33 Minutes

by Todd Hasak-Lowy

  Well, to all you doubters out there, I have a short and simple (and totally awesome) answer:

  Alien Wars.

  If you know what Alien Wars is, you may skip to the next paragraph, and feel free to devote the time you save by not reading the following sentences to appreciate Alien Wars once again. If you are not familiar with Alien Wars, find the nearest chalkboard and write on it one hundred times, I promise to get Alien Wars right away and play it all the time. Wait, no, forget that, you’ve already waited long enough. Skip the chalkboard part and just go get it already. And then play. All the time. Until your thumb hurts. Then take a three-minute break. Then continue playing. Then play through the pain, it’s worth it, trust me. I’d remind you to scream with joy, Alien Wars is the best game ever! but I’m pretty sure you won’t have much trouble remembering that one.

  All right, so, how can I put this? Alien Wars is the very most extremely bestest awesomest “first-person shooter game” of all time, which means that what you see on the screen is what your player sees. And, and, and, your player just so happens to hold a too-awesome-to-believe weapon, your player who has no choice but to shoot pretty much everything that shows up on the screen. Because it’s the twenty-fourth century and you’re Viko Paz, a half-man, half-alien supersoldier, defending the Interstellar Alliance against the dreaded Galactic Federation (curses to you, Galactic Federation!). Okay, I am doing my best right now to resist spending the next seven hours explaining the entire game to you. So let’s just put it this way: If you like pretending to shoot things, if you like pretending to be the baddest shooter in the twenty-fourth century, if you like your shooting to be part of an actual story, in this case a military campaign to save the universe, then Alien Wars = ten times more fun than winning the Novi Invitational.

  And, oh yeah, Alien Wars allows multiplayer campaigns, meaning that two people (such as MorSam) can play together.

  Saturday morning, February, last year. My mom is going to be at her studio all day. Morgan is spending the weekend at our place, because his parents are in Boston visiting his older brother at college. The night before, we talked about bowling or a movie or a trip to Twelve Oaks Mall. But that morning my dad comes into my room, where Morgan and I are still half sleeping.

  “Hey, guys,” he says, “anyone want to guess how cold it is outside right now?”

  I look out the window, like I might be able to tell by examining the shade of gray everywhere. Then I look at Morgan, who says, “I don’t know, five?”

  “Five would be balmy, Morgan,” my dad answers. “Five would be trip-to-the-beach weather.”

  “Five below,” I say.

  “Getting there,” my dad says. “How does fourteen below sound? And that’s without the windchill. So, um, sorry, guys, but you’ll have to come up with an indoor plan. We’re not going anywhere. I’ve got a major deadline anyway.” And then he turns around and leaves the room.

  We look at each other for a few moments. “Hey, Lew,” Morgan says. “Pay you five bucks to go outside in your underwear.”

  “I’ll pay you ten bucks to go outside in mine.” I smile.

  “Nasty! No way.” He gets up and drags me by the foot out of my bed. “What are we going to do all day?”

  I think for a bit, then start nodding my head. “Alien. Wars. Marathon!”

  This particular Saturday in February will forever be known as The Absolutely Most Amazing Day Ever (TAMADE). On TAMADE, Morgan and I became the greatest Alien Wars team in the history of great Alien Wars teams.

  Morgan starred as Viko Paz. I costarred as Kedi Balagan.

  Our matching skills—my knowledge of landscapes, weaponry, and our adversaries (not to mention timing with smart bombs), Morgan’s finger strength, eye-hand coordination, and extremely large vocabulary when it comes to yelling things at our enemies (things I definitely can’t repeat here)—made us the perfect team. I navigated and provided backup, allowing Morgan to focus his energies on killing anyone who messed with us.

  And a lot of unfortunate creatures messed with us.

  We saved the universe that day.

