AAARGH SCHOOL STARTED FOR ME TODAY! I am officially in the ninth grade. Nahaha. :D
I wrote "The Anthem" shortly after I began the first chapter. I think that song is what triggered this super-long flashback sequence. Gahaha. For some reason, this reminds me of Forrest Gump. XDD
Chapter Five
Either the sun was late rising the next day, or Wilma Williams was, as several of the older boys put it:
"Out of her motherfucking mind!"
Gregory shot into a sitting position in his small single bed as the sound of a thousand angry cats being neutered while not under anesthesia drifted through the cracks in the door and windows. Or, at least, that was what it sounded like. In reality, Wilma was standing at her desk in her office, playing a bagpipe as loudly as she could over the intercom. Gregory had never heard something so horrid before in his life.
Rufus threw the door open and barked into the Cabin: "Awake! Awake! Report to breakfast in ten minutes, or you go through the first set of drills with an empty stomach!" The other boys began slowly moving along, grabbing socks and shirts and belts while they grumbled indignantly under their breaths about how normal humans had things called sleep patterns that they liked to stick to. Gregory felt a hand on his arm, and when he looked over to his right, there stood Christophe in his new green turtleneck. It really brought out the green in his eyes, making them glisten like raw emeralds, even in the dim light of the not-quite-morning.
"Come, Gregory," the French boy murmured. "Time to be…eh…'active'."
Gregory got dressed sloppily, yawning as he went, and he actually dozed off once while he was lacing up his boots. Christophe smacked his face gently a couple of times and handed him his gloves, tying his shoes for him before pulling him out of the Cabin and into the wide world. It was cooler outside after several hours of darkness, and for a moment, it felt almost like an autumn day in New York, sending a shiver of nostalgia through Gregory's body. Christophe breathed in deeply through his nose and let it out through his mouth, grunting. "…Eet smells like dirt and smoke out 'ear."
"M'not surprised," the blonde replied sleepily, covering his mouth with his hand as he yawned yet again. Christophe gave him a puzzled look, and he pointed over to where the showers were; a few of the older boys from other Cabins were perched there, watching the two of them with glaring eyes as they smoked cigarettes. Christophe recognized one of them as the dark-skinned boy who had been making fun of them on the bus, and he scowled when the boy grinned through his cigarette and flashed his middle finger in their direction. Christophe grabbed Gregory's wrist and pulled him a bit harder than was necessary into the cafeteria while the smoking boys laughed behind them.
They found their seats at the first-years' table, where a few other half-conscious boys had already settled down. Within minutes, Gregory was leaning on Christophe's shoulder and snoring softly while the French boy muttered embarrassed curses under his breath. The ninth- and tenth-years were staring at him with raised eyebrows and suggestive smiles, as if asking him some dirty question and daring him to answer incorrectly. He grabbed Gregory's head and set it carefully on the table; the blonde didn't stir from his slumber, though the older boys got a laugh out of it. Christophe stared down at the table with a red face and wished desperate fire upon them all. Today was already shaping out to be a horrible day.
A few minutes later, the cafeteria was about half-full (mostly the younger kids were absent). Wilma rose from her seat at the staff table and clapped her hands, and the moustached man walked over to the doors and locked them from the inside, making a few of the older boys snicker. "They're not here, they're not eating," Wilma said. Gregory grunted in his sleep, and Christophe looked at him thoughtfully. "Now…FOOD!"
The blonde shot up in his seat so fast that he nearly fell out of it. Christophe smirked at him and elbowed him as bowls of grits were placed in front of them. "What's ze matter?" he asked teasingly. "Did you 'ave trouble sleeping last night?"
"Yes," Gregory grumbled, rubbing his eye unhappily with his fist.
"Tell me about eet," Christophe requested, poking at his grits. Gregory gave him a look.
"Well…first, the bed was quite uncomfortable. Second, everyone else kept…snoring and farting in their sleep." He screwed his face up in distaste. "Third, it was difficult falling asleep without proper pajamas."
