خون هیولا فصل هفدهم

Monster Blood Chapter 17

The brothers stepped out of the shadows of the hedge. Their short blond hair caught the late afternoon sunlight. They were both grinning gleefully.

Evan stood frozen in place, staring from one to the other.

No one said a word.

One of the Beymers grabbed the bucket from Evan’s hand and tossed it to the ground. The bucket hit with a heavy thud, and its thick, green contents oozed onto the grass, making disgusting sucking sounds.

“Hey—” Evan cried, breaking the tense silence.

He didn’t have a chance to say more.

The other twin punched him hard in the stomach.

Evan felt the pain radiate through his body. The punch took his breath away. He gasped for air.

He didn’t see the next punch. It landed on his cheek just below his right eye.

He howled in pain, and his hands flailed the air helplessly.

Both brothers were hitting him now. And then one of them gave Evan’s shoulders a hard shove, and he went sprawling onto the cool, damp grass.

The pain swept over him, blanketing him, followed by a wave of nausea. He closed his eyes, gasping noisily, waiting for the sharp ache in his stomach to fade.

The ground seemed to tilt. He reached out and grabbed it, and held on tightly so he wouldn’t fall off.

When he finally managed to raise his head, Andy was standing over him, her eyes wide with alarm. “Evan—”

He groaned and, pushing with both hands, tried to sit up. The dizziness, the spinning, tilting grass, forced him to lie back down.

“Are they gone?” he asked, closing his eyes, willing the dizziness away.

“Rick and Tony? I saw them run away,” Andy said, kneeling beside him. “Are you okay? Should I call my mom?”

He opened his eyes. “Yeah. No. I don’t know.”

“What happened ?” she demanded.

He raised a hand to his cheek. “Ow!” It was already swollen, too painful to touch.

“They beat you up?”

“Either that or I was hit by a truck,” he groaned.

A few minutes later—it seemed like hours—he was back on his feet, breathing normally, rubbing his swollen cheek. “I’ve never been in a fight before,” he told Andy, shaking his head. “Never.”

“It doesn’t look like it was much of a fight,” she said, her expression still tight with concern.

He started to laugh, but it made his stomach hurt.

“We’ll pay them back,” Andy said bitterly. “We’ll find a way to pay them back. The creeps.”

“Oh. Look. The Monster Blood.” Evan hurried over to it.

The bucket lay on its side. The green gunk had oozed onto the grass, forming a wide, thick puddle.

“I’ll help you get it back in the bucket,” Andy said, leaning over to stand the bucket up. “Hope it doesn’t kill the grass. My dad’ll have a cow if his precious lawn is hurt!”

“It’s so heavy,” Evan said, groaning as he tried to push the glob into the bucket. “It doesn’t want to move.”

“Let’s try picking up handfuls,” Andy suggested.

“Whoa. It doesn’t want to come apart,” Evan said in surprise. “Look. It sticks together.”

“It’s like taffy,” Andy said. “Ever see them make taffy in those taffy machines? The stuff just sticks together in one big glob.”

“This isn’t taffy,” Evan muttered. “It’s disgusting.”

Working together, they managed to lift the entire green ball and drop it into the bucket. The stuff made a sickening sucking sound as it filled the bucket, and both Evan and Andy had trouble pulling their hands out of it.

“It’s so sticky,” Andy said, making a disgusted face.

“And warm,” Evan added. He finally managed to free his hands from it. “It’s like it’s trying to swallow my hands,” he said, wiping his hands on his T-shirt. “Sucking them in.”

“Take it home,” Andy said. She looked up to the house to see her mother motioning to her from the front window. “Uh-oh. Dinnertime. I’ve got to go.” Her eyes stopped at his swollen cheek. “Wait till your aunt sees you.”

“She probably won’t even notice,” Evan said glumly. He picked up the bucket by the handle. “What are we going to do with this stuff?”

“We’ll take it back to the toy store tomorrow,” Andy replied, taking long strides across the lawn to the house.

“Huh?”

“That’s what we’ll do. We’ll simply take it back.”

Evan didn’t think it was such a hot idea. But he didn’t have the strength to argue about it now. He watched Andy disappear into the house. Then he headed slowly back to Kathryn’s, his head throbbing, his stomach aching.

Creeping along the wall of the house, he slipped into the garage through the side door to hide the bucket of Monster Blood. Sliding it behind an overturned wheelbarrow, he realized that the bucket was full to the top.

But I gave Andy a big hunk of it, he thought. The bucket had been only two-thirds full.

I’ll have to find a bigger place to put it, he decided. Tonight. Maybe there’s a box or something in the basement.

He crept into the house, determined to clean himself up before seeing Kathryn. She was still busy in the kitchen, he saw, leaning over the stove, putting the last touches on dinner. He tiptoed up the stairs and washed up. Unable to do much about his swollen, red cheek, he changed into a clean pair of baggy shorts and a fresh T-shirt, and carefully brushed his hair.

As they sat down at the dining room table, Kathryn’s eyes fell on Evan’s swollen cheek. “You been in a fight?” she asked, squinting suspiciously at him. “You’re a little roughneck, aren’t you? Just like your father. Chicken was always getting into scrapes, always picking on boys twice his size.”

“I wasn’t exactly picking on them,” Evan muttered, spearing a chunk of beef from his stew with his fork.

All through dinner, Kathryn stared at his swollen cheek. But she didn’t say another word.

She doesn’t care if I’m hurt or not, Evan thought miserably.

She really doesn’t care.

She didn’t even ask if it hurts.

In a way, he was grateful. He didn’t need her getting all upset, making a fuss because he was in a fight, maybe calling his parents in Atlanta and telling them.

Well… she couldn’t call his parents. She couldn’t use the phone, since she couldn’t hear.

Evan downed his big plate of beef stew. It was pretty good, except for the vegetables.

The silence seemed so loud. He began thinking about his problem—the Monster Blood.

Should he tell Kathryn about it?

He could write down the whole problem on the yellow pad and hand it to her to read. It would feel so good to tell someone, to have an adult take over the problem and handle it.

But not his Aunt Kathryn, he decided.

She was too weird.

She wouldn’t understand.

She wouldn’t know what to do.

And she wouldn’t care.

Andy was right. They had to carry the stuff back to the toy store. Give it back. Just get rid of it.

But in the meantime, he had to find something to keep it in.

Evan waited in his room until he heard Kathryn go to bed, a little after ten o’clock. Then he crept down the stairs and headed out to the garage.