19
ROPE CLIMB
On Danny’s first day of school, he ran. He had no books to carry, and though it was going to be a hot day, the morning wasn’t too warm for a good run. Dressed in tee-shirt, jeans, and running shoes, with a pen in his pocket and a spiral notebook in his minimal backpack, Danny locked the front door behind him and started loping along the street.
He wasn’t running particularly fast; he simply saw no reason to walk when running would do. Nor did he have any need to slow down just because the last stretch of road that wound up the hill to the school was so steep. Danny had been running up and down steeper hills than that, with much less even ground and a lot more obstacles, since he was little. To him, it was an easy jaunt. He wasn’t even out of breath when he reached the office to get his class assignments.
“Coming in as a junior, Mr. Stone,” said Principal Massey, “we thought you might appreciate a little help getting acquainted with the school.”
That explained the presence of a bored-looking girl without a hair out of place.
“That’s cool,” said Danny. “Thank you.”
“Here’s your class schedule,” said Massey. “Laurette will help you find your classes.”
“Thanks, Laurette,” said Danny. He gave her a big smile that was designed solely for Massey’s consumption. Danny had read enough young adult novels to know that Laurette was probably popular and bound to look down on him.
She flashed him a quick cheesy smile—also for Massey’s consumption.
“I’m glad you came early,” said Massey. “That’ll give the two of you time to get familiar with the layout of the school.”
They left the office together. “Why are you all sweaty?” asked Laurette as soon as Massey couldn’t hear.
“Because you’re so amazing,” said Danny.
“Ew,” said Laurette.
“Because I ran to school.”
“What are you, some kind of jock?” she asked.
“I don’t have a car,” he said.
“Well, I guess you won’t need to know about parking passes.”
Danny laughed.
“What’s funny?” she asked.
“What’s your story?” asked Danny in reply. “Why did you get stuck with showing the new kid around?”
“Because I mouthed off to my English teacher so I’ve got to do service hours.”
“This is the first day of school,” Danny pointed out.
“I have three weeks of service hours left over from last year.”
“You must have some mouth.”
“This is the hallway,” said Laurette. “That’s a classroom. Can you count?”
“Usually,” said Danny.
“Then you can probably figure out the room numbers. They’re mostly in order. Any questions?”
“Will you be my best friend?” asked Danny.
She barked a laugh. “If you’re going to run to school, invest in a better deodorant.”
“For a girl who doesn’t care if anybody likes her, you sure go to a lot of effort to show off cleavage,” said Danny.
She reached up and spread the lapels of her blouse about an inch farther. “Got your eyeful?” she asked.
“No. I’ll be studying your cleavage all year.”
“You’ve got a filthy mouth, Danny Stone,” she said.
“I’m betting that the average total will turn out to be two.”
She walked away from him.
So far so good, thought Danny. Either she likes me now, or she hates me. That means either her friends will hate me and her enemies will like me, or vice versa. No way does this girl not have friends and enemies.
Danny had first period English. He made it a point to answer no questions the teacher asked, even though he was interested in some of the things she said and he had a strong temptation to blow the teacher away with all the cool stuff he knew about the language. Instead, he said nothing at all, barely looked at her, and adopted the slightly sullen attitude he saw some of the boys wearing. He knew he could always be smart later, if that turned out to be a better strategy. But once you admitted to being smart, there was no going back. At least that was his hypothesis as a high school anthropologist.
Calculus was going to be easy and dull—a repeat of stuff Danny had mastered the first year he was living with the Silvermans. AP history was going to be funny, because everything the teacher said was either misleadingly incomplete or flat-out wrong, but it didn’t matter because the students weren’t listening anyway.
Lunch was what mattered. Where would he sit at lunch.
He got his tray and carried it over to the table where Laurette was sitting. She had three girlfriends with her. One was chubby but dressed like she thought she was thin, complete with bulgy bare midriff. Another was doing Goth, and the third had medium bad acne and a sour-looking expression that made the Goth look cheerful. Compared to them, Laurette looked like a cheerleader.
“Look,” said Laurette when he sat down. “We’re not friends.”
“Oh, I know,” said Danny. He looked at the Goth. “I just had to know why you aren’t wearing any of your piercings.”
“None of your business,” said the Goth.
“Just tell me and I’ll go away,” said Danny.
“Go away now,” said the Goth.
“He thinks he’s cute,” said Laurette. “He talked about my cleavage.”
“Ew,” said Chubby and Goth.
“Everybody talks about your cleavage,” said Sour.
“Not to me,” said Laurette. “It’s, like, rude.”