Christophe laughed, and Gregory felt his stomach turn, though it wasn't from the food. "Ahaha! Some of ze boys een our Cabin slept naked. I noticed eet zees morning…I guess zey didn't care zat zey didn't 'ave pajamas."
Gregory blushed furiously, accidentally blending naked with the rest of his fourth reason in his head. It was supposed to be: "I couldn't get to sleep because you weren't there with me." Thanks to Christophe, it skipped and turned into: "I couldn't get to sleep because you weren't naked with me."
"…That's lovely, Christophe, thanks for telling me," the blonde growled, struggling to reorient himself. He wound up rewording the entire reason. "Anyway, the fourth reason why I couldn't get to sleep…it…it was odd to be alone, for once. It's been a while since I…you know. Slept by myself."
"Aww," Christophe said, with just a hint of bitter sarcasm that made Gregory look at him, confused. "Zat eez so sweet. I am meesed. Hah. Gregory…we are 'ear to learn 'ow to be strong. For you een particular, zees means zat you are 'ear to learn 'ow to fall asleep without me zer beside you. So get used to being alone. Zat eez 'ow eet's going to be from now on."
…He finished eating his grits and refused to look back at the blonde all throughout the remainder of breakfast; mostly because Gregory was wearing the most hurt expression anyone in the cafeteria could ever have imagined. The young blonde had never felt so much coldness contained in one paragraph before in his life. It felt like Christophe had just told him that he didn't feel like playing War anymore, and that they should probably put all the plastic soldiers and Tinker Toys away, now.
The Brit felt tears gathering in his eyes when Wilma suddenly blew a whistle and all the other boys got to their feet. The first-years scrabbled to follow suit as the others all filed out of the cafeteria and everyone found themselves out in the pink of dawn, among a few whimpering about being hungry. Wilma's jowls quivered as she surveyed her lot of pupils, and Milfrey handed her a clipboard. She began to read aloud from it as Gregory wiped his eyes and Christophe chose to look at other things.
"This is the schedule for today's events!…Tenth- through sixth-years will report to the field for endurance drills! Fifth-years will be repainting the shutters on all the Cabins, beginning with Cabin A! Fourth-years will be scrubbing the scum out of the shower stalls! Third-years will be taking inventory of all the food in the kitchen and helping the chefs design a menu for the next month, as well as assisting in the preparation of lunch! And finally…" she grinned evilly, and the world around her seemed to darken. Gregory felt something unpleasant crawl down his spine. "…Second- and first-years…will be digging today. REPORT TO YOUR POSITIONS!"
The crowd of boys (save the first-years, who had little clue as to precisely what was going on) raised their hands to their foreheads in salute. "Ma'am, yes ma'am!" they cried in unison, and Gregory and Christophe quickly found themselves being pulled along in a sea of first- and second-years toward a tiny shed beside the showers. The man with the moustache pushed past them and made his way carefully to the door of the shed with a key in hand, using it to remove the giant padlock on the doors before pocketing it and carefully pulling the doors open. Dirt fell to the ground, and the man coughed a few times before he reached in and began passing out shovels to the boys. Some of the boys were actually smaller than the shovels were, and Gregory thought this might have been funny, had it not been so sad. They were expected to dig with tools that were bigger than they were? That didn't seem right, to him. Not at all.
Once they all had shovels, Moustache mumbled something about stopping at a marker and pointed the boys in the direction of a vast expanse of desert. Squinting, Gregory could see a tiny orange flag fluttering off in the distance. The second-years began to move, pushing him from behind…there was no going back, now. They were off.
They were supposed to dig holes, because digging holes built muscles, and would prepare them for other—much more grueling—activities there at camp.
But digging was harder than it had sounded. It quickly got very, very hot, and Gregory yearned to take his shirt off like some of the other boys, although he knew this was a bad idea; if he did, he would surely be sunburned all over. He thought himself smart for making this choice, and when he saw that Christophe was among the boys who had removed their turtlenecks, he felt even more proud of himself. He would have a reason to laugh later, he thought bitterly as he looked down at his wimpy hole. Compared to Christophe's, he had only dug a trench whereas the Frenchman had dug the Grand Canyon twice over. He could see the laughter glinting in those green eyes, and he pushed himself harder, his face flushed with aggravation.
