Corvan jolted awake, gasping as if he'd been trapped underwater. Cold sweat trickled past his ear. The nightmare had returned and each night the monster pursued him through the dark caves; the fierce hatred in its eyes was coming closer.
Rolling onto his back, he studied the myriad of familiar cracks in the plaster overhead. He had no doubt the dream was directly connected to a time when this was his grandfather's room. Although the man had mysteriously vanished on the day before Corvan's second birthday, Corvan retained a distinct memory of sitting on the bed with his grandfather, looking out the window, and listening to stories of monsters and caves.
Swinging his shaking legs out of bed, he crossed to the window, sat on the wide sill, and leaned against the jamb. A cool breeze, fresh with the scent of approaching rain, raised goose bumps on his skin. Beyond the golden sunrise on the green of the aspen trees that bordered his back yard, the gentle wind was stirring his family’s crop of golden wheat into waves that swept in to run ashore against a massive mound of granite—his favorite place in the entire world. The rounded sides of the rock climbed thirty feet above the sea of grain in an unbroken curve until it reached Castle Rock, Corvan’s name for the ring of boulders crowning the summit. From his bedroom window, the protective circle of stones looked like the beginnings of another Stonehenge or the ruins of an ancient island citadel.
The fort he had built inside the rocks was his personal fortress of solitude, a refuge from the realities of his complicated life. Unfortunately, unlike his comic book hero, his hideaway was within earshot of his mother’s call from the back porch.
Leaning his forehead into a well-worn bulge in the metal window screen, Corvan searched the outline of each rock, but nothing moved. The creature he had caught a glimpse of the previous week had completely vanished. It wasn’t anywhere near the size of the monster in his nightmares, but the timing of its appearance along with the secrecy surrounding his upcoming fifteenth birthday added to his growing apprehension.
Sitting back, he tipped his head against the window frame and watched the slender cloud fingers caress the blue sky. His father believed that his coming of age in 1952 was of great importance. So far, the only part of the year that held any personal significance was when Mrs. Barron, the owner of the corner store, had given him a science fiction book her son had picked up in the city but didn’t like.
“Consider it an early birthday present,” she had said, her eyes holding a sympathetic glint. “Your mother tells me this is an important birthday for you, and I know things are a bit tight right now with the mine closed down and all.”
The book was entitled, A Star Man’s Son, and each time he read it, he found himself identifying more strongly with its mutant hero, Fors of the Puma Clan. Fors was also bullied and mocked for his appearance, but at least Fors was able to escape his situation with his loyal companion. Corvan could relate to living as an outcast on the great plains. He could only hope that one day he too would break free of the constraints that were holding him back.
Getting out of bed, he stood before the mirror hanging on the short walls that supported the vaulted ceiling of his room. He was the only one short enough to stand up where the sloped ceiling met the wall. At school he had to look three grades below his own to find someone shorter. Some of the younger kids joked that he was the skinny ninety-eight pound weakling in the comic book ads. Corvan looked at his chest. It was true, for every one of his ribs was clearly visible.
The whistle of the kettle in the kitchen below his room interrupted his thoughts. Corvan sighed. He would rather go back to bed and face the nightmare than get ready for another day of school. At least with the monster, he would eventually wake up and the fear would fade. In real life, at least for the past year, his problems at home and at school clung to him like burrs on his woolen socks.
“Corvan!”
He jumped from the window ledge to find his mother standing in his doorway. Her blonde hair was pressed up against the unusually short door frame.
“I should have known you’d be daydreaming again. Didn’t you hear me call you down to breakfast?”
“I was sleeping.”
“I heard you holler,” she said with a frown.
Corvan grinned. “I must have been dreaming,” he said as he retreated behind his bed and pulled on his patched jeans.
“No doubt you were.” She stepped through the doorway, then she straightened to her full height. “I met Miss Thompson at the store yesterday.”
Corvan’s heart dropped at the mention of his teacher.
