Because You Love To Hate Me

by Ameriie

  “You know the rules, Julian,” my dad told me before they both kissed me on the forehead and climbed into the Prius.

  Of course, it didn’t matter what the rules were. I could break every one of them, leave bloody corpses strewn throughout the living room, and Mom and Dad wouldn’t even notice. This is probably foreshadowing.

  Mom, who did not wear hats, slid her window down and waved. “And call us every night!”

  They gave me permission to have a party. But let me be clear: “party” to a skinny, dorky fifteen-year-old from Ealing, Iowa, named Julian Powell meant my best friend, Denic, was allowed to come over and spend the night, and we’d stay up late eating pizza and playing the dorkiest, most violent video game that was our current obsession, which was called Battle Quest: Take No Prisoners.

  Denic came over at five. The delivery guy from Stan’s Pizza, a senior named Scott Neufeld, who was also on the Hoover High cross-country team, knocked on the door when Denic and I were about an hour into Battle Quest: Take No Prisoners.

  I thought it was odd that Denic had ordered four pizzas from Stan’s. We usually couldn’t even finish one.

  “Are you starving or something?” I said.

  Denic carried the stack of pizza boxes into the living room.

  “No. You’ll never guess what I did,” Denic said.

  “Lost a bet that involved making an entire pair of pants out of four extra-large Stan’s pizzas?” I guessed.

  “No,” Denic said. “I invited Kathryn and Amanda over. And they said yes.”

  “Did they tell you they eat a lot?”

  “No. I just—Don’t be an idiot, Julian.”

  I will admit that it was simultaneously thrilling and terrifying to think of being alone in my house on a Friday night with Kathryn Huxley and Amanda Flores.

  “Why did you invite them?” I asked.

  “Are you out of your mind?”

  I was certain Denic’s question was purely rhetorical.

  “But I’m in pajama bottoms and a T-shirt,” I pointed out to the fully dressed Denic. In fact, it was just at that moment that two things happened: first, the doorbell rang, which is not really foreshadowing because you already know who rang it, and it was someone named either Kathryn Huxley or possibly Amanda Flores; and second, I not only realized that Denic was fully dressed, but that he was dressed nice, like school-dance nice, which is something a fifteen-year-old guy would never notice about his best friend unless he found himself in a situation where he was embarrassingly underdressed in the impending presence of two very beautiful and smart, popular fifteen-year-old girls.

  “You fucker,” I said.

  Denic waved his hand dismissively. “They’ll think it’s sexy.”

  “Then you should put on pajamas, too.”

  “Don’t be an idiot. You know I sleep in my boxers.”

  “I’ll lend you some of mine.”

  The doorbell rang again while Denic and I argued about fashion and sleepwear.

  Denic repeated the mantra of the evening. “Don’t be an idiot, Julian. Answer the door.”

  Amanda Flores laughed at me. “Don’t tell me this is a pajama party. What are you? In fourth grade?”

  I was pretty sure those were rhetorical questions.

  And my pajama bottoms had 1953 Chevy pickups on them.

  “No. I. Um. Always dress like this. Um. When I . . .”

  Denic pushed past me and opened the door all the way so that Kathryn Huxley and Amanda Flores could see that he was dressed like a tenth grader, as opposed to a shoeless fourth grader with little red trucks on his pajamas.

  He said, “Hi, Kathryn! Hi, Amanda! Are you hungry? We got Stan’s. Come in!”

  I kind of hated Denic at that exact moment, but not the kind of hate that would cause him to be crushed by a reticulated python, or end up strangled by a Windbreaker that got pinched in the rubber rail of an escalator, which is what happened last April to Camaro Douchebag the day he intentionally splashed me with mud when I was running. And, like I said, it’s perfectly okay for best friends to hate each other from time to time.

  It wasn’t the kind of hate I had for Steven Kemple.

  Kathryn and Amanda followed the very nicely dressed Denic into my living room.

  Kathryn said, “Are your parents gone?”

  She sounded so sexy and daring when she asked it. I nearly passed out, which would have been super embarrassing.

  I managed to squeak out an answer. “Yes. They went to Minneapolis till Sunday.”

