“I have one roll left,” Ethan gasped out. He waved it triumphantly.
“Our toilet paper skills may mean—the difference between—life and death!” Julius bent double, clutching his stomach.
“Stop!” Alex moaned. “Laughing makes it hurt worse.”
But none of them could stop. Ethan and Julius staggered to the closest lawn and rolled in the grass. Alex couldn’t roll because of his shoulder, but he flung himself to his knees and beat the ground with his unhurt hand.
Finally they were laughed out. They lay on the damp grass, grinning at one another in the darkness.
“No one came after us,” Alex said. “I think we’re okay. If you can call a dislocated shoulder and a broken arm okay.”
The three of them started laughing again.
“Do you really think it’s broken?” Julius asked.
Alex tried wiggling the fingers of his left hand. They wiggled just fine. “Nah. If it was broken, I wouldn’t be able to move my hand.”
“So the only thing broken is their tree,” Ethan said.
“And we’ve already bandaged it,” Alex quipped.
Once again the boys launched into spasms of giddy laughter. But this time, when the laughter died down, the silence afterward felt different, strained.
“I wish we hadn’t broken it,” Ethan said. His words hung in the darkness.
Alex knew Ethan meant he wished that he, Alex, hadn’t broken it. Alex wished he hadn’t broken it, too. But he hoped the others weren’t going to make a big thing about it.
“Look, this is Colorado. Tree branches break all the time. They break in the snow. They break in the wind. They just break.”
“My dad had a tree guy come after one of our branches broke last May—you know, in that really heavy, wet snow,” Julius said. “It cost three hundred dollars.”
Alex definitely didn’t like the way this conversation was going. Were Ethan and Julius going to suggest that he pay for the broken branch? Pay three hundred dollars? He didn’t have three hundred dollars. And if he did, he wasn’t about to spend it on a tree.
“So what did the tree guy do? Glue the broken branch back on?” Alex jeered.
“Evened it off,” Julius said. “So it looked better.”
“They didn’t see us,” Alex said, his voice cracking with mounting irritation. “Or maybe they saw us, but they couldn’t see it was us. If you guys say anything about this to anybody …”
“We didn’t say we were going to say anything.” Ethan’s voice was flat, depressed.
“Well, don’t. And don’t let it show in your face, either. You know how girls are. They keep at you about something until your face gives you away.”
“Come on,” Julius said, in an evident attempt to change the subject. “I’m tired. Let’s go back.”
Alex glanced at his watch. It was one-thirty. At least the sleepover had gone past midnight. He hoped it had been worth it. If those guys squealed, Alex would have something a lot worse than a bruised shoulder to worry about.
They walked the last two blocks in silence. Alex tried to put the damaged tree out of his thoughts. Probably nobody would even miss the stupid broken branch.
An enormous yawn overtook him. It would be good to go to bed. Maybe when he woke up in the morning, his shoulder wouldn’t hurt as much.
“Hey,” Julius said in a low, startled voice.
Alex looked up. Every window in the downstairs of his house was illuminated. And the silhouetted figure of his father was looming in the front door.
“Where have you been?” his father’s voice boomed out. Apparently his father didn’t care if he woke the whole neighborhood.
Alex knew that Ethan and Julius expected him to answer. He thought fast. It was hard to think of anything better than the truth. Why else would three guys be roaming around at one-thirty in the morning? They obviously weren’t out returning overdue library books. At least Ethan had had the sense to stuff the telltale roll of leftover toilet paper under his shirt.
“We were T.P.ing someone’s tree.” Alex made himself look his father full in the face as he said it. His father hated it if he cringed; he despised cowardice.
“T.P.ing someone’s tree. Oh, that is just brilliant.”
The tone was sneering, but Alex could tell that his father wasn’t really angry; he was just putting on a show for Ethan and Julius. Alex had a feeling that his dad had done his share of hell-raising in his day. He wasn’t an angel, either.
“May I ask whose tree?”
“A girl at school.”
“A sweetheart!” His dad’s voice dripped with sarcasm.
Alex felt himself flushing. The T.P.ing hadn’t been meant as a love letter but as an apology. Not that Alex could explain that to his dad.
