I don’t stumble upon these wrappers. I stumble into them, over someone else’s foot, and I’m reminded again that sugar highs are only temporary and the fall is steep and I know it has to be Chad because who else mans the halls at a time like 3:08 in the afternoon and who else wears shorts the second week of March and has calf implants and legs as smooth as a snake? He pops a carrot into his mouth and chews it slowly.
“I know what you’re up to,” he says.
On the ground, with Chad standing over me, I laugh nervously. “You know me, always up to no good. Just trying to clean up the school neighborhood.”
“Give it to me,” he says. “All of it.”
“Sure, more Milky Ways? No problem, they’re delicious.” Still on the ground, I wriggle my body like a worm and reach into my bag and push past a stack of crumpled bills and fumble for candy bars and that’s when he steps on my wrist, his strong right heel pressing down on veins, and I know now those calves are definitely either calf implants or the strongest calves ever placed on a human male.
I know that Chad means business. And that my business is about to crumble.
“The money,” he says. “All of it.”
No way. Not when we’re so close.
He lifts his left foot onto my face. His heel smells like dirt. But feels like concrete. He pushes down—hard.
“Your meat is still sour,” he says.
I scream, but it’s muffled by his sneaker on my mouth, crushing my lips that were just getting to know Sabrina’s and just tasting a bit of success and now they’re bleeding, I can taste it, and I just bit my bottom lip and I can’t speak.
“I don’t want to do this to you,” he says. “I really don’t. Let’s make this easy. Shall we?” He lifts his heel.
I shut my eyes.
“Next time, it crushes you,” he says, popping another carrot into his mouth, which sounds strange to me. I mean, with his legs and feet smothering me, it surprises me that he still has arms. I know it’s a stupid thing to think about at a time like this, but Chad suddenly feels like an octopus. How many limbs does this guy have? And why can’t I be a ferocious hawk when I need to be!
My mind is flashing ten things at once and I can’t think straight: money, Manny, Mom, phone, mayday, help, please, please, please, candy, wrappers, bribes, deals, companies, hallways, witnesses, help, help!
He reaches for my backpack and I snatch it and pull it closer.
His right heel pushes deeper in my wrist and I know I’m running out of time.
Time! I’ve cursed you before (for the record, February, you still suck), but I could kiss you now. “Check your watch,” I say. “It’s three ten.”
“So?”
“Janitors start their shift at three ten. Why do you think I’m buried in wrappers?”
“Because I tripped you.”
“Right. I mean, ouch, I mean, why do you think I’m rushing to clean up?”
“Erroneous,” he says, which means nothing to me, except that he doesn’t seem afraid of the janitor. “I know what you’re up to,” he says again. Carrot in his mouth, he laughs. Unfortunately, he doesn’t choke. Well, choke on this!
I maneuver my body to kick him—in the face, groin, stomach—anywhere. I’ve had bad ideas before, but this one takes the taco. As my foot comes up to strike, Chad grabs my ankle and twists. Then he snatches the enormous wad of twenties and hundreds from my sock. All of them. ALL OF THEM!
“Thank you for your donation to the school, Denny. As school secretary, I assure you that your money will not go to waste.”
“GIVE IT BACK, YOU—”
He smothers me again with his right shoe. His sole tastes like mud and I bet his soul is mud. “If you tell anyone—anyone—about what happened here, everyone—everyone—will know about your little fund-raiser that’s not a fund-raiser.” Yup, mud. He grins. “I know about it. Know about how you raised money, you loser, to offer a ride in a good-looking car because you weren’t good-looking enough to get a date any other way. Selling candy to get popular, to land a date to the dance.”
I need to ask him how he knows, who told him. “MMRRRRR … ERRRRARRR … GRRRRAAA.” Those are the sounds my mouth makes with his shoe in it.
A shoe that he now raises up.
Help! Somebody! Janitor! Please!
And crashes down.
SPEECHLESS
It’s spring in the sixth grade. I’m playing soccer, even though I’m terrible at it. Really truly terrible. But my mom likes soccer and I like having her near me and we’re running out of time.
