Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo Read online

  Hairy Situation

  Winter Frore had a hard life. Her mother, Janet, was not a good person. If you had a mom who continually taunted you, tripped you, talked poorly about you behind your back and negatively in front of you, drew mean pictures of you, the kind of pictures where your head looked small and your rear looked big, told lies about you, pointed at you in public places and ridiculed you, stole your things and broke your favorite possession by stomping violently on it, well, you’d call it a hard life, too. And that’s the kind of life Winter had been dealt.

  Winter had long, wild, blonde hair and wide-set, green eyes. She had a small nose and rounded cheeks that made her look as though she were always about to blow out a candle or begin whistling. She had no friends and spent most of her time at the library, in the back corner, reading books about people with families and friends, or at the very least, pets. She had felt alone for as long as she could remember.

  The only positive in her life was a kindly family who lived in a yellow house with missing shutters and a red front door two blocks down from her and her mother. The house was home to Tim and Wendy Tuttle—a fun-loving, extremely brainy couple that loved having Winter around. Wendy Tuttle was a kind woman with big hips and long black hair that she always wore in a braid tied off with a yellow ribbon. Her husband, Tim, was a garbage man with a weak chin and big ears. His job, although not one esteemed by society, seemed desirable to Winter because he always came home with interesting finds—lamps that sort of worked, bikes with no seats or missing spokes, and furniture that didn’t look half bad once it was repaired and painted. The Tuttles had two young boys named Darcy and Rochester. Darcy was eight and Rochester was six. Winter loved the Tuttles and their boys. They were an island in the sea of disdain and sadness in which she lived.

  Winter’s mother, Janet, did not like the positive influence the Tuttles had over her child.

  “The world is not a happy place,” her mother would always insist. “The Tuttles are giving you false hopes.”

  Janet forbade Winter from visiting them, but it was an order that Winter refused to obey. Whenever possible, Winter would sneak away from home to be with a family that loved her and was so completely different from her own.

  Winter’s mother, Janet, knew nothing about “love,” unless you were talking about the love of self. She placed mirrors everywhere around the house, so she could catch frequent glimpses of herself. Janet would stare into the mirrors for hours, fascinated for some perverse reason with her pinched, sour reflection and her bushy eyebrows and homely oval mouth, which she could never completely close.

  Janet didn’t talk unless she had something mean to say, and she thought only of the negative even if life was treating her fairly. The worry and bitterness she carried around had turned her into a sour, disgruntled person. She was a wrinkled prune of a woman with a heart no bigger than a raisin.

  She had never caught on to the fact that the child she was “raising” was not the actual child she had given birth to. In all honesty, she had never looked at Winter long enough to realize how completely different from each other they were. The only good thing Janet saw in Winter was that the girl provided her with a huge, never-ending something to complain about.

  The only time they ever spent with each other was at dinner. Janet insisted the two of them eat together, sitting at a table in front of the window so that any neighbors driving by could spot them being a family. Of course, when Winter and her mother did sit down to eat, Janet would do nothing but mumble and slobber over her heaping plates of food. As Janet would stuff her face, Winter would sit there with nothing but her usual dinner: a half dozen peas, which Janet had usually picked from her meal, a single crust of bread, and a spoonful of sugar-free strawberry jam—sugar-free because Janet had read once how bad sugar was for children.

  Winter hated peas. She stared at them with her green eyes, wishing they were something else. They never were. She was equally unimpressed by the crust of bread, and she thought the jam always tasted funny. So she would usually roll her peas into the jam and sop them up with the stale crust, all the while pretending it was something other than what it actually was.

  Today, however, Winter was more disappointed than usual.

  It was her thirteenth birthday, and she had been hoping that tonight she might get a full piece of bread or maybe a bit of broccoli. It seems strange that a teenager would want broccoli, but when you’re hungry and sick of peas, odd things sound surprisingly good.

