Мариам Петросян - The Gray House

“You broke it,” Grasshopper whimpered and rushed Whiner, forgetting all about the stick. For some reason Whiner threw the weapon away and bolted. Grasshopper ran after him. Somebody tripped Whiner, he tumbled, rolled over onto his back, and squealed, terrified. Grasshopper was bearing on him inexorably, like a comet, leaving trampled hands and feet in his wake, the enemies scattering around.

Then someone grabbed him and lifted him off his feet. Grasshopper started kicking, attempting to free himself.

“OK, cool it down,” a grown-up voice said.

Suspended above the field of battle, Grasshopper saw Magician using his crutch to beat back Rabbit and Crook, Stinker's overturned wheelchair, Stinker himself wildly flailing the umbrella in all directions, Sportsman rolling on the floor tangled with someone—and seniors. Lots of them. Swearing and laughing, they were pulling the boys apart.

The back of Grasshopper's head pressed against something sharp. He froze, struck by a sudden realization, and turned around. A small skull on a chain scraped against his cheek. Grasshopper couldn't make himself look farther up.

I kicked Skull!

His head spun. He felt faint and sick to his stomach.

Skull turned him around and lowered him to the floor.

“Well? Better now?”

Grasshopper swayed on the spot. A tattooed arm shot out and steadied him.

“I didn't know,” Grasshopper whispered. “I didn't know.”

“You didn't know what?”

Skull's gray eyes were sprinkled with tiny dots.

He's got speckled eyes. Dappled. How curious.

The seniors shoved the boys into the dorms. The door of the Stuffage bristled with grimacing faces. The faces spat and shouted abuse.

“Shoo!” the seniors yelled back.

Sportsman and Blind were the last to be pried from each other. Magician and Humpback, holding the tattered remains of their shirts, disappeared into the Poxy dorm. Siamese crawled on the floor, picking up the spilled contents of their bags. Elephant followed them one step behind, drowning in tears.

“Outrageous!” Splint, the counselor, was screaming. “All of you! To the principal! Right now!”

Elk was stuffing Stinker into his wheelchair. Stinker was putting up a fight. Grasshopper had some time by now to collect his thoughts. He turned back around, planning to apologize to Skull, but found that he wasn't there anymore. He was already leaving with the other seniors. Grasshopper caught a glance from one of them, and then heard: “That armless squirt, he was fighting like a tiger!”

The seniors laughed. Skull stopped and looked back at Grasshopper. Very somberly. He was the only one not laughing.

“To your dorm, on the double,” Splint hissed in Grasshopper's ear, and he ran, limping on the shoeless foot. He was burning with shame. The seniors didn't know that he only fought like a tiger because of prosthetics. They would have laughed even more if they knew. Except maybe for Skull.

“Principal's office in half an hour!” Splint shouted behind him.

The sinks in the bathroom were mobbed by the casualties. There was water all over the floor. The sock on Grasshopper's unshod foot got soaked through.

“The plaster armor is like the most useful thing to have around. The enemy forces disable themselves, you don't even have to do anything. Just get yourself open and wait for someone to take a swing at you.”

Wolf emerged from under the faucet and looked at Grasshopper.

“Oh. There you are.”

“There he is!” Stinker screamed. “The Vanquisher of Stuff! The Avenging Foot! The Heel of Death! Yay!”

“The crutch is useful too,” Magician bragged. “You should have seen the way I caught Crook with it.”

Humpback splashed loudly, bathing his busted lip. One of the Siamese, a little worse for the wear, probed a loose tooth.

“They accused us of stealing,” he said, extracting the finger from his mouth. “And we like never even saw those pins of theirs.”

“I'm not sadistic,” Stinker said in a singsong voice. “No, I am not. But I can be quite severe when roused. Part of my character. My own part.”

He wheeled over to Grasshopper.

“There's a streak of severity in you as well when roused, old man,” he said. “But still, you can't hold a candle to me in that regard. All shrink in fear before me.”

Stinker was completely unscathed, so he didn't really have any business in the bathroom. He just wheeled around on the wet tiles, splashed water from the low sink on everyone, and sang an elaborate ode dedicated to his own heroic exploits. The boys, covered in scrapes and bruises, proudly pressed wet towels to their wounds and studied themselves in the mirror. Grasshopper took a look as well. His ear was livid, and blood caked under his nose. He liked what he saw.

“Hark, knights,” Wolf said. “Tonight at the round table we shall recount the glorious battle. Praise our valor and mourn our losses. Sing war songs and bring together our chalices in honor of the fallen.”

“Stinker seems to have started already,” Humpback said.

“I didn't start anything! And quit admiring yourselves, it's my turn now.”

Stinker wheeled at them from behind and pushed them away from the mirror.

In the dorm, the other Siamese was comforting Elephant, Elk was stuffing cotton wool in Blind's nostrils, and Beauty was pacing the room, gnawing at his fingernails.

“Get yourselves cleaned up,” Elk said. “Then we’ll go visit the principal.”

“Us?” Magician said indignantly. “What about them?”

“Them too, don't worry. Where's your shoe?” said Elk, glancing at Grasshopper's feet.

“I've got it,” said Stinker and fished it out of the wheelchair, followed separately by the dripping shoelace. “I kept it as a remembrance. A souvenir.”

“Couldn't whatever problems you had be solved peacefully?”

The knights kept silent.

“Right,” Elk said, looking at his watch. “Be at the principal's office in ten minutes. We’ll talk.”

He walked out.

“Hey, what's that?” Humpback said and touched Grasshopper's shoulder.

Elephant, sitting on the blanket, was surrounded by pins forming a colorful mosaic.

“Here! Look at this one. Pretty, huh?” Siamese implored, bringing the pins one by one closer to Elephant's wet face. “Just look at it ...”

Siamese's contribution to the wall consisted of a stork and a crocodile. The stork was standing on one leg and therefore occupied very little space, while the crocodile was apparently flying, splayed above the wolf and the owl. Elephant worked for a long time, and when he finished painting there was a flower in the corner, looking very much like an inkblot.

Stuffagers threw the pot with the broken plant out into the hallway. The only thing belonging to Siamese that they didn't manage to bring over. Siamese found it on their way back from the canteen, picked it up and tried to revive it, but it withered anyway, so they had to bury it in the yard in an old shoebox.

Everyone was quietly preparing for the next fight. Stinker mended the umbrella. Siamese grew out their nails. Magician whittled himself a cane. Every night they had a war council. The time spent in the canteen was taken up by threatening stares and scary faces. Then they grew tired of all that.

Wolf joined the music club and started disappearing with the guitar after lunch, and then tormenting Sissies with monotonous chords for hours on end. Magician dug up the book titled The Illusion of Reality in the library, fashioned a top hat out of cardboard, and tried to make the hamster disappear under it. Hamster refused. It just startled and crapped more than usual. Beauty pressed juices. Stinker composed long, heartfelt letters to charitable organizations and private citizens. The letters featured the unfortunate paralyzed boy , the poor orphan preparing for dangerous surgery , and the sightless baby who loves music more than anything in the world . Every letter was accompanied by heartrending drawings. Stinker's hope was to acquire a plethora of things that might be useful to have around.