Curiosity Killed Shaney(4)

Not the snowy winter spectacle I’d hoped for.

“Oh, oh…” Todd chimed in. “Or if you hadn’t dressed up as the Statue of Liberty and hung as much of that crap The Morgue sells on yourself that you could.” Shaney had hung gaudy jewelry, useless VHS tapes, scratched CDs, a crappy old tape player, freaky naked Barbie dolls, a deck of Pokémon cards, and a bunch of other useless stuff from his body. “You made your toga from that weird ass blanket that has the arm holes in it so you can sit and read and do other shit. What did your sign say?”

“Give me your weak, your poor, your huddled masses of cheaply-made, over-priced, cast-off symbols of popular culture.” Shaney mouthed the words as Mr. Anderson gritted them out through clenched teeth. Shaney was sort of touched his probe officer remembered it word for word, but then, on second thought, he realized it probably wasn’t such a good thing.

“Brilliant, by the way!” So much for Todd’s help.

Mr. Anderson actually growled at Todd. Shaney moaned. On a scale of one to ten, his headache had just hit somewhere around a hundred and fifty. His stomach churned with nausea and his mouth filled with saliva.

“Community service?” Shaney paused. “I was trying to do the community a service. Some people thought it was performance art.” Well, maybe one person. And there was that one old dude who had seriously wondered how he’d missed that it was Halloween and left mumbling about needing candy.

Okay, maybe he had gone a bit far, but his motivation for anything he’d ever done was to seek the truth, test hypotheses, gather evidence, and get honest reactions straight from the gut. In short, he was curious.

The pacing scuff of shoes on the floor told Shaney that Mr. Anderson had moved onto the lecture phase of his torturous hell. “So I am in the position of finding you yet another placement for your community service so I can get you the hell off my caseload. Two hundred hours, Shaney. Two hundred! I have ex-cons easier to place than you, and you’re a mere minnow in the shark-infested waters of the criminal world.”

“Not a criminal,” Shaney muttered.

“Breaking and entering,” Mr. Anderson so kindly reminded him.

“I had to save the kittens!” Oh, shit, that was too loud.

Mr. Anderson sighed, heavy and deep. Shaney sighed right along with him, feeling the exhaustion seeping from every cell in his body. He just wanted to sleep.

“Monday morning. Ten a.m. My office. Don’t be late.” Mr. Anderson bit the words off and then clomped from the room.

Geez, not even a ‘feel better’ or ‘get well soon.’

Silence once again filled the room, yet the quiet wasn’t as comforting as it had been a few short minutes ago. Shaney had screwed up again, like the predictable flow of the tide, inevitable and fierce in its wake. Why did it feel as if he’d let down the entire world?

Biting down on his bottom lip, Shaney drew in a shaky breath. “Todd?”

Silence loomed for so many ticks of the annoying clock on the wall that Shaney was convinced Todd had left with Mr. Anderson. Not that Shaney would lay blame on Todd for that. Even Shaney thought he could be exhausting.

“Yeah?” Short, terse.

Damn. “Are you mad?”

Fabric rustled, and movement stirred the air. “Just tell me it was worth it.”

A vision of ice-blue eyes pulled at Shaney’s gut and dulled the pounding in his head enough for him to grin into the pillow. Oh, the knock on his head could be so worth the pain. “It remains to be seen.”

* * * *

Finally, the doctor emerged from wherever doctors go to hide from patients, and diagnosed a concussion with orders to have someone wake Shaney and wah, wah, wah…. Shaney hoped Todd’s attention rated higher than his own did, because his doctor had morphed into one of the adults on Charlie Brown.

Freedom was a quick stroll through the door and to the right—or left—depending on what side of the hallway his room was located. (This wasn’t Shaney’s first go at the ER. He should have a frequent-flyer card.) However, freedom also required moving. Todd refused to abscond with the gurney and push him home, so Shaney petulantly refused to emerge from his pillow cocoon until the bright lights were off and the door and curtain were closed. And damn if the faint light above the sink didn’t stab daggers through Shaney’s eyes and into his brain. The pounding in his head traveled into his neck, and his jaw ached from clenching his teeth. Double vision churned his stomach as the earth tilted. Of course, Todd had to wave his arms and jump around upon hearing Shaney saw two of him. Fruck, he was going to puke.

Shaney peeled off the gown and swatted at Todd’s hands as he tried to help Shaney dress. He wasn’t a two-year-old. So what if his shirt was on inside out and backwards and his shoes were untied? Actually, he did look like a two-year-old, but at least he was ready to go. Well, he would be if the floor would quit doing that spin-y thing. How was he supposed to walk on a Tilt-a-Whirl floor?