finished, he started again from the beginning. He got a Magic Marker and highlighted his favorite sentences.
Chuck liked the sound of the words in his head. Not every sentence made good sense, or not right away. Some of them were bizarre or mysterious, some downright baffling. It was fun trying to figure out what they meant.
There were many other strange, confusing sentences in the book. Yet it seemed gentle to Chuck, not sad or angry. He wished he could understand why it shone so brightly.
At the beginning of September, he started the fifth grade. He went to the normal school, not the special one. Both his psychiatrists had 100 percent agreed: Chuck was normal. He was normal, not special, and definitely not a retard. His pretend dad was just plain wrong about some things. Chuck was five when he began seeing his first psychiatrist. His name was Dr. Diehl, and he called Chuck “Charles.” Chuck liked him anyway because of his glass octopus bowl. Inside it he kept lollipops with gum in the middle. He always let Chuck take one before they began talking. Chuck would suck the lollipop, rolling it over his tongue. The hard globe of candy would become thin and pitted. Sometimes it would taste like strawberry, sometimes like root beer. Eventually, he would crunch through it with his back teeth. Then came the part where he would chew the gum. Sandlike grains of candy would crack open in his mouth. A sweet powder would coat the insides of his cheeks. Eating the lollipop was the best part of Wednesday afternoons. He truly missed it when he stopped visiting Dr. Diehl.
Chuck started seeing his second psychiatrist after he quit talking. They still met once a week, every Monday after school. He was a tall, skinny, gray-haired man called Dr. Finkelstein. Dr. Finkelstein, whose name was almost the same as Frankenstein. Dr. Finkelstein, whose forehead had a triangle of red sunspots. Dr. Finkelstein, with his pencil jar and stack of note cards.
He might ask Chuck, “Care to use your voice today?”
Chuck would take one of the note cards from the stack.
“Why do you think that is?” Dr. Finkelstein would say.
Chuck would tap the pencil against his knuckles awhile.
Dr. Finkelstein would read the card and ask, “Beep, beep?”
Chuck didn’t know why the doctor said such strange things. He would lean forward, smiling, waiting for Chuck to respond. Chuck would gesture at him to return the note card. He would shade in all the
Chuck’s fifth-grade teacher, Ms. Mount, was nicer than Mr. Kaczmarek. She was teaching them about the states and their birds. That was how Chuck knew about New Mexico and roadrunners. The state bird of Delaware was the blue hen chicken. The state bird of New Hampshire was the purple finch. The state bird of South Dakota was the ring-necked pheasant. “Why would Della wear a blue chicken on her head? That new ham you brought me sure is purple, Finchie. Dakota, I’m going to wring your neck,” she would say. This was her way of helping them remember the facts. The circle of her hands tightened around an imaginary neck. She made a choking noise and stuck out her tongue. A sore glistened on the tip like a white crater.
The routine made Chuck laugh with a great big “Ha!” All the other kids turned around to stare at him. First, he was weird, and second, he never said anything. Those were the thoughts he could see on their faces.
That was the morning Todd Rosenthal pushed Chuck during recess. Chuck was waiting in the seesaw line when it happened. He fell forward, landing on the rubbery green Nerf-like foam. Todd hoisted him back onto his feet by the elbow. He said, “I’m going to wring
Todd Rosenthal had been bossing Chuck around ever since kindergarten. Kicking his desk chair and snapping his pencils in two. Firing spit wads at him with a flat popping noise. At lunch, he would sit across the table from Chuck. Chuck never quite knew how he was going to behave. Sometimes he would just eat his Doritos, ignoring Chuck completely. Sometimes he would crush Chuck’s sandwich inside its Ziploc bag. Chuck felt bad for his crushed sandwiches—horrible, in fact. They became swirling oil slicks of peanut butter and jelly. They were marked with the dents of Todd Rosenthal’s fingers. He wished he knew how to put them back together. Todd usually stood behind Chuck in the recess line, too. He liked to bump into him while they filed outside. Or step on his ankle so his shoe came loose. Or whisper, “Will you be my gay boyfriend, Chuck Carter?” But why would Todd Rosenthal want to wring his neck? Chuck had never understood him, not for a single minute. Chuck was weaker than Todd, smaller, a lot less threatening. He kept waiting for all his little meannesses to end.
That day on the playground was like every other day. After Todd said “Chuckie boy,” he said, “Count on it.” He said, “I’ll wring that scrawny neck like a chicken’s.” He said, “When you least expect it, there I’ll be.” Then he slapped Chuck, softly, like a gangster, and left.
For the rest of the day, Chuck’s elbow felt tight. He kept stretching his arm, hoping the joint would pop. The skin rippled slightly where Todd Rosenthal had grabbed him. It was nearly impossible for him to scratch his back.
That afternoon it rained and then gave way to sunlight. The parking lot reflected the sky from a thousand puddles. The basketball hoops dripped onto the pavement like shining halos. At three-thirty, Chuck’s mom picked him up in the car. She took the fast way home, speeding along the highway. The road was drenched with sheets of blue and white. At fifty miles per hour, the seats began to shake. Chuck’s teeth chattered in his mouth like a wind- up toy. His mom honked and shouted “Moron!” at the other drivers. Her voice shivered as she sang along with the radio. They stopped for gas, then groceries, then finished the drive. The rain had washed the dust out of the gutters. The bricks of Chuck’s house were dyed dark with water. They were stacked together like crispy double vanilla sugar wafers. He had not been caught licking them in several months. That was back in February, before the Illumination began. His pretend dad had come storming across the yard, furious. He had promised to whip Chuck, hard, unless he stopped. He couldn’t keep sticking crap like that in his mouth. Seriously, was he that messed up in the goddamned head? He needed to grow the hell up and quit it. Chuck knew the rule by heart: no tasting the bricks. But sometimes, rule or no rule, he still wanted to. It was one more problem he could not figure out.
Chuck left his mom alone to unpack the grocery bags. He dropped his backpack on the floor of his bedroom. A bullfrog mirror hung on the back of his door. Chuck saw himself staring out from inside its shining mouth. The finger-shaped bruises on his elbow were purple and silver. There were five of them—one, two, three, four, five. Five times two was ten, so everything still fit together. He sat at his desk and took out his notebook. The stories he had heard about fifth grade were true. He had lots of homework—too much, in his opinion. Nearly every day he had some new assignment to complete. One night he might have to draw a plant cell. The next he might have to answer questions about Ethiopia. Or color and label the four chambers of the heart. Or fill out the tiny squares of the multiplication table. Or write a paragraph about Benjamin Franklin flying a kite. Today it was time to study for his vocabulary quiz. He would have to spell the words, then define them.
