Knack (Benjamin Brown Book 1)

by Tom Twitchel

  So, there were my problems to ponder, a little different from most guys my age.

  Knowing better than to tell Maddy I had gone to the park without protection, I didn’t call her and spent the day doing homework, the only interruption being Breno delivering a package that had arrived for me on Saturday. My stun gun had shown up the day before, but a few hours too late to do me any good. I wasn’t sure I would have been able to use it on Miss Hoch when she sat down next to me on the bus. There wouldn’t be any hesitation on my part if there were a second time.

  I practiced my knacks during the evening and my skills were a little shaky at first, possibly due to Miss Hoch trying to drain them out of me or maybe it was the drugs that were still in my system. Initially, I had been afraid that they were permanently screwed up, but after a few hours my knacks settled down and my ability to control them was as good as it had ever been.

  Monday morning snuck up quietly under dark clouds. Why is it so hard to get rolling in the morning when it’s overcast and gloomy outside? Maybe some people have no problem with it but I don’t belong to that club. If I hadn’t set my alarm on my phone, I might have overslept. On the bus headed to school, I was preoccupied with my little pack of worries. School seemed so unimportant in comparison to what was going on in my life, not that there wasn’t enough going on at school to keep my attention.

  I saw Baffle arrive with a carload of girls. I was close to the entrance when his SUV rolled in and he was far enough away that we didn’t cross paths. I did notice that as soon as he parked the girls got out and took off quickly, leaving him to walk to class on his own. Most of Baffle’s behavior wasn’t hard to understand. I mean, I had totally cracked the code. He was hung up on a girl. How difficult is that to figure out? But his moodiness and continued attempts to insert himself into Munger’s band of idiots didn’t mesh with the guy I had known since junior high. He had always disliked and avoided bullies and the kids that followed them. Even more curious to me, I didn’t know how it had even started. I’d thought that when Witkowski had been expelled that his connection with them would have ended. Shaking my head, I hustled to get to class before the second bell.

  First period, homeroom, was a disappointment. Justine was sick, so I actually had to pay attention through the whole class. Lunch was marginally interesting. Baffle joined me while I was eating with a couple of Justine’s friends.

  “How was your weekend?” he asked as he started inhaling his sloppy joe. Isn’t it interesting how friends that jack you over will sometimes just show up and act as if nothing has changed?

  “Fine. What’s the matter? Gabby busy?” I was not going to share any of what had happened on Saturday, and I was still plenty irritated with him for leaving me high and dry several times.

  He looked up, licking his fingers. “What? You’re not mad about Thursday are you? Gabby needed a ride and I figured you would understand.” The girls at our table weren’t trying to hide their disgust at my buddy’s table manners.

  “You can’t just blow me off and think that I’ll deal with it. How would you feel?” Thursday had only been one of several days when he had bailed on me. I noticed the girls trying to eavesdrop.

  “Geez Benny…I’m sorry. You’re right…but…” he leaned forward and whispered, “…she likes me.”

  And just like that, my insecure and sensitive friend reappeared. “Baff, are you…”

  He talked around another mouthful of sloppy joe, a little of the slop dribbling onto his chin. “I’m going to ask her to go out with me. You know? Like be my…girlfriend.”

  I’m pretty sure my mouth was hanging open and I could feel the girls straining to hear what we were talking about.

  “Baff, I…”

  “We’re pretty much already…you know…hanging out, almost already boyfriend-girlfriend. Whattaya think?” he asked, jamming the rest of his sandwich in his mouth.

  Looking at him with his cheeks packed full of food and his face smeared, I couldn’t crush his spirit. Once again I was blown away by how incredibly smart he was and how socially clueless he could be at the same time. I knew that Gabby was the first girl who had shown any interest in him, but I knew his plan wasn’t going to get him the answer he was hoping for. What do you do? Set him up for failure or give him the bad news? I clumsily chose something in the middle.

