Tall Tales by Wayne Wallace

 

“Jimmy, you finish getting dressed and get down here.  Your breakfast is ready.  And I don’t want you missing the school bus!” his mother yelled up the stairs.  “Okay Mom, I’m coming.” Jimmy Higgins answered.  Jimmy was in no hurry to get to school today, in fact he would just as soon miss the bus and stay home, but he knew he had to go and face Miss Klein, his fifth grade teacher.  She had called his mother last night and talked to her about his “stories.”  Jimmy had a vivid imagination and he loved to tell his classmates the wild, adventurous stories that he would make up.  His stories drew quite an audience too.  At recess every day, he would have a group of about 30 kids hanging on every word of his adventures.  Yesterday it was the supermarket adventure where masked gunmen held up the supermarket on Avondale Street and he and his mother had been taken hostage by the robbers.  Last week it was his tale about the pack of wolves that chased him through the dense woods behind the school, and how he fought them off with just his boy scout pocket knife.  His teacher, Miss Klein had scolded him more than once because she said that his stories were becoming a major distraction during her class.  The children became so enthralled in his storytelling that they weren’t paying attention to her.  Last week she sent him to the Principal’s office.  Mr. Powell, the principal, told him that if his stories didn’t stop, he would have to speak to Jimmy’s parents about them.  Last night, Jimmy’s mother promised Miss Klein that Jimmy would keep his stories to himself and stop being a distraction.  Jimmy’s mother told him that she would tell his father all about it when he got home from his sales trip Friday. Then they would decide on a proper punishment.  She insisted that Jimmy go to Miss Klein this morning before class and apologize for telling his stories and promise not to do it again.  Jimmy would much rather skip the whole day.  Maybe he could tell his mother that he was sick; no, she’d never believe him.  He’d just have to face the music.  He slowly plodded down the stairs to the kitchen.

 

As Jimmy sat down to a plate of bacon and eggs, his mother started in.  “Do you remember what you are to do this morning Jimmy? She asked.  “Yes mom, apologize to Miss Klein and don’t tell any more stories to the kids at school.” Jimmy said in monotone.  “Fall break starts tomorrow and maybe with a week off, this thing with your teacher will just sort of blow over, okay Jimmy?” His mom told him.  She hated to stunt Jimmy’s creativity, she had heard many of his stories over the past few years and they were good!  She hoped that he would someday become a writer.  His stories were always so realistic and interesting.  But, she couldn’t let them continue to be a problem at school.  She had to follow through with this ban her son’s teacher was imposing on him.  Her husband would be home from his sales trip tonight and she would discuss it with him.  “Okay Jimmy, run upstairs and brush your teeth, the bus will be here any minute.  Jimmy disappeared up the stairwell.  Moments later, the bus pulled up in front of their house and honked.  Jimmy ran down the stairs, grabbed his book bag and jacket, and darted towards the bus. His mother yelled after him, “Jimmy, don’t forget, I’m volunteering at the old folks home this afternoon and won’t be home until 6:30 or so.”  “OK Mom,” Jimmy shouted over his shoulder.

 

It was a cool, early fall day in Bangor, Maine.  Soon the winter would set in and the school bus would often have to follow directly behind a snow plow and the ride to school might take an hour or more.  But this morning, the streets were clear and the arrival at his school, that Jimmy was dreading would take only about twenty minutes.  “Hey Jimmy, tell us a story.” one of his classmates yelled from the front of the bus.  “Yeah, cummon, Jimmy!” others joined in.  “Nah, not today,” Jimmy answered.  There were groans of protest from his schoolmates, but the disappointment didn’t last long and the kids on the bus, excited about Fall Break starting at the end of class today, returned to yelling, playing and general rowdiness as the bus bumped up the old mountain logging road towards Clinton Elementary School.

