Pulled In

4

Johnny Toast

From what Sir described to me about the incident in the bathroom, miss Elizabeth's brief dizzy spell seemed like nothing. When he came back in with Grayson, he pushed him onto the couch and handed him a pillow which Grayson immediately latched onto the way Sir often did when fighting off one of his "episodes".

Grayson was grabbing and chewing on the pillow so hard I was worried it would tear. I moved towards him slowly, but he simply looked at me with now bright red eyes and shook his head, almost pleading with me. I looked to Sir.
"How worried should I be?"

"Considering he tried to stab me with the same scissors he cut his own hair with, pretty worried."

That seemed to get Miss Elizabeth's attention. She looked hard at Grayson and frowned.
"Gray! We don't stab people! This isn't high school!"

This made Grayson laugh. Unfortunately, in doing so he put even more pressure on the poor pillow, and with a loud pop suddenly he was covered in an explosion of feathers. He spit a few out of his mouth and smiled before laughing even harder than before. It was a strange high pitched giggle identical to Jimmy's, and it showed off a set of impressively sharp teeth. This apparently irritated Miss Elizabeth, though I couldn't blame her Jimmy's laugh was irritating, and she slapped him, hard. This gave him pause, though he still giggled a bit.

"Why are you laughing so much all of a sudden?"

"Because everything feels funny all of a sudden!"

Sir and I exchanged a look. We were thinking the same thing. If this is how Grayson would act the whole time, then this was going to be a lousy rescue mission.
"Sir, I know I'm going to regret this, but what if Jimmy talked to him?"

Everyone looked at me like I was mad, though I may have been the sanest person in the room. Sir seemed about to protest, but apparently Jimmy had heard me because suddenly there he was, very confused about the teenager sitting on his couch laughing.
"What the heck?"

I pointed to Grayson.
"Talk to him and make him calm down. He's basically you."

Jimmy smirked.
"Toasty, you know I don't talk, I stabby, but I can always try that."

He reached down for his knife and we were both surprised to find it wasn't there at his belt. Then we looked over and saw Grayson examining it with a look of fascination. Jimmy, not one to share, snatched it away.
"Mine!"

Grayson paused, staring at the empty air in his hands, as if not comprehending what just happened, and then, suddenly, he and Jimmy were rolling on the floor fighting. Miss Elizabeth and I quickly ran in and restrained them. Jimmy still fought me, but Grayson went limp in Miss Elizabeth's hold. He shook his head, like he was trying to clear water from his ears.
"Sorry, I just..."

Jimmy paused and actually looked at Grayson now.
"Wait, how old are you?"

"Eighteen."

Jimmy quit fighting and pushed me away, approaching Grayson.
"Well kid, ya made a pretty bad decision picking me then. I wouldn't wish what I've got on my worst enemies. Except maybe the Toilet guy. He's a jerk. Or that creepy puppet. Or-"

"We get it Jimmy," I interrupted.

"Point is, this isn't something a kid should deal with."

"So can you help our friend here?"

Jimmy grabbed Grayson's face and they locked eyes for a few seconds.
"Yeah, I can help. Follow me."

He grabbed Grayson's wrist and pulled him down the hallway into Sir's room.