“I’m telling mo-om!”
“Go ahead, you big baby, tell mom everything. You know what she’s gonna say. Then you’ll be in big trouble for sure, you stupid tattletale.” One of the worst kid insults of all time. Being a tattletale was the most awful thing a kid could be, so punishment was harsh. Tortures for the crime were Indian burns, purple nurples, swirlies or mega-wedgies. Sometimes you got all of them.
“I hate you!” I yelled back, stomping over to my bike. I spend my tooth fairy money on candy, and Chris takes it all. Brothers suck.
I swiped my foot at the kick stand, ran next to the bike for a few steps, then swung my leg over the side in one motion. Sure, it took a bunch of tries (and a lot of falls) but I could finally get on my bike just like Chris and his friends. Once I got my bike going, I turned around to stick my tongue out at Chris, but he was too busy pawing through all the candy in the bag—my candy, in my bag—to pay attention. Refusing to waste the energy, I turned back around and almost crashed into a kid who was straddling his bike right in front of me.
I slammed my feet down on my pedals so hard my back tire skidded, making a crunching-squealing sound on the gravelly road. “Hey!” After my tires finally stopped sliding, I stood with my legs straddling my own bike and tried to catch my breath. My heart was pounding so hard and so fast I thought it would pop right out of my chest and keeping going down the road. “Watch where you’re going, dummy!”
The kid just stood there, not moving, hands on the handlebars, feet planted on either side of the bike. He was about my age, wearing a long-sleeved shirt and jeans, with one of those cloth bags slung over his shoulder. It was filled with rolled up newspapers.
“Aren’t you kinda late delivering those?” I asked, pointing at the bundles. Everybody knew you were supposed to get the papers on the doorsteps before school. But here he was, standing right in front of me, with all those papers not on the doorsteps. Either he was too late for today, or way too early for tomorrow.
He didn’t say a word. Just stared at me, barely blinking. His hands gripped the handlebars of his BMX, duct tape where the rubber handgrips should’ve been. Boys were always jumping ramps on their bikes, falling, and scraping the handgrips off. Chris had already gone through two pairs, before mom said he had to earn the money for the next ones.
“Hey, kid? What’s your name?”
No answer. Just staring at me, with big, brown eyes. They even looked kinda like he wanted to cry—or his eyes were watery from riding into the cold wind. That happened to me all the time, especially now, right before Halloween.
I turned around to see where Chris was. Still back there digging in my bag of candy. Jerk-off.
I turned back, but the kid was gone. I looked around, confused, and finally saw him down the street. How’d get down there so fast? I thought, looking at where he used to be—right in front of me—then over to where he ended up. Now, his bike was turned away from me, one foot up on the pedal, like he was about to ride off somewhere.
“Hey! Where are you going?” I yelled.
“What?” Chris yelled back, behind me.
“Not you, you big jerk!” I shouted, turning to see him crumple-rolling the bag of candy. He jammed it into his back pocket, and started pedaling toward me.
“Don’t call me a jerk you weirdo! I’m not the one talking to myself, Amber!”
Uh-oh, I thought. Not again.
I turned back around, slowly, hoping the kid wouldn’t be there. He was. Just waiting there, one foot on the pedal, like he wanted me to follow him somewhere. Ah, crap.
Chris pulled up next to me, straddled his bike, yanked the candy bag out of his pocket, and presented it to me like a sword to the newest knight of the round table.
“Here ya go, ya big baby.”
I didn’t move a muscle, just kept staring at that kid, hoping he would go away. He was starting to creep me out.
Chris looked at me, followed my eyes to see what I was staring at down the street—then turned back to look at me, frowning.
“What’re you lookin’ at, Amber?”
“That kid,” I said.
He looked all around: back where he just came from, down the street, on both sides. Nothing.
“What kid?”
“That one,” I said, lifting my finger to point at the kid who was slowly shaking his head, now. “Don’t you see him?”
“There’s nobody over there, Stinky.” He called me that because I earned the nickname when I was a baby. My first day home from the hospital, mom put me in his lap; he smiled, and kissed me on the forehead, and I pooped all over him.
“Yeah, there is.”
Chris mulled this over for a minute. Then asked, “Well, what’s he doin?”
“He’s getting ready to ride away on his bike, but he’s just waiting.”
“Maybe he’s waiting for you to follow him?”
“I don’t wanna.”
“Amber, if there’s some invisible kid trying to get you to go somewhere, you should go. If you don’t, he’s just gonna keep following you till you do. Don’t you ever read anything?”
“Excuse me for not reading a million stupid comic books a day, like you do!” I yelled, “Some of us actually have a life you big jerk-off!”
“Hey! Don’t get mad at me just because you’re scared of some invisible kid.”
“I’m not scared,” I said, quiet.
“No? Well, maybe you’re ‘terry-fied’?” he laughed for a while at that one.
“It’s not my fault I didn’t know how to say it.”
A few months ago, Chris and I were in the library summer reading contest. For each book you read, they gave you a star or planet sticker, to put on this poster of space with little empty spots all over it. When your poster had all the empty spots filled in, you got a gift certificate for $10 at Kmart. Chris got bored when he found out you had to spend the gift certificate on books, but I wanted to win it really bad. So I checked out a whole pile of books, mostly Nancy Drew and Encyclopedia Brown.
One book I checked out was different, though, these short stories by some guy named Edgar with three names. I liked the scary black bird on the front, so I decided to give it a try. There was one story, “The Black Cat” about this guy who has to kill a mean cat that won’t die. It was hard to read, with all these big words in it, and ‘terrified’ was right near the beginning. When I asked Chris what it meant, he laughed right in my face, then started running around the house yell-singing, “Terry-fied, terry-fied, Amber Green is terry-fied!!!” Jerk.
“Will you come with me?” I asked, trying not to sound like a scared babyish sissy.
“I guess,” he said, rolling his eyes. “But if we’re late for dinner, I’m telling mom I had to chase after you cuz you ran away.”
“Fine,” I said.
I turned back to look at the kid, who was still waiting there. Finally, I made up my mind and started pedaling down the street. Chris followed behind me, whistling. As I watched, the kid started pedaling away from us, heading deeper into the neighborhoods.
Where the heck are we going?
We rode like that for a few minutes, me following the invisible paper boy and Chris following behind me, whistling like we were going to the arcade or somewhere fun. Maybe we were? Who knew.