Wuftoom by Mary G. Thompson Page B

whipped around too quickly. His feet tottered on the edge of the pit and his arms waved. Evan thrust himself into Jordan’s brain, but it was too late. Jordan fell backward into the goo.
    Evan watched from above as Jordan rolled over onto his stomach and tried to push himself up, his hands sinking in deep. His feet were still partly free, and he kicked them as he squirmed. He finally turned himself face-up again but was now totally covered in the pink goo. Evan was sure that he would sink, not having both hands and a leg free as Evan had, but Jordan was strong.
    On his back, he pulled his arms up sharply until they were free. Then he reached them out to the banks of the hole and pushed with both his hands and feet. When his back was almost free, he pushed with his right hand and threw himself up onto the ground where his left hand had been.
    He lay in the mud, panting and crying.
    Evan felt sorry. Jordan had no idea what was about to happen. And he was no more deserving than Evan. All the jealousy seeped away from him as he looked down. Now Jordan was just like him. Another proem.
    The rain washed off some of the goo. It separated on the ground into pockets of pink. The water seemed to run off it, leaving it pure. Jordan lifted himself up and looked around.
    Evan rode with him as he walked, not interfering until Jordan needed a little bit more skill to climb the fence. He felt the weight of the soaked jeans, the increasing chill as the rain dripped through to Jordan’s skin.
    Jordan walked back to the school, becoming even more soaked with each dejected step.
    Evan left him before he reached it. He could not go back to school. He could not do this to anybody else. He let his consciousness drift to the ground, almost into a puddle on the sidewalk. He had no idea what to do.
    The worm would be angry, Evan thought, and it would threaten him. But surely it wouldn’t kill him? Surely it wanted him too badly. It was logical, but the more he thought about it, the less he was sure that the creature worked by logic. Sinking further into the ground, he knew that he should not have taken even one other kid.
    He thought of Jordan’s mother. How would she react when her son began to fall ill, after just having lost another?
    It doesn’t matter,
Evan told himself.
It’s my last day on earth. It doesn’t matter what happens now.
He wanted to stay there on the ground, sink into it, and never go back to himself. He would expand and drift into nothing. It would be better than becoming a worm.
    He would have done it, but there was one person he still cared about.

Eleven
    H E FLOATED INTO THE STORE. It was the end of her shift, but there was still a line at the register where his mother stood, scanning items, taking money. She looked exhausted. Her graying dark hair was pulled back into a messy bun, with pieces falling everywhere. It looked like she had slept on it, but Evan knew she hadn’t slept.
    A customer wanted to chat, but Evan’s mother only gave a sad little smile, and the customer went away again, replaced by the next one and the next.
    Evan jumped into a man as he was handing his mother a twenty-dollar bill. He was a burly man, stout and strong and tall. He looked down on his mother’s graying head. Evan had never seen her from this angle. She seemed smaller. For the first time in his life, he didn’t see her as his mother, but as a person. A worn-looking woman who was much too young to look the way she did.
    Without really looking at him, she took the cash. There was a tension as she pulled it, as if she wanted to pull harder. As if she wanted to rip the bill in two and everything else with it. She slowly put the bill inside the drawer and gave him the change back, still not really looking at him. He tried to catch her eye, but she looked down.
    â€œTough day?” Evan asked. He cursed himself for saying something so ordinary, but it was all he could think of.
    His mother forced a tiny