by Jeff Strand
“I do. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to dissect one.”
I move my notebook. The dead rat is on its back in a tray. If you read the warning at the beginning of this chapter and assumed I was talking about snot or something, you have my permission to skip to the next chapter. We are, indeed, going to cut this rat open. It’s for science.
“Awesome,” Blake says with way too much enthusiasm. “Can we get started, or are there instructions?”
“There are instructions,” says Audrey.
Blake looks disappointed.
Next to the tray is a piece of paper with a drawing of a rat showing where to make the incisions and written step-by-step instructions about how to cut up the rat and what we’re supposed to learn while we’re doing it. We have a tiny pair of scissors, which we will use to make an incision in the abdominal wall.
“What should we name it?” asks Blake.
“Nothing,” I say.
“How about Reginald the Rat? Ronald the Rat? Roberto the Rat? It doesn’t matter to me as long as it starts with an R.”
“We don’t name specimens before we dissect them,” says Audrey. “That’s cruel.”
“Why is it cruel?”
“Because then you think about how the rat used to be alive.”
“Not me,” says Blake. “When I think of Roberto the Rat, I think of a cartoon character.”
“I thought you hated cartoons,” I say.
“I do. That’s why it doesn’t bug me to dissect Roberto the Rat.”
I pick up the scissors. “I’ll be making the incision.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ll cackle while you do it.”
“I will not cackle,” he insists.
“Fine. You’ll giggle.”
“I can’t believe that we have the same grandparents and yet you think I’d cackle and giggle while I slice up a rat.”
“I can’t believe we’re related either, but here we are.”
“Is everything all right?” asks Mr. Gy from across the room.
“Yes, sir,” I say. “Just working out our plan of attack.”
“Follow the instructions on the paper.”
“We will.”
I touch the scissors to Roberto’s tummy, and then I [description deleted]. After that, I [worse description deleted], making sure not to damage the underlying structures. Then I open the flaps.
“Now it says to rinse out the body cavity,” says Blake. “Can I give him the shower?”
I shake my head. “You’re an observer for today.”
The three of us being lab partners today is actually working out really well. Blake is no longer the charming guy who offers constructive criticism on a musical performance. He’s the creepy guy who wants to leer at rat guts. Audrey is finally seeing the true Blake.
Audrey picks up the tray. “I’ll rinse it out,” she says, walking over to the sink.
“You’re a lucky man,” says Blake. “I don’t know many girls who would volunteer to rinse out a dead rat’s body cavity.”
“We’re in biology class.”
“Still…”
Moments later Audrey returns with the freshly rinsed rat. Now our task is to look at various organs and glands and correctly identify them. Some are easy. (Everybody knows what lungs look like.) And some are difficult. (Do you know where the thymus gland is?) When we think we’ve got it right, we’re supposed to alert Mr. Gy, who will observe as we point to and name each blob of rat gunk.
He walks over, and Audrey and I trade off identifying the parts in the first layer. “Excellent,” says Mr. Gy. “Now remove the peritoneum.”
“What’s the peritoneum?” Blake asks.
I look down at the sheet. “A membrane.”
“Nice.”
You don’t want to read about me removing a membrane (or do you?) (weirdo), especially because I don’t get it completely right the first time. But soon we have a whole new layer of organs for our identifying pleasure. These are grosser than the ones on top. No matter what the creature, a stomach isn’t an organ you want to look at for very long.
We identify them among ourselves, and then call Mr. Gy over. We don’t get them all right (curse you, esophagus!), but we do well enough that the rat’s feelings wouldn’t be hurt.
“Good job,” says Mr. Gy. “There’s going to be a quiz, so keep practicing until all three of you are comfortable identifying everything.”
Mr. Gy walks over to watch the kids who are dissecting an alligator. (I’m kidding. It’s a frog. Just making sure you’re paying attention.)
“Do you know all the parts?” I ask Blake.
He nods. “The caudate lobe is my favorite.”
“Of course it is.”
“I hope this rat doesn’t come back to life and seek vengeance,” he adds.
With anybody else, I’d be thrilled to chat about zombie rats, but I don’t want to squander that subject on Blake. I ignore his comment and focus my attention on the guts.
“Do you need the tools anymore?” Audrey asks. “If you don’t, I’ll wash them off.”
“I wouldn’t mind poking around in there a little more,” says Blake.
“I’ll wash them off now,” says Audrey.
Even if my girlfriend doesn’t know that Blake is pure evil, she now knows that he’s uncool.
Audrey goes over to the sink. Her back is to us, which means that she doesn’t see Blake poke his gloved index finger into the rat.
“Knock it off,” I whisper.
“What’s the matter?” he whispers back. “Worried about maintaining an antiseptic environment for our patient? I don’t think Roberto has to worry about infection.”
I don’t answer him. I shouldn’t have to explain why it’s not okay to stick your finger into a dissected rat.
Blake glances around the classroom. Nobody is paying attention.
