Creeps Read online

  RAZORBILL

  CREEPS

  DARREN HYNES’S first novel was Flight, published by Killick Press in 2010. Hynes has also appeared in theatres across Canada, including the Canadian Stage Company, the National Arts Centre, and the Stratford Festival. His film and television credits include Lars and the Real Girl, Heartland, Republic of Doyle, Degrassi: The Next Generation, and Hockey: A People’s History. Hynes lives in Toronto. Creeps is his first novel for young adults.

  ALSO BY DARREN HYNES

  Flight

  RAZORBILL

  an imprint of Penguin Canada

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published 2013

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (WEB)

  Copyright © Darren Hynes, 2013

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  Publisher’s note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Manufactured in Canada.

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Hynes, Darren, 1972–, author

  Creeps / Darren Hynes.

  ISBN 978-0-14-318714-1 (pbk.)

  I. Title.

  PS8615.Y53C74 2013 jC813’.6 C2013-903338-6

  Visit the Penguin Canada website at www.penguin.ca

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  * * *

  FOR LIAM

  JANUARY

  Unanswered Prayers

  ONE

  Dear God or whoever,

  Could you make me popular so someone will see me and smile and the volleyball team would high-five me in the corridor and the principal might even say my name over the PA system? Could you make me strong enough to lift a medicine ball and do the flexed-arm hang and complete at least twenty push-ups so they won’t call me faggot? Could you make me taller? It would be great not needing a chair every time I wanted something in the cupboard above the stove.

  Mostly though I’d just like you to keep Mom away from the train and Dad away from the Bacardi Dark and my sister Wanda away from Nickelback. Also her Diet Coke habit is out of control. Is it true that aspirtame aspartame causes cancer?

  This is a big one, God or whoever, but if you could make high school pass as quickly as possible I’d really appreciate it. I know I shouldn’t wish my time away but it’s hard to be somewhere when you don’t fit in. Mom says that it’s selfish because there are people who’d kill for another MINUTE let alone an entire three years. You’ll wish for the time back, she says, but I doubt that.

  I walked behind that girl with the dead father this morning. She didn’t look back although I’m sure she knew I was there. Wearing sneakers and here it is January. No hat or mittens. Jacket too small. Marjorie’s her name but Maple Leaf’s what they call her. They say she’s easy and loves it all the time.

  Yesterday I humped the snow and had to pretend like it was a girl but then Bobby laughed and said: a boy more like it.

  Your friend who humps the snow,

  Wayne Pumphrey

  TWO

  Something explodes against Wayne Pumphrey’s back. He turns around just as a snowball whizzes by his chin. One hits him in the stomach. Another strikes his shoulder. They’re the hard and heavy kind, the after-a-wet-snow kind. One comes awfully close to his eye. He raises his arms. “I surrender.”

  Four figures approach: Pete “The Meat” Avery, followed by Kenny Saunders, Harvey Stool, and Bobby Power. Pete is called The Meat because he lives in the weight room and has fat veins running along his biceps and can make his chest muscles move without touching them.

  Bobby’s grinning and Harvey’s smacking his fist into his palm while Kenny rounds a fresh snowball.

  Pete goes right up to Wayne and stops, then signals for the others to stop too. He smooths his almost-a-moustache and says, “Where do you think you’re going, Pumphrey?”

  Wayne goes to lower his arms but Pete makes a fist so Wayne keeps his fingertips pointed skyward and says, “Same place as you.”

  Pete takes a step closer. “Not ahead of us, you don’t.”

  Wayne smells StarKist tuna on The Meat’s breath.

  Bobby folds his arms across his chest. “You always walk at the back, Pumphrey.”

  “That’s right,” Pete agrees. “Your place is behind us, Pumphrey.”

  “Not too close behind though, eh, Pete?” Bobby adds.

  Pete nods and says, “That’s right. Lord only knows what this pervert might try.”

  Bobby laughs. “Yeah.”

  “Fuckin’ rights,” goes Kenny. He’s hardening the snowball now.

  Harvey keeps smacking that fist into his palm. He horks up a big green one and lets it dangle from his lips before sucking it back up into his mouth again.

  Wayne looks away.

  “Could barely hit him, he’s that skinny,” goes Kenny.

  Bobby says, “Built like a girl.”

  “Got a pussy, I bet,” Kenny says.

  Harvey snickers and Bobby goes, “Good one, Kenny,” and The Meat brings his face even closer to Wayne’s and says, “That true, Pumphrey? You really a chick?”

  Wayne shakes his head, then tries lowering his arms, but again Pete tells him to keep them where they are.

  “It’s burning,” Wayne says.

  Pete looks back at the boys. “Listen to him: ‘It’s burning,’ he says.”

  “That’s the piss running down his leg,” says Kenny.

  “Yeah,” Bobby says, “it’s the piss.”

  Harvey’s palm is red now from his own fist.

  Pete focuses back on Wayne. Shakes his head. Clicks his tongue against his bottom teeth. “You go and piss yourself, Pumphrey?”

  “No.” Wayne’s shoulders are about to catch fire. He’s shaking from cold, or is it shame? Nose running. A dome of snot over the left nostril.

