Inferno

by Robin Stevenson

  “So.” I reach out and almost touch her cheek, the bruise there, but pull my hand back at the last minute. “What happened?”

  “Nothing. It was just stupid.”

  “He hit you, didn’t he?”

  Parker doesn’t deny it. She just watches me with those pale eyes and says nothing.

  “I knew it. That asshole.” I clench my fists, feeling the nails dig into my palms.

  She’s quiet for a moment. “When all this stuff was going on with my family last year and I was such a mess...I don’t know. He was the only one who even tried to understand what I was going through.”

  I try not to roll my eyes. “Okay. Fine. Points for Jamie. But that doesn’t mean he gets to treat you like dirt now.”

  “No. He doesn’t though. Not all the time. You see his worst side.” She looks at me thoughtfully. “He doesn’t like you very much.”

  “It’s mutual. Sorry.”

  “Whatever.” She picks up some signs. “We’re supposed to hang around by the doors and talk to students. Try and talk them out of going to class.”

  “We’re supposed to?”

  “Well, Leo says.” She looks at me, considering. “What’s up with you and him anyway?”

  “Me and Leo? Nothing’s up.”

  Parker watches my face for a long moment, and I can feel my cheeks getting hot. She shrugs. “Well, whatever you say.” She starts walking toward the school.

  “Um, why did you ask?” I grab a sign and follow her, glancing down at it as I walk. How Many Lives per Gallon? it reads in blocky black letters. “Did Leo say something?”

  “Aha.” She stops and turns to face me. “I knew it.”

  I don’t want to lie to her, and besides, maybe she already knows. “Okay. So when we hung the sign from the roof last week, it was kind of intense. And Leo kissed me. Once, for about three seconds. But that is absolutely it. End of story. Nothing is going on with us.”

  “I’m pretty sure he likes you.”

  “You think?”

  “Mm-hmm. Are you interested? He’s a good guy, Dante. A real sweetheart.” She winks. “If I was single, I’d be all over him.”

  I stop walking because we’re getting close to the school and I can see Jamie standing twenty feet away talking to a group of girls. “No,” I say. “Not really.” I can hardly say what I’m thinking, which is that I’m more interested in Parker. Not much point having a crush on a straight girl.

  “Are you sure? I know he’s a bit intense but he’s cute, don’t you think? And he’s the kind of guy who wouldn’t let you down, you know? He’s the kind of guy who’d always be there for you.”

  I wonder why she isn’t with him instead of Jamie.

  “Come on,” she coaxes. “Tell me what you think.”

  I force myself to think about Leo. He’s intelligent and interesting, and I like talking to him. And it sure would be easier to go out with a guy. Mom would be happy. Well, sort of happy anyway. Except for the fact that he doesn’t go to school or have a job. “I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t think so, Parker. Who does he live with anyway? Does he have his own place?”

  She looks surprised. “I figured you knew. He lives with his parents. Helps take care of his mom.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Some kind of disability. Can’t remember what it’s called. Not MS but it’s something that is only going to get worse.”

  It doesn’t fit with the mental image I had of his parents heading off to church every week in their Sunday clothes. A picture drifts into my mind of Leo helping a frail but attractive woman out of a wheelchair, sitting beside her while she knits in the evenings. It’s an image right out of some tearjerker made-for-TV movie. Probably the reality is nothing like that. For all I know, his mom is morbidly obese and spends her evenings smoking cigars and playing video games. I don’t really know Leo at all.

  “What about your parents, Parker?” I ask. “What are they like?”

  “Assholes,” she says succinctly. “Come on. We better get to work.”

  We walk around, sticking up posters on the school wall and on parking-lot signs, and trying to persuade Central students to stay out of class in protest. Jamie keeps yelling, “No Free Speech at Central!” People stare at him, curious, but mostly they just go inside anyway. A couple of girls tell me that Paul is a weirdo and they don’t care if he gets kicked out. A guy demands to know where he is, and I have to admit Paul hasn’t actually shown up yet, which he thinks is pretty hilarious.

