by H. J. Lawson
“Founded in the seventeenth century, they are believed to have derived from gangs that consisted of wandering samurai. Today, they are considered some of the most powerful of the criminal underground that exists in Japan. They are divided into many groups—”
“Like the motorcycle gangs on Sons of Anarchy?” someone asks.
Mr. Conrad nods. “Very much like that.”
“Why the tattoos?” someone else asks.
“Good question,” Mr. Conrad says, clearly warming to his subject. “These tattoos, known as irezumi in Japan, most likely began as a spiritual symbol, a way for the tattooed person to show the world his beliefs. However, this changed. Tattoos became a way to mark a criminal to show society that the person could not be trusted.”
Kimi nods her head as if agreeing with Mr. Conrad. Guess she learned about this in her old school.
“That sucks,” someone says.
Laughter again flows around the room. I look up, having lost myself for a few minutes sketching one of the tattoos onto a page of my notebook.
“Thinking of getting a tattoo?” Travis hisses in my ear as he reaches around me and grabs the notebook. “Damn perv picks the prettiest girl to draw. Like he’ll ever get a girl that looks like that,” he says, holding the notebook up where his friends can see the depiction of a wide-eyed, pale-skinned geisha.
They laugh, but I’m so used to it I don’t even think I care anymore. I just want my notebook back because it has my notes for next week’s test in it.
“Speaking of criminals,” Mr. Conrad says, marching over to Travis’s desk. “You want to give that back?”
Travis looks up at Mr. Conrad like he’s the most innocent guy in the world.
“What? I didn’t do anything, Mr. Conrad.”
“That’s not your notebook.”
“Sure it is,” Travis says, closing the cover as he bends to toss it into his backpack. Unfortunately for him—or me, as I’m sure I’ll pay for this later—my name is written clearly on the cover of the notebook in permanent ink.
Mr. Conrad just holds out his hand. As Travis hands it over, Mr. Conrad says, “Go the principal’s office right now. I will not tolerate any more of your lies.”
Mr. Conrad hands me the notebook, but all I see is Travis glaring at me as he backs out the door.
“Okay,” Mr. Conrad says as he returns to the front of the classroom, “if you’ll pay attention, we’ll cover the rest of this material so that your reading assignment for tonight will make sense.”
Everyone groans. Everyone except Clara. She turns and glares at me.
“You know he’ll make you pay for that, right?”
Yeah, I know, and he will have the perfect chance in the next class, PE.
As if on cue, the bell rings to signal the end of class.
Everyone hurries out the door except Kimi, who hangs behind. Both Kimi and Mr. Conrad stand in the front of the classroom watching me leave, as if they are waiting for me to say something about Travis spitting at me. There isn’t a chance I’m going to do that.
Chapter 4
“Wait up, Parker,” Kimi yells as her Converse sneakers bound down the hallway toward me. I shake my head back in response.
“Parker,” she says, taking me by my shoulder when she finally catches up to me.
“What?”
Kimi takes her hand off me, and looks disappointed.
I sigh. “What did you say to him?”
“Nothing. Nothing.”
“Kimi, you know you suck at lying.”
Kimi’s shoulders sink. “I… I was just talking about the homework assignment.”
“Really?” I frown.
“Yeah. Stop having a go at me,” she says, rubbing her eyes under her glasses.
Oh no. Please don’t cry, don’t cry. There is nothing worse than making someone else feel bad when they have done nothing wrong. Way to go, Parker.
I throw my arm around Kimi. “Sorry. Go on, tell me what I am,” I prod with a smile.
“A jerk,” she says, peeking over her glasses.
“Yeah, I’m your jerk. It could be worse; you could have Travis as your jerk, like I have.”
Kimi shakes her head.
“Damn, you’re right. Sorry. Right now it’s not about my problem with Travis, it’s about me being the jerk. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”
Kimi stares at me for a moment. “You can… take me—,” she stops then shakes her head.
“Take you where?”
Kimi’s cheeks turn red. Where does she want to go?
“To…” she shakes her head again. Wow, she really didn’t take her meds today.
“To lunch. Come on, you can buy me lunch,” she finally says, nudging me toward the cafeteria. I can’t read girls, but if I could, I would have guessed she wanted to go somewhere else. But hey, I’m not complaining. All I can afford right now is a taco lunch for Kimi from the school cafeteria, anyway.
“Over here,” Douglas waves to us. He does the same every day, and each day I tell him we know where he is. We always sit at this table, the one by the bins, the only one we can sit at. And I guess we will be at this table until we graduate from school.
“Looks like Douglas is saving our seats,” I say as I smile at Kimi. It takes Kimi a second and then she smiles back. Something else is on her mind today.
“Are you okay?” I ask Kimi as we walk toward Douglas.
“Yes, why?”
“You just don’t seem to be here.”
Kimi laughs, then pauses. “Just my… sister.”
“Oh. What’s Isamu doing now?” I don’t have any older siblings, and if I did I couldn’t think of any worse of a sister than Isamu. I did always want a little sister, but that’s not going to happen now.