 

When Jimmy got to school he swallowed hard and headed towards Miss Klein’s room.  Inside, Miss Klein was at her desk.  She looked up as Jimmy entered.  “Uh, Miss Klein.” Jimmy said quietly.  “I want to apologize for disrupting your class with my stories, and I want you to know that I will not be telling any more of them.” Miss Klein smiled at Jimmy and said, “Thank you Jimmy, I’m glad that we have come to this understanding.  Now take your seat, the other children are starting to come in.”  Jimmy took his seat near the back of the room by the window.

 

At recess, the other children begged Jimmy for one of his stories, but he told them that he just wasn’t in the mood today. Later, at lunch, the kids at his lunch table asked him for one of his stories, but again, Jimmy declined.

 

That afternoon, while Miss Klein was putting fractions on the board and explaining them, Jimmy stared out the window into the vast forest that ran right up to the edge of the newly constructed school’s playground.  From his vantage point, on the second floor, he could actually see down into the forest as he was a little above the level of the tallest pine trees. 

 

Jimmy was staring off into the forest daydreaming, when a flash, like sunlight reflecting from a mirror caught Jimmy’s eye.  Jimmy stared into the forest, seeing nothing, until suddenly, two men, making their way through the trees came into view.  The men were running.  As they got closer, Jimmy saw that one of the men was chasing the other, and the man being chased was trying to get out of the forest and into the cleared area where the school had been built.  The man chasing the other one had an object in his hand that occasionally caught the afternoon sun and blinked brightly.  As the men got even closer, Jimmy saw that the man behind had a large knife in his hand.  The men were only a few feet from the clearing when the man that was being chased tripped and fell over some fallen branches.  He went down hard.  The man chasing him was on top of the other man instantly and began to savagely stab the downed man with the big knife.  The two men struggled, but the man on top continued stabbing the other man. 

 

“Stop, stop.”  Jimmy yelled and jumped up from his desk and went to the window.  The man who was on the ground stopped struggling and the man on top pulled out the now very bloody knife, wiped the blade on the dead man’s shirt, and started looking around.  The man looked up at the school window and Jimmy gasped audibly when the murderer made eye contact with him.  Jimmy quickly moved away from the window and backed into his desk, nearly knocking it over.  It was then, and only then, that he noticed all of the children in the class and an angry looking Miss Klein staring at him. “Miss Klein, two men were running through the forest.  One was chasing the other.  One man fell down and the other man stabbed him, Jeez, Miss Klein, I think he must have killed him.” Jimmy related breathlessly to his teacher.  All of the students in the classroom jumped up and ran to the windows.  “Where, I don’t see anybody!”   “Yeah, there’s nobody out there.”  “Where, where are they?” Different students asked.  Then one of the kids said, “Oh, Jimmy this is one of you stories.  Gosh, you really had me this time.”  Jimmy cautiously approached the window again and looked out.  The children in his class were right.  There was nobody there.  “But they were right there a minute ago.  He was a big, lumberjack looking guy with a beard and a red flannel shirt and a blue stocking cap. And he had a knife!”  Jimmy told his class.  “Jimmy, this is absolutely the last straw!” Miss Klein said angrily.  “But Miss Klein,” Jimmy pleaded, “This isn’t a story.  It really did happen. Just like I said, right out there.” Jimmy pointed to the forest.  Just then the dismissal buzzer sounded and the children in the class jumped up and headed for the door.  “Have a good Fall Break children.” Miss Klein told them. Then she faced Jimmy and said. “Jimmy, you’ve literally been saved by the bell, but right after the Fall Break, you and I are having a very serious talk with the Principal.”  “But Miss Klein…” Jimmy stammered. “No buts Jimmy.  You have disrupted my class for the last time!  Now get out of my classroom!”

