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Papers from Beyond

"No mortal shall pass into the kitchen without first giving me the secret code!"

"Shut up, Corey," I said groggily the next morning. It was about six-thirty, and I was trying to get into the kitchen to eat something. Corey was standing in the doorway with his arms across it, not wanting me to go through him. He was way too awake.

"I am the gatekeeper, and I say no mortal shall pass! Give me the code, human scum, or die!"

"I'll give you a code," I muttered angrily, trying to push past him but too tired to really make it. "Turn around and I'll shove it up you—"

"Cole!" came my mother's disapproving voice. Easy for her to disapprove; she was already in the kitchen.

"Well tell him to get out of my way!" I snarled.

Rather than say anything else, mom came over to Corey and gave him this look that I'm sure said something like, "Corey, my favorite child ever, your brother is being grumpy. Let's be kind to the poor beast and not play with his little mind." Whatever. I didn't care. Corey moved, anyway, and I got in.

When I sat down at the table, my mother said, "What's wrong this morning? You seem to be in a bad mood."

"Yeah, well when Corey's being a turd, I get like that."

She sighed. Like she always does when I'm crabby. Like she wants to say, "Get over it!" But she never does actually say that. She's a good mom, even if she does like Corey better. She made us breakfast every morning. I bet Adam's mom never did. And actually, just sitting there at the table, I could smell the syrup hot in the microwave. What would it be—waffles? Pancakes? French toast? Yum. The morning was looking brighter already.

Corey plopped his obnoxious little self right across the table from me. His big, fifth-grade eyes stared at me, and I tried to pretend like I didn't notice. He looked just like my parents with his dark hair and irises like drops of chocolate. For being a fifth grader, he sure was pretty popular. Every night he was getting phone calls, and not just from guys. It made me kind of sick, but he was a pretty perfect-looking boy. You have to be able to admit that sort of thing about your siblings sometimes. Corey was going to be a really good-looking guy when he got older. Not like me—oddball Cole. White-blonde hair and black hole eyes. I was probably just going to get more freakish with each passing year. I couldn't even remember the last time I'd been phoned by someone other than Adam. Plus, Corey played miniature football, which was a big sport in Goldenrock. You started playing the minute you were born, if you wanted to fit in. Not me, though. I played nothing, unless you count calculator games, which I played sometimes during math, the most boring subject of all.

I totally didn't want to go to school that morning. I was so tired that I could hardly remember what had taken place during the night. Adam . . . tree . . . box. Everything was in pieces. And I had my math final in school. I completely didn't care about it. All the final would do was once again show my teacher how stupid and hopeless I was with the subject. I think I was dyslexic with numbers, kind of like some people are with letters. It didn't help any that I figured I was never going to get the stuff so I never bothered trying.

"Mom, Cole did something bad last night," Corey was suddenly saying in this sneaky way.

I looked up at him; he was still staring at me, except now he had this big stupid grin on his face, like he was about to get me in trouble and was going to love doing it. "I didn't do anything," I said quietly, giving him this sort of evil eye, like, If you even say a word you'll regret it for the rest of your life.

But Corey wasn't afraid of me, that was for sure. He had enough friends to not worry about losing the esteem of his brother. "Yeah, mom. He did something. He just doesn't want to admit it."