  “Dude, risky. Girls are hard to figure out. I mean she is getting rides from you, but…”

  He interrupted me again, “Yeah, that’s what I think. I’m going to ask her after school. You know, when I give her a ride home.”

  Ever have that happen? You’re having a conversation with someone. They ask your opinion and then you realize that they heard only what they wanted to hear when what had actually been said wasn’t even close.

  “That’s not what I…” I trailed off as he stood up with a silly grin on his face.

  “Thanks, B. I knew you would help. I’m gonna go make sure she needs a ride.” Leaving his tray behind, he lumbered off.

  One of Justine’s girlfriends, Kayla, looked at me with a “what-the-what” expression on her face. I was hoping she hadn’t overheard Baffle essentially planning his own humiliation. Suddenly, I worried that he might also be dumb enough to ask Gabby in front of her girlfriends.

  “Just guy talk. You know? Nothing interesting that’s for sure,” I said in a truly lame attempt to throw Kayla off the scent.

  She twisted her mouth in a half-smile, half-frown. “Uh huh.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  After my last class let out, I ran to get to the parking lot before Baffle messed himself over. Cruising around a corner at full speed I suddenly had my bad leg swept out from under me and I went sprawling. I landed on my chin as my backpack and I slid awkwardly into a bank of lockers.

  “Hey, Beeny, don’t trip!” Munger laughed, leaning on a locker behind me. One of his backers was standing there with him, snickering.

  As I tried to get up, he pushed away from the locker and stood over me.

  “Why don’t you just stay on the floor cripple? That way you won’t trip and fall down anymore.” He elbowed his crony and they both laughed.

  So, turn the other cheek, right? Get up, dust yourself off and move on. But I was tired of the Mungers of the world. Rolling over so that I was on my back, I reached behind me and grabbed the strap of my backpack. Getting to my knees, I swung the pack up into a spot between Munger’s legs, which were conveniently spread right in front of me.

  Using my knack, I added some force to my swing and used it to push Munger slightly forward so that his crotch moved right into the blow.

  I had never used my knack exactly in that way and was unsure of the results. No need to worry, they were epic.

  Munger bent over with a loud “whoof” and grabbed his special place with both hands. I stood up quickly and while he was still dealing with the pain, I wound up and aimed an uppercut at his chin. Using my knack again, I doubled or tripled the force of the blow. His jaw clacked shut and his eyes rolled back in his head as he went backward into his shocked buddy. They both went down. I’m not going to say that I didn’t enjoy it.

  “Don’t mess with me anymore!” I snapped. I said something else too. It was short, direct and profane—two words—not “happy birthday.”

  He lay on his side and spit blood while his friend staggered to his feet.

  He looked down at Munger and then at me obviously trying to wrap his little pea brain around what had just happened.

  “You’re in big trouble Brown. We’re gonna get you,” he said.

  “Yeah? I don’t think so,” I growled. Some other stuff came out of my mouth too. Not very nice and I said it real loud. What can I say? I was mad.

  I heard laughter and giggling around me and for the first time I realized that we had an audience. There was a bunch of kids standing around. At first, I wasn’t sure what they were laughing at. Then it hit me: they were laughing at Munger and his buddy. Several of the kids nodded at me with about-time-s
omebody-taught-these-jerks-a-lesson looks on their faces. Nobody applauded like they do in the movies. They were just enjoying the moment when, for a rare second, a jerk actually gets what he deserves. A couple of them had their phones out, recording video.

  Then I remembered Baffle and what he was planning to do. I threw my backpack over my shoulder and headed for the parking lot fearing that I was going to be too late.

  I burst out of the school entrance and craned my neck to get a look at Baffle’s car. There he was, talking to Gabby.

  Oh, yeah. Way too late.

  She was laughing at him, and so were some of her girlfriends. He had asked her right in front of them. How could he be so clueless? I wasn’t sure but it looked like he had tears running down his face. Holy crap.