  At approximately 7:30 p.m. that Saturday (yes, that would be nine hours later—nine hours, three pizzas, two bags of Cheetos, and four liters of Mr. Pibb later, to be exact), Viko Paz and Kedi Balagan reached the final battle on the desert planet, Pulzar.

  “Lock and load, Paz, this is it!” I said.

  “See you on the other side, Kedi!” Morgan answered.

  The drums were going nuts in the background, until my dad came out to see what all the noise was about. He stood there opposite the nine-million-inch big-screen TV we got for Christmas and witnessed the whole thing. Our thumbs were about to fall off, but somehow we killed the last guy who needed killing.

  Then things got real, real quiet.

  Suddenly, the mother ship appeared and beamed us up.

  The screen turned black, and we just sat there in silence together, until Morgan said, “Wow.”

  Then I said, “Wow.”

  Then Morgan said, “Wow,” again.

  I stood up and screamed, “Yes!”

  Morgan did the same. We shared the best high five in high-fiving history. We ran around the room. We hugged my dad. We hugged the TV. We kissed the Alien Wars case. We each took an empty two-liter bottle of Mr. Pibb and started bashing each other over the head in celebration, screaming, “YE-E-E-E-E-SSSSSSS!!!!!” the whole time.

  And then we were silent, because sometimes words just ruin things.

  Right then I felt every bit as good as I felt when I found out I scored in the ninety-seventh percentile on the PSAT as a sixth grader (which is this huge test you’re not even supposed to take until tenth grade). I felt like the king of the universe on TAMADE, I really did. Actually, I felt even better on TAMADE than I did after conquering the PSAT. I felt like one of two kings, like a king who wouldn’t be a king without the other king.

  We were the perfect team on TAMADE. No one ­bothered us, no one pitted one of us against the other, and no one cared one bit about what he couldn’t do. Morgan didn’t care that he never knew exactly where we were in the galaxy, because he knew I knew. And I didn’t care that I have this annoying habit of pressing the X button instead of the Y, because I knew ­Morgan would clean up my mistakes. We played together, we won together.

  But we don’t play together anymore.

  Don’t get me wrong, scoring in the ninety-seventh percentile on the PSAT as a sixth grader is a pretty big deal, since it means I might be smarter than ninety-seven out of one hundred sixteen-year-olds. Great, now you probably think I’m bragging again too. So, okay, first thing, I don’t exactly mean smarter, or not just smarter. Because, well, I actually study this stuff, a lot. I mean, it’s not like anyone is born knowing geometry. Look, I like math. There, I admit it. I, Sam Lewis, like math. Heck, I love it. I love the numbers and the rules and the way an equation looks once you’ve worked it all out and double-checked that everything’s right. Which is one more thing I can’t really tell anyone. It seems like everyone at this stupid school thinks I’m either a loser nerd or a conceited brainiac or a lucky freak.

  The only people (other than Mr. Glassner and the Arithme­Weirdos) I could tell about the PSAT were my parents, and they didn’t act that surprised, even if they did take me out for ice cream to celebrate. The problem with my parents is they both have this funny way of thinking that my scores and my grades are the only things they really need to know about me. Like a few months ago when we got report cards. We always get them on a half-day Friday at school. I found out that Morgan, Chris, and Brandon were going to the mall in the afternoon without me. So I go straight home with my stupid report card. When my parents see it, they just keep telling me I’m perfect. They can’t even tell anything is wrong, because they don’t think anything else could matter. Like all A’s makes you perfect. But what’s so perfect about being a m
idget with no friends who gets straight A’s?

  Plus, Morgan doesn’t even care about my grades, or my scores. Lately, whenever he finds out about me acing a test or something, he just gives me that face of his, the one where half his mouth curls up and his eyes get a little bigger than normal and he looks like he’s getting kind of sick. Sick of me.

  Which is exactly the opposite of how he looked at me after winning Alien Wars. I know, I just know, that Morgan felt exactly the same as me then, because when Viko said, “Kedi, where would I be without you?” every fifteen minutes for nine hours, he had to mean it, at least a little.