One of my teammates passes me the ball. I tap it in front of me, fake left, and go right. The defender slips. “Go, Murphy, go!” my coach shouts. I don’t know why he’s getting his hopes up. Any second now I’ll lose the ball, trip over someone’s foot, and eat a faceful of dirt. Like … now. It hurts to get up, but my mom is watching and the ball is kicked back my way. I get to my feet and dribble forward, gaining speed.
“Go, Denny!” my mom cheers. Then I hear her cough. It hurts for her to shout and it hurts for her to cough.
I am in full sprint, like a sprinter at the Olympics, who is great at running fast but terrible at stopping. Only one more defender left to beat, the sweeper. I tell him to please move aside so that I can score a goal while my mom is watching. I really say that, “Please move aside so that I can score a goal while my mom is watching,” but he’s running too fast to hear me. He slide-tackles the ball away from me.
On the sidelines, the coach gives me a high-five. “That was aces,” he says.
My mom walks over to me. Her face is soft and beautiful. Like flowers. Like a dozen yellow daisies. She dangles a cup of orange Gatorade, my favorite flavor. “Drink up,” she says. “Champions deserve refreshment.”
I try to explain that I didn’t score, that I didn’t even shoot.
“But you did your best,” she says, “and that’s what makes you a champion, my champion, and champions deserve refreshment.”
* * *
It’s almost summer. My mom’s lying on a hospital bed in a long white gown. She’s bald.
A television buzzes on the wall. People are in court. A judge whose name is Judy tells a man that he needs to pay a lady forty bucks, though it looks like he could use the money. People laugh.
“Go ahead. Wake her up,” my dad says.
I shake my head. I don’t want to disturb her. She looks peaceful but tired, like a dozen yellow daisies that are part of a peace rally but wilting after too much rallying.
“It’s okay,” he says. “She wants to see you.”
I take a few steps forward and realize I don’t want to see her, because up close she doesn’t look peaceful. She looks dead. Her lips are purple. She’s as pale as a vampire wearing pale makeup. Plastic tubes are stuck up her nose and I wonder if the tubes are permanent, like cement and permanent marker.
She tilts her head toward me but doesn’t open her eyes. The judge named Judy makes people laugh again, asking a guy if he’s lying. I turn around and whisper to my dad that I want to leave.
“Hey,” my mom whispers. Her breath smells like laundry. “Nice to see you.”
“Nice to see you, too,” I tell her. I am lying. I hate seeing her like this.
“How’s school?” she asks.
“Fine.” I am lying again. Since she got sicker, I lie to her all the time, but I don’t feel bad about it because this isn’t really my mom in front of me. It’s a stunt double. A replica. A wax figure at a museum that’s so bad it’s funny. The artist even got her glasses wrong: they’re bigger, goofier, and black instead of her skinny pink ones. (This museum is ridiculous.)
“Glad to hear you’re doing well,” she says. “How are your grades?”
“Excellent,” I tell her. She knows I’m lying because my dad tells her about my detentions. I wish he wouldn’t tell her and I wish I wouldn’t act up. I take it back. All of it. Especially because my health teacher told the class today that stress can make you sick,
which means I’m making my mom even sicker and that I’m killing her. Maybe I already have.
A tube is taped to her hand. The tape is clear. I can see through it. The skin on her hand looks like it’s melting.
My mom points to her mouth. “Ice chips,” she says. “I’m … thirsty. Please tell the nurse to bring more ice chips.” My dad runs out to tell the nurse.
“Are you doing your best?” my mom asks me.
“Yes.”
“Good,” she says. “That’s what’s…” she coughs into her hand. “Important. You can always fall asleep at night when you know you’ve done your best.”
“I am doing my best.”
“Stop! This is nonsense,” the judge whose name is Judy yells at a man. “I don’t believe you. Case dismissed.” She bangs the gavel and walks away. Everyone laughs.
THE HORMONE EXTERMINATOR
Wiping the blood from my nose with the back of my hand, I realize I haven’t done it. My best, I mean. Not even close. Mrs. Q knows it. My dad knows it. Sabrina knows it. Chad knows it. Or at least his foot does.
