The Topher Trilogy

Chapter 3 - The Secret Room-2

“That’s Dirk Henderson,” the boy next to Topher said.

Henderson was twenty yards from the Timberwolves’ net. Fifteen. Ten. He was certain to score. He drew back his racket, prepared to shoot, and then the keeper charged forward and launched himself right at his head. They collided with an audible crack and collapsed on the turf, unconscious. Or dead. The stands erupted.

When the noise died down, Topher said, “Each dorm has its own smell? And you can tell the difference?”

“Yes. Ipswich smells like fish. Dilque smells like rotten fruit. Trinkle smells like moldy books.”

“What does Burleigh’s smell like?”

“Feet.”

Topher’s exclamation was lost in another roar. The blond boy stood up and raised his arms over his head, exposing the skin on his forearm to the cold. Topher’s jaw fell open. There. Spreading down his arm. A rash of little welled up scratches, as if he’d been in a tangle with a patch of thorn bushes. Topher continued to stare after he sat down. The boy noticed and crossed his arms.

“That’s a nice hat,” Topher said. “Would you mind if I tried it on?”

The boy shifted his eyes at him, and Topher tried to reassure him with a smile but managed only to look like he was passing a thistle. (It was a family trait). “My father was a connoisseur.”

The boy stood up with an energy that he seemed to draw from the crowd. Topher saw that he was a little shaky all of the sudden, as if he had not received enough rest the night before. A sheath of papers fell from beneath his coat. The boy either ignored them or panicked; either way, he scooted out of their row, trampling the feet and knocking the knees of the other students. Right before he made to the steps he tripped and his hat flew off his head, and there, right there, Topher saw what he suspected: a shaven circle on the back of the skull, a raw, angry wound that had been carefully, and recently, stitched.

The boy knelt and retrieved his hat and shot Topher a glare, and Topher pretended to find something of interest on the field. A grand roar erupted, and students stood all about him, cheering. He stood, too, trying to see where the boy went, but he was lost in the crowd. He briefly caught a glimpse of red bobbing through the foot traffic near the field after the cheering mass sat, but then it disappeared. He picked up the papers, then made his way down the row, crying “Out of my way!”

His shoes reverberated on the metal risers as he ran down the stairs. At the bottom, he leaned over the final railing, straining to see where the boy had gone. No luck. He clomped down the last set and pushed his way through the throng, hugging the papers to his chest. The going was difficult, and he ran into several people, and then Zorn was standing in front of him.

“Topher!” Zorn cried, smiling. He held a very long hot dog in one hand, and an equally large soda in the other. “I have purchased a hot dog and fountain drink.”

Topher tried to nose around him, but Zorn wouldn’t allow it. Topher head butted his friend in the shoulder, to no effect.

“Out of my way! I’m in pursuit of a mean and hairy.”

He faked left and ducked right, just managing to evade his friend.

“A what?”

“A mean and hairy!”

Zorn took a bite of his sausage. A Mean and Hairy? Was this some kind of new hot dog? If it was, it didn’t sound too appetizing.

The courtyard was normally empty during the games (school rules dictated that if students were not at the stadium, they were to be in their rooms), but this was Raleigh’s Prep after all, and any boy gracing its halls was most likely one who felt that rules were something that applied to other people. Therefore there were always, of course, a smattering of sluggards and slackers skulking in the courtyard’s corners, as well as a hefty contingent of smokers huddling beneath a pretty little trellis arbor decorated with vines and carnations. Brimstone and Burr were among the latter, trying to appear as menacing and as surly as anybody standing under a flowery garden decoration could manage. They had adopted a certain muscular stoop that, contrary to their intentions, only made them appear as though they suffered some kind of spinal handicap.

Into this den bumbled Topher, his gaze fixed upon everything except his immediate direction. He thought he’d spied the boy from the game run this way, and his head swiveled as he looked for him. In his arms he still clutched the sheaf of papers the boy had dropped; hurricane winds could not have separated them from him. He would have hurried straight through had Brimstone not extended his foot. Topher, momentarily consternated by the smoke, mumbled something about protocol. Then he saw the foot in his path and jumped awkwardly to avoid it, his body jerking in the air like a cat dropped from a short height.

He cried out a customary “Good Lord!” before landing clumsily on the outside of his feet. He stumbled forward, arms still wrapped around the papers, and fell to his knees with a crack, finishing the fall by skidding forward at least a foot. It worked out better than Brimstone could have possibly imagined, and the sadness of the fact that this particular accomplishment was one of the few things in his life that he’d been able to successfully complete was lost upon him. A stunned silence fell over the smokers, and then Brimstone and Burr burst out into laughter, braying like donkeys. Topher was not amused.

“Quit your disharmonious barking!” he barked, still on his knees. “You sound like hyenas with the stomach flu.”

Something hit his ear, and he tumbled to his side. A kick to his ribs sent him onto his back, but he still managed to hold onto the papers. Then Brimstone straddled him, crouched down, and put his knees on his chest. He took a heavy drag from his cigarette, held it, and blew the smoke into Topher’s face. Topher coughed and sputtered.

