CHAPTER 1
John
stood in the back of his group, hands in his pockets and head ducked, trying
his best to blend in with the wall. His
class was on their yearly field trip.
This year they were visiting the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in
Pittsburgh. They had been broken into
groups, each led by one of the museum’s docents. John had slid his way into a group of girls
in his grade who pretended he wasn’t there and left him alone. He preferred it that way. They were entering the special exhibits room
as another group was leaving it. His
group backed into a line against the wall to let them pass. The group leaving the room included “The Crew”
as John had labeled them. It was a group
of guys who considered themselves the Jocks of the class, even though their
small school barely had enough bodies to play the few limited sports available,
and they were always last in their division.
Being in eighth grade, he supposed they were the jocks in training for
high school. The guys were following the
popular, i.e. rich, girls. They had
annoyingly expensive clothes and all the latest technological gadgets. They had a habit of looking down their noses
at John, even though he was almost a head taller than them. That was fine with him. The girls never stopped talking and texting
and to this day he hadn’t heard them say anything but nonsensical prattle. The girls left the room in single file, not
sparing a glance at the “lesser,” i.e. poorer girls and John waiting against
the wall. The Crew followed, lifting up
their shoulders and puffing out their chests to make them look as big as
possible. As they passed John, each one
took the trouble to bump shoulders with him and grumble a derogatory
remark. John had heard them all
before.
“John
Boy!”
“Farmer
Brown!”
“Nice
overalls, hick!”
“You
smell, Amish boy. Don’t they have
showers where you come from?”
“Nice
boots loser!”
He almost
wished they would come up with some new material. No matter how much John braced himself
against the words, they cut into him, chipping away at his confidence, because
they all had a thread of truth to them.
He was wearing overalls, big heavy
work boots, worked on a farm, and didn’t always have time to clean up after his
morning chores before school. On top of
that his last name was, sigh, Brown. There
wasn’t much he could do about any of it.
He had been adopted from the orphanage when he was six years old by an
older couple who ran one of the few remaining working farms in the county. The couple didn’t have any sons, but plenty
of daughters. It took him months to learn
and remember all of their names. His
parents were hard working, honest people, but they were strict and extremely
old fashioned. They weren’t Amish, but
they may as well be. Girls were not
allowed to do the majority of the work at the farm because it was “man’s work.” That’s where John came in. He was their free laborer. John was grateful they rescued him from the
orphanage, but there was little affection between them and even less
money. His father insisted on the steel
toed work boots, saying that he needed proper footwear to perform his duties on
the farm. They were very nice work
boots, but they were his only shoes.
When he was younger he didn’t know the difference, but now… well they
were the object of many taunts and jeers.
He wished he had regular jeans to wear, but his father wore overalls, so
of course they had him wear overalls. As
his father got older, John’s responsibilities grew, and mornings were frantic
with work. If John missed the school bus
it was a six mile walk to get to his school.
Consequently he didn’t dare miss the bus. More and more he had to run in from the
fields, grab his books, and race to the bus stop without even enough time to
kick the chunks of dirt from his boots.
Normally
John didn’t react to The Crew’s bullying.
If he did and got caught (and it seemed he always got caught), his father
would punish him. When it came to his
word against the word of The Crew, school officials always sided with the well
dressed polished boys. Today however,
John was out of his element in the huge museum and he grew more uneasy as the
day dragged on. Todd was the last of The
Crew to pass him. Todd was the largest
of the bunch and was their self-appointed leader. As Todd walked past, John stuck out his steel
toed work boot, tripping the guy. All
the girls in line giggled and laughed behind their hands. Todd righted himself and whirled on John, his
hands clenched into fists, his broad face turning an ugly shade of red. The teacher was only a few steps behind them
so Todd angled his back to the teacher and growled, “Better watch out, John
Boy!” Todd caught up with his buddies
and they all turned to look at John, the menacing intention on their faces
clear. John had just moved himself to
the top of their hit list.
John
didn’t know what had come over him. His
stomach tumbled and fell to the floor.
He had only moved his foot a mere six inches! One on one John felt he could handle any one
of The Crew. His never ending work on
the farm had made him strong and he was tall for his age. The problem was that there never was only one
of them; The Crew moved in numbers. John
dragged his feet more than normal as he was the last of his group to shuffle
into the special exhibits room.
The
docent had already started her speech, standing next to a huge statue on a
platform in the corner. As John joined
the back of the group he caught a few words.
“Unknown
origin…very old…excellent condition…very lucky to have it here…on tour…found in
a hidden storage facility in Germany after World War II.”
John
lifted his head to get a look at the statue.
A
strange tickling sensation started at the top of his skull and traveled down to
his shoulders. He shook his shoulders in
response but his gaze was locked on the statue.
It was made up of two stone figures.
There was a man holding onto a rope that was lassoed around the ankle of
a girl. The girl was frozen in motion as
if she was trying to turn towards her captor with a scream on her lips as she
stood on one leg, the other leg pulled behind her by the rope. The man was tall, probably six foot two, and
wore what looked like patches of leather sewn together with rawhide. It had an old European look to it, but John
didn’t know much about those things. The
girl however was wearing what looked like a modern sleeveless dress that
swirled about her knees, and she was barefoot.
He heard the docent mention something about how the mixed styles of
dress made it hard for experts to pin point its origin and sculptor, but he
wasn’t really listening. John had an
inexplicable rising feeling in his chest that felt like it was drawing him to
the statue. He wormed his way closer to
the exhibit until he was standing at the velvet rope that blocked off the
platform. He vaguely acknowledged that
the docent had finished her story and was leading the group to the next
artifact on display. John was rooted to
the spot, staring at the statue, the tug in his chest growing heavier. He kept tabs on his group as they toured the
room, while he stayed where he was, drinking in the lifelike detail of the
sculpture. When the docent led the group
out of the room, John reluctantly pulled himself from the statue and joined the
end of the line at the door. This was
the last part of the directed tour. The
class was to get a short amount of free time to roam the museum on their own
before they had to get back on the buses to go home. John shook his head, trying to clear it from
the strange attraction he had to the statue.