“She says you’ve been coming in after class has started this past week. I told her you must be dawdling on the way. You certainly leave home in plenty of time.”
Corvan tugged his threadbare T-shirt over his head. He did not want her to see the guilt written across his face. The truth was, he wanted to be late for school—for the rest of the year if possible. His head poked out as the horn of their truck honked twice in the driveway.
“We’ll talk about this later. Your father has been called to a meeting at the mine, and I’m going along to sell my cider at the farmer’s market.” She shot a warning look his way. “Be on time today.”
He nodded, and she retreated down the stairs.
Corvan waited until their truck pulled up their driveway before making his way to the kitchen. Whisps of steam rose lazily from the kettle’s spout. A pot of oatmeal sat on the counter next to the woodstove. With a heavy sigh, Corvan poked at the sticky lumps. He was used to oatmeal every weekday morning, but for the last few months there had been no brown sugar and often they were out of milk. Unless the coal mine reopened soon, there wouldn’t be much of an improvement, at least not before his birthday came around.
A dog barked in the lane. Corvan snatched up his lunchbox and ran to the front door. There was no one there, just a mangy stray slinking through the trees along the dirt track.
Every morning since the start of grade eight, when Kate and her mom had moved to town, she had picked him up on her way to school. But last week she informed him she wouldn’t be walking with him anymore. She wouldn’t say why, and he didn’t like that Kate could be so secretive and stubborn at times. Her distance made for a hard week.
The morning breeze had died down, and the dust from the passing of his dad’s truck hung over their tree-lined driveway. A red-tailed hawk perched on the weathered gate post at the end of the lane. Its dark eyes followed his every move. The intense gaze reminded him of the bullies at school, always watching for an opportunity to swoop in and pick him to pieces.
Picking a stone from the road, he tossed it at the post to scare the hawk away. The large dark eyes blinked in disdain, then it rose into the air with its distinctive screech and soared along the road into town. Corvan ran his dusty hand over his crew-cut hair as he trudged on toward the school. If only he could fly above the world and go wherever he wanted.
The sound of playing children grew louder as he poked his head around the final clump of saskatoon bushes. His one-room schoolhouse had seen better days. It was new when his father attended, but now its faded red paint hung from the rough boards in brittle strips.
Corvan stepped into the gate and scanned the playground. Billy Fry, the biggest bully at school, was nowhere in sight. He breathed a sigh of relief. Billy’s frequent truancy was one of the few things that made school days bearable. Whenever Billy showed up, Corvan could count on being harassed the entire day.
Checking the perimeter of the playground, he spied Kate sitting against the picket fence by the ball diamond. The bangs of her red hair were flopped over her eyes. He didn’t think she noticed him until she jerked a thumb toward the boys’ outhouse. Billy must be inside. He looked across the playground to the school door. This time, rather than hiding out until after the bell rang, he could make a run for it. He would not only impress his teacher with his early arrival, but also be safe inside—at least until lunch.
Taking a deep breath, he squared his shoulders and headed toward the school. Kate and the others would be watching. He couldn’t let them think he was afraid.
The outhouse door sprang open, and Billy stepped into the sunlight as he was looping the strap of his patched coveralls over his broad shoulder. He stood on the outhouse stoop and surveyed the playground like a wolf looking for the weakest member of the herd. His eyes locked on Corvan. A cruel grin spread over his face.
Corvan froze and glanced at Kate. She remained sitting, biting her lower lip, and looking hard in the other direction. He didn’t expect her to always fight Billy for him, but her presence usually curbed the bully’s attacks. In fact, all the boys kept their distance from Kate’s lightning fists. Her light frame hid a feisty fighter who could blacken an eye and get away before a larger opponent could even try to pin her down. If only he could be so brave.
Not to be deprived of his prey, Billy lumbered over to Corvan, glanced at Kate, then dropped his voice to a menacing growl. “It’s good to see you on time cause I gots something to tell ya.”
