The Catcher's Dreams (FEATURED)

CHAPTER EIGHT - tomatoes

"Say something."

It was part of a dare.

Drake couldn't.

It was recess, precisely 10:46 AM and manmade grass on the far corner of a field, where the teachers wouldn't see. Dangerously close to the forest and the wasp nest, but no one cared. The glows, all bumping into each other like drunk manatees, were all poking at him, scratching at him. So close, so tangible that he could've stroked them with his fingertips as they bubbled in the humid spring heat.

No more glows. Drake couldn't take another glow. He'd taken two this week; one human, one ant. Two was too many for one week, according to his new year's resolution.

"Speak," Zachary commanded him.

To open one's mouth and make noise made one vulnerable to consuming nearby glows. Yet Zachary couldn't care enough to understand. The rotting tomatoes came over Drake as Zachary shouted louder, "Speak, you idiot."

A chorus of Year Four "oohs" rose up from the gathering crowd at the mild insult idiot.

Drake shook his head mutedly, mouth clamped shut. He willed them to go away, but they had surrounded him: girls and boys, all part of the game.

"Speak!" Zachary's cheeks had flushed red. Or was that his glow blurring Drake's vision?

Part of Drake felt sorry for Zachary. He looked like a cooking tomato, sweating under the heavy weight of whatever he had to carry on those broad shoulders.

That sympathy was quickly extinguished when Zachary kicked him in the leg. Their classmates fell silent like raindrops, because though it didn't happen often, they knew what this meant. It meant provoking a fight.

Drake shook his head again. When that didn't work, he kicked Zachary back.

The tomato balled his fists, dark hair a much shorter, neater version of Drake's as it fell in his eyes. "Talk!" he shouted, turning heads. "What do you have to say for yourself, you little sissy?"

Drake leveled himself calmly, for he knew the boy who just called him little was a good head shorter than him. He was ready for the bull to charge. Zachary was seeing red. Drake was seeing Zachary's glow. 'Same difference', as the school kids said. It had started to wrap around Drake tauntingly.

Open your mouth, little sissy, it said.

Open your mouth and take me away.

Zachary came.

He swung at Drake, who ducked. Red intensified. "Hi, I'm Drake von Hirsch," Zachary squeaked. "Just say that, will you?"

No. That's not my name.

He came back, this time kicking Drake in the knee, causing him to buckle. Tomatoes broke up laughing, but uneasily, for their opponent hadn't made a move in his defense. "What do you have to hide? You're the least interesting person in our class, and your hair is atrocious."

Drake clutched at his knee. He clasped a hand over his mouth.

"Untalented. Unpopular. Sissy. Can't even play football. Sissy. Sissy. You're like a girl. Get a haircut."

There was another gasp, louder this time. One girl clasped her hands over her mouth. Zachary had said a word before "haircut". Drake blinked.

Say something.

I can't.

Zachary threw his football at Drake. It slammed into his stomach.

You're supposed to kick it, not throw it at people.

"You worthless unwanted orphan," Zachary shouted.

Drake clamped both of his hands over his mouth.

"I'm. I'm, I'm. I-I'm not an orphan," he spoke into his palms.

"What was that?" Zachary came closer, smiling. "Say that again?"

Drake shut his mouth as the glow enveloped him, but he got a whiff of tomatoes. Sauce on pasta. Spaghetti with meatballs, and a gentle male voice.

"Don't you have a sister, too? Bet she wants nothing to do with you either, like my brother wanted nothing to do with her."

"How do you..." Drake asked, throwing his hands aside. "What...your brother..."

His words faltered, and tomatoes came closer.

Don't breathe. Don't breathe.

I'm going to faint.

I have to.

I can't.

And thus Drake inhaled. It was a submissive inhale, head bent and cowering under the liege of hurried exhales that followed, but it had done enough.

Tomatoes disappeared in a pulpy crimson flare. Zachary stumbled and fell to the ground, tanned muscles convulsing as he gasped.

Then he got back up. He stood there on the fake grass and looked at the sky.