 

Jimmy left the classroom and went into a hallway full of noisy, excited children heading home for Fall Break.  But Jimmy was scared.  “What should I do?” he thought.   He pushed his way through the crowd of school children and bounded down the stairs.  “The office, I’ll go to the office, tell the principal,” Jimmy thought as he headed for the administration office.  Jimmy opened the door and saw Mrs. Hudson, the school secretary putting on her coat to go home.  “Where’s Mr. Powell.  I have to see Mr. Powell” Jimmy told the secretary.  “He’s already gone for the day,” Mrs. Hudson said, “why are you so excited and out of breath?  What’s wrong?”  “A murder, I saw a murder in the forest, we’ve got to do something!” Jimmy told the woman.  “A murder!  What on earth?” Mrs. Hudson said, for just a moment forgetting Jimmy’s reputation for tall tales and being aware of his recent warnings, said, “Jimmy Higgins, will you never stop?!  You run along and get on your bus and have a good Fall Break.”  With that, she shooed him out of the office, locked the door behind them and started her Fall Break.

 

Jimmy didn’t know what to do.  He went into one of the empty classrooms and looked out the window toward the forest.  Sure enough, there was nobody there.  “Had he really imagined it? Was it just his imagination playing tricks on him?  Had he fallen asleep and dreamed it all?  All these thoughts raced through Jimmy’s mind.  Finally, he decided that it must have just been an extremely realistic dream and he headed for the door and the waiting school bus.   Most of the busses had gone by this time, but Jimmy’s bus was still there, apparently waiting for him.  He knew the driver would be angry if he was very late, so, he began to hurry towards the door. 

 

Then Jimmy saw him!  It was the big lumberjack!   He had a black beard and wore a red flannel shirt.  There was a blue stocking cap on his head.  Jimmy skidded to a stop.  The big man was standing between the front door of the school and Jimmy’s bus.  Jimmy turned and ran back towards the stairs.  The school was nearly empty now.  Jimmy instinctively ran back to his classroom.  The lumberjack saw the boy turn and run, and knew that this must be the kid that saw him kill the Canadian.  He had to get this kid.  He couldn’t leave any loose ends to tie him to the killing.  The lumberjack entered the school and began to look for the boy.  Far down the hallway, he thought he saw the boy running up the stairs.  The lumberjack started towards the stairs after the boy.

 

Jimmy ran down the second floor hallway to Miss Klein’s room which was the very last room at the other end of the building, next to the other set of stairs.  Jimmy reached the room, opened the door and ran inside, closing the door behind him.  Jimmy looked for a place to hide, finally deciding to hide under Miss Klein’s desk.  It was quiet and Jimmy listened for the lumberjack.  At the other end of the hallway, Jimmy heard a door open.  Then he heard chairs being knocked over and desks being moved.  The lumberjack must be searching for him.  “How long will it take him to get to this room?” Jimmy wondered.  Jimmy mentally counted the rooms.  “Let’s see, there are six rooms on each side of the hallway, the lumberjack is in the first room.  There are five more on this side.” Jimmy thought.  “Will he come straight down this side or criss-cross the hallway?” Jimmy decided that he would just have to wait and see.  “But then what would he do?” He had to make a plan.  Then Jimmy heard another noise that disturbed him.  It was his bus pulling away from the school.  Now, the school was empty, except for him and the murderer.

 

“Where are ya’ you little bastard?” the lumberjack yelled in frustration as he kicked the teacher’s desk over in room 200.  The boy wasn’t in this room. “Where was he?”  The lumberjack went into the hallway, it was empty.   There were so many rooms to check.  Maybe the little bugger had already run down the back stairs, he was so angry that he began to have one of his headaches.  He put his hands to his temples and pressed his palms inward against his skull, but the pain remained constant, throbbing.  He shook it off and threw open the door to Room 202.  He started to search the room when he heard some sort of a “clunk” further down the hall.  The lumberjack reached into his leather boot and pulled out his hunting knife.  Then he started slowly down the hallway towards the noise he had heard, stepping quietly and listening for more sounds.

