Free Pressure by Jeff Strand Page B

the covers, facing the wall. He had a towel draped over his neck.
    “Darren…?” I whispered.
    It was obvious from his breathing that his sleep was feigned, but I didn’t repeat his name. We all silently undressed and got into bed. As far as I know, nobody slept.
    The next day was predictably miserable. I spent most of my time sitting in class, pretending to pay attention while I tried to think of a cover story that would keep us from getting in trouble. But what could we say? The best I could come up with was that we’d been goofing around, playing rodeo, and that one of us had looped the rope around Darren’s neck and accidentally yanked too hard. But that was a dumb-ass cover story and would put all the blame on us. No, if the events of last night were discovered, Darren was going to be revealed as the sicko that he was. I’d make sure of that.
    Darren wore the same blue turtleneck shirt every day that week (the only one he owned, presumably) and as far as I know none of his teachers questioned the wardrobe choice. He never said a word to us and spent most of his free time furiously writing in his journal.
    I noticed that he no longer left it on his shelf. He either kept it in his book bag when he left the room, or he slept with it under his pillow.
    I desperately wanted to know what depraved things he was writing in there, but short of holding him down and taking it by force, I didn’t see any way to do so.
    That said, after a full week I began to relax. Peter seemed to be more or less over the initial misery of losing his pet, and his cheerful nature started to return. Just a smile here and a laugh there, but it was a promising sign that Darren hadn’t destroyed his spirit.
    On the other hand, Jeremy no longer cracked bad jokes or interrupted card games to write down witty observations. Several times I caught him just staring at Darren, jaw clenched, filled with so much rage that I thought a few hundred blood vessels in his face might simultaneously burst. Darren was the one with the power, and it was making Jeremy absolutely nuts. And a week of relative peace had done nothing to ease his hatred.
    But me, I realized that I could finally eat a meal without being sick to my stomach. That is, sick to my stomach from stress. The food itself remained crappy.
    I sat with Peter and Jeremy in the dining hall, eating something for lunch that was either beef, chicken, veal, or some sort of breaded vegetation. It was one of the nastiest things they’d ever served.
    “I’d rather eat a dried turd than this,” Peter noted. “Jeremy, let me have a dried turd. I know you’ve got one somewhere.”
    “Ha-ha.”
    “Ho-ho.”
    “Hee-hee,” I said, with expert comic timing.
    Jeremy finally grinned. “I’d rather lick the butt of a skunk in midspray than eat this.”
    I nearly choked on my food as I laughed in mid-swallow.
    “I’d rather eat a hairy dried turd than this,” Peter said.
    “That’s just gross,” said Jeremy. “There’s no need for that.” He took a bite of his whatever and began to chew very slowly with his eyes closed. “Oooooh, it tastes so much better if you imagine that it’s a skunk butt. Oh, yeah, sweet, delicious skunk butt. Skunk butt with parsley…that’s what I’m eating.”
    “Mmmmmm…dried turd…” said Peter, licking his lips.
    I was biting the sides of my mouth to keep from laughing and attracting undue attention to our table. Jeremy opened his eyes and took another slow, sensuous bite, but he frowned as Darren sat down in an empty chair next to him.
    “What do you want?” Jeremy demanded.
    I kicked him under the table. Jeremy kicked me back.
    “I just wanted to see how you guys were doing,” said Darren.
    “We’re doing good,” I assured him.
    “That’s cool. And I wanted to say something to Peter.”
    “Yeah?” Peter asked.
    Darren looked Peter directly in the eyes. “Woof-woof.” Then he smiled, pushed back his chair, stood up, and casually walked away.
    We had