And soon Manny will, too. But I can’t tell him now. I can’t and I don’t care that I’m not doing my best by keeping it from him. I can’t tell him. I can’t tell anyone.
* * *
Yes, I’d like to report a robbery. How much? At last count, around seven hundred dollars. What was I doing with that much money? Raising funds. For what? For a fund-raiser. What’s the fund-raiser for? A dance, to get someone to go with me. Really? Yes, really, but never mind that. There was a robbery. How did I raise that much money? Selling candy in school. Am I allowed to do that? Sort of. Can I prove that the money was stolen? What do you mean, like do I have order forms? No, they were getting too tedious and unnecessary and sales were so good. I was a prolific salesman. Have I told the principal about this? Not exactly. Have I told my dad? Not a chance.
So, yeah, I’m not calling the cops.
Besides, I still have everything I want, anyway …
I still have Sabrina. Don’t I?
* * *
I need to see her, tell her everything, have her tell me everything is gonna be all right. Everything is gonna be all right. Everything is gonna be all right. This morning I had seven hundred dollars. And now I don’t. It was stolen. Everything is gonna be all right.
* * *
The next day, Sabrina passes me in the halls on the way to English class. “I have a surprise for you,” she says, smiling mischievously, tugging me down the hall.
I have a surprise for you, too. SAY IT! I didn’t sell candy for a fund-raiser. Not a real one, anyway. And now it’s all gone—my share is, I mean—but it doesn’t matter because, look, we need to talk. Now. Say it! SAY IT!
I want to, I really do, but my high-dive skills have withered away and we’re almost to class and I can see Mr. Morgan in his room sipping coffee from a Dunkin’ Donuts cup while setting up his TV/VCR. Teachers at Blueberry Hills are the only humans left on the planet who still use VCRs. They don’t even have working remotes, which is why he’s leaning over, pushing buttons manually on that clunky piece of junk. It looks like it was made a hundred years ago. Mr. Morgan tries to bang the top of it to get it to work. It doesn’t. I want to walk in the room and help him, but I don’t know a thing about old VCRs and everyone knows better than to burst into Mr. Morgan’s class.
“Guess what?” Sabrina cries, leaning against the wall at the front of the line.
“Sabrina, really, we need to—”
“I finished!”
“Finished what?”
“Our project, silly. I filmed myself as Willy Loman’s wife, and took video of you picking up wrappers and dubbed the ‘Look Down’ song to it and—”
“Wait, you took video of me picking up wrappers in the halls?” I’M SAVED! “Where’d you film me? Do you have Chad on video?!”
“Why would I have Chad on video?”
“No reason.”
“What’s wrong with your nose? Was it bleeding?”
I touch the bridge of my nose, now swollen and painful and hopefully not discolored. “Oh that, it happens all the time. It’s the dry air. In the atmosphere. Tell me you filmed me in the halls.”
“No, I filmed you in the lunchroom. When I got home I put a few sound bites together and rewrote much of the dialogue to fit the footage. I took a few pictures, too. Not completely done yet, but maybe we can finish after school.”
“Yeah, that’d be great. I need to talk to you, Sabrina, I—”
I can’t finish my sentence because everyone in line is giving me a stink face. It’s easy to ignore one stink face, but twenty-five stink faces … that’s another story, especially when one of them belongs to Mr. Morgan. His face gets really stinky when he wants to make a stink face. Now is one of those times.
“Good morning, readers and writers. You are about to enter a hormone-free zone. No hormones allowed in here, for I am the hormone exterminator.”
Normally I’d laugh, but I’m too focused on Sabrina and what I have to say and—
“Are we ready, Denny?” This from Mr. Morgan, owner of said stink face. “For the last time, stop looking at Sabrina. She doesn’t like you. Class, you may enter.”
On our way in, I’m scared to turn around and look because I’m afraid I won’t find her there and won’t see blushing and everything will be lost and I’ll be left with nothing because she doesn’t like me, never liked me … I can’t help it. I must know …
I sneak a peek behind me. Sabrina’s cheeks are red and rosy, as rosy as roses, and that’s a beautiful thing because she’s a beautiful thing—not a thing, a girl, a young lady, a female member of the human species who likes me, or has liked me, or doesn’t like me at all and is simply embarrassed by what Mr. Morgan said. Or embarrassed of me, like my mom would be if she found out what I’ve become, what I’ve done, how much I’ve lost, what I’ve said, what I haven’t said to Sabrina and Manny and my dad and …
Mr. Morgan shuts the door behind us.