  The thing is, even though I think it’s terrible to kick a student out for protesting the war, I’m having a hard time getting into this. I’m not scared of getting in trouble— I mean, I don’t go to this school, so what can they do to me?—but I’m finding it a bit embarrassing. Maybe if there were more of us, it’d be okay. It’d help if Jamie would stop yelling. As it is though, I’m squirming with self-consciousness. The stealthy, middle-of-the-night adrenaline rush of hanging the sign at GRSS was more my style.

  Finally the bell rings. It’s ten to nine. We’ve managed to stick up a fair number of posters and, amazingly, to avoid the attention of teachers. On the other hand, we haven’t convinced any Central students to join us. Parker, Leo and I stand around for a few minutes, holding up our signs, even though no one is looking, and waiting to see if anything is going to happen. I think Jamie is hoping a teacher will come out—he’s pacing back and forth and looks ready for a fight.

  A car pulls in to the parking lot and veers to a crooked stop in front of the doors.

  “Bit late now,” Jamie says. “Typical.”

  A red-haired guy gets out of the driver seat, and seven others somehow emerge from the small car.

  “Sorry we’re late,” the red-haired guy says. He has reddish skin, lots of piercings and very bright blue eyes. He rubs his forehead and looks embarrassed. “We overslept.”

  Jamie doesn’t say anything. His face is expressionless, but I can tell he’s angry. I can feel it radiating from him, like heat or light, and I find myself stepping away slightly.

  Parker fills the silence. “Keenan, this is our friend, Dante. I told you about her.”

  He nods to me. “Hey. Yeah, I heard about your stunt at GRSS. Climbing the school. Pretty impressive.”

  The sign he’s holding says War Is Failure. I’m a bit confused about whether this is an anti-war demonstration or a protest against the school’s decision to suspend a student for protesting war. I think we might have had more success getting Central students to walk out if we’d been a little clearer and stayed focused on what their own school had done, but I bite my tongue. It’s not like I was there to help plan it anyway.

  “This is pointless,” Jamie says. “Classes have started. They’re just ignoring us.”

  “Everyone going in read the signs,” I point out. “That’s got to have made them more aware of what happened. And we talked to lots of people.”

  “Didn’t manage to convince any to walk out though,” Jamie says.

  I wonder if he really imagined that we’d get a whole school to walk out. I could’ve told him it wasn’t likely. “Most people aren’t going to do that.” I turn and look at Leo. “No matter what we do. They’re too much, you know...in their own worlds.”

  “Half awake,” Leo agrees. He keeps his eyes on my face in that way he has, as if there isn’t a bunch of other people standing right here with us, as if it’s just me and him alone somewhere. I can feel my cheeks getting hot. I wish Parker hadn’t said anything about him liking me. I want to be friends with him and now I feel all...uncomfortable. If he starts getting some stupid crush on me, it’ll mess everything up. Granted, I have an equally stupid crush on Parker, but at least I have the sense to keep it to myself.

  Jamie’s words break into my thoughts. “We need to do something to wake them up,” he says, his voice hard-edged. “Something big. Something that’ll get everyone’s attention.”

  A flicker of uneasiness prickles at the back of my neck. �
��Maybe we could do the sign thing again,” I say quickly. “I mean, hanging a sign from the roof. Do one here at Central, saying No Free Speech in School. Or, you know, something better but along those lines.”

  Keenan looks at the school doubtfully, and I follow his gaze. Three stories high, a sheer red-brick wall with a definite shortage of ledges and windowsills. I imagine being up there, clinging to the bricks, body pressed against the wall. My hands are instantly wet and I wipe them on my jeans as I turn back to face the others.

  They’re all staring at the wall and Leo is nodding slowly. “Maybe,” he says. “That’s not a bad idea.”

  Parker touches my arm. “Dante...are you sure you want to do that? It looks, well, it’s really high.” She bites her lower lip. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “Don’t be such a wuss,” Jamie says.

  I scowl at him. It’s not like he’s the one taking the risks.

  “She can do it,” Leo says confidently. “I’m telling you guys, she can climb. Spider Girl. Right, Dante?”

