by Doug Wilhelm
It wasn’t a bad idea. Elliot wasn’t sure how his ankle would be if he sat in a chair that long, but he was sick of being home. Catalina hesitated just a second, then she said yes.
The nineplex at the downtown plaza was the place to go. We picked up Elliot first; he hopped into the back and we slid his crutches between the two front seats. They stuck into the back like a divider. When we got to Catalina’s, my mom made me go to the door and ring the bell. Catalina came out in tights and a skirt. I’d only seen her in jeans. Suddenly I felt funny about this. I didn’t know whether to get back in the front seat or leave it for Catalina. I decided to open the back door and slide in.
My mom turned around quick and gave me a look.
“What?”
“You could open the door for her,” she said. “You did it for Elliot.”
“Elliot’s on crutches.”
Catalina got in the front seat. My mom scrunched her face at me in the mirror. Then she smiled at Catalina.
“You look terrific,” she said.
“Thank you,” Catalina said, and she looked down at her tights. She was quiet. We were all quiet. Suddenly I wanted to be back home on the computer, or watching TV or reading comic books or something. Anything but this.
“What do you three want to see?” my mom asked.
“Obliterator Three,” I said.
“Biohazard,” said Elliot.
“I would like to see Forever Yours,” said Catalina.
My mom scanned us, smiling, with her eyebrows up. “Well, there’s something to talk about,” she said.
But we didn’t. We just sat there.
“Catalina’s such a pretty name,” my mom finally said.
“Thank you. I was named for the flying boat.”
“Pardon?”
“The PBY Catalina. It was an American naval patrol plane in the Pacific during World War II. My grandfather Diodado chose the name. He served with Americans, in the guerrilla campaign. Catalinas flew over to drop supplies.”
“Very … historic,” my mom said.
“Catalina was also a Catholic saint,” Catalina said. “And a really big American car.”
“A Buick,” I said.
“No,” my mom said, “a Pontiac. I remember. It was huge.”
“That’s right. A Pontiac. My grandfather liked all three. But mainly the flying boat.”
“Interesting,” my mom said.
Catalina shrugged. “That’s the Philippines.”
Even being in line for the movies was complicated. Halfway up the line in the outer lobby was Bethany and her group. She turned when we came through the glass doors and took in our pitiful little trio, Elliot struggling on his crutches, Catalina hugging herself tight, me looking at anything but my only two friends. A smug smile came over Bethany’s face, and she turned regally away. Also partway up the line was Turner White, alone as always, in black as always. Through the glass lobby doors I could see Allison Kukovna and two of her friends. The adults and teenagers between all of us were like spacers.
“What are we going to do?” Elliot said.
“About what?”
“Which movie.”
“It doesn’t matter which movie you say,” I said. “You can still go wherever you want inside.”
He looked worried, though. Worried and geeky.
“Do they all start at the same time?” he asked.
I looked up at the list. “Yeah,” I said. “Pretty much.”
When we got to the window, we each said our own movie. When we got inside, Bethany’s group had gone ahead, but Allison had held up hers.
“Hi, Catalina,” she said. “What are you seeing?” She smiled at us, too. I will give her that. Allison was basically all right.
“I would like to see Forever Yours,” Catalina said, and glanced back at us.
“Oh, we are, too!” Allison ducked her head. “This is my third time. How many times have you seen it?”
“I haven’t,” Catalina said, huddling into herself.
“Well, my god—come on!”
Allison started to go; then she looked back at us. Her friends looked at each other. Catalina looked at us, too, and we saw what she wanted to do.
“It’s okay,” Elliot said.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s fine.”
“Are you sure?” She was almost whispering.
“Definitely.”
She turned and was pulled by invisible girl energies into Allison’s group. They went off across the lobby, up the carpeted stairs. Elliot and I stood there watching.
“Hey,” said a voice behind us, “you don’t want to see that goony tearjerker stuff anyway.”
