Kitsune & Co.
Milo Devans
I: The Fox
At three-years-old Didi flew to China on the back of a dragon. At seven-years-old he went to Canada and caught salmon with Bigfoot. But nine days after his eleventh birthday, Didi murdered his grandfather.
They couldn't prove it, of course. Just as they couldn't prove he rode an Eastern dragon and roamed the Northern wastes with a bogeyman. But they punished Didi anyway, because that's what they do.
He knew who They were. They said Didi broke the rules. (It's true. He always broke the rules.) They said he ought to know better, and tricking Them isn't going to work anymore--now, they'd had enough, and they were going to make him pay with his body.
Too bad They didn't know Didi knew the secret. The terrible, bittersweet secret They longed for, a name of their own. Because they don't have a name. Just Them, or They, or the People everybody else talked about real people will never meet in a million lifetimes.
They wanted it.
And Didi hid it.
* * *
On the first day of high school they dragged him over to the girl's gymnasium and stuffed him in a box. They kicked him around for a bit and sniggered whenever he bawled like the little boy he was, then left.
Didi sat in the confines of his cardboard prison. He didn't try pushing open the flaps again. It's like trying to push a ship's bulkhead. Duct tape works that way.
At least they left him air holes to breathe through. Peep holes, they called it.
The echo of many feet and voices from inside the change rooms made Didi stop and think. If he bothered to think fast he'd get all flustered and sweaty and hot. So he didn't. Perverts drooled over underdeveloped girls. He preferred women.
Still, he didn't want that label stuck to Dieter Carlson, Grade Ten, sophomore. (Freshman, actually. Well, he felt like a froshie, looked like a froshie--ergo, he must be a froshie. In any case, he'd just come back from Kuwait. Before that he lived in Germany, Japan, South Africa--he lost track then. Certain memories of the year before grew hazy in his head.)
What to do?
Maybe he should break the rules again. Didi smiled, but it failed to reach his eyes.
When the gym teacher Ms. Fayette ripped the box cover apart, she found him in a lotus fold with his eyes closed and his features unruffled, meditating.
He looked normal. A scrawny boy in shirt and jeans, with glasses, tanned skin, and an untidy short crop of curly brown hair. A faint scent of lavender soap suffused the air.
They stole his sneakers. He'll have to go up on the roof later and get them.
"You," he heard the teacher say in an exasperated voice, "is this another prank?"
He blinked. Violet eyes stared up at the ceiling, the teacher--the girls peeking outside the change room doors. "No ma'am. This is a test."
Ms. Fayette looked bemused. Tall, lithe, the very model of a veteran gymnast, she rested her hands on her waist and cocked a prim eyebrow. "Oh? A test of the manly sort?"
"No ma'am. A test to know whether I've a Lolita complex or not."
"So you duct-taped yourself inside a box and punched holes into the cardboard." She sighed. "The first day! Come with me to the office, boy."
He hunched forward, then grabbed the edges of the box. "Yes ma'am."
"Hmm? What are you doing now?"
"Concealing myself, ma'am."
Didi suddenly shoved himself backwards. He flipped. The box flipped too.
After several seconds' worth of shuffling around in semi-darkness, Didi crept out of the gym on his knees, the box over his head, and followed Ms. Fayette to the principal's office.
* * *
The spacious office began with Sir Robert Bumsley and ended with Bob.
Didi dumped the box and stood up. He ignored the sofa beside the door. Framed pictures, trophies, and medals hung or sat on every inch of the room from the shelves to the walls. Even the curtains, drawn back to allow in the late morning light, displayed an eye-dazzling amount of bronze, silver, and brass. The carpet didn't escape either--some fool got suckered into grafting Bob's profile all over it. It made his head hurt. Someone ought to clean up this jackdaw's nest.
The principal perched on his leather seat with his back to the window. The way he sat before his desk, silhouetted, thin fingers intertwined, ensured he'd get a full view of the recalcitrant student's features while hiding his own in shadow.
Didi failed to see the point in that. If he wanted to act mysterious he shouldn't have put his ugly mug everywhere. A beak of a nose, a balding head, and two beady little eyes on a gaunt face--that's Bob, the most vainglorious and arrogant principal in his slice of the world.
Behind him, past a thick sheet of wood and glass, Didi heard Ms. Fayette raise her voice at the secretaries. They laughed.
Bob boomed. The medals and pictures rattled. "Come forward, Dieter Carlson!"
The carpet tickled the soles of his feet, warm and fuzzy the way Bob didn't like to show on his bird-like face. (Remember? They took his shoes.) Didi remained where he stood.
"Dieter Carlson! I gave you an order."
Didi advanced an inch. His big left toe protruded in defiance.
Bob sighed. His voice lowered to his normal soft-spoken tones. "Didi, when will you ever learn to respect authority?"
Didi hung his head. "Sir. I once knew a man with a wooden leg named Smith."
The principal stared.
"They broke him, you know. Charged him with smuggling countless DVDs over the Internet." He raised his head, and his violet eyes grew hard. "Broke him and shattered him. Life in prison, I heard."
"The man or the leg?"