  So maybe Morgan threw the bowl or maybe he didn’t. I have no idea. All I know is getting him kicked out of school isn’t going to get us to TAMADE II. And looking at him here in the principal’s office, with him looking at me, him knowing that his expulsion might be just a word away, I swear I can see him trying to apologize without saying anything, because it’s true what Ms. Z said, he is a decent kid. Maybe he wishes we could get back together and be friends again before the next Greatest Video Game Ever comes out—maybe he actually wants nothing more than another day below that massive TV. Maybe he knows that TAMADE almost made all the other differences between us not matter, and maybe he still believes that TAMADE II will do that again. But that can’t exactly happen if he has to enroll at St. Theobald.

  As for Chris, I’d love to get him out of this school and out of my life, but I don’t trust the guy. I don’t want to be the kid he thinks about all day while serving time at the Park County Home for Screwups, the kid he thinks about getting revenge on for sending him there in the first place. I might be a coward (okay, I am a coward, I’m definitely a coward), but I’m not a stupid coward.

  Plus, honestly, I really have no idea who threw the thing.

  “Principal Benson.” I’m staring at the floor.

  “Yes, Samuel.”

  I shrug my shoulders, look right at Morgan, and fight off the urge to smile. “I didn’t see who did it. There was too much other stuff going on.”

  Morgan’s head pokes forward, like he can’t believe what he just heard.

  “Are you certain?” Principal Benson may be threatening me, but I don’t care.

  “Yes.”

  Principal Benson leans across his desk toward Morgan and Chris. “Absolutely certain?”

  “Yes, sir.” I nod. “I am.”

  “Very well,” Principal Benson says quickly. “Thank you for your time and cooperation, Samuel. You may go to your next class. Sixth period is about to begin. Mr. Sturtz and Mr. Tripadero will remain here, as I am not yet through with them.”

  12:39

  “Hey, Sam!” Dave Benedicts screams, and heads my way.

  “Sam’s here!” Emily Garlocki yells, and starts running in my direction.

  “Sam! You guys, it’s Sam!” Candace Gonzalez announces as she sprints toward me, waving her arms for everyone to follow.

  I’m standing in the main hallway between the lockers and the front entrance to the school. Voices and Vikings come at me from every direction: from every row of lockers, from the science hallway, from the gym, from the cafeteria. Everywhere I look, Vikings in their PE uniforms. Vikings looking at me with disbelief, like I was just released from a prisoner of war camp. The yellow-and-blue circle surrounding me starts asking questions.

  Max Neuman: “Didn’t you go to the hospital?”

  Tracey Blocker: “How’d they clean up all that blood so fast?”

  Chase Abbot: “Are Chris and Morgan still in there?”

  Megan Zakovitch: “Did you get them kicked out?”

  Vijay Reedy: “Why don’t you have brain damage?”

  Vijay appears disappointed and so has been disqualified from the “Who Will Replace Morgan as Sam’s Best Friend, If It Comes to That” competition. Not that his chances were great to begin with.

  I try to answer everyone, but they just won’t shut up. Some of them are pushing closer, some of them are holding their arms out, preventing the ones pushing closer from getting closer, because, I suddenly realize:

  I’m a celebrity!

  Not only was I supposed to be done getting my butt kicked right around now, not only was I instead knocked out during the food fight, not only did the gossip machine have everyone convinced I was in a coma, not only did I just walk out, all by myself and under my own power, from the Wagner Middle School back offices, not only might I have valuable information about the fate of Chris and Morgan, but I—because of that whole butt kicking/getting knocked out/falling into a coma/being in the offices thing—I may have just decided their fates.

  “Let him talk! Let him talk!” These are the words of Jess Miller, captain of the football team, student council president, and the guy keeping the most-popular-kid-at-school chair warm for Morgan.