It was Turner. He had a big box of licorice. He even ate black candy.
“It’s so manipulative,” he said. “Impossible true love that can never be and then death.” He smiled. “For females only”
“We just want death,” Elliot said, grinning.
“And car chases,” I added.
“There’s the manly agenda.” Turner offered us licorice. “So, what do two electronic publishers see on their night off?”
I said, “Maybe Biohazard.”
“Nah,” said Elliot, “let’s see Obliterator.”
“Da Oh-blituratuh,” Turner said. “American filmmaking at its finest. Uh … I’ll follow you in, all right?”
Turner did follow us in, then he disappeared in the back. Which wasn’t hard, for Turner. It seemed like maybe this was his natural element, here in the dark at the movies.
It was best for Elliot to sit midway up, where there was a row with an open space in front of it. A couple of high school guys even got up and moved so he could sit there, and me with him.
At the end of the movie I had that great feeling like I was the Obliterator. I swaggered out, but then I had to wait for Elliot, who couldn’t swagger very well on his crutches. We didn’t see Turner again. In the lobby, Allison and her group came out looking thrilled and clutching each other, like haggard survivors of heartrending love and death. Catalina’s face stuck up above the group. It was red, and she wasn’t clutching anyone.
My mom was waiting outside in the car. The girls said goodbye to Catalina and moved down the sidewalk, still clinging. We didn’t see Bethany again, luckily. She might have gone to Biohazard. She’d relate to it.
As we pulled out my mom said, “How was it?”
“Cool!” Elliot said.
I said, “It was pretty intense.” But the atmosphere in the car was pretty tense, with Catalina sitting there so straight in the front seat.
My mom said, “Catalina, sweetie, what’s wrong?”
Catalina started quivering at first. Then her shoulders were shaking. We could hear soft, melting sort of sounds. Elliot looked at me. I shrugged. My mom reached under the seat and handed Catalina the travel box of Kleenex.
“Was it the movie?” my mom asked.
Her head shook no.
“Did Bethany say something?” Elliot asked, leaning forward. I fought back the impulse to say, “Was it heartrending love and death?”
“What is it, sweetie?” my mom softly urged.
Finally, in a very thin, little-girl voice, Catalina whispered, “I just … miss my mom.”
My mom held her hand. Oh god, I thought. Why even think about stuff like that? I never let myself think about my dad, not ever. He’s just gone.
“Do you talk to her often?” my mom asked.
Catalina shook her head. “My mom can’t afford to call, and my dad only lets me once a month.”
My mom shook her head. Catalina cried.
“What about e-mail?” Elliot said.
“Not now, Elliot,” I whispered.
But my mom turned. Catalina snuffled as her head came up. “Does your mom have a computer?” my mom asked.
“No—my dad brought it with us,” Catalina said. “But my cousins have one.”
“Is there the Internet in the Philippines?”
“There’s the Internet in
Borneo,” I said.
My mom said, “Russell, please.”
“Well, there is. The Internet is everywhere.”
“Everybody in Manila uses the Internet,” Catalina said. “My mom and I just never needed to, before.” She had stopped crying.
“I think you need to now,” my mom said.
Sometime that night, two kids sent us messages:
These guys make fun of me all the time because most of my friends happen to be girls. They say I’m gay, which I am not. They say I like to wear girl clothes, which I do not. They say I’m really a girl, which I am NOT. I wish I could beat the crap out of them, but I can’t.
There’s this kid—I’ll call him Pugsley (not his real name). He sits behind me in one of my classes, and he just pokes me. He pokes me and pokes me, he does it with a pen in my back so nobody can see. He even does it during tests. I’ll be sitting there trying to concentrate and he’ll go, poke. Poke. Poke. He also spies over my shoulder at anything I’m doing or looking at. He tries to find out what’s important to me so he can trash it.