I cun do this, Gregory thought, despite the fact that his muscles were already aching horribly. I cun beat him. I cun show him that I'm just as tough as he is. He's not that tough, anyway. He's a stupid…idiot. Yeah! He's an idiot!
…An hour or so into digging, some of the other boys began to take time to stop and stare at what Christophe was doing. There was some sort of methodic precision to his movements that seemed almost robotic, to them; He would bend, thrust the shovel into the dirt, and throw the dirt over his shoulder into a pile in one great, fluid movement. Bend, thrust, throw. Bend, thrust, throw. It never slowed or stopped. It was just Christophe and the shovel, tunneling under the ground as one. His hole was so deep there was a tiny pool of water at the bottom. And still he kept on, impressing the others greatly and irritating the hell out of Gregory.
The Brit glowered at his own hole, which was hardly three feet deep. There was no way he could compete with Christophe, now, and he knew it. But still, he took comfort in the fact that he was further along than several of the other boys were; second-years, even! He pushed on and on and dug as fast as he could, even as Christophe began digging crookedly and disappeared beneath the earth.
"That kid digs like a mole," some of the second-years began to whisper, actually walking up to Christophe's hole and abandoning their own just to look at the void the French boy had made.
"Neh neh neh, digs like a mole," Gregory mocked them quietly, spitting in his own hole. He had never been so angry with Christophe before in his life. In fact…he didn't think he had ever even been angry with Christophe before at all. But first, the brunette had told Gregory he was a wimp…and now he was upstaging him? How cruel could one boy be? Gregory shot a death-stare over toward the entrance to Christophe's cavern, gripping his shovel more tightly through his gloves and trudging through pointless pounds of dirt.
That was when a finger appeared in the bottom of Gregory's hole, jutting numbly out of the dirt like some morbid flower.
Gregory promptly shrieked and scrambled out of his hole, much to the amusement and confusion of his fellow campers. "A b-buh-BODY!" he cried, running as far away from his own hole as he could and taking up refuge behind a second-year. "Oh, God! There's a BODY in my hole!"
The other boys exchanged uneasy glances before they began to climb slowly out of their trenches and gather around Gregory's hole. The finger was still there, pale and without reason, only now it was…twitching. The finger rose out of the ground, bringing with it a tiny, black-gloved hand and making all the boys gasp. They watched in amazement as another hand followed, and then, coughing and sputtering, there came a head, covered with a shaggy mop of chocolate hair that Gregory knew all too well.
Christophe Delorne blinked into the bright sunlight, squinting up at the mass of thrilled faces above him. He was completely covered in dirt; it clumped in his hair and his eyelashes like little parasites clinging to their host. He spat dirt out to the side and shook his head, shedding a cloud of dust before he pushed himself up and out of the hole, his legs still dangling down into the tunnel he had made from his hole to Gregory's. He scowled up at the other boys, and they all backed up a few steps.
"What are you looking at?" he demanded, brushing dirt off of his skinny, bare arms. He looked confused for a minute, and then he grinned softly, reaching back down into the tunnel and dragging his shovel out with him. He got to his feet and climbed out of the hole, the crowd parting automatically for him as he walked to a fresh patch of dirt and began again.
Within five minutes, the other boys had gone back to their own holes, grinning and whispering: "The Mole. The Mole. The Mole." Gregory stood beside his own hole, staring down into it at the pathway Christophe had made. He felt horrible inside, being shunned by his best and only friend. What, he wondered, had he done to deserve this? He wanted to crawl into the tunnel and cry, but he couldn't. Big boys didn't cry.
So instead, he found a fresh patch of dirt and began again.