  It’s too bad that Principal Benson’s effort to install surveillance cameras throughout Wagner Middle School failed, because if there were cameras, I could, after school today (if I’m still alive by then), do something risky and brilliant in order to get a video copy of me in the middle of this giant circle of students.

  Extremely cool and sometimes frightening eighth graders like Brett Cousins, Stu Jurvacious, and Jenny Kimmel (yes, girls can be frightening) are hoping I’ll talk to them, are trying to get closer to me because I know something they don’t, because I’m someone they’re not.

  Now I understand why some kids do really bad things, because I might just be willing to get into a fight every Monday (but with someone a lot smaller than Morgan) if it would make this circle thing more common.

  I raise my hand, attempting to quiet the crowd but not really minding the noise, because I don’t have any idea what I’ll say after I tell them I’m fine. I decided maybe Morgan will still like me if I let him off, and I’m too scared of Chris to get him in trouble, probably would not be the best way to keep my new cool-guy status.

  Instead, I just say, “Please, please—”

  But before I’m even done with my second “please, please” I hear the crowd behind me get extra loud. I turn around and see half my circle running down the hall in the direction I just came from, followed (if all the people flying past me right now are any clue) by the other half of what was my circle of coolness.

  I run after the crowd, even though there’s no real point. I won’t be able to see a thing from the edge of the new circle forming at the other end of the hall anyway. My run turns into a jog and then a walk, and then I pretty much stop when I hear a familiar voice:

  “Sam, hey, wait up.” It’s Amy, who was probably stuck at the far edge of my circle. She’s wearing her PE uniform, a sliver of blue shorts sticking out from under her oversized XS T-shirt.

  “Hey, Amy.” I nod my head a bit, as if I’m still cool.

  “Are you okay?” Amy searches for any obvious injuries.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” I listen to the new source of noise, missing my fame. “Just a little bump on my head.”

  “Where?” Amy asks.

  I look back at Amy, who waits for my answer. “I just told you, on my head.”

  “No, silly.” Amy rolls her eyes. “Where on your head?”

  “Oh.” So I lower my head a bit and carefully touch Tootsie with my fingers.

  Then I feel another set of fingers touch mine. I lift my eyes to see Amy’s small arm.

  “Oh my God, Sam.” She sounds horrified. “That’s huge.”

  “I know.” And then I don’t say anything else, because all of a sudden I can’t talk.

  “Does it hurt?” she asks, hand still on my head.

  I think the rest of me might be melting.

  After, like, ten seconds I somehow get my mouth to say, “Nah, not really,” very slowly, which sort of sounds cool that way.

  “Not really?!” She’s not buying it.

  “It kills.” I m
ay be giggling.

  “I’m sorry, Sam.” And I can tell she actually is. “I’m really sorry.”

  Then neither of us says a thing. I’m pretty sure I can hear our silence loud and clear in the middle of the roar coming from the other end of the hallway, because Amy just keeps her hand on the top of my head. Even though the pressure of her tiny fingers hurts, it feels good, too. Feels good more than it hurts. Too bad I didn’t get creamed by two bowls, because Amy happens to have two hands.

  The floor starts to shake, and me and Amy turn to see Mr. Rozier and Ms. Ruyak, the two largest teachers at school, angrily heading toward us.

  “Break it up!” he yells.

  Oh man, busted for PDA (public display of affection). Great. I unmelt super fast, pull my head back, and start trying to remember if there are any good hiding places nearby.

  “Off to class! Now!” she adds.

  Amy, looking off to the side like I’m not even there, has quickly glued her arms to her sides. The two giant teachers blow right past us at full speed, and I’m pretty sure Amy’s hair flies up in the air as they rush by. They get to the new circle at the end of the hall and start flinging bodies out of the way and threatening anyone who doesn’t disappear immediately. Most everyone is gone in a matter of seconds, letting us see who was at the center of that circle: Morgan and Chris.

  Just then the bell rings. I’d worry about being late, but when everyone’s tardy, no one is.