A single ray from the rising sun sliced through a narrow crack in Jacob’s partially closed blind, illuminating an upper portion of his bedroom wall. As the sun rose higher, the sunbeam sank slowly onto his bed and slid across his pillow, creeping like a spider onto his face. Disgruntled he pulled the covers over his head to block out the light, and for nearly twenty minutes he laid under the comfort of his soft warm blankets lamenting the passing summer. It had all gone by too fast; he couldn’t believe that it was already over with. The extra chores that Uncle Clair had doled out had kept him so busy that he hardly noticed the passing time. And now that school was starting up again, the memories of his nightmarish experience had returned with a vengeance. Ever since that miserable incident at the swimming hole, his luck had gone from bad to worse. For not only was he spurned by his once friendly farm animals and his hard-edged school mates, but now he was also plagued with strange near-death accidents that sought him out like a swarm of starving locust hunting for a ripe harvest to devour. No matter how careful he was, or how thoroughly he thought things through, calamities continued to come his way non-stop, one after another, as if his life’s destiny had somehow changed to be forever miserable.
“Maybe on that horrible day I caught a jinx?” he worried, as he turned on his side and curled up in a tight ball. All his life he had heard talk from neighboring farmers about jinxes and curses so dreadful that they sucked all fortune out of their victims like ravenous vampires, leaving dried up souls with only bad luck and misery to fill in the vacancies. But never in a zillion plus years had he ever thought that such a horrible curse could ever happen to him.
In the last two months, without any warning he had been gored in the rump by a surely bull, sprained an ankle by falling off a horse under full gallop, and almost drowned when he fell into a creek and got sucked under by a waterwheel. Not to mention their farm animals constantly crying out at him, acting as if he were a ferocious predator. There was nothing he could do right, including walking, which always seemed now to involve stepping in strewn farm dung or being repeatedly hit by flying seagull poop. Clearly everything bad was out to get him, he had caught a dreadful jinx for sure, and there was nothing he could do about it. And now that school was starting up again, his loathsome curse was even more frightening, because things were about to get incredibly worse. His classmates would not have forgotten about the swimming-hole incident, and surely he would have to relive their awful bantering all over again. There was no telling what they would say or do to him this time.
He figured it was growing late so he ought to at least be getting up. Reluctantly he threw back his covers and grunted a disheartening complaint, “Dad-gum morning! They always come too fast when ya don’t want to face a gummed up day!”
Uncle Clair’s loud voice suddenly echoed through the hallway and up the stairwell, “Jacob breakfast is ready. You’d best be getting up and moving. You don’t want to be tardy on your first day back to school.”
“UUUHH,” he moaned back in a loud reply. Unhappily he climbed out of bed feeling disinclined to hurry. He loitered a bit before changing, and then dawdled with his dressing. Like a tired old man going to the dentist to pull a loose tooth, he continued his slow pace and ambled down the stairs to his waiting breakfast. The kitchen was now empty and he figured Uncle Clair must have gone outside to saddle Mildew for him. Outfitting her had become a real chore lately and he was glad for Uncle Clair’s occasional help. He heard his stomach noisily rumble as an annoying hunger pang pricked at his insides. In a tick he pulled up a chair and watered down Uncle Clair’s oatmeal with fresh milk. He then mixed it with a spoon and lifted the bowl to his mouth, taking in several hefty swallows. Within only a matter of seconds he had gulped it all down and felt slightly better, when suddenly a clump of regurgitated air shot up his gullet. Franticly he pounded his chest with his fist to relieve the pressure and, “BLUUUURRRP!”
“Mind your manners Jacob,” came Uncle Clair’s voice from behind the doorway. “You should face the cook when you burp. Are you finished already?”
“Yeah, and-er-a excuse me,” replied Jacob, embarrassed that he had been heard.
“Then you’d better get a move on. You’re running late.”
Uncle Clair entered the kitchen and began clearing away the dishes. It was irksome being rushed to hurry when sickening events lay ahead. Jacob stood up with a full belly and shoved his chair back under the table. He reluctantly then stepped into the hallway and picked up his school pack from off the floor. Despondent, he slung it over his shoulder and his fretting started all over again, blocking out a cheerful farewell from Uncle Clair.
“Jacob, I said goodbye and you’d better hurry!” repeated Uncle Clair, this time raising his voice louder.
Upon hearing Uncle Clair’s second parting, Jacob wrenched from his troubled thoughts and responded back with a lukewarm, “Yes—uh—see ya.”
