Heads turned in the front as the pledges’ hands went up around Scott. He was late in realizing that he was still holding his glasses to his face. He fumbled them into his lap, went to reach for them, and then shot his arm up instead.
Grant began counting the hands off with the tip of his pen.
Scott’s gaze found the large intercom box on the wall above Grant’s head. Without his glasses, it looked like a manila blur, but it was something to focus on, something to keep his mind from the craning stares of the Gamma members, from his own doubting thoughts.
His head began to spin.
It was a familiar sensation, the filaments of his consciousness winding around one another, harder, sharper…
But here?
His world twined tighter, dimming to the brink of darkness, before bursting open. In the next instant, Scott was scattershot over the intercom system, box to box, then down a stepwise convergence of branches, to the main trunk, where the system was rooted and powered, probably somewhere inside the school’s main office.
Scott braced himself against the stinging current and tried to reverse course, but it was like swimming upstream in a frothing river, the energy less linear, more turbulent. Perhaps it was the age of the system, the dry cracks in the rubber insulation. He stopped straining and imagined the intercom in the meeting room as he’d last seen it: a manila blur. He focused on it, just like he would do with his modem at home, felt his consciousness gathering there…
The report sounded like a cross between a fart and a shotgun blast.
Scott blinked from his seat in the rear of the classroom. At the head of the room, Grant had fallen into a crouch, his pen still held out, his other arm thrown up over his head. Everyone else was staring at the intercom box above him. Glasses to his eyes, Scott’s gaze went there, too. The box emitted a final, petering raspberry from its blown speaker, then fell silent.
Heat washed over Scott’s face.
The laughter was sudden and riotous. Britt, the sergeant at arms, stood from the table. But rather than restore order, he waved a hand near his backside in exaggerated motions. “I swear, it wasn’t me this time!”
Grant straightened and swept his fingers through his hair. He peeked back toward the intercom with a disapproving scowl, then cleared his throat into his fist. “All right, everyone, return to order.” Then to the back of the classroom: “You can put your hand down.”
Scott made a convulsive sound when he realized Grant meant him. He hugged his arm to his side.
“The Gamma pledge term is thirteen weeks.” The laughter quieted to guffaws. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it. They are thirteen demanding weeks. But do everything you’re asked as a pledge, and you’re in. You’re a brother. It’s that straightforward. And once you’re a Gamma brother, you’re a Gamma brother for life.”
“And if Britt can do it, anyone can,” someone called to the back.
That revived the laughter and had the other officers restraining the sergeant at arms as he pretended to want to climb over the table to get at his heckler. Scott smiled at his antics, and for the first time since walking through the door, he felt the knot in his stomach begin to loosen.
Do everything you’re asked as a pledge, and you’re in. You’re a brother.
A roll sheet found its way to his desk. Scott signed it and passed it along.
When the laughter subsided, Grant had another question for the pledges: “How many of you have been eating lunch off campus?”
All of the pledges’ hands went up, and once more, Scott’s hand joined theirs. Not true, of course, not entirely. But who would know? He became worried when snickers began to pop off like bottle caps.
“Well, as of next week, that stops,” Grant announced. Scott could feel the questioning looks of the other pledges as they lowered their arms. “In the cafeteria, there’s a special table for Gamma pledges, and that’s where you’ll be eating. You will partake of the good food that our lunchroom ladies prepare each day but that no one has the good manners to appreciate. As representatives of Gamma, you will appreciate that food, and you will appreciate them. You will do so by eating every bite. I don’t care if it looks and tastes like regurgitated cow cud. At the end of the lunch hour, a brother will stop by to inspect your trays. And don’t try to get cute and dump your food beforehand, or it’ll be two trays the next time.”
“Someone’s always watching!” a voice warned.
“But here’s the most important part,” Grant went on. “When you return your tray, you’re to stick your head through the service window and thank the ladies for your meal, and you will do so with sincerity. Understood?”