  Winter considered her half dozen peas and sighed. She thought about the thirteen years she had been alive and hoped the next thirteen might be different. It had taken the doctors a lot of coaxing to get Janet to even take Winter home from the hospital. Janet had not wanted her, and she had been frightened to death of the responsibility. She felt as though Winter would ruin the lazy lifestyle she had done so little to achieve. So Janet had named her Judy—after the patron saint of desperate cases—in hopes that the child might grow up to serve her and make something good from what she thought was a very desperate case.

  No sooner had Janet brought Winter home than odd things began to happen. For one thing, Winter was always cold. Janet could put her under a blanket with a heating pad for hours and the baby would still feel cool to the touch when she unwrapped her. Janet would also find Winter’s bottle in the mornings, frozen over. And even though the first days of Winter’s life were warm, on two separate occasions Janet had witnessed frosty breath coming from the child’s mouth; it was as if she were standing out in the cold in the dead of winter, exhaling.

  Resenting her daughter’s demands on her, Janet referred to her as “a bad bit of winter.” Over time, Janet was simply too lazy to say the whole thing, so she shortened it to Winter, and the name stuck. It was almost as if fate desired her to be named that.

  In the weeks leading up to Winter’s thirteenth birthday, a strange, new feeling had begun to come over her. She couldn’t quite figure it out, but it seemed as if she could feel the future coming toward her. She had no clear idea of what lay ahead, but she felt there must be someplace she needed to be, other than the spot where she now was. It was almost as if her life might have a purpose she had never discovered. She would have visions while wide awake—images of people and places she did not remember ever having seen before. There was a reason she was here, she just couldn’t remember it yet. The thought both delighted and frightened her.

  Winter stared at her peas while her mother slurped up her bountiful meal. Winter wished for plates filled with food and friends to share it with. She thought back to a daydream she had had just yesterday and the boy who had been in it. She thought of her neighbors the Tuttles and imagined them gathered around their table, eating and laughing. More than anything Winter wanted that for herself. She wanted desperately for the future that was coming to involve a real family.

  Winter was so deep in thought she didn’t realize her mother wasn’t feverishly consuming food any longer. Winter looked up and found Janet staring at her. The silence was deafening, and the expression on Janet’s face was one of complete horror. Winter hurriedly began to eat her small portion, figuring her mother was simply disgusted with her for not joyfully eating what she had sacrificed to provide her. It took Winter only a second to finish, seeing how a half dozen peas, a crust of bread, and a spoonful of sugar-free jam go down pretty fast if eaten frantically. Winter looked up again, hoping her repentance would be enough to satisfy her mother. Janet looked even more horrified.

  “I ate—” Winter tried.

  “What is that?” Janet asked, pointing at Winter. “What’s happening to your hair?”

  Winter could hear clicking now.

  Her mother jumped up from her chair and hollered. “Whatever trick you are trying to pull, knock it off this instant!”

  Winter could not have been more confused. She looked around the room, wondering if perhaps her mother was speaking to someone other than her. Nobody else was there—just her horrified mother, and a str
ange clicking noise.

  Winter lifted her hands to her hair and was shocked to feel movement and ice. She stood quickly and turned to the mirror that hung on the wall next to the table, the same mirror Janet had forbidden Winter to use for fear of her image ruining it. Winter didn’t care about that at the moment. She looked into the mirror with her green eyes and gasped. Her long, wild, blonde hair was floating and spinning everywhere. And even more astonishing, the mass of hair looked to be completely frozen, each strand clicking against the next as they moved in a pulsating motion. The light from the overhead lamp reflected off the frozen strands, throwing flecks of light all over the walls and ceiling like an uncoordinated disco ball. Winter turned to her mother, stunned and confused.

  “What are you doing?” Janet whimpered, her wide-open mouth a perfect oval. “Stop it!”

  “I’m not doing anything,” Winter insisted. “I was—”

  “Stop it immediately!” Janet ordered.

  “I can’t stop it,” Winter pleaded. “I don’t know how I started it.”