“And who is the lucky lady?” his dad went on. Should he tell? Should he lie? If he told, his dad might see the broken branch when he drove by, and then what? Of course, he didn’t even have to tell: his dad could hardly miss the tree when he passed Marcia’s house on the way to his Sunday morning golf game.
“Just a girl,” Alex said.
“A mystery!”
His father was plainly enjoying himself. But Alex felt ready for bed. He stole a glance at Ethan and Julius. They looked dead on their feet, too, and they hadn’t even survived a twenty-foot fall.
“I hope her parents are good sports,” Alex’s father said, sounding finally ready to wind down and let them in the house. Then something—the guilty look plastered all over Ethan’s and Julius’s faces?—made him turn toward Alex sharply. “Did they see you? Are they going to march over here tomorrow morning and read me the riot act?”
Alex felt his own face radiating guilt now. He was too tired to hide it. It was torture to be kept awake when you ached all over to sink into deep, blissful sleep.
“There’s something you’re not telling me. What is it?”
Alex gave up. “Well, one branch of the tree kind of broke.”
“‘Kind of’ broke? Did it break, or didn’t it?”
“It broke.”
“Great. You can’t even throw toilet paper at some girl’s tree without provoking a lawsuit. And how could you break a tree branch by throwing toilet paper at it?”
“I climbed up to do it, and the branch broke, and I fell.”
“Brilliant,” his dad said again. “My son, the genius.”
Alex noticed that his dad wasn’t asking whether he had been hurt in the fall. Too bad Ethan and Julius hadn’t come back to wake his dad up at two in the morning and say, “Oh, Mr. Ryan, we have some terrible news. Your only son is dead.” But probably his father would just have said, “Brilliant. My son can’t even T.P. a tree without killing himself.”
“It was our fault, too,” Julius said.
“We’ll go tell Marcia’s parents in the morning,” Ethan offered. “We can all chip in to pay the three hundred dollars for the tree guy.”
Alex cringed. Leave it to Ethan to blab out Marcia’s name the first time he opened his mouth. And even though Alex half welcomed their support, he half resented it, too. It hadn’t been their fault at all. The T.P.ing had been his idea entirely.
“Wait a minute.” Alex’s father raised his voice again. “Don’t you go squawking your heads off. Let me handle this. We could be looking at major litigation here. People go where the money is. Believe me. They sniff out and find the deep pockets. Three hundred dollars is nothing compared to what they’ll be asking. You boys have done enough damage already. Let me take care of it from here.”
“Yes, sir,” Ethan and Julius said together. Alex’s dad was the kind other kids called “sir.”
“Okay. Go up to bed now.”
Alex’s mother was waiting for them in the hall, her eyes still sleepy, though her forehead was creased with worry. “Do you boys want anything before you go upstairs?” she asked gently. “Hot chocolate? I don’t mind fixing you some.”
“No, thanks,” Alex said, sure he was speaking for the other
s, as well. Hot chocolate wasn’t going to get them out of the mess they were in.
Feeling oddly close to tears, Alex led the way upstairs. Without another word, the boys lay down in their clothes, teeth unbrushed, Alex on his bed, Julius and Ethan in their sleeping bags on the floor.
Exhausted as he was, Alex couldn’t fall asleep right away. He could tell from their tense, shallow breathing that Ethan and Julius were still awake, too. He had a feeling that Ethan’s and Julius’s dads would have handled things differently, made them go to Marcia’s parents and apologize, made them pay what they owed. He thought his dad’s way might be better. Certainly, apologies of any kind hadn’t worked out well for him lately.
But there had been something in the look on Ethan’s face as he mumbled his promise of silence that made Alex almost wish his father had reacted differently. He knew his dad’s idea of “handling” things was to say nothing and hope Marcia’s parents never found out. His dad always thought first and foremost like a lawyer. Just once, Alex wished he would think like—a dad.