 

Jimmy had a plan that might give him the time he needed to escape.  He had placed a metal trash can above the door on the large hinge at the top and standing on a desk, filled it with encyclopedias as quickly and as quietly as possible.  One of the large books, however, had slipped from his hand and made a loud “clunk” as it fell into the trash can.  Jimmy froze but heard no one coming.  He pulled the can right to the edge of the hinge, where it would fall when the door was opened.  Next, Jimmy took a large tube of rose scented hand cream from Miss Klein’s desk and squirted a long white squiggle of it onto the linoleum tile floor in front of the door.  Jimmy thought for a few seconds and then completely emptied the tube onto the floor.  Then he hurried back under the desk and waited for the lumberjack.

 

As the lumberjack crept down the hall, listening for any more noises, his blinding, migraine headache grew worse.  The pain was almost unbearable and his vision was blurring in and out of focus.  But he gritted his teeth and continued his search.  He would kill this meddling little bastard for causing him this pain, the same way he had killed the Canadian for cheating him in that poker game.  Nobody causes Brad Healey the kind of grief that Cannuck and this brat kid have caused him and then live to tell about it.  He went all the way down the hall to the last room on his right.  He would look there and then work his way back to where he had started.  The pain in his head had gotten so bad that he was sweating profusely and he began to stagger rather than walk.  He turned the door knob to enter Jimmy’s classroom.

 

Jimmy heard the lumberjack coming down the hall.  The man was breathing hard and muttering to himself.  Jimmy had never been this scared in his entire life.  Then the knob to his classroom turned and the door slowly started to open.  Jimmy had not known what a devastating chain of events he had set up until they started to happen before his very eyes.  The lumberjack opened the door and stepped into the room.  His boot slipped in the hand cream and when he started to fall he wildly reached out for the door, hoping to break his fall, no such luck.  When he hit the door with his hand, it dislodged the metal waste can full of encyclopedias which fell, hitting the lumberjack full in the face, causing the back of the man’s head to slam against the floor and shattering the man’s nose.  The lumberjack screamed in pain and began wildly howling like an injured wolf.  Jimmy jumped up from under the desk and raced towards the classroom’s back door.  This was the break he needed.  Once in the hallway, he raced to the back stairs..  The lumberjack saw someone running away, but when he tried to get up, he slipped again in the gory mess on the floor that consisted of the hand cream and the blood from his ruined nose. Jimmy bounded down the stairs, two at a time until he reached the first floor hallway.  He hit the exit doorway that led to the school’s parking lot but the door had been chained and padlocked.  Jimmy stared in disbelief at the padlock that blocked his escape.  Then Jimmy ran towards the other end of the first floor hallway.  He hit the bar that opened that big door, but it also had been chained and padlocked.  “Am I really trapped in here with a murderer that is wounded and angry?” Jimmy thought to himself, “What am I going to do?”  “Think Jimmy, think!” he screamed within his mind.  Then he stared at the padlocked front door again.  “That’s strange,” he thought.  “The doors are padlocked from the inside.  That means that someone is in here, other than the lumberjack and me.  But who could it be? And where are they?”

 

Brad Healey, the lumberjack, thought that his head might explode, the pain was incredible!  And his nose was hurting, it was hard to breathe and he was bleeding badly.  He got to his knees and slowly crawled on all fours out of the room into the hallway.  Slowly he stood up and began walking toward the back stairs.  “He wouldn’t just kill that damned kid.  He would torture him, slowly and painfully.  He went down the stairs carefully.  He wasn’t going to step into any more booby traps.  The next time he saw that damned kid, he was going to start cutting him into small pieces.    “I’m going to kill you slowly you little bastard! I’ll cut you into tiny little pieces! ”the lumberjack yelled at the top of his lungs.”