  “Nice socks,” Amanda said. “Hey, aren’t you the kid who got handcuffed to the drinking fountain in his underwear at Bloomer Park when we were in sixth grade?”

  “It was seventh,” Denic pointed out.

  My socks didn’t match. I hadn’t noticed until Amanda Flores pointed it out. One was grey and one was white. This was turning out to be the worst night of my life, which, as you have probably guessed, is major foreshadowing.

  Amanda and Denic got pizza and sat on the couch. I, the statue of an idiot kid in mismatched, saggy socks and pajamas with trucks on them, stood in the middle of the floor, uncertain I would ever move again.

  Kathryn Huxley had her phone out. She was texting something, possibly begging for anyone she knew to rescue her from the hell of pizza and video games with that kid who had been handcuffed in his briefs for six hours to a drinking fountain in the park.

  The Ealing newspaper ran photos of it.

  And did Steven Kemple die?

  No. No, he did not.

  But what Kathryn Huxley was actually texting, I came to realize later, was the address of my house. She was texting it to pretty much the entire student body of Herbert Hoover High School.

  Because this was where the party was.

  STEVEN KEMPLE RUINS MY PARTY (WHICH IS MAJOR FORESHADOWING)

  So that was how my dorky party, which was just supposed to be me (in my pajamas with trucks on them) and my best friend, Denic (who was dressed like a model in the “Teens of Style” section of the JCPenney catalog), blew up.

  Once Kathryn Huxley sent out her text message, there was no stopping it.

  I learned a lot of things I never really wanted to know about real teenager parties that night—like, for example, how once it’s been confirmed there are no adults hiding out, random strangers between the ages of, like, twelve and eighteen simply let themselves inside your house from any available unlocked door or possibly window.

  Denic, nicely dressed and eating pizza on the couch with Kathryn and Amanda, was teaching the girls how to play Battle Quest: Take No Prisoners while I, still standing like an idiot in the middle of the living room, was having an internal argument about whether I should excuse myself and change into some tenth grader clothes, or maybe at least get a robe.

  Denic sat between the girls, who laughed and bounced, their legs pressed up against Denic like he was trapped in a place where you could die the most blissful death. I’ll admit it: I was jealous.

  I sat down beside Kathryn, but not close enough to touch her, since I was only wearing pajamas and that would have probably given me an aneurysm. I tried to will myself to relax and just have fun like the other kids were doing, but that was exactly when the first of what would turn out to be more than one hundred unexpected guests simply opened the front door without knocking and let himself in.

  It was Steven Kemple.

  It was Steven Kemple carrying a twelve-pack of beer.

  “Where’s the fridge?” Steven Kemple said.

  “You can’t bring that in my house,” I said, but what I actually thought was, Why won’t you die, Steven Kemple?

  “Ha-ha,” Steven Kemple laughed.

  Then he tore open the top of the twelve-pack and handed cans of beer to the girls. He held one out for Denic, who looked at me. I could tell Denic wanted a beer, too, but I was relieved when he said “No, thanks.”

  “Hey! Stan’s!” Steven Kemple swooped over to the pizza boxes.

  I stood up, fully
prepared to at least attempt to throw Steven Kemple out of my house. Kathryn Huxley and Amanda Flores were already drinking beer.

  And Steven Kemple pointed the bottom of his beer can at me and said, “What are you? All ready for bedtime, Powell?”

  I hated Steven Kemple so much.

  Then the door opened again, and at least a dozen kids I recognized from Hoover High let themselves in. They were juniors or seniors, and I was instantly terrified. Two of the boys in front of the pack had wispy beards. They carried a beer keg between them.

  “Hey, Pajama Boy!” one of the Beer Keg Dudes said. “Which way to the backyard?”

  And I thought, You can’t call me Pajama Boy, Stupid Beard Beer Keg Dude. (Ball return machine, Ealing 24-Hour Bowl-O-Rama.)

  It was already too late to stop it, which is more foreshadowing than you need at this point.

