October 7, 1988

23 days remaining

Old Gun Road eventually led to the Ruins, a large area of scrub patches and rubble. Pieces of junk lay everywhere; half of a carburetor, a piece of refrigerator tubing, a swarm of candy wrappers. Occasionally one would find a used condom lying here and there among the brush; if you were lucky, a used needle. That evening, as in so many other evenings, the dry crack of a BB gun punctured the stillness. The sound of glass shattering echoed soon after. Target practice was in session.

Donnie raised the gun to his shoulder, aiming absently while listening to his friends as they discussed things on the ratty furniture behind him. They were having a typical Sean/Ron conversation, something to do with the sexual habits of Smurfs. A pellet burst open one of Sean's empty beer bottles, the dark glass littering the ground around the partially demolished brick chimney. He reloaded.

"That's bullshit," Ronald snorted. "Smurfette fucks all the other Smurfs. Why do you think Papa Smurf made her? Because all the other Smurfs were getting too horny!"

"No, no, no, not Vanity. I heard he was a homo."

Ron sighed in exasperation. "So she fucks them while Vanity watches. Okay?"

"What about Papa Smurf? He must get in on the action."

"Yeah, he films the gang-bang. Later on, he beats off to the tape."

Donnie couldn't take it anymore. Sean's eyes widened as he turned around, lowering the gun. "Donnie?"

"First of all, Papa Smurf didn't create Smurfette. Gargamel did. She was sent in as Gargamel's evil spy with the intention of destroying the Smurf village. But the overwhelming goodness of the Smurf way of life transformed her into the Smurfette we all know and love.

"And as for the whole gang-bang scenario; ha! It just couldn't happen. Smurfs are asexual. They don't even have reproductive organs under those little white pants."

Sean and Ronald looked at him with their mouths open. Donnie barrelled blithely onwards.

"That's what's so illogical, you know, about being a Smurf. I mean..." Donnie took a hit of beer to illustrate his point. "...What's the point of living if you don't have a dick?"

His friends looked at each other. Sean threw up his hands in frustration. "Damn it, Donnie. Why do you gotta get so smart on us?"

Donnie was about to answer, when the blast of a car horn sounded in the distance. They swivelled their heads. "Grandma Death!" he exclaimed. The three boys took off running.

They watched from a slope as Ms. Farmer got out of her crappy Dodge and impatiently escorted the frail woman off the road. She was screeching to no avail. "Excuse me! Please stay off the road, Miss Sparrow. If this happens again, I am going to call Social Services!"

Ronald groaned. "Ugh, I hate that Ms. Farmer! She's such a fucking bitch."

"There you are, that's a girl," Ms. Farmer crooned as Grandma Death creaked arthritically to the safety of her porch. The gym teacher drove off in a cloud of dust.

"How old is Grandma Death, anyway?" Sean whispered as the old woman puttered around in circles. It was like watching a broken wind-up doll.

"A hundred and one." Donnie's friends glanced at him in disbelief. "She does the same thing every day. Just walks back and forth and back and forth to the mailbox. Nothing ever in there."

Their eyes returned with fresh respect to the scene below. Grandma Death was wandering towards her house... Then, in mid-stride, she paused and turned back.

The three boys on the slope perked up. Sean took on the voice of a sports newscaster. "Oh, wait, wait, wait. She's going back to the box. We may still have mail."

Ronald added his bit, chanting "Mail, mail, mail!" under his breath. They watched Grandma Death as she stretched out her arm, reached for the hatch...

...And closed it again.

"Ooooh!" the boys moaned. "No dice, Grandma."

"Score, mailbox one, Grandma Death zero!"

Ronald took a swig of beer, burped his laughter. "Someone ought to write that bitch," he said. Shaking his head in mock pity. They went back to their makeshift shooting range.

Donnie sat on an old footstool as Sean took up the BB. Crack. Missed.

"Hey Donnie, your folks know you took the gun out?"

"Nah, they went to that emergency PTA meeting. Fucking waste of time."

Sean clumsily reloaded. "Pretty scary shit, though. Who do you think did it?"

"Devlin, duh," Ronald snorted.

"Ricky Danforth."

"Cherita Chen."

The guessing game went on. Ronald and Sean laughing, getting drunk, not noticing the dark stains on Donnie's palms. Aerosol stigmata.

Rose Darko felt very much out of her element.

Parents and teachers buzzed fretfully around the auditorium, stepping on each other's toes and shooting nervous glances at Principal Cole as he stood onstage. Newspaper headlines were traded, people not bothering to check their suspicion at the door. It was the fullest PTA meeting Middlesex Ridge had seen since one student had got himself killed in a drunk driving incident on his way to the prom. Kittie Farmer was handing out books of something to those still arriving. Eventually everyone was seated, but the palpable tension remained.

Principal Cole tapped the mike. "In cooperation with the county police, we have begun an active investigation into the cause of the flooding. We have no definitive perpetrators as of this time. However, our suspects include several of our own students-"

There was a minor torrent of whispering throughout the crowd, but no one was prepared for Kittie Farmer's sudden outburst. She stood up in all her skinny, beady-eyed glory, brandishing a copy of the book she'd been passing out at the entrance.

"I want to know why this filth is being taught to our children!" she cried indignantly.

"That's what I want to know!" yelled another parent, who had been flipping through it in back.

Principal Cole looked flustered. "Kitty, I would appreciate-"

"Let her speak for God's sake!"

"Yeah!"

"If you would wait until the current matter is settled-"

Rose looked at her husband, amazed. He could only shrug in bemusement. Kittie waved the book under Cole's nose. "Dr. Cole, not only am I a teacher, but I am also a parent of a Middlesex child. Therefore I am the only person here who transcends the Parent-Teacher Bridge!"

Cole gestured feebly. Obviously he didn't have a clue what she was talking about.

Kittie turned to the crowd, appealing to her followers with righteous outrage. "I have in my hand Graham Greene's 'The Destructors'. This short story is part of my daughter's English assignment!"

A mild uproar ensued. Cole rubbed his forehead, hiding behind his podium. Rose looked around at the angry faces surrounding her. There was something wrong. There was something she wasn't getting here.

"...And in this story, several children destroy an elderly man's house from inside out. And how do they do this?" The crowd knew the answer, but listened anyway. "They flood the house by breaking through a water main!"

The noise level racked up a few notches. A few other parents got in on the act. "We pay good money for this school. It's our children!" one yelled. The man was applauded, and he sat down, face red.

"I think that this garbage should be removed!" called another. Cries of agreement rebounded through the room, intensifying. Smothering. Rose raised her hand.

"Excuse me. What is the real issue here? The PTA doesn't ban books-"

"The PTA is here to acknowledge that pornography is being taught in our curriculum!" Kittie retorted. Cheers from the crowd. Rose noticed one woman who was slumped in her seat, green eyes sparking. "It's meant to be ironic," the woman muttered. Rose guessed that she was the English teacher in disgrace.

"We have rights here!"

"Schools have a responsibility to keep their material free of-"

"If I wanted my children to read filth, I could do it at home-"

"Not paying the system to corrupt-"

Rose raised her voice in desperation. "Kittie, do you even know who Graham Greene is?"

Kittie snorted, as if the answer was obvious. "Oh, come now, Rose. I think we have all seen 'Bonanza'." And with that, her head held high, Kittie was practically carried back to her seat on the shoulders of the mob; cheering, screaming. Thirsty for blood. The only things missing from the picture were torches and a library.