Didi looked puzzled. "The leg, sir. The man wasn't important." (An enterprising inmate broke his other leg. Then he broke out of prison. He didn't get very far.)
"And the point to this little story is...?"
"I'm not anybody important. I'm--nobody. And nobody respects the authorities if they punish someone so severely that they get no chance of doing things right. Sir."
Bob cradled his temples and groaned. "Was that sarcasm just now? You give me headaches, Didi, when all I ask for is for you to at least obey the letter of the rule! Do you know how many students we have to watch over this year?"
"One thousand five hundred and a quarter."
Silence.
"A quarter?"
"Yes sir." Didi wondered if he should bother to explain. He did so anyway. "The dopeys out on the sidewalk all together make up a quarter of a person. The rest of them are in Lala-land. Sir."
"There!" Bob leveled an accusing finger. "There. It's that kind of an attitude you've a problem with. This aptitude of yours for pranks--"
"Sir. I'm only fifteen. What's aptitude mean?"
"Never mind that! The point is--the point is--" The principal groped for a reason. "The point is, this year is going to be different. Vastly different from the mischief you caused last year. Do you know why, Didi?"
Outside, he heard laughter. "Yes, sir."
"You do?" Bob shook his head before he could continue. "If you do, all well and good. Because I expect you to take up responsibilities this year--may that keep you out of my nose!
"Didi. Starting today, you're in the student council."
Bad move. He ushered himself out of the office with a faint smile on his face.
They stopped laughing.
The office stood facing the windows of a huge courtyard sunk into the ground. Two airy corridors peeled off to the east and west staircases with respective exits to the world beyond. Another two led straight across, down the other side and flanking the courtyard. These halls gave way to an empty cafeteria on the left, a gymnasium on the right, and finally opened up into a crowded lobby.
Didi pressed his nose to the glass. He squinted over the tops of the willow trees centered in the courtyard, at the cluster of figures on the other side. Lost sheep gather bleating at the feet of shepherds--
The second period bell picked that moment to ring, splutter, and die.
Students surged out of the classrooms and flooded the hallways. The tramp and clatter of noisy feet, of voices raised and lowered in earnest conversation, of laughter, shouts, squeals and giggles--it all swirled around him. For the umpteenth time in his life Didi felt like a lump of rock in the swell of a river.
Sometimes he tried to imagine his small body grown to the strength of a jock. Then the phantom stink of sweat and acrid deodorant washed over him. He shook the fancy from his head. Other times Didi saw himself garbed all in black, screaming and crying and--
They say these fantastic flights from reality fade away when a boy grows up. Didi refused to believe that. They refused to believe these fantasies actually happened. Because of the polar extremes of their alignment, like left-and-right wing politics, both never got along very well.
The flood of humanity receded to a trickle. Second period started. But the crowd in the lobby hadn't lessened at all.
Didi took a deep breath to calm the rapid beat of his heart. Time to move.
An angry soprano stopped him short. "Carlson!"
He jumped and almost squished his face against the window. Hands seized him by the shoulders and spun him about.
Didi stared at a slim stomach with a piercing on the navel. His eyes roamed down the bell-bottoms, stopped at the platform shoes--then a firm hand forced up his chin. He had a fleeting impression of an ample bosom under a spaghetti-strap shirt before meeting the furious gaze of a tall brunette. "You! What Ms. Fayette just told me, is it true?"
The angry set of her mouth triggered recognition. Didi gulped. "Yes'm, Miss President."
"That's Margaret to you, shorty! Squirt! God I can't believe this!"
Miss President shoved him back against the glass. Her hazel eyes narrowed. In less mortifying circumstances, Didi might've thought they held a certain fiery charm. Green fire against orange dusk, and ocean currents stirred below...
"The first day, she said! Peeping on the froshies, no less!"
Oh boy. He'd almost forgotten. She's one of them, those people with a difficult time speaking below an exclamation mark. Didi desperately tried to impress innocence into his violet eyes. "But Marge, Abel and his gang--"
"Abel this, Abel that--I don't want to hear it, Carlson! Lord, but what's worse is hearing you added to our council! Leech! Parasite!" Margaret prodded his chest with a hard finger. She spoke as if he carried all the sins of the world. "The first day, and already people are lost! See that crowd over there? Those froshies couldn't find their teddy-bear panties even if they wore them!"
"Um, Marge? How do you know they wear--"
"Shut up, damn it! Look, this is what you're going to do. Get over there, grab a bunch of those kids, and give them a whirlwind tour! Get them out of my hair, okay? The council's understaffed as it is this year--Goood, but what were the seniors thinking, graduating like this!"
Didi broke free from her and pelted down the cafeteria hall, just to escape her operatic exclamations.
Too late. Her voice rang after him.
"And that's Margaret, damn you!"
* * *
Didi polished his eyeglasses on the sleeve of his shirt. The job would've been easier if sweat didn't grease the lens. (Like most people who wear glasses, Didi never noticed them perched on his nose until some damn fool fogged them up.)
