Free Trophies by J. Gunnar Grey Page B

earlier
    At school, it took me two days to snuff out
Langstrom and figure out what to take from him. For the most part,
he had only the ordinary belongings that a first-year would have:
uniforms, schoolbooks, a soccer ball. He took no specialized
classes such as art, which would have left a sketchpad lying
handily about, and he kept no personal books of any significance.
The deeper I delved, the more boring he seemed, and I wondered at
my own idiocy in selecting him for a companion.
    Only when I had the lid of his chest open did
I see the photograph, a posed Langstrom family portrait, the five
of them smiling at each other or the camera. The mother, sitting,
encircled her two young daughters with her arms and they leaned
their blond Fabergé eggheads toward her. Langstrom Senior,
standing, draped that long arm casually across his son's shoulders
and stared proudly at the camera with an expression I could only
regard as sappy, particularly as he seemed to be the original
egghead and should have known better than to spread his genes about
with such abandon. The photograph was wedged into the underside of
the lid, between two slats that formed an impromptu frame, and it
drew me like a gravity well.
    I looked no further. I slid the photograph
free, shut the chest, let myself out the window, and at the
greenhouse gathered all my booty together. With my original cache
betrayed to Langstrom, a move was necessary. I stuffed my pockets
and set out for the small woodland that neighbored the school.
During soccer that afternoon, I had spotted what seemed from a
distance to be a much better, permanent hiding place.
    The rear of Corwald Prep, past the wings and
greenhouse, led directly to the soccer field, which was bounded by
a rail fence with the little woodland beyond. Once across the
stile, I struck off through the underbrush, using the penlight in
brief flashes to find my path. Again the forbidden night called to
me, and again my soul expanded to meet it. I sucked in deep
breaths, pausing twice to close my eyes and revel in the night and
its scents. The stars looked like chips of ice nestled above the
treetops, close enough to yank from their black-sky drink.
    Even at night, the oak tree I had marked in
my mind was easy to find, its gnarled roots the only ones curving
out of the ground as if it found the open air more desirable than
its native environment, or it was reaching for something it
couldn't have. For that reason, I decided against using those roots
as my hiding place: they stood out too much. Instead, I searched up
the trunk until I found a narrow hollow. It was just big enough;
the spyglass, penlight, knife, and photo, wrapped in more of the
sacking, squeezed inside. I closed up the hole with a bit of bark
and returned to the dorm.
    Langstrom, of course, raised a fuss and
didn't hesitate to snitch, and I found it entirely satisfactory to
make him eat his words. But he went to Hardenbrook as his
instructor of choice, and that's when my juvenile world began
falling apart around me.
    Hardenbrook didn't knock. He strode into the
dorm, hair as usual not quite combed, shirttail working free, one
shoe untied. He wore the first scowl I'd seen on his face, equal
parts anger and disappointment, and he stared at me with his lips
thinned to a straight line as he crossed the room.
    I rose from beside my footlocker. The
lingering euphoria of the night shrank within me to a small, cold,
indigestible lump within my stomach, as if I'd swallowed a hefty
chunk of ice. Even for me, classes with Hardenbrook had been a
lark, and he'd allowed me to take the part of Bottom as the
first-years had read Shakespeare aloud during the first two weeks
of term. The experience had convinced both of us that my instinct
had been accurate, that the part had been written centuries ago
specifically for me, and I'd started looking forward to trying out
for the role in the spring performance. I'd rather relished the
opportunity to play myself as a bit of an ass,