He reaches into the rat and scoops up some…uh, contents.
Please don’t eat it, I think. Please, please, please don’t eat it.
He doesn’t eat it. Even Blake has higher standards than that.
He holds up his hand and looks into my eyes.
If he throws that at me, he’ll regret it until his dying day, which will be today. If he throws it at me, I’ll make sure that he’s expelled and that Aunt Mary and Uncle Clark have to cut their stupid cruise short to come get him. There is no decision he can make in life that’s worse than throwing rat innards at me.
He doesn’t throw it at me.
He throws them at himself.
Roberto’s insides strike Blake directly in the forehead. He recoils and cries out in disgust. “Ew! Rod, dude!”
Everybody in the class turns to look.
Blake frantically wipes his face with the back of his hand. “Ew, ew, ew! What’s the matter with you?”
“Are you out of your mind?” asks Mr. Gy, striding toward me with the look of a teacher who assumed that he could trust us to do dissections without starting a food fight.
“I didn’t do it!” I insist. “He did it to himself!”
“I get that you’re cousins and used to horsing around with each other, but this is completely unacceptable. Get him a wet towel!”
“He threw it in his own face!” I say.
I look over at Audrey, who is staring at me with her mouth wide open.
“I said to get him a wet towel,” Mr. Gy tells me. I’ve never seen a teacher look so angry.
“So gross…so gross,” says Blake. “It got on the floor too. I’ll get the towel.”
He steps forward, pretends to slip on something slimy, and falls to the floor as everybody in the biology lab gasps. I’ll give him credit for being committed to the role. That fall looks like it hurt.
I’ve never been afraid of a challenge, but trying to
convince everybody that Blake threw the rat guts in his own face is not going to be easy. Blake definitely wins this round.
14.
Recap for those who skipped chapter thirteen due to the grossness factor: Our hero, Rod, was in biology class, where he was lab partners with his amazing girlfriend, Audrey, and his rotten cousin, Blake. After successfully dissecting a rat and identifying its parts, Audrey stepped away from the table, at which point Blake threw some rat bits into his own face, but he pretended that Rod did it! That’s right. He framed Rod! What’s up with that?
Official apology for those who skipped chapter thirteen due to the grossness factor and then still had to read about rat guts in the recap: Sorry.
Blake and I sit in Principal Gordon’s office. Principal Gordon is a medium-sized man with a small head and large arms. He’s a friendly guy when he’s addressing the school at assemblies or when you pass him in the hallway, but he doesn’t like troublemakers. I know students who’ve found themselves in my current position, and they’ve spun tales of a man who made them feel like he would devote every waking moment for the rest of his long, long life to making them pay for their transgressions. They’d be forty years old with a spouse, children, a beautiful home, a lucrative and personally satisfying job, and think to themselves, Yep, everything sure worked out. Moments later Principal Gordon would step out from behind a tree and reveal that this was all part of his elaborate plan for vengeance. The spouse, the kids, the home, the job—all of them had been set up by Principal Gordon, and he was taking them away, leaving the misbehaving student alone, homeless, jobless, and weeping softly as storm clouds formed in the dark sky.
This always seemed far-fetched. Still, it successfully conveyed the message that it was better not to find yourself in the principal’s office.
“Mr. Conklin,” he says with the frown of a person who could destroy a student’s future. “I haven’t seen you in my office before.”
“No, sir,” I say. My school record is flawless. I save the antics for the stage.
“Let me make sure I understand what happened. You were in lab, learning about the interior of a rodent, and you flung viscera into Mr. Montgomery’s face?”
I shake my head. “He threw it into his own face.”
“Why would he throw it into his own face?”
“To make you think I threw it into his face.”
Principal Gordon turns to Blake. “Mr. Montgomery, is that true?”
“No, sir.”
Principal Gordon turns back to me. “He says he didn’t do it.”
“He’s lying.”
“Calling somebody a liar is a strong accusation, Mr. Conklin. You have to understand that when I’m reviewing two very different accounts of what happened, I’m more inclined to believe the one where a student didn’t throw rat guts in his own face.”
“I understand,” I say. “But that’s what happened.”
“Why would he do that? You couldn’t pay me enough to do that to myself. Mr. Montgomery, did you enjoy what happened?”
“No, sir,” says Blake. “The experience will haunt me.”
“I have to go with the story that sounds the most credible. I’ve had some strange, strange kids in my office over the years. I once had a kid who ate an entire tub of paste. Obviously, this was when I was an elementary school principal; students tend to grow out of the paste-eating phase by the time they’re teenagers. But he ate an entire tub. I don’t mean a small tub either. We had to call an ambulance. You’d think there’d be a point when he’d say to himself, ‘Okay, I’ve eaten enough paste for one sitting.’ But no. He gorged himself. And it was not easy for the doctors to get all that paste out of him. And that kid still doesn’t compare to somebody smearing a dissected rat in his own face.”
“It wasn’t smeared,” I say. “It was thrown.”
“By you?”