“I’m all ears,” Corvan replied, attempting to disarm Billy with a grin.
“I can see that.” Billy flicked the lobes of Corvan’s left ear until he winced in pain. “The way these things stick out, you look like Dumbo.”
Corvan tried to pull away, but Billy stepped hard on his toes, pinning him to the ground and forcing him to look directly into the boy’s broad chest. He tried to squirm free from the humiliation, but his shoes might as well have been nailed down with the boy’s weight crushing his toes.
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Kate’s voice cut through the tense air. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”
Billy stepped away and turned to face her. Corvan was free to run away, but he couldn’t let Kate face Billy alone, especially now that the other children were running over to see what might happen next.
“Didn’t ya notice, Kate? There is no one my size in our school,” Billy said with a sneer.
He laughed over the heads of the gathering crowd, then looked back at Corvan. “Maybe Corvan’s dad could fight me.” He spread out his hands out in pretend shock. “Oh, yeah, I forgot. Corvan’s dad is a shrimpy chicken too.” He took a measured step away from Kate. “And you don’t even have a dad.”
The other children gave Kate room. She squinted through her bangs for a long moment. Her jaw was working as she chewed the inside of her cheek. Her eyes flickered to Corvan, lingered on his face, then she spun around and marched away.
Billy watched her leave with a relieved smirk, then turned his attention to Corvan. “My dad says your kind don’t belong in our school. Everyone in town knows your dad’s just a no-account half-breed that can’t even keep a job.”
Corvan stared at the ground and let his arms hang limply at his sides. This was not the first time someone had talked about his father this way. His dad said if Corvan ignored them, eventually people would move on. His father was wrong. Ignoring the comments had only intensified the attacks.
The bell rang, and children scampered around Corvan and Billy to beat each other into the building. He tried to follow, but Billy slapped an open hand the size of a baseball glove on Corvan’s forehead and shoved him to the ground. “Best just stay away from school, Dumbo, ‘cause you ain’t gonna like this one as long as I’m around.”
Corvan got to his knees. Looking through Billy’s legs, he could see Kate watching him from next to the school door, her fists tightly clenched.
A plume of dust exploded in Corvan’s eyes as Billy’s heavy boot skimmed past his head. “No use lookin’ for Kate to save you.” He bent closer. “My dad told her mom about Kate fighting at school, and now she ain’t gonna let Kate help you no more.” The bell fell silent, and Billy’s footsteps faded toward the school.
Corvan knelt and blinked with his head down. He allowed his eyes to water and rinse the dust away. Gritty tears slid down his cheeks as his eyes cleared. Oh great! Now the other kids would think he’d been crying. Grabbing the bottom edge of his t-shirt, he pulled it up to wipe his face clean. The hem tore open.
Getting to his feet, he poked a dirty finger through the hole in his shirt, then slapped the dust off his pants. Now he really did look the part of Billy’s taunts. He looked to the open gate. This would definitely be a good day to skip school. Then again, with his mother and teacher comparing notes, it would not be the best idea.
His shoulders drooped as he trudged to the school building and slipped quietly through the door.
Miss Thompson stood at the chalkboard with her back to the class; the words “Oral Report” printed neatly over her head. He eased the heavy door closed.
“Corvan’s here, ma’am.” Billy Fry’s voice broke the silence like the brash call of a raven. Corvan’s jaw clenched as he headed toward his assigned seat.
Miss Thompson did not turn around. “You’re late again, Corvan. This time you will stay after school to write lines.”
Corvan headed toward his desk at the back of the room. Normally, the shorter kids sat closer to the front, but Miss Thompson had agreed to let him sit at the back with the older children, one row behind Billy. As he walked up the aisle between the desks, the bully shook his fist at him. One row over, Corvan caught a flicker of sympathy in Kate’s eyes.
Miss Thompson’s voice pulled him up short. “Since you’re already standing, Corvan, you might as well be the first to give your oral report about what you did this past summer.”