“Look, Burr,” Brimstone said, smiling with his teeth. “It’s my dog.”

Burr giggled, and Brimstone joined him.

“It’s my dog. It’s my b***h,” he said.

“Curse you, Brimstone. You’ve ruined a perfectly good pair of pants. Do you know how much white linen costs?”

Brimstone put his hand to his ear.

“What’s that? I think my b***h’s trying to talk.” Burr guffawed. Sneering, Brimstone took another drag off his cigarette and blew it into Topher’s face. “Speak, b***h. Speak.”

“Get off my chest.”

Brimstone c****d his arm and slapped him across the face. It echoed in the courtyard. The other boys under the trellis grew even quieter. Something was about to happen.

“Bark,” Brimstone said. “Bark, bitch.”

Topher glared.

“No.”

Brimstone hit him again, harder this time, rocking Topher’s head to the side.

“Whatcha got there?” Brimstone asked, his eyes falling on the papers. “Gay porn?”

“Why is everything ‘gay’ to you?” Topher asked. “Either you’re gay yourself and repressing it, or you’re just plain gay. Either way, stop trying to force me into your lifestyle.”

Brimstone shot a panicked look around.

“I’m not gay.”

“Methinks the boy doth protest too much.”

Brimstone grabbed at the papers but Topher clutched them tighter to his chest.

“Gimmie the papers!”

“No.”

Brimstone took another drag on his cigarette. He couldn’t just let the fag get away with it. He had to teach his b***h to behave. An idea struck him and he smiled. Pinching the cigarette between two fingers, he leaned forward and held the glowing end over Topher’s face.

“Do it,” he said.

Topher spat on the cigarette and it winked out.

“Ha!”

The boys surrounding them laughed hesitantly, thinking the tension gone, but Brimstone was not as amused. He flicked the wet butt aside and started hitting Topher again, this time with a closed fist, again, and again, over and over until Burr pulled him off, leaving Topher lying there on his back, eyes bruised, lips split. Brimstone struggled against Burr, who grunted “Teacher, dude, teacher” into his ear until he stopped.

He looked out at the courtyard. There, standing in the middle, was an old man. He was leaning on a cane and staring up at the alabaster face of the clock tower. The old man didn’t seem to be paying attention to them, but Brimstone didn’t want to risk it. He shrugged Burr off, straightened his brown shirt, and stomped away. Burr gave Topher a tentative kick, then squirreled off after his friend. The rest of the smokers dissipated, not wanting to get into trouble for being a part of the scrape. Fighting was technically against the rules, even if it was encouraged by the staff. Broken noses and black eyes were assiduously overlooked, but if any students were caught in the middle of one, or even watching one, they’d be publicly whipped.

Topher stayed where he was, moaning. He had to get up and follow the boy from the stadium, beaten and bruised or not. He put the papers on the ground to his right and struggled to his feet. His face was a mess, and his teeth felt loose in his head. How many more blows to the head could he withstand?

Just then, Zorn sprinted into the courtyard, a hulking mass of fur and beard, trying to catch up to Topher. He ran as fast as he could, which was not very fast at all. It looked like nobody had ever taught him that his limbs were all supposed to work in concordance. His arms seemed to work independently of each other and his legs, almost resembling, but not quite, a windmill engineered by English majors. He looked like he was suffering from the fits, or better yet, like he was performing in some kind of avant garde street show. Still, he managed to build up a full head of steam, completely oblivious to the teacher leaning on his cane in the middle of the courtyard.

“Dear Lord,” Topher said. “Zorn! Watch out you i***t!”

This did not achieve the desired effect. Zorn, rather than cease his progress, merely looked at the trellis arbor, upgrading his equilibrium from “somewhat eccentric” to “certainly spastic.” His arms flailed, his feet flapped out to either side, he spun round, and soon he was a rumbling avalanche of bone and muscle, and the old man the meager chateau at the bottom of the mountain. Zorn hit him at full speed, and they collapsed in a mound of furs and hair and old man and broken cane.

Topher hurried over, certain he’d crushed the poor old codger into dust.

“Zorn, you brute!”

Zorn got up off the ground, wincing. The old man was gone. A book was lying where he stood. He leaned over to pick it up.

“Is this him?”

It was the simplest of tomes, thick, with a cherry colored leather cover. It looked old but well cared-for. Strange runes had been burned into the leather. He ran his finger along them. An electric shock ran up his arm, and he snapped his hand away. Topher reached for it.

“Let’s see it.”

Zorn clutched it to his chest.

“It’s mine!”

“What’s gotten into you?”

“This is my book. It’s always been my book. It’s a magic book.”

“You? Own a magic book? Please.”

“Why not? You can’t own everything that’s interesting or fantastic.” Zorn caressed the cover. “It must have been the cute little old man’s. He used it to escape.”

Topher rolled his eyes.

“Do you mean to tell me you think he’s in your book?”

“Yes. Like I said, it’s a magic book.”

“Fine.”

“Fine?”

“Yes, fine.”

“You believe me?”

“What’s not to believe in this place?”