I liked to wear this hat. (If I told you which hat it is, you’d know who I am.) I couldn’t wear it in school, of course, but one time Pugsley saw me drawing a picture of myself with my hat on. That was my mistake (he knew it mattered). Then on Hat Day I made the mistake of bringing (not even wearing) my hat. When we were in class and I got called to the board my backpack was under my desk, open, and he stole my hat. At the end of class it wasn’t there. I looked all over for it, my hat! But it was gone. When we got out for recess Pugsley was wearing it.
I said, Give it back. He said, No way, loser! This is my hat! (He was smiling at me.) I said, Give it! I tried to get it but he kept dancing away. I’m pretty small and I couldn’t reach it. Then a bunch of kids came and got in a circle, with us in the middle. Pugsley said, You want this hat? You want this hat? And he sailed it over my head across the circle. Then another kid picked it up just before I did, and sailed it out of my reach again. Then everybody was doing it and laughing.
Finally the bell rang. Pugsley got the hat one more time and threw it in a mud puddle, and he kicked mucky water on it. Then he stomped on it. I took my hat home and washed it, but it was never really the same hat again. I never took it to school again either. I don’t actually wear it much at all anymore.
At dinner on Sunday I mentioned The Revealer. My mom wanted to know what I was talking about. So I showed her.
“My god,” she said. “They’re telling their stories.”
“Well, yeah.”
“Just like that?” she said. “Just because you gave them the chance?”
“I guess so.”
She looked at the computer a while longer. Then she sat back.
“People need to tell their stories,” she said. “Don’t you think? We don’t always get the chance. And here you’re giving it to them.”
“I guess.”
“I think it’s wonderful,” she said. “Maybe you can tell your story.”
“I don’t really have a story,” I said.
She smiled. “I think you’re getting one now.”
TROUBLE CENTER
Catalina saw me standing ahead of her in the lunchroom line and started waving, all excited. I waved back and she pointed over to our table in the corner.
When I got there with my tray I found a piece of paper. It was a printout of someone’s drawing—a picture, I gradually realized, of us. The three of us. You could see it was us but it was done like a picture from The Cat in the Hat. Remember Thing One and Thing Two? That was Elliot and me. They gave us both the silly jumpsuits; Elliot was drawn really scrawny with a big head, and on his chest it said Geek One. I have fairly big ears, I guess, so they made mine flap out from this kid’s head with a goofy smile and hair sticking out all over. (Looking at it, I shoved my fingers through my hair.) My jumpsuit said Geek Two. (Hey, not Geek One? No … I guess that’s Elliot.) The Cat, much taller than us of course, had Catalina’s big-eyed face with the squarish bug glasses. Above the drawing in big letters it said: THE CAT & THE RATS.
Catalina came up to the table. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes were bright, but she didn’t look upset.
“Listen,” she said. “I’ve got to tell—”
“Oh god, Catalina, this is so incredibly childish!”
That was Allison. She and two of her friends had their trays and were on their way to a more central table. Allison sidled over to stand above Catalina.
“It totally infuriates me,” Allison said, glancing up to the ceiling and slumping her shoulders. “Whoever did it e-mailed it to a whole bunch of people. Now they’ve been printing them and putting them everywhere—you know, wherever the rest of us would see it. I’m really sorry.” She and her friends had painted their nails with silver-sparkle polish.
Catalina shrugged. “It’s kind of clever,” she said. She opened her milk and took a sip.
“Well. I wish we knew who did it,” Allison said.
“I think we can narrow it down,” I said. “Hey, can I have this?” I picked up the paper. “Do you mind?”
Catalina shrugged. “No.” She smiled up at Allison patiently, like she was waiting for her to leave.
I folded the paper and put it in my backpack. I was thinking it should at least go into the Revealer files, along with those evil girl notes we’d saved.
Allison’s friends had already gone to the inner tables. “Well, I better catch up,” Allison said, waving as she went.
