The Basic Eight

by Daniel Handler

  EXPOSURE FOUR: Michael Baker at the blackboard. I forgot to mention we had another test yesterday which I flunked. Here he is seen writing his Rule on the board and underlining it. Do something.

  EXPOSURE FIVE: After Poetry I managed to take this one of Hattie Lewis at her desk, with Jennifer Rose Milton and Gabriel looking on as she explains something from a book. Flora Habstat wandered into the background of this one, dammit, though because of all her spotlight hogging–“The Whistle Blower,” indeed–it meant this one fetched four hundred bucks, or about an hour of lawyer time.

  EXPOSURE SIX: An attempt to capture Adam on his way to choir. However, Vice Principal Mokie blundered into the viewfinder and covered it.

  EXPOSURE SEVEN: Guitar: twang-a-twang-a-twang. Successful attempt to capture Adam on his way to choir. Raising his eyebrows and smiling at something a perky second soprano is telling him while wiping his brow with a navy-blue handkerchief. Smiling at her like he never smiles at me. Her name is Shannon and she wears sweater-vests with flowers on them. You can stare and stare at a photograph and sometimes never see what’s right under your nose. Or what isn’t, like for instance its monetary value. Fifty bucks.

  EXPOSURE EIGHT: Gabriel, framed by the door of the choir room. He’s waiting for me. He’s holding a rose. He’s sorry he was so jealous yesterday. Two hundred bucks.

  EXPOSURE NINE: Lily and Natasha in the courtyard at lunch, peering over their economics textbook, covering up some diagram and laughing themselves silly as they try to recite it. There’s a test next period, and they’re going to flunk. In the lower right-hand corner, hanging over the edge of an overstuffed garbage can, Flan’s lunch bag. Inside it (invisible), a discarded red rose. Two hundred.

  EXPOSURE TEN: Jim Carr’s hand on the chest of the grimacing teaching assistant, a little blurry because I had to lean through the office door, snap it and lean back before anybody saw. I bet this one could have fetched tons of money if it weren’t for what happened to Mr. Carr. One thousand, two thousand–who knows? I’ve never blackmailed someone. I know, you’re thinking, big deal, but it matters to me, OK?

  EXPOSURE ELEVEN: The whole gang sitting around in Millie’s class, before Millie’s class started: Douglas, Kate, Lily, V__, Natasha, Jennifer Rose Milton, Gabriel, and, dammit, Flora Habstat, who once again wandered into the background. This is the picture that fetched eight hundred bucks but launched the media’s thousand ships. This is what crystallized the myth that Flora was one of us. She was not one of us. No one was one of us until we all agreed about him or her, and I didn’t agree: Q.E.D. The original Latin phrase, that is, not the band.

  EXPOSURE TWELVE: The same shot as eleven, except extremely gurgly. Blurry, I mean, blurry. I got distracted.

  EXPOSURE THIRTEEN: The same shot as twelve, except not blurry, but everybody’s looking at the camera.

  “What are you doing?” Kate asked. The needle screeches off the soundtrack.

  “Nothing,” I said, ineffectually. “Just taking a picture.”

  “I hate candid photographs,” V__ said, taking out her compact and looking in the mirror.

  “I wanted nonposed pictures of you guys,” I said, wondering how that sounded.

  “Whatever for?” Jennifer Rose Milton said.

  “I have no idea,” I said, and everybody laughed.

  Gabriel came over and gave me a peck on the cheek. “Where’s the rose?”

  “You’ll never believe this,” I said, “but it literally fell apart right in my hands during Bio. All the petals came off and fell all over the place. I felt like the Evil Queen or something.”

  “When did you feel this way?” Kate asked. Jennifer Rose Milton and V__ bit back smiles. Gabriel glared at them.

  “Hey,” I said, “what are we doing this weekend?”

  “Well,” Kate said, “Friday’s the dance, but Saturday, nothing. Have a plan?”

  “I was thinking we haven’t had a Sculpture Garden party yet this year.”

  “That’s right!” V__ exclaimed. “And it’s already October. What were we thinking?”

  “Let’s do it Saturday,” Kate said. “Who else besides the Basic Eight?”

