Project X

by Jim Shepard

  When I get off the bus at school I’m so tired I have trouble focusing.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Flake goes.

  “Your mother kept me up,” I go.

  “Your mother kept my dog up,” Flake goes. He puts his arm around me like we’re the best of pals and walks me over to the steps where we broke in.

  “What’s the longest anybody ever had a headache?” I go.

  “So listen,” he goes. “I think I solved the Hermie problem.”

  “What’d you do?” I ask.

  “Stop yawning,” he goes.

  “I can’t help it,” I go.

  “What if we tell him we’ll get him something supercool that he can fight Budzinski with?” he goes.

  “Like what?” I go.

  “I don’t know. Something supercool,” he goes.

  “Like what?” I go.

  “How should I know,” he goes. “Like nimchucks.”

  “Nimchucks,” I go, thinking about it.

  “We don’t have to actually get any,” he goes. “We just say we will.”

  “Why can’t Budzinski take his nimchucks away from him and beat on him like he did with the stick?” I go.

  “Ah, shit,” Flake goes.

  “That’s what Hermie’ll say,” I tell him.

  “Well, you come up with something, then,” he says.

  “I’m just saying what Hermie’ll say,” I tell him.

  The homeroom bell rings. “So come up with something,” Flake says again. We walk over and shove into the group that’s heading in. “I’m doing all the work here.”

  When I see Hermie in the hall between first and second period he’s got a black eye.

  “Shit,” Flake says when I see him before third period. “You talk to him?”

  “I just saw him,” I tell him.

  “We gotta find him at lunch,” Flake says. “And we gotta talk to him after school.”

  I get my math test back.

  “Hi, Edwin,” Bethany goes as I’m turning a corner. I almost go back.

  My locker flies open like I never had any trouble with it in my life.

  At lunch Hermie’s standing there with a tray by himself like he already knew what we wanted.

  “Hey there, Herman,” Flake says. “Long time no see.”

  “Hey,” Hermie goes.

  “What happened to your eye?” Flake goes. “Walk into somebody’s boner?”

  “No,” Hermie goes.

  “They got brownies,” I tell him.

  “I saw,” he goes.

  “Wanna sit with us?” Flake asks.

  Hermie shrugs. While we’re standing around looking for a place, Dickhead goes by and dumps an apple core on my tray.

  There are no completely empty tables, so we sit with some ninth-grade girls. “Do you mind?” one of them says when Flake’s pack leans on her feet under the table.

  “Wanna do my hair?” she asks another girl at the table.

  “Yeah, maybe in French,” the girl tells her.

  “So did we tell you we talked to Budzinski?” Flake says to Hermie.

  “He told me,” Hermie goes.

  “He do that?” Flake asks, about the black eye. Hermie eats his mac and cheese and looks like he wants to drop the subject.

  “Son of a bitch,” Flake says, like there’d been some agreement. “I’m gonna talk to that little prick.”

  “Don’t talk to him anymore,” Hermie tells him. He touches his eye with his fingertip and eats more mac and cheese with his other hand.

  “Well, he can’t just keep beating on you,” Flake goes.

  “Don’t worry about me,” Hermie says.

  Flake gives me a look. “So listen,” he says back. “We got some good news. We’ll tell you after school.”

  “Why can’t you tell me now?” Hermie asks.

  Flake nods at the girls.

  “What do they care?” Hermie wants to know. It’s a good question.

  Flake holds up his hand like we’ll all just have to wait. Hermie gives up and finishes his lunch.

  “So what’s your good news?” he says after school. He doesn’t seem so thrilled just to be hanging out with us.

  I haven’t talked to Flake since lunch so I don’t know. I haven’t come up with anything.

  He looks at me and sees how much help I’m gonna be. He says to Hermie that we came up with the perfect thing to get even with Budzinski. It’s gonna really screw him good.

  “What is it?” Hermie wants to know. He doesn’t sound excited.

