Out of Order

by A. M. Jenkins

  English is the problem. Mr. Hammond doesn’t mess with fill-in-the-blank. Never heard of multiple choice. Strictly an essay man, all the way.

  In my book there’s something wrong when it takes you longer to do a test than it took the teacher to make the test up in the first place.

  Looks like I’m not going to be sleeping anymore in assistant. Looks like I ought to use that time to start figuring out what I need to smuggle in to help me on those extra-long Hammond-style tests.

  Looks like there’s going to be two of us reading in assistant, from now on.

  The next morning in biology Haley Turner’s telling me how Silver Stanton thinks I’m cute. Hi-yo! Tell me something I don’t know. “She told me to tell you that your answering machine’s not working,” Haley adds. “She’s been trying to get you to call her.”

  The only thing wrong with my answering machine is that I have to push a button to get rid of Silver’s messages. It doesn’t automatically erase them for me.

  I ignore Haley. While she’s taking the hint, I happen to glance at Chlorophyll. She hasn’t even looked in my direction, of course. She must have finished up reading her biology, which I should be starting, because she pulls a different, thin book out of her stack. As she starts reading it, twisting a strand of that half-green hair, one of the other books in her stack catches my eye. It’s a junior English book.

  But she’s in sophomore biology, with me.

  The wheels start turning.

  “Hey, Chlorophyll,” I whisper.

  She doesn’t hear me.

  “Hey.” She still doesn’t know I’m talking to her.

  Finally I give her elbow a nudge.

  She looks over, startled. She’s got that blank-eyed look, the same one Grace has when we walk out of one of those movies where they talk about relationships for the whole hour and a half.

  “You a sophomore?” I ask.

  She nods.

  “You got third period, Mrs. Muldrew?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Accelerated English?” I ask, to make sure.

  She’s getting her brain back in gear. “You got a point?”

  I’m thinking she’s already had everything I’m about to be tested on. That’s what Accelerated English means; it means they’re all a year ahead of the rest of us.

  Grace, she’s in that class too, but no way do I want Grace seeing how bad I am at something she’s great in.

  “No.” I open my biology book too. “No point.” I pretend to read some of the page, because I’ve got to play this very cool. It takes delicate timing and a perfect hand, to use somebody to cheat off without having them think they got the right to come up and talk to you in the hall.

  She settles back into her book. I watch her out of the corner of my eye. I’m thinking. I’m not sure yet exactly what I need her to do.

  For the first time, I notice a ring on her left hand. It’s gold, delicate little golden swirls around this milky-colored stone. Doesn’t look like anything she’d pick out—I figured her for the skull-and-crossbones type. This looks nice. It looks like a present.

  “So, Chlo—Corinne,” I say. I’ve got to start remembering her name. “You got a boyfriend?”

  “Yeah.” She doesn’t look up.

  “He go to school?”

  “TMU.”

  Whoa. “A college man,” I say. “You two serious?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I wonder what her boyfriend’s like, if they’ve had sex. Looking at her, I’d say yes. I don’t know why, but I’d say definitely yes. Although I’d freak if I had to look down at the moment of passion and see that multicolored shit on her head.

  Suddenly I’m curious. “What’s he think about your hair?” I ask.

  She doesn’t answer. She’s off in that la-la land book people go to.

  So I take a minute to try to reason things out. The main problem is how the hell I’m going to pass Hammond’s essay exams. The reality is that I need a comprehensive cheat sheet.

  I look over again at Chlorophyll, who already knows everything I need to copy down. She’s one of the few people in here who’s already through reading the biology assignment. She’s fast. Fast and smart.

  “Hey—” I start, but her real name goes right out of my head. “Hey…Chlo.”

  Shit. I wait, to see what she’s going to do.

  “What,” she says, not looking up.

  “Um,” I say. “How long you and your boyfriend been going out?” Lame, lame, lame.

  She still doesn’t look up. “Little over a year.”