  “Look at him, Pete,” Kenny says. “Mommy didn’t wipe his nose this morning.”

  Wayne goes to wipe but Pete digs a finger into Wayne’s chest and tells him, for the last time, to keep FUCKIN’ STILL. Then he says, “You’re disgusting, Pumphrey. You’re what’s in the toilet bowl when I’ve eaten too many toutons.”

  Harvey and Bobby give each other high-fives.

  Kenny tosses his snowball in the air and then catches it.
/>   A school bus in the distance, the driver tiny behind the steering wheel. He slows as he approaches, veers right. Palms pressed against windows, squished noses and unhinged jaws, wide eyes. It rumbles by, a brief plume of exhaust left in its wake. Then silence. Four sets of eyes right on him. Wayne looks away, in the direction of the mine, then upwards where the mushroom cloud of iron ore dust hovers above it like a mistake. He imagines his father beneath that cloud somewhere, his hard hat tilted to the side and soot encrusted in his moustache, underneath his nails, between his teeth. What would his old man say about the raised arms and the snot and the school bus loaded with gawking children, he wonders.

  Pete’s voice brings him back. “What’s his punishment gonna be?”

  Bobby raises his hand.

  “Yes, Bobby?” says The Meat.

  “Kick him in the balls.”

  “Jesus Christ, Bobby, everything’s balls with you.” Pete looks over at the others. “Whaddya think, Kenny? What should Pumphrey’s punishment be for walking ahead of us?”

  Before Kenny can get his suggestion out, Wayne says, “I didn’t know you were behind me.”

  Pete locks eyes with Wayne. “You arguing with me, Pumphrey?”

  “Oh, you’re dead, Pumphrey,” goes Bobby. “Arguing with The Meat.”

  Tears in Wayne’s eyes.

  “Hey boys, get a load of this,” goes Pete. “Little girl’s crying.”

  “I’m not.”

  “No? What’s that coming from your eyes then, Pumphrey? Cream of Wheat?”

  Because wiping his cheeks would mean having to lower his arms, Wayne lets the tears roll down his face, onto his lips and tongue. He tastes salt and snot and remnants of the baloney and Honeycombs he had for breakfast.

  “Tell you what,” says Harvey.

  “What?” goes Pete.

  “I say me and Bobby hold ’em while Kenny throws that snowball he’s making right at the little pussy’s face, and if he so much as flinches we make him hump the snow like yesterday.”

  “Fuckin’ rights,” goes Kenny.

  “Yeah!” Bobby shouts.

  Pete shakes his head.

  “Why not?” says Harvey.

  “Because it’s supposed to be punishment.”

  So much laughter now it almost seems to be shooting up from the ground, or falling from the sky. Bobby’s clapping and Pete’s holding his stomach and Kenny’s just dropped his snowball and Harvey can barely breathe and Wayne starts running.

  Now there’s no sound other than his own heartbeat and a ringing in his ears and his boots thudding off the frozen street. The school’s in the distance, shit-coloured against the grey morning, and he imagines sitting in a plastic chair and scribbling in a notebook and feeling safe for a moment, but then there’s a load on him and he’s falling and the wind’s knocked out of him. And Bobby’s bearing down all his weight and smirking and breathing, and Wayne wonders if the heavy boy has ever heard of Colgate.

  “You’re dead now, Pumphrey,” says Bobby, “running from The Meat.”

  Wayne struggles to move. “I can’t breathe.”

  Pete comes over and orders Bobby to get Pumphrey to his feet and hold him because Kenny’s about ready to let his snowball rip.

  Bobby stands him up, his fingers digging into Wayne’s left arm. Harvey’s got Wayne’s right one.

  Kenny’s not six feet away, kicking at the ice to find some traction and chewing the inside of his cheek and furrowing his brow and squeezing the snowball in his hands, while Pete stands there like an umpire ready to either fly off the handle or pat a bottom. “Don’t flinch, Pumphrey,” he says, “this’ll only take a second.”

  The school bell and then a skidoo’s engine. Somewhere a barking dog.

  Kenny lines up his shot. Gives Pete a look.

  Pete nods.

  Kenny draws in a big breath and lowers his chin into his chest.

  Wayne imagines a broken nose or a black eye or, even worse, a concussion. He too draws in a breath and holds it, readying himself for impact. That’s when he sees her walking towards them: jacket too small and wearing sneakers despite the icy street and no hat or mittens and her hair’s messy and her cheeks are red.

  Kenny draws back. Follows through—

  She screams—

  Kenny releases the snowball too soon, not enough torque, its trajectory slightly off course.

  Wayne forces himself to stay still, to heed The Meat’s warning, but then there’s a cry beside him and Bobby drops and blood’s staining the street.

  THREE

  Bobby’s on all fours searching for his tooth. “You don’t suppose I swallowed it, do ya, Pete?” he says, his voice breaking.

  Pete’s too busy staring at Marjorie to answer. Marjorie with the dead father and who eats alone in the cafeteria and who, according to rumour, inserted a whole package of frozen Maple Leaf wieners up inside herself. A half-moon scar on her left cheek that they say she did herself to commemorate the cycle the moon was in when her father died.

