The Gray House

The morning turned out lousy. It was gray and wet all the way through, like a slippery cap of some mushroom in the forest. On days like this all the door handles resist harder than usual, all food scratches the mouth, the early birds are disgustingly perky and are not letting anyone lounge in bed, while the night owls are miserable and snap at every other word. Sphinx, usually the first among the disgusting early birds, was out of commission for the time being, and so his role in terrorizing the inhabitants was taken up by Humpback, who jetted around like crazy, imitated a rooster, rang a handbell, tooted on his flute, poked the sleepers with chair legs, and dumped clothes on them.

Lary, moaning and groaning, dangled his feet in tattered socks from his bunk. Tabaqui was already chomping on something that was dripping all over the blanket. Blind, in his acid-green shirt, was smoking in the open window. I dug deeper and deeper under the blanket, fully aware that I wouldn’t be allowed to continue sleeping.

The boombox wailed “Oh! Darling” by The Beatles. Tabaqui was singing along in a falsetto voice, right in my ear. He even lifted the blanket to make sure he aimed correctly. It was useless. I crawled out.

While turning the wheelchair around by the window, I looked out. The wires of the fence weren’t there. The houses and streets all had disappeared. It was completely quiet. Even Nanette’s kin had scrambled somewhere. Blind turned his sharp face toward me. The mist in his gray eyes very much resembled the one outside the window.

“Backs of mice?” he said.

“Rather big blobs of cotton wool,” I said. “Or maybe clouds.”

At this he nodded and turned away.

At breakfast we were given boiled water to drink. It was supposed to ward off colds. Another one of the administration’s pet ideas. There was no music after we came back, and no card playing. Everyone was catching up on more sleep. Now even the yard itself disappeared, and the gray clouds (or was it really backs of mice?) came up to the windows.

They brought Noble in after lunch.

“He’s coming,” Lary announced, bursting in with the clatter of a wild mustang. “And those . . . Shark and the others . . .”

The others turned out to be two livid-faced Cases and, surprisingly, Homer.

They wheeled Noble in, installed him on the bed, and clustered around. Noble was sleepy and grumpy, dressed in the hospital gown—one of those things that rob faces and bodies of individuality, making everyone look the same. Alexander took his clothes out of the closet. Noble was changing into them while the principal’s retinue stood there and gawked.

“You are his comrades, you could have helped,” Homer said.

“I can handle this,” Noble said curtly, sliding into his jeans.

“Such a nervous boy,” Homer said, aghast. “Nervous and abrupt.”

“If only that was the worst of it,” Shark replied, his eyes darting around the room, looking for traces of criminal behavior.

By some miracle we didn’t even have a single ashtray out, so all his efforts were wasted.

“You have thirty minutes to pack,” he said. “And none of your tricks. Leave nothing behind, you’re not coming back here.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Noble said.

Homer’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he seemingly stopped breathing. Tabaqui giggled. Shark swung around so fiercely that I shrunk back.

“One more peep out of any of you and you’ll regret the day you were born,” he hissed.

There were no more peeps out of anyone. Homer left, still unable to come to terms with the shock he’d just suffered, while Shark remained to observe Humpback and Alexander pack Noble’s stuff. It all fit in two bags. One of the Cases took them away. Noble climbed in his wheelchair and looked at us. He hadn’t uttered a single word during all of this, apart from what he’d said to Shark. And had he restrained himself, Shark might have given us the opportunity to say our good-byes in private. The other Case grabbed the handles of Noble’s wheelchair, and, for some reason, Alexander placed Humpback’s jacket on Noble’s knees. It was a heavy leather jacket, originally black but currently black and white, because it was first worn out until it became white and then blackened back with dirt and soot. This monster, bedecked in badges and touched up with paint here and there, was dubbed “dinosaur skin.” Tabaqui claimed that it was bulletproof. But Noble seemed delighted.

“Thanks,” he said, looking at Humpback.

This was where the levee broke. The Case had to jump out of the way.