  “No kidding. That’s a long time,” I tell her. I nod, even though she’s not looking at me.

  “I got a girlfriend,” I mention, when it looks like the conversation’s on the verge of being dead in the water.

  She doesn’t seem overwhelmed by that information.

  “Hey, Chlo,” I say casually. “You save any of your tests or anything from English last year?”

  “No,” she says to the book.

  “Oh. I thought maybe you were the saving type.”

  “No.”

  I’m sunk now.

  She flips over a page. “You having trouble in English, Terrell?”

  “Trammel,” I tell her. I can hear McMillan talking real loud to Haley, so I know they’re not listening. “A little,” I admit, keeping my voice low.

  She just nods.

  “Got any advice?” I ask, just in case she’s got some kind of good-grades secret I should know.

  “Study.”

  “Oh, thanks.” I open my biology book and try to read too. I’m going to ignore her for the rest of the period. She’s so fucking helpful. Study.

  “Clear your desks,” Ms. Keller calls from the front of the room.

  Clear your desks? I look up. She’s holding a stack of papers.

  “All you need is a pen or pencil.” She starts passing out the papers.

  Holy shit.

  “A test?” My voice almost cracks. “You never said anything about a test today.”

  Ms. Keller doesn’t even stop passing them out; she just gives me the eye. “I announced it Friday. And it’s been written on the board for over a week. Apparently you haven’t been paying attention.”

  I pick up my biology book and slam it down.

  That stops her. She pauses in the middle of the aisle to give me one look. It’s a warning look that’s supposed to be aimed at me, but it’s so intense that the whole class gets quiet.

  Then she gets back to business.

  The test is short, one page. It’s a front-and-back view of a human body with the skin stripped off. All the muscles have blanks beside them.

  I swear she didn’t tell us we were having a test. And all I can remember is that the answers are supposed to be long, doctor-type words. Words that I can’t even pronounce.

  Thank God for Chlorophyll.

  I write my name at the top and look over at Chlorophyll’s test. She’s writing fast, like she knows the answers. She’s got her hand over her paper.

  I wait, but she doesn’t move it.

  I try to see over the shoulders of the people in front of me. No go. The blanks are too small, everybody’s writing small; I can’t see that far.

  “Everyone needs to keep his eyes on his own paper,” calls Ms. Keller from her desk.

  I act like I’m working for a few minutes. Till Ms. Keller gets busy with something else.

  “Psst,” I hiss in Chlorophyll’s direction. When she looks over I make a big show of moving my own hand off my own paper. So she’ll get the idea.

  But she just raises one eyebrow. Her hand stays right where it is.

  I move my hand again, in case she didn’t understand. On the paper. Off the paper.

  “No,” mouths Chlorophyll, glaring now.

  I knew it. “Bite me,” I mouth back.

  She ignores me and goes back to her test. Her covered-up test.

  Great. I’m screwed. I do not know this. Nobody knows this, except bi
ology teachers. And Chlorophyll.

  I eye the test again. I’m trying to remember anything, just one muscle, even. Surely one thing stuck in my head from class. Just one thing—how can I not remember even one thing?

  And then it comes. The one thing.

  Gluteus maximus. The butt.

  Maybe I remember because it’s funny. For whatever reason, there it is, in my head. Gluteus maximus.

  I start to write it down. Out of the whole stinking morning, this is what I’ll have to show. Two stinking words.

  I’m trying to sound it out so I don’t get counted off for spelling, and I’m saying it to myself: Gluteus, gluteus, gluteus. It sounds familiar.

  And then I know why. That’s what Coach says, sometimes when he’s on the way through the weight room when you’ve been doing squats or lunges. He walks by and shouts, “Those glutes burning yet?”

  What he means is your butt muscles. Glutes.

  It dawns on me—I do know this stuff. I do! I use this stuff, every day, in the weight room. I know more than anybody else in this room, because I feel the burn in these exact muscles. I work these muscles to the point of jelly every day—upper body on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, lower body on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

  So I’m thinking, what else does Coach say?