He suspected The Crew would be out for him after the stunt he pulled
with Todd, and he had to be on his guard.
The
line stopped when he was only a few people from the door and he looked over the
tops of the girls’ heads to see what was the cause of the hold up. It looked like they were waiting for an
elevator. The docent and teacher were
gone as were half the girls, apparently filling up an elevator car and leaving
the rest to follow as soon as the next car came along. Movement on the other side of the hallway
caught his eye. It was Todd and The Crew,
impatiently waiting for the crowd of girls to clear so they could get to
John. Their group had obviously already finished
their tour. John ducked his head down
before they saw him. He was acutely
aware of the lack of teachers or any adult for that matter. He turned around quickly scanning the room
for a way out. This was the only door. John silently cursed to himself as sweat
broke out on the back of his neck. The
Crew had never truly targeted him before, seeming content to throw verbal
assaults at him, but he had heard stories of others not so fortunate. One guy a grade above him criticized one of The
Crew by the lockers at school in front of a crowd of students. The Crew bid their time until they could
catch the unlucky upper classman by himself, then they beat the crap out of
him. They never got punished; the school
simply didn’t believe them capable of such a thing and it was the word of many
against the word of one. It didn’t help
that the kid’s father was a nobody in town, without money or influence. John knew how things went. That is why his heart began beating faster
every second as he frantically tried to come up with a plan on how to get out
of this unharmed. The room was made up
of several exhibits in glass cases on floor pedestals and larger items
displayed against the walls. There was
no place to hide and no other way out; he was trapped.
His
gaze was pulled back to the statue. It
was on a platform that was angled in the far corner. The platform was a solid boxed sort of thing,
so there was no crawling under it. There
was a gap between the platform and the corner of the room, but he didn’t see
any way to get there. He heard the
elevator ding, signaling the arrival of another car. He was out of time. Before he could think about what he was
doing, he ducked under the velvet rope, hiked himself up on the platform, and
carefully stepped over the rope part of the statue connecting the girl to the
man. As soon as he was clear, he dropped
down into the small space between the platform and the wall. He barely made it. He heard the elevator doors close with a
chime and the hall fell silent. John
felt like his heart was going to beat right out of his chest. He heard The Crew as they barreled into the
room, full of pre-teen angst and self-righteous fury. Todd shouted, “Time’s up John Boy! It’s time to find out what happens when a
worthless piece of farm dirt like you messes with one of us!” The other guys made grunts and other noises
of support. John thought, “What were
they, apes?” He imagined them thumping
their chests as they scoured the room.
John was thinking of renaming them “The Ape Crew.”
John
held his breath as he crouched deeper in his hiding place.
“I
know you’re in here!” Todd shouted. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
Several
of the goons snickered in response. John
heard them shuffling about, only feet away from him. John barely breathed for risk of being
discovered. Eventually all the noises retreated
and gathered in the center of the room.
“He’s
not here Todd,” one guy said. “There’s
nowhere for him to hide,” said another.
“He must have slipped into that first elevator without us seeing,”
commented a third. “Where else could he
have gone?”
Todd
made a growl of frustration and John pictured him kicking one of the display
pedestals and breaking a toe, or two. No
such luck. “I’ll get you John Boy!”
threatened Todd. “You can’t hide from me
forever! Come on guys, let’s go look
upstairs where his group was heading.”
As
the boys left the room John wondered the logic in threatening a room they
deemed empty. He shrugged and added a
mental point to the new “Ape Crew” title.
John
waited in his spot as he heard the guys leave on the elevator and all became
silent. He didn’t move. He figured he should wait out the rest of the
assigned free time and then make a bee line for the bus. Luckily he didn’t ride on the same bus as The
Ape Crew. He forgot to wear his watch
and he couldn’t see a clock from his position.
His legs started to cramp and his feet started to go numb. Finally when he couldn’t take anymore he
stood and quietly stretched his aching limbs.
Blood surged back into his feet, giving him that unpleasant pins and
needles feeling.
He
silently hauled himself back up onto the platform and carefully stepped over
the rope part of the statue. He got one
foot free and clear and shifted his weight to that leg and slowly lifted his
other leg over the statue. He was almost
over. He started congratulating himself
on his quick thinking and his luck that no one caught him on an actual
exhibit. He only had a few more days of
school to get through until summer. If
he could avoid The Ape Crew until then, they probably would forget about him
over the summer. In the fall they’d all
be starting high school so there would be a lot to distract them. He could always hope.
He
had his other foot over and he started to lower it down to prepare getting off
of the platform. At least he thought his
other foot was over the statue, but it wasn’t.
Later he would wonder if it was the numbness lingering in his feet or
just the sheer size of his work boots that caused the accident. Regardless, his foot caught on the rope part
of the statue between the man and the girl and he tripped.
His
face went flying towards the platform and his other foot kicked back up behind
him as his body went horizontal mid-fall.
Between the jerking of his two feet in those darn steel-toed work boots,
the rope part of the statue broke.
John
heard the crack of the stone shattering as he tucked his head in his arms right
before he hit the platform. He landed
hard on his left shoulder and rolled to the ground just as he heard another
loud CRACK and a plume of dust and stone pieces rained down on him.
As
bits of dust and stone settled throughout the room John thought, “Oh crap!”
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