  Winter’s icy hair spun wildly, the frozen strands lashing out and striking Janet on the forearm and face. Red welts instantly began to appear.

  “Ahhh!” Janet screamed, scooting herself as far away from the table as possible. “Stop it!” she yelled. “Stop it!”

  Winter looked at her wild-eyed mother. Janet was holding a fork and knife out as if to defend herself. Her wrinkly face was covered in food she hadn’t had time to wipe off. Her bushy eyebrows were wet and stringy. Her hair was sweaty, and she shivered as if this were the end of the world and she were being personally invited to burn. The red welts upon Janet’s face formed the backwards letters, D, A, B.

  Winter’s green eyes smiled. Her entire life she had been picked on and pushed around by her mother. This was the first time she could remember ever having the upper hand. But then the movement of her hair began to slow, finally settling in large, icy sweeps upon her head. The frozen strands began to melt and drip. A few strands, still swirling, flung water around the room, but in a few more seconds it was all over. Winter sat, her face dripping wet.

  Janet wiped at the food on her face and dabbed at her greasy lips. She glanced out the window to see if anyone had witnessed what had happened, then stood and looked closely at Winter’s hair, cautiously reaching out to touch it. Upon feeling the wet mess she jerked back her hand and made a disgusted face.

  “Are you done?” Janet asked, her anger growing. Her dinner had been interrupted, and the portion she had been able to previously inhale would be difficult to digest, what with all the discomfort and commotion Winter had just caused.

  “Was that some sort of prank?” she demanded. “Because if it is, it’s not the least bit funny.”

  “It’s my birthday,” was all Winter could think to say.

  Janet glared at her. “Your birthday,” she ridiculed, her nasty composure returning in full. “That’s what this is? I give birth to you, keep you in this house for thirteen years, and you repay me with a childish prank?”

  Her greasy mouth twitched angrily. “This food you ruined cost good money,” she complained. “Do you think I love working at the post office so much that it doesn’t bother me to throw away the hard-earned money I make?”

  Knowing there was no right answer to the impossible question her cruel mother had asked, Winter sat without responding.

  “Too clever to answer me?” Janet demanded, her mean, wrinkled face scrunched up into a sneer. “Well, let me tell you this. You will clean up this mess. You will wipe down every spot in this room twice. You will polish this table and make the floor sparkle. Or I will turn you over to the state to be dealt with properly.”

  Winter clenched her fists under the table, willing her hair to act up again. She thought of everything cold she had ever experienced. She thought of the vicious delight she had experienced just moments before as her mother had sat, shaking in awe.

  Nothing happened.

  “I should take the strap to you,” Janet snarled, “but my television show starts in three minutes.” She stood up and looked at herself in the mirror. She studied the red welts on her face and could see what they spelled out. “I will deal with you later,” she huffed, too angry to say more. She brushed up her brows, smoothed her cheeks, and stormed out of the room.

  Winter sat there alone, her hair now hanging in wet ringlets from her head. She reached over to her mother’s abandoned plate and stabbed a big piece of roast beef. She swirled it in the gravy and lifted it to her mouth, juice dripping across the table as she did so. Chewing, she closed her eyes and reveled in the flavor. She had never tasted anything so delicious. She helped herself to a few more bites, then lifted her glass and was astonished to find the water in it completely frozen.

  “Odd,” Winter said to herself, looking closely at her glass.

  Defiantly, she grabbed one of her mother’s drinks. Janet always insisted on having three full glasses of soda with her meals, and two of them had not been touched.

  Winter drank one of the sodas down.

  She smiled, stabbed another piece of roast beef, and contemplated what a wonderful birthday she was having after all. She was obviously much more unique and extraordinary than anyone had ever told her she was. Savoring every bite, Winter finished her meal and made her way over to the Tuttles, where Wendy was waiting with a small cake that was topped with a ring of thirteen burning candles.

  Winter didn’t hesitate at all before making her wish.