 

Jimmy heard the savage screaming threat and he shuddered involuntarily.  “Where can I hide?” he thought.  Then he saw a sign on a door that read “Boiler Room – No Admittance.”  Jimmy tried the knob, surprisingly, it clicked open.  Jimmy immediately felt the heat from the huge boiler that provided the heat for the school as he entered the room.  Jimmy walked down a steep flight of metal stairs towards the humming machinery about twenty feet below him.  When Jimmy reached the bottom of the stairs, he saw the school’s custodian, Moses Williams sitting at an old wooden desk reading a book and smoking his pipe.  Jimmy ran to him.  “Mr. Williams, you have to help me! “   Jimmy said.  “What issit Boy?” the old black man said, “What chu doin’ down heya?”  Jimmy hurriedly told the old man of the events leading up to this very moment, and then asked, “What are we going to do Mr. Williams?”  The old custodian asked Jimmy, “Jou lock that doe up theya boy?”  Jimmy thought for a moment and then replied, “No sir, I guess I was too scared, I forgot.”  “Well, first off, we’re gonna lock that doe, and then we’re gonna call the Po-lice on the phone and have them come get dis heya lumber jack.”  Moses Williams climbed the steep stairs and began to turn the lock in the door handle.

 

Brad Healey made his way down the dimly lit hallway, looking for the boy who had caused him so much trouble and pain.  His head was splitting.  It felt as though someone was pouring boiling water directly onto his brain.  His nose was badly broken and it was still bleeding heavily.  He looked inside the window of every room searching for any sign of the brat kid.  He knew he couldn’t have escaped because the back door had been chain locked. And he suspected that the front door was chained as well.  “Hello, what is this?” The lumberjack thought aloud. The sign on the door read: “Boiler Room – No Admittance.”  “Of course, that’s where the little brat has gone.  He turned the knob and pushed the door open.

 

Moses Williams was only one year from retirement and his pension.  He had experienced a lot over his 40 years as a custodian, but nothing like this.  As he reached for the doorknob to switch the lock, the door flew open and absolutely the scariest looking white man he had ever seen with his crooked and bleeding nose, came barging in. 

 

Both men gasped in unexpected surprise.  But the lumberjack had the advantage. Brad Healey plunged the hunting knife deeply into the old man’s chest and pushed him aside.  He looked down the tall flight of stairs and saw the kid at the bottom.  He started after him.

 

Jimmy watched Mr. Williams climb the stairs to lock the door.  Then suddenly the lumberjack, his face covered with blood, pushed open the door and stabbed old Mr. Williams.  Then for the second time today, Jimmy made eye contact with the murderous lumberjack.  To Jimmy’s amazement, the lumberjack seemed to take flight.  He was hurtling through the air towards Jimmy.

 

Moses Williams went down when the lumberjack stabbed him.  The pain was hot and searing in his chest.  But he couldn’t let this maniac get to the young boy.  He reached out and grabbed the lumberjack’s ankle as he was going down the stairs.  He watched the lumberjack trip and fall over the side of the hand rail and fall the 20 feet towards the floor.  He hoped it was enough to save the boy.

 

Jimmy ran back to Mr. William’s desk and watched the lumberjack fly through the air.  The lumberjack hit the ground hard with a sickening crack and a thud. He didn’t move. His knife slid across the floor and stopped at Jimmy’s feet. Jimmy picked up the big knife and after a short time staring at the big man who lay crumpled on the floor, fully expecting him to jump up and grab him, Jimmy slowly approached him and turned the man over with his foot. The lumberjack’s neck was twisted at an impossible angle and Jimmy thought that he must surely be dead.

 

Jimmy went to Mr. Williams’ desk and dialed 911 on the telephone.

 

Jimmy checked on Mr. Williams, who was still breathing but unconscious, and fished some keys out of his pocket. He ran out of the boiler room and unlocked the school’s front door. He could hear the sirens of approaching police cars and an ambulance   Jimmy knelt by Mr. Williams and waited for help to arrive. Jimmy wondered if he would get in trouble for telling this story to his school friends.