Beating

"Where the hell were you?" The rough, hoarse voice slammed through the air. Freddy instinctively hid the cookie behind his back, his fingertips tightening around it. "The... the lady next door asked me to help move things..." he answered quietly.

Underwood said nothing. He merely kicked a table leg, signaling for Freddy to serve the food.

The aluminum serving spoon knocked against the bottom of the pot as Freddy hurriedly scooped mashed potatoes onto a chipped plate. But far too much water had been added to them, and the slightest movement sent a few drops spilling onto the greasy wooden table.

His heart clenched. He had barely reached out to wipe it up when a hand like an iron clamp seized his wrist, gripping so hard it felt as though it would crush his bones.

The heavy stench of alcohol washed over his face. Another hand rose and slapped Freddy hard across the cheek. The sharp crack exploded through the cramped room. The blow sent Freddy crashing against the stove, his forehead striking the cold rim of the iron pot, the pain making him see stars.

"Can't even do this right! I'd be better off raising a dog than you!"

Underwood grabbed him by the back of his collar and hauled him back, kicking his shins again and again. "That's for dawdling! That's for spilling the food!"

Freddy bit his lip, afraid to cry, because Freddy knew that if he cried, he would be beaten even harder. If he showed fear, it would only excite Underwood more.

All he could do was curl up on the floor, listening to his adoptive father's curses and the clinking of liquor bottles. His fingernails dug into his palms as he clenched his fists. He knew he was powerless right now, so all he could do was endure.

"A born freak..."

"Spawn of a lunatic..."

He had no idea how much time passed. Perhaps Underwood had grown tired. The excitement faded from his eyes, and at last he had cursed enough. He kicked Freddy over just as the boy got to his feet.

"Get down to the basement. No dinner tonight."

Freddy braced himself against the wall and slowly climbed to his feet, shuffling toward the stairs with his head lowered. The basement door creaked shut, followed by the click of the lock. It cut off all the light outside, shut out his adoptive father's twisted face with its perverse delight, and shut out his adoptive mother's cold face and its faint trace of gloating.

Now only darkness and the damp smell of mold surrounded Freddy. His cheek still burned. He leaned against the cold wall and buried his face in his knees without making a single sob. Only his knuckles, clenched white, showed a glint of viciousness in the dark. His young face twisted terribly, and dark thoughts sprang up in his mind one after another like shoots after rain.

But suddenly, he seemed to remember something. He carefully took the half cookie from his pocket, pinching off tiny pieces with his fingers until he had eaten every last crumb.

Freddy buried his face in his little knees, but he had already begun looking forward to tomorrow, looking forward to daylight.

The next day, Freddy limped to my door on his way to school. An enormous handprint marked his fair little face. I cupped his face to examine it and discovered another swollen spot beneath his blond hair, as though he had struck it against something. His body was covered in bruises, too.

"He hit you again?" I asked, lowering my voice.

"Yeah... because I spilled the food..."

"That animal!"

I spoke through gritted teeth. Even if a child wasn't your adopted son, how could you hit him that hard? Parents like that deserved to die. The thoughts in my mind grew increasingly vicious, and my hands tightened involuntarily.

Only when Freddy struggled did I snap out of it. I pulled him inside, and he followed obediently, asking, "Aren't we going to school?"

"It's only elementary school. Being a little late won't matter."

Freddy kept his gaze fixed on my eyes. He seemed to have noticed something.

I treated his injuries before taking him to school. Worried he wouldn't know how to lie, I even made a point of teaching him an excuse.

"When your teacher asks, tell her you helped an old lady cross the street. Yes... just say that."

"Okay," he answered obediently.

I was late when I entered my classroom, but my teacher didn't seem so easy to fool. He thought my excuse about helping an old man cross the street was too far-fetched, so he made me stay after school to clean the classroom. He called it cleaning the classroom, but really, it amounted to wiping the blackboard at most. It wouldn't take long.

I figured Freddy would probably be cleaning his classroom along with me. My old-man excuse was pretty far-fetched; his old-lady version probably wouldn't pass muster either.

Freddy slipped lightly into the classroom. Of course he knew his teacher wouldn't believe his excuse. No matter how elaborate he made it, she wouldn't believe him.

But he put his hands behind his back and still obediently told her, "I helped an old lady cross the street on the way here."

A scoff sounded, followed by a flat, faintly mocking voice, shrill and high like a hen laying an egg. "If you're going to lie, at least make it convincing. An idiot like you can't even get that right."

Mrs. Hart glanced back at him and immediately spotted the handprint that had yet to fade from his face. Rather than showing the slightest pity, she curled her lips in a sneer. "What? Made your adoptive father angry again? You just need discipline, if you ask me. A born bastard. No amount of teaching will do you any good."