Loath to leave he sauntered slowly toward the door and paused in the entryway. Without realizing how miserable he sounded, he stood for several moments moaning in deep heavy sighs, until finally he drifted out the door towards Mildew. Sensing his approach Mildew gave a nervous whinny and kicked out her rear legs in rebuff. But with his heart mired in pitiful glum, he hadn’t taken offense this time to her unwilling greeting and unconsciously waited for her to settle back down. When she had finally finished her fit, he gave another long sigh and then proceeded to tie off his pack to her saddle. After firmly securing it, he lifelessly mounted her, and found himself once again hanging on waiting for her to stop bucking. By now Uncle Clair was standing on the front porch also patiently waiting. At last, when Mildew finally calmed down, Jacob followed his old school routine by turning to the side, forcing a smile, and heartily waving good-bye. Uncle Clair waved back, and to Jacob it seemed like a final parting before a doomed demise. Tears moistened up in his eyes, while Mildew in a dawdling stride plodded off down the road. Oh how he dreaded going back to school and meeting up with his ratty classmates. He wished with all his heart that he could stay away from that place forever, the unbearable gloom was now tugging at his heart enticing him to skip school and spend the day at the river idly fishing away his time. But could he avoid school forever? Someday he would have to face his tormentors regardless. “So why skip a day and risk getting caught? I’d just be adding worry to my own troubles,” he miserably thought, his circumstances had fated him to absolute doom. “Uncle Clair would eventually find out if he skipped and then there’d be punishments to pay. I’ve just got no other choice; I’ve got to go to school regardless.”
Determined to endure through, Jacob took a deep breath and headed Mildew toward the schoolhouse. He closed his eyes and began to imagine school being far, far away, well beyond Mildew’s ability to travel. “Why if that were so, I’d never see those rats ever again,” he sincerely yearned.
A crisp cool breeze bit at his skin awakening his senses, and through the surrounding trees he could hear birds chirping, delivering up happy salutations for the new day. Nonetheless he couldn’t stand the blitheful moment and tried to return back to his dreaming, wanting to shut the world out completely. Wistfully he continued imagining what it would be like to start over again in a different place; a new town far away from Ridgeway. “Maybe—that’s not so impossible,” he fantasized. “Maybe we could move.” Finding a little comfort in his miserable moment, he recalled how Uncle Clair had once talked about them moving as refugees during the Great War, and he began to reckon that it was about time they did it again. “If we do move things will definitely be better, that’s for sure. I would fit in then and be able to have real friends!” he chuntered, completely blocking out of his mind what was about to occur. He could see it now in his imagination, a new town, a new school, and lots and lots of new friends. He would be popular for sure, with a real second chance.
Suddenly Mildew snorted as she often did when they drew near and immediately Jacob stirred back to reality, opening his eyes just a crack to gaze at the red schoolhouse blurred through a cluster of trees. “But it’s too fast,” he snarled. “Oooh Fiddle sticks! I wish summer could’ve lasted forever.”
Within moments Mildew calmly moseyed into the schoolyard and Jacob sorrowfully stared at his classmates’ horses tied up to hitching posts. It was clear that he was tardy. “Just my luck,” he thought sadly, not wanting to bring any more attention to himself than was necessary. He hurried and dismounted, securing Mildew’s reins to a vacant hitching post. And once again, like an unwanted headache, the sickening memories of the swimming-hole flashed back into his mind. Feeling broken hearted he tarried, recalling every horrible detail; the terrible sneers, the dreadful name-calling, and the stomach-turning discovery.
“Now the whole dad-burned gummed up thing is about to happen all over again,” he moaned sorrowfully.
His stomach lurched with a sudden twinge and he felt queasy, as if a hundred million butterflies were fluttering around inside his tummy. Breakfast didn’t seem like it was such a good idea, and he began to rub his nervous belly gently trying to calm it down. Knowing that he had no choice but to bear up under this tremendous pressure, he bravely untied his pack from Mildew’s saddle and lifted it to his shoulder. Then holding his stomach with both hands to suppress a puke, he ran across the yard to enter the small red building. But in spite of his last minute effort to hurry, the schoolmarm, Miss Kipper, had already started her class.
Hunched over and with a hand over his mouth, Jacob quietly entered the classroom and slithered down an aisle of red desks towards the nearest empty seat. The desks were neatly lined up in rows of four with students sitting in nearly every chair. All were busy taking notes, while Miss Kipper passionately lectured. As he passed by, his classmates one by one stopped their note taking and turned their heads, staring at him as if he had already barfed up his breakfast. Immediately he sensed something was wrong. “Do they all know about the swimming hole?” he worried, having never received so much attention before in school.
