The Foul Mouth and the Cat Killing Coyotes (The King Henry Tapes) Read Online Free

above, from the intercom.  It’s a hum.  A slow hum that keeps building and building and goes on and on getting louder and louder until it just stops.  On whole, it’s a noise that just freaks you out.  Nothing about it to like.  There were quite a few of us who would start waking up five minutes before the thing went off just so we didn’t have to be in the bedroom and hear it.  I wasn’t one of them.  I liked my sleep.  Every minute of it I could get.
    For me , that first day it wasn’t all that hard to get out of bed.
    I felt like shit.
    No other way to put it.  No sugar coating.  No gummy center.  I felt like shit .  Detox:  Day Number Two.  No cig in sight.  My head felt like it might explode and my hands shook so bad I could barely grab onto anything, even my covers.  I had to try twice.  That hum from the alarm didn’t help my headache.  Nothing helped the headache. 
    For you?
    You’ll hear the others getting up.  Thirty kids getting out of their beds, trying to wake up.  Yawns, sneezing, groans.  Then the curtains are drawn open and you’re all standing there looking at each other, unsure what to do.  Eventually everyone will know everyone’s name—hell, eventually everyone will know everyone’s everything .  Malaya Mabanaagan?  Sucks her thumb in her sleep.  Patrick Brown?  Kid has wet dreams like you wouldn’t believe.  Your everything will get out; best not worry about trying to hide it.
    But that first day?  Nametags or not, it’s nothing but thirty kids looking at each other, confused as all hell.
    My first day, we were all too nervous to even begin thinking about forming friendships the night before, especially after my show with Welf.  Not a person could look me in the eye, which fourteen-year-old-me liked.  It fit right into the attitude of the day, was just fine not knowing names.  I was there for the Mancy, to learn how to break tables and be an Ultra, not to make friends.  People left me alone?  That’d be fine by me.  My whole life I’d been waiting to be left alone.  Finally got rid of Dad and Mom, I told myself, no time to start adding people back to my contacts list.
    Even if I did w ant to get all social butterfly . . . first day ain’t the time for it.  The Asylum is ready for you, throwing chimpanzee shit at you so quick you’re praying for nothing but a plastic bag and a pooper-scooper.  After the hum-from-hell you’ve got your student-advisor banging through the common room door.
    In my case the student-advisor was one Patrick Hanks —not to be confused with Patrick Brown of wet dream fame.  I already described Hanks in the first tape, but being as you’re probably brain rot like the rest of the teenagers I’ve ever met, here’s your recap:  total dweeb.  Made Russell Quilt seem cool.  Faunamancer—Beasttalker.
    That means when he bust ed into our sleeping room he already wore his colors, green and brown, clapping his hands to get our attention over the echoing hum still lodged in our ears.  “Today is going to be busy,” he told us on his last clap, “so I need all of you to be patient and to behave yourselves.”
    Yeah . . . pre-fucked on this one.
    “The first rule to remember about this week,” Hanks continued, “is:  be quick.  Second rule to remember is:  take one task at a time.  Third rule to remember is:  I’m always here to answer questions, so do not hold off if you have one.  I’m here to help you all year long.  I’m your friend.”
    I finally got a pair of eye-meetings with the kids to the left and the right of my bed.  Wasn’ t a single kid in the class who didn’t roll their eyes at Hanks’ happy-go-lucky tone.  On my left was Valentine Ward, who looked to me then looked away real quick.  She’s the one I made cry by outing her accidental dog killing to the rest of the class.  Dick move on my part.  I’d apologize over it for the next seven years.  Be paying the price back for the next seven