He put his glasses on and blinked at the summer crowd waiting expectantly for him to speak. Somewhere behind that quiet mass of people, a harassed student member sneaked out in the direction of the cafeteria with a stack of pamphlets in her arms. All the better to hide her relieved grin, no doubt.
Other groups splintered off from the edges. But the headcount still numbered somewhere above a hundred people.
"Um...." Sunlight washed past the courtyard windows and framed Didi's silhouette. Heat prickled the skin of his back under the cotton cloth, so he tugged his shirt and hoped it wouldn't boil him on the spot. Puddles aren't so bad, but he felt like evaporating right now--
Didi licked his lips.
Salt and riceballs. Why does nervousness always taste of dry and salty riceballs?
"Ahem. Um, hello, everyone. Miss President charged me with giving you all a whirlwind tour of the school grounds. I'm not very good with crowds, and it's been a while since I was here, so please--"
The double-doors of the school entrance swung open. The squeak of worn sneakers and the rustle of baggy clothes shut him up. A motley crew pushed their way to the front. Didi raised his head back, way back, and looked at a lanky black kid with a bushy mane and the same wicked grin Didi last saw vanishing over the brim of a box.
Them again. First days at school are the worst.
"'Sup, homes?" Abel rattled an aerosol can. His spray gang spread out to either side, arrayed in bandanas, low-slung jeans, and overblown shirts. One of them casually tossed a white rectangular device up in the air then caught it. Uneasy murmurs rose behind them.
The black kid lowered his voice. "Bobby boy punished you good, huh? Made you take up responsibilities--hoo, that's rich!"
Didi gritted his teeth behind a tight-lipped smile. "You recorded it."
"Uh-huh. This wireless stuff is the shit. Take an I-Pod and a--" Abel stopped, bent low, and sniffed. "Damn, dawg, you need a bath! The hell you use, that girly soap again? Maybe we should dunk you in the pool right before the ladies come out."
"I'm not a vampire."
Abel frowned.
"Wha...?"
"Your breath stinks of garlic and cheese and dead Italians."
The black kid grabbed him by the shirtfront. He spoke in a growl almost below audible hearing. "Y'know what, smartass? I'm gonna do you a favor. I'm gonna take over your act here and lead 'em around, and then I'm gonna tell them what a screwy twerp you are. I'd tell them the rest, like how you're a budding little Humbert the Pervert--hell yeah, I read the book too--but I'm a good guy, right?
"Don't ever diss Italian food again. Get me, smartass?"
Didi didn't to point out they're the ones trying to make him into a pedophile. (Never mind that he's too young or too short, in ways more than one, for the ugly term to apply. Abel often said there's an old man in his head.)
The black hand tightened on the fabric of his shirt. It threatened to choke out the lump in his throat and gag him, like a cat with a hairball.
He jerked a nod, eyes wide for effect.
"Good f'you, smartass." Abel released him, then turned round to address the froshies, who understood something nasty had just happened but weren't about to comment on it.
"'Sup y'all? The name's Abel. Y'know, like the poor kid in the Bible who got iced by his bro. But my little bro here--" he gave Didi a false grin "--is no Cain, and I'm not Cain, so when he asked me to show you guys around, well, I can't say no, right? Gotta do what I can to help my little bro.
"Y'all follow me? Good. We're gonna start with the kitchen and the families' classes. Damn, but Italian food is the best--"
After a moment of hesitation the crowd collectively shuffled inside the cafeteria. Abel led the way with loud pontifications on the merits of Mediterranean food, and how some people of short stature disliked the cuisine. One of his toughs bumped Didi in passing hard enough to knock him flat on his back.
He sprawled. Stars and sunlight spun to the painful throb on the back of his head. Didi listened to their laughter, the echoes, and then--
Sweet silence caressed his ears. There. No crowds, no fear.
Didi stared at the ceiling. Noah's ark stared back. (Graffiti. Somebody airbrushed Egyptian eyes onto the hull.)
An artist from long ago bled his paint and his heart out up there. He'd drawn a picture straight from the Biblical passages of Genesis. But the beasts were something else. Unicorns, sandmen, faeries, mammoths--the dinosaurs didn't escape Didi's notice either--all the legendary creatures known to man marched into the ship.
No wonder the ark bulged around the sides. It's fat and ready to burst.
He liked it. The principal often talked about painting it over, but Didi liked it. Something about the colors and the creatures brought up a nostalgic feeling.
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away and probably at the bottom of the ocean, before the first idiot tried to carve letters on stone and rewrite the family history--
A shadow blocked his sunlight. Bright eyes on a pretty face cut in between him, his thoughts, and the painting. Green-gold irises, skin darker than coffee, braided hair--altogether an image of Arabesque beauty.
She smiled then tweaked his nose. "You're cute when you play dead."
-----
~to be continued
Comments? Thoughts?
This is the weirdest fantasy story I've tried to write yet.
EDIT: tried to fix a minor action problem Knocking pointed out.
EDIT (2) : Also fixed a minor detail that poked a major plothole as the story went along. Eep! For how can he be a freshman when he's a sophomore--and knows the school well? Might get rid of the freshman label altogether.
EDIT (3) : Thank you, Stea! I'll start fixing some things now.
Milo