None of them really knew just why they were digging. The precise reason was never really explained to them, other than the fact that it would "toughen them up". For the next few days, though, the first- and second-years were sent out to that same little area and were told to dig. So they dug. And they made a huge crater in the ground that, on the sixth day of camp, after Christophe and several of the other boys had been quite nastily sunburned, Ms. Wilma Williams herself came out to inspect.
All of the boys were wearing their shirts, some of them wincing against the sting of baked skin when they moved. Gregory was sitting against the side of the crater, panting for breath as he pretended not to watch Christophe helping the other boys. The two of them had said almost nothing to one another since the first day of camp, and Gregory was secretly heartbroken by this fact. No one else would talk to him; he wasn't cool enough. He hadn't proven himself, yet. Not like Christophe, who dug like a crazy person and could stare down even the most frightening of the older boys without breaking a sweat. Christophe had even increased the space between them during meals to over eight inches. Gregory hated that they were drifting apart, and that he had almost no idea what he had done to cause it.
He had been longing to talk to the brunette, but Christophe would not so much as look at him, now, if he could help it. But Gregory knew that Christophe felt bad about their distance, too; he could feel those green eyes on him at night as he tossed and turned and struggled to sleep in that strange, cold bed. Christophe was always watching him, observing, contemplating, and sometimes Gregory could hear that tiny whining sound in the French boy's breaths that meant he was holding back tears.
They had group counseling at seven o'clock every night. There, the boys from each year would take turns sitting in the cafeteria at their table with Mr. Milfrey, and a few of them would talk about the things that bothered them. Christophe was always deathly silent during that time, listening hard to the other boys' stories, and Gregory knew that dark, venomous look in his eyes was the thought that none of them have felt the pain that I have. Gregory never spoke, either, although he sometimes wished that he had the courage to talk about how he didn't like Christophe distancing himself from Gregory. He wanted to talk about how he despised times like this; when he felt like everything he had ever thought he had known for sure about Christophe was a lie. When his best friend seemed to shed his skin and become some strange sort of monster until he re-grew his shell and became a slightly different version of the Christophe that Gregory cared for so deeply. Sometimes the re-growth took an hour; sometimes it took a day; sometimes it took weeks. However long it took, though, Gregory had grown familiar with it to the point where he knew that the two of them would not speak to one another again until it was over. All he could do was wait it out, most of the time, but he thought that maybe talking about it would speed things along. He was too shy, though.
…But nonetheless, there had been hints of the closeness returning sometime soon.
Gregory had felt the eyes on him the previous night, when he had been unable to get to sleep; he had gotten out of bed and crept quietly out of the Cabin, the only sounds being those of the other boys snoring and the soft padding of his bare feet on the floorboards. He had felt the green on his back while he had walked, and he had not stopped for a moment until he got to the door. Then, he had turned around to see if he was being followed; Christophe was still in his bed, lying flat on his back. Gregory had opened the door and stepped outside into the warm night air.
The desert was soft at night; not at all harsh and stinging as it was during the day. It tasted like paper and it smelled like sweat and blood and mold. Gregory hated that smell; it was nothing like the crunchy, jagged scent of ashes and water and metal that always surrounded their cabin up in Colorado. But regardless, he had walked out to the showers and had leaned against the stale wood that stank faintly of cigarettes (an odor that, at that point, he had no idea he would eventually become quite aroused by). He looked up at the night sky, thick with stars and clouds and moonlight, and he had smiled. He remembered one night, about a year ago, when he had been talking to Christophe because neither of them could get to sleep. They had been discussing aliens. Gregory said that there was no chance of there being such monstrosities as the people in Hollywood portrayed in movies…at least, not living as nearby as in their own galaxy. Perhaps in some far-off, distant place, Gregory had said, there might be a race of people just as intelligent, if not more intelligent, than humans. Christophe had snorted and said that there were aliens all around; tiny ones, living everywhere. In leather shoes; in his mother's hair; in boxes of Easy Mac and Captain Crunch. Gregory had laughed himself to sleep that night, he remembered, and his heart sank when he recalled that Christophe had laughed, too. It seemed so long since he had heard Christophe laugh.
Too long.
