Strange Perceptions Read Free Page A

mom started hiding her purse. Anyway, I rode the bus that day and I knew Dennis Spleenk gets off a couple stops after me, so I just stayed on the bus after live me got off. I wasn’t sure if it’d work because, you know, it gets harder when you’re further away from your body.”
    “So I’ve heard.”
    “I found out if you’re really focused on something, then it’s not as hard. I was curious what Dennis Spleenk was up to. I thought he might have a shrine to Ivy in his closet or something. When he got off the bus I followed him. He went home, into his kitchen, makes a pbj and I’m thinking shit, it’s getting hard to stick around and there’s this horrible noise in my head.”
    He totally had my attention.
    “Only the noise is just in my head, you know? Spleenk doesn’t hear it. I’m ready to give up when he grabs his backpack and sandwich and goes to his room. I followed him thinking maybe he’d have pictures of Charles Manson up on his walls or some shit like that, but nope. His room is clean like a hotel room. His walls are bare except this print of a sailboat above his bed. It’s straight out of Leave it to Beaver.”
    “Weird,” I said.
    “Yeah. So I’m starting to feel nauseous watching this loser. I figured it was time to go when he takes his camera from his backpack and hooks it up to his computer. Now I’m hooked. I have to see what he does with the pictures. I’m looking over his shoulder at what he’s doing on the computer. Really focused, you know? And it’s like the noise in my head doesn’t even matter. I’m waiting to see what he does next. He gets up, while the photos are downloading, and locks his bedroom door. He comes back and puts the pictures in a folder named “Ivy” and starts a slide show of her.”
    “So he’s obsessed?”
    “Yeah, except here’s the deal. Some of the pictures are just of her face photoshopped onto naked women. He sticks his hand down his pants and I split. No way I’m sticking around while he wanks.”
    I thought about what Jeremy had said, too embarrassed to mention I had thought of Ivy while spanking the monkey, several times.
    “Isn’t that messed up?” he asked.
    “Yeah,” I agreed. “Not cool. But that doesn’t mean he’s going to try to rape her.”
    “I know, but it got my curiosity going. So I kept watching him. Stalking the stalker so to speak. I see him buy some shit off Mitch Henry.”
    Mitch Henry was a major drug supplier at Warner’s Crest High. Adults didn’t suspect him because he’s clean-cut and gets good grades and hangs around the good kids and knows how to brown-nose the teachers better than anybody.
    “So I get close to them,” Jeremy said. “I hear Dennis Spleenk ask how many to use. Mitch tells him roofies are tricky and asks if his target would be taking alcohol with them.”
    “Now that’s scary,” I said. “How do you know he’s going to use the roofies on Ivy?”
    “He has a big heart drawn on his calendar—what a fag. It’s this Friday and the heart has the initials I. R. in it.”
    “Ivy Romaine,” I said. “This Friday, as in tomorrow?”
    “Yeah.”
    We got quiet, thinking. The music cut off. Live Jeremy and live me were leaving, the empty pizza box now balanced in Jeremy’s too small garbage can. Live us were going to my place to check out some music on my computer. Jeremy’s mom and dad wouldn’t let him have a computer in his room. They had a desk in the corner of their family room with the computer facing out so everyone could see your business. At my place there’d be more privacy.
    I heard a sound, like a thousand people whispering, far out in the distance. The noise was barely perceptible, but growing louder.
    “Do you hear it?” Jeremy asked.
    “Yeah. Reminds me of a bunch of crickets or spiders or something, crawling over each other.”
    “That noise happens when you get away from your body,” Jeremy said. “The farther away you get the louder it grows until it’s so loud