The Twelve-Fingered Boy Read Free Page B

repeating this, and I don’t even know what’s going on. I’m going to get pissed off if he starts to cry. Which might happen. It looks like the waterworks are primed.
    â€œNothing, man. It’s nothing. Asthma attack, I guess. Used to get ’em when I was younger. You know. Moms is a smoker.”
    Jack’s shaking his head, looking down at me. But he doesn’t argue. I don’t know what the hell just happened. I looked at his hands; then things got crazy.
    His fingers. I can see his hands clearly now. He has twelve fingers, six to a hand. They look so normal you’d never notice unless you were looking directly at them. Weird.
    Jack sees me looking, sees me counting.
    He swallows. Starts to say something. Stops. Starts again.
    â€œIt’s cool, Jack. You got fingers. Big deal. Ox is freakish large.” Jack winces at the word
freakish
. I have a way with words, you know? Words are my thing. That’s how you sell. How you survive in a world full of people like Ox, people wanting to take from you everything you have. But I probably shouldn’t say stuff like that to Jack.
    â€œI was born this way. It’s not like I chose to have twelve fingers. Please don’t tell. People will get hurt.”
    I think about this. Jack didn’t ask for the extra fingers. I didn’t ask for a sloppy-drunk mother or a ghost for a father. But we got them, didn’t we? We got them. Ox, on the other hand, could try not to look so damned ugly and beat on folks. However, if he did that, he wouldn’t be any use to me. So there’s that.
    But the kid is different. You can find guys as large and as tough as Ox in every block. Ringo from E Wing is as stout, and Ponty from D is as tall. But twelve fingers … that goes beyond the population of Casimir Pulaski Juvenile Detention Center for Boys. It goes beyond my experience.
    He’s a rare bird, this Jack. But what does it mean?
    â€œYeah.” Might as well be honest with him. He seems like a cool guy if you can get past the silences. “It’s a monster of a world, always giving us gifts we don’t want. Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.”
    Jack smiles then. He’s obviously not used to doing it, and the smile is an uneasy one. But it changes the whole configuration of his face, the smile.
    â€œThanks, Shreve.” He exhales. “Thank you. You don’t know how bad it can get—”
    â€œI got an idea, pard.” I cough and stand up. My stomach grumbles a bit, and I’m reminded breakfast is waiting. “I’ve lived with a clown for a mother since I was little. I know how it feels to be in the circus.”
    Jack nods. He looks at his hands and then back up to me.
    â€œI didn’t know my parents.” He’s not shooting for sympathy; he’s not angry, not anything. It’s just plain fact.
    I clap him on the shoulder. “Hell, Jack, you’re not missing anything there. Trust me on this one.”
    He tries to laugh and fails.
    I guess I do, too. Not as funny as I thought it was.
    Then Sloe-Eyed Norman calls for headcount, and we take position outside our door.

THREE
    On the inside, where all the wards wear orange, everyone tries to be different. Some with crazy dos, some wearing earrings, the more desperate scratching tats on their hands with black pen ink and needles. Kids talk big, walk big, kick out their chests, tell jokes in overloud voices, laugh hard at unfunny jokes. They try to put a stamp down on themselves. They want to define who they are, and who they aren’t, by drawing lines in an ever-changing sandbox.
    But the ones who are different, the ones who really would stand out if their differences were known to the general pop, well … they don’t want to be different at all. They want to be just like everybody else. The boys so desperately trying to be different, well, if they get a whiff of something truly foreign, they’ll