Мариам Петросян - The Gray House

Humpback went around the trunk and knocked on it.

“What do you have here? A matching furniture set?”

Beauty peeked inside.

“Oh wow. There's like a bulldozer in there,” he said.

“That's not a bulldozer! It's a juice maker,” Stinker said, visibly hurt. “I made it myself. A very useful appliance to have around.”

Grasshopper wiped his runny nose on his knee and smiled.

“What about this?” Humpback fished out a scary-looking steel contraption.

“A bear trap,” Stinker said proudly. “My own design as well.”

“Also a useful appliance to have around,” Blind said acidly.

Wolf and Humpback were diving inside the trunk, producing more and more stuff. Beauty was afraid to touch any of it, lest he break something. Blind examined everything with his fingers before setting it down on the floor. Stinker was providing a running commentary.

“Kettle. Photographic trays. Tool set. Stuffed horned viper. Portable coatrack. Guitar ...”

“Wait,” Wolf interrupted. “You can play guitar?”

Stinker scratched himself and looked at the ceiling.

“Not really, no.”

“Why do you have it, then?”

“It was a parting gift. From former roommates.”

“Ah. You mean you took all you could. Was there anything left at all?”

Stinker sighed.

“Nightstands. And beds, too.”

He stared at the floor with a guilty look on his face. Grasshopper and Humpback laughed.

“I see,” Wolf said. “So in the morning they're going to come for the trunk.”

“No, they won’t,” Stinker said firmly. “They wouldn't dare. I warned them that I'd move right back if they tried.”

Humpback slipped on the bear trap and landed in the salad bowl. Grasshopper doubled over on the bed.

“Hey! Hey,” Wolf said. “I'm not allowed to laugh like that!”

Then all was hysterics and moans. Even Blind was laughing. Stinker squeaked loudest of all.

“Move right back! Blackmailer! Former roommate!”

“You haven't seen all of it!” Stinker yelled. “There's still a lot left!”

They yelped, shaking the beds with their laughter.

Suddenly Wolf straightened up and said, “Shhh! Hear that?”

They stopped and listened to silence. The silence of Stuffage listening intently to them laughing.

Stinker couldn't play guitar, but he could play the harmonica. He knew nineteen songs, happy as well as sad, and he played them all. And the trunk did contain a lot more fun stuff. For example, a jumbled mass of wires in which Humpback managed to entangle himself.

“Security system,” Stinker explained. “With alarm.”

“Great,” Wolf said. “Certainly useful to have around. For us I'd say even indispensable. Let's connect it.”

The door was soon crisscrossed by wires so thickly it was scary to look at. Then it turned out that the alarm didn't work.

“No problem,” Stinker said. “Probably a break in the current somewhere. I’ll have a look later.”

Grasshopper took Stinker's failures personally. But the security system was so far the only major setback. The trap definitely worked. They found out when Blind stepped in it. The juice maker worked too. They installed the coatrack in the corner, where it accepted the weight of two jackets and one backpack. Stinker was knocking himself out making a good impression. He didn't miss any opportunity to show that he was capable of doing everything by himself, and to prove it, he would flop out of the wheelchair and crawl briskly around the room. He demonstrated his skills at climbing on the bed and back into the wheelchair, and even attempted to scale the windowsill, but crashed down halfway. He rubbed the mark on his chin, and his eyes looking at Grasshopper seemed to say: Can you see how hard I’m trying?

Wolf went to his bed with the guitar and tried to play it, without much success. Beauty sat mesmerized before the juice maker, regarding his own reflection in its shiny sides. Blind was listening to Stuffage, sitting by the wall with his injured leg held aloft.

When Stinker finally wheeled off to the bathroom, assuring everybody and everything that he needed absolutely no help with “things like that,” Humpback said to Wolf, “This Stinker is not a bad guy at all. Why is everyone picking on him? They all say there's no one nastier in the whole House. And he's really nice.”

“Yeah,” Wolf said, “he's fine. A cute little baby who's a bit into blackmail. Caught Blind in a trap, fell down from the window, and by a complete coincidence gobbled four of our hot dogs.”

“He was hungry,” Grasshopper interjected. “He didn't go to lunch.”

“I didn't either,” Wolf sighed. “On the other hand, if no one comes here to claim this guitar by tomorrow, I’ll personally feed him two more lunches.”

Grasshopper exhaled. It's lucky that Stinker thought of grabbing that guitar, he thought. And it will be lucky if they don't come for it.

“I wish I had an orange,” said Beauty plaintively. “Or a lemon. Something squeezable.”

He gingerly touched the switch on the juicer and jerked his hand back. He was very afraid of breaking it. Everything he touched broke, for some reason.

“Sportsman is having a fight with Siamese,” Blind said. “They stole his magazine with the naked ladies.”

“That's sad,” Wolf said. “The moral fiber of that boy leaves much to be desired. You are a regular listening device, Blind. Do they know about Stinker yet?”

Blind shook his hair.

“No. But they did hear the harmonica.”

Stinker came back. He parked by the door and started fiddling with the wires, whistling a tune softly.

“Where can I get an orange?” Beauty asked. “Anybody?”

“Where can I get a guitar tutorial?” Wolf said. “You guys think Elk might have one?”

The piercing wail of the alarm shook them all badly. Beauty pressed his hands against his ears. The alarm raged on for two minutes, then silence returned.

“It's working,” Stinker said happily, staring with his shameless round eyes.

Leaving for breakfast the next morning, they left the security system armed and also installed the disguised trap by the door.

“Maybe we’ll find someone in it when we get back,” Humpback said.

The presence of Stinker at their table caused a furor in the canteen. Sportsman pointedly got up and went to sit farther away. His pack followed. The long junior table now had a neutral zone in the middle. Even seniors noticed it.

“Look, the squirts are splitting up,” Boar, one of the seniors, said.

“The little shits are growing,” Lame replied dismissively. “Into big shits. Just like us.”

The juniors overheard this exchange, straightened proudly, and blushed. The seniors just compared us to themselves!

The wheelers were regarding Stinker sulkily. But he happily absorbed the attention, all the while creating a pigsty around his plate.

On the way back to the room, Grasshopper stopped before the message board. Separated at Birth . Showing this evening. Both parts. So there wouldn't be anybody in the Tenth except Ancient. Grasshopper ran to catch up with the rest of them.

Stinker asked permission to draw something on the wall. Wolf dug out the cans of paint and showed him an empty corner. Stinker labored long and hard. He first drew everything in pencil, then used paint—there was nary a peep from his corner all the way till lunch, save for doleful sighs and scratching, representing the throes of inspiration.

Wolf managed to procure the guitar tutorial. He was studying it very closely, but to Grasshopper it looked like he couldn't quite concentrate on what was before him. Beauty had wheedled an orange from someone and was now sitting in front of the juicer, not daring to switch it on. Grasshopper and Humpback had mounted a typewriter on the nightstand—another gift of the trunk, which no one except Grasshopper took any interest in. Grasshopper realized immediately that this was something he really needed. Hitting a lettered key with the finger of his prosthetic was much easier than trying to draw that same letter so that someone else could guess which one it was. Pens always slipped out of the artificial fingers, and the letters came out all angular and broken. When Grasshopper saw the typewriter, he perked up and asked for it to be placed on his nightstand.