  “I don’t want to give it away, completely,” Flake tells him. “It’s pretty complicated to set up.”

  Hermie just keeps looking at him.

  “Anyway, it’ll take like two days,” Flake goes. “And it has to start on Monday. You in?”

  “In what?” Hermie finally says.

  “On this thing?” Flake goes. “You wanna get back at him or not?”

  “Yeah,” Hermie says.

  “All right, then,” Flake goes.

  “That’s your good news?” Hermie asks.

  “That’s our good news,” Flake says, frustrated.

  “Why’s it have to start on Monday?” Hermie asks.

  Flake makes a face. “I’ll tell you then,” he goes.

  “Whatever. See you later,” Hermie goes. He waves to me and takes off. We watch him walk down the street by himself. He doesn’t look up once.

  “Shit,” Flake says.

  “Maybe I’ll talk to him again,” I go. “I don’t think he’s gonna do anything.”

  “Shit,” Flake says.

  I look at the phone so much after dinner that my dad finally congratulates me on my new hobby. I look at it all night but never call Hermie. Once it’s quiet, I go to bed and fall asleep and wake up after twenty minutes. Twenty minutes. I pick up the clock and hold it close to my face because it seems hard to believe.

  I leave the light off. I go around the room looking at all the stuff like I’m deciding what to take on a trip. Some stuff it takes a while to figure out with only the light from the window. It’s like it becomes itself while I stare at it.

  Then I go across the hall and check on Gus. The floor’s cold. His foot’s sticking out from under the blanket. I stand in my parents’ room and look at them. Birds that sing at night make noise outside their window.

  I read the newspaper downstairs in the living room with one light on. There’s an article on chicken. The front page has a picture of some old guys in suits and ties running from something.

  We’re going backwards, I realize sitting there. Now even midget sixth-graders think we’re assholes.

  Back up in bed I watch the ceiling get brighter.

  “Good morning,” my mom says when I come downstairs.

  “Good morning,” I go.

  “What do you want for breakfast?” she asks.

  “The usual,” I go. She laughs.

  She spends time trying to get me to eat something. I end up with a buttered English muffin on a dish in front of me. I ask for some orange juice, which cheers her up.

  “Where’s Dad?” I go.

  “Office,” she goes. “He’s got a big lecture he’s nervous about. Faculty lecture.”

  I ask her what a faculty lecture is. It’s a lecture for the whole faculty, not just people in economics.

  I pick up the English muffin, put it back down again, and drink some orange juice instead. “When is it?” I go.

  “Friday,” she goes. She pours some beans into the coffee grinder. “I don’t know why, but I haven’t been feeling like coffee lately.”

  “Where’s Gus?” I go.

  “Being a sleepyhead,” she goes.

  She drops into a seat across the kitchen table and nudges my dish closer to me. “Why do you always pick at your hand like that?” she goes.

  “I don’t know,” I go. I stop doing it.

  “So you want to hear my plan?” she asks.

  She imitates me, with my mouth open.


  “What’s your plan?” I ask.

  “We go to the beach this weekend,” she says. “It’s supposed to be in the seventies. The water should still be warm enough for you guys to swim.”

  “That’s a good idea,” I tell her.

  “You’re still sleepy, too,” she says.

  “What beach?” I ask.

  “That one you like,” she tells me.

  “By Grandma’s old place?” I go.

  “That’s the one,” she goes.

  “It takes like four hours to get there,” I go.

  She holds my hand and turns it over and looks at the palm. “This is part of the surprise,” she goes. “I say we pick your father up and we’re all ready to go right after his lecture. Let ’im throw his tweed jacket in the trunk.”

  “When’s his lecture over?” I go.

  “Ten or so,” she goes. “It’s reading period.”

  Little areas of my head feel cold, then tingly. “This Friday?” I go. “I got school.”

  “We’ll take you out early,” she goes. “Get Out of Jail Free.”

  “Unless you’re dying to stay in school,” she says when I don’t say anything.

