The Gray House

“Whatever,” he says. “I guess you can laugh if you want. I happen to know where to get a van. Used, but in decent shape. And also I know how to drive. Learned it recently. Because I had an opportunity.”

We gape at him silently.

“Yes, I know it’s bullshit,” he says quickly. “You don’t have to tell me. I’m not a baby. What I just said sounds funny to me too, but I had to say it. I don’t care if you die laughing now. I’m only asking you to keep it in mind, OK? That’s all.”

He turns around and walks away, more runs away, eager to put as much distance between us as he can, as if pushed by the imagined tide of our laughter at his back.

“Black, we’re not laughing,” I call after him.

He waves his hand without turning around and disappears up the stairs. A panicked retreat, there are no other words for it. Humpback and I exchange puzzled glances.

“Now this is something,” Humpback says. “There was this one guy in the entire House who dreamed about getting to the Outsides, and look what happened to him.”

“Good-bye, bull terriers in checkered vests,” I sigh. “There won’t be much space in the van, even without them.”

“Stop it,” Humpback says. “It’s not funny. That’s why he ran away, because he didn’t want to hear the lame jokes.”

“I would never tell them with him around. I’m not laughing, Humpback. How can I laugh at things like that? It’s Tabaqui’s kite, the one that he says the seniors used to fly away, except Black seems to have mastered the art of driving it.”

Humpback shakes his head.

“Don’t do it with me around either. Don’t laugh. Don’t say anything. At all.”

He kicks away the chair, even though it would have been easier to step around it, and plows ahead, shoving his hands into his pockets with such force that I imagine hearing the sound of the lining being ripped. Terminally upset, either by Black’s words or by my reaction to them.

I follow him, turning this sad fairy tale over and over in my head. The one Black is trying so hard to believe. The magical mystery van. The children of the House rushing toward dawn, in a stolen car with Black at the helm, tearing down the highway, exuberantly belting out road songs. In the real world this trip is going to last for about an hour, tops. Pity. Because this fantasy is even more beautiful than having the seniors depart to the hidden world beyond the clouds by means of a kite. More beautiful and more touching exactly for the fact that it was invented by Black, the staunchest realist.

When we return to the dorm, only Ginger and Smoker are left there, sitting at the opposite corners of the bed and annoying each other. The tension is palpable enough for Humpback to immediately get out of the way and hide on his top bunk. I go to sit between those two, doing my best to disrupt their line of sight. Oh well, that’s fair, now it’s my turn to be the lightning rod. Even though Tabaqui is so much better at it than I am.

Ginger smokes, studying the smoldering end of her cigarette intently. Smoker peers now at her dirty sneakers, now at the ash she’s shaking all over the place—a Pheasant to the core, all but writing notes about it in a diary. Ginger’s irritation barely registers, but Smoker’s is throwing sparks all the way across the room. My presence interferes with his indignation, so he shifts on the bed to better see her—dirty-uncouth-repellent, but something else too, more personal, I can’t quite put my finger on it. Did she tell him off or pour soda in his precious sneakers while we were out? He’s blushing every time he looks at her, gazes away but then looks again, almost forcing himself, and I become more and more curious. What was it she managed to do? I am clearly not cut out for the role of the lightning rod, so I rejoice when Jackal returns, whistling something cheerful and out of tune.

“There we go,” he says after climbing up to join us. “Gaby is shouting to the four winds that she’s pregnant, can you imagine that?”

“By Blind, of course,” Ginger says. She doesn’t seem too excited.

“Not at all! She never said that. None of the ‘Long live the young dauphin,’ not even a peep. Supposedly by Red or by Viking. Something indeterminate with a pronounced Rattish slant.”

“She’s lying,” Ginger concludes, throws away the cigarette, and walks over to Tubby’s box. Fishes him, still sleepy, out of there, puts him on her back, bending double under the weight, and walks out. Tubby burbles something incoherent but looks generally content.

“Hey, where are you taking the Insensible?” Jackal asks, astonished.

“For a walk,” comes Ginger’s voice from the anteroom, then the outer door slams, and it’s quiet again.

“Aww,” Jackal sighs. “And we were doing so well.”

We weren’t doing well at all, but Tabaqui’s optimism stores are inexhaustible, and no one takes the bait.

“What an incongruous person,” Smoker says.

He probably needs someone to argue with him. Or maybe he said it just to say something.

“Who is? Ginger?” Tabaqui wonders. “Why?”

“No reason. There’s just something missing in her. Many things, actually.”