“Yes, sir,” PJ and I say in unison.
There is a very real possibility that before today is over Mr. Hartman will kill us and stage it to look like an accident.
Well, if he wants to kill me, it’s not going to be easy.
He’s going to have to wait in line.
CHAPTER 21
* * *
PJ AND I MISS ALL of sixth period, which for me is just a study hall anyhow, and head to biology. I almost can’t believe there are only two periods left in this never-ending hellhole of a day. Biology and swim class and then that’s it. Only two periods left and I get to go home! Home to my empty room full of boxes. Home to my easy chair and John McClane jumping off Nakatomi Plaza and Mom and Dad placing my notebook on the kitchen table like Komm Mit! and warning me, “This is your last chance, Kirby.” DEFCON 1. The roof is wired with explosives.
I wonder how long I could live at school. How long would it take Mr. Reali to discover my pup tent on the roof?
Aside from the gym and the pool, the science lab is the only classroom not in one of the three circles. I heard it’s separated for safety reasons because of all the dangerous chemicals in there and the tanks of oxygen and stuff—if the school ever caught on fire, that room would blow up like a paint factory.
It’s connected to the main lobby by a long hallway that wraps around the outside of the gymnasium. There are no classrooms along the hallway, just lockers, and halfway down the hall, doors to the girls’ and boys’ locker rooms. The hallway is great because if it’s not too crowded, you can race. The current record was set by Matt Ditty, and I know this because there’s a little piece of paper taped to the first locker in the hallway that says:
CURRENT RECORD HOLDER:
MATT “CRAZY LEGS” DITTY
ONE MINUTE TWENTY-THREE SECONDS
The science lab always reminds me of a morgue because of its gleaming rows of experiment tables, but even more so today because we’re going to dissect dead frogs. Inexplicably, everyone is delighted by this prospect.
Probably because they were less expensive, we’re getting our frogs alive, which means not only do we have to dissect them, but we’ve got to kill them first. I guess this will teach us the important biology lesson that humans are pack animals, happy to commit unspeakable violence as long as an alpha dog tells us it’s all right.
I hope we’ll at least kill the frogs in an interesting way—push them down a flight of stairs, perhaps, or take them for a rowboat ride on a secluded lake—but instead Mr. Perry tells us we’re just going to use a lethal dose of chloroform. Booooooooring.
“All right, everyone,” Mr. Perry says, pacing in front of the blackboard in his unnecessary white lab coat, “find a table and break up into dissection teams, groups of two.”
PJ and I pair up and grab an experiment table. Each table has a thick glass jar on it with a frog trapped inside, the open end of the jar placed down on the table. Next to the jars gleam metal trays of slender dissection instruments.
PJ slides his two duffel bags under the table and flips through the printed-out pages of anatomy and dissection diagrams next to the tray of scalpels. I watch our frog sit serenely inside the big jar, just chillin’, not concerned that it’s trapped in an invisible prison surrounded by giants. The soft pale skin on its throat balloons out each time it breathes in that weird way unique to frogs and wealthy older men.
PJ has his full tuxedo on again, although it’s looking pretty ragged. After he pulled it out of the bucket of water, he tried to dry it using a hand dryer in one of the bathrooms; it shrank a little, so now it’s supertight on him and the sleeves are too short. He’s also wearing his shirt backward so the gray smudges on the front won’t show, which looks really weird because there are no buttons and the collar goes straight across his throat in a band, like a priest’s collar. He looks like a time-traveling prophet from some dystopian future.
“Oh, hey, I’ve got something for you.” PJ looks around the room, then reaches into one of the duffel bags and hands me something under the table.
It’s smooth and jiggly. I look down.
“PJ. Is this a . . . water balloon?”
“Yes! Would you like to know what’s in it?”
“Water?”
“Oh, no.” PJ rubs his hands with glee. “Well . . . yes, water, but not just water. Remember the jalapeños and hot sauce I grabbed at lunch? Well, I chopped the jalapeños really fine, and I let them soak in some water, ‘infusing’ ”—he makes air quotes—“the liquid, and then I poured a bunch of hot sauce in there too. Then I funneled all of that into one of the water balloons we didn’t use on the cows last night.”
