The Other Normals by Vizzini Ned

Author:Vizzini, Ned [Vizzini, Ned]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780062079909
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Published: 2012-09-01T06:00:00+00:00

56

I BARREL OUT OF THE DINING HALL AND speed across the parking lot. My various injuries hurt, but it’s nothing compared to the shame that beats through me. I’m truly worthless now; my life is over. I’ve heard people say “my life is over” after doing something socially horrific, but they probably didn’t expose themselves in the middle of a dance floor on the first day of summer camp. The dining-hall door bangs open behind me. I steal a glance: Dale.

“Get back here! Peregrine! You’ve made a mockery of Oasis Village! I’ll kill you! You can’t avoid the consequences of an action like this!”

Like hell I can’t. I know exactly how to avoid all the consequences of an action exactly like this. In front of me are the dark woods, which I’d have been scared of yesterday, but now I understand that the things that really undo a person aren’t in the woods; they wear dresses and dance with their friends.

I look back at the dining hall as I take off my shoes. Dale runs after me; Ken appears behind him, talking to Sam, who looks like he’s trying to explain that I haven’t been myself lately. I throw my shoes at Dale. He bats them away. I take off toward the woods with bare feet.

Crack! I try to step on roots and rocks, but sometimes a branch looks like a root. I don’t worry about it. I only have so much time. If Dale catches me, I’ll be taken to a psychiatrist, who will order me sent home and put into special exhibitionist therapy. Indecent exposure—isn’t that a crime? I picture myself in jail. I’ve already been in jail, but that doesn’t make human jail any more appetizing. My ankle burns. I grit my teeth. What I did back there was wrong; what I am doing now is pure and right.

The noises of nighttime birds and bugs are overtaken by my huffing breath. South of the dining hall is the nurse’s office. I get there in five minutes, although time seems to mean something different when the world consists of me and my footsteps and my breath in the forest. I find a branch that I snapped to demarcate the path back to the mushroom patch. See, Anna? See, Ada? See, everybody, anybody, how competent I am?

I follow the trail I left in the woods. At each tree with a broken branch, I stop and spy the next. I move with clarity and purpose, checking over my shoulder for pursuers. I hear noises—someone is clomping around after me; from the heavy tread it sounds like Dale, but whoever it is, they’re far away. It doesn’t take me long to find the patch of mushrooms and the Logo Spermatikoi battery.

I take off Sam’s clothes and leave them daintily folded at the side of the tree. I unscrew the caps on the battery and touch the lead marked negative. This is like an escape hatch from a bad dream. How does it work? You go toward what you’re picturing in your head.

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