I Can Not Tell a Lie But I Kind Of Have To
The Over-Protective Mother
Suddenly, I heard the front door burst open. My head hurt too bad to look up but I felt his hands whip away from me and heard his heavy footsteps running out of the kitchen.
“After him! After him!” I heard a new voice say, one I didn’t recognize. More people passed me, pursuing the man, and I heard one person’s footsteps rushing towards me. I felt a set of hands on my back, and though they obviously belonged to a man, they were gentle.
“Are you okay sir?” I heard the man ask. I didn’t respond, as I could barely catch my breath, but sat there waiting for the pain to subside. When it finally did, I lifted my head, and the person sitting next to me gasped. I saw it was the chief of police, William Neamsburg. The police department was very small in Breezy Point, so being the chief of police really only left you in charge of the hundred or so policemen and the small city jail. However, William Neamsburg was surprisingly young for someone with such a high position in the police department. His shaggy, black hair was creeping out from under his hat, and his brown, almost innocent, eyes gazed at me.
“You’re The Wonder!” he said amazed. “What were you doing here? How did you find out about this? What happened? Are you okay? Did anyone else get hurt?” Oh no, Mom!
“There was a woman in the kitchen, tied up,” I said, making my voice sound a few years older than I was. “I untied her but the other guy found me before I could get her somewhere safe. Is she okay?”
“I think she was the one who called,” he said, helping me up off the ground. “I believe she is at a neighbor’s house right now.” He grasped my broken hand, and I flinched (more like jumped out of my skin) and pulled away.
“Sorry,” he said, scratching his neck. “What’d you do to your hand?”
“Nothing much,” I waved it off, standing up. Now that my attention had been refocused on it, the pain in my hand was hardly bearable but I would have to deal with it.
“What happened?” William Neamsburg asked. I opened my mouth and almost said, “I came home from school and heard a crash.” But I quickly caught myself and adjusted the story.
“I was just flying around the area,” I made up, “And I heard a crash and a scream from below. I flew down to the house that the noise had come from and landed at the door just outside the kitchen. I could hear a man’s voice from inside, then another scream and a thud. I kicked the door but--” Really, Neil, just don’t mention that you couldn’t even kick a door down.
“Go on,” William Neamsburg said, engaged in my account of the event.
“But the man opened the door as I kicked it,” I said. “He didn’t recognize me and tried to get rid of me. Then I pointed out that I knew it wasn’t his house, and he did this.” I gestured to my broken hand
“What’d he use?” he asked me. “A hammer or club or something?”
“Believe it or not, his hand,” I said. His eyes flicked to my hand again.
“Ouch,” he said. “His hand? How did he do that?”
“He’s a superhero too,” I said. “Well, not exactly a hero, just someone with super powers. He’s got an infinite amount of strength and energy. Nothing can hurt him.” William Neamsburg’s eyes widened, and he whipped out his walkie-talkie.
“Over! Do not go after him! I repeat do NOT go after him!” he yelled in to the walkie-talkie. We stood there for a few seconds in silence until we heard a scratchy response.
“Yes, sir. We have stopped chasing the suspect,” we heard someone say, “But why?”
“I’ll explain it later, just report back to the site of the break in,” William Neamsburg said into the walkie-talkie. “You’ve got to see who’s here.” He put the walkie-talkie back into its clip on his belt.
“I didn’t want them to get hurt chasing after this guy,” he said to me. “Continue.” I recounted what happened after he broke my hand. By this time, the four or five policemen that had left the house following the other man had come back and were listening to my tale. I didn’t stop until I got to the part where I tried penetrating his mind.
“And what happened to your head?” William Neamsburg asked me. “When we arrived, the suspect ran from the house and you were sitting on the floor with your head in your arms.”
“Yes, I remember,” I said, rubbing my forehead. The sharp blow had left me with a dull headache.
“I was reading his mind but he used a defense technique that supers use against other supers who are reading their minds,” I explained. “The pain is… well, you saw what it did to me.” He nodded somberly.
“Now, I really must get going,” I said, a little anxiously. I didn’t like the feeling that hung in the air, with all the policemen staring at me.