“Just the normal.” Kimi’s parents are hardly ever at home; out of the two years we’ve been friends I’ve never seen her parents. Most of the time, Isamu is in charge, and being in charge is what she loves. She controls everything Kimi does.
“Taco Tuesdays are the best,” Douglas gushes as food pours from his mouth.
“Douglas.” I shake my head.
“What?” he replies, then picks up the taco shell that fell from his mouth.
“Nothing.” I smile.
I lean sideways, away from the oncoming lunch tray. Other kids throw their trays, targeting for the trash, but sometimes they land on my lap. These seats really suck, except for one thing: I bag the seat with a view of the doorway. I get to watch Clara walk in. She normally gets a salad with the other cheerleaders, then sits with Travis and the other jocks.
On cue she walks in, and I sigh. Travis’s arm is draped around her like a cheap shirt. She could do so much better than him—she could be with me. As if Travis is reading my thoughts he snarls at me, annoyed for loads of reasons, all of which are going to result in my getting a beating.
I push my tray out in front of me as I lose my appetite.
Douglas looks down at it like a hungry hippo. “Sure, take it,” I say. “Just don’t be sick on me during gym.”
Oh, gym. Great. I’ll have to be out in the field, where Travis can beat the crap out of me and get away with it.
“Hey,” Kimi says, “my sister is out this afternoon. Why don’t you skip gym and come to my place? I’ve got the new Call of Duty game, remember?” She pulls it out of her bag, waving it under my nose.
“Skip class?” Douglas whispers. He looks like he’s going to break out in hives just thinking about it. “Parker, that’s a bad idea, a very bad idea.” He shakes his head before I can really think about it.
I take a sip of coke, letting the bubbles pour down my throat. “Skip gym, huh?” I nod, twisting the cap back on the bottle. I like this idea.
“You can complete the game before anyone else.” Kimi waves the game, like candy to a kid.
I reach out to take it, and she lets me. Jeez, the graphics look so cool. This idea does sound way better than getting a beating.
&nb
sp; “I’m in.”
Douglas leans toward me. “Are you crazy? They will call home. And…” Douglas stops. He dislikes my mom’s husband, Neil, just as much as I do.
The excitement drains out of me at the thought of Neil finding out. His beating would be lighter than Travis’s because mom would stop him, but the grief he would give my mom about me skipping class would last for weeks.
“Damn, Douglas is right. Can we come after school?”
Kimi looks more disappointed than me. “Sure,” she says, pushing her food around.
“How do you get these before anyone else?” I ask.
“Yeah… You know, my cousin,” she mutters.
Chapter 5
A gym locker door slams nearby and I jump. Laughter bounces around me. This is just a repeat of my daily life. Every day is the same.
Physical education class was purely created by a sadistic jerk who wanted to watch kids like me suffer the torture of having to undress in front of athletic gods. At least, the jocks like to think they are gods. Just ‘cause their steroids have kicked in and turned them into men, instead of the kids we are. That would explain why they are frigging crazy.
Or maybe PE was designed by someone who wanted to see kids like me fail at the simplest athletic skills, like tossing a ball from point A to point B. For me, the ball always ends up at point W. It’s just a waste of time. How the hell is this going to help me get a job in the future? I suppose adults can put their throwing skills into getting the waste paper into a ball and throwing it in the trash.
“We’re playing football again today,” Douglas says.
Gee, my favorite thing in all the world.
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from groaning in dismay.
We have to play against the actual school team, the team that wins against every school they play against—not only wins, but crushes them.
Coach says sports are a great way to build character. I call it torture and many other things. All it really does is pit Douglas and me against the jerks, most of them being sixteen- and seventeen-year-old boys who are built like Channing Tatum. I’m more of a John Heder type, or at least John Heder when he played Napoleon Dynamite.
I quickly undress, trying not to let the predators see my super-pale body, which radiates with a pure-white glow. That’s the same color I have all year round, unless I forget my sunscreen.
My body begins to tingle at the thought of not having sunscreen on in summertime. When I burn, I really burn, like a chicken just before it goes crispy. But trust me, the crispy comes later, as my body turns into a dry skin bag. I frigging hate sunburn.
I stow my black-rimmed glasses inside one of my tennis shoes.
I’ve got the cheapest cleats that my mom could find. I don’t think the expensive ones would help my performance much, but they would reduce the teasing.
I sit on the bench and listen to the noises around me, grateful that no one joked about my body today. It’s kind of soothing that without my glasses everyone just turns into a group of hazy blurs, at least till my eyes adjust.
“What are you looking at, nerd?”
I don’t even realize the remark is directed at me until one of the blurs comes closer and a fist slams into my shoulder.
“Hey!” Douglas cries as my focus comes clear. “Where did you get those socks? The Bozo Emporium?” he asks the jock currently torturing me, Paul.
“Shut up, asshole,” Paul says as laughter rises all around us.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen socks quite that colorful before,” Douglas continues.
“Are you colorblind? Only that could explain—”
Douglas’s heavy, sweaty body slams unpleasantly against mine. I push against his fleshy body to get him off me.
It’s like Douglas is immune to their attacks or insults. No matter how many times they knock him down, he bounces back with a smartass comment—which normally results in a second beating.