  It was all a blur. Within half an hour, my house was full of kids. Someone had commandeered my parents’ entertainment system. Music blared. The living room became a dance club; the sofa, where I should have been playing video games alone with my best friend, some kind of no-limits hookup station. The entire house reeked of booze and cigarettes and vape mist.

  I lost Denic when I went outside, which was even worse than inside. The backyard was jammed with kids. There was a funnel connected to a hose, and kids were using it to down entire cans of beer in single gulps. Everywhere kids were smoking pot, too. My yard smelled like the boys’ locker room at Hoover. At least six boys were peeing on our back fence, which had turned into some massive public urinal.

  A kid who had just disconnected from the funnel-hose beer contraption sprayed vomit toward a group of boys and girls who were smoking pot. They scattered frantically. It looked like the running of the bulls, except it was Iowa and not Spain, with barf instead of bulls.

  I felt dizzy. Also, my socks were wet. I hoped it was only beer, but it probably wasn’t.

  “Hey. Kid. Your turn.” Skinny Super-White Hairless Senior Dude Who Apparently Didn’t Know How to Button His Fucking Dress Shirt So He Could Show Off His Actual Tattoo to Eighth-Grade Girls held the mouth end of the beer funnel-hose out for me. (Fell asleep inside the cardboard baler at the Hy-Vee.)

  “No, thanks.”

  I decided I was going to call the cops on myself.

  I waded through the sea of idiots and pushed my way back inside the house.

  Seven kids were playing strip poker at the same dinner table where we have Christmas and Thanksgiving. I wanted to scream, but I was momentarily mesmerized by Amanda Flores’s see-through bra. I had never seen an actual girl in an actual bra.

  Then I realized Denic was playing, too. He was down to his boxers.

  And everyone was laughing because Steven Kemple had just lost and was completely naked. In my house. Sitting on one of our dining chairs.

  I decided then and there I would never eat again.

  Denic looked at me apologetically and shrugged. “I don’t know how this happened.”

  I mentally counted the layers of Denic’s really nice outfit.

  “Apparently you lost at least five hands is how it happened, Denic.”

  Then naked Steven Kemple stood up and grabbed my arm. “You can’t watch if you don’t play. Sit down, Powell.”

  I was being touched by naked Steven Kemple.

  It was all too much.

  I hated Steven Kemple so much. But Steven Kemple just would not die.

  I tugged my arm free from the grasp of naked Steven Kemple, who made the wise decision to not chase me through the crowded living room dance floor and upstairs to my bedroom.

  So, after being scolded not to cut ahead by the half-dozen girls waiting in line outside my bathroom, after walking in on Indistinguishable Grunting Couple having sex in my bedroom, where nobody had ever had sex as a couple (Hair dryer short-circuit, grain silo mishap), I managed to get to my parents’ thankfully unoccupied room and call the state troopers to shut down the party.

  I put my face in my hands.

  There was a knock on the door.

  Denic came in.

  He sat next to me on my parents’ bed.

  “Dude. I am so sorry about all this.”

  “Why are you still in your boxers?”

  “Two reasons. First, I didn’t lose, and second, because Steven Kemple put everyone’s clothes in the bonfire.”

  “There’s a bonfire?”

  “It’s outside, at least,” Denic said.

  “That was thoughtful of them.”

  Denic nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Is Steven Kemple still naked?”

  “Totally.”

  “I fucking hate Steven Kemple.”

  “Dude. Totally.”

  When the state troopers arrived at my front door, I answered it, still in my pajamas and soggy, mismatched socks. Unfortunately for me, the responding officer was Trooper Clayton Axelrod, who had kind of adopted me since the day he saved me from Crazy Hat Lady’s dog and then stared at my ass while I got a tetanus shot.

  He actually scruffed my hair and smiled when he saw me at the door. It was disgusting. Nobody is allowed to scruff my hair, no matter what size gun you’re carrying.

  “Hey, Julian! How are you? How’s your arm doing?”

  Every time Trooper Axelrod saw me, he’d ask about my arm, as though it had been miraculously surgically reattached or something.

  “Oh. Fine, fine, Trooper Axelrod,” I said.

