Chapter Five

“But there’s a bee in my belly button.”

She wagged her long finger at me and clucked her tongue, telling me that I would never amount to anything if I kept lying like that. “There is no bee in your stomach, Tag.”

“Not my stomach. My belly button.” My belly button. The small indentation in my abdomen where my mother was attached to me, at the time when we were a happy family inside her womb and all she knew about me was that I was beautiful and healthy, and that I’d grow up to be big and strong and live a full life.

“A bee in your belly button? Oh. Well, that’s different. That’s something we could probably take care of, with the proper medical instruments. Do you want to call your father? Maybe he’ll know what to do about that sort of thing.” There was no need to shuffle through the school’s huge rolodex; she knew the number by heart. She picked up the phone and poked at the keypad with long, curled fingernails. They were colored fiery red. Yesterday they were blue.

I waited, listening to the buzz of the fluorescent lighting above me. This was the Nurse’s office, where all the naughty kids visited in the middle of class, either because they were bored or tired or just plain wanted to go home. I waited. Tapped my foot. Bit lightly on my bottom lip. It doesn’t take that long for him to answer the phone. He’s home all day. Where is he? Where’s Dad?

“It doesn’t look like he’s home, Tag.” She would have asked if I wanted to call my mother, except I’d been in there so many times that she knew I didn’t have a mother. That is, she knew I didn’t have a caring mother. A mother that was there. Take note that these were pre-Scar days, when it was me and Dad against the world, and life was good because Mom wasn’t there to mess everything up. Or at least that’s what I hoped Dad thought. All I knew for sure was that Dad was struggling with this thing called “colon cancer” and that I was a jolly fifth grader with nothing on my mind except for having to sit through forty-five minutes of boring math during the next class.

“Why don’t you go back to class, Tag.” Her name was Mrs. Edelmann. She was a German nurse. She knew me very well and, underneath her unsympathetic exterior, I knew she secretly adored me. She always pronounced my name as “Tahg.” As in “guten tag.”

“That won’t be necessary, Miss Copper. You won’t be going back to class.” Uh-oh. My head whipped around to the entrance of the office. Assistant Principal Lewis. I could tell in an instant that it was her, because her voice was raspy. Probably smoked a pipe in the school boiler room during lunch break. I looked at her with wide eyes, my body enveloped with chills, because there were rumors going around that she bit off a lizard’s head to scare Tommy Atkinson into going to class. “Your aunt is here to pick you up,” she said to me.

“My aunt? There really isn’t a bee in my belly button, you know. I was just faking, just like I always do.”

“Tahg!”

Busted.

“We’ll discuss your daily trips to the Nurse’s office later, all right? Your aunt is waiting.” Lewis’s voice was particularly raspy today. And her eyes were like Judy Phillips’s eyes when she split the skin on her knuckle and broke her leg, falling down the slide.

“Okay,” I said hesitantly, and I began to walk that long, dim hallway. I heard their short, gasping whispers behind me. Looking back, I saw Mrs. Edelmann carelessly rip out a tissue from the floral-patterned tissue box. Which was weird. I was under a strong impression then that nurses never got colds.

“Tag.” Her voice was like sugar. It was like a strawberry popsicle. It made me want to suck my thumb and curl up into a ball and rock myself to sleep. She was loving and caring and, if I had a mother, I hoped that she would be like my aunt. My eighteen-year old aunt. Who drove all the way to my school from the hospital, sobbing, bleary-eyed, and cursing god for making life suck. I knew then and now that life sucked. Maybe that’s why all of them d-… I can’t even say the word. Can’t even think it.

“Tag? Your dad—he…” Just say it. Just blurt it out. I already knew. Dad answered the phone every single day, but today he didn’t answer. Why didn’t he answer? Why wasn’t Dad there for me today? Because Dad flew off into the sky. Dad fell into a deep, eternal sleep, Dad became an angel, Dad will be buried in the ground tomorrow, Dad Died Dad Died Dad Died Dadied Dadied Dadied Dadied.

“Died.”

“Guess what, Aunt Luca? There’s a bee in my belly button.”

“Tag…”

“Mrs. Edelmann! There’s a bee in my belly buttoooon.” I screamed it. The sound echoed in that long, dimly-lit hallway. Heads popped out of classrooms, all looking at me with beady, bewildered eyes. My aunt had Judy Phillips’s eyes. She also smelled old and like the inside of a plastic glove.

“Tag,” she scratched out.