Oral report? She must have given that assignment on one of the days he came in late. Corvan racked his brain for a topic as he dragged himself to the front of the class. It had been a boring summer as there was not enough money for gas to go camping in the mountains. The weather had been unusually hot and dry, and his father had stayed in the cellar most days or had gone to the caves by the river.
But … something significant had happened the past week, something the others would find interesting. Coming alongside Miss Thompson’s desk, he turned to face the class and found everyone was looking intently at him. Straightening his shoulders, he cleared his throat. This was his time to impress them with a fantastic tale, and this one was completely true.
“This past summer,” Corvan said, pointing out the side window, “I discovered strange tracks around the big rock in our field. The tracks were of three toes with claws and sometimes a tail dragging behind. The tracks would come and go at night from our rock into the fields and sometimes even lead into town. I had to find out what it was up to.”
Kate frowned at him, and Corvan paused. He was going to tell Kate about the tracks when they were alone, not here in front of the whole class. The rest of class, however, were fully engaged and waiting for him to go on. A few of the younger children at the front began to fidget nervously, and the ones at the back were leaning forward to hear more. He’d never had the entire school so intent on what he was saying. He took a step to the front of Miss Thompson’s desk and lowered his voice.
“Last week, I finally saw it up close. I was hiding inside our outhouse and looking out a knothole when it crawled out of our woodpile. It was a lizard, this high!” He held a hand up past his waist. “There were dark blue markings around its chest and face, and it walked like this, upright on its hind legs—”
Miss Thompson’s ruler smacked her open hand, and Corvan whirled around. “Corvan, the assignment was an oral report about your summer vacation, not another of your tall tales.” She shook her head. “You know as well as I do, there are no three-foot-high blue dinosaur-like lizards around here. This is the 1950s, not the Mesozoic era. After school, you will write that out on the board one hundred times.”
She continued talking to the class, reassuring the students that dinosaurs went extinct a long time ago and were not roaming through their town at night.
Could she be wrong? Corvan thought. In a recent story in one of his favorite science fiction magazines, the Mad Scientists club had hatched a dinosaur egg. His own town was close to one of the largest deposits of dinosaur bones in the world. Was it possible for an egg to be preserved deep underground and then hatch when it was pushed to the surface by the spring thaw? Was that why the lizard was so large and walked on his hind legs?
“Corvan!” Miss Thompson’s sharp voice pierced his mental fog. “How many times do I need to tell you to sit down?”
Corvan flinched as the words yanked him back to rows of laughing classmates. His face burned as he walked dejectedly past the younger children to the back of the class. True to form, Billy Fry stuck his foot out. Corvan jumped over it, stumbled against his own desk and scattered his pencils across the back of the room.
Easing himself into the seat, he opened his desk and hunched down to hide behind the lid. At a touch on his shoulder, he looked up. Kate was leaning back to him from the next row, one of his pencils in her hand. Corvan smiled her and mouthed “thanks.” Closing his desk, he took the pencil and unwound a narrow piece of paper wrapped around it.
We need to talk. Meet me at the rock after supper.
Corvan looked up and nodded eagerly to Kate. Now he could tell her all about the lizard and get her help in finding out where it might be hiding.
He was about to write back when the thin strip of paper disappeared into Billy Fry’s grimy hand.
“Billy, what are you up to now?” A weary Miss Thompson walked up the aisle.
Billy grinned at Corvan, then he turned around. “Sorry, ma’am, but Corvan’s writin’ notes in class.” He held the strip of foolscap up to the teacher.
She took the paper from Billy. Corvan slouched further into his chair.
Miss Thompson checked the handwriting and turned to Kate. “Miss Poley, you will also stay after school today and write one hundred times on the blackboard, ‘I will not pass notes in school.’”
“I can’t, Miss Thompson,” Kate pleaded, her voice trembling. “I have to clean the house before my mom gets home.”
