Free Crap Kingdom by D. C. Pierson Page B

was. He wasn’t sure he knew himself. He didn’t even know what to call it. He wasn’t going to tell anyone, so that saved him from speaking its name aloud. But he still had to think about it. And he couldn’t just make a random noise in his head every time he thought about it, the way they did when they were referring to it: “Gghurrrghhpfp” or “Wrrrrrrrrrrrrt” or whatever. He’d asked his brain to come up with a temporary name for the kingdom so he could use it while thinking about whether or not he wanted to go back there. His brain had answered:
    CRAP KINGDOM.
    It fit. He knew, and frequently used, words way stronger than “crap,” but it wasn’t like this nameless kingdom was so offensive that a stronger word would even apply. It was bad, but no effort had gone into its badness. It was just plain
crap
. It would have to try harder if it wanted any other swear-word name.
    He didn’t like that he thought of it that way. Every time he thought of it as Crap Kingdom, it seemed crappier. It was like the time an elementary school friend of Tom’s had gotten tagged with the name “Stinky,” and though Tom had never thought of him that way, the more other kids called him that the more Tom started to notice,
Hey, you know what? He is kind of stinky.
And Tom was never sure if it was just that he’d heard him called that so many times that his mind suddenly tricked him into thinking this kid who had once been his friend really was stinky, and it didn’t really matter, because if you kept hanging out with Stinky you might get tagged with a mean name yourself. “Stinky 2” or something.
    Tom had always felt awful about that and he hoped he was now mature enough not to let a nickname for a thing come to stand in for the thing itself. He was almost an adult. He couldn’t wait to be an adult, in fact, and adults took things as they came. They realized that everything wasn’t always going to be exactly how you wanted it, even fantasy worlds. After all, it was still a magical universe that was a secret to everybody but him. Wasn’t that enough?
    CRAP KINGDOM,
his mind answered.
CRAP KINGDOM.
    “Do you need to talk about anything?” Kyle said.
    It was a weirdly mature question coming from Kyle, and Tom felt bad for making their friendship, which consisted mostly of penis jokes and quoting
The Venture Bros
., so momentarily serious.
    “No,” Tom said. “I’m okay.”
    After eating just about nothing at lunch, Tom went to his fifth-period class, American History, and continued staring into space, thinking and worrying. He wasn’t missing much by not paying attention, because his teacher, Mr. Marshall, had turned what was supposed to be a lecture on Patrick Henry into a slide show of pictures of himself and famous basketball players he’d had the pleasure of teaching summer youth sports workshops with. The lights were off, which made it even more jarring when the door opened and the room flooded with light, and standing in the doorway was a police officer.
    Mr. Marshall paused in the middle of a story about one of his famous basketball buddy’s hilarious golf cart antics and nodded to the police officer. The cop nodded at Mr. Marshall, then looked out at the class.
    “Tom Parking?”
    Tom’s stomach, not weighed down by any lunch, jumped all the way into his chest.

    It was the middle of the period, so there weren’t a ton of kids around to stare at Tom as he and the police officer made their way down the hall. But the kids they did pass, all of them swinging oversized cardboard hall passes in one hand, stared at Tom and his police escort hard enough to make up for it.
    Tom wondered what he was accused of. Was it illegal to climb into clothing donation boxes in the Kmart parking lot? Maybe it was one of those wacky laws they printed on kids’ menus at buffet restaurants, strange stuff from cowboy days that was still on the books, like, did you know it’s illegal to hitch your horse up outside of a post