6
MARCIA’S PARENTS DIDN’T SHOW UP at Alex’s house Sunday morning. The boys slept till about ten, when Alex’s mom made them blueberry pancakes and sausages for breakfast. She didn’t say anything about the tree incident. She must have figured that a middle-of-the-night encounter with Alex’s dad was punishment enough. Alex’s shoulder was still sore, but it was obvious that it was going to be okay. Maybe the whole thing was going to be okay.
“See you tomorrow,” Ethan said as he and Julius got on their bikes to pedal home.
“Adiós, amigo,” Julius added.
Should Alex remind them not to tell anyone about the tree? He decided against it. He just gave a wave and let them ride off into the midday sun. He had a feeling they were going to talk about it the moment they were out of his hearing.
Riding to school on Monday morning with his mother and Dave, Alex was quieter than usual in the car, letting Dave do most of the talking.
“Underwear Week continues!” Dave proclaimed.
“Underwear Week? I didn’t see this listed anywhere on the school calendar.” Alex’s mother sounded amused rather than annoyed.
Alex couldn’t muster up Dave’s enthusiasm. “I don’t know. Maybe Underwear Day was enough?” He tried to put a positive spin on it. “One glorious day, to live forever in infamy!”
“So what’s the next plan? We can’t stop now, man. We’re hot!”
But Alex couldn’t think of anything right then. He felt drained, blocked. As if he had that writer’s block that people talked about. Comedian’s block, that was what he had. “I’ll think about it,” he said lamely.
Sure enough, after first period, on the way to English, Marcia stopped him in the hallway. “It was you,” she said, standing directly in front of him to block his path. Her blue eyes were sparkling once again with teasing laughter. He could tell that, as he had predicted, she was pleased both that he had papered her tree and that she had found him out.
Except, thanks to her broken tree limb and his father’s warning, he couldn’t let her know that she had found him out.
He had to act dumb. “Huh?”
“Don’t play innocent with me.” She poked him playfully in the chest. “Did you or did you not toilet-paper my tree on Saturday night?”
If only he could play along, let her believe the answer that she wanted to believe, the answer that also happened to be true. But he couldn’t. His father would kill him if he did. His dad was the reason he had gotten in trouble with Marcia in the first place; now his dad was the reason he couldn’t get out of it.
“Get real,” he said, forcing his voice to sound hard and cold. “Like I would waste perfectly good toilet paper on your tree? Used toilet paper, maybe. But nice new toilet paper fresh off the roll? Dream on.”
As if it were a replay of their doomed conversation at the outdoor ed meeting, the friendly, flirting smile died from Marcia’s face. “I hate you, Alex Ryan.” She sounded as if she meant it.
Alex shrugged. The bell rang. Marcia spun on her heel and headed off to English. Since they were in the same class, Alex had no choice but to tag along behind her.
Ms. Singpurwalla called the class to attention. “Today we’re going to take a little break from poetry.”
“Yay!” someone at the back of the room hollered. Ms. Singpurwalla’s pretty face betrayed a hint of disappointment. She worked so hard to get her students to love poetry the way she did. But Alex, remembering how she had censored his finest attempt at an ode to underwear, refused to give in to pity.
“You’ll be keeping nature journals at outdoor ed next week. So I want us to read some outstanding examples of famous nature journals and talk about what makes them so successful.” She began passing out thick packets of photocopied journal entries.
Still feeling miserable, Alex looked down at the first entry. It was from Walden by Henry David Thoreau. That was mildly interesting, since Dax had mentioned it to him just two days ago. But when he started to read, he found himself tuning out. Was nothing in his life going to go right ever again? Thoreau got to live in a cabin in the woods, surrounded by nature. Alex had to go to school with a girl who now hated him. The only nature in his life was the tree limb he had broken and various piles of dog doo he had stepped in.
He found the last thought oddly cheering. He’d make his own journal, on animal droppings. Animal Droppings I Have Stepped In. He chuckled to himself. Maybe he didn’t have comedian’s block, after all.
By Thursday, Alex hadn’t heard anything more about Marcia’s tree, and his shoulder felt completely fine. Marcia still wasn’t speaking to him. Even more humiliating than a crack about your camouflaged zit, apparently, was finding out that the boy you thought had a crush on you hadn’t been the one who had toilet-papered your tree.
