“I guess you’re right. . . .”
“He seems more like the type of guy who’d beat us up.”
PJ is right, no guessing about it. I vividly remember the gutted deer behind the barn.
I text Jake, the only person I can think of at school who’s scarier than Mark. With Jake on our side, maybe we don’t have to worry about Mark. I wait a minute and he doesn’t text back, but that’s not unusual for Jake. He never checks his phone.
PJ tries to calm me down. “Look, even if Mark is suspicious, how could he know it was us who painted his cows? I mean know for sure?”
“Well, he probably sort of got a look at my face when he was chasing me with the flashlight,” I say.
“But not a good look, right?”
I remember the way Mark squinted at me as he walked to the back of the bus. If he had really recognized me, I think he would’ve said something.
“No, not a good look,” I concede. “But if he sees my messed-up hand—”
PJ brushes this aside. “Mark is in vo-tech for most of the day, so it’ll be easy to avoid him. Just remember to keep your hand hidden, and I don’t know. . . . If Mark asks if it was us, we just say no. He doesn’t have any proof.”
I guess PJ’s right. But I don’t know. I have a bad feeling. I feel like I’m Sergeant Al Powell, poking around the eerily quiet lobby at Nakatomi Plaza.
The bus passes the Greyhound terminal on the edge of town and turns right at the bottom of Main Street, which runs past the school. It gains momentum because there are no more kids to pick up; it’s just a straight shot to school now.
PJ tells me his plan for asking Vern to the dance, but I’m not listening.
“Uh-huh. Uh-huh,” I mumble at random intervals. My fear of Mark is fighting for supremacy with my fear of my parents, and I’m not sure which to be more worried about right now.
PJ finally notices me drifting and changes topic. “Did you have to use your sandwich today?”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry about that. Are you hungry?” He pulls a string cheese out of a pocket inside his tuxedo. “Do you want some cheese?”
Even though I shouldn’t eat the dairy, I take the cheese and gnaw on it nervously. I know I’ll be sorry later, but for now it gives me something to do besides worry.
“Oh, hey,” PJ says, pulling his little notepad from his pocket. “I’ve been working on some new chants for the football team. What do you think of this one? ‘Our team has some real bigwigs. Cream cheese tastes good when you put it in figs. We’re good at football; we’re the Iron Pigs.’ ”
I stare at him blankly. “Not many words rhyme with ‘pigs,’ huh?”
“No.” PJ frowns. “Not too many.”
The bus passes the school on Main Street, then swings into the parking lot in front of the school behind a long line of buses waiting their turn to unload. Streams of students get off the buses at the front of the line, talking and laughing, and slowly merge into the river of humanity that narrows to a bottleneck as it squeezes through the school’s front doors.
I cautiously poke my head up over the back of the seat to look at Mark, and sure enough, he’s still staring at us, his black eye an ugly ring of purple. He idly scratches the scar in his hair.
I duck back down and ask PJ, “What would a ninja do? What does your ninja training tell you?”
PJ’s calm is infuriating. “Well, the tenets of ninjutsu assert that deception and evasion are preferable to combat.”
I grab the satin lapels of his stupid tuxedo and shake him. “ENGLISH, PJ. SPEAK. ENGLISH.”
“If we want to avoid Mark, we should distract him.”
“Distract him? Okay . . . okay . . . how? Do you have any smoke bombs on you?”
PJ pats his pockets. “Not today.”
“NO STANDING while the bus is in MOTION!” Granny yells, her voice rising to a shriek.
Someone walks up the aisle toward our seat, and I turn around, expecting to see Mark’s fist flying at my face, but instead Trey is standing in the aisle, holding a leash. I smell the awful stench that was coming from his backpack, but it’s stronger now.
“Sit down!” Granny says. “How many times do I have to tell you kids?”
“But I gotta let my dog out,” Trey whines. “He’s gotta pee-pee!” He holds the leash up. Dangling from a dog collar on the other end is a dead raccoon. It’s roadkill, big and fat except for the middle of its back, which is squashed flat by a tire track. It looks relatively “fresh,” if that word can be applied to roadkill, like Trey might’ve picked it up this morning while waiting for the bus.