Without realizing it, Gregory had bowed his head and linked his hands together against his chest. He didn't know exactly how to say what he wanted to say, but he was going to try his best.
"…Dear God," he whispered. "…Please…let me help Christophe. He is not as strong as he believes he is. I know that I am far from strong, as well…but neither of us cun make it on our own. Please…we both need help. I'm sorry I haven't been as good a friend toward him as I could be, but…he just makes me so mad sometimes!" He screwed up his face for a moment in thought. "…Perhaps you could…just let him know that I care for him, and that I want to be there for him. And…say 'ello and I love you to my dad for me, please." He added the latter of these sentences with subtle warmth coating his words, a faint smile on his lips. "…Thank you."
Gregory had walked slowly back to Cabin H, dragging his feet through the dirt. He didn't care that he would dirty his sheets. He was smiling; happily, at first, but then it grew sad, and by the time he sat back down on his own bed, he could feel tears in his eyes. He looked over at Christophe's still form. The eyes were closed. Gregory breathed out hard through his nose to hide the fact that he was about to cry, just in case Christophe was faking. The blonde crawled back into bed and streaked his white sheets with tan from the outside world. He lay on his right side, staring into the innocent, sunburned face of his best friend, and he sniffled.
"…I love you, Christophe," he breathed, and closed his eyes. Twenty minutes later, just as he was dozing off, Gregory felt soft lips press into his eyebrow, and that was enough to reassure him that God had heard his prayer. He had gone to sleep and dreamed of playing War with Christophe, and of smiling and laughing and feeling loved. Ms. Delorne was not in Gregory's dream.
…Now, leaning against the side of the crater, staring at the shaggy-haired French boy as he helped a fellow first-year with his digging, Gregory had the dark feeling that things weren't going to be as easy as asking The Almighty for help and getting it a few minutes afterward. Christophe had been just as distant as ever this morning at breakfast, and although Gregory had felt the eyes on him several times as the hours had passed, he could never meet gazes with the brunette. He was beginning to get frustrated. He picked at the yellow calluses on his hands through his gloves and glared down at his dirt-coated boots.
A huge, pear-shaped shadow fell over him, and he turned around, staring up into the sweaty face of Ms. Williams. He leapt to his feet and saluted her, as he had seen the other boys doing for days, now.
"Ma'am!" he cried. The other boys saw her and followed suit. She sneered at them all and laughed in a not-quite-human way.
"What a lovely hole you boys have dug this week. Very good!" she exclaimed, marching carefully around the perimeter of the ditch and pretending to look at the work they had done. Gregory saw her eyes linger on a few of the smaller boys, and he felt a pang of uneasiness in his belly. "…But there's still a long way to go before it's finished."
"Umm…excuse me, ma'am?" a second-year asked meekly, daring to raise his slightly shaking hand. Wilma's black eyes shot to him, and he started beneath her hellish gaze. "…Why exactly are we digging this huge hole?"
A crooked smile spread across her sagging face. "…You'll see," she said in a way that sent a tremor down the spine of every boy present. She nodded toward all of them and was about to turn around when she saw that one boy had apparently gotten bored and was back to digging again. Gregory looked and saw, too.
Christophe.
She looked completely outraged for a moment, and Gregory, with quite a bit of sick flowing into his stomach, saw her clutch the handle of the riding crop at her side menacingly. She took a few steps forward, down into the hole, and she narrowed her eyes to better see the face of the defiant boy as she approached him. She noticed immediately the fluid way that he dug, and her lop-sided smile returned to her face very quickly as she stopped beside him and he looked up at her, half-interested and unimpressed. She flashed gray-yellow teeth at him.
"…You're Christophe Delorne, aren't you, boy?" she asked softly, although Gregory and several of the other boys heard her and craned closer to better see the exchange. Christophe's emerald eyes narrowed.
"…Yes," he said thickly, and spat off to the side. "Zat eez my name."
