A Bad Day for Voodoo

CHAPTER 3

Kelley was the first one up. Mr. Click lay on the floor, bellowing and clutching his stump, while I thought, Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God...

Kids were sobbing and screaming and panicking, and there were at least two confirmed vomiters. There was blood everywhere. I couldn’t breathe.

I plucked the pin out of the doll. Sadly, Mr. Click’s leg did not slide back and reattach itself.

What had I done?

What kind of horrible monster was I?

What the hell kind of steroid-enhanced voodoo doll was this?

“Get me a ruler!” Kelley shouted, obviously thinking, tourniquet. There was blood on her glasses, but none had yet spurted onto her blonde hair, which was pulled back into a ponytail.

I stood up, feeling dizzy. A few kids had their cell phones out and were frantically dialing. Two girls, Helen and Andrea, ran out of the classroom to get help.

Adam was frozen in his seat, looking positively horrified. Which was a relief—that was much better than seeing him sitting there, rubbing his hands together, and cackling in malicious glee.

I stumbled up to the front of the room, pausing for a moment as my vision blurred. Then I crouched down next to Kelley and Mr. Click. Kelley was clearly freaked out yet was staying composed. Somebody handed her a ruler.

“Give me your shirt,” she said to me.

I stripped off my shirt and gave it to her. She wrapped it around the ruler and Mr. Click’s stump, then began to twist the ruler.

I don’t have a solid memory of the next few minutes. I know that Mr. Jenkins, who taught economics next door, came in to see what all of the commotion was about. He didn’t think we were overreacting. Then the principal, a couple more teachers, and finally some cops and two paramedics arrived.

They got Mr. Click onto a gurney and wheeled my screaming history teacher out of the classroom. Yes, one of the paramedics brought his leg with them.

After they left, I gave Kelley a hug, and she totally lost it, sobbing against my bare chest.

Our three-month anniversary was tomorrow. Apparently, my present to her was a ghastly, horrific experience that would forever haunt her. She’d probably give me a book.

This went way beyond any thirst for revenge I might have had. Even if I’d believed that the doll would work, which I’ve already clearly established that I most certainly did not, I didn’t expect any reaction stronger than “Ow!” Maybe a “Dammit!” If I could have gotten an “Ow!” and a “Dammit!” out of him, I would have felt avenged enough.

Obviously there were certain questions that I wanted to ask of my good buddy Adam. I supposed that they should wait. Pointing at him and shouting, “What did you make me doooooo?!?” would be a bad idea until such a time as there weren’t twenty-eight kids, three teachers, and a principal in the room.

Everybody in class was quickly questioned by the police, who were quite understandably confused as to how such a thing could happen. I’m not sure how my fellow history students reported the afternoon’s events, but I assumed that they were all variations on “He was talking about World War I, and then suddenly, his leg flew off!”

Did I need to be nervous? Somebody might have seen me reach into my backpack seconds before the incident, but so what? What could I have had in my backpack that made somebody’s leg shoot off? A detonator? How could I strap explosives to Mr. Click’s upper left leg without him being aware of it? There hadn’t been an actual bang, and if explosives were involved, there’d be burn marks on his leg, so the police would quickly rule that out, which meant that the only possible connection between me reaching into my backpack and his leg coming off could be “voodoo doll,” and I didn’t think they’d go there.

When it was my turn to give a statement, the cop was reasonably polite and even had somebody find me a new shirt to wear. Though I babbled a bit (Okay, a lot...Okay, more than a lot), under these circumstances, I don’t think it seemed suspicious.

By the time we were allowed to leave, the press had surrounded the school. Kelley, Adam, and I gave a quick “No comment!” and got into the back of Kelley’s mother’s car. Other kids were enthusiastically talking to reporters about what had happened, but we just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. The doll was still in my backpack, but though I’d put it back inside its box, every bump on the road sent a jolt through my heart. I was glad I wasn’t the one driving; it’s hard enough to keep your hands at ten and two without worrying that you’re going to jostle a voodoo doll and kill your teacher.

Kelley’s mom had always been nice to me in an I-know-my- daughter-can-do-better-but-I-suppose-she-could-also-do-a- whole-l ot-worse manner, and she seemed genuinely concerned about my mental health as we pulled up in front of my home. I assured her that I’d be fine, and Adam assured her that he didn’t need to be dropped off at his own house.

I gave Kelley the kind of kiss you give your girlfriend when she’s been through a traumatic experience and her mom is right there, and they drove off.

Finally, Adam and I were alone.

“So,” I said, keeping my voice as calm as possible, “is it safe to say that you thought something else was going to happen?”

“I had no idea!” Adam insisted. “Not a clue! Did you see that? Did you see it? I—I—I—I didn’t think legs could do that! Oh my God! That was insane! Did you see it?”

“Why did it do that?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know! I don’t know!”

“They didn’t give you any kind of warning?”

“No! It was only supposed to sting! I swear to you what happened wasn’t the plan!” Adam closed his eyes and took several deep breaths.

“What if he dies?”