  Quads. He says that when I’m on the leg press machine. And what hurts like hell, on the leg press machine?

  The front of my thighs.

  I write quads down in the blank. It’s not a doctor word. It’s just what I know.

  I go over the test thinking, what Coach-type exercise makes this muscle hurt? And what’s he hollering while I’m sweating and shaking?

  Lats. Delts. Pecs. Abs. Biceps. Triceps. Traps.

  I write it all down. I finish early, of course. I turn in my test while old Chlorophyll’s still chewing her eraser, trying to think.

  For the first time in—actually, for the first time ever in a class, I feel proud.

  And for the first time ever, I can hardly wait to get a test back.

  I’ve got no worries now. I’m on a roll. I don’t need help. When Mr. Hammond gives us a pop quiz in English, I don’t even blink, though I’ve never heard Coach hollering anything about Coleridge, this poet who I remember looked like a pop-eyed wuss in the picture in the textbook. Old Coleridge looked like somebody who got the shit beat out of him a lot.

  I copy bits of other people’s work. I make the sentences as long as possible, and use the biggest words I can think of. Hammond’ll love it. Of course he will.

  By fifth-period assistant I’m getting a little tired of doing the brainiac thing, but I continue as planned. I open up my English book, because from now on I’m going to by God figure out what it is I’m supposed to know. And then I’m going to write it down. And then later I’ll condense it down to something I can hide in my palm, or my sock.

  The homework is reading something called “A Red, Red Rose.” Mr. Hammond said it was by Bobby Burns, like he knows the guy personally. But now I see that can’t be possible, because the book says Robert Burns died years and years ago. So I figure it’s one of those intelligent-type jokes that I never get.

  I don’t get the poem, either.

  First of all, even I can see the words are all spelled wrong. What gives? For ten years the system grades me down for bad spelling, and now they’re making me read this shit that looks like pig latin.

  Second of all, it’s got to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever read. Or tried to read, anyway. All Os and my dears. Did Hammond explain this in class? “The seas gang dry, my dear.” What the hell is that supposed to mean?

  I shut the book and sit up. I don’t need this hassle. I don’t need this stress. All I need to pass a test is the Trammel balls of steel—plus a sprinkling of words like theme and meter.

  The trash can is in the corner. I wrap my fingers around one corner of the book and draw my arm back, like I’m going to throw a boomerang, or a knife.

  Ka-thunk! A direct hit. The trash can shakes but doesn’t fall over.

  I know I’ll have to dig the book out eventually if I don’t want to have to pay for it. The point is I feel better now.

  I’m ignoring Chlorophyll, the way she always ignores me. I walk over to the window and hop up to sit on the cabinet underneath, like it’s a window seat.

  Chlorophyll’s deep into her book. She wouldn’t notice or care if I fell out the window.

  Which is great. I’m free to think my own thoughts, looking out this second-story window at the grass down below, and the asphalt, and the classrooms beyond, in the other wing.

  I sit sideways on the cabinet, leaning back against the windowsill, my legs stretched out in front of me.

  I think about last Fourth of July.

  Because that was our first real date. Grace’s dad said she could start dating when she turned fifteen. Her birthday was on the third, and she spent it with her family. On the fourth I came to pick her up in my car. She had on a white tank top and denim shorts, and her legs just about begged a hand to run up them, they were so smooth. For the first time she slid into the car beside me and it was just us, no Eric or Stu or anybody else from the group. Her hair was tied back, and when she looked at me, her eyes seemed clear green because of the white shirt, I guess. And when she looked straight ahead, her profile was like one of those pieces of jewelry, you know, one of those little round white-and-brown things carved with a woman’s face.

  I took Grace to see the fireworks downtown. We didn’t go to any of the parks or along the river, because we would have been stuck in traffic for hours. Instead I pulled off on this road that I’ve used in the past for parking. With Grace, though, I brought a blanket and we walked out into the dark field and I spread the blanket so we could sit.

