The Terrarium
Sam ducked down the dead-end passage that ran between two of the makeshift classrooms where it was dark and he could be alone. He retched up the fear with his hands cupped tight over his mouth; he hadn’t lost a fear yet. The creature beat mucus-lined wings against his palms…
Story by Stephen Gaskell
Illustration by Peter Winton-Keirl
Sam kept his fears in a globe-shaped terrarium next to his bed. It was the size of a beach-ball and made of a thick and uneven glass through which the ferns and moss-covered stones looked distorted.
Spotting the fears was tricky.
Only the earthworm, Sam’s old fear of birds, stood out against the bland gravel of the terrarium floor.
Not that Sam couldn’t feel the others.
All he had to do was lower his hand into the tickly foliage and soon enough the old fears would gnaw at his innards. A spider dangling from a web carried Sam’s fear of heights, and he felt the giddy sensation again. He drew his fingers through the gravel, making a scratchy noise, and came to the cockroach. His old fear of bright lights–caused by the fluorescent lamp on his father’s desk–touched his mind and then receded as the cockroach scuttled away.
Moving his hand upwards, brushing against the leaves, he felt an array of fears which he’d never even been consciously aware of: fears of cracks in pavements, icicles, naked flames, bras, algebra, the nasal hair of the P.E. teacher, Mr. Oakes, and countless others all incarnate in the menagerie of tiny snails, dragonflies, bees, crickets, spiders, and other creatures he hadn’t been able to identify yet.
The fears never ate each other. Sensible, really. He remembered the time his Red Admiral butterfly had escaped and Winston, their cat, had eaten it. From then on, Winston had been terrified of hanging jackets. It was a fear Sam had experienced as a child when he used to watch his mother dress—the musty woolen jackets nestling in the shadows of the wardrobe like monsters to his young mind.
Near the lip of the bowl he sensed the most recent fear he’d overcome–fear of reading aloud. He shuddered at the thought, recalling the awful choking feeling when his turn to read used to approach. He opened his eyes and saw the fear prone against the glass–a black-winged moth with yellow speckles. It was as big as a playing card. He’d let it grow and fester for a long while before he’d conquered it, and when he coughed the moth up it had hurt his throat.
*
It had happened the day before yesterday, after English.
During the lesson he’d read aloud his page of Lord of the Flies without a single stutter. When the bell for break rang he could already feel the fear being pushed out.
Outside he ducked down the dead-end passage that ran between two of the makeshift classrooms where it was dark and he could be alone. He retched up the fear with his hands cupped tight over his mouth; he hadn’t lost a fear yet. The creature beat mucus-lined wings against his palms. He hoped it was a butterfly–the terrarium needed a little more colour–but he wasn’t disappointed when he opened his hands a fraction and spied the moth. No more being afraid of reading aloud!
“Hey, freak-boy!”
Sam eased the moth into his right hand and let his arm drop behind his back. A gang of boys crowded the only way in and out of the passage. Christian Sykes, self-appointed king of the schoolyard, stood in the middle.
“What you doing, freak-boy?”
Christian was a big lad with a tubbiness just the right side of ridicule. A mean face jutted from under a recently shaved head which had earned him a month’s detention and a year’s worth of respect from his crew.
“Not doing anything, Chris,” Sam said. His voice was more high-pitched than normal and he cursed inwardly.
Christian stepped into the passage. “What you hiding there? You got another butterfly for Amy, freak-boy?” he said to laughs from behind.
Sam blushed, hoping his face was hidden in shadow. He’d known Amy for years and had strange feelings for her, but in the last year they had grown apart as she’d begun mixing with a new crowd.
He shuffled backwards, the fear in the moth completely eclipsed by his fear of Christian. Behind him, his outstretched arm grazed the brick wall. No way out.
Christian was halfway down the passage when one of his gang shouted, “Mrs. Raven’s coming!”
Christian pointed at Sam for a long moment. Then he turned and sauntered back to his crew.
*
Sam sealed the terrarium with the cork lid and rubbed his belly. The fear of Christian was in there, in some dark, warm recess of his stomach. Growing. Swelling. He’d been scared of Christian since he’d started at the school three years ago and he didn’t want to think how big the fear could be by now.
Sometimes he imagined it might outgrow his belly and burst out. Sometimes he wished that would happen so the fear would be over and done with.
*
A few days later Sam was scrabbling through the long grass of his favourite place–the patch of wasteland which connected the school fields and the back of a new housing development. It was a shortcut for children who lived on the estate and Sam could hear the last few kids joking around as they headed home.