“Bzzzz…You better call my dad! Bzzzz… Bee in belly button, bee in belly button! Where’s my dad?”

“TAG!”

“NO! Tell me he’s not dead! Oh please, please!”

There was silence.

“I’m not dead, Tag. I’m here. We’re here.”

I realized that the voice and its answer were too good to be true. Dad’s voice was smoother, lighter, and always filled with happiness. The voice that I heard was deep and angry. Constipated. (With pent-up emotion; not with what you were thinking. Idiots.)

“Keera, how much morphine did you give her?”

“Just the right amount. Are you questioning my health care abilities? I’ll have you know that I do my job very well, thank you very much. So stop asking me if I’m the cause of her crazy shenanigans! For all I know, she may have been born that way.”

“Quiet!”

“I’m just saying that maybe she was born with some kind of health prob—”

“Honeybunch, please close those luscious lips of yours for one second…”

Fluttering my eyes open, I realized that I was lying in my bed and in my room. With all my stuff in it. Devoid of all the shit on the floor and everything, but it was my room. With Garrett, Cedric, Keera, Zi and Quiet Hooded-Guy bunched up near the doorway.

I stared at them grimly. Their lips were pursed in silence, waiting for me to speak.

“I…”

They looked at me as if they were hanging on to my every word. I was like a child prodigy—a two-year-old about to say her very first sentence.

“I have to pee.” I got off my bed and walked to the door at the corner of my room. I entered my bathroom, closed the door behind me, pulled down the black sweatpants that I was wearing, and proceeded to do my business.

There was an incoherent mesh of whispering being done while I was saving my bladder from impending explosion. They were probably talking about me. Bastards needed to get a life and stop following me around everywhere I ended up. That’s all I had to say about that. Life was weird enough without them. Life. Life. Was that the right word?

“Am I alive?” I asked while flushing the toilet. (I bet you Aristotle and Socrates and all those egotistical nerds thought about life when they were on the can, too. I was no different. Except for the nerd part.)

I stared at myself in the mirror. My face was unnaturally pale and gaunt, as if Dr. 90210 liposuctioned me to the max and covered my face with white makeup. My hair was dyed to a natural brown, and I smelled like soap and sweet shampoo. Which begs the question…

“Who the fuck took my clothes off and showered me? And saw my most private of parts?” I yelled thunderously, enough so that they could hear me loud and clear over the sounds of the recuperating, gurgling toilet.

There was chuckling and snickering behind the door. Bunch of perverts. Saw things they never should have seen in their lifetimes. Disgusting. Crude. Embarrassing. Bluh.

But I continued to stare at my reflection in the mirror. I looked at my chest. Nothing different there. Same old, same old size. But was there something beating beneath my left breast? My right hand trembled at the mere thought, and for a moment I did not dare think to touch it. But the moment’s curiosity tormented me, and I quickly placed my palm over the area. I wanted to know so badly.

“No…” I whispered in a short gasp. Rhythm. My heart, beneath my five fingers, beneath my flesh and blood, my muscle and bone, was beating. I speculated for a moment: In the world where Aunt Luca and Scar were—were their hearts beating? Were they as frightened as I was?

I turned away from my skeletal reflection in revulsion and twisted the doorknob, letting myself out of the bathroom.

The group arose from various sitting positions around my room.

“Hi,” Garrett began. “Welcome.”

Welcome. Welcome? What class. What manners. I couldn’t fucking believe it. What could I say to that? “Thanks for having me”? “I’m glad I could be here”? How about, “Where in the hell am I?” That could work. Logical. Efficient. Almost too simple. But did I want to know where I was? Did I want Garrett, of all people, to tell me? Garrett, who just days ago was the little boy lying on my lap while his body disintegrated into ash?

So I did what any person like me would do. I shifted the burden of conversation to some other poor schmuck. I took my hand and stretched it in front of me, pointing my finger like a crazy fascist toward an empty wall. And I grumbled in my most intimidating voice, “Who stole my ‘Fight Club’ poster?”

Criminals. Amateurs.

There’s one thing you learn about stealing when you learn about stealing. And that is the following: Don’t get caught. You get caught, you’re a moron and you deserve whatever punishment’s coming to you. So don’t get caught.

Cedric burst out with a nervous laugh, and Zi jabbed him in the ribs with her pointy elbow.

“I don’t think a silly poster is something we have to discuss now,” Garrett stated.

