This is the principal . Would the custodian please report to the faculty restroom with a plunger … no, wait … a shovel and a plunger? And has anybody seen the gerbil from room two oh six?
The Mudshark was cool.
Not because he said he was cool or knew he was or thought it. Not because he tried or even cared.
He just was.
Kind of tall, kind of thin, with a long face, brown eyes and hair and a quick smile that jumped out and went back. When he walked down a hall he didn'tjust walk, he seemed to move as a part of the hall. He'd suddenly appear out of nowhere, as if he'd always been there.
Wasn't there.
Then there.
His real name was Lyle Williams and for most of his twelve-year-old life people had just called him Lyle.
But one day, when he'd been playing Death Ball—a kind of soccer mixed with football and wrestling and rugby and mudfighting, a citywide, generations-old obsession that had been banned from school property because of, according to the principal, Certain Insurance Restrictions and Prohibitions Owing to Alarming Health Risks Stemming from the Inhalation and Ingestion of Copious Amounts of Mud—he'd been tripped. Everyone thought he was down for the count, flat on his back, covered in mud. Just then, a runner-kicker-wrestler-mudfighter came too close to him, streaking down-field with the ball, and one of Lyle's hands snaked out and caught the runner by an ankle.
“So fast, it was like a mudshark,” Billy Crispersaid later. He always watched the animal channel. “Mudsharks lie in the mud and when something comes by, they grab it so fast that even high-speed cameras can't catch it. I didn't even see his hand move, I didn't see so much as a blur.”
After that game, no one called him Lyle.
Mudshark's agility had been honed at home, courtesy of his triplet baby sisters—Kara, Sara and Tara. Once they started crawling, his father said that all heck broke loose, because nothing moves faster than a tiny, determined toddler heading toward a breakable or swallowable object. If Mudshark had only had one little sister or maybe even two, his reflexes wouldn't have been so keen, but living under the same roof as three mobile units at one time had increased his range of motion and speed exponentially.
One night after dinner when they were about seven months old, the babies had been placed on a blanket on the floor and were playing with soft toys. Mudshark was doing his homework at the desk in the corner of the family room and his parents werewatching the news and, frankly, dozing on the couch.
Out of the corner of his eye, Mudshark saw a pink flash.
His head whipped around. Two babies were sitting on the blanket, looking toward the door to the hallway. Two, but not three. His parents were half asleep and he didn't want to disturb them. As he leapt silently to his feet and took a step toward the door, he saw two pink streaks darting past him in the same direction. Mudshark reached out and grabbed both babies by the back of their overalls as they crawled after their more adventurous sister. He scooped them up and tucked one under each arm in one fell swoop, heading out of the room toward the rogue baby.
Down the hall toward the kitchen, he saw a little rosebud-covered bottom (a quick glance at the faces he had clutched under his arms told him that Tara had made the first break) rounding the corner to the guest room. He took long strides toward her, Kara and Sara cooing at the jouncy ride. When hegot to the guest room, he stared down at Tara, who had found one of the dog's squeezy toys and was happily gumming it
(EEY-ah, EEY-ah …)
. Three babies, two arms.
He shifted the two girls he was holding to his left side, sliding his arm through their overall straps as if he were slinging a backpack over his forearm. They hung there, gurgling, while he bent over and plucked Tara off the floor.
Mudshark and his wriggling crew returned to the family room, where his parents slept peacefully, unaware that the triplets
The Mudshark was cool.
Not because he said he was cool or knew he was or thought it. Not because he tried or even cared.
He just was.
Kind of tall, kind of thin, with a long face, brown eyes and hair and a quick smile that jumped out and went back. When he walked down a hall he didn'tjust walk, he seemed to move as a part of the hall. He'd suddenly appear out of nowhere, as if he'd always been there.
Wasn't there.
Then there.
His real name was Lyle Williams and for most of his twelve-year-old life people had just called him Lyle.
But one day, when he'd been playing Death Ball—a kind of soccer mixed with football and wrestling and rugby and mudfighting, a citywide, generations-old obsession that had been banned from school property because of, according to the principal, Certain Insurance Restrictions and Prohibitions Owing to Alarming Health Risks Stemming from the Inhalation and Ingestion of Copious Amounts of Mud—he'd been tripped. Everyone thought he was down for the count, flat on his back, covered in mud. Just then, a runner-kicker-wrestler-mudfighter came too close to him, streaking down-field with the ball, and one of Lyle's hands snaked out and caught the runner by an ankle.
“So fast, it was like a mudshark,” Billy Crispersaid later. He always watched the animal channel. “Mudsharks lie in the mud and when something comes by, they grab it so fast that even high-speed cameras can't catch it. I didn't even see his hand move, I didn't see so much as a blur.”
After that game, no one called him Lyle.
Mudshark's agility had been honed at home, courtesy of his triplet baby sisters—Kara, Sara and Tara. Once they started crawling, his father said that all heck broke loose, because nothing moves faster than a tiny, determined toddler heading toward a breakable or swallowable object. If Mudshark had only had one little sister or maybe even two, his reflexes wouldn't have been so keen, but living under the same roof as three mobile units at one time had increased his range of motion and speed exponentially.
One night after dinner when they were about seven months old, the babies had been placed on a blanket on the floor and were playing with soft toys. Mudshark was doing his homework at the desk in the corner of the family room and his parents werewatching the news and, frankly, dozing on the couch.
Out of the corner of his eye, Mudshark saw a pink flash.
His head whipped around. Two babies were sitting on the blanket, looking toward the door to the hallway. Two, but not three. His parents were half asleep and he didn't want to disturb them. As he leapt silently to his feet and took a step toward the door, he saw two pink streaks darting past him in the same direction. Mudshark reached out and grabbed both babies by the back of their overalls as they crawled after their more adventurous sister. He scooped them up and tucked one under each arm in one fell swoop, heading out of the room toward the rogue baby.
Down the hall toward the kitchen, he saw a little rosebud-covered bottom (a quick glance at the faces he had clutched under his arms told him that Tara had made the first break) rounding the corner to the guest room. He took long strides toward her, Kara and Sara cooing at the jouncy ride. When hegot to the guest room, he stared down at Tara, who had found one of the dog's squeezy toys and was happily gumming it
(EEY-ah, EEY-ah …)
. Three babies, two arms.
He shifted the two girls he was holding to his left side, sliding his arm through their overall straps as if he were slinging a backpack over his forearm. They hung there, gurgling, while he bent over and plucked Tara off the floor.
Mudshark and his wriggling crew returned to the family room, where his parents slept peacefully, unaware that the triplets
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