“I’m betting,” said Danny to Goth, “that either there’s an anti-piercing policy here that everybody ignores except you, or your parents won’t let you wear them to school, or you walked too close to a really powerful magnet, or your piercings get infected a lot so you have to give them a rest.” It was an easy enough deduction—two of the pierced spots were red and inflamed.
Goth pointedly looked away from him.
“Thanks,” said Danny. He started to pick up his lunch tray.
“She didn’t say anything,” said Laurette.
“Yeah, but I give up easy,” said Danny.
As he walked away, he made a gate directly in front of Goth and passed the mouth of it over her. It only moved her a quarter of an inch forward. Her friends didn’t really notice it except as some kind of twitch, but she felt it.
“Hey!” she said loudly.
Danny stopped and turned around.
“Did you shove me, smelly running boy?”
“Oh, so Laurette did talk about me,” said Danny. He set the tray back down on their table.
Goth’s piercings were all healed. As in completely gone. As if never pierced at all. None of the girls noticed it. Danny started eating.
The girls got up and left. As they went, he made a gate right in front of Sour, jumping her forward two inches and up a half inch, and curing her acne. Nobody noticed the immediate improvement in her complexion, however, because the jump made her trip and drop her tray. Danny didn’t even watch, though he heard her eloquent fecal-centered discourse, along with Goth’s and Laurette’s laughter as they helped her pick up the mess.
On a whim, Danny made the gate public in both directions. Anyone who walked through that exact spot in the lunchroom would become healthy—and, quite probably, trip and drop something.
After a few minutes, a couple of guys—one of them really tall, the other overweight with way too many piercings and his hair half shaved off—sat down, Too Tall beside him, Half-Hair across from him. “You actually hit on Laurette?”
“She say I did?” asked Danny.
“She said you said you were going to be watching her breasts all year.”
“Doesn’t everybody?” asked Danny.
“She practically sticks them in your face,” said Half-Hair.
“Not his,” said Danny, pointing to Too Tall. “She’s not tall enough.”
“Did you really run to scho
ol?” asked Too Tall.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“It was there,” said Danny.
“Where you from?” asked Half-Hair.
“Ohio,” said Danny.
“Your aunt really going to start a clothing factory in town?”
Danny rolled his eyes.
“What’s the rest of your schedule?” asked Too Tall.
“Gym after lunch,” said Danny.
“You really in AP History?” asked Half-Hair.
Danny nodded.
“I got gym next period, too,” said Too Tall.
“Am I going to have a wonderful time in physical education this year?” asked Danny.
“Depends on whether you suck up to Coach Bleeder,” said Too Tall.
“I take it you don’t.”
“There’s too many guys already kissing his butt,” said Too Tall. “Can’t wedge my face in.”
“I bet you don’t even try,” said Danny.
“If you run,” said Half-Hair, “he’ll want you for the track team and you can be his best friend.”
“I don’t compete,” said Danny.
They studied him for a few moments, as he made a stack of potato chips and then pushed the entire stack endwise into his mouth, crushing the chips in the process.
Half-Hair made a smaller stack and tried to eat it the same way. He ended up with potato chip fragments all over his shirt. Danny reached over, picked one off, and ate it. Initiation over. They finished eating their lunch with him and he knew he had a place with them the next day. Danny knew these guys were not generally regarded as cool. Not a problem. He would make them cool through their association with him.
So far Danny was having a great time at high school.
Too Tall turned out to be named Hal Sargent. He was apparently Coach Lieder’s favorite target of abuse. As in, “Everybody hit the floor and do twenty so I can see what I’m working with this year. Hal, the floor is the wall-to-wall wooden thing that you couldn’t hit if you dropped a shot put. Lay your face on it and then peel it off twenty times.”
Hal seemed resigned to the ridicule.
Danny passed a gate over Coach Lieder just as he was turning around. The gate lifted him an inch above the floor. He lost his balance and fell heavily on his butt.
Everybody stopped doing pushups.
“Keep going, you morons, haven’t you ever seen anybody fall down before?” said Lieder.
Danny did his pushups quickly.
“New Kid,” said Lieder.
Danny started a second set of twenty.
“New Kid,” Lieder demanded. “You call those pushups?”
“Yes sir,” said Danny. He started clapping his hands at the top of each pushup.
“You a show-off, New Kid?”
“Sometimes, sir,” said Danny. He pitched his voice exactly right—completely respectful, and yet dryly sarcastic. A couple of kids laughed. Danny finished his second twenty and stood up.
“I saw you running to school this morning, New Kid,” said Lieder.
Danny didn’t say anything.