“What! You’ve got to be kidding me! You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” I exclaimed. I rushed to the wall and slammed the side of my fist against the area where my poster was supposed to be, hard.

This was the beginning of something I like to call “Tetra-T.” TTTT. It stands for the following: Tag’s Teenage Temper Tantrum. It’s all a joke, really—my way of making other people around me feel awkward so that I can remember the event and laugh about it all later. The last time I did it I was in school, in the gym, and Ms. Kading, the PE teacher, was spitting in my face. “Suspension!” she screamed. “Suspension!” And I threw myself back against the wall, wallowed on the shiny wooden floor, beat my fists on my head, crawled up to her knees and screamed at the top of my lungs. Scar was laughing like a hyena in the corner (as always), but Ms. Kading thought I was so crazy that she forgot all about what I did. I even forgot.

That was a fun Tetra-T, but this one didn’t feel like it was going to be that enjoyable. I knew this because I felt like I had all this pent up frustration in my chest. I knew this because today I got shot dead. I knew this because today I was in a room made out of white nothingness. I knew this because today I vomited my innards. I knew this because today I realized that everything I once knew—Aunt Luca, Scar—they were all dead, and I was alive, even though I didn’t deserve to be.

I was very still. Like a powder keg, about to blow up in the first face that approached me.

“Silly…silly poster?”

“Calm,” Keera started hesitantly in her Cajun accent, “…calm down.”

Hi. My name is Tag Copper. I am a camel. Keera’s words are the last straw.

My front teeth gnawed at my chapped bottom lip as I stared at her. Bitch. You bitch. You were a part of this, and now…and now…

“Tag…” Garret’s voice was a warning.

The mutter of my name galvanized an entertaining sequence of events: my body charged full force in the direction of The Bitch, and when I reached her and grabbed a fist-full of her badly dyed hair, I took my hand—my makeshift claw—and I swung it quickly and violently at her rosy cheek.

“Tag, no!”

I felt pieces of skin and small droplets of liquid beneath my fingernails when I heard the first of many shrieks. In a quick moment, Garrett had my wrists in his tight grip. He was struggling to hug me toward his chest as I attempted to release myself and beat the shit out of Keera, who was now being helped by everyone else in the room. There were four marks of blood running across her left cheek, and her eyes watered.

“Calm down?” I bellowed, trying to charge forward. “I’ll show you how I calm the fuck down. I’ll show you—get the fuck off me!” I yelled, kicking at Garrett’s shins.

I could hear Keera mewling behind Zi, Cedric and Quiet Hooded-Guy.

“That’s right, bitch. I hope you fucking cry your eyes out,” I trashed, worn out by my whipping movements. Garrett pulled me back toward him. “Next time I’ll scratch your whole fucking face off,” I mumbled against Garrett’s chest.

“Shh…” He held me against his torso as if I was a baby, and I knew he wanted to coo and whisper “Everything’s going to be okay” to me. But he didn’t whisper that. I closed my eyes and put my ear against his body, listening to his quiet heartbeat. I supposed he didn’t whisper that because he knew it was a lie. And Garrett was not a liar.

“Everything will be explained,” he assured, whispering into my hair. “It’s tough getting used to and it takes time, but I promise you that you’ll understand it all.”

I screwed up my face and bit my lip hard, refusing to cry—accepting Garrett’s words for the moment.

“Well, I see our Miss Copper is making herself feel right at home,” said an old, crisp voice with the hint of a British accent.

I could feel Garrett’s chest immediately tense at the sound of it, and he politely detached himself from me and stood slightly like a soldier, erect and waiting for orders. “Good evening, Sir.”

Let yourself imagine, for a moment, that you are a young boy named Arthur. (If it’s hard to imagine, I don’t give a shit. Just shut up and do it.) You meet this wizard who’s babbling on and on about this stupid sword stuck in some goddamn stone. This wizard dude is very old, very wise, and very, very wrinkly. Although he looks to be about ninety years old, he stands tall in his sequined purple robe with a pointy hat atop his head, and sports a long white beard, which whips up and down when he speaks. Big, bushy, silver eyebrows make his grey eyes look small, and the little whiskers sprouting from his ears don’t seem half as gross as you expected. He was Merlin.

This dude that was making Garrett and the others in the room shake in their undies?

So not Merlin. This guy stood an inch taller than me, was bald, and had a dark grey beard. His chin was raised and he looked down his pointed nose at me. Many stare-downs during high school have taught me that this look means “I’m a whore who thinks she’s so much better than you.” So was it so wrong of me to decide that early on in the game that I’d be giving this guy a hard time?

