“Oh,” Mr. Felton deadpanned. “Because if it was, my present to you was going to be to excuse your tardiness. As it is, though …”
Felton took a black pen to his attendance book and, with an enthusiastic check, marked Elijah as tardy.
“So it goes,” Elijah said, taking his seat.
He had read those words in a novel once, and he loved what they implied: Life was unfair. It came at you without a care. Things just happened and you couldn’t do a darn thing about them. So it goes.
And so the day went. Elijah’s first class was studio art, and as this was one of the few classes he still valued, he showed up on time.
Elijah was a writer at heart, a wielder of a pen. But he was also no slouch with a paintbrush. He often harbored dreams of painting covers to the books he would write. He already had a couple of titles picked out—The Shadow of Dark and The Slow Death of Night. The covers promised to require a lot of black paint.
His hope was to become a combination of all his favorite writers and artists, a creative superstar. He would sing in a gravelly voice like Tom Waits. He would challenge the system like Camus. He would attack canvasses like de Kooning. He had never actually seen a painting by de Kooning, but his art teacher, Mr. Lowe, had told him once that Elijah’s own style was “vaguely reminiscent.” So yes, he liked studio art.
After studio art came earth science. Earth science was a waste of his time. Earthquakes and volcanoes, ozone and oceans—who cared? Elijah figured that the way things were going in the world, we were going to blow it all up anyway. Why worry about how old the rocks are? The teacher, Mrs. Ruez, was nice enough, but Elijah sure wasn’t going to start giving her the courtesy of showing up on time.
Ambling into class ten minutes late, he was greeted with Mrs. Ruez’s disappointed frown.
“Elijah, Elijah, Elijah.” She sighed. “We’re all going to have to pitch in and get you a watch.”
Elijah simply shrugged and dragged his feet toward an open seat in the back. Before he could sit, Mrs. Ruez spoke up.
“Not so fast, my friend. You’ll be spending the morning at Mr. Snodgrass’s office.”
Elijah stopped and glared at her. “For being late?”
“Not this time,” Mrs. Ruez said, a bit of sympathy leaking out of her voice. “He just called and wants to see you.”
“Whatever,” Elijah replied, turning around and dragging his feet back to the door. “Have fun learning about dirt, everyone.”
In the hall, Elijah started to sweat. Rebels aren’t supposed to sweat, he thought. But he couldn’t help it. He was sure that someone had already discovered his initials spray-painted on the concrete behind the backstop. Snodgrass had been informed. The punishment would be swift and harsh.
Elijah had never really been punished. His rebellions were too small and adults were generally too supportive. Much to his disappointment, his parents loved his new look, his new attitude.
“It’s good to show a little gusto,” his father said to him once. “Did I ever tell you I went to see the Ramones? At a place in New York called CBGB. It was a—”
“I know what CBGB was,” Elijah mumbled.
“Of course you do,” his dad said with a smile. “You’re a hip kid, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Dad.” Elijah sighed. “Very … hip.”
When Elijah tried to rile teachers by wearing a Sex Pistols or a Buck Fush T-shirt, there was always more than one who gave him a thumbs-up. In a world of gold stars, it was hard work being controversial.
Graffiti was still controversial, though. And while it was exciting to tag a bit of concrete with his initials, he was starting to realize what rebellion really felt like. It felt like fear. Elijah wondered if Mahatma Gandhi had ever been scared when he was on a hunger strike, if Che Guevara had ever sweated when he gave a speech on social reform. When they’d been thirteen, they’d probably felt the way he did. They must have, he convinced himself.
Somehow, the halls of Ho-Ho-Kus Junior High felt different on the morning of April 12. Elijah couldn’t place it, but the faux-marble floors and drab green lockers felt more sterile than usual. A big sign over the door to the cafeteria asked:
READY FOR YOUR IDAHO TESTS?
Something about the font on the sign didn’t sit right with Elijah. If he’d had to characterize it, he would probably have said it was a fascist font. He wasn’t exactly sure what a fascist was, but he knew it had something to do with Nazis. It was a Nazi sign, then. A Nazi font.
