Unwanted Attention
Chapter Six of The Call of Mammitum
This is chapter six, did you read chapter one yet?
Note: This is not intended to be a fully released serial, these are sample chapters to wet your whistle while I figure out how to publish this thing.
Shoulders press; elbows jab as History class streams out the door. I go limp in the flow and let it carry me—small, invisible—because Tommy will be the last out. Always waiting. Always patient.
Maddeningly patient.
But the current isn’t fast enough, so I push—brushing shoulders—“Sorry, sorry… sorry,” as I jostle past.
My heart pounds—too loud—like I’m chased. I twist to look back.
The doorway’s clear, but it’s still too close—right on my heels. Voices slap the brick, then blur, muffled, like my head’s gone under.
I hunch deeper, and tug my jacket tight. The fabric rasps over the pulse in my ears. The paper in my pocket whispers against the lining.
I shouldn’t have brought the rubbing. It’s dead weight—useless, heavy—and I’m avoiding Tommy again, the only one here who doesn’t look through me like I’m a stain. The rubbing shoved me toward him in the first place.
Now it whispers what Tommy wants—and where I can’t take him. I can’t go back to the cemetery. Not yet. Maybe never. I wish he’d forget the whole thing.
But Tommy doesn’t let go—not once he’s latched on. Mrs. Spaulding had to shush him all the time when he wouldn’t stop asking.
I can’t do that to him, so I walk faster—slip sideways—let taller kids swallow me up. If I can just hit the next door, get through before he sees my back—
“Hey, Mattie!”
Oh! Tommy’s voice slices through the noise.
My breath catches. I keep my face forward—like I didn’t hear a thing—and duck into the typewriting room.
The early girls fiddle with their keys; tick-tack taps echo around the room. I keep my eyes on the door.
He doesn’t pass.
Finally, my shoulders give. I drop into the chair and trace the S key with my fingertip—then jam it. Hard.
My middle joint pops. Thunk. The typebar strikes. The S stutters onto the page in black ink.
Ow. I flex. Good. I deserve that.
Tommy deserves better.
Lunch is boiled beef, creamed spinach, and a hard roll—but it sits there untouched.
I’ve already skipped one free meal this week running from him, and breakfast wasn’t much—out of bacon, out of eggs, just salted oats on toast—so now my stomach claws at my insides.
It snarls and growls—low in my gut—and the last of the butterflies scatter.
I let my stomach punish me for being selfish—for being a coward. Let me shrink down to nothing.
By the time Tommy wheels up and sets his tray across from mine, the spinach has gone dull and cold. I don’t look up. “Hi, Tommy.” Then, quieter: “I’m sorry.”
The beef sags when I poke at it with my fork.
He unrolls his napkin. “For what?”
I glare at him. “For avoiding you. I’m still shaken after last night, and I don’t know if I can go back there yet. But I should’ve just said so.”
I shove in a forkload of beef just to tease my stomach—cold, bland—then a tooth skids off a knot of gristle and I gag into my napkin. I shove the tray away and fold my arms tight across my chest.
“That’s okay.” His voice lilts; the corner of his mouth lifts. “I get caught up sometimes, and forget not everyone’s as excited as I am.”
He looks down. “I didn’t think about how scared you must’ve been.”
I groan. “Oh! Don’t do that, Tommy. Don’t be sorry—you’re so… kind. I don’t know why you talk to me at all.”
Tommy’s eyes crinkle behind his glasses, and his brows draw together. “Mattie, why are you always so hard on yourself?”
His frown—those eyes behind the glasses—hard. He looks mad. Like I just kicked his shin. I keep my eyes on him—is this it? Will he give up and wheel his tray to another table, to another girl who smiles pretty and says the right things? Someone worth smiling back at.
I almost sigh when he doesn’t. He just looks down and stirs his spinach.
But he says, “You could’ve told Dr. Gewargis no, yesterday, and sat down, but you didn’t. You stood up for me, and said it better than I could have. I was impressed. He was too.”
My eyes drop to my hands. I don’t want him to see. My cheeks are warm—so are my eyes. And my stomach isn’t growling or twisting anymore—it’s fluttering.
He goes on. “And then, last night, you could’ve run home after the cemetery. But you brought me this amazing mystery, instead.”
He tilts his head and his eyes catch mine—and my gaze gets yanked up to his. “Why wouldn’t I want to be your friend?” he asks.
I look away again, stirring my own cold spinach. His chair creaks. I glance up—he’s leaned back, fork idle on his tray. “You know… nobody really asks me to do anything either.”
I frown and shake my head. “People are always talking to you. Everyone likes you.”
His head shakes slowly. “Everyone’s nice to me. That doesn’t mean they like me. Nobody wants to be mean to the boy in the wheelchair. Well—except Scott Peters.”
He looks down at his beef and splays his hands to either side of his tray. “But nobody really wants to talk to me—not about the things I care about. I talk to people, not the other way around.”
He looks at me. “So when you said you couldn’t come to the library… I wasn’t surprised.”
My hands lift and fumble—nothing to do with them. I drop them back to my lap. It hits me—Tommy’s alone here too.
But his lips hint a smile, and it settles softly in his eyes. “Then you showed up anyway, and it was the greatest thing. You’re the first person my age I’ve had a real conversation with in a long time.”
His eyes flicker when he looks at me. “So yeah, I’m excited to explore the cemetery with the girl who hiked into the deepest part of it, found a mysterious stone door in the side of a hill, then helped me find a book of magic in the library.”
I grab my roll and tear pieces off it, tossing them back on my tray. “I’m just so scared, Tommy. I used to like the cemetery.”
I swallow hard. “But now it’s full of ghosts, and strange doors marked with symbols I don’t understand. You weren’t there. You don’t know. You want to run right back. But after last night, I just…”
I breathe and shake my head. “I want answers. But I can’t go back there to get them.”
Tommy’s face flattens—his grin gone. I miss it already. “Well… I don’t know what it was like for you,” he says, “but I can imagine what might scare me that much. It must’ve been bad.”
The grin’s back. “Being scared isn’t the end of the world, though. I’m scared too, to be honest. But that also makes it exciting, don’t you think?”
A smirk slides up my face. I can’t stop it—he put it there.
I nibble at my lip. “Well… you’re obviously a lot braver than I am.”
Tommy looks down at the table and chuckles. “Oh, I don’t know about that. Did you know I almost didn’t come back to school after the polio?”
My head shakes on its own, and I lean in.
He frowns. My face copies him. “I was weak all over,” he says. “They told me I might get some strength back, but I’d never walk again. I was terrified of going outside—of what people would say. How would I get around? I couldn’t imagine. I just wanted to stay home. My family isn’t well off, but my parents said they could afford a tutor—that I didn’t have to go back if I didn’t want to.”
He stops a moment and the grin’s back.
“Then my Zayde came by—he’s the Rabbi here—and he says to me, Thomas—”
Tommy deepens his voice, squints one eye and just like that, he’s a wizened old man. I laugh, covering my mouth.
His eyes flash and he keeps going, “You’ve got some problems, sure. And you’d be no kind of fool to stay here where it’s safe, and your mother takes care of you. But nothing interesting happens here, does it? No. All the wonderful things happen out there. So if you want to live an interesting life, you’ve gotta get over these useless legs. Because the only thing keeping you here… is fear. We can work with the legs. But the fear? That’s all yours.”
Oh—I’m almost in tears. Laughing, yes—his old-man voice is absurd. But… there’s something else. Relief. I’m just so glad he’s here.
He drops the act. “So, Mattie, you’re no kind of fool if you don’t want to go back—I can’t imagine how frightening that was—but wouldn’t it be more interesting to go and find out what we can? I know you’re afraid. I am too, but, see, we can be afraid together.”
My head shakes, but I hear myself say, “Okay,” anyway.
His teeth flash and I breathe out, shoulders dropping. “I—I do want to know why the book and the tomb both have that flower on it. What does it mean? It’s been on my mind all day, and…” My cheeks lift and I look at him. “Dr. Gewargis really would find this interesting, you think?”
Tommy brightens, nods. “Hey, did you bring the rubbing?”
I nod and pat my pocket. Tommy lights up—face beaming—like I just handed him permission to breathe.
“Great!”
The Grimoire slides out from under the blanket on his lap, and he drops it on the table.
Smack—echoing across the lunchroom.
I jump, heart seizing, as the golden seven-petaled flower catches the light and flashes. Tommy brought it out of the library—how? I didn’t think it could leave that place.
Yet here it is—on the lunch table, out in the open.
The buzz thins. Chairs squeak. Heads crane—eyes landing on the gold.
The rubbing in my pocket whispers as I shift—there, gone, there again—ki-gal-sheh.
“Tommy!” I hiss. “How do you have that?”
“I checked it out.” He flips the cover open—a tan pouch with Ganser Lending Library stamped in red. “Nellie made it official.”
More faces turn. More eyes catch me. Whispers rise from each table—then slip inside my ears.
My chair scrapes the tile as I stand. I yank my jacket and throw it over the Grimoire. My hands tremble as I press it flat—our trays skitter; mine teeters on the edge.
