The Gray House

The presence of Stinker at their table caused a furor in the canteen. Sportsman pointedly got up and went to sit farther away. His pack followed. The long junior table now had a neutral zone in the middle. Even seniors noticed it.

“Look, the squirts are splitting up,” Boar, one of the seniors, said.

“The little shits are growing,” Lame replied dismissively. “Into big shits. Just like us.”

The juniors overheard this exchange, straightened proudly, and blushed. The seniors just compared us to themselves!

The wheelers were regarding Stinker sulkily. But he happily absorbed the attention, all the while creating a pigsty around his plate.

On the way back to the room, Grasshopper stopped before the message board. Separated at Birth. Showing this evening. Both parts. So there wouldn’t be anybody in the Tenth except Ancient. Grasshopper ran to catch up with the rest of them.

Stinker asked permission to draw something on the wall. Wolf dug out the cans of paint and showed him an empty corner. Stinker labored long and hard. He first drew everything in pencil, then used paint—there was nary a peep from his corner all the way till lunch, save for doleful sighs and scratching, representing the throes of inspiration.

Wolf managed to procure the guitar tutorial. He was studying it very closely, but to Grasshopper it looked like he couldn’t quite concentrate on what was before him. Beauty had wheedled an orange from someone and was now sitting in front of the juicer, not daring to switch it on. Grasshopper and Humpback had mounted a typewriter on the nightstand—another gift of the trunk, which no one except Grasshopper took any interest in. Grasshopper realized immediately that this was something he really needed. Hitting a lettered key with the finger of his prosthetic was much easier than trying to draw that same letter so that someone else could guess which one it was. Pens always slipped out of the artificial fingers, and the letters came out all angular and broken. When Grasshopper saw the typewriter, he perked up and asked for it to be placed on his nightstand.

While Humpback was busy feeding paper into it and typing whatever came into his mind, Grasshopper was imagining how he’d write a letter to Death and Ginger and drop it in the hospital mailbox—there was an actual box on the door to the hospital wing.

Stuffage sounded even rowdier than usual.

“Are they planning to attack us?” Humpback said.

“Or already attacking each other,” Grasshopper suggested.

Humpback rattled out the word attack.

“Or maybe this is the sound of Sportsman’s empire crumbling,” Wolf said. “And we are soon going to be hit by its splinters.”

Somebody scratched softly at the door.

“See what I mean?” Wolf said. “The splinters are flying.”

Beauty quickly hid the orange behind his back.

“Could be someone coming for the trunk,” Blind said.

But it was, in fact, Magician. Sad little Magician in a striped shirt, with a crutch under one arm and a sack of clothes under the other.

“Hello,” he said. “Can I come in?”

He looked like someone who’d narrowly escaped some catastrophe.

“Did something really blow up there?” Humpback asked, alarmed.

“They let you go?” Grasshopper said incredulously. “I thought they never would.”

“Two newbies arrived at once,” Magician explained bashfully. “So I grabbed my stuff and got out. They have other things to worry about now, and I always wanted to move in with you. Can I please stay here?”

He briefly looked at the wall.

“Did you bring anything useful?” Stinker inquired.

“He can do magic tricks,” Grasshopper said quickly. “With cards and with a handkerchief. And with everything.”

“You’re in. Choose a bed,” Wolf said. “Who are the newbies?”

Magician marched to an empty bed, thumping his crutch, and put his things on it.

“One is normal,” he said. “And the other is scary. He’s got this spot. Like someone poured chocolate on him. Almost his entire face.” Magician pressed a hand to his own face. “Oh, wow, a guitar!” he exclaimed and put the hand down, mesmerized by the instrument on Wolf’s pillow. “Where did you get it?”

“Can you play?” Wolf said quickly.

Magician nodded. He couldn’t pry his eyes off it.

“We’re in luck,” Wolf said. “I was going crazy with this tutorial. Come on, play something.”

Magician thumped over to his bed. Wolf shifted to make space for him.

While Magician was getting comfortable with the guitar, he also cleared his throat significantly, as if he was about to sing.

“‘A Taste of Honey,’” he announced.

Grasshopper recalled that he always announced his magic tricks in the same artificial kind of voice.