This would be Elijah’s fourth year of taking the Idaho Tests. Each year, it became increasingly stressful. And as teachers constantly reminded the eighth graders, the previous years were little more than practice. The eighth-grade tests were the ones that mattered.
There was little doubt that Elijah would do well on the English section. He’d probably do all right on the rest of the sections too. His grades hadn’t really slipped of late.
It was the actual taking of the tests that bothered him. They would all have to sit in the gymnasium, desk upon desk, and over the course of a day, they’d have to fill in bubble after bubble on Scantron sheets. Number-two pencils. A, B, C, or D? The purpose of the tests was to quantify everyone, to assign percentage points, to define kids with numbers.
It was enough to make him want to stand up and scream out something offensive—a howl of frustration or even a swearword. If he were allowed to skip them, he would. But they were mandatory, and as wonderful as it would have been to thumb his nose at the administration and sabotage the whole affair, he just didn’t have it in him. After all, a silly sign made his heart race. How could he do something so revolutionary?
He pulled his eyes away from the sign and again took to the sterile halls. As he continued to wipe the sweat off his face, he told himself over and over, This is the price of greatness—the heavy, heavy price.
When he finally arrived at Snodgrass’s office, he took a deep breath and held it, as if he were plunging into the cold ocean. He opened the door.
Three boys sat in chairs in front of Snodgrass’s desk: Denton Kensington, Wendell Scoop, and Eddie Green. It was an odd collection. Perhaps they were the informants.
Elijah slowly released his breath and looked at each of them with practiced disdain. As he sat down, he wondered if they were all sizing him up. Let them, he thought. Whatever they were there for, it didn’t matter to him. I am, he told himself, a man who stands alone.
Chapter 5
BIJAY
As Bijay Bharata stepped off the school bus, he gazed longingly at the sign posted in front of Ho-Ho-Kus Junior High.
Mackers arrives April 15th!
Just looking at it made him salivate. He loved Mackers. In his mind, Mackers was the best food in the world.
So what if his grandparents owned Taste of Delhi, the highest-rated Indian restaurant in northern New Jersey. Lamb vindaloo and chicken tikka masala were all well and good, but they had nothing on a Mackers Double Double Triple. Two beef patties, two slices of cheese, three strips of bacon, and the perfect mix of pickles, onions, and secret sauce. He could drink that secret sauce, he adored it so much.
Bijay checked his watch to be sure. Only April 12—it was still three days away. The waiting was unbearable. True, there was a Mackers on nearly every corner in town, but having one at school was different. At home, Bijay was expected to eat traditional Indian fare, which he gobbled up with few complaints. But Mackers was strictly forbidden.
“That’s not food,” his grandmother would lament. “It’s advertising.”
Which was to say nothing of the fact that his grandparents were Hindu. While they let Bijay believe whatever he wished, they were never going to allow any beef in their home.
School was not home. All Bijay needed was five dollars in his pocket and he could have a daily fix. For pitching in at Taste of Delhi, he was given an allowance of twenty-five dollars a week. Things would work out. Three more days.
It was hard for Bijay to deny: he was round. Not just his be
lly, his entire body. He was shaped like a ball, unending curved edges. His face was round, and so were his hands and his feet. His nose was like a strawberry set below his eyes, which people always told him looked like the sparkling orbs of a cartoon character. This didn’t bother him. He liked cartoons.
When he walked through the school’s halls in the mornings, he smiled and said hello to nearly everyone. And nearly everyone said hello back.
But just two days ago, Sally Dibbs said something other than hello. She whispered, “They laugh at you, you know?”
She had a kind way about her, a tilting head and an airy voice. She dressed in flowing fabrics, as if she believed in fairy tales. But Bijay didn’t understand why she insisted on commenting on every situation.
“Who laughs at me?” Bijay asked.
“Everyone,” she said. “Because you’re …”
“Husky?” Bijay said.
“Yes,” she said, turning away. “And because you’re … happy. They say hello because they feel sorry for you. Then they laugh because they can’t believe you act like that.”