As the others burst into malicious laughter, Freddy lowered his head, his expression dark.

School was finally over. I finished wiping the blackboard and went to find Freddy. He hadn't come to see me after school today, so I guessed he had been punished too.

He's even slower at wiping than I am. There's probably a spot he can't reach, I thought cheerfully as I headed toward his classroom.

I spotted him at once, kneeling on the floor with a rag, wiping it bit by bit.

I was a little stunned. I was a sixth grader, and all I had been made to do was wipe the blackboard. How could they make a first grader wipe the floor with a rag? They hadn't even given him a mop, and it looked as though he had been at it for some time.

His eyes lit up when he saw me, then dimmed again, but he still smiled as he spoke.

"Go on ahead. I've been made to wipe the floor all week. I'll still be a while." As he spoke, he looked at me with such reluctance to part that I almost laughed.

I took his hand and started to leave. "Stop wiping. Just leave it. Come back with me."

He stood there and shook his head. "I can't. Teacher Hart said she'd check before leaving work. If I don't get it clean with the rag, she'll tell my father."

I understood. That teacher probably wasn't a good person either. I thought for a moment, then suddenly spotted the watering can on the balcony. The school floors weren't actually dirty. They just needed signs of having been wiped-in other words, traces of water.

We took two watering cans and sprayed the classroom floor section by section. It didn't even take three minutes.

We left cheerfully. Mrs. Hart had been planning to teach the little brat a lesson. It hadn't even been twenty minutes; he didn't believe Freddy could have wiped the entire classroom in that time. The moment she entered, her enormous backside made intimate contact with the floor.

"Ow!"

As for the broad and self-satisfied Mrs. Hart, that fall injured her lower back and broke her wrist. Fortunately, the thick layer of fat protected her tailbone very well. But the news that she would still need at least a month in the hospital was all for tomorrow.

The weather gradually grew hotter. I was so hot that I bought two ice cream bars at school during lunch, holding one in my mouth and carrying the other as I went looking for Freddy, but I couldn't find him anywhere. Unfortunately, lunch lasted only fifteen minutes. Perhaps he wasn't feeling well today and didn't want lunch.

I rubbed my stomach. The school lunches weren't very good anyway. After school, instead of going home, I would take Freddy to the supermarket to buy things to make sandwiches.

But just as I finished a glass of water and was about to use the bathroom, I heard a clamor. I frowned. What were these elementary school kids doing? I opened the door. A circle of children had gathered inside, ranging from first graders to sixth graders.

The instant I pushed the door open, the noise stopped. More than a dozen pairs of eyes turned toward me. At their head was Todd, the same boy who had previously led the others in ostracizing Freddy. Gripping Freddy's blond hair and using his taller, heavier build to his advantage over other children his age, he was forcing Freddy into the toilet. Only a few fingers remained on the rim, desperately holding on.

"What are you doing?!" I shouted.

The boys holding Freddy jumped in fright and turned to look at me, then broke into snickers. After all, there were plenty of them, while I was alone.

Even the classmate who had told me to stay away from Freddy was there. He pushed past a few others, stepped forward, and grabbed my collar.

"Well, look who it is. That little bastard. What, feeling sorry for him because you're the same? You'd better get lost, or we'll give you a taste of it too."

He had disliked me for a long time. In our class, his word had always been law, but after what I had said a few months earlier, some classmates had gradually stopped accepting his authority. Some even contradicted him. But because I had good grades, was good-looking and tall, seemed to come from a fairly wealthy family, and the teacher favored him, he hadn't dared cause trouble for me.

Their grip loosened, and Freddy raised his head.

The corner of his mouth was split, his face covered in bruises and even defaced with insulting doodles. His uniform collar had been pulled askew, yet his fists remained clenched and his back rigidly straight. Even surrounded by seven or eight people, he showed no sign of begging for mercy. Only the viciousness in his eyes threatened to spill over, like a small animal cornered against a wall.

But upon hearing my voice, those intense negative emotions abruptly stalled, then turned into an anxiety and shame that would not go away.

How could he let him see him like this? No, he had to get him out of here quickly. He alone should bear this humiliation and pain.

He struggled with all his strength, but the hand on his head was like an iron clamp, pinning him above the toilet, unmoved no matter how hard he fought.

An intense shame surged through him, worse than the humiliation-how could he let me see him like this? So wretched, so pathetic, trampled beneath other people's feet.

He wanted to shout, to tell me to leave quickly, to keep me from seeing him like this.

But Todd's hand pressed firmly against the back of his neck, leaving him able to make only muffled sounds. His struggles grew fiercer, but they changed nothing.