  “What’s the Sculpture Garden?” Flora said.

  “It’s a sculpture garden,” Natasha replied with elaborate patience.

  “It’s in the Hall of Fine Arts,” Jennifer Rose Milton put in hurriedly.

  “Outside it, really,” Lily said.

  “We go there, bring food and music–”

  “But isn’t that illegal? The Hall of Fine Arts isn’t open at night.” Flora was puckered with concern, literally puckered like some overripe fruit.

  “Please,” Kate said. “It’s not like we’d ever get arrested there.” Note the foreshadowing.

  “Hey,” I said. “Speaking of illegal, we still have plenty of absinthe left. The effect in the Sculpture Garden might be–”

  Everybody but Natasha and Douglas shook their heads in Puritan unison. “I don’t know, Flan,” V__ said. “That stuff addled my brain. I don’t think I should take it again before finals.” Douglas, Natasha and I made quiet eye contact.

  “OK,” I said.

  “OK, OK,” Millie said, clapping her hands. “I guess we should give the taxpayers their money’s worth and teach you monkeys something.”

  EXPOSURE FOURTEEN: The cast list for the Roewer High School Production of Othello, tersely posted at the Stage Door:

  Role

  Explanation of Role*

  Person Who Got the Part

  Othello

  Jealous, deadly black guy

  Gabriel Gallon

  Desdemona

  Beautiful innocent victim

  Jennifer Rose Milton**

  Iago

  The villain

  Adam State

  Emilia

  His wife

  Flannery Culp***

  Cassio

  O’s right-hand man, framed as an adulterer

  Douglas Wilde

  Roderigo

  Iago’s sucker

  Frank Whitelaw****

  Duke

  Um, the Duke

  Flora Habstat*****

  Brabantio

  D’s moody dad

  Steve Nervo******

  Montano

  Governor of Cyprus

  Rachel State*******

  Bianca

  A courtesan

  Kate Gordon********

  Officers, Clowns, Musicians, etc.

  people we don’t care about

  * These explanations provided for ignorant readers who only read glitzy true-crime books instead of anything of substance.

  ** Kate will draw blood.

  *** Oh my God I get to play his wife.

  **** An idiot played by an idiot. Ron Piper is a genius.

  ***** Bitch. Not only do I have to spend time rehearsing with Flora Habstat, but she’s playing a male character. Ron Piper is an idiot.

  ****** V__ is probably kicking herself that she didn’t try out for the play. Reading lines for weeks next to one’s love interest is a sure way to–calm down, Flan, don’t get ahead of yourself.

  ******* Rarely does a Dark Horse sneak into the cast like this. And in the case of the Frosh Goth, I do mean a dark horse; she’s probably the only cast member who will have to remove makeup before going onstage.

  ******** Kate will draw blood.

  Ironically [here Winnie executes a perfectly designed bitter smile], the members of the Basic Eight were rehearsing for a performance of William Shakespeare’s brilliant tragedy Othello. But they ended up performing their own tragedy: the tragedy of murder.

  THE REST OF THE ROLL: Overexposed. (Like the photographer herself.)

  Thursday October 14th

  Reread Othello last night. Adam’s going to kill me. Oh the irony, but fuck Othello and fuck tragedy and fuck irony even, while I sit around being so clever the real evil is underneath my nose, way underneath my nose, like around my–what did dear departed civil rights l
eader Mark Wallace call them?–nice tits.

  At this point in my journal you’d find me saying, “Back up, Flan. Start at the beginning, Flan.” Well, all the Honors English narrative structure shit ain’t getting me nowhere, friends and neighbors. I’ll start wherever I want to. It’s not like anybody’s going to read this. (Fuck irony. Fuck it.)