When the last voice faded Sam heaved himself up and surveyed his kingdom. The area was peppered with old farm equipment and abandoned household appliances, but it was the natural world which interested him most.
He ran over the bumpy ground towards the small thicket of crab-apple trees, letting his fingers brush against the tips of the grass. Underneath a spindly branch he plucked a pale apple and bit into it with a satisfying crunch. The fruit was sour and he didn’t swallow it, chewing it into a mulch before spitting it out into his hand instead.
He dropped down to the ground and stared at the earth. Ants were his current fascination. The old, hardback books from the local library called them social insects and he’d discovered they lived in organized communities.
He spied a trail of worker ants and dropped the mulch in their path. Soon enough the area was teeming with the creatures, mandibles dividing up the apple and carrying it off to the nest. Sam was in awe of the way they worked together. Pester one ant and straightaway others came to help. He had the bites to prove it. And they didn’t have any fears; or if they did they were shared between the whole colony.
The ants were getting into the folds of his jumper and down his shoes now, and the little stabs of pain were beginning to get too much. From his backpack he whisked out a jar and dragged it through the main avenue of ants, picking up loose earth and a few leaves at the same time. He screwed on the lid and ran out of the thicket. When he was clear of the tree line he took off his shoes and shook out the ants who’d come along with him.
As he was retying his laces, leaning his foot against a rust-speckled fridge, he heard a girl’s cry.
“Sam!”
He looked up in the direction of the cry. Not thirty yards away, on an old, faded settee with fraying arms and springs poking out the body, sat Christian and Amy.
“Sam, please!”
What did she want? When they’d been closer, this had been their private place. Now she shared it with that bully.
Sam stood up and glanced around. The track was out of sight beyond a gentle rise. They were all alone.
“Sam!” Amy’s cry was desperate.
He didn’t look ahead, just stared at the ground right in front of his nose and walked towards the settee. Even though his legs felt as if they were made of lead he carried on.
“Go away, freak-boy.”
He kept his eyes down. Amazing how much life imprinted itself on the most ordinary ground. He tried to block out the noise of the struggle he heard ahead.
“You step any closer and your life will not be-” Christian screamed, “-Amy!”
Sam looked up. Amy ran past, her shirt flapping loose from her skirt, and ducked behind Sam. She leaned against his back, crying. Christian was inspecting his hand, fury painted on his face.
“Go, Amy,” Sam whispered, terrified. She didn’t respond. He said it again louder and this time she rubbed her eyes in his jumper and left.
Christian got up from the settee, rolling up his sleeves. “You want to get involved, freak-boy?”
Sam didn’t move. Paralyzing fear rather than bravery kept him rooted to the spot.
The first blow, even though it winded him, was a release. His arms came to life and he found himself grappling Christian. They fell to the ground. Sky and earth tumbled around as his knees and elbows scraped the dirt. The taste of grass mingled with a trace of blood in Sam’s mouth.
And then he found himself pinned under his opponent. Christian spat to one side of Sam’s head and then stared down with menacing eyes.
“Now I’m going to hurt you.” He raised his fist.
“Get off him!” A stranger’s voice. Male. Adult.
Sam watched Christian turn his head and look in the direction of the shout.
“Another time, freak-boy. Another time,” Christian said, and ran.
*
“Dad, you don’t understand. He wants to kill me.”
Sam stood at the door to the study, talking to his father’s back. He could tell his father was still writing from the scrawly sound of nib against paper. The computer revolution was yet to happen in his world.
The decision to involve his father hadn’t been an easy one, but he hadn’t been able to see any other choice. Now he was regretting it. His father’s realm of literature and reverential quiet didn’t intersect with the world of casual violence that Christian Sykes operated in.
“Don’t be so melodramatic, Sam. Listen, I’ll talk to the boy’s father. A few stiff words from a parental figure should set the boy straight.”
Sam groaned. His father swivelled about, capping his fountain pen.
“You don’t think that’ll work, Sam?”
“His dad’s in prison.” Sam tried to picture his father having a friendly word with Christian’s dad in the visitor’s room surrounded by tattooed convicts and burly guards. “Look, Dad, forget about it.”
“I’ll call the school. One of the teachers can have a word instead.”
“Dad! That’ll make it worse.”
Sam’s father fidgeted with his pen while furrowing his brows. Sam knew that in his father’s mind, bullying was part and parcel of growing up.
“Forget about it,” Sam said. He had another idea.
His father grunted and returned to writing.