Miss Thompson’s posture softened, but Billy Fry twisted to face Kate and mouthed a few nasty words about Kate’s mother behind the teacher’s back. Kate’s eyes blazed, and Miss Thompson’s back stiffened. “Then today you will eat your lunch inside with the younger children and write your lines.”
Corvan’s heart sank. Kate never ate lunch with anyone else, as she rarely brought any. He always made sure that the second sandwich his mother put in his lunch box found its way into Kate’s hand.
Pink crept up Kate’s cheeks as she pushed her shoulders back.
A smug grin spread over Billy’s face. “I bet her mom spent all her money for lunch at the bingo hall,” he snickered.
Miss Thompson whirled about and the crack of wooden ruler breaking over Billy’s head brought everyone to attention, except Kate. Kate was halfway up the aisle before the pieces hit the floor.
“Kate!” Miss Thompson’s voice brought the girl up short at the classroom door. “You do not have permission to leave class.” Her tone eased. “Please take your seat. We can talk about this later.”
Kate’s lower lip quivered as she pulled the bangs even farther over her eyes. She had cried only once in front of Corvan. There was no way she would let the class see her tears.
Kate put her hand on the doorknob. “I don’t need permission to leave because I’m never coming back.” In a flash, she was gone, leaving the students in stunned silence.
Corvan ground his teeth while staring at Billy as the boy rubbed his head. What right did Billy have to make fun of Kate’s home life? It wasn’t like living alone with his father on their run-down farm was any better. If he had the strength of one of his comic book heroes, he’d make Billy pay for all the misery he caused others.
But he was no hero. He hadn’t even stood up for Kate and taken the blame for the note. He slumped deeper into his desk and put his hands on his knees. Once again, he had given in to his fears. Billy was right; he was a chicken, a runt, a pathetic excuse for a human being.
A dark cloud hung over Corvan for the remainder of the day. Fortunately, Billy left at lunch, complaining of a headache. To avoid taunts about his “blue lizard,” Corvan ate by himself in the dugout of the ball diamond and forced himself to listlessly eat both the sandwiches.
After lunch, Miss Thompson announced that she would be gone the following day, so there would be no school that Friday. With Kate wanting to meet up again, the long weekend was looking much brighter.
As soon as classes were over, Corvan wrote his assigned lines on the chalkboard with fervor. He did not want to waste precious moments of freedom. By the time he was finished, his fingers were cramped into a claw. On his way out, Miss Thompson called him to her desk.
“Corvan, I know some of the boys pick on you. I will do my best to see that it stops, but you add fuel to the fire when you tell the class an outlandish story about a giant lizard.” She leaned toward him. “Honesty is a basic building block of a successful life. Think of your father, Corvan, and try to follow his example.”
Corvan nodded but couldn’t look her in the eyes. Mumbling an apology, he turned away and dragged his feet out the door.
On the walk home, he turned her words over in his mind. If he were honest, he didn’t believe it paid to be truthful. People took advantage of his father’s integrity and mocked his dad behind his back. A surge of anger bubbled up in Corvan. His father was a good man, but some nicknamed him Tonto, referring to the Lone Ranger’s sidekick. Others made jokes about his height; he was the shortest man in town, most likely the whole county.
Unfortunately, Corvan had inherited his father’s skin tone and stature. He was a good ten inches shorter than any of the other kids in his grade, and that gave the larger boys ample opportunity to make his life miserable. In the past, he had tried to win their respect by telling fantastic stories, but now that had earned him a reputation as a liar.
He kicked a stone up from the gravel road. By tonight, the whole town would be laughing at his description of the lizard and talking about his lie.
Stopping at the top of their lane, he put a hand on the fencepost and looked back toward the schoolyard. His parents had told him that turning fifteen was when he would leave boyhood behind. If telling the truth only brought more mockery, then it was time to stand up for himself and not back down from what he knew to be real.
I’m going to catch that lizard and prove I was right all along.