Trey dangles the dead raccoon in front of Granny’s face, which has gone white and slack with horror. “My dog’s sick, Granny!”
Granny doesn’t know how to react. She shrinks as far away from the stinking carcass as she can. Unable to speak, she reaches out and pushes the silver lever that opens the bus door. Trey skips off the bus, smiling, and tosses a jaunty “Thank you!” over his shoulder.
Everyone on the bus flips out. We rush to the right side of the bus in a gaggle so we can stare out the windows at Trey skipping toward school, dragging the dead raccoon behind him. His “dog” leaves a trail of blood on the pavement, and as Trey begins passing the few kids at the back of the herd filing into school, they start to freak out too.
The kid with the soup-bowl haircut spins around, and it’s the first time I’ve ever heard him talk when he yells the obvious, “That’s a dead raccoon!”
We all just about trample one another trying to get off the bus to watch Trey drag the raccoon across the courtyard. We trail behind him as he walks through the crowd, more and more students noticing him, ripples of panic spreading, the pandemonium building into a grisly parade. Kids are laughing, kids are shrieking, cell phones are held above the crowd, trying to get a clear shot to film.
I walk backward for a moment to keep my eye on Mark, but I’ve lost him.
PJ and I run to catch up with Trey.
PJ asks Trey, “Where did you get that?”
I’m surprised that Trey drops the act for a second, and I’m even more surprised by the real emotion in his eyes. “Found the poor little bastard squashed right in front of my bus stop this morning,” Trey says. “I felt so bad for him, I figured I’d bring him to school. Give him a real send-off, like a Viking funeral, you know?”
PJ and I do not know, but we nod in respectful silence anyhow.
A little, excited kid runs alongside and asks Trey, “What are you doing?!”
Trey snaps back into character. He smiles and says, “I’m walking my dog!”
“He’s walkin’ his dog, he says!” the kid screams in disbelief as the crowd around Trey grows so large that I’m surprised Mr. Hartman hasn’t noticed the hubbub yet.
Our school isn’t very big, so Mr. Hartman is the only person who’s dedicated full-time to security. He looks like an undercover cop from the seventies: thick mustache, brown polyester pants, wire-frame glasses whose orange-tinted lenses are the size of a Camaro’s windshield. His loud sports coats are always a half size too small for his barrel chest, like he bought them twenty years ago and refuses to admit that he’s gained thirty pounds since then. If he weren’t so big and tough, it would look funny.
I hear Mr. Hartman actually used to be a cop, a real cop, which is probably why he takes his current job too seriously. If he catches you running in the hall or using the bathroom without a hall pass, he acts like you’re stealing a car or dealing drugs. Dude needs to chill.
He and Jake sort of have a vendetta going. A lot of times when we walk down the hall, Mr. Hartman will surreptitiously tail Jake at a distance. Like he’s on a sting. Despite the fact that Jake is constantly breaking the rules, Mr. Hartman rarely catches him in the act, and it drives him crazy.
He always keeps a massive walkie-talkie clipped to a holster on his belt buckle, but since he’s the only security person in the school, I’m not sure who he calls on it. The president? He even h
as a pair of handcuffs folded and clipped to a loop on the back of his pants, although you can practically see the cobwebs on them.
Mr. Hartman is standing sentry next to the front doors, thumbs hooked into the waistband of his polyester pants. He notices the crowd laughing and hooting as Trey nears the school’s front doors and cranes his neck to see what the commotion is.
“What’s going on? What’s going on?” Mr. Hartman asks no one in particular. Then he sees Trey dragging the dead raccoon toward the school. His face flushes bright red, and he holds out one meaty hand like he’s stopping traffic. He crouches into an action stance, and his right hand cocks down to his walkie-talkie like it’s a six-shooter.
“Hold it right there, mister!” Mr. Hartman barks. He points at the raccoon. “What the hell is that?”
Trey stops in the center of the courtyard, right next to the flagpole, and he deserves an Oscar for how sadly he says, “It’s my dog, Mr. Hartman. He’s sick.”