“Maybe they’re laughing at a joke they heard earlier,” Bijay said. “Sometimes I’ll watch a funny movie and laugh about it for days.”
“Maybe they are, Bijay,” she said with a curt nod. “You might be right … but I thought I’d tell you anyway. They laugh at me too, you know.”
“Thanks, Sally,” Bijay said. “Better not to worry about those things, right?”
As Bijay walked through the halls this morning, he didn’t worry about what Sally had said. He smiled at people. He waved. He said hello. People returned the favor. And it felt good. Almost as good as food, movies, and theater, his other true loves. Greetings to Bijay were more than just formalities. They were an important part of a culture. They connected you to a place.
Bijay’s soaring spirits dipped just a little when he entered his first class of the day—math. He did fine in math, but it didn’t interest him much. There was always a solution, a correct path. It didn’t lend itself to imagination and improvisation. If he were to choose, every class of the day would be theater. But at Ho-Ho-Kus Junior High, theater classes were considered an extracurricular activity.
He had to wait until after school to indulge his dramatic ambitions. For the theater club, his latest role was that of the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz. Rather than simply copying the movie performance, Bijay was trying something different. He was giving the character an Indian twist, an accent and a Hindu mentality. The head of the theater club, Mr. Gainsbourg, had loved the idea and told Bijay to go for it.
Bijay drew on Bollywood for inspiration.
It was the movie industry of India, his parents’ homeland, and while it might be meaningless to the rest of his peers, to Bijay it was a vital source of art. The movies of Bollywood were more plentiful and more joyous than those found in America. They were optimistic fantasies, where singing, dancing, and drama combined in a whirlwind of color. They were not unlike The Wizard of Oz.
So in the back of math class, Bijay hummed to himself and thought of how Bollywood legend Suraiya might sing “King of the Forest.”
“Hey, Apu,” came a voice from behind him.
Bijay turned around and received a pencil flick to the forehead from the one and only Tyler Kelly.
“Youch.” Bijay rubbed his forehead and responded a bit too cheerily, “How’s it going, Tyler?”
“Quit the hummin’, Apu,” Tyler said. “I’m trying to have myself a nice, peaceful nap.”
“Okay, Tyler. I’m sorry.”
Mrs. McAllister turned from the blackboard. “Tyler? Bijay? My guess is you’re not discussing fractions.”
“Ummm …” Tyler stalled.
“Tyler was … just helping me,” Bijay said, saving the day. “This is difficult stuff, and he was just … explaining. He’s quite good at math.”
“Tyler is?” Mrs. McAllister asked with more than a hint of doubt in her voice.
“Of course,” Bijay responded.
“Of course,” Tyler seconded with a smile.
Shaking her head, Mrs. McAllister turned back to the board. “Let me handle the teaching, okay, fellas?” she said. “Eyes on the board.”
As Mrs. McAllister chalked up the board with fractions, Tyler leaned over to whisper in Bijay’s ear.
“Apu,” he said faintly.
“Yes?”
“Don’t expect me to thank you.” And Tyler flicked him on the back of the head with his pencil, but lighter this time.
“You’re welcome,” Bijay whispered back.
Later that morning in English class, they were discussing A Separate Peace. It was a sad book, and everyone was analyzing the ending and describing how it made them feel. Some of the girls were getting tearful just thinking about it.
Bijay had read it, and appreciated it, but it didn’t upset him at all. Maybe it was because he had lost things in life. When he was barely five years old, he had lost his parents.
Lost, that was the term teachers and counselors used, as if he’d misplaced them. He knew precisely where they were. Their ashes had been scattered in the Ganges River.
His grandparents, now his sole guardians, were a stern and traditional pair. Not unloving, but not outward in their affections. They would often remind Bijay to honor the memory of his parents. Bijay’s main memory of his parents was of pleasant, soothing voices, but not much else. If he had lost anything, that was it—memories.
“Finny left Gene with many memories,” Bijay offered as a counterpoint to all the doom and gloom in English class. “And to know at a young age what loss truly is, well, that’s a great gift. It prepares you for life. In that way, it’s a happy ending.”