“Please, Mr. Wonder, we would highly appreciate it if you could stay to help us figure out what to do,” an older policewoman said, standing up.
“I’m sorry, but I’ve already wasted too much valuable time that I could be using to track down the suspect,” I said. In reality, I knew my mom and dad would start getting worried about where I was… okay, well I knew my mom would be worried. I backed out of the kitchen, refusing the other officers’ offers for me to stay and flew out of the house.
Now, where to go? I had to make sure I could fly far enough away so no one would see where I went but I needed to be close enough to my neighborhood so that I could walk back, seeing as I didn’t have my car. I settled for the small patch of woods near my neighborhood and landed in the middle of the trees.
The sun had just set and there was very little light left. I closed my eyes, squeezed them tight, and then opened them again, now using my night vision. I took off my mask and walked towards the edge of the forest. After ten minutes, I came out into the street.
I saw the police cars lined up outside of my house and walked over, my hand throbbing and my head aching. I opened the kitchen door and caught a brief glimpse of the same officers sitting around the table before my mother threw herself around me.
“Oh thank God!” she shouted relieved, kissing my forehead. She stood back and looked me up and down.
“Are you okay? Where have you been?” she asked me rapidly. “Did you see the burglar? Someone broke in and-”
“For Christ’s sake, Karen!” I heard my dad shout. I looked over and saw him sitting at the counter, reading the paper.
“Let the boy breathe!” he shouted. Mom didn’t like that. She turned to him, hands on her hips.
“Our son has been gone for the past hour and a half!” she shouted. “How do you think I should react after a break in?” Dad didn’t respond but just buried himself back in the paper.
“Where have you been?” she said, turning to me. She looked down at my broken hand and clapped her hands to her mouth.
“Oh sweetheart!” she shouted, pulling me over to the counter. “You’re hurt!”
“Relax, Mom!” I said, rolling my eyes, but she had already pulled the first aid kit out.
“Karen, relax,” Dad said, folding the paper up. “This is a good thing. It’ll build the boy’s character.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said sarcastically to him. I set my broken hand on the counter and looked over to the police, who were looking curiously back at me. While mom was digging through the first aid kit, William Neamsburg came up behind me, putting his hand on my shoulder and looking down at my hand.
“Ouch, that probably hurts,” he said. “What’d you do to it?” Now that I hadn’t thought of. I obviously couldn’t say it had been broken by the burglar but what the hell was I supposed to say?
“I, uh, I fell,” I said quickly. You fell? Is that the best you could think of?
“You fell?” William Neamsburg said disbelievingly. “Where were you just now?” Okay, Neil. Lie your guts out.
“I was going to get-” I started saying but winced. Mom was wrapping my broken hand in an ace bandage, which was making it hurt more, and had placed a bag of ice next to me.
“Ms. Laxton?” William Neamsburg said softly. “I’d appreciate it if you could stop that for a few minutes. I’m interested in what, uh, what…” He looked at me.
“Neil,” I said.
“I’m interested in what Neil has to say about what happened here today,” he finished. Mom looked at him then at me then back to him before sighing and stepping back.
“Now, what were you saying?” William Neamsburg said to me.
“Well, I came home from school and heard a crash and a scream from inside,” I said, looking at him. I heard a scribbling noise and looked over his shoulder to see every officer taking notes on what I was saying.
“Just ignore them,” William Neamsburgs said, drawing my attention back to him.
“Well, I didn’t want to barge in if it there was a burglar in the house,” I said. “I’d get caught by him or something and then I couldn’t get help. So I pressed my ear up against the door and heard that it was definitely a burglar. So I ran to the neighbor’s house but tripped on a branch and landed on my hand.”
“That’s strange,” William Neamsburg said, taking a closer look at my hand. “The Wonder’s hand was broken too. And it was his right hand also. And it looked almost exactly like yours does now.”
“Wow, that’s weird,” I said, picking up the bag of ice and covering my hand with it. “Wait, The Wonder was here?”
“Yeah, if he hadn’t been here, well, who knows what would have happened,” he said, nodding his head. “But go on.”