  It’s not like I was already stressed out–I mean it’s not like I wasn’t already stressed out. Fuck it, I can’t add up all the double negatives what I mean is that I was already stressed out. After staring at all those gorgeous photographs of Adam I psyched myself into talking to him about our coffee date before Choir today. Adam had a cold and was blowing his nose with a navy-blue handkerchief when I approached him. Before I could help myself I touched his neck, and he smiled until the handkerchief came off his face. Then he frowned distractedly like I’d woken him up. I said I wanted to talk to him but he said he had to talk to the choir president, how about after rehearsal. I said sure but before the last note we sang was through ringing in the rafters (OK, I’m upset, my imagery is a little stilted) Adam was out the door, leaving me alone. Gabriel was waiting for me with another rose. I let him kiss me. At lunch, Lily and I talked about oh who cares what we talked about, who cares, the point is that when I got to Advanced Bio the new teaching assistant had quit and Carr wanted to see me in his office after class and why can’t I just say it? Carr’s breath on me.

  The way his eyes changed when he shut the door of his office and I was alone with him was like watching something shed off its larval form. “You’ve made me lose my assistant,” he said, reaching over and holding my arm, just above the elbow. It felt like a bear trap, one of those things you’d chew your own arm off to get out of. Of which to get out. Fuck it. “I’ve never lost an assistant before. And you know the only variable? The only possible cause? You.” He was a lunatic. “I’ve never lost an assistant before, and I’ve never had you in the classroom before. Therefore–” he said.

  Irony, I thought, could work here. “This doesn’t sound like the Scientific Method,” I said, babbling toward the door. He leaned in and kissed me. It felt like bile, like some horrible sea cucumber, his tongue. In a perfect world I would have thrown up, right into his mouth. This wasn’t a perfect world. This was fucking Advanced Bio at Roewer High School, sixth period. I was going to be late to French, because Jim Carr was Frenching me. Fuck the irony, Flan. I broke away from him and reached behind me for the doorknob. I turned it; it hurt my wrist. Locked. Carr gave a little snort of laughter and then took me by the shoulders like he was going to shake me, but threw me down on his desk instead. Threw me down. I don’t think I’ve ever really been thrown down like that. I still have a bruise. A stack of binders fell to the floor and a forgotten cup of coffee turned over and drooled onto the blotter. That’s where I was looking, that’s what I was doing, watching the desk. That’s what I was doing. What Carr was doing was reaching an arm under my shirt and up my back like snakes. He was trying to unclasp my bra but he couldn’t do it. Come to think of it, of course he couldn’t do it; it’s hard enough for boys to do that when the girl is willing. I was thinking all these crazy thoughts and more. Giving up on the clasp he just reached under my bra and tweaked my nipple like he was looking for something good on the radio. I screamed and he pulled his hand away from my breast and slapped me, hard, against the face. He moved between my legs–God, when had I opened them? Did he think I had opened them for him? Right against my crotch I felt him and in a perfect world I would have thrown up again. This wasn’t a perfect world, though; this was Advanced Biology, and I could feel the oh-just-say-it cock of my Advanced Bio teacher up against me. He rubbed against me like friction. I guess it was friction. I don’t know, fuck it. Fuck irony. Which is pretty much what he was doing.

  For a minute I thought somebody had burst in: Natasha, or Millie, maybe, wondering why I was late. She was hysterical, tears were just gushing down their faces, hot and streaming. “Just stop it! Just stop it!” Carr pushed harder on me, and faster and I’d had enough boyfriends to know what this meant. “Just stop it!” somebody kept screaming and crying and then all of a sudden the desk shook a shelf off the wall. Beakers shattered everywhere and then it was quiet. “Just stop it!” they screamed again, and I don’t have to tell you who it was, do I? The door was locked, and it wasn’t Carr, OK? Carr was looking at me, panting and pointing at me, looking around at all the tinkling glass. “You broke millions of dollars of equipment!” he shouted. “You’re in so much trouble!”

  “Let me out!” she screamed. “Let me out let me out let me out let me out!” The lead singer says the exact same thing in the middle of a Q.E.D. song. I stood up. My half-unclasped bra was piercing my back and it hurt like hell, like hell. Carr opened the door in one swift move. It didn’t look locked; maybe he could say that, later: that it wasn’t locked. I stood up and my hands were shaking against my legs, which felt so fat. I’d never felt fatter. No one would think that Carr would do this to someone so ugly. I saw a splotch of wet stain on his pants as I backed through the door. In a perfect world I would have thrown up on him right then, but it wasn’t a perfect world. Instead I threw up in the middle of French and Millie let us out early to drive me home. She didn’t say anything the whole way there and I sat upright in my seat, afraid to lean back because I still hadn’t adjusted my bra and it still hurt like hell, I already said that. I was crying the whole time and I think I still am.