“Yes,” the pledges answered in unison.
Scott swallowed. Just when he thought he’d escaped the cafeteria and its depravities — the food not the least of them — he was being ordered right back into that ghetto.
“In addition to daily lunch in the cafeteria, you are all required to dress in what we call ‘Standards.’ Dress slacks, dress shoes, dress shirt, and a tie. Your Sunday best. Blazers optional.”
Grant signaled to one of the officers, who began passing something toward the back of the room. With his glasses back in his lap again, it was all a blur to Scott.
“These are your Gamma letters,” Grant said when they began arriving. “They will complete your attire. You will wear them every day, and you must wear them so that they are visible — not inside your shirts. That way, your brothers can identify you around campus.”
More snickers.
Scott took his giant laminated L and turned it one way and then another before setting it flat on his desk. If he decided to go through with this — the cafeteria, Standards, a giant Greek letter around his neck — there would be no going back into the shadows. Not at Thirteenth Street High.
“Any questions?” Grant asked.
Do you really want to do this? the same voice whispered in Scott’s ear. It’s an even bigger risk than you first thought.
“It all starts the day after Labor Day,” Grant said after no one spoke up. “And the next meeting is a week from today, when you’ll be assigned your big brother. Be sure to bring back your permission slips. We’ll need those. The other requirements for your term are spelled out in these pledge packets. Make sure you grab one on your way out. Good luck.”
The sergeant at arms rose from the table and stalked to the front of the room. “DISMISSED!” he bellowed, throwing his arms out. “NOW, GET THE HELL OUTTA HERE! ALL OF YOU!”
This time, Scott laughed with the others.
11
After school
THE GARAGE DOOR was solid. It didn’t rattle when the soccer ball thunked against it, which made the rebounds come off hard and fast. And because of the paneled design of the door, the ball almost always bounced back at erratic angles, first careening to the right, then to the left, then almost straight up in a spinning pop.
Perfect for a goalie in training.
Janis sprinted beneath the latest pop-up, elbows tucked to her sides, the webbing of the goalie gloves spread wide.
Watch the ball into your possession. Always watch the ball into your possession.
Her squinting eyes tracked it into her arms, and she cinched the ball to her chest, crouching protectively. Her father had taught her that after a game when she had fumbled away a shot that led to the other team toeing in the winner. In the years since, it had become automatic for her, a mantra that repeated itself every time she went to corral a shot: Watch the ball into your possession.
She had missed some, sure, but she’d never fumbled away another ball.
She bounced the soccer ball against the pavement as she returned to her starting spot. Clamping the taut ball between her knees, she wiped sweat from her brow and tightened her ponytail. The temperature had climbed into the upper nineties again, and her pores gasped inside her long-sleeved polyester jersey. But she loved the training, even the suffering that went with it. It was who she was, it was where she belonge
d, not in Alpha. She grimaced. Even the thought of the word tasted bad.
Janis had shown up early to the first meeting that day with the sole intent of telling Margaret that she wasn’t going to be joining and wouldn’t even be staying for the rest of the meeting. Sorry, but Alpha just isn’t for me. Margaret had been in the middle of organizing packets and patting them into neat stacks when Janis arrived at the meeting room.
“Where’s your lunch?” Margaret asked, hardly glancing up. A few members were eating near the front of the classroom, Feather Heather, Tina, and Kelly among them, their desks pushed together.
“I’m sorry, Margaret…” Janis lowered her voice, “but I can’t.”
“Can’t what?”
“Do this. I have to leave.”
Margaret looked up from her counting and, for an instant, it felt to Janis as if her sister’s green eyes were around her head. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling but strange and disorienting. Similar to what happens before falling asleep, when your thoughts begin to dissolve a little.
“Oh, march your little bottom to the back and stop being silly.”
And surprisingly, Janis found herself doing just that. Her thoughts on Alpha hadn’t changed, no, but asserting herself before Margaret felt like too much trouble, as if the lead of resistance had melted from her will.
