The Gray House

I shrugged. It meant whatever it meant. I wasn’t about to explain about the sneakers to him. That would be ridiculous.

“Yours is the model group.” The mottled icicles drooped, obscuring the eyes. “I really like that group. I cannot ignore their request, especially seeing as this is the first time they’ve asked such a thing. So, what do you have to say for yourself?”

I wanted to say that I was going to be happy to be rid of them as well, but decided not to. What good would my lonely voice be against fifteen of Shark’s exemplary pets? Instead of offering pleas and explanations, I just studied the surroundings.

The pictures of the “well for themselves” were even more disgusting than I remembered. I imagined my own pitted, crumbling mug among them, with paintings behind me, one more hideous than the next. “He was dubbed the next Giger when he was just thirteen.” It made me sick.

“Well?” Shark waved his spread-out fingers in front of me. “Are you asleep? I am asking if you understand that I have to undertake certain actions.”

“Of course. I’m sorry.”

That was the only thing that came to mind.

“Me too. Very sorry,” Shark growled, snapping my file shut. “Sorry that you were so brainless as to manage to lose the trust of the whole group at once. Get out and get your things.”

Something jumped inside me, like a toy ball on a string.

“Where are you sending me?”

He was enjoying my fear immensely. He basked in it for a while. Shuffled things around, inspected his fingernails, lit a cigarette.

“Where do you think? Another group, of course.”

I smiled. “You must be joking.”

It would be easier to drop a live horse into any other House group than somebody from the First. The horse would have a better chance of fitting in, size and manure notwithstanding.

I should’ve kept my mouth shut, but still I blurted out, “No one would have me. I’m a Pheasant.”

“I’ve had enough of this!” Shark spat out the cigarette and smashed his fist on the desk. “What’s this Pheasant stuff? Who invented all that crap?”

The papers scurried from under his fist, and the cigarette butt missed the ashtray.

I was so scared that I yelled back at him, even louder, “How should I know why they call us that? Ask those who started it! You think it’s easy, remembering all those idiotic nicks? You think anyone explained to me what they mean?”

“Don’t you dare raise your voice in my office!” he screamed back, leaning over the desk.

I glanced at the fire extinguisher and immediately looked back.

It was still hanging there.

Shark followed the direction of my gaze and suddenly whispered, as if taking me into confidence, “It won’t. The bolts are this thick.”

Then he showed me his disgusting thumb. This was so unexpected that I was stunned. I just sat there ogling him like an idiot. He was smirking. It dawned on me that he was simply bullying me. I hadn’t been living in the House long enough to easily address everyone by their nicknames. You had to be pretty open minded to call someone Sniffle or Piddler to their face and not feel like a complete jerk. Now I was being told that the administration did not approve of it either. What for? Just to have a good yell and see how I’d react? And then I realized what had changed in the office since my first visit. It was Shark himself. The unassuming body hiding under the fire extinguisher had turned into a real shark. Into exactly what his name was. The nicks were given for a reason.

Shark lit up again while I was considering all this.

“I don’t want to hear any more of this nonsense,” he warned, fishing out the remains of the previous cigarette from my file. “Of these attempts to disparage our best group. To deprive it of its rightful status. Understood?”

“You mean you too consider the word to be an insult? But why? How is it worse than simply Birds

? Or Rats? Rats. I think that sounds much worse than Pheasants.”

Shark blinked at me.

“That’s because you know what those who say it actually mean, correct?”

“Right,” Shark said severely. “That’s enough. Shut up. Now I understand why the First can’t stand you.”

I looked at the sneakers. Shark was much too generous toward the Pheasants’ motivations, but I decided not to say so. I only asked where I was being transferred.

“I don’t know yet,” he lied. “I need to think about it.”