She chuckled under her breath, and Gregory hated her for a reason he couldn't place when she patted the brunette on the head and ruffled his already wild hair. He bore his teeth at her in a very dog-like way. "Of course. The little French boy. Rufus and Milfrey were both quite sure that you would give me a lot of trouble. But you wouldn't do a thing like that, Christophe, now would you?"
"Eet depends on what you mean by 'trouble'," he growled, leaning against the handle of his shovel and looking at her with an expression on his face that Gregory knew well; it meant that he would have rather enjoyed slapping that bloody smirk off her fat face. Her eyes flashed with contempt for a moment, her lips quivering as she struggled to keep that huge, fake grin from faltering.
"Oh, I think you know what I mean," she murmured. She reached forward and patted his cheek a few times; much harder than was necessary, on Gregory's radar. The blonde clutched his shovel and had, for a split-second, an image of Wilma Williams with a shovel blade buried in her skull. The thought scared him and excited him at the same time.
God, Christophe, don't take this shit from her, his mind whispered. Much to his surprise, the eyes found his, sparkling and laughing. He wondered if Christophe could hear his thoughts, and for some reason, he didn't find it strange to think that he probably could. He was that unintelligible, nowadays.
Christophe smiled at him—that gentle, affectionate we-have-a-secret smile that Gregory usually saw only when they were playing War—and then he saluted Ms. Williams, who immediately allowed the anger to dissipate from her expression. She nodded at Christophe and glanced around at the other campers. "…I've heard that you have a nickname. It suits you," she said vaguely, then turned around and stomped off and out of the hole. Gregory saw him point his middle finger at her the moment she was out of range.
"Beetch. Zat's your nickname, Wilma," he murmured, smirking dirtily as he fixed one of the second-years with an inquisitive gaze. "What ze 'ell did she mean, I 'ave a nickname?" The other boys glanced around at each other nervously. Christophe cocked his eyebrows. "…Well? Speak up!" They said nothing. The brunette dropped his shovel and slunk up to the second-year, grabbing him by the front of his shirt and pressing their foreheads together. "Speak, you bastard!"
"Christophe!" Gregory snapped, making the French boy drop the helpless second-year and look up with wide, innocent eyes. I didn't do a thing, that face said. He beamed at Gregory. "Leave him alone."
"Do you know what zey have been calling me?" he asked softly, and the smoothness of his voice made Gregory's breath hitch in his throat. Luckily, his face was sunburned; no one saw the blush that spilled across his cheeks. "Eez eet somesing insulting?"
"N-no, not really," the blonde said, confused by the way those glistening eyes made his fingers tingle. "You're 'The Mole', Christophe."
The French boy cocked his eyebrows. "Ze Mole?" he echoed, tasting the words. His face screwed up in contemplation as he thought this over. "Ze Mole…Mole, Mole…"
Gregory felt tenseness radiating off of the boys around him as they stiffened against their shovels, awaiting Christophe's approval or rejection. A tiny thought weaseled its way into his brain; one that would recur to him several times over the next few years:
What is it about him that makes them respect him like they do?
…It started as a soft, nearly inaudible chuckle; the kind that wracks your body, makes your shoulders tremble, your chest vibrate. The kind that sends the breath flowing through your lungs and makes your head spin; makes you dizzy, lightheaded. Then Gregory saw it; the flash of white teeth, the tanned lips spread in a broad, unbridled grin. The green eyes found Gregory's blue ones again and blended themselves with the cerulean, taking over, holding him, and Gregory was okay with that. Gregory liked that. Gregory loved that. He smiled as his best friend's laughter played through the ivory, dancing in the hot, desert air, chasing the wind and making the world its own. The other boys smiled in relief, and soon after, Gregory found himself giggling, too, though it was nothing like the brunette's deep, genuine laughter.
No one will ever be like him. He's special, Gregory thought. He's perfect.
And he laughed so hard that tears came to his eyes.
In that moment, Christophe—the boy who had almost nothing to his name—owned the entire universe.
And from that day forward, every single one of the students at Ms. Wilma Williams's Military Academy for Boys remembered Christophe Delorne as "The Mole". And he was quite proud of that, thank you very much.