He pokes the balloon in my hand, and it jiggles with dangerous potential. “That is a sphere of liquid hellfire. I double ballooned it, to make sure it wouldn’t pop accidentally, so make sure you really wing it when you throw it.”
He looks at me proudly.
“And you want me to throw this at Mark when he attacks me, I suppose?”
“Precisely,” PJ says. “Aim for the face. It will blind him, and if any gets in his mouth or nose, it will also gag him and possibly even make him throw up. Remember the tenets of ninjutsu: deception, evasion—”
“Yeah, yeah, I remember the tenets,” I say, carefully placing the balloon into the outer pocket of my book bag, so if it accidentally breaks, it won’t get my books wet. I remind myself to throw it away as soon as I find a trash can. “Look, PJ, we just blackmailed a school official. We found out our best friend is addicted to opioids right before he hospitalized three students and fled the law, a crime that we were accomplices to. Also, I didn’t get to eat my egg sandwich this morning. This has been, like, the second-worst day of my life.” It’s the anniversary of the worst day of my life, but I don’t tell PJ that. Instead I toss my hands up. “If Mark still wants to come at me—which, I don’t know, maybe he’s had enough bullshit too—then let him. But either way, I’m not scared. I don’t care.”
“Okay.” PJ shrugs. “I’m staying a little late to help finish decorating the gym, so my mom is going to give me a ride home. I was going to ask if you wanted to ride with me so you don’t have to get on the bus with Mark, but—”
“Well, if you insist,” I say before PJ can finish his sentence. “Of course I would love a ride.” Hey, just ’cause I’m not scared doesn’t mean I’m a glutton for punishment. Maybe I can even go to PJ’s house after school. I mean, Mom will make me come home eventually, but at least it might buy me an hour or two. And if I can keep buying an hour or two for the next twenty years, then maybe this whole notebook thing will blow over!
Mr. Perry walks around the room and puts a chloroform-soaked cotton ball under each of our jars, lifting the edge of the jar up to slide the cotton in with a pair of forceps. When he puts a poison cotton ball into our jar, at first our frog jumps at the glass, trying to get out, but then the fumes start to take effect and it slows down.
Mr. Perry resumes his spot at the front of the classroom, yanking a cord that pulls down a large diagram of frog anatomy over the blackboard. “Okay, let’s give it five minutes, and then we’ll begin dissecting.”
Our frog stumbles around in circles for a couple of minutes.
It’s torture.
I close my eyes and try to think of something else, and I remember the machines hooked up to Melanie, beeping and chirping like little animals.
I open my eyes, and the frog is lying down on its side. It’s breathing weakly, slower and slower. The paper-thin skin of its frail chest rises up and down, slower and slower, until I can’t stand it anymore.
I pick up the jar and carefully scoop the limp frog out from under it. I walk its unconscious body over to the window, cupping it in my hands.
PJ looks up from the dissection instructions. “What are you doing?”
I’m surprised at how emotional my voice sounds and the wave of feeling flowing through me. “I’m giving this frog its freedom,” I choke out. I fan my hand in front of
its face, trying to give it some air.
PJ squints at our notes. “I don’t think that’s part of the experiment. . . .”
“Maybe it is, PJ!” I say, louder than I intended, loud enough that a couple of kids stop taking videos of their frogs with their phones and look over. “Maybe this isn’t a biology experiment. Maybe it’s a psychology experiment. Maybe scientists are watching us right now with hidden cameras, to see how many of us are killers. Well, I’ll tell you what: I’m not. I won’t kill this frog.” And with that I drop the frog out the window.
PJ grimaces. “Ooh, I hope it’s okay.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we’re pretty high up.”
I lean out the window and look down. He’s right. I forgot that the biology room is on the second floor. There are some bushes under the window. Maybe the frog landed in there. I can’t see.
Mr. Perry notices me standing by the window. “Is everything all right over there, Kirby?”
CHAPTER 22
* * *
THE BELL MERCIFULLY RINGS AS I finish writing I will not disrupt the local ecosystem by releasing lab animals into the wild for the five hundredth time. I shake my sore hand, shuffle together the stack of papers I filled, and hand them to Mr. Perry as I join the rest of the class filing out the door.
Mr. Perry frowns at me and shoves my pages into his lab coat pocket. “Next time you feel uncomfortable doing something in class, Kirby, please tell me ahead of time.”
“Yes, sir.”
PJ and I follow the rest of the class out of the classroom, PJ lugging both of his duffel bags like a Sherpa ascending Everest.
“Okay,” PJ says when we’re out in the hall, “since lunch didn’t go as planned, here’s my new idea. Vern had gym class this period, which is right down the hall here. She should be finishing up changing as we speak. I figure we wait in the hall outside the locker rooms, and when she comes out, I read her my poem. When I reach the last stanza, you press play on the boom box and do the thing with the other bag, I do the dance, all that, and then we take a bow. I realize it’s not perfect, but since Jake messed everything up at lunch, I think this is the best I can do on short notice.” He grimaces. “It just drives me crazy. I had this planned out perfectly and then Jake has to mess it all up.”
I can’t believe PJ is still talking about Vern. I stop walking. “Y’know, saying Jake ‘messed everything up’ is a little unfair, like you had nothing to do with the trouble we’re in.”
PJ rolls his eyes.
“This whole fucking disaster started with the cow painting,” I say. “And whose idea was it to use the Kool-Aid, PJ?” I scratch my head. “Hmmm. I can’t seem to remember. . . . Oh, that’s right! It was you. We got in this trouble together, and then Jake saved our asses at lunch. Yeah, he went a little overboard—”
“A little?” PJ laughs.
“Okay, fine, a lot, yeah. But, dude, who dropped their book bag at the farm, huh?” I kick his big dumb duffel bag. “Jake may be crazy, but at least he stood up for us, unlike you. If you hadn’t wussed out and told Mark that it was Jake and me with you, Jake wouldn’t have fought Tommy at lunch. So, actually, PJ, if you wanna blame all this stuff on one person, that person is”—I get really close and poke him in the chest—“you.”
PJ looks at me seriously. “Who said I told on you and Jake?”
Uh-oh.
“I told you that Mark saw us running away,” he continues.
I try to act confused. “Oh . . . right. Sorry. I got mixed up. I thought you said—”
“I said that Mark already knew about you and Jake. I know that’s what I said, because I remember feeling so bad about lying to you.”
Oh man. I am not in the mood for this right now. The day is almost over! I can see the finish line!
“You were in the bathroom, weren’t you?” PJ doesn’t even ask. He just says it sadly. “It was the cheese, wasn’t it?” He sighs. “I thought I smelled your farts.”
The second bell rings.
“Look, man, I’ve gotta go. I’m gonna be late for swim class.”
I round the corner and jog down the little flight of stairs that leads to the hallway. Right as I push through the double doors that open into the hallway, my Spidey sense tingles, but it’s too late. A couple of feet away, blocking the hall, are Rob and Jono, a small crowd of gawking kids behind them. I’m so used to being ambushed by now, I don’t turn to run or crouch into a defensive tuck or anything. Instead I point at Jono’s battered face and say, “I thought they sent you home.”
Jono’s right cheekbone is puffy blue, and his lip is split and swollen. He licks his bloody lip. “The nurse wanted to send me home. But I told her nah, I have to play in the game tonight.” He cracks his knuckles. “It’s a big one.”
The hallway is narrow, orange lockers lining the right-hand side. The semicircle of students behind Jono and Rob gawk like spectators at the Colosseum, waiting for the lions to be let loose. A few have their phones out, ready to record if things get interesting. Their sympathy touches me deeply.
I’m surprised not to see Mark here—not that I’m disappointed. I do see Myka, though, standing at the front of the crowd, right behind Jono, scowling at me so meanly that for a second I’m afraid she might try to fight me too. “Fuck you,” she says. “Your psycho friend almost killed my Tommy!”
“I’m sorry,” I say, and I mean it.
Rob leans against a locker and shakes his head. “You are one popular guy today, huh? Jono has a score to settle with your friend Jake, but Jake bounced. So we figured we could settle up with you instead. Is that cool?”
Jono rubs his hands like he’s about to eat something delicious.
“Sure.” I sigh. “That’s fine. Let’s just get this over with.” I take my glasses off and fold them in my pocket.
I’m done. I almost made it. I was close, but I was stupid to think that I could get out of this. At a certain point you have to accept the inevitable.
Rob nods at Jono, and I close my eyes. The last thing I see is Jono’s ugly black-and-blue face pinched into a painful smile as he strides forward, ready to pound the shit out of me.
I clench my stomach muscles and lower my head, not knowing where the first punch will land but hoping to avoid a direct hit on the jaw or a sucker punch in the gut. But instead of a fist in the face, the first notes of “Eye of the Tiger” blast in my ears, very loudly. My eyes fly open, and I see Jono right in front of me, paused in midpunch. Jono, Rob, Myka, and all the other onlookers are confused, staring in shock at something behind and, somehow, above me.
I turn around and see a giant warthog holding a boom box. It’s PJ, wearing the head of his Iron Pigs mascot costume—tusks spread wide in a terrifying grin—standing on stilts so tall his bristling head brushes the hallway’s drop ceiling. He drops the boom box into my hands as he hoists the two giant duffel bags over his head, unzipped.
“Run!” he screams from inside the warthog head, and then upends the two duffel bags at the same time. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of rainbow-colored Ping-Pong balls tumble out, bouncing all over the hallway. The music is deafening. The balls pop and clatter all around us, and the kids who were expecting a fight break into relieved applause.
“Run!” PJ yells again, pushing me forward. I drop the boom box and stumble past Jono. I bump right into Rob, knocking him over, and I can feel his tiny body crack a little under my feet as I stumble over him and he screams. Jono tries to grab me, but he slips on the Ping-Pong balls covering the ground and goes down onto one knee, his kneecap making a loud crack! as it hits the tile.
“Oh geez, I’m sorry!” I say.
“Ow! Shit!” Jono yells, grabbing his knee.
“Run!” PJ yells again, and I do. I run down the hall toward the lobby, away from the pounding bass beat of “Eye of the Tiger” and from PJ screaming like a stuck pig.
I have a pretty good head start, especially since Rob has tiny legs and Jono has a busted knee. I swerve ar
ound people as I run down the hall, but a couple of seconds later, much sooner than I expected, I hear Rob’s and Jono’s sneakers squeaking on tile as they dodge the same people, chasing me.
It takes me a couple of seconds to notice I’m not really breathing.
Oh shit. I’m having an asthma attack again.
I try to suck in air, but it’s like breathing through a straw. I won’t be able to outrun Rob and Jono like this. If I could make it to the end of the hallway, I could lose them in the chaos of the Thunderdome and there will probably be some teachers there, but I’ll never make it to the Thunderdome.
I’m about to stop and let them catch me when I remember the balloon.
A sphere of liquid hellfire.
The front pocket of my bag is already a little unzipped. I pull the balloon out and, incredibly, it’s unbroken. It jiggles in my hand, a poisonous spider egg. I drop my book bag as I keep running, and a couple of seconds later Rob curses and a pair of palms slap as they hit the floor.
This is my best chance. I spin and hoist the balloon over my head, cocking my arm back to throw it, hoping that when Rob and Jono round the corner they’ll be close together so I can hit them both at the same time—
—but then there’s a pop and a whoosh and suddenly I’m all wet. My head is soaked. Water trickles into my eyes, my nose, my mouth . . .
And the burning begins.
I squeeze my eyes shut, but it’s too late. They’re already doused in flaming gasoline. Veins pulse red across the backs of my eyelids. Water goes up my nose and down the back of my throat, and the taste is nauseating, spicy but also sickly sweet, and I almost throw up.
This Might Hurt a Bit Page 21