“Well put, Bijay,” Mrs. Reed said with a respectful nod.
The class sat in silence, considering his comment. Then Bijay raised his hand. Mrs. Reed cocked her chin, acknowledging him.
“I find the ending of How to Eat Fried Worms much sadder,” he added.
“You do?” Mrs. Reed responded.
“Oh yes, oh yes,” Bijay went on, without sarcasm. “There are so many better ways to cook worms. So many better sauces you could use. It was a culinary nightmare.”
The whole class erupted in laughter. Even Mrs. Reed chuckled a bit.
“I never thought of it that way,” she said.
Bijay smiled and nodded with satisfaction. Then he raised his hand again.
“Go ahead, Bijay.” Mrs. Reed smiled. “You’re on a roll.”
“Just the bathroom.” Bijay smiled back.
With a bathroom pass in hand, Bijay wove his way through the halls of Ho-Ho-Kus Junior High. A sign confronted him as he entered the bathroom:
Mackers makes lunch fun!
He shielded his eyes, trying to block temptation out of his mind. In the bathroom, he went about his business, humming to himself. On his way out, he put his hand back over his eyes and navigated through the sliver of images between his fingers. His grandmother had been partly right about Mackers—advertising was a big part of it. There was more to it than that, though. Even without the signs, it was hard to escape the memory of a Mackers meal. The memory was usually even better than the food itself.
His fingers still over his eyes, Bijay turned the corner in the hall and ran into something, or rather, someone.
“I’m sorry,” he said, pulling his hand away.
Before him stood Vice Principal Snodgrass. A tall man with thinning hair and bulbous eyes, Snodgrass placed his hand upon Bijay’s shoulder, revealing long, spidery fingers.
“Bijay Bharata,” he said softly, almost apologetically. “Our resident thespian and film buff. Just the man I wanted to see.”
“Oh …” Bijay started to blush. “Well … here—here I am.”
“Yes, you are.”
Bijay could feel Snodgrass’s hand turning his shoulder and guiding him in the opposite direction of Mrs. Reed’s classroom.
“I’m on my way back to English class
.” Bijay held his bathroom pass up as evidence.
“Not at the moment,” Snodgrass said. “Let’s just take a detour to my office. I’ve already made a call down to Mrs. Reed. Didn’t want her to worry.”
“Okay,” Bijay said warily. “Have I won a prize or something?”
“A prize … that’s very good.” Snodgrass grinned, showing his large teeth. They were all perfectly straight, except for his right upper incisor, which was angled menacingly outward. “Just come along with me. I think you know what this is regarding.”
Bijay had no idea what it was regarding, but he followed Snodgrass just the same. They snaked through the halls at a consistent but strangely plodding pace. If Snodgrass was trying to make Bijay more tense, it wasn’t working. He smiled the whole way, admiring the various decorations in the hall, only averting his eyes when a hint of a Mackers poster came into view.
When they finally reached his office, Snodgrass opened the door and ushered Bijay in. Four heads swung around from four chairs. Denton Kensington. Wendell Scoop. Eddie Green. And Elijah Rosen. Plopping down in the one empty chair, Bijay gave them all a friendly wave.
“Hello, fellas!”
Fear ran through each boy’s face as they looked past him and up at a sneering Snodgrass, who was closing the door behind him and smoothly turning the lock.
“The Unusual Suspects,” he said. “Together again.”
Together again? What does he mean? Bijay thought. He hardly knew any of these guys.
Snodgrass circled around to his desk. He loomed over it for a few seconds, then he bent down behind it. He emerged a moment later holding a duffel bag, which he carefully unzipped and turned over.
A pile of cash came tumbling onto the desk. Five-, ten-, twenty-, even fifty-dollar bills. Hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars, more than Bijay had ever seen at one time. It was like a bed of lettuce, a heap of pickles.
“And you thought you’d get away with it, didn’t you,” Snodgrass said, looking them all over. “Well, you’re not that smart.”
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