“So I fell on my hand and by the time I had gotten up, you guys were already pulling up in front of the house,” I said.
“Let me get this straight,” Dad said. I turned around to face him.
“You left here an hour and half ago, broke your hand, and sat on the ground for the next hour?” he said.
“He makes a good point,” William Neamsburg said. “It seems that there’s a gap of more than an hour, between you leaving your house and coming back.”
“Oh, well,” I said unsurely. “I think I hit my head on something when I fell. Yeah, I remember something hard hitting my head and then nothing.”
“So you tripped, broke your hand, hit your head on a damn tree, and knocked yourself out for an hour?” Dad said. “You’re such a sissy.” If you ever learned what I really did today….
“If that’s the case, you should probably go to the hospital,” William Neamsburg said. With this said, Mom rushed over, hugging me and crying over how noble I was and hurried me out of the house and into the car before I even knew what hit me. She scurried back into the house and came back five minutes later with my dad. He got in the driver’s side and my mom got in the passenger seat. With a long groan, Dad put the keys into the ignition, drove out of the driveway, and onto the main road.
“This ridiculous,” he said after a few minutes of silence. “Karen, he’s fine. He’s moving. He’s breathing. He’s in one piece.”
“Barely in one piece,” she cried. “My poor baby!”
“Mom, I’m sixteen.”
“You were so sweet, running to go get help,” she said. “You didn’t deserve to get hurt.”
“Karen, it’s all the karma he gets for being a dumbass,” dad said. “He was bound to get hurt one of these days.” Maybe he was right… not about the dumbass part, but about the karma. Maybe this is what I got for all this lying. It was starting to wear on me.
“Mom, I’m fine,” I said, leaning forward. “Like Dad said, I’m moving, I’m breathing, I’m in one piece. Turn around, Dad. Let’s go home.”
“Oh bless him,” Mom said, putting her hand over her heart. “Poor thing, doesn’t know what he’s saying.” I sighed heavily and sat back in my seat, and we drove the rest of the way to the hospital in silence.
“After him! After him!” I heard a new voice say, one I didn’t recognize. More people passed me, pursuing the man, and I heard one person’s footsteps rushing towards me. I felt a set of hands on my back, and though they obviously belonged to a man, they were gentle.
“Are you okay sir?” I heard the man ask. I didn’t respond, as I could barely catch my breath, but sat there waiting for the pain to subside. When it finally did, I lifted my head, and the person sitting next to me gasped. I saw it was the chief of police, William Neamsburg. The police department was very small in Breezy Point, so being the chief of police really only left you in charge of the hundred or so policemen and the small city jail. However, William Neamsburg was surprisingly young for someone with such a high position in the police department. His shaggy, black hair was creeping out from under his hat, and his brown, almost innocent, eyes gazed at me.
“You’re The Wonder!” he said amazed. “What were you doing here? How did you find out about this? What happened? Are you okay? Did anyone else get hurt?” Oh no, Mom!
“There was a woman in the kitchen, tied up,” I said, making my voice sound a few years older than I was. “I untied her but the other guy found me before I could get her somewhere safe. Is she okay?”
“I think she was the one who called,” he said, helping me up off the ground. “I believe she is at a neighbor’s house right now.” He grasped my broken hand, and I flinched (more like jumped out of my skin) and pulled away.
“Sorry,” he said, scratching his neck. “What’d you do to your hand?”
“Nothing much,” I waved it off, standing up. Now that my attention had been refocused on it, the pain in my hand was hardly bearable but I would have to deal with it.
“What happened?” William Neamsburg asked. I opened my mouth and almost said, “I came home from school and heard a crash.” But I quickly caught myself and adjusted the story.
“I was just flying around the area,” I made up, “And I heard a crash and a scream from below. I flew down to the house that the noise had come from and landed at the door just outside the kitchen. I could hear a man’s voice from inside, then another scream and a thud. I kicked the door but--” Really, Neil, just don’t mention that you couldn’t even kick a door down.
“Go on,” William Neamsburg said, engaged in my account of the event.