  Gabby turned around and walked off and her friends fell in behind her, a couple of them leaning their heads together and laughing. One girl looked over her shoulder at Baffle smirking at him. He just stood there in shock not moving. Kids all over the parking lot had been doing the same thing I was doing, watching someone getting it handed to him by a girl. A high school parking lot can be like watching sharks in the water. Just a little blood and all of the attention gets focused in one spot—in a hurry.

  Baffle started to wipe his eyes and then looked around to see who had witnessed the scene. I hurried to get over to him. By the time I got there, he had pulled his ish together enough to get into his SUV. I walked up to the passenger side and tapped on the window. He rolled it down, looking at me with hurt and anger in his eyes.

  “Did you see?” he asked me.

  “Yeah. Hey, don’t think about it right now. Let’s just get out of here.” I put my hand on the door handle. He angrily hit a button on his door and all the door locks sucked down, locking me out.

  “Get out of here? With you? You told me to ask her! Thanks a lot! I don’t want to talk to anybody! Least of all you!” The window slid up and he gunned the engine. I barely got out of the way before he backed up and peeled out of the parking lot.

  My fault? That didn’t seem right. Another of my mom’s hundreds of helpful sayings rang in my ears: “No good deed goes unpunished.”

  Thanks, Mom, for that.

  CHAPTER TEN

  It seemed like it took forever for the bus to get me home. I kept looking over my shoulder for Oso or Miss Hoch. When I wasn’t busy being paranoid I was occupied with feeling really crappy. I felt terrible for Baffle, but I felt worse about where our friendship seemed headed. How he had managed to make that whole mess my fault didn’t even matter now. I had tried texting him but kept drawing a big zero. Fearing the worst, I brought up a social site and found an account for one of the girls in Gabby’s group. Someone had already posted a video of Baffle. There was a close-up of him with tears on his face and a really mean caption that I won’t repeat. Oh, man—social sites? More like anti-social.

  It was hard to think of a worse scenario. I couldn’t even begin to think of how to help him, not that he would welcome my help. Texting Maddy to get her opinion didn’t get an immediate response. I texted Justine to tell her to get better and asked her to call me when she felt up to it.

  My phone buzzed almost instantly.

  “Benny, you’re so sweet. It’s no big deal. I just have some problem with my eyes. I’ve had terrible headaches and my mom thinks it’s my contacts. I’ll be back to school tomorrow. What’s up? Did I miss an assignment in homeroom?”

  “No. Nothing you can’t catch up with online. I have a problem and I need someone to talk to about it,” I said.

  “Absolutely.”

  It took me a few minutes to fill her in on the background and then I told her what had happened in the parking lot, and the fact that it had already been posted online.

  “Mmm. That’s awful. And he thinks it’s your fault?”

  “Yeah, but that isn’t what I’m the most worried about. He’s really sensitive and takes things very personally. What do you think I should do?”

  “Gosh, that’s hard to say. If it were one of my girlfriends that got hurt, we would have a sleepover or just hang out and talk about it. But none of them would blame me like Sam is blaming you. I don’t know. Do you think you should tell the vice-principal about the social media stuff? That’s pretty awful. There are rules about that kind of stuff.”

  I sighed. “I guess, but I’m not sure. What if he gets pissed at me for getting involved?”

  “Yeah, I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe tell his parents?”

  That was an idea, although it was very dangerous when you went around a friend and got his parents involved.

  “Maybe. I’ll have to think about that.”

  “Kayla told me about your thing with Coby Munger today. I thought that’s what you were calling about.”

  I had almost forgotten about that with all my worrying about Baffle.

  “Yeah, I’m hoping I don’t get in trouble over that,” I said.

  “Well, I don’t like fighting but it sounded like he had it coming. Those boys aren’t very nice. The vice-principal wouldn’t be mad at you anyway. Everybody likes you,” she said, giggling.

  Everybody liked me? “I’m not interested in everyone liking me; I just don’t want to get into trouble. My mom would be super pissed if she got called by the school.”

  “That’s not going to happen, Benny. At the most…maybe you’ll just get pulled out of class to tell your side.”