“Okay,” Catalina said. As soon as she was gone, Catalina turned quickly and said, “It’s going to work! It is!”
“What?”
“That e-mail idea you had. We had our telephone call last night—I asked my dad if we could have it a week early—and my mom got really excited. She said she’d ask my cousins if she could e-mail me from their computer. Then she called early this morning, before I went to school. They said sure!”
“Hey, that’s great.”
“She gave me the address, and I sent my first message right away just to test it. I can’t wait till she answers! It’s almost like we’ll be able to talk every day. Whenever we want. It’s so great. Thank you!”
“Actually, it was Elliot’s idea.”
“Well, it’s perfect! I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.”
I shrugged. It was pretty cool, though. I’d never seen her this happy.
“Hey, Catalina, why didn’t you want to talk about this with Allison here?”
“I don’t know,” she said, cutting into her lasagna. “Allison’s really nice, and I like her friends. But this is personal.”
That afternoon, we had two new messages.
Here are some of the things I have been called: Portly, Pudge, Porkmaster, Beanbag, Tub o’ Rama, Gutbucket, Jelly Belly, Super Hippy, Blue Whale, Sumo, Crisco, Pillsbury Doughboy, Doublewide, Thunder Thighs, Blubber Bubble, the Blimp, Supertanker, Butter Butt, Flubber, and the Blob Who Ate Philadelphia. For purebred imbecility, my personal favorite is Oink. They don’t actually call me Oink, they just say it when I go by. Isn’t that mature?
Believe me, it is not easy to be both physically and mentally larger than most other kids in your grade. They hate you for it. Case in point: Recently I was forced by a certain pent-up need to enter the boys’ room, which I would rather never do. Always there is some Cro-Magnon gathering in there. This time two low-life eighth graders, Nate Kroeger and Jason Deep (which he isn’t), were admiring themselves in the mirror. I have no idea what they saw to admire.
I tried to get into a stall before they spotted me, but of course, like all hunter-gatherers, they were alert.
“Yo, Blobzilla,” said one of the Cave Boys. “Don’t eat the toilet paper, okay?” They laughed at that. Imagine.
“At least I won’t be contributing to the reading matter on these walls,” I said. “Oh, but that’s probably above your reading level.”
I thought that was fairly good. They pennied me in.
Yes,
that’s right—they jammed coins in the stall door so that, they thought, I wouldn’t be able to get it open. Then they left. I could hear their mindless laughter echoing down the hall.
But don’t get any ideas: It didn’t work. The edges of the stall door are rounded, as any basic Homo sapiens could notice, so you can’t really lodge coins effectively. I pulled hard enough that the door opened, but I fell against the plumbing, bruising my tailbone.
Hey guys: Your brainless prank cost you 38 cents in change. I got all of it, except for two pennies that went into the toilet. I spent it on an extra dessert at lunch.
I’m a boy and these girls follow me home from school, just so they can laugh at me. They walk a ways behind me, and they say, “Going home to your mom, beanpole? Why don’t you have any friends, beanpole?” And stuff like that. And they laugh. They whisper things I can’t hear, and then they really laugh. My mom said they do it because they secretly like me. That made me feel a little better, for a little while, but I know they don’t secretly like me. I wonder why do they do it? Why is it so important to them, to make them do it every day?
“Well, that makes four new stories,” Elliot said in the computer lab. “Let’s put out a Revealer.”
“What about this fat kid giving real names?”
“They’re not his name.”
“I don’t think we should be giving any names,” I said. “They’re already calling us rats.”
“What’re we supposed to do, change what the kid wrote? We can’t start doing that. Either we include it or we don’t.”
“Okay, okay,” I said. “Whatever.”
This time instead of distributing to All, we selected Grades 6, 7, and 8, one after the other. That way we figured we’d be sending only to kids. The Revealer wasn’t for Mrs. Capelli and the teachers—and we weren’t rats, in my opinion, if we were only telling kids.