“I didn’t tell you to stop doing pushups.”
“You said to do twenty,” said Danny. “I did forty.”
“Everybody outside,” said Coach Lieder. “Daniel Stone, the show-off new kid, is going to lead you all in running the hill, down and then back up again.”
Everybody groaned.
“Keep it up and you’ll do it twice,” said Lieder.
Danny jogged lazily down the hill, not leading anybody. He walked back up with Hal and a couple of others who weren’t in running shape.
“I thought I said to run,” said Lieder when Danny reached the top.
“I was told I needed to get a better deodorant before I ran the hill again,” said Danny.
“Are you getting smart with me?” asked Lieder.
“Simple truth, sir,” said Danny.
“I said for you to show them how to run it.”
Danny said nothing.
“Run it alone,” said Lieder.
“I run for pleasure, sir,” said Danny.
“So give me the pleasure of watching you run,” said Lieder. He pulled out a stopwatch.
Have I goaded him enough? Danny asked himself. Do I really need this enemy?
Yeah, he answered himself. Everybody hates him. I definitely want him on my case.
Danny took off down the hill. He loped lazily all the way to the stop sign at the bottom, turned around and ran back up at exactly the same speed.
“That the best you can do?” asked Lieder.
“I ran the hill,” said Danny.
“You were running faster this morning.”
“This morning I was eager to get to school,” said Danny.
“I was timing you,” said Lieder.
“I know.”
“So why didn’t you run your fastest?” asked Lieder.
“Because I run for pleasure,” said Danny. “And that’s how fast it pleased me to run.”
“You and I aren’t going to get along this year, New Kid,” said Coach Lieder.
“I can’t see why not,” said Danny. “I’m a nice guy.” There were some stifled laughs.
“You’re an insubordinate jerk,” said Coach Lieder.
“Well, yeah,” said Danny.
The laughs weren’t very well stifled this time.
“Run this hill five times,” said Coach Lieder.
“No sir,” said Danny.
“What?”
“It’s too hot,” said Danny. “It’s still summer. You can’t make a kid run this hill five times in hot weather right after eating lunch.” The words “hospital” and “lawsuit” went unsaid.
Coach Lieder stood there regarding Danny in stony silence. “Everybody get back into the gym.” He turned to lead the way.
Danny started running the hill, this time as fast as he could go, both ways. It didn’t take long.
When he got to the top of the hill again, Lieder’s face was red. The other kids were still gathered around. “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.
“Heading into the gym, sir, like you said.”
“You ran the hill,” said Lieder.
“Yes sir,” said Danny.
“After you told me you wouldn’t.”
“I only said you couldn’t make a kid do it five times in hot weather right after eating lunch.”
“But then you did it.”
“It was my pleasure,” said Danny.
“You knew I wanted to time you,” said Coach Lieder. “You started when my back was turned.”
“I don’t like being timed,” said Danny.
“I’m going to be timing you all semester.”
“Takes all the pleasure out of running,” said Danny.
“Timing each part of your run is how you get better.”
“I don’t want to get better,” said Danny. “It’s already fun.”
Then Coach Lieder played his trump card. “Parry McCluer High School needs you on the track team.”
“No it doesn’t,” said Danny.
It obviously bothered Lieder that Danny was not flattered to be offered a place on the team. “How much of this do you think I’m going to take from you?”
“Track is voluntary, sir,” said Danny. “And I don’t race.”
“You don’t race?” asked Lieder.
“I like running with people. When you race, one of you is supposed to leave the other behind. What’s the point of running with somebody, if you end up by yourself?”
Lieder was going to have a stroke. “To win!” he said.
“To win what?” asked Danny.
“The. Race.”
“I don’t race.” Danny started walking back to the gym.
“Run that again and let me time you this time!” demanded Lieder.
Danny just kept walking. “I’ve already run it twice. It’s going to be ninety-five today. I’m going inside.”
Afte
r gym he had biology and then drama. In biology he sat there silently, judging how current the teacher’s information was. In drama, he made a huge splash just by being male in a class with eleven girls and only two other guys.
By the end of the first day, Danny was legendary in exactly the way he wanted. Everybody knew his name. He had defied a teacher. He had shown that he could really, really run. Yet he didn’t care about winning. And Sin—Cynthia Arnelle, the Goth who was allergic to her piercings—was convinced that he had done something magical to heal her. “He even erased the holes,” she was telling people.
“They just grew over,” Laurette told them adamantly. “He didn’t heal anything.”
Danny was leaving school right then, jogging past. “Hey, you!” Sin shouted. Danny jogged over to her. “You erased my piercings, you asