Maggot Moon Read Online Free PDF

wooden back of the bench so no teacher could see what was going on. Then, in the tiny triangle behind the bench, a boy beat up a weaker one, a runt, or one who didn’t fit in, one who stood out from the flock.
    Hans Fielder was his old self now there was no more Hector to cramp his style. He was the drawing pin. He sent his merry men to round me up and push me behind the bench.
    “What would a officer want with a dunce?”
    “You mean the leather-coat man?” I said. I saw that Hans Fielder was wound up tighter than a clockwork soldier, ready to do battle.
    “Of course I mean him, you fricking moron.”
    You see, Hans Fielder had from birth greedily drunk all this Motherland sheep milk. Mrs. Fielder has eight, nine, ten, eleven children. Can’t remember, not good at counting sheep. What I know is that she and her husband survive on their rewards for the patriotic support of the Motherland. They take pride in their work, which is to report on all the good citizens who don’t toe the party line. Yes, these Fielders have well-fed, well-clothed children.
    It’s easy to spot the parents who are collaborators in our school. Their sons wear long trousers. I, like most of the underclass, wear shorts that once were trousers before I grew too long for them. Now they are cut off below the knee, the two drain pipes of fabric kept in my mother’s sewing box in case repairs are necessary.
    Hans Fielder, of the long trousers and the new school blazer, pushed me up hard against the playground wall and asked the question again. His sidekicks all gathered round.
    I didn’t fight back when they started in on me again.
    Gramps once said, “Whatever else you do, Standish, don’t raise your fists. Turn away. If they throw you out of that school, well . . .”
    He never finished what he was saying. There was no need.
    But I couldn’t keep quiet any longer.
    I said, “The next time I see the leather-coat man I might tell him all about your mother.”
    Hans Fielder stopped punching me.
    “What about my mother?” he asked.
    “How she informs on people, makes up lies, sends innocent people to the maggot farms — to keep you in new trousers.”
    That stopped him. Doubt is a great worm in a crispy, red apple. You didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to know who the real idiots were here: Hans Fielder, who believed he was destined for greatness, along with his merry gang. They were all bleating sheep, the whole maladjusted lot of them. They never questioned anything. There was not one of a rare breed of Whys among them, just plain, shorn, bleached sheep. The brain-branded idiots couldn’t see that, like all the rest of us who lived in Zone Seven, they were never going anywhere. The only chance Hans Fielder had of escape was to be sent to fight the Obstructors, and that was as good as booking yourself a slot in the crematorium. But that realization had yet to dawn on him.
    So the beating continued. I thought of my flesh as a wall. The me inside the wall they can’t bully, they can’t touch, so while they beat the drum of my skin I thought hard about that leather-coat man and where his black Jag was going next. In my mind’s eye I could see it arriving in our road. He wasn’t going to have any problems finding where we live. After all, it was the only row of houses left standing. I saw the leather-coat man finding our hens, the TV, pushing Gramps down to the cellar, and, worst of all, discovering the moon man. I was seeing this all in my head like a film being played and ending badly.
    “Standish Treadwell,” shouted Mr. Gunnell, “what are you doing behind there? The bell has gone.”
    I hadn’t even noticed it. I tasted the blood in my mouth, felt my nose and thought,
at least it isn’t broken.

“Standish Treadwell!” Mr. Gunnell shouted again, his face red. His eyes bulged out of his head, as did two veins leading up to that troublesome toupee.
    I climbed out from behind the bench and stood in front of Mr. Gunnell. I had a