Neal Shusterman - Bruiser

Brew says he can’t do violent stuff to crawly things or people, cuz his hand won’t hit and his foot won’t stomp, even when he wants them to. I think maybe he mighta been born that way. Or maybe he’s just busted.

Once Brewster started spendin’ all that time with Brontë-saurus (Brontë for short), it scared me a little. First, because if Uncle Hoyt found out he’d be mad, and second because Brew doesn’t get home from school right away. “I’ve got mandatory math tutoring,” he told Uncle Hoyt, who believed it, and so Brew stays out with Brontë, and won’t get home till maybe five or six—but I want Brewster home when I’m home because, see, Uncle Hoyt, he goes foul quite a lot these days. So far he’s only gone foul when Brewster’s been home, though. But what if something bad happens at work and Uncle Hoyt brings all that madness home with him, and can’t sleep it off? Or what if he gets a letter from Aunt Debby’s lawyer and he goes drinking so as to get himself nice and mean. That’s why he drinks—he wants to get super-mean instead of just regular- mean, and he needs the alcohol to get there. It’s like his mean-fuel. And then what am I gonna do if he starts to go foul and Brewster ain’t here?

I told Brew about it on the way to school one day, how I was scared and all.

“Tell you what,” Brewster said, “why don’t you go to the library, and I’ll come by and pick you up on my way home.” So I started doing that, and it works real good. Sometimes he’ll even pick me up from the library early, and we’ll all go to the park, and Brontë will push me really high on the swing—higher than Brew does, because he’s all worried I’ll fly off and break his ribs or something.

There was this one day Brewster, Brontë, and me were at the park and she was pushing me on the swing, and she says to me, “I know about your brother.”

I swing away, and when I swing back, I ask her, “Which part do you know?”

She seemed surprised by that. “There’s more than one part?”

I knew I had to pick my words real careful here. “Well,” I said, “do you mean the part about how he remembers everything, or the part about how he gets hurt for you?”

“Oh,” she said, “both, I guess.” It didn’t surprise me that Brontë knew. It was easy to keep secret from people Brew didn’t like—but once he started liking you, you couldn’t help but know. “Did he take something away for you?” I asked.

She nodded. “I hurt my ankle, and a gash on my hand.”

“That was you? I wondered where he got those from—but Brew don’t like me to ask, on accounta I might tell Uncle Hoyt by accident.”

She got a little stiff at the mention of Uncle Hoyt. “Does your uncle know what Brew can do?”

“Yeah, he knows,” I told her. “He’s glad for it, I think,” then I changed the subject, because Uncle Hoyt don’t like to be talked about when he’s not there. “Did Brew take other stuff from you?”

She seemed funny about answering that. “Not that I know of,” she said, and I had to remind her to push me harder on the swing cuz her head was thinking about it.

“Sometimes,” I told her, “he takes stuff away and you don’t even know. You never felt it so you don’t know what you missed. But that only happens if he really cares about you. With me it’s all automatic—I don’t feel nothin’. Not even the time I fell into a beehive.” Then I put down my landing gear in the sand and stopped swinging, getting all quiet, cuz a little kid and his mother just took over the swing next to ours and I didn’t want them to hear. “We’re not supposed to tell people about it,” I told Brontë, “because people wouldn’t understand. They’d take Brew away and stick tubes in him, and turn him into a weapon against terrorists and stuff.”

She laughed at that, but I was serious.

“No one’s taking him away,” she said.

“But they might,” I told her. “If they knew, they might. You didn’t tell anyone did you?”

“No… but my brother knows,” she said. “I promise neither of us will tell.”

When Brew and I got home from the park, it was almost dark. By now Uncle Hoyt would be awake and getting ready for work. He’d be making us dinner, and breakfast for himself. He can cook a buncha things fast and good. Meat loaf, spaghetti— sometimes he even makes his own sauce. Although lots of times we get breakfast for dinner instead, because making two meals at once is just too much work for someone who just woke up.

When we went in, the house was mostly dark, and nothing was going on in the kitchen.

“Uncle Hoyt?” Brew called.

“Right here.” We turned toward his voice, but it took a second until we saw him. He was sitting in a chair in the dark living room. “About time you two got home.”

Another second and I could see him a little bit better. His knee was bouncing up and down like it does sometimes. He says it’s coffee and stress that makes his knee bounce, but secretly I think it’s us. Both Brew and I stood still, wondering if Uncle Hoyt sitting in a dark room was the start of something.

“Should I defrost some chicken for dinner?” Brew asked.

“You do that.”

Brew turned on the kitchen light, and I got a look at Uncle Hoyt’s eyes before he knew I was looking. He hadn’t gone foul. Not today. He just looked worried. He’d just gone odd. Relieved, I got a drink from the sink while Brew took out frozen chicken pieces. Uncle Hoyt came to the doorway. “I got an A on my spelling test,” I told him.

“Good for you, Cody.” But I could tell he wasn’t really listening, so I put the test up on the fridge for him to see when he felt like noticing.

He watched Brew as my brother plugged up the sink and turned on the hot water. “I’m wondering if maybe you don’t need all this tutoring,” he said.

I could see Brew tense up just a little bit, and I sat at the kitchen table to get out of the line of fire.

“Can’t do it by myself; math isn’t my subject.”

“I’ll help you,” Uncle Hoyt said.

“You know algebra?”

Uncle Hoyt’s all insulted. “I’m not an idiot! I still remember it. And what I don’t remember I can study up on.”

I started wondering why Uncle Hoyt would do that when Brew can get free help at school. And then I remembered that Brew wasn’t actually at math tutoring at all; he was with Brontë.

“And why would you need tutoring anyway?” Uncle Hoyt said. “You can near about memorize that math book just by lookin’ at it.”

“Words, not numbers,” Brew said. “Numbers are different.” Then he dropped the frozen chicken parts in the hot water to defrost. He didn’t say anything else for a while. Sometimes it’s best with Uncle Hoyt not to say much until you know exactly what he’s thinking, and why.

“They shouldn’t be making you spend so much time at school,” he finally said. “It’s not right. You should be with your family.”

“Do you want to homeschool us like Mom did?” Brew asked.

“I didn’t say that either.”

Now it was Brew’s leg that got the coffee-stress shake instead of Uncle Hoyt’s.

“I’m worried about you, Brewski. That’s all. You’re never here anymore. How can we be a family if you’re never here?”

Brew turned off the tap but didn’t look at Uncle Hoyt. “Sounds like you need a pet,” he said. “Something that’ll be waiting for you when you get up, and waiting for you to get home.”

I liked the idea a lot. “Could we get a dog?” I asked. “I’ll take care of it better than I took care of Tri-tip. I promise.”

Uncle Hoyt smiled, but it wasn’t a yes-smile. “You and Brew once had a dog back when your mom was alive,” he said. “You were too little to remember, Cody; but I’ll bet Brew does, don’t you? You remember what happened to that dog?”