The Unfortunate Story of Roddy Mayhem, Julie Steimle [i can read book club TXT] 📗

other side of the apartment where there was a hallway. I stared at all the top of the line tech and perfectly modern furniture in between here and there. They really were stinking rich. “Over there. Rick’s got the guest room set up for you both.”

Tom grinned. He slapped me on the back and urged me further into the room. “See? He’s a good guy.”

Dan made sure the door was shut and the security system activated, including cameras watching the outside hall and lobby below. Rick was somewhere in the kitchen with James, chatting over something in a low voice. I could hardly hear him, though his imps shouted for him to start a movie and get out the ice cream… even though it was way too late. My mouth drooled for the ice cream.

“Later,” Tom whispered to me.

He then pushed me along toward the guest room.

The guest room had two beds. One was one of those roll out beds—what’s it called—oh, yeah, trundle beds. The fact that a rich guy owned one made me wonder how often he hosted people just crashing at his apartment. I could have sworn he didn’t actually live in LA, but was more of an east coast guy.

Tom dumped all the shopping bags on the bed I was to sleep on, then laughed with a look to me. “You don’t actually have pajamas, do you?”

I shook my head. I always slept in what I was wearing. What street guy had time or space to change into PJs?

Chuckling, Tom nodded. “I’ll get you some.”

He then walked straight through the wall as if it were second nature. I looked to the door, wondering why he could not just go the normal way… until I reminded myself that no one here would have cared. I had been so used to hiding what I could do, I never really thought about doing things differently.

Tom walked back through the wall holding a pair of plaid PJs, extending them to me. “Put these on.”

I took them, then stared at them, figuring right away whom they belonged to. I paled, staring up at Tom. “He’d kill me.”

“No, he won’t,” Tom said, plopping onto the bed he had claimed, ripping off his shoes and tossing them over his shoulder. The guy lifted off his fancy coat and expertly tossed them to a nearby chair back where it landed like art. “Rick can handle to lose a shirt or two.”

“What about pants?” I asked, holding up the pajama bottoms.

Tom laughed. “I’ve seen him sleep in the furry buff.”

It took me a minute to realize that he meant Rick had slept as a wolf who of course never needed pajamas.

So I changed clothes.

Tom hopped sock-footed off his bed and over to the near cabinet where he dug out a small suitcase. Opening it, I saw him fetch tooth paste and tooth brush. He peeked at me then with a flip, hopped right over me to the door. I honestly was now amazed he had sat still for as long as he had at that restaurant. This seemed to be more his nature—a guy bouncing around and walking the walls. This was the Trouble I had heard about. The imps around us were giggling, following him.

But anyway, his weird departure gave me the privacy to dress in peace. I was left to my thousand jumbled thoughts which with the imps around me screamed for me to jump through the outside wall and make my way back to my beach. It wasn’t winter time. Who was I to be stuck in a fancy rich place? I mean, did I really need to sleep in a bed?

And yet as I dropped my clothes on the ground and felt the soft and warm pajamas against my skin, no beach sand or salt in them, I was struck by an overwhelming sleepiness. It was like I had been caught by a cloud and the angels were singing me lullabies.

I sat down on the mattress, pushed off all those shopping bags and lay down. The pillow was wonderfully soft. The mattress was like nothing I had ever slept on. And the blankets were…

I konked out before I realized how exhausted I really was.

Disorientation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Five

 

 

I awoke with a foot in my face. It took me a minute to realize it was Trouble’s foot. I had first thought it was Dervish’s. Or Spastic’s. But as I rubbed my eyes and stared at the unfamiliar ceiling, I realized that it belonged to Tom Brown because standing in the doorway with a bowl of cereal in his hands was that wolf man, Rick.

“My PJs? Really?” Rick shook his head then gestured for me to follow him.

His imps didn’t even shout at him to swear at us. He was hardly even mad.

I slid off the bed and followed him out into the main living area. Rick pointed to one room. “You will want to shower—”

“I didn’t say—”

“You need to shower, then.” He cut me off with a meaningful eye. He touched the tip of his nose. “I’ve got a wolf’s nose, and you stink like seaweed and sweat. Now do you want to do it before breakfast or after?”

I was stunned. I had expected to be steered and pushed everywhere, but he was asking my opinion on the subject. “I… I want to eat first.”

He smiled, waving me to follow him back to the kitchen.

I did, trailing after the wolf man with uncommon-for-me feeling of gratitude. We stepped into a pristine, modern kitchen space with all the fancy gadgets and one ginormous fridge. It could have held a dinner party inside—no need to leave the refrigerator space. Rick opened it and drew out orange juice with a gesture also to what was on the island counter, which was boxes of cereal, milk, a bag of bagels (which looked like they were thawing from being stored in a freezer), and cream cheese.