“Okay, class, settle down,” he says, and of course everyone does. “We’ve had volunteers to show a few rough sketches of their work thus far. Shelly, care to go first?” Mr. Morgan claps lightly, a golf clap, and encourages us to do the same, like we’re all one big polite golf audience. As the first volunteer walks up to meet Mr. Morgan at the VCR, I get itchy, really itchy, like red ants are crawling up my leg, and I know I need to leave this room. LEAVE THIS ROOM I’m shouting at myself but the door is closed and my feet are frozen and I just feel so uncomfortable all of a sudden that I sort of start laughing. Maybe it’s because Sabrina blushed earlier, which means she may, she might, she could still like me. Or maybe it’s the clunky old VCR giving Mr. Morgan fits. Or the way some girl named Shelly says, “So, like, I don’t know if it’s, like, any good. I, like, think it’s, like, honestly pretty bad, I mean, I’m like still working on it, and, like, here goes,” but I can’t stop laughing.
“Denny, stop,” Sabrina whispers, tugging on my sleeve, and for a second I gain my composure, but then I notice the word “Donuts” on Mr. Morgan’s Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and it makes me laugh again.
“Denny, what are you doing?” This from Mr. Morgan, and the last thing I want is for him to get mad. I try to smile so that he’ll lighten up, but he’s not getting any lighter. He takes a few steps toward me. “And now you’re smiling? You think what you’re doing is funny?”
I can see myself in the reflection of his sunglasses. I look like Silly Putty, a stretched out, discombobulated lump of Silly Putty. I look like my dad. That’s when I get even more uncomfortable and start to laugh. I don’t want to, really I don’t, but the more uncomfortable I get, the more I laugh. And the more I laugh, the angrier Mr. Morgan gets. Even through his sunglasses, I can see his eyes are ablaze. “What are you—I can’t—believe me—you need to—Denny—seriously.”
“Are you on drugs?” he finally asks.
I’m not, so I say I’m not.
“Don�
��t believe the hype,” he says. “The dope will make you a dope.”
I don’t want to laugh, but it’s such a lame thing to say, especially for an English teacher, so I laugh. Louder. Longer. It’s at this point that Mr. Morgan looks down at the work sheet in front of me with the following headings: Life is good a misunderstanding. Life is good a series of unfortunate events that are stacked like trees, and the stacks are so tall that not even lumberjacks can cut them down. Mr. Morgan’s face tightens. And then my hero and model, the good ol’ supreme and merciful and omniscient god of English, the S.U.O.G.E., always a quick trigger on student laughter, gives me the boot. The old heave-ho. The ax.
He doesn’t actually take a lumberjack’s ax to me or physically boot me out the door, but picturing him doing either while yelling “Homey don’t play that!” is pretty funny, so I laugh harder, longer. Mr. Morgan shakes his head, muttering something about “waste” or “space.” He might’ve said I was a waste of his time. Or a waste of space. A space cadet. A wastebasket. A waste of Silly Putty. I think he called me a waste of Silly Putty. And then he removes his sunglasses for the first time ever and his eyes look like the eyes of white owls, like someone at the slopes after a week with goofy ski goggles, and he’s staring at me so intently that I laugh some more. Then he says, “I’ll see you in detention,” and the way he stresses “you” as if it was unclear if I was in trouble or someone else, like that girl Shelly who, heavens forbid, got, like, worried, she was in, like, a lot of trouble, and was in, like, detention, so I laugh some more and glance one last time at Mr. Morgan. For some reason, I start thinking of that Christmas eggnog with those teachers who hadn’t laughed in months and now can’t stop laughing but don’t even know what they’re laughing about. I want to stop, I really do, but I can’t, and Sabrina is blushing again and not in a good way, and I don’t want to embarrass Sabrina more than I already have, so I leave and don’t look back.
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