“But the man opened the door as I kicked it,” I said. “He didn’t recognize me and tried to get rid of me. Then I pointed out that I knew it wasn’t his house, and he did this.” I gestured to my broken hand
“What’d he use?” he asked me. “A hammer or club or something?”
“Believe it or not, his hand,” I said. His eyes flicked to my hand again.
“Ouch,” he said. “His hand? How did he do that?”
“He’s a superhero too,” I said. “Well, not exactly a hero, just someone with super powers. He’s got an infinite amount of strength and energy. Nothing can hurt him.” William Neamsburg’s eyes widened, and he whipped out his walkie-talkie.
“Over! Do not go after him! I repeat do NOT go after him!” he yelled in to the walkie-talkie. We stood there for a few seconds in silence until we heard a scratchy response.
“Yes, sir. We have stopped chasing the suspect,” we heard someone say, “But why?”
“I’ll explain it later, just report back to the site of the break in,” William Neamsburg said into the walkie-talkie. “You’ve got to see who’s here.” He put the walkie-talkie back into its clip on his belt.
“I didn’t want them to get hurt chasing after this guy,” he said to me. “Continue.” I recounted what happened after he broke my hand. By this time, the four or five policemen that had left the house following the other man had come back and were listening to my tale. I didn’t stop until I got to the part where I tried penetrating his mind.
“And what happened to your head?” William Neamsburg asked me. “When we arrived, the suspect ran from the house and you were sitting on the floor with your head in your arms.”
“Yes, I remember,” I said, rubbing my forehead. The sharp blow had left me with a dull headache.
“I was reading his mind but he used a defense technique that supers use against other supers who are reading their minds,” I explained. “The pain is… well, you saw what it did to me.” He nodded somberly.
“Now, I really must get going,” I said, a little anxiously. I didn’t like the feeling that hung in the air, with all the policemen staring at me.
“Please, Mr. Wonder, we would highly appreciate it if you could stay to help us figure out what to do,” an older policewoman said, standing up.
“I’m sorry, but I’ve already wasted too much valuable time that I could be using to track down the suspect,” I said. In reality, I knew my mom and dad would start getting worried about where I was… okay, well I knew my mom would be worried. I backed out of the kitchen, refusing the other officers’ offers for me to stay and flew out of the house.
Now, where to go? I had to make sure I could fly far enough away so no one would see where I went but I needed to be close enough to my neighborhood so that I could walk back, seeing as I didn’t have my car. I settled for the small patch of woods near my neighborhood and landed in the middle of the trees.
The sun had just set and there was very little light left. I closed my eyes, squeezed them tight, and then opened them again, now using my night vision. I took off my mask and walked towards the edge of the forest. After ten minutes, I came out into the street.
I saw the police cars lined up outside of my house and walked over, my hand throbbing and my head aching. I opened the kitchen door and caught a brief glimpse of the same officers sitting around the table before my mother threw herself around me.
“Oh thank God!” she shouted relieved, kissing my forehead. She stood back and looked me up and down.
“Are you okay? Where have you been?” she asked me rapidly. “Did you see the burglar? Someone broke in and-”
“For Christ’s sake, Karen!” I heard my dad shout. I looked over and saw him sitting at the counter, reading the paper.
“Let the boy breathe!” he shouted. Mom didn’t like that. She turned to him, hands on her hips.
“Our son has been gone for the past hour and a half!” she shouted. “How do you think I should react after a break in?” Dad didn’t respond but just buried himself back in the paper.
“Where have you been?” she said, turning to me. She looked down at my broken hand and clapped her hands to her mouth.
“Oh sweetheart!” she shouted, pulling me over to the counter. “You’re hurt!”
“Relax, Mom!” I said, rolling my eyes, but she had already pulled the first aid kit out.
“Karen, relax,” Dad said, folding the paper up. “This is a good thing. It’ll build the boy’s character.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said sarcastically to him. I set my broken hand on the counter and looked over to the police, who were looking curiously back at me. While mom was digging through the first aid kit, William Neamsburg came up behind me, putting his hand on my shoulder and looking down at my hand.