Mr. Hartman can’t tell if Trey’s legitimately stupid or just pretending, so he plays it safe. “Son . . . ,” he says as delicately as he can, “that’s a raccoon.”
Trey looks down at the raccoon in surprise. “Oh my God, you’re right!” He lifts it off the ground and starts to swing it over his head like a lasso, building momentum until the leash sticks straight out like a shot put about to be released, the raccoon at the end spinning at a dangerous velocity.
The crowd scatters, a circle clearing around Trey. Kids hit the ground or turn and run for cover. Even Mr. Hartman falls to his knees and puts his hands over his head. Nobody wants to get hit with a face full of roadkill.
Trey spins and spins, then adjusts the arc of the raccoon upward and lets go of the leash. The raccoon flies clear over the heads of the crowd and disappears onto the roof of the school.
Mr. Hartman is up like a flash and grabs Trey by the arm. He looks like he wants to kill him as he marches him into the school. The crowd parts and applauds as Trey passes through their midst, a hero on parade. Trey waves with his free hand and blows kisses to the girls.
I turn to ask PJ, Did you see that? but he’s not there anymore. I look around, but I don’t see him anywhere. Is this another one of his stupid ninja tricks?
I’m carried along in the crowd of kids walking through the front doors of the school, and as we walk inside the school, the shift in temperature—from cold, crisp outdoor air to warm, moist indoor air—makes my glasses fog up.
Dammit. Every time.
I step near the wall, away from the flow of students, and wipe my lenses on my shirt. I turn and look back into the front courtyard, out through the glass double doors, the crowd a blur of moving shapes. I put my cleaned glasses back on, and the courtyard snaps into focus.
It’s madness, everyone clapping and laughing. I search the crowd, both hoping to see PJ and hoping not to see Mark, but I don’t see either of them.
CHAPTER 9
* * *
I WANT TO REACH MY locker and then the safety of homeroom as quickly as I can, but as happens so often in this damn school, I get lost. Even though I’ve been at Upshuck High for more than two months now, I still get lost all the time. The school’s layout is super confusing and is arranged around four large cylinders stood on their ends like fat, short grain silos.
The central cylinder is the school’s hub, the main entrance I entered a moment ago from the courtyard before somehow getting turned around. The middle of the cylinder is the lobby, a round, cathedral-like space with rows of lockers lining the periphery. The lobby is so big, the locker rows are broken into different numbered sections, but I can still never find mine. The other three cylinders surround the lobby and empty into this soaring space.
The setup is annoying because 90 percent of the time, to get to your next class you have to walk through the lobby. The middle of the lobby is sheer chaos, all the students crossing to different circles to reach either their classes or their lockers.
This is why many students refer to the lobby as the Thunderdome. (Actually only Jake, PJ, and I call it that, but still, we’re hoping it’ll catch on with other kids.)
It takes a special talent to pass through this crucible of flesh without getting bumped and jostled and dropping your books, and I’ve been told that on the first day of school, kids line the edges of the Thunderdome to watch the inexperienced freshmen get mangled in the morning, the busiest time of day.
My first couple of days were pretty rough too, although now I’m able to slip through the crowd with balletic ease, unconsciously in tune with the seething masses around me.
At the far end of the central cylinder are doors that lead to the cafeteria, the gym, the pool, and the long hallway that wraps around the outside of the gym and connects to the science room. The principal’s office is at the front of the lobby, right when you walk through the main doors.
Behind the gym, on the far side of the rear parking lot, is the vo-tech, an ugly concrete building with a large steel garage door on the front. On warm days sometimes they roll up the door and you can see students in there working on cars. It’s comforting to remember that I probably won’t run into Mark for the rest of the day because he’s in the vo-tech, so—aside from lunch, gym, and a few other classes—we’ll be in separate buildings.
Speaking of classes, where the hell am I? My locker is in the Thunderdome, where I was just a second ago, but somehow now I’m in one of the circles, Circle C. I speed up, looking for the hall back to the lobby, or for PJ, Jake, or (heaven forbid) Mark. I wish my eyes were placed on the sides of my head, like an herbivore, to give me a wider range of vision. I do not need these forward-facing predator eyes. I am prey, buddy, pure and simple.