“Well Jacob, I’m glad that you could finally make it,” screeched Ms. Kipper, breaking off her lecture and giving him a scowling look for disturbing her class. “When will you learn not to be late? As I expected from you, you started your school year off by earning yourself a detention! Tell your uncle that you’ll be staying after tomorrow. Now class, remember tardiness always leads to failure! Why it is as I always say, Alberto Federico Columbus should have been the one to discover America, but instead he was tardy just like Jacob here and missed his own boat, so in his place his younger brother Christopher got all of the glory!”
Miss Kipper was a young woman in her mid-twenties. Tall and skinny she had a paled complexion and contrasting raven black hair tied up in a tight cumber bun. She wore nothing but black dresses that were better suited for funeral services, and had a pencil thin nose that bent slightly to the side, looking as if she had broken it in a brawl. Her voice squeaked with an unusually high nasal sound, causing any nearby dog to howl and every student’s ears to ring with an annoying buzz. But by far her most eccentric trait was her insane story telling. For Miss Kipper was an accomplished fibster, one of the best, a teacher of unparalleled ability, able to tell incredible whoppers at the drop of a hat and have them pass off as absolute truths. At times Jacob felt that her motivation for bogus lectures sprung from an intense hatred of children, and then again there were other times when he just thought she was totally off her rocker. Either way he could never really be sure, but often just before she would start in on one of her wild lectures her voice would rise up and her high pitched nasal sound would start again, causing ears to ring. Along with the rest of the class, he would then be forced to suffer her brummagem tales, confusing fiction for facts. And not even their parents, who were uneducated country farmers, were able to see through her deceptions.
“Why she’s the greatest thing since the invention of bread!”
“I didn’t know that!”
“How lucky we are to have such a knowledgeable teacher,” were common sayings heard from among the admiring Fathers and Mothers of their community.
“Now where was I,” squealed Miss Kipper in a sharp screech. “Ah, yes! We were talking about Napoleon. Well as I had mentioned before Jacob rudely interrupted us, his greatest contribution was of course french toast. The despot loved to keep his toast warm by holding it smugly underneath his shirt up tight against his hairy abdomen. Just like this!” Miss Kipper then tucked her hand under a fold in her dress and mimicked Napoleon with a stiff pose. The girls in the class began to giggle and she continued to squeak, “But that all came to an end when the French during the famous Maple Syrup Raid at Waterloo captured Wellington’s precious supply of syrup. From that point on Napoleon stopped placing his toast under his shirt, owing to the fact that the sticky syrup painfully pulled out most of his belly hairs and made his stomach gooey. Of course there was that one silly rumor that still persists today, that he was simply hiding an eight-fingered hand under his shirt. Now please listen carefully and take notes as this will be on the test; Napoleon was no freak! That rumor is absolutely false! Now days we historians all agree on one fact, that he did it all for the love of french toast.”
Jacob clutched the strap resting on his shoulder and lifted his pack, swinging it down onto the floor next to an empty seat in front of Derrick Striker. As he sat he noticed the class still staring his way and whispering.
“They must all know,” he worried.
From behind Derrick leaned forward and began whispering into his ear, “You should be in a circus freak, not here with us. Every one of us would pay good money to see you show your belly at a freak side show.”
Jacob grit his teeth and ignored the bully. He then opened his pack and removed a pencil and paper to take notes.
“Hey belly button boy,” quietly continued Derrick. “You must be a real holy man—how much do you charge to show your belly.”
Feeling his temper starting to flare, Jacob held his breath and began to reason, “I’m better than him, why he’s just a brainless knuckleheaded ignoramus that’s all, and I can control myself enough to ignore everything he throws my way.”
“That’s why you live with your uncle,” smirked Derrick, stabbing Jacob with more insults, “your parents didn’t want a freak like you around! So they abandoned you with the only person that would take you in, your wacky uncle!”
Instantly Jacob’s face turned hot with anger and he clutched both sides of his desk with tight fisted hands. In the past Derrick had mostly ignored him, he had never really been the object of his oafish molesting. But now that he was caught up in it, he realized just how much he could be hurt by slander cutting deep down to the bone. Being needled by the likes of Derrick was nothing but pure hypocrisy, and he just couldn’t take it anymore. Without stopping to rationally think things through, he whirled about and faced the ruffian. “You think you’re so wonderful don’t you?” he exploded back, like a firecracker. “But you’ve got a hefty bugger under your nose that won’t wipe off? So you don’t belong here in school, you belong in a circus freak show billed as the Everlasting Buggerboy!”
Derrick’s face suddenly turned reddish purple, spreading a wroth scarlet color all the way up to the tips of his ears. Jacob had said the unmentionable, and Derrick was now on the brink of clobbering back.
“Wait until after school, freak!” threatened Derrick with tears pooling up in his eyes, as he angrily shook a clenched fist in front of Jacob’s face. “I’m going to pulverize you!”