In family living that day, Alex perked up when he saw the movie screen pulled down behind Ms. Van Winkle’s desk. Maybe they would see a gory film about first aid being administered to the victims of some horrific accident. Alex remembered, years ago, making Mr. Bear play the victim role in various natural and man-made disasters staged in his backyard. Mr. Bear was probably relieved to have been promoted from accident victim to comfort object. But then he’d been demoted to source of undying public humiliation.
“Don’t get excited, she’s just going to be using the overhead projector,” Julius told Alex as Alex sat down at their table.
Marcia was chatting with Lizzie and Alison as if the boys weren’t there. Alex remembered when smart, brainy, poetic Lizzie had been the class outcast. Now she was one of the popular girls. Marcia deserved some of the credit for that. If anyone knew how to turn someone into a popular girl, it was Marcia.
That day Marcia had her hair fixed in some new way, with a little clip thing holding it back from her face. Alex thought it looked pretty cute. Now she was trying out one of her clips on Lizzie’s wild red curls. After Marcia was done with her, Lizzie looked cute, too.
“All right, class,” Ms. Van Winkle said once the bell had sounded and Marcia had whisked her hair clips away. “Today we’re going to be learning first aid for bites and stings.”
A couple of weeks ago, Alex would have buzzed like a bee and given Marcia’s arm a hard little “beesting” pinch, but today he refrained. He couldn’t resist buzzing, but he kept his hands to himself. A low, droning hum joined in from some of the other tables. The classroom sounded like a meadow of clover in bloom, with a nectar-gathering bee perched on every blossom.
“It isn’t so funny,” Ms. Van Winkle said sharply, “when someone has an allergic reaction to a beesting and goes into anaphylactic shock. Do any of you know if you are allergic to beestings or insect bites?”
One boy raised his hand. Alex was impressed as Ms. Van Winkle gave the symptoms of allergic reaction to beestings: severe swelling of the eyes, lips, and tongue; severe itching; bluish tinge to the skin; dizziness; collapse. Listening to the list, Alex began to feel as if he had
each symptom in turn. He thought about collapsing onto the floor, but decided against it.
“In cases of anaphylactic shock, you’ll need to summon immediate medical attention,” Ms. Van Winkle said. “For ordinary beestings, ice can help reduce swelling. But first check to see if the stinger is still in the skin. If it is, you’ll need to try to remove it right away; scraping it off with a credit card or library card works well. Don’t use tweezers. Tweezers just squeeze more venom into the wound.”
Alex noticed that Lizzie was unusually pale. Maybe she would actually collapse onto the floor. That would make class considerably more interesting, but Alex liked Lizzie; he didn’t want her to hurt her head, or anything. To distract her attention from Ms. Van Winkle’s gruesome comments, he pretended to be yanking an enormous stinger out of his own arm.
“Ow! Ooh! Ouch!” he moaned, as if engaged in a fierce tug-of-war with the imaginary stinger. “There! I got it!” He recoiled backward and almost knocked over his chair.
“Alex,” Ms. Van Winkle said, in her low, warning voice.
He checked Lizzie: she wasn’t laughing, but the normal color had returned to her face.
“Next, we need to talk about poisonous spider bites,” Ms. Van Winkle went on. “There are three main kinds of spider found in the United States that are poisonous to humans.” She clicked on the overhead projector, and a huge, shiny spider appeared on the screen. “This is a black widow spider,” she said.
Marcia gave a dainty squeal.
“Hi, Charlotte,” Alex said. “How’s Wilbur?”
“Charlotte wasn’t a poisonous spider,” Lizzie corrected.
Ms. Van Winkle showed pictures of the brown recluse spider and of the tarantula. None of them looked like something you’d want to encounter in a woodpile, or under the seat in an outhouse.
“I heard we’ll be using outhouses at outdoor ed,” Alex said. He couldn’t help himself, even if it upset Lizzie. He had to do something to pass the time when he was sitting next to somebody who once had liked him, but now hated his guts. “I sure hope there aren’t going to be any black widows crawling around in there. It would be pretty awful to get seated, all nice and comfortable, and then—”
Alex Ryan, Stop That! Page 4