To prevent students from constantly running into one another as they round corners, each of the circles has one-way traffic, which means you can only walk clockwise. If Mr. Hartman catches you walking counterclockwise around one of the circles, you get written up, and you also have to endure his aftershave, which smells like the blue stuff barbers soak their combs in.
I text PJ, Where are you?
I pop out of Circle C back into the lobby, but now I’m at the far end, away from the main entrance, up near the gym.
The student government is busy decorating the gym for the Fall Fling next week. The walls and ceiling are strung with Christmas lights and strobes and even a big disco ball. Someone yells, “Flip the switch!” The big overhead lights go off and the party lights flick on, and suddenly the gym looks like a crazy dance club. It’s impressive, actually. Someone should get the student government to redesign the whole school.
Is that my locker? No. This is Section 13. How’d I skip Section 3?
I think of the cardboard Stonehenge in my bedroom and wonder if the school’s odd layout has some secret significance, if perhaps during the summer solstice the four circles align with four constellations in the night sky.
I picture my school in the middle of the night, the parking lot empty and all the windows dark except for one light flickering in a gymnasium window.
The locker room is illuminated by hundreds of candles as Ms. Hunt, my English teacher, and Herr Bronner, my German teacher, strip off their clothes and slip hooded red monk robes over their heads. Mr. Perry, my biology teacher, stands at a locker nearby, still fully clothed.
Ms. Hunt fans the hem of her robe out. “I wish these things weren’t wool. This is the summer solstice. Why can’t we have cotton robes?”
“We are not to question the will of the Old Ones,” Herr Bronner intones in his ruined baritone.
“The Old Ones didn’t buy the robes,” Ms. Hunt counters. “The home ec class made them. And there’s nothing in the Sacred Scrolls of Za’aal that says we have to sweat our balls off while we open the portal to the Darkness Beyond the Stars, is there?”
Herr Bronner shrugs. “None can know the mind of Za’aal. So it is written, so it is true.”
They hang a small pouch of baby teeth around their necks, then turn to Mr. Perry,
still dressed in his normal clothes.
“Ron, do you have the totems?”
“What? Oh yes, yes.” He hands them each a live frog, which they carefully put into their pockets.
Ms. Hunt gestures for him to hurry up. “Ron, get dressed. What are you waiting for?”
“Oh, uh, nothing. I was just gonna, uh . . .” Mr. Perry opens his locker and pulls a towel out. “I’m gonna take a blood shower. You guys go ahead without me.”
“The Shower of Blood comes after the opening of the Dark Portal,” Herr Bronner says. “So it is written in the tablets of Nardorock—”
“No, yeah, I know that. I just like taking one ahead of time too. I was playing tennis earlier today, so I’m a little grimy. You two go ahead without me.” He bows slightly. “Glory to Za’aal, until the Old Ones rise.”
Ms. Hunt and Herr Bronner exit the locker room, and Ms. Hunt jerks a thumb back toward the door. “Ron’s shy,” she whispers to Herr Bronner. “He doesn’t like taking his clothes off in front of other people.”
Herr Bronner raises an eyebrow. “But we will all be nude during the Orgy of Evil.”
Ms. Hunt shrugs.
They glide down the hall that connects the science room to the Thunderdome, their bare feet silent, and enter the Thunderdome. After lighting a torch, Ms. Hunt lifts the pulsing green flames against the gloom and looks around the darkened circle. “Okay, so let’s see. . . . We’re meeting the rest of the coven in the Central Cylinder dungeon, which is through a locker in Section Three, which is . . . that way?”
Herr Bronner points in the opposite direction. “It is that way. I think.”
“Okay, right, so we walk around the circle this way to the main hub, and then—”
“No, we cannot walk that way. That is counterclockwise. We must always walk along the path of the clock. So it is written in—”
Ms. Hunt throws her torch. “Oh, FUCK where it’s written! I hate this damn school! WHERE THE HELL IS SECTION THREE?”
A girl with long black hair stares at me like I’m crazy. “Yo, dude, chill out. You’re in Section Three.”
This Might Hurt a Bit Page 9