  It was Natasha who took off my shirt and unclasped my bra. It had broken my skin and she took a cotton ball and poured a little of her flask on it. “You have a little red dot, that’s all,” Natasha said. Our eyes met in the mirror on my closet door. I was lying down in my bed and she was applying a cotton ball, I already wrote that. She looked like a masseuse, standing over me like that with my shirt off. “Just a little red dot. It’s very Hindu, which I understand is in this year.” When I saw myself smiling at her in the mirror I suddenly felt my life back within my grasp, like your foot brushing the bottom of the pool when you’re small and you realize you’re back, safe in the shallow area.

  My eyes, chlorinated, refilled. “Watch it–” Natasha warned. “Put a shirt on and come downstairs and let’s have some tea.”

  “I’m not sure we have any,” I said, putting on a shirt. “There’s milk though, and water.”

  “Water,” she said. “Yummy. Anything else?”

  “The rest of the absinthe.”

  “I think your brain is addled enough,” she said, tossling my hair. We sat on the couch and I stared into space while Natasha got us water. “Watch it–” she said again when she handed it to me, and I followed her gaze and saw my hands were shaking. She put down both glasses on the coffee table and gave me a big long hug. I was out of tears, apparently, but shook like one of those animals they keep outside supermarkets. Put the quarter in and centrifuge your kid. I felt centrifuged.

  “My back hurts,” I said, finally.

  “It’ll be OK,” she said. “It’s just a little cut. The real question is–” She took a sip of water. “The real question is, did it damage your spine?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What are you going to do?” Her eyebrows were raised, casually, but the eyes were sharp.

  “Um.”

  “Because you’re going to do something. Or I am.” She stretched her legs out and kicked off her shoes.

  “I don’t think there’s anything to be done,” I said.

  “Baker’s Rule,” she said sharply.

  “I just don’t think–”

  “Baker’s Rule,” she snarled. “Baker’s Rule. Baker’s Rule. Baker’s Rule. Do something.”

  “What could I–”

  “Do something!” She stood up and pointed at me. “Do something! If you don’t do something–”

  “Please!” I yelled. “Please! Don’t shout at me!”

  Everything stopped for a second. I felt the quiet of being alone in the house.

  “Sorr
y,” Natasha said. I held my hand out to her and she took it, and sat down. “I guess I’m just–” She gestured nowhere.

  “Tomorrow I’ll tell the principal,” I said.

  “Bodin?”

  I couldn’t picture talking to Bodin. “Maybe Mokie.” We both smiled like they do in books, what’s it called: mirthlessly.

  “You need something stronger than water if this is all you can think of.” She pulled out her flask and waved it toward my water but my stomach turned and I shooed it away.

  “I can’t think of anything,” I said, but it sounded too casual so I said it again. “I can’t think of anything.”

  “Look, if you complain to the principal nothing will happen. Remember when you tried to get transferred out of his class? You had to fight Medusa just to get in to see him.”

  “They wouldn’t believe me anyway,” I said. “The door wasn’t locked. I could have left at any time.”

  “That’s bullshit,” she said.

  “Plus, look at me.” I looked down at my own body. “I’m fat.”

  “You are not fat.”

  “Whatever. I’m large, I’m fat, it doesn’t matter. I’m ugly. Carr wouldn’t have picked me. I mean, they wouldn’t believe that. I’m ugly–” Natasha yanked me to my feet and dragged me into the bathroom. “What?” I said. “What?” I was terrified; I still wasn’t ready for people to make sudden movements around me. “What?”

  “Look in the mirror,” she said, and slammed the bathroom door shut. There was a full-length mirror on the back of it, but a light blue towel was blocking the view. Natasha grabbed the towel and threw it to the floor. “Look in the fucking mirror, Flan!”