Tommy blinks—eyes widening. “Mattie—what’s wrong?”
“Should we really have this out on the lunch table?” My words scrape out between my teeth.
Tommy folds a gentle hand over mine. “It’s okay. It’s just an old book.”
I glance around.
Nobody’s looking at the book anymore. I’m covering it. They’re looking at me.
Including Tommy—one hand on mine, the other clamped on his chair arm. His eyes hunt mine—confused. Worried.
Oh. I look ridiculous—insane, probably both.
I pull the jacket off the book, sit, and squeeze my eyes shut—huff. “Sorry. I—”
“Holy smokes. What is that?” a voice blurts beside me.
My eyes fly open.
Jonah Collins has the book—turning it in his hands.
His blue eyes spark—bright. He runs thick fingers down the spine—slow. Tender. Almost… possessive.
He grins at me—teeth bright and straight—and heat rushes up my face, down my neck. Embarrassed, yes, but also… Jonah moves and the room seems to light up around him, like sunlight follows wherever he goes.
But Jonah’s loud and the room’s watching him.
“Shh!” I hiss.
Too late—Tommy’s already chattering, like he’s been holding it in all morning. My story. The book. The door. The whispers.
But Jonah’s grin falls, and he pulls the book closer, tilting his head as if listening to it.
I don’t know why, but everything else drops away. “What’s wrong, Jonah?”
He shakes his head. “Oh, nothin’, I just…”
He squints at the page. Lowers his voice. “These symbols are wild. I have trouble with regular lettering—but these… I can almost hear them in my head. Each one’s got its own sound.”
Tommy’s jaw hangs. “You can read them?”
“Naw—naw, it ain’t like that.” Jonah taps the page. “Not what they say. Just what they sound like.”
He points at a line. “Like these sound like: Zi-shah Hay-zi Doo-loom-mah-tah Hay-ee…“
Giggles burst from the nearest table and my jaw tightens.
Jonah chuckles and sets the book down, but when he grins now it pulls wrong—too tight. His eyes won’t let go of the book—like it might bite. The chain at his neck slides between his fingers, link by link.
Tommy, on the other hand, is buzzing again—rocking in his chair. “We have to go back, Mattie—we need to find that tomb again!”
He looks at me, eyes softening. “Are you still good with that? The tomb, the Grimoire… and now Jonah can hear it? Come on—this is amazing, right?”
I swallow—my throat clicks dry. Amazing isn’t the word I’d use. But I nod anyway. I’d be some kind of fool not to go now.
Jonah spins a chair and straddles it. “Wait—you two are going back to the cemetery? When?”
“Today. After school,” Tommy says.
“Preferably before it gets too dark,” I add.
Jonah’s face brightens. “That sounds like the cat’s pajamas. I’m in.”
My mouth drops open—but another voice rings out.
“I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”
I spin. Sarah Whitmore is there, arms straight at her side, gray eyes flicking between us, cold and precise.
“Sarah? Were you there the whole time?” I blurt.
She snorts. The sound is wrong—like it came from somewhere else. Her face doesn’t move.
“Hardly. He—” she points at Jonah, “—is very loud.”
Jonah’s brow pinches. “What business is it of yours, anyway?”
“You’re talking about magic,” she says, tone even. “Moreover, you plan to carry a book of magic into a cemetery, to find a tomb marked with the same symbol on its cover. This seems... unwise.”
Tommy frowns. “And what would you know about magic?”
“Not the least bit,” she says, tilting her head. “Which is probably as much—or more—than any of you. That makes what you’re proposing quite reckless.”
I try to keep my voice steady. “Sarah, I need to know how the book connects to the tomb. It’s for my thesis.”
She looks down her sharp nose at me. “Then I suggest you leave the book behind and take good notes.”
My ears burn—hotter.
Don’t be so stupid, Mattie. Just study more, silly girl. Work harder, lazy girl. Take better notes, stupid girl.
But Sarah shifts—voice softening—reaching across the table. “Can I see it? The book.”
Tommy reaches for it, but I snatch it first and hug it tight to my chest. My lips press in, my jaw locks, and my eyes burn; if I open my mouth, I’ll cry.
I open it anyway. “Nobody asked for your opinion, Sarah. It’s none of your business.”
My words come out bitter—biting—so… mean.
Sarah steps back like I slapped her. Then she straightens, turns, and walks briskly away.
The look on her face—utter confusion—burns in.
It feels good to see it.
“The nerve of that one,” Jonah chuckles, shaking his head. “Such a weird, weird girl.”
The heat in my ears surges up into my face, and my hands go cold in my lap.
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