Husky by Justin Sayre

Author:Justin Sayre
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2015-08-24T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

Before I go to bed, Nanny lets me watch an opera DVD. So I pick Carmen.

But maybe Carmen was the wrong choice.

Carmen is a French opera by Georges Bizet, and it’s all about love and jealousy. It takes place in Spain, but they sing in French, which doesn’t make sense, sure, but you sort of have to go along with it. Don José is in the army, and he falls in love with Carmen, a gypsy girl, who every person in the world is already in love with. She’s just that beautiful. But Carmen doesn’t really believe in love. She thinks it’s silly. She just happens to be good at it. She sings a whole song about how good she is at love, and how because she’s so good, she can’t be good to just one person, she needs to go and be good to a lot of people. A lot. Don José gets jealous and goes crazy, and when Carmen goes off with a bullfighter, he stabs her. Operas are like that. Lots of people go crazy, and somebody almost always dies, and somehow it’s always all about love.

I like Carmen. The music is great, and when you get a really amazing singer like Maria Callas or Marilyn Horne as Carmen, and she hits the low notes, it sounds like a snarl. And I love the snarl. It’s a big nasty snarl of Carmen being so cool that she doesn’t even care to sing, she can almost grunt. Or snarl. It’s the sound you wish you could make right in some people’s faces. Some people, like Allegra. Something low and evil that would frighten even Ryan and Brian. A big grunt of being that good at something that you don’t even have to try anymore. I wish I had that. I only stand there and then go home.

I fall asleep watching Carmen.

And that’s what I dream about. It’s all in my head.

In my dream, I’m walking down the hall of my school in a big gypsy shawl like Carmen’s, and the music from the opera is playing through the halls. But in a strange way I can hear Jock asking me, “All right, Davey, where does this go?” I hear him, but I never see him. I keep walking, but as I walk all these kids are coming toward me, and they all look like Allegra. They all have her face and they all have a cell phone, which they stare at as they pass me, bumping into me and not letting me pass. One after another after another bumps into me harder and harder. I’m trying to be Carmen, I guess. Because I have the shawl, so I must be her. I must. But as I struggle to make it down the hall there are only more and more of the Allegras, and it’s harder and harder to get through them. They’re all bashing into me and barely letting me past. My shawl starts to get caught, and I don’t know if I’ll get out alive.

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