  Chapter Seven

  Lightning Strikes Twice

  Leven’s male guardian, Terry Graph, was a short man with long arms and little education. He was mean and always looking for someone to blame for all his problems. He had deep-set eyes, a spongy nose, and a tiny, tight mouth that framed his crooked, yellow, rotting teeth.

  Terry was a little man with no compassion or concern for others. Not much interested him aside from giving Leven a hard time. He didn’t just holler and taunt Leven on occasion; Terry made tormenting Leven his full-time occupation. Terry particularly enjoyed verbally assaulting Leven when he came home from school, berating him for dawdling, failing to do his chores, or for anything else that might be bugging Terry at the moment. He also enjoyed hiding behind the door and jumping out at Leven when the boy walked unsuspecting into a room. If Leven made a friend or had an interest, Terry made certain to squelch it.

  In Terry’s view, Leven was his greatest burden. He had never gotten over the resentment he felt the day Addy announced there would be another mouth to feed. From then on, he saw Leven only as a nuisance and a pest, and he had literally never said a single kind word to the boy. Leven was not a son, he was just an additional expense and a bother.

  Terry never had steady work. He procured an odd job here and there, but what he earned was not enough to support a wife and a leftover child. He always blamed his lack of good fortune on the current president or on his seventh-grade shop teacher who told him he would never amount to anything—or, more easily, on Leven.

  Terry’s laziness meant Addy had to work to support the family. Her job was folding napkins for a small, posh napkin company called Wonder Wipes. The shop was located about five miles away from the mobile home park, and one of the selling points of the napkins was that they were hand-folded. The owners of the company made a big point of this, as though the fold of the napkin enhanced its capacity for absorbing spills or wiping a face. Fortunately for the company and for Addy, the Wonder Wipe napkin had become a real status symbol for those who could afford them. There was enough work to keep Addy away from home and busily folding napkins day in and day out.

  Addy would get up, go off to fold, and come home too tired and worn out to prevent her husband from making Leven’s life miserable. Once in a while she would pretend to stick up for Leven, but for the most part she ignored him and his needs. Leven’s impression was that she was annoyed that he was still even there. She was a worthless advocate who always had tired hands and the weight of he
r world on her shoulders. Leven felt she and Terry wouldn’t mind if he were to simply run off and disappear out of their lives. On those rare occasions where she would defend or say something concerning Leven, it only made things worse.

  “Leave the boy alone,” she would yell while Terry was picking on him. “He ain’t all there.”

  Terry would throw up his hands. “The boy needs discipline, Addy,” he would slur, “and he’s certainly not going to get it from the likes of you. Always working and away. Folding, folding, folding. Making me cook my own meals and live in a filthy house while you’re folding some piece of cloth so that some uppity rich people can properly wipe their pampered faces.”

  Terry and Addy would argue until one was too tired to carry on or until Terry went out for some night air, which the three of them knew meant air that was at least ninety proof. Addy would then turn the TV up so loud Leven wouldn’t dare speak, and he would wander off to bed on the porch or go outside to sit beneath the huge tree and wonder what he could do to make things better.

  This was Leven. He was a tall, surprisingly strong, fourteen-year- old who saw things in a way that most kids his age didn’t. He had not had a pretty life, and yet for some reason he didn’t understand, he always felt there had to be something better. Things couldn’t possibly be this bad forever. Sometimes, if Leven squinted his brown eyes and really concentrated, he could almost see, or at least pretend, that the existence he was living was only a prelude to something much more important. It was a feeling that continued to burn inside him, even as Terry tore him apart or as the rest of his life crumbled around him.

  Understandably, Leven didn’t smile much; but when he did he was a rather handsome kid. Older folks could easily pat him on the head and know that a couple of decent kids still existed in this world. He always wore Levi’s and one of the free T-shirts Addy would occasionally get at work. As if making friends wasn’t hard enough, imagine being a fourteen-year-old boy trying to impress his peers while wearing a shirt that says “Wonder Wipes.”