  Animalistic screams rose from the backyard, and the house seemed to be belching out the combined smells of urine, pot, beer, and cigarettes, carried on wave after wave of pulsing EDM, right into Trooper Axelrod’s face.

  Trooper Axelrod looked behind me at Denic, who was standing there in his boxers.

  “Looks like you boys are having a slumber party!” Trooper Axelrod said.

  “No, Trooper Axelrod. Kids are drinking. They’re smoking pot. They’re totally out of control and they need to go home,” I said.

  “Ha-ha!” Trooper Axelrod chuckled. “You never do anything wrong, Julian! Just have fun, and don’t stay up too late! What a jokester!”

  Then Trooper Axelrod spun around and walked back to his patrol vehicle. He called out over his shoulder as he got inside, “Just let me know if you want me to phone in an order to Stan’s for you boys, Julian!”

  Then he drove away.

  “How do you do that?” Denic asked.

  “I fucking hate myself.”

  Sunrises are all about foreshadowing.

  The party did not empty out until four in the morning, just when the sky in the east began to pale to a yellowish grey that reminded me of all the vomit in the backyard.

  Well, the party didn’t totally empty out. Disgusting Twelfth-Grade Back-Hair Guy in Tighty-Whities had passed out on the floor beneath the dining room table (Unattended open manhole cover). I had to actually touch him to wake him up, and then lie by saying everyone was waiting for him at the Pancake House over on Kimber Drive, and that walking there in his underwear was totally fine with all concerned parties.

  He thanked me and said I was the best friend he’d ever had in the world.

  Denic and I walked through a minefield of crushed beer cans on the floor of the living room. Outside, in the piss-swamp of my backyard, it looked like we’d been struck by a meteor where the bonfire still smoldered.

  Denic stood at the edge of the crater and shook his head. “Those were really nice clothes.”

  “They were so nice I wanted to punch you in the face,” I pointed out.

  “Well, admit it: you know you’re not going to get in trouble for any of this when your parents come home tomorrow.”

  I said, “Yeah. Probably not.”

  Denic yawned. “You want to go in and play BQTNP?”

  “Sure.”

  I’m sorry if this disappoints you, but as much as you and I both may hate him, Steven Kemple did not die that day.

  Neither did Kathryn Huxley, who probably deserved to die for blowing
up a party that was only supposed to be me and Denic, and maybe those two girls, too—but that was it. Definitely not naked Steven Kemple, who would not die, and whose naked image is now permanently seared into the flesh of my tormented brain.

  My parents came home on Sunday. Denic and I had managed to clean everything up, and except for the smell of pee and the big burned circle in the backyard, things were pretty much just as they’d always been.

  And Mom and Dad believed our story about the giant meteor that smelled like a urinal, but everyone knew they would. After all, Ealing Iowa’s Little Angel of Death could break any rule he wanted—he could even try to turn himself in to the cops—and nobody would ever blame him for anything.

  But Steven Kemple just would not die. And sometimes even Little Angels of Death need to resort to more worldly methods and take matters of the flesh and bone into their own hands. It’s a dirty business, balancing the ledgers of the universe, but somebody’s got to do it.

  I know where Steven Kemple lives.

  And this is major foreshadowing.

  RAELEEN LEMAY’S VILLAIN CHALLENGE TO ANDREW SMITH:

  A Psychopath in a Futuristic Setting

  JULIAN POWELL: TEEN PSYCHO EXTRAORDINAIRE

  BY RAELEEN LEMAY

  I love psychopaths.

  Okay, that came out wrong. What I mean to say is, I love watching and reading about fictional psychopaths because they’re so complex. What are their reasons for doing the things they do? Sometimes they have a moral code and actually feel what they’re doing is right (such as Dexter Morgan killing murderers—what a good guy!), and other times they’re just straight-up psycho.

  Also, what makes psychopaths so terrifying is that they’re real. Maybe there aren’t actually dark wizards mass-murdering innocent Muggles in this world, but psychopaths are very much a reality, and they could be anybody. I bet Julian Powell’s friends, teachers, schoolmates, and neighbors had no idea about the messed-up tornado swirling around in his head.