  “Even that would bum me out,” I replied.

  “Oh, Bennnnyyy. Hey, I have to go. We’re leaving to get me a new prescription. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, cool.” Me the conversationalist.

  “But I had a question to ask you first,” she said hesitantly.

  “What’s that?”

  “Weellllll, I know it’s not until next month, but would you go to Homecoming with me?”

  Just like that, panic set in. What should I say? “Ummm, Homecoming?” Brilliant.

  She giggled. “Yes, silly. You know…dance, Homecoming.”

  “Maybe you don’t know this but I’m not a good dancer. Bad wheel, you know.”

  “I don’t care. So, is that a ‘Yes’?” she asked a little breathlessly.

  “Umm, I’ll have to check with my mom first. Is that okay? I live pretty far and she’ll have to drive me.”

  “I can pick you up remember? I drive.” Her voice sounded funny, less bright and cheerful.

  “Well, okay, but I’ll still need to check,” I weaseled. What was my problem?

  She made a throat-clearing noise. “If you don’t want to go you can just tell me.”

  “No. I want to go, it’s just…”

  “Good! I have to go!”

  “‘Kay. Hope you feel better.” Why was everyone cutting me off today? Was I talking too slow or what? And what had I just done?

  “Thanks. You’re sweet.” She hung up.

  There was something scratching at the back of my mind. There was a problem this little conversation was going to create, and I was pretty sure I knew exactly what it was.

  Talking about Munger and the incident in the hall got me thinking. I got online with my phone. Just when you think things can’t get worse, they surprise you. There were postings of a video of my scuffle with Munger. The video only showed him getting punched in the jaw and while you couldn’t see my face, you could hear what I was saying when I was telling them off. Crap. The gift that keeps on giving.

  If Munger hadn’t already been motivated to get even, he definitely would be now. So, in addition to looking over my shoulder when I was out in public, I was going to have to grow eyes in the back of my head at school too.

  Awesome.

  Not being a victim was hard work and not much fun.

  But I felt so much better.

  At least that’s what I kept telling myself.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  When I finally got her on the phone, Maddy’s advice was a little different from Justine’s because she knew Baffle an
d how he could be a raw nerve ending when he felt slighted. She thought I should keep my distance for a little while. “Let him come to you.” She also reminded me how computer savvy he was. She thought he would have the online videos trashed before the end of the day. Probably true, but Baffle had made his own huge deal online about how he believed Mr. Conroy hadn’t intervened or come to his defense with all of the social media bullying; he’d raged about it and ranted that the vice-principal protected other people or stood up for others when they were bullied but had ignored him in his time of need. His posts were gone within a few hours, but I thought he had made the whole thing worse.

  Maddy agreed that Baffle’s posts hadn’t helped, but she was more focused on my run in with Munger, and didn’t share any of my concern about punching him. I had shared enough stories about his and Witkowski’s behavior that she thought it was funny—and justified.

  “He had it coming, the big jerk. And calling you that? People get into trouble for doing stuff like that. That’s like being a racist. Who does that?” she steamed.

  “He does, obviously. I just don’t want the vice-principal asking for a parent-teacher conference.”

  “Well, you can work that if you need to,” she said.

  I took a deep breath and said, “Hey, have you fixed it with your parents so you can come over here tomorrow or maybe this weekend. I’ve got some other stuff that’s been going on that I want to tell you about.”

  “So, tell me. We’re talking now aren’t we?” She giggled.

  “No, in person. I don’t want to do it over the phone,” I said.

  “Hmmm. Sounds very serious. Should I bring a box of Kleenex? Are you going to make me cry?” She laughed. Even without seeing her, I knew she had thrown her head back.

  “No, nothing like that. I just really need you.” Sometimes we choose words without thinking about their impact.

  She stopped giggling. “I’ll come over tomorrow right after school.”

  “Awesome. Thanks.”

  “Hey, I’m always here for you. That’s what friends do.”