  “Right,” I say. There is an awful sick feeling in my stomach, but I ignore it. I know this is crazy but I’m remembering the feeling I had after I climbed GRSS. I felt like I could do anything—like nothing mattered, not school, not Mr. Lawson, not Beth. I want that feeling back again. I look at the others and nod. “Right.”

  SIXTEEN

  Leo drives me back to GRSS. It’s the last place I want to be right now, but I don’t know what else to do. Parker keeps looking across the backseat at me, all worried, the bruise on her cheek vivid against her pale skin. My mind feels oddly blank, and my stomach is in knots.

  “I’ll call you,” she says as I get out of the car.

  I nod vaguely and walk into the school.

  Mrs. G. waves me over as I walk past the office. I sigh and walk in. “Hi, Mrs. G.”

  “Have a seat,” she says.

  I flop into the chair, feeling suddenly exhausted. “I guess I need a late pass.”

  She glances at her watch. “It’s almost ten. What’s up?”

  Nothing I can tell her about, that’s for sure. “I don’t want to be here,” I hear myself say. “I’m thinking about quitting.”

  “You are too smart, way too smart, to mess up your education,” she says. “What do you want to do, Dante? I mean, you want to get into university, right?”

  “I guess I do.” It all seems such a long way off.

  She swivels her chair around and rummages in a filing cabinet. She pulls out a cream-colored file folder and flips through its contents. “You were a straight-A student when you came here. Last year, mostly As except for English and socials. Despite a fair number of detentions. And this year...well, it’s only been a couple of weeks, but you’ve been in my office several times, Mr. Lawson says you’re disruptive in class...”

  I sit forward, stung. “Disruptive? That’s so not fair. He just doesn’t like me.”

  She sighs. “You skipped class last week and again today, and now you’re talking about dropping out.”

  I stare at the file folder. I thought she was on my side, but it sounds like she’s just taking Mr. Lawson’s word for everything.

  “I’d like you to talk to the school counselor, Dante. Would you do that?”

  I imagine someone like Shelley asking me how I really feel about school. “Do I have to? I mean, I don’t have anything to talk about.”

  She purses her lips and plays with the long beaded chain that her reading glasses hang from. “Is everything okay at home?”

  “Fine.” Teachers always do this. Trying to shift responsibility somewhere else. They can’t grasp that maybe it isn’t home that’s the problem. It’s school. It’s them.

  “Then...”

  “I told you. I hate it here. It’s like a prison. And Mr. Lawson acts like a prison guard, always throwing his power around.” I know it’s a mistake as soon as I say it, but the words just slip out.

  Mrs. G. watches me closely for a long minute. Neither of us speak. Finally, she closes my file folder, turns and puts it away. When she swivels back to face me again, her face is unreadable. “Dante, I’m not going to ask if you had anything to do with the sign that appeared on the roof earlier this week. But if you did, I’d suggest you think carefully about what you are doing. Very carefully.”

  I guess the prison guard comment wasn’t too smart. “Mrs. G...” I don’t know what I want to say.

  She shakes her head and points to the clock. “You’d better get to your next class.”

  All day I sit in classroom after classroom and feel like I’m in a fog. Every single teacher gives us pointless, repetitive, busy work, none of which interests me in the least. It’s like they see our minds as empty space for them to cram full of so-called knowledge. No one seems to entertain the possibility that we might actually be capable of thinking for ourselves.

  I draw Dante Alighieri’s monsters on the cover of my binder—three-headed Cerberus; snaky Geryon; Charon, ancient and flaming-eyed, ferrying Dante across the river and into hell. I don’t know what to do. I’m just going through the motions here. This place is a factory, and all graduation means is that you drop off the end of the conveyor belt. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life flipping burgers—or pancakes, for that matter—but I can’t imagine getting through another two years of this bullshit.

  Of course, if I fall from halfway up the wall of Central, it won’t matter what I decide. Splat. Game over.

  At afternoon break, Linnea grabs me. “Come for a smoke?”

  “I don’t smoke,” I remind her, but I follow her outside anyway.

  Linnea walks across the field and sits down on the grass beside one of the new spindly trees. I sit down too, wondering what she wants. We’ve always been friendly but in a slightly distant way.

