“Blind went away somewhere in the night again,” Stinker said, hugging the glove he’d just caught. “Where, I wonder?”
“If you’re so curious, go follow him sometime and see for yourself,” Wolf suggested.
The glove smacked him in the jaw, and he swatted it away.
“I was going to,” Stinker said. “Except he’d hear me. So there wouldn’t be any sense in my doing it.”
“Leave the poor rodent alone,” Humpback said to Magician. “Can’t you see, it’s eating like crazy because of you?”
“That means it’s working,” Magician enthused. “It must be eating to put on some extra weight, because it’s afraid of disappearing!”
Siamese Rex came in, covered in dirt and scratches, steeped in the stink of rotted fish. He stumbled to the bed and lay on it, face to the wall, without even glancing at his brother.
Sissies tactfully avoided asking questions. Hamster, free of the attention, sneaked under the bed. Wolf started drawing a tattoo on his cheek.
Siamese lay very quietly. The only part of him that was moving was his hand, scratching words into the wall with a razor: DEATH TO LAME. Max came closer and looked over his shoulder.
The House was awake. The teachers and counselors might have been sleeping, the dogs and the television, but not the House. From its bowels, from right under its roots, music emerged, seeping through the walls and ceilings, making the House tremble slightly. The nexus was in the basement.
The dark figures of Poxy Sissies crawled along the dark hallways. Magician’s crutch thumped softly. Elephant huffed, burdened by the weight of Stinker on his shoulders. The cavalcade of white nightgowns proceeded down the stairs. They opened the front door and went out into the yard, blackened by the moonless night. Still in lockstep they stole closer to the basement windows and sat down on the ground next to them. Then lay flat. The basement had been turned into a bar, and the seniors were going wild down there. The windows flashed orange and green, the glass vibrated to the jumps of the dancers. It was a crazy kaleidoscope with human silhouettes whirling inside. The boys looked in breathlessly.
There was only one thing more awesome than the seniors’ fights, and that was their entertainment. Beer benders, otherworldly dances of the glued together, wheelchair waltzes, and the wild, screeching music. Who knew how and where they got it from. Sissies peered intently into the low windows, desperate to prove to themselves and each other that they could see something there, even though nothing could be discerned apart from the changing lights. But they were free to get both deaf and blind, and to die of envy. They lay with their noses patiently stuck to the cold grating, blinked in unison with the flashes, and after some time started to truly believe that they did see something.
Grasshopper, wedged between Siamese and Magician, inhaled the colors: now orange, now green, white, blue . . . and the wailing music. Every time the song rose to a high-pitched squeal he expected that, right at that moment, accompanied by the din and clatter of this beautiful orgy, a senior girl would burst out of the basement window astride a broom and soar into the black sky, trailing sparks and unbridled laughter. It would be Witch, of course.
“I GOT TO RAMBLE, OH, YEAH, BABY, BABY!” the song shrieked.
She would leave a jagged hole in the glass, and then everyone else would fly out of that hole. They would glide down to the ground and then spike right up—one, then another, and another, streaming along the ragged clouds, turning into laughing demons as they went. And the only thing left of them in this world would be their amulets on torn strings. That’s what the song was about. The seniors swayed, jerked, flamed in different colors, but remained rooted to the floor. They could not fly away, the basement was holding them, tethering them to itself. There was no one to break the glass for them.
“OOH, BABY, BABY!” The song was ringing in Grasshopper’s ears. The colors flashed. Orange! Green! White! Blue!
His breath was ragged in the throat, his mouth open, he was coiled like a spring.
“IT’S CALLIN’ ME!” Green! White!