  Gus calls down the stairs, wanting to know where his sippy cup is.

  “I don’t know, hon,” she calls back up to him. “What’d you do with it?”

  I should say I have a test. Or something. My shoulders start bobbing like I’m using them to think.

  “You’re gonna be late,” she goes. She tips her head at the clock. When Gus calls her again I get my pack and go.

  When I see Flake I tell him that my mom wants to take me out of school on Friday to go to the beach. He nods. He’s excited because he had the idea of scratching You’re Next on the mirror in the boys’ bathroom. He did it with a roofing nail. He says it looks cool. “Check it out,” he goes. “It creeps you out. You look at your face and that’s what’s written over it.”

  It would creep me out, I tell him.

  “So you talk to Hermie?” he goes.

  He doesn’t look fazed when I shake my head.

  “I don’t think he’ll do anything before Friday,” he says. “If he does anything at all.”

  The bell for homeroom rings but neither of us gets up off the step for a minute. The sky’s a nice blue and there’s a breeze. Off on the monkey bars a squirrel’s sitting on his hind legs and has his head up like he’s sunning his face.

  Nobody seems like they’re in a hurry.

  Weensie’s in our way on the stairs. “Hey,” he says to me, before going up ahead of us.

  “What was that about?” Flake asks.

  “You got me,” I tell him.

  Before third period I go look at Flake’s You’re Next on the mirror. It does look cool. But while I’m washing my hands in front of it, a kid comes and goes without even noticing it.

  When I come out of the bathroom, Tawanda waves me over. She’s with a group of black girls who think the whole thing’s funny. They stand there talking trash to each other while I walk over.

  “Michelle talk to you?” she goes.

  “About what?” I go.

  “Ms. Arnold talk to you?” she goes.

  “Nobody talks to me,” I tell her.

  “You don’t have conversations,” one of the black girls says.

  “I don’t have conversations,” I go.

  “I’m talking to you,” Tawanda goes.

  “She’s talking to you,” the black girl says.

  I wish I could think of something funny to say back. “Uh,” I end up saying.

  “So turns out Ms. Arnold loves our World of Color thing,” Tawanda says.

  “Yeah, she said,” I go.

  “So you did talk to her,” Tawanda goes.

  “She said it a while ago,” I tell her.

  “No, she really loves it,” Tawanda goes. “She’s entering it in the regional fair for the art prize.”

  “The tree with the heads in it?” I ask. Some of the black girls laugh.

  “She wants to call it The Fruit of Human Endeavor,” Tawanda goes.

  “I know,” she goes when she sees my expression. “They always do something queer at the last second so you can’t enjoy it.”

  A small kid walks on his knees from one classroom across the hall to the other. We all watch.

  “This is a weird fucking school,” one of the other black girls says.

  “She said she especially liked the heads with the helmets and the Fish-Man head,” Tawanda tells me.

  “I did those heads,” I go.

  “I know,” Tawanda goes. “That’s why I’m telling you. You’re a star.”

  The other girls are talking to each other by this point.

  “Thanks for telling me,” I go.

  “No problem,” she goes.

  “See you,” I go.

  “So I don’t wanna hear about you working with other people,” she tells me. “On projects. Just remember who knew you when.”

  “C’mon,” I go, and she turns back to the other girls. All through third period I’m surprised to find myself smiling about it.

  Ms. Arnold catches me in the hall before lunch and says that if we win the regional prize, I get my name in the paper. “You ever wonder what it’d be like to see your name in the paper?” she asks.

  “Yeah,” I go.

  “Did you ever think it might happen?” she asks.

  “Yeah,” I go.

  She smiles, like she wasn’t expecting that. “Well, you tell your parents,” she goes. “It’s already a big honor, you know, just to get this far.”

  “I know,” I tell her.

  “It’s great that it was a cooperative project, too,” she goes.

  “I guess,” I go.

  She seems like she wants to say something else. If she does, she doesn’t say it. She runs her fingernail along the edge of her lipstick.