Adam opened his eyes. “He won’t, will he? People don’t die from losing legs, not if the ambulance gets there right away, do they?” “Did you see how much blood he lost?”

“Yes! It was all over the place! That was, like, ten times as much blood as I thought somebody would lose if their leg got cut off. Oh my God!” He was almost crying now. “Do you think they’ll find out we did it?”

“I don’t know. I mean, if you think about it, I don’t see how they could. A CSI team isn’t going to expose a voodoo curse, are they? We just need to get rid of this doll!”

Adam brightened. “We’ll burn it!”

“No, we won’t freaking burn it!”

“Oh yeah, right, right, right. Terrible idea.”

“Can the old lady.. .you know, deactivate it?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. She’d have to be able to, right?” “Maybe that’s something you should have researched before you bought a voodoo doll!”

“You’re the one who stuck the pin in it!”

I did not punch him. Praise me for my restraint.

“Don’t hit me,” he said, noticing my clenched fist. “I’m sorry. It was all my fault!”

“Yes.”

“I’ll make it right. I’ll fix it, I promise.”

“How can you possibly fix it?”

“I mean I’ll fix the doll. The surgeons will fix Mr. Click. They’ve got his leg with them—they’ll just use lasers to put it back on. He’ll be okay. He never wears shorts. Should I call the old lady?”

I shook my head. “If this does come back to us, we don’t want any record of any calls to a voodoo shop.”

“Yeah, yeah, good thinking. I’ll take it back tonight. We’ll be fine. Leg lasered back on, doll deactivated...everything will be awesome.” He reached for my backpack. “Give me the doll.” Put yourself in my position. Your friend, who is looking crazy-eyed and a little scary, wants you to give him a doll with unspeakable powers. This particular friend has demonstrated on numerous occasions that he is prone to very poor judgment. He’s a good pal, and you like hanging out with him; yet you also suspect that if he is left responsible for the doll, he might drop it, lose it, or somehow accidentally cause your history teacher to become a four-limb amputee.

So you tell him, “I’ll hang onto it.”

Adam’s eyes turned crazier and scarier. “Are you going to hand it over to the cops?”

“No!”

“You’re going to turn me in, aren’t you?”

“No! That would be like turning myself in! What’s the matter with you?”

“Why won’t you give me the doll?”

“We’ll take it there together!”

“Give me the doll!”

Adam lunged at me, knocking me to the ground. I got the eagerly awaited opportunity to punch him, though there was no joy or satisfaction in the act, just a hurt fist. Adam, who didn’t get punched very often, howled in pain and crawled off me, hand against his jaw.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“I’m flipping out, okay? I admit it! My brain is weak.”

“Well, stop it! You could have wrecked the doll even more! We have nothing to worry about, as long as we don’t act like complete morons!” I picked up my backpack and stood back up. “Can I please have the doll?”

“No.”

“I’d really like the doll.”

“We’re taking it back together, all right? My mom will get home before yours, so when she does, we’ll borrow the car and take the doll back to the voodoo shop.”

“What do we do until then? Twitch?”

“Let’s see what they’re saying on TV.”

We went inside my house, plopped down on the living room couch, and after the usual five-minute hunt for the remote control, I turned on the television.

“—and a strange story becomes even stranger,” said the reporter, standing outside of the hospital, as a caption let us know that this was LIVE. “Mr. Ronald Click, a high school teacher who severed his left leg in a bizarre accident during class, has been pronounced dead.”

“No!” Adam shouted.

“We don’t have all the details, but he reportedly died on the operating table about five minutes ago.. .from a broken neck.” We stared at the television screen for a very long time. The reporter gave more details, and I’m pretty sure Adam said a lot of things, but quite honestly, I didn’t hear any of it.

“I think we killed him,” I finally said.

“Maybe not,” said Adam. “Maybe...maybe the doctors dropped him.”

I’ve never seen a truly insane person, the kind you have to lock in a padded cell, but I thought they probably looked a lot like Adam did at that moment. I honestly didn’t know if he was going to start sobbing or drop to the floor and cackle with maniacal laughter.

I opened my backpack, took out the box, and removed the lid. The doll’s neck was bent backward.

If this weren’t a true story, I’d make up something clever I had said. Something like “Well, this rules out the doctor-drop theory!” but more clever than that. But since this is entirely true, I just stared at it with my mouth hanging open, thinking that now might be a pretty good time for a heart attack.

“You killed him,” Adam said.

“I killed him?”

“You had the doll!”

“It should have been in a better box!”

“Don’t blame the box!”

“Why wasn’t it padded?”

“I don’t know!”

“You attacked me!” I shouted. “If it’s anybody’s fault, it’s—” Adam lunged for the doll, but I shoved him to the floor. He got up quickly, raised his fists, seemed to think better of the idea, and lowered them.

“I’m not gonna let you turn me in,” he said.

“I wasn’t going to!”

“I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen!” Adam turned and ran out of my living room. I heard the door slam as he left the house. I thought about going after him, but no, I needed to let him blow off some steam and calm himself down.

I paced around for a few moments and then decided that I needed the help of somebody much smarter than me. I took out my cell phone to call Kelley.