  She lights a joint and offers it to me. I shake my head but smile so she doesn’t think I’m being snotty about it.

  “So...,” she says. She inhales and holds the smoke in for a few seconds before blowing it out slowly in a thin gray cloud.

  “So,” I say, “what’s up?”

  “Um, look. If I’ve got this wrong, don’t freak on me, okay?”

  “Okay.” It’s about Beth, I think, remembering the comment she made last week: I heard you guys were real close.

  She lifts her chin and brushes her hair off her face, so for once I can see both her eyes. “I heard that you and Beth were, you know, together.”

  “Beth has a boyfriend,” I say quickly. I don’t know why—she’s hundreds of miles away—but I feel protective of her. She’d hate for anyone to know.

  Linnea doesn’t say anything for a moment. She takes another drag, watching me through the smoke. Then she shrugs. “Well, whatever. I guess maybe this wouldn’t interest you then.”

  “What wouldn’t?”

  “I’m trying to start some kind of group, you know, for queer students.”

  “Here? I mean, at GRSS?” It’s hard to imagine.

  “Mrs. Greenway agreed to it and all. For support, right? And to try to make some changes in attitudes.” She grimaces. “People here are pretty homophobic, you know? I guess you’ve probably noticed. This school is stuck in the nineties.”

  “Yeah, it is. At my old school, lots of students were totally out. Well, not lots, but a few. These two guys used to walk around practically holding hands. They did a freaking duet together at a school talent show. Can you imagine that happening here?”

  “They’d be killed,” she says flatly. “Seriously.”

  I think about Beth and how scared she was, how she couldn’t even admit to herself that we were more than just friends. Even if there had been a support group, she wouldn’t have gone anywhere near it.

  “Anyway, I just thought I’d tell you, you know, in case...” Linnea’s voice trails off.

  “I’m not really the support-group type,” I say, avoiding the question she hasn’t quite asked. “It sounds like a cool idea though. I mean, good luck with it, o
kay?”

  “Oh. Okay.” She chews on her bottom lip and looks like she wishes she’d never brought it up.

  Up until today, I’d always assumed Linnea was straight. She still hasn’t actually come right out and said she’s not, but presumably that’s what all this is about. I sort of wish I could talk to her, but I can’t say anything, not without talking about Beth. I feel kind of bad because she took a risk to tell me about the group, and I haven’t given her anything back. I cross my legs and lean toward her. “Actually,” I tell her, “I’m thinking about dropping out anyway.”

  “Ahh, don’t do that.” She puts out the joint by pinching it between her finger and thumb, and sticks it in her pocket. “You gotta finish grade twelve. Two more years, you can do that. You know, I read that studies show high school graduates earn forty-eight percent more than non-graduates.”

  I raise my eyebrows. Who’d have thought Linnea, who drifts through every day in a THC-induced daze, would be trying to persuade me to stay in school? I grin at her. “Yeah, but studies show that people who leave high school early are fifty-two percent happier than those who stick around.”

  Her hair has fallen back over half her face, a shiny dark shield. “You’re shitting me. Really? Did they really show that?”

  I sigh. “No,” I admit. “I just made that up.”

  We sit there in silence for a moment. I stare down the row of trees and wonder, if I stay for two more years, how much they’ll have grown. I really do want my grade-twelve diploma. I’m pretty sure I even want to go to university. To do English, go figure. Mr. Lawson wouldn’t believe it, but it’s true.

  I just don’t know if I can stick it out for long enough to get there.

  “Hey, Linnea?”

  “Mm?”

  “You’ve gone to GRSS since grade nine, right?”

  She nods. “Sad but true.”

  “So...you never knew a guy called Leo, did you? He would’ve been in grade eleven when you were in grade nine, but he quit halfway through the year.”

  “Doesn’t sound familiar. But grade nine...I was still sort of doing my best to blend in with the walls, you know? I didn’t notice anyone outside of myself.” Linnea shakes her head. “I could ask my brother though. If Leo went here, they’d probably have been in some of the same classes.” She looks at me curiously. “So who is he?”