Better just to go along with it.
Janis picked out a desk in the very back and watched the classroom fill with the type of girls she swore she’d never become. Most clacked in on high heels, their hair and makeup way overdone. The older members squealed and clapped their hands when they spotted her, but Janis knew it was only because she was Margaret’s little sister. Celebrity by relation. She raised one hand in response, her resentment at being there seeping back by degrees.
Aspiring pledges entered too, dolled up and doe-eyed, Margaret directing them to the back. They steered clear of where Janis sat, probably because her own fashion sense that day amounted to athletic shorts and a Jordache T-shirt. She might as well have had leprous tumors. Of course, they didn’t know she was Margaret’s sis—
Janis nearly choked.
Amy, Alicia, and Autumn entered the room in virtual lockstep. In their pleated skirts, pink Argyle vests, and matching socks, they looked like a three-headed creature. A hydra. They filed toward the rear of the room, flashing smiles and waving to the older members, like contestants in some ridiculous pageant. Janis slid down in her seat and swore at herself. Why in the world hadn’t she left when she’d had the chance?
The Amy-Alicia-Autumn hydra stopped at the row of desks in front of hers, a gust of hyperfloral perfume enveloping Janis, and sat three across. They didn’t deign to look back. Big surprise there. The backs of their brunette heads perked up as Margaret called the meeting to order.
The informational meeting was pretty much what Janis had expected: we do service work, we host social events, we represent the school in the community, blah blah blah. The single highlight was when the intercom blew and the room erupted into screams. But the hysteria was short lived, and the meeting resumed with the Alpha pledge term. Lunch in the cafeteria? Dressing up every day? Janis slouched further in her chair. Not for her. Definitely not for her.
And to have to do it with the Amy-Alicia-Autumn hydra? For. Get. It. Janis was sure the feeling was mutual on their end.
But then something weird happened. As the meeting broke up, and the three A’s stood from their desks, Amy, her former best friend, turned and looked at her. “Hey,” she said and smiled. Not a polished, practiced smile, but one that pouched a little at the ends with, what, contrition?
Stunned, Janis returned the greeting with a hoarse “Hey” of her own. It marked the first exchange they’d had in almost three years, their first one since Janis had found the note in her locker.
(Softball is for lesbians.)
And then Amy had turned back to her friends, and the exchange ended.
Out in her driveway, Janis palmed the soccer ball against her wrist and shook her head. She heaved the ball at the garage door, harder than she meant to. The ball caught the left side of an upper panel and careened off to Janis’s right. She had already begun a stutter step in that direction and lunged with her right leg and shot out her arm. The impact stung her fingertips, but the ball was tipped off course, cleared of the imaginary goal. Janis checked her stumbling momentum with her hand and watched the ball dribble off into the side yard.
At first, Amy’s gesture had perplexed her. But by the end of typing class (and through Star’s unbroken rant against “The White Male Establishment”), the obvious dawned on her: she was Margaret’s sister; Margaret was Alpha’s president; the three A’s wanted to get into Alpha; hence, the three A’s believed they needed to make nice with Janis.
And there you had it. Nothing more or less complicated.
Janis followed the ball into the side yard, where the garden hose lay in a loose coil. She tugged off her gloves and shoved up her sleeves. As good a time to take a break as any. She twisted the spigot. The water that gurgled from the hose was still cold from the last time and felt wonderful flowing over her head. She tilted the nozzle up so the water pushed against her face, then took a long drink as the water trickled beneath her jersey, cooling her body in little rivulets.
After tightening the spigot, Janis gathered the soccer ball and sat with it cross-legged inside the wall of shade along the edge of the yard. She traced the ball’s hexagonal seams with her fingers. All around her, the late afternoon heat rattled and droned with insect sounds…
And then drilling.