  “Well, thanks again,” I tell her.

  She puts her hand up to my cheek, just like I imagined Bethany doing it.

  “Edwin Hanratty,” she says, like I was a place she used to love to visit. “What a strange little guy you are.”

  “What happened to you?” Flake says when he sees me in the lunch line. “Why’re you holding your cheek?”

  In social studies they’re doing the Anasazis. When the period’s over I have one sentence written in my notebook: “The Anasazis had their own religion, but it wasn’t that complex.”

  After school I don’t take the bus and look for Flake instead. When I see him he’s already a block down the street. I call him and he stops and scratches his head so hard I can hear it from where I am.

  “What’re you doing?” I ask when I catch up.

  “I gotta lot of things to do to get ready,” he goes.

  “You gotta lot of things to do?” I go.

  “Yeah. I gotta lot of things to do,” he goes.

  I stop walking. He keeps going. Well, fuck you, too, I think. By the time I get back to the parking lot, the buses are gone. I end up walking home.

  There’s a note on the counter that Gus has an ear infection and my mom’s taking him to the doctor. My dad must be off working on his lecture. I have to get out of the house. I change into shorts to save my pants. I hold the pants up after taking them off and can see my hand where the butt’s starting to wear through.

  I have skinny legs.

  I go out the back door and wander over to our mosh-volleyball court. I don’t see the volleyball in the garage.

  The sun goes in and it’s cooler out. Gus’s Nerf football is at the end of the driveway. I pick it up to wing it back into the yard, but then keep it. I walk toward the JV practice fields like I’m heading for a big pickup Nerf game. I try to hit squirrels or birds with ambush lobs on the way.

  The practice fields are empty. I don’t know why. I climb the fence and sit on the grass with the Nerf. A pigeon wanders by out of range.

  A tan dog with floppy ears and white paws is sniffing and takin
g a dump in the middle of the field. I can’t tell what kind it is.

  A kid a little older than Gus who’s wearing a towel like a cape comes through the gate at the other end. He has a Styrofoam glider. His dad trails after him, dragging a knapsack. The kid’s hair is short on the sides and sticks out on top like a patch of dandelions. He throws the glider a few times straight into the ground and then gives up. He heads over to me and his dad gets the glider and takes it apart and puts the pieces into the knapsack.

  The kid stops a little ways away. He’s got his eye on the Nerf. “Throw,” he goes.

  The dad comes up behind him. He’s got an expression like he just found out I screwed him over.

  “Throw,” the kid goes.

  “Am I gonna have to worry about your dog?” the guy says.

  “Throw,” the kid goes.

  “Are you deaf?” the guy says.

  “No,” I go.

  “So do I have to worry about your dog?” he says.

  “No,” I go.

  He looks over at the dog like I’m not very reassuring. The dog looks at him. “Get outta here,” he says to the dog, though it wasn’t heading towards him.

  “Throw,” the kid goes.

  I throw him the Nerf. He fumbles around with it for a while. His towel gets in the way. He kicks the ball back and forth. He runs with it under his arm. He asks his dad to catch it. His dad drags the knapsack farther away from me and then lets it go and puts his arms out. The kid can’t throw at all.

  The dad troops after it all over the field and then the kid picks it up and stuffs it in the knapsack. He pulls his glider out and his dad puts it back together for him and the kid throws it into the ground for a while. Then he says something and his dad picks up the pack and the glider and they both head for the gate across the field.

  “Hey,” I go. They keep walking. “Hey,” I call. I get up and follow them. “Hey!”

  The dad turns around. The kid keeps going.

  “You got my ball,” I go.

  “What?” the dad says.

  “The Nerf ball,” I tell him.

  “That’s his,” the dad goes. “We brought it here.” He waits for me to say something and then starts walking again.

  “I don’t fucking believe this,” I go.

  He turns around again. “What’d you say?” he goes. He walks back towards me. “What did you say to me?”

  “That’s my ball,” I go.