No Longer the Family Clown novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Badger Has Fans

At school the badger becomes a meme with merchandise, and Bobby spots something in the video that doesn't fit what his family says happened.

The apology video was forty seconds long, and I did not use the script.

Mom held the phone in the kitchen while Dad stood behind her reading over her shoulder.

I looked into the lens and said, "I'm sorry I interrupted my brother's performance."

Then I said, "Barnaby's head is going back to the school on Monday. That's all."

I didn't say why I'd done it.

I had sworn I wouldn't, and a sworn thing is still sworn when everyone is watching.

"That's not what we wrote," Mom said.

"It's what I'm sorry for."

"It's very short," Dad said, and posted it himself.

By Sunday night it had a hundred thousand views.

The top comment said, "He apologized in the same voice you use to cancel a gym membership."

On Monday I walked into school with the badger head in a garbage bag.

A boy I had never spoken to stopped me at the lockers and said, "Bro. It's him."

By lunch I had met nine people who loved me.

Somebody had started a fan page called "Free the Badger."

It had four thousand followers and one rule.

Nobody could post the video without also posting the sunglasses.

By second period it had a store.

First came the stickers, a badger in tiny sunglasses, two dollars each.

Then came a hoodie for twenty, with "Come Quietly" across the back.

Then a girl from the junior class cornered me by the vending machine.

Her little brother's seventh birthday was Saturday, and she would pay seventy-five dollars for me to show up in the head.

"I'm closed," I said.

"Closed for what?"

"Everything."

"He is crying about it," she said, "he wants the sunglasses guy."

"The sunglasses guy has a rule now."

"A hundred dollars."

I stood there with the garbage bag in one hand.

It would have been easy.

I could have walked into a seven-year-old's backyard and made nine kids scream with joy.

That was the whole trouble with it.

Everyone I had ever made laugh had a good time, and not one of them had ever asked what it cost.

"No," I said.

"Rude," she said, and left.

The drama teacher caught me outside the gym with her arms full of costumes.

"Bobby, I have a slot in the spring showcase," she said. "Six minutes. Anything you want."

"Thank you, but I'm not doing bits anymore."

"It's the only thing you do."

"I know."

She looked at me for a long moment and said, "That's what worries me."

Then Colin was in the hallway.

He was alone, with his backpack over one shoulder, and he saw me and came straight over.

He did not ask about the badger head.

"Hey," he said. "Don't stress about it, okay? Everything's fine. I told Dad it's fine."

"I know. You said so in the lobby."

"I mean it."

He smiled at me, a smooth neat smile with nothing underneath it.

He bit the corner of his thumbnail.

He had been biting them for two years, and Mom kept buying him gloves.

"The slot is still going to be yours someday," he said. "I'll talk to Dad."

"You'll talk to Dad."

"Yeah."

"Colin, why did you leave the stage so fast on Friday?"

I didn't know why I asked.

His face went smooth again, as if somebody had wiped a window.

"Because it was over," he said. "What else was I going to do?"

"Nothing," I said. "Forget it."

"Okay. Good. See you at home!"

He went off down the hall, fast, and I watched him all the way to the corner.

At the end of fifth period a kid in my chemistry class came up behind me with his phone in his hand.

"Dude, you have to see this," he said. "I slowed down the video."

"I've seen the video."

"Not like this," he said.

He held the phone up in front of my face.

The screen showed the stage in a frozen frame, with the piano and my brother on the bench.

The timestamp said 0:12.

"This is before you walk in," the kid said. "Before the wheezing, before anything. Look at his hands."

I looked.

Colin's hands were above the keys, and they were shaking so hard that the picture had smeared them.

He had not played a single note.

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