It was the same drilling that had been whining on and off while she practiced, but Janis hadn’t given it much thought; she couldn’t tell where it was even coming from. She got up, leaving her ball in the shade, and followed the sound to the back line of bushes. Beyond the leaves, she could make out someone in a white T-shirt. Janis sank to one knee and pushed aside a low bough.
Mr. Leonard was standing in front of his woodshed, with his back to her. He was bracing the farther shed door open about a foot while, with his other hand, he operated a drill powered by a long orange cable running up to his house. Narrow straps of muscle stood from the back of his sunburned neck. It was her first time seeing him since the dream (experience).
But she felt no fear, not in the light of day. He didn’t know she was watching him, one. And at Janis’s back, across the yard, she could hear the intermittent clinking of pots where her mother was inside preparing their dinner. Janis had only to shout for her to look out the kitchen window.
Janis shifted her attention from Mr. Leonard to the shed. It was decrepit and leaned with the lawn, just as it had in her dream. But of course she’d seen the shed before, like when she and Margaret used to roller skate down the culvert. Her mind had obviously kept the image on file and then called it up when, in her dream, she had ventured into his backyard.
But what about the inside?
The drill rattled to a stop. Mr. Leonard wiped his hand on his hip and began to turn. Janis released the bough and drew back. Through the leaves, she watched him set the drill on a folding chair. She reopened her sight line just as he shut the shed door and locked it with a key.
So there was a lock.
But she could have noticed this feature from the culvert as well. Not consciously, maybe, but her mind could still have recorded the detail and stored it away.
Mr. Leonard tugged on both doors, peering up and down the frame. He turned back to the chair and began gathering his things. Something small went into the front pocket of his cut-off jeans and something else into his other pocket. Then he scooped up what could only be screws by the way he palmed them.
Parts of the old lock? The idea made the damp skin beneath Janis’s jersey bunch into gooseflesh. Sunday night you dream he catches you in his shed. Five days later he changes the lock. Ripley’s… Believe It or Not.
Last, she watched him unplug and disarm the drill and then shove it into the waist of his sh
orts in the back.
When Mr. Leonard turned, Janis was too slow to release the bough. She froze instead, like an exposed animal. He squinted around, his yellow-bespectacled gaze appearing to hesitate on the spot where she knelt. A second later, he turned and hiked toward the house, gathering the extension cord around his arm in sharp, strong gestures. He didn’t look at all like a hapless substitute. No, he appeared capable — capable in a way that made him far creepier.
~*~
That night, Janis sat up with her back against the headboard, telling herself she would quit reading at the end of the chapter and turn off her light. In English that week, they’d finished their discussion of 1984, and Mrs. Fern had assigned them To Kill a Mockingbird. “No book better contrasts the imagined realm of children with the stark and consequential world of adults,” she had declared. “And none better collides them.” Janis couldn’t say how, but she felt that Mrs. Fern had intended the message for her.
She was at the nerve-wracking part where the kids sneak over to Boo Radley’s house at night, when a pair of taps sounded on her bedroom door. Janis gasped and pressed the book to her chest.
“Come in,” she called after a moment, her heart still thudding.
Probably Margaret, home from her date with Kevin. The rest of the Graystone clan had spent the evening with bowls of popcorn, watching a rental from Video World: The Private Eyes, a Tim Conway and Don Knotts spoof. Movie night on Friday was a Graystone tradition, a reward for their week of work.
But it wasn’t Margaret. When Janis looked over, she found her mother slipping ghost-like into the room, one hand to the chest of her cotton nightgown. She smiled and moved in a way that seemed apologetic.
“I saw your light on,” she whispered.
“What are you still doing up?” Janis asked.
“I could ask the same of you. It’s almost midnight.”
Janis held the book up. “Just some reading for next week.”
Janis’s mother took the book and sat with it on the edge of the bed. “Harper Lee. I would have been about your age when I read this.” She seemed to reflect on that for a moment before smiling and handing the book back to Janis.
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