  It was breezy, and not hot at all, since the sun had gone down. It was perfect. I didn’t talk on purpose, because I didn’t want to make an ass out of myself. We just sat together, and she kicked off her sandals, and somehow in the middle of the fireworks show she let me pull her into my lap, and after a few moments her head leaned back against my chest. And when the fireworks were over, we didn’t move, just stayed there and kissed for a long time. I didn’t try anything at all, and she didn’t get mad at me at all, and it was the best night I ever had. In the morning I could still feel the way her arms slid around my neck and how she kissed me back. And the next time I came to take her out, when she saw me coming up her sidewalk, she opened the door to meet me on the porch. And she smiled at me like she’d just gotten a present.

  The bell rings. I don’t want to move out of the sun, but I know I have to.

  I turn my head, and that’s when I see Chlorophyll watching me. She hasn’t made a move to gather her stuff. Her book’s still open. She’s just sitting there with her chin on her hand studying me like I’m a plant cell or a para-whatdyacallit, that you look at under the microscope and it’s shaped like a shoe.

  I feel my face getting red. I swing my legs around and jump off the cabinet. She’s still sitting there—she doesn’t bother to look away, like she doesn’t even care if I caught her staring at me.

  “Take a picture, Chlorophyll,” I tell her as I walk out the door. “It’ll last longer.”

  On the way home I’ve got Grace on the brain. Thinking about all the making out we did on the Fourth of July—man, I need a Grace fix.

  I’ve been Super Gentleman the past week. In seven days I’ve worked my way up from hand holding to kissing, being very careful not to piss her off.

  I don’t want to piss her off. I just want to be with her.

  I’m going to call her the second I get in. But when I walk in the door, the phone’s already ringing.

  I knew it! Grace could feel me thinking about her. She misses me, too! There’s a direct line from my heart to hers.

  I feel a smile taking over my face as I pick up the phone—it’s fate, it’s destiny.

  No, it’s Whorey Dori. The one with Jordan Palmer on the brain.


  “Hi!” she says, bright and perky. “Whatcha doing?”

  One sinking second later, I tell her, “Not much.” Because it’s Grace I want to talk to, not Dori, and I know this girl will talk forever.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “Picking out wallpaper.”

  “Wallpaper,” I echo.

  “I’m redecorating my room,” she says, like that’s a really interesting activity. Which it isn’t. Not at all. “But I can’t decide on a pattern. I need a man’s opinion—which do you like better, vines or shells?”

  “I dunno,” I say. I’m thinking how I ought to hang up, just hang up, Colt! Or say I’ve got to go and then hang up.

  I always think that, but I never can seem to quite cut her loose. Probably because she really is pretty fine-looking, for a nobody. And according to Palmer, she’ll do anything you want her to, any place, any time.

  Now you’ve got to understand that I’m in love with Grace. No question about it. Always have been, always will be.

  But hey, for real, I’m perfectly normal. I’m a teenaged male, I’m supposed to be horny for girls I don’t particularly know or like. At least I’m no Palmer, who was once boffing two girls, best friends, and neither knew about the other.

  So it’s not my fault that just the sound of Dori’s voice gives me that feeling, sort of guilty and excited at the same time, like when you pick up a dirty magazine off the rack and you’re looking at the pictures, and you’re acting like you don’t care if anybody sees you, but at the same time you’re hoping nobody does.

  “I like the shells,” Dori’s saying, “but I also like the vines because they have these little flowers all around. Flowers are pretty, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Flowers are nice.” I’ve never mentioned to Grace that Whorey Dori calls me sometimes. Grace might not see it the right way.

  “So I’m kind of leaning toward the vines,” Dori’s saying. “I’ll feel like I’m in a forest when I walk in. Don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I tell her. “Vines it is.”

  “How many rolls do you think would it take to paper my room?” Dori’s asking.