“Stupid cock suckers,” Paul says as he joins other blurs and they walk out of the locker room.
“Why’d you have to do that?” I whisper to Douglas.
“Why do they have to bully us all the time? It’s stupid what we have to put up with just because we’re a little different.”
“Speak for yourself,” I say, cross at the wrong person.
“Look, man, we are who we are. Why should we constantly defend ourselves from these assholes?”
Douglas takes his helmet and pushes it down over his curly hair. I never know how he manages to fit it all into the helmet, but he does.
I start to say something, but Coach Ridge walks into the locker room. “What are you pansies doing? Get your asses out on the football field.” We can’t even get a break from the teacher. And why would we? He’s the leader of the pack. He was once an all-star student of this school, which he likes to remind us of, but he did well for himself, didn’t he? And yet he’s not a highflying superstar athlete. Nope, he’s the Longwood high school coach.
I grab a helmet and I unwillingly follow Coach Ridge out toward the field. He turns to face me. His beard covers the movements of his mouth. But his overgrown eyebrows move down, and he frowns.
“You’re never going to survive in this world if you’re always hiding out in the locker room. Get out there and prove that you’re more than a wimp!”
Fat chance of me proving him wrong. All my motivation was zapped from me with that great motivational speech. I wonder if he’s been getting lessons from Neil, my stepdad.
The weather outside seems to reflect my mood. The clouds are dark and heavy, and look as if they are about to explode and shower us with rain. A bitter cold wind bites at my naked, muscle-less legs. I’m going to freeze out here. I wrap my arms around my chest, trying to keep the last of the heat in. For once I’m grateful Douglas is standing within my personal space. I can feel the heat radiating off him.
“Why are we even here? It’s not like they are going to throw the ball at us,” I say.
“To get the ball from them,” Douglas says, nudging his head toward our classmates as if he thinks I don’t understand the objective of the game, which I do. The rest of our classmates look like they all play for the NFL.
The coach blows the whistle and everyone moves into place.
I push my helmet down over my head and fumble for my mouth guard. Why would a game need so much protective gear?
Douglas growls around his mouthpiece, resulting in spit flying out.
For some reason, he enjoys this even though he often gets his face pushed into the dirt. I’ve decided Douglas is just a sucker for pain. Maybe when he gets older he will have tattoos all over him.
“Ha,” I laugh.
“What you laughing at?” Douglas asks, then swiftly places his mouth guard back in.
“The thought of you having tattoos all over you, like in Mr. Conrad’s class.”
Douglas frowns. “Why would you think that? You know I hate needles.”
“But you’re a sucker for this game.”
“That’s cause the odd time they slip in the mud, I get to knock them down, and then who’s laughing?”
We both start laughing together. “That was funny,” I say. Last year at one of these PE football "games," Douglas was hilarious. Somehow, God only knows how, he was able to stay on his feet when everyone else was falling flat on their faces in the mud. He was dancing around as if he were riding an imaginary pony. I’ve never seen him so happy. I laughed so hard I ended up with mud in my mouth.
I bend low and press my knuckles into the damp grass, my heart pounding in my chest. It’s like bracing for a car accident you can see coming, but can’t avoid. All I can think is it’s going to hurt.
The whistle blows again, and chaos erupts around me.
I pretend to rush forward, but what I’m really doing is trying to avoid the blow that I know is coming. I step to the side and try to line up with the blank spot in the football team’s offense. It works, and I manage to stay on my feet for
most of the play. But that’s only one play.
We line up again. I’m a nose guard. It’s my job to keep the linemen busy so the linebackers can get through and make an attempt to sack the quarterback.
The only problem is I don’t know who the linemen are. And how am I supposed to keep them busy? They just walk all over me.
When I was a kid, dad used to show me where to stand and what the plays were; that was when we played for fun against Travis and his dad. Those days are long gone.
The whistle blows again. I move back into position, trying not to look at the guy in position across from me. I learned long ago that making eye contact only makes them more aware of you and, therefore, more determined to knock you into the dirt.
I keep my eyes down.
The whistle again. My heart pounds in my eyes as I move forward, aiming for another blank spot. This time I’m not as successful. The player across from me slams into my shoulder and pain bursts through me, rolling down my spine.
The quarterback throws a pass to the receiver, who is standing wide open on the twenty-yard line.
Cheers rise up from the stands where a few kids who have a free period are sitting, watching the game.
I hear Clara cheering with the other cheerleaders.
“Score, score, score!” they chant.
We line up again. As the whistle blows, I bend down to press my knuckles into the grass.
Travis is right in front of me. He spits his mouth guard out. “I told you not to look at my girlfriend,” he growls.
Before the whistle is blown, Travis surges toward me, and the world goes black.
Chapter 6
I can’t hear anything when I wake up. I wonder for a minute if I’m dead, but then the sharp scent of cleaning chemicals fills my nose.
Not dead. I’m in the nurse’s office.
This is a familiar place to me. I come here quite often, though not out of choice. A teacher normally sends me down.
I start to sit up, making the plastic sheet squeak, and gentle hands press my shoulders back down.