Judge Not - Chapter 2

November 19, 2003
Wednesday

So, I know I haven't been keeping a journal recently. I know I said I would, and I did try for a while, but it gets sort of dull when the same thing happens every week for a year. And then summer vacation wasn't particularly interesting.

But hey, I'm a senior now. Cool beans, huh? I guess I'd better start applying to colleges. Mom wants me to go in Denver and live with her sister. I guess it would be cheaper than living in a dorm, or going out of state, even though I could probably go live with Grandpa... but that's Vermont. Grandpa would probably make me eat his cooking anyway, so I might not even survive four years.

I'm getting off track, here. I wanted to talk about my birthday, and about the new guy. It probably makes me sound like a real small-town hick, but it's really something when someone new comes to town around here. I love Tri-City, but it really is sort of out in the boondocks.

Anyway, birthday first. It was a little thing. It would have just been me and Chris, except that Mom made me invite that Margolis kid. Aaron. He's okay, I guess. He's pretty nice, and really smart. It's just sort of weird having a kid tagging around who really ought to still be in middle school. So we all sat around and watched really cheesy old sci-fi movies all day. It was fun. Then we took our bikes along the crick for a ways, came back and had some dinner, and then the boys both went home. I sort of forgot to tell Chris that Aaron would be there, and he was a little bit ticked off. Aaron probably didn't say more than three words the whole time, though, so that was okay. Although, I think he might have realized that he was only there because my mom felt sorry for him. That's gotta bite. Poor kid.

But about the new guy. That's a bit of a mystery. People never move into the Tri-City area. Ever. But apparently someone has moved in at the end of Mulberry, just a couple of houses down from the Margolis family. The rumors are getting ridiculous, so I've been ignoring them, but it's still fun to speculate. All I know for sure is that they've been there since Friday, so they had to move in during the blizzard. And apparently nobody around town has seen them since then. Color me curious.

Liz Foelker balanced her pen atop her ear and snapped her journal shut upon realising that someone was peering over her shoulder. She tipped her head back, staring upside-down into the face of her best friend, Chris Doyle, the self-proclaimed Tri-City High King of Comedy, who at that precise moment was exhibiting his royal status in the form of a pair of undercooked French fries, one stuffed up each nostril.

"Are you seven years old or what?" Liz demanded, though she could not quite manage a stern face to go with her tone. She righted herself and twisted to look at him, tucking her dark hair out of her face as she readjusted her headband, though the wind whipped it out again as soon as she was done.

"Take me to your leader!" Chris replied in a nasal monotone, and plunked down a pair of white paper bags, dripping with grease. "Mom's famous fries," he announced with a grin. "I thought you'd want some."

Liz made a face, wrinkling her nose, and shoved her journal into the backpack she had balanced between her feet. "I dunno, Snoticus," she said. "You've kind of ruined my appetite. And your mom's fries aren't so much famous as infamous."

Chris shrugged and sat down beside her on the steps, pulling the potatoes out of his nose and flicking them into the bushes that lined the school's front walk. The breeze blew his scarf up and into his friend's face, and he quickly tucked it inside his jacket, laughing. "Sorry about that," he said in response to Liz's expression. "But yeah, it's a pretty average batch of fries. You're probably wise for staying away from them." Nevertheless, he opened one of the sacks and dug in with zeal, continuing with his mouth full. "So how far are you on that essay for Malone?"

This was a fairly usual conversation for the two. It was informal, bantering, and did not address what either of them was actually thinking. Liz was dreading the idea of going off to college without her friend by her side, as was seeming more and more inevitable since Chris was planning on attending a technical school. Chris was wishing he could muster the courage to ask whether this year the two of them might go to the winter formal together, as something other than just friends. Neither subject would ever be broached aloud, in part because it would produce a strain on their friendship, and in part because, on some level, each already knew what was on the other's mind.

The banter continued, circulating through the subject of English class and on to popular television, then to their plans for Saturday. Eventually, the bell rang, and the two went back inside, surrounded by a flock of upperclassmen, to endure the rest of the school day.

****

Around the same time, Aaron Margolis was the first one in Caron City to see the stranger emerge from the house at the end of Mulberry Street. He was home sick, watching the street from the forward-facing window of his upper-storey room rather than completing the pile of homework his mother had picked up for him. He was fourteen, and the work was senior-level, but that made it neither interesting nor challenging. Still, it was better than being at school, where he was invariably either harassed or ignored by the other seniors, and treated by the teachers as though he were highly breakable. He often wished that he had never skipped all those grades, or else that he had never opted to come home from boarding school; at least the other students there had known him long enough that the age discrepancy no longer bothered them.

Aaron was what some people might call a child prodigy. He was gifted in maths, sciences, art and music, and was expected to go far in life. That was why he had been sent away to an exclusive school in Pennsylvania, so that he might learn and advance at his own prodigious pace, unhindered by the policies and limitations of the American public school system. While not exactly accepted, he was at least tolerated there, and for the most part was left alone. He could not say why, exactly, he had chosen to leave there and spend the last two years at Tri-City High, except that he had never liked being separated from his parents, and that tensions had begun to arise as two-by-two his class had begun to pair off into couples, leaving him a bit disgusted. It was gross, the way everyone suddenly felt the need to find a boyfriend or girlfriend, but at least their sudden attention to one another had not left him completely ignored. At least he had still had friends, after a fashion.

It was while engrossed in this train of thought that he noticed movement from the end of the street. Craning his neck the better to see, he watched a male figure emerge from the house, make a circuit of the property, and vanish back inside. A few minutes later, the man emerged again, this time from the garage, and bearing a folding ladder, which he carried around the back of the house and out of Aaron's field of vision.

He reached over to his desk and grabbed his walkie-talkie from beneath a pile of books, which all cascaded to the floor. "Target acquired," he muttered into the microphone. "Send in the Fat Boy." Static crackled though from the other end for several seconds, before his mother's voice answered.

"My tuna casserole isn't that bad," she grumped. "Over and out."

A moment later, Aaron was able to watch her cross their front lawn with a large dish in hand and disappear behind the neighbour's house. He lay back and fell asleep on top of his calculus.