“Ouch, that probably hurts,” he said. “What’d you do to it?” Now that I hadn’t thought of. I obviously couldn’t say it had been broken by the burglar but what the hell was I supposed to say?
“I, uh, I fell,” I said quickly. You fell? Is that the best you could think of?
“You fell?” William Neamsburg said disbelievingly. “Where were you just now?” Okay, Neil. Lie your guts out.
“I was going to get-” I started saying but winced. Mom was wrapping my broken hand in an ace bandage, which was making it hurt more, and had placed a bag of ice next to me.
“Ms. Laxton?” William Neamsburg said softly. “I’d appreciate it if you could stop that for a few minutes. I’m interested in what, uh, what…” He looked at me.
“Neil,” I said.
“I’m interested in what Neil has to say about what happened here today,” he finished. Mom looked at him then at me then back to him before sighing and stepping back.
“Now, what were you saying?” William Neamsburg said to me.
“Well, I came home from school and heard a crash and a scream from inside,” I said, looking at him. I heard a scribbling noise and looked over his shoulder to see every officer taking notes on what I was saying.
“Just ignore them,” William Neamsburgs said, drawing my attention back to him.
“Well, I didn’t want to barge in if it there was a burglar in the house,” I said. “I’d get caught by him or something and then I couldn’t get help. So I pressed my ear up against the door and heard that it was definitely a burglar. So I ran to the neighbor’s house but tripped on a branch and landed on my hand.”
“That’s strange,” William Neamsburg said, taking a closer look at my hand. “The Wonder’s hand was broken too. And it was his right hand also. And it looked almost exactly like yours does now.”
“Wow, that’s weird,” I said, picking up the bag of ice and covering my hand with it. “Wait, The Wonder was here?”
“Yeah, if he hadn’t been here, well, who knows what would have happened,” he said, nodding his head. “But go on.”
“So I fell on my hand and by the time I had gotten up, you guys were already pulling up in front of the house,” I said.
“Let me get this straight,” Dad said. I turned around to face him.
“You left here an hour and half ago, broke your hand, and sat on the ground for the next hour?” he said.
“He makes a good point,” William Neamsburg said. “It seems that there’s a gap of more than an hour, between you leaving your house and coming back.”
“Oh, well,” I said unsurely. “I think I hit my head on something when I fell. Yeah, I remember something hard hitting my head and then nothing.”
“So you tripped, broke your hand, hit your head on a damn tree, and knocked yourself out for an hour?” Dad said. “You’re such a sissy.” If you ever learned what I really did today….
“If that’s the case, you should probably go to the hospital,” William Neamsburg said. With this said, Mom rushed over, hugging me and crying over how noble I was and hurried me out of the house and into the car before I even knew what hit me. She scurried back into the house and came back five minutes later with my dad. He got in the driver’s side and my mom got in the passenger seat. With a long groan, Dad put the keys into the ignition, drove out of the driveway, and onto the main road.
“This ridiculous,” he said after a few minutes of silence. “Karen, he’s fine. He’s moving. He’s breathing. He’s in one piece.”
“Barely in one piece,” she cried. “My poor baby!”
“Mom, I’m sixteen.”
“You were so sweet, running to go get help,” she said. “You didn’t deserve to get hurt.”
“Karen, it’s all the karma he gets for being a dumbass,” dad said. “He was bound to get hurt one of these days.” Maybe he was right… not about the dumbass part, but about the karma. Maybe this is what I got for all this lying. It was starting to wear on me.
“Mom, I’m fine,” I said, leaning forward. “Like Dad said, I’m moving, I’m breathing, I’m in one piece. Turn around, Dad. Let’s go home.”
“Oh bless him,” Mom said, putting her hand over her heart. “Poor thing, doesn’t know what he’s saying.” I sighed heavily and sat back in my seat, and we drove the rest of the way to the hospital in silence.
♠ ♠ ♠
aw! poor neil! his mommy wuvs him though!! comment people! comment like you've never commented before... and as you can see, i didn't steal the "next chapter" button thingy... but now i have! MWAHAHAHA!!!! (but as soon as i post a new chapter, it'll magically appear again... and then my evil plan will be ruined... i would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for you medling kids!)