this student teacher sub in charge. Everyone was already freaking out in the middle of the court, chasing after and swatting the ball.

It was exactly the opening I needed.

Once I was changed and got out of the locker room, I joined the other kids in the spare room next to the gym. I don’t even know what that space was supposed to be, but with its high ceilings and mats everywhere, it felt custom-made for Wallyball. I was finally able to shake Lazy Peeve off my leg as I ducked under the net strung across the middle of the room. The peeve lay down right on the floor, as if it’d already had the hardest day ever. And I was so frustrated that I kicked it as hard as I could. I wanted to send it splatting against the gym wall, but it was so much heavier than the other peeves that it just sort of flopped over onto its face.

“Why’d you do that?” asked Asking Peeve, but I was inspired. I ran around the court like a madman grabbing, throwing and kicking my peeves in any direction I could. I punted one over the net and watched it THWACK against a wall, I tossed another through the portable basketball hoop in the corner for a perfect SWOOSH and SPLAT on the floor, and then I kicked one right into a pile of mats that I was sure would bury it for ever. But no matter how hard I tried, my peeves would just peel free and reinflate themselves. Then they’d go right back to annoying me. By the end of the Wallyball game, they were all standing and I was exhausted.

We returned to the locker room as the period wound down. The rest of the guys dressed quickly and headed off to their next class. But I couldn’t peel myself off the bench. My mind was spinning. My inner monologue was going bonkers. And I was feeling desperate and defeated.

“This is crazy,” I said, which prompted Asking Peeve to wonder, “What is crazy?”

And Telling Peeve answered, “He thinks he is,” pointing right in my face.

“It’s not a good look on you,” cracked Snarky Peeve.

And that’s when I lost it. “I’M not crazy!” I screamed. “THIS