After dismissing me with a roll of his eyes, he turned his gaze onto The Recovering Bitch, who was holding her hands over her bloody cheek.

“Keera, my darling child,” he drawled concernedly. “What’s happened to your face?”

“That girl,” she exclaimed with an accusing finger pointed at me, “suffers from acute dementia and is a budding menace to this organization. I would rather die a horrible death than work with a psycho like her.” She glared at me before slowly moving out of the room, Cedric, Zi and Quiet Hooded-Guy following behind her.

“Oh, Honey! You don’t mean that! You’ll hurt Tag’s feelings,” I heard Cedric tell her.

“I don’t care about Tag’s feelings,” Keera whined.

What a fucking immature baby. “Wah, wah, wah. I don’t ca-are about Tag’s feelings. Boo-fucking-hoo.” Like a two-year-old. Well guess what? I didn’t care about her feelings either… So there.

The middle-aged man cleared his throat. “Well, I see that everyone is getting along just fine.” He gave a tight smile. “And how is Miss Copper fairing this evening?”

“Who the fuck are you?” I asked loudly, my arms akimbo. “And call me Tag. I don’t go for all this ‘Miss Copper’ bullshit.”

“Tag.” Moving closer to me, he maneuvered his mouth in such a way that told me he was about to ask a very annoying question: “Like the children’s game?” I saw a slight twinkle in his eyes.

“Like the goddamn children’s game. Who the fuck are you?”

He raised his eyebrows and crossed his short arms over his puny chest. “Tag, do you always use profanity when first making someone’s acquaintance?”

“I always like to give everybody an excellent first impression…” I smirked when I heard Garrett’s chuckle turn into a scoff. “So, again…who the fuck are you?”

“I’m Sir Gideon de La Chapelle. But call me ‘Sir,’ please. Everyone calls me ‘Sir.’”

“Everyone, huh? Well in that case,” I said deprecatingly, “I hope you don’t mind that I call you Gideon.”

The last time I saw a look like the one Gideon was giving me right then was back in the ninth grade. We had this English teacher, Mr. Simon, and Scar and I would stay up late on the phone, giggling about him. Scar was all, “He does not wear a toupee, you moron!” and I was all, “You want to bet? I’ll bet you twenty bucks.” The next day at school, in Mr. Simon’s class, I raised my hand and told him that his toupee was on crooked. The blubbering idiot thanked me, and made a move to fix the goddamn rug on his head. When the whole class started laughing its ass off, Mr. Simon realized what kind of information he just divulged, and gave me that look. As I was being escorted off to the principal’s office, I yelled “Pay up, Scar! Boo-yah! Mamma’s having herself some lobster tonight!” over my shoulder.

Her smile was worth it all.

“You okay?” Garrett whispered, lightly touching my shoulder.

“I’m fine,” I told him testily, blinking back what I refused to believe were tears. “I just have a few questions for Gideon here.”

“You were resurrected, my dear.” What he said was like another bullet to the heart. Worse. It was like he was stabbing me, twisting the knife around and around, loving to cause me pain. “Not magically,” he murmured condescendingly. “I know that’s what you were thinking.”

No, I was actually thinking about how much of an asshole you are.

“We resurrect biologically. It is possible,” he lectured, pacing around the room. “Especially this day and age. You know what they say: ‘Today’s miracles are tomorrow’s science.’ Whatever was once impossible in 2005 is now commonplace. Yes, and today’s date is August 28th, if you were wondering.”

The date resonated in my head. “It’s my birthday,” I whispered. “I’m eightee—”

“You are four-hundred and fifteen.”

“What?”

“Today’s date is August 28th...2403. You are four-hundred and fifteen years old,” Gideon repeated with a smirk.

Oh god.

“Happy birthday, Tag.”

Hey there! Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I wanted to let you know that the updates will be rolling in much quicker since school's ended. I want to thank x-TheSmallPrint-x for the awesome beta work, as well as Etenebris for all the support. And thank you, reviewers: Lady Silver fang, FallenAngelForever, ErgoSchmergo (where've you been?), Goosey1221, n3ssa, trash can art, chocolatetuna, ddz008, Jaz108 (where are you?), Joyous, Mikki Amboree, chinx, Bella L. Rose.

I'm making an effort to review back all those who've reviewed in the past and those who will review, so please tell me which story/poem you'd prefer I read.

Stay tuned, yo.