“There’s more in the fridge,” he said. “Help yourself.”

It was too irresistible to ignore. I hopped to his refrigerator and opened it up. Surprisingly the contents were sparse—mostly filled with condiments and restaurant leftovers. There were, however, boiled eggs, sausage, and a bucket of cold fast food chicken which apparently was being emptied over the week.

“We don’t come here often,” Rick the wolf man said. “So what we have is what we’ve recently bought.”

I helped myself to a chicken leg while resisting the temptation to fill my pockets with the rest of the packaged food in there. He had a drawer full of leftover ketchup packets, which I did collect a few of.

Then I went to the stuff on the counter, taking up a bagel. Then I looked for some honey, going to the cupboards. I was not a fan of cream cheese.

“So, did Tom tell you about Gulinger?” Rick asked, scooping up more cereal to his mouth while I pushed aside jars of peanut butter and boxes of organic food, stevia sweetened graham crackers, and random other boxes. “What to expect and all that?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

Rick seemed to wait for more as I kept looking. There was jam, but I didn’t want jam. Jam was for cookies and dry bread.

“And he got you clothes with Eve,” he said, watching me continue my search.

I nodded.

He chuckled. “Did he tell you that you will be fitted with a school uniform when you arrived?”

I froze in my search. “A uniform?”

Rick nodded. “Everyone gets one.”

I frowned.

 

“I didn’t like mine either,” Rick added, smirking at me. There was something a little impish about him too. His imps were telling him to tease me about all the things that might freak me out about the school—such as certain teachers and some of the strict school policies, but he only said, “What are you looking for, by the way?”

“Honey,” I said, going back to my search.

And he laughed. His imps exploded in laughter too. They were now really encouraging him to tease me—as clearly there was no honey in the house. “Um…” Rick shook his head, thinking of a kinder way to word it… though after a few moment he saw that I had figured it out. “Sorry. We have no honey. I’m allergic. Werewolves are.”

I stared. I also stopped searching. I knew he wasn’t lying to me. Tom had said Rick had lots of allergies for being a wolf.

Gazing almost fondly at me, Rick said, “You know, you are very different from Tom.”

I stared more, blinking.

His smile was in his eyes as he explained. “Aside from Eve and Tom, you are the only other half imp I have ever met. So can I pick your brain for a minute?”

This startled me. For a moment I thought he was thinking literally. But then I realized he just wanted to ask me stuff. I nodded.

He said, “Tom has always been extremely distracted, and I have seen imps he and Eve have caught—but do imps really shout so loud that you cannot think?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“And plugging your ears does nothing,” he added.

I shook my head. “Not a thing.”

He seemed ponder that. Then he said, “Gulinger has only ever had the one half-imp. We’re going to be sending over four…” He shook his head. “I hope Mr. Wilderman is up to it. He was a good sport with Tom, but I don’t know how he’ll fare with all four of you.”

“Four?” I wondered whom he was also bring to New York. Who else had they caught?

He nodded, one eye on me. “Yeah. We made the offer to the younger ones—Gulinger or under the eye of the feds at prison with that freaky dude, Dervish.” Then he eyed me more. “You’ve got horns. And that guy Dervish has pretty big ones. I never thought it possible but… uh. I’ve been proven wrong before. But is it true what Tom says? That imps with huge horns are practically evil?”

I stared at him. Then, realizing it was not accusatory, but merely curious, I replied, “Totally true. The bigger the horns, the older the imp—or the more evil the imp. Often it is the same. The older an imp gets, the more wicked his suggestions.”

Rick gazed at me and said, “Your dad, then, must have had huge horns.”

That remark kicked me into the gut.

But then he said, “Because you seem so levelheaded. And Eve tells me all imps have horns.”

It was true all imps had horns. But me—levelheaded?

Waving it off, Rick said, “All of us have family issues. Don’t let it bother you. I mean, Tom didn’t meet his dad until he was fifteen, and the guy practically turned the school upside down when he showed up.”

“He met his dad?” I was surprised. Tom had said it, but I had not quite believed it.

Rick nodded. “Yeah. Is that not common?”

I shook my head.

“Oh.” He stared at the countertop, thinking.

You know, for a rich dude who had everything—wolf or not—he did not act like one. I mean, ok, he was comfortable in the apartment. He acted like it was his home, and it was his home. But he was not one of those snotty-faced one-percenters who thought they were elites over the rest of us peons. The wolf was basically down to earth in a weird I’d-rather-be-rolling-in-the-dirt sense than wearing-Armani-and-loving-it sense. I even think he