u/MarkThedi

An excerpt from my novel The Remarkable Sneezes of Eddie Wilson.

Eddie was growing older.

He had learned to tie knots in a thousand different ways. It had become an almost irresistible instinct: whenever he saw those shoelaces, he simply couldn’t stop himself from tying them together. It was probably just another way of trying to get rid of them — though naturally without success.

His father was a little worried about this, because he liked to say:

“…a good accountant must know how to untangle knots, not make them.”

By then Eddie had become quite familiar with his sneezing. Since every time he sneezed in front of his parents they immediately feared some terrible lung disease, he tried to do it only when he was alone. Out in the meadow he amused himself by sending leaves flying.

But what fascinated him most was the moment of waiting before the sneeze finally burst out. It was an unreal experience, almost mystical. Yes, the leaves flying through the air were amusing, but that feeling of complete surrender just before the sneeze was irresistible.

Eddie had no friends. Their house stood quite isolated, and so he spent most of his days with his mother. Luckily, when the weather was good, he could sit out in the meadow in front of the house, and there he eventually found himself interacting with the small creatures that lived undisturbed around it. Lizards, spiders, grasshoppers, snails… in short, there was no chance of getting bored. And besides, even a snail was more entertaining than a shoelace.

Then Eddie turned six, and with it came school.

In those days schools did not divide classes strictly by age. There simply weren’t many children, so it was quite normal to find six-year-olds sitting in the same classroom as ten-year-olds. The teacher followed different programs depending on the children’s ages and also on their level of learning.

His desk mate was Roy Patterson. He was a year older than Eddie, had a face full of freckles, bright red hair, and two front teeth that would have made a beaver blush. And, as one might imagine, his family had Irish roots.

Roy was always talking about the brand-new Fordson tractor his father had bought, and that, of course, was the first thing he brought up with Eddie on the very first day of school.

“You know… my father’s new tractor can plow as much as eight acres of land in a single day. And in a week that makes fifty-six acres! To do the same work you’d need at least seven or eight horses. Just think about it: you’d have to feed those horses at least a hundred and fifty kilos of hay and grain every day… while the tractor only needs a little gasoline and kerosene.

Yes, because that’s what a Fordson tractor needs to run properly: gasoline to start it, and kerosene to keep it going. It runs beautifully… and my father even lets me drive it.

You know there aren’t many children who drive tractors. I’m one of the few. Actually, in this whole school, I’m the only one who drives a tractor.

…You know we’re going to become rich, right? Did you know that? Do you have a tractor?”

“No,” Eddie replied bluntly.

“…You don’t have a tractor? Then what do you do all day? Don’t you know the future belongs to those who have tractors? Without tractors you can’t get anywhere. How do you even manage without one?”

“We hate tractors,” Eddie said, now slightly annoyed. “We like standing still.”

“Standing still?”

“Yes. We like standing still… and being quiet.”

Roy, however, was not the kind to give up.

“Alright. Anyway, kerosene makes that engine run like a dream. You see, gasoline costs much more than kerosene, but you only need a tiny bit of it. Kerosene, on the other hand, you need a lot more of. We keep lots of kerosene cans in the tractor shed. Did you know my father often lets me pour the kerosene into the tank? It’s really hard to get it into the opening properly, and sometimes it spills on my feet… did you know that?”

“Yes, I know,” Eddie replied.

“How do you know?”

“Because you smell like kerosene.”

In the end, Eddie missed the solitude of those mornings at home a little — alone in the meadow. But school was important and, like all children eventually do, he came to terms with it.

With Roy, little by little, a certain balance began to form. From the very beginning Eddie had managed to put a brake on his desk mate’s endless chatter, and in the end, despite everything, they became friends.

Naturally, as often happens among children, secrets are easily exchanged — and Eddie, after all, was still a child. One day he confided in Roy. Making him swear he would never tell anyone, Eddie revealed the secret of his extraordinary sneeze.

But how long can a secret survive in the mouth of a seven-year-old boy?

Not long. Not very long at all.

And Roy, in fact, could not resist telling the other classmates, and soon the whispering began to spread through the room.

Everyone began looking at Eddie as if he were some kind of Martian. They made stupid jokes about him, and sometimes they even mocked him. Occasionally someone would call his name and, when he turned around, they would scratch their noses and twist their mouths in a ridiculous imitation.

Eddie was furious with Roy — so furious that he even threatened to burn his father’s tractor.

But the damage had already been done.

And that was precisely the moment when the whole matter caught the attention of Otis Campbell.

Otis was eleven years old, but it wasn’t only his age that set him apart. He was also the biggest boy in the class and, naturally, he took advantage of it — making sure everyone knew it, and sometimes even challenging the teacher herself. His parents had been summoned to the school more than once because of his behavior, but every time the principal found herself standing in front of them she ended up resigning herself to the obvious truth: Otis’s parents were just as hopeless as he was.

Now I will tell you what Otis did one morning, in the middle of a lesson.

The teacher was sitting in her chair, practically glowing with pride, while Florence Scott — the most studious girl in the class — was reciting, with perfect diction and impeccable posture, the poem The Duel by Eugene Field. And, like the teacher’s little favorite she was, she accompanied the verses with elegant gestures of her arms and hands.

“The gingham dog and the calico cat
sat side by side on the table, oh my—”

That morning Otis had brought with him an old tin can. He had filled it with the finest, blackest soot he had scraped from the pipe of the old wood stove in his house and had hidden it carefully in his schoolbag… though “schoolbag” might be too generous a word. In reality it was an old burlap sack, crudely adapted for the purpose. It was clearly homemade — most likely sewn together by his mother.

Taking advantage of the teacher’s distraction, Otis pulled the old tin can out of the sack…

Meanwhile Florence’s voice continued to ring through the classroom:

“…the old Dutch clock upon the shelf
put up its hands to hide itself,
for something dreadful filled the air!”

From the desk beside Eddie’s, Otis called him quietly.

“Eddie…”

Eddie turned his head — and Otis blew the black soot straight into his face.

“The gingham dog and the calico cat
side by side on the table sat;
’Twas half-past twelve, and (what do you think!)
nor one nor t’other had slept a wink!”

Florence’s words seemed to freeze in the air. Everyone turned toward Eddie, whose face was now as black as a chimney sweep’s.

And then it came.

The itch.

Unbearable.

That sensation.

Eddie threw his head back. His shoulders rose. His mouth opened. His eyes squeezed shut. His nose wrinkled tighter… and tighter…

Silence fell over the room.

The children… the teacher… everyone was staring at Eddie. No one truly knew what was about to happen, but in their faces there was a growing uneasiness.

HETCHEEEE!!!

Eddie’s sneeze burst through the classroom like an uncontrolled gust of wind. Papers flew from the desks, books flipped their pages by themselves, and the teacher sat frozen in her chair with a sheet of paper plastered across her face. Some of the children had already taken refuge under their desks.

But the best part was that it wasn’t over.

Not at all.

That soot had lodged itself deep inside Eddie’s nose, and after the first sneeze — just when it seemed the worst was over — another one began to build with exactly the same force.

And once again everything that could be moved by the wind began to fly.

The whole classroom was terrified.

Then silence returned — heavy and unreal.

Just like Eddie’s face… black as the stove pipe Otis had scraped that soot from.