I decided not to mention that I hadn’t been living in the Fourth long enough to distinguish the fine details in the most inscrutable person in the House.
“You know what, Sphinx, don’t say anything to Lary. I changed my mind.”
He lowered himself to the mirror again.
“Why?”
“It was all your idea. And I don’t want him to think I’m a snitch.”
“Really?”
Sphinx appeared suspicious of my reflection, which did in fact look unpleasant. Furtively snitchy. Confused and distrustful. And at the same time I was feeling nothing of the sort.
“Really,” I said nervously. “I don’t want to be a snitch, whether real or imaginary. And you promised to leave my reflection alone.”
Sphinx looked back at me over his shoulder. Like he was comparing.
“I did. I am just fascinated by the contrast. Sorry. Won’t happen again. So, I am not to talk to Lary? All the assurances go out the window then.”
“To hell with them.”
I sighed with relief. I was almost sure I was doing the right thing. And did it in the last possible moment, almost when it was already too late. It all had to do with mirror Smoker. He was a nasty character. A veteran snitch, an expert even. And my talks with Sphinx in bathrooms were becoming a nice tradition. Just him and me, surrounded by sinks and commodes. We’d have a talk, and then suddenly everything would be different. Upside down, or maybe the other way around. Somehow I sensed that there was going to be no such upheaval this time. That I managed to avoid it.
Sphinx was examining his pants, having finally noticed their sorry state.
“Lary has been asking for it anyway. Look at this mess.”
“How do you know it’s him?”
“Who else could it be? Thumbtacks in the sheets, gum in the shoe, toothpaste on the sink, that’s right about his range. Tabaqui operates on a different level altogether. Jackal’s pranks lay waste to half the House. He’s not into the small stuff. So it must be Lary. See, he’s just a child really.”
I laughed and said, “A child that shaves.”
“What’s so unusual about that? A very common occurrence.”
He scratched the leg again, wincing.
“What’s with the scratching?” I blurted.
“Fleas. Definitely. Did they get to you yet? No? Strange.”
“Fleas?” I was a bit lost. “You mean Nanette’s got fleas?”
“I wish. We could hope to get rid of them then. No, it’s Blind hauling them in. We can’t exactly spray our Leader with pesticides, now can we? And fleas aren’t even the worst of it. Sometimes he comes in covered in ticks. In the dead of winter. And not a couple, mind you, several different species at once. Have you ever extracted a tick? The trick is never to pull too abruptly, otherwise the head breaks off and stays inside.”
“You must be kidding.”
“Of course I am,” Sphinx said gravely. “I’m the resident joker, didn’t you notice?”
“Why can’t you just tell someone to shut up if his questions are getting on your nerves? Why this rigmarole?”
Sphinx did not answer. He sighed, scratched his leg, and walked out. In a wet shirt and with toothpaste blobs on his butt. The toothpaste was not really visible and the dripping shirt only added coolness. So it wasn’t about the clothes at all, it was about Sphinx. About his self-esteem.
I stared at my reflection.
The mirror Smoker was looking better, but still noticeably spiteful. I struck a pose. He assumed an even more idiotic stance. I guess my self-esteem still sucked.
“So what,” I said. “Even Noble doesn’t like himself in the mirror.”
I finished the coffee that really was cold by now and wheeled back to the dorm.
THE HOUSE
INTERLUDE
The House is walls and more walls of crumbling plaster. The narrow passages of the staircases. Motes dancing around the lantern on the balcony. Pink sunrises through the gauzy curtains. Chalk dust and untidy desks. Sun dissolving in the reddish clay of the rectangle that is the backyard. Shaggy dogs dozing under the benches. Rusting pipes crisscrossing and twisting into spirals under the cracked skin of the walls. Rows of small boots with battered toes, tucked under the beds. The House is a boy disappearing into the emptiness of the hallways. The boy who is falling asleep in class, who is striped black-and-blue from endless fights. The boy of many names. Head-Over-Heels and Prancer. Grasshopper and Tail. Blind’s Tail, never more than half a step behind him, treading on his shadow. To anyone who seeks to enter, the House presents its sharpest corner. Once you’ve bloodied yourself against it, you are allowed inside.
There were thirteen of them. Others called them “nightmare,” “gang,” and “ankle biters.” The last of these they emphatically contested. They themselves preferred “The Pack.” And, as befits a pack, it had a leader. The leader was already ten. His nick was Sportsman. He was fair-haired, rose-cheeked, blue-eyed, and taller than everyone else, except Elephant, by a full head. He slept in an adult-sized bed and didn’t have any visible disfigurements or hidden diseases, no zits or fixations, he wasn’t even collecting anything—in short, he had nothing that everyone else had to some extent. For the House he was too perfect.
Rex and Max, the lame twins, were just called Siamese, as they hadn’t acquired separate nicks. Narrow faced, gangling, and yellow eyed, with only three legs between the two of them, as alike as two halves of one lemon, inseparable and indistinguishable, two sticky-fingered shadows with pockets full of keys and lockpicks. No door ever stopped them. Anything left unattended became theirs.
Shaggy Humpback liked marching music and dreamed of becoming a pirate. During the summer he browned almost to a crisp, became a hunched raven and a breeding ground for insects. Dogs sensed the tenderness in him from afar and rushed to partake of it. His hands smelled of dog fur and his pockets were full of bread and sausages for his four-legged friends.
Whiner and Crybaby were also inseparable like Siamese, but looked different from each other. Crybaby, with his pale bug-eyed stare, resembled a praying mantis. Whiner’s deeply set little eyes made him look like a little rat. They were both dyslexic and both loved collecting things. They collected nuts, bolts and screws, pocket knives, and bottle labels, but their pride and joy was a vast collection of fingerprints.
Rabbit was an albino and possessed dark glasses tied to his ears with a string and shoes with orthopedic heels. He always knew what river flowed where. He remembered the names of cities, many of them unpronounceable, could enumerate their principal thoroughfares and inform of the best ways to get from one of them to another. He identified the major categories of national manufacturing output and the impact they had on the corresponding countries. Many considered Rabbit’s knowledge useful, but hardly anyone respected him for it. His front teeth were slanted forward, making him look like a rodent. They were also the reason for his nick.
Beauty, an impossibly cute boy with very dark eyes, was ashamed of his out-of-control arms and legs and never talked. His feet carried him to where he didn’t wish to go, his hands dropped things he wished to hold. He fell a lot and was covered in bruises. He was ashamed of those too.
Round-faced Hoover was crazy about his treasures. He found them everywhere. What he called treasure was everyone else’s trash. In the nine years of his life, Hoover had amassed a hoard, filling a dozen secret places and one trunk, and now spent as much time each day inspecting it as searching for new precious objects.