Second Hand News (Part Two)

We now return you to...
Wade's Husk

It had happened for the first time on my ninth birthday, in front of all my friends from the third grade.  That was back when there weren't that many people shedding, when they didn't know if it could be catching.  People thought it was a thing caught by touch, like leopardsy or cooties.

So there was Jon and Chad Schmidt and Chad Schmidt's brother all gathered around the dining room table, candles barely in my cake and not even lit, and Wade starts shaking and picking at himself, all the mothers gasping and pushing their kids to the front door.  Chad Schmidt's brother had to be pulled by his collar.  My parents -- no one knew anything then -- sped him off to the hospital and I was left alone, nine years old, with my yellow cake and wrapped presents.  Wade had never been satisfied with just his own birthday, he always wanted mine as well; ever since, his wasted husks have haunted me at nighttimes, ruining perfectly good dreams with their bitter laughs and soggy motion.

---

His shell was still lying tangled on the floor of the den the next morning when I checked in on the telethon -- the hosts were sleepy and slow to respond to a chirping girl in metal crutches.  My parents were in the kitchen, racing the paper and sipping coffee.  "Wade shed," I told them.  "And then just left himself right there on the floor."

"Aww," my mother said, setting her mug on the breakfast nook bench, "my poor poor baby."  But I am the younger, I am the baby, and I very nearly said so, but all I had by then was the back of her bathrobe.  My father meanwhile looked up from the Arts & Leisure section to consider me over the top of his glasses.  "A family," he said, his attention back on the paper, "shares responsibilities.  It'd be nice if you pitched in once in a while."

But no way was I going to have anything to do with that thing.  It was his skin, after all: what could belong to him more?  So I retreated to my room, between the bed and the wall, looking over some Incredible Hulks and listening to the voices in Wade's room as they cracked right through the plaster.  My mother promised him anything he wanted from the grocery store in that sweet sort of tone I only hear after the school's Spring concert and the winter one.  "Are you comfortable?" she asked, and "Not even Alpha-Bits?  Not even Marathons?"  And then my father too:  "Nothing at all, champ?"

Before long, Father was at my door, more familiar in his way.  "Come out of there," he told me, "and let's get this den cleaned up."  Wade stood directly behind him, pink as Valentine candy, a vicious grin cutting across his tight new skin.

They took him to the mall, my parents, for new soccer cleats and probably ice cream, leaving me to dispose of his remains.  I warmed some water in the Radarange and stirred in a packet of cocca and crispy marshmallows.  I had a Diet Slice and some cheese crackers.  I put the telethon on the kitchen's black-and-white, and I tried to imagine a house not so haunted.

---to be concluded---
second of three parts