“No.”
“By who then?”
“Blake! By Blake!”
“Are you sure you’re not protecting another student?”
“Principal Gordon, I know it sounds deranged, but I’m telling the truth.”
“You two are cousins, right?”
“Yes.”
“That explains it,” the principal says, looking satisfied.
“How does that explain anything?” I ask.
“Cousins are known for their hijinks. This one got out of hand.” Principal Gordon clears his throat. “Mr. Montgomery, this was a terrible way for you to be welcomed to our school, and I regret that your educational experience has been clouded by the event. Since there were no witnesses and there’s a difference in opinion about what actually happened, I’m not going to punish anybody, but Mr. Conklin, I’m going to ask you to apologize.”
“He doesn’t have to apologize,” says Blake. “He may have thrown them on accident.”
“He shouldn’t have been holding rat parts in the first place. I know proper dissection protocol. Mr. Gy would never have you mucking around in there.”
“My hands are clean,” I protest.
“Enough,” says Principal Gordon. “We’re done with the debate. Apologize to your cousin, and I’ll send you on your way.”
“I’m sorry, Rodney,” says Blake.
“Not you.”
“Oh, my mistake. I have guilt issues, so I apologize a lot even when it’s supposed to be somebody apologizing to me.”
“Mr. Conklin?”
I consider refusing to back down, but what will that get me? They’ll call Mom. I might get suspended, and this whole situation will turn into even more of a mess than it already is. Even I’m having trouble believing what Blake did, so how am I going to convince anybody else?
I look at Blake. “I’m sorry for what happened,” I say. I figure that counts as a real apology, but is vague enough that I’m not admitting guilt.
“Do you accept your cousin’s apology, Mr. Montgomery?”
“Yes, of course I do. We’re family.”
“Good. There’s clearly some tension between you two, and you need to work it out before this escalates. I don’t expect to see either of you in my office again. You’re dismissed.”
• • •
“How’d it go?” asks Audrey, walking up to my locker.
“He let us off with a warning.” I spin the dial again. I’m so stressed out right now that I can’t get my combination right.
“That’s good.”
“Yeah.”
“Why’d you do it?”
I stare at her. “What?”
“Why’d you do that? You knew you’d get in trouble. Why are you putting your future at risk?”
“I didn’t do anything!”
“It doesn’t seem like something anybody would do to themselves. I can’t imagine wanting to get somebody in trouble so much that I’d splat a rat into my face.”
“Well, you’re not Blake. C’mon, Audrey, you can’t really believe that I did it. You’re supposed to be on my side.”
“You were pretty mad at him.”
“So?”
“So, maybe you lost your temper…”
“No! He set me up! He knew nobody would believe that he’d do something so gross, and he was right! Even my own girlfriend doesn’t believe me!”
“I’m not saying I don’t believe you.”
“You just did.”
Audrey furrows her brow in concentration as if giving careful consideration to what she’s about to say. This can’t be good.
“All I’m saying is that you’ve been frustrated with him since he got here and I want you to think before you act. That’s all.”
“I can’t believe you’re on Team Blake!”
“I’m not on Team Blake,” Audrey insists. “I don’t even like him all that much. I just think that your resentment is coming out in unhealth
y ways.”
“You know what? Fine.” I still can’t get my locker open. I yank on the lock, hard, hoping that the adrenaline flowing through my body is so intense that I can tear off the lock and impress Audrey with my Hulk strength. But the adrenaline lets me down, and I may have pulled a muscle in my arm.
“What would Blake hope to accomplish?” Audrey asks.
“This! What’s happening right now is what he hopes to accomplish!”
“But why?”
“I don’t know. Jealousy? Thirst for power? Attention? I don’t want to understand Blake’s mind. It’s dark and scary. Are you breaking up with me?”
“No! I’m just asking you to be nice to him. It was hard enough to get my mom to let me date a punk rocker. She won’t let me date a delinquent.”
“All right,” I say. “I promise that I will never again do the thing I didn’t do.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Do you need help with your locker?”
“No. I’ll get it eventually.”
Audrey pats me on the arm, which is as close as she’ll ever get to a public display of affection, and then walks away. I finally get my combination right and take off the lock.
“Dude!” says Craig “the Craigster” Jones. “I can’t believe you threw a squid in his face! That was awesome!”
“We were dissecting a rat.”
“I can’t believe you threw the rat in his face! That was awesome!”
“Thanks.”
• • •
Blake is waiting next to my car when I walk through the student parking lot. Stuffing him into the trunk will only make my problems worse, so I unlock the door. We get in.
“How was your day?” he asks as I start the engine.
“It was quite bad.”
“Sorry to hear it. This is a decent enough school. The building itself could use a little more upkeep. But the kids are nice, and the teachers seem educated.”
I say nothing as I pull out of the parking lot and onto the street.
“Sorry about our misunderstanding in biology class,” says Blake.
“How was that in any way a misunderstanding?”
“Because I don’t understand why you did it.”