  Bobby’s voice again. Steadier. “Found it!” He holds up the bloodied, rotted tooth. “Can they put her back in, Pete?”

  Pete, his eyes still on Marjorie, says, “Once she’s out she’s out, dickwad.”

  Bobby stares at his tooth for ages, then puts it in his pocket. Grabs a chunk of ice and presses it against his top lip. He glares at Kenny. “You’re fuckin’ cockeyed!”

  “I got distracted.” Kenny points at Marjorie and says, “Blame Maple Leaf.”

  Pete The Meat shoots Wayne a look. “Girlfriend showed up just in time, Pumphrey. Must be your lucky day, eh?” He tries in vain to stifle a laugh. “Not so lucky for Bobby though … he’s just lost one of the three teeth he’s got left.”

  Bobby takes the ice away from his mouth. His lip looks like a snake after it’s swallowed a mouse. “It’s not funny!”

  “You’re right, Bobby, it’s not,” Pete says.

  Harvey can’t stop smiling. “It is a little.”

  “Pete!”

  “Easy, Bobby, Harvey’s just foolin’ with ya.”

  “Tell him to stop.”

  “Give it up, Harvey,” Pete says. “How would you feel if you didn’t have enough teeth to chew your food?”

  Kenny says, “A custard diet soon enough.”

  Everyone laughs save for Bobby.

  “Fuckers,” Bobby says. He spits a glob of blood onto the street.

  Another bus drives by.

  Another school bell, too.

  Everyone looks at Marjorie. She’s long outgrown her jacket, Wayne thinks. Why else would it cling to her like that? Doesn’t even reach her waist.

  Pete says, “How long you two been goin’ out, Maple Leaf?”

  Marjorie doesn’t say anything.

  The Meat steps closer. “Figured you’d try the real thing, eh?”

  “Thank God,” says Kenny. “My folks were getting sick and tired of going to Dominion and finding all the wieners gone.”

  Pete laughs. “Good one, Kenny.”

  She speaks then. “Leave Wayne Pumphrey alone.”

  Pete says, “Listen, boys, IT speaks.”

  Marjorie slips her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. “Can’t find someone your own size to pick on?”

  “How ’bout I pick on you?”

  Wayne says, “Leave her alone,” but when no one acknowledges he’s said anything, it occurs to him he’d only mouthed the words.

  “Big man, eh, Pete?” Marjorie says.

  “That’s right.”

  “You think you’re something special, dontcha?”

  “Mind your mouth, Maple Leaf.”

  “You’re no different than the rest of us.”

  “No? I don’t need the meat department at Dominion to get laid, do I? And I’m not a midget faggot like Pumphrey over there.”

  “A midget faggot,” Bobby repeats.

  Marjorie pauses. “Is it true what I heard?”

  The Meat smooths his almost-a-moustache again.
“I don’t know, Maple Leaf; what did you hear?”

  Marjorie looks over at Wayne and then back at Pete. “That your real dad’s not the one you live with.”

  Someone gasps: Harvey—no, Kenny, it’s Kenny.

  Bobby says, “You’re in for it now, Maple Leaf.”

  The Meat stops blinking and his jaw goes slack and he licks his lips and swallows and looks right at Marjorie and says, “What did you say?”

  Before Marjorie can repeat it, Kenny suggests that maybe it’s best they go, but Pete tells everyone to stay put. “No, I want her to say it again. Come on, Maple Leaf, go ahead, or have you lost your nerve now?”

  “Let’s go, Pete—”

  “Shut up, Kenny—”

  “Your real dad’s not the one you live with, I said.”

  So quiet.

  “That, and you had a tough start.”

  Pete goes right up to Marjorie (close enough to kiss her if he puckered) and stares right into her eyes.

  Wayne notices the thick fingers of Pete’s right hand curling into a fist, so he moves towards him, then stops, and realizes he hasn’t moved at all.

  “You gonna strike a girl, Pete?” Kenny says.

  “Don’t know. Maybe.”

  Marjorie doesn’t move.

  Pete speaks again. “What about your real dad, eh Maple Leaf? Where’s he? Oh right: rotting in some box.”

  It’s like everything stops, or rather moves in quarter speed. The only way to process the words. Rotting in some box, that’s exactly what The Meat said.

  Marjorie stares at Pete with her sky-blue eyes that are the colour of Wayne’s comforter. They’re a commander’s eyes after trudging through a field of slaughtered soldiers.

  A gust of wind.

  Snowflakes as big as peaches.

  Kenny goes over and puts a hand on The Meat’s shoulder. “Forget it, Pete. She’s nothing.”

  No one says anything.

  Pete slowly unfurls his fist and nods, and a sly grin lifts the corner of his mouth. “You’re right, Kenny: she’s nothing.” Then to Marjorie, “How does it feel, Maple Leaf? To be no one? You’re practically not even here.” He laughs and the others laugh too, so he holds out his palm and Kenny slaps it and says, “Fuckin’ rights.”