*
The school canteen pounded with commotion. Sam joined the ragged line which skirted one side of the room, using his peripheral vision to try and find Christian as discreetly as possible. Furious chatter and the din of dull cutlery against unbreakable plates filled the air, but the noise came to him curbed, as if he were listening underwater.
His hands felt clammy and his trousers itched and he wanted to go to the toilet even though he’d gone not five minutes ago. The line shuffled forward, pockets of conversation either side of him. Christian sat observing the room with a few of his crew near the back of the canteen.
“Next!” the dinner lady barked. She looked like an old hag, skin stretched tight from where her hair was pulled up and under her chef’s hat.
Sam blinked at the row of metal receptacles filled with chips, lasagnas, quiches, and salads. The greasy foods made him feel queasy. With his stomach knotted he wasn’t sure he had room anyhow.
“I haven’t got all day.”
Sam pointed at the chips. The dinner lady piled a plate high.
“Anything else?”
Sam shook his head and took the plate to the till. Halfway across the canteen he saw Amy beckoning him to her table. He wavered, standing stock-still in the middle of the room. Inside the matchbox in his breast pocket he felt a tiny life stir. Somebody knocked against the small of his back with their tray.
He couldn’t do it.
He smiled at Amy, trying to hide the mix of relief and failure he felt.
“Hello,” he said, joining her. The other kids at the table stopped and looked between himself and Amy. He wondered if this was a good idea.
She poured him a glass of water without saying a word. The other kids at the table began to chat amongst themselves.
“Thanks for yesterday,” she said. “I shouldn’t have taken Christian there–but I felt safer knowing you would be nearby.”
“What are you doing hanging around with him, Amy?” It had been a while, but Sam still felt he could be honest.
“There’s a lot about him you don’t know.”
“Yeah, like what I saw yesterday.”
She looked up from her glass, meeting his gaze. She looked older than he remembered.
She lowered her voice. “He went too far. He knows that. We’ve talked about it and he’s sorry.”
“Sorry? He’s going to really hurt somebody one day. It could be me, it could be you, it could be anyone.” Sam glanced at Christian across the canteen. He was joking around with his friends, cracking his knuckles, but all the time keeping his eye on Sam.
“Maybe. All I know is that if I leave him it’s bound to happen.”
Sam picked at his chips. They tasted like cardboard.
“I’m scared of him, Amy,” he whispered.
“He’s scared of himself too, Sam. Did you know that?”
Scared of himself? Sam had never considered the possibility.
Amy said, “He’s scared of this image he’s made of himself. Scared he has to live up to it every day. Look him in the eye and you’ll see his fear. He just needs to understand how he makes other people-”
“Don’t mind if I join the party do you?” Christian said, plunking himself down next to Amy. His bowl of spotted dick pudding clattered onto the table and spun like a coin coming to rest.
Sam looked into the bully’s eyes, not flinching once.
And saw an ordinary kid. An ordinary kid drowning in his own myth. Sam felt something awaken in his belly.
“What’re you looking at, freak-boy?”
“I’m going,” Amy said, shaking her head at Christian. “Sam, I’ll see you later.”
She got up and walked away. Christian followed trying to act casual, but apologizing the whole time.
Sam felt something soft and slimy coming up his throat. He spat it out onto a napkin. It was a slug. A tiny curled up black slug.
He looked at Christian’s pudding. Congealing custard covered the sponge. On the other side of the canteen, Christian was making his way back to the table.
He thought of Amy’s earlier words.
He just needs to understand how he makes other people feel.
Napkin in hand, Sam reached across the table for the jug of ice water next to Christian’s bowl. The slug dropped into the custard without a sound.
“Ta very much.”
Sam looked up, startled. Christian stood next to the table, holding out an empty glass.
“No problem,” Sam said, and poured. He glanced at Christian’s pudding. The slug was gone, safely hidden in the thick folds of custard.
Christian drained his glass and sat down. Then he picked up his spoon and began wolfing down his pudding.
Stephen Gaskell has fond recollections of the school dinners of his youth, and hope’s his Scape tale hasn’t put you off yours. A Careers Advisors’ worst nightmare, he has been employed as a computer programmer, barman, social research interviewer, and English-language teacher, but is currently trying to make a living as a full-time writer. Publishing credits with Interzone, Escape Pod, and Clarkesworld, amongst others, suggest this isn’t entirely in vain. He is currently working on his first novel, a near-future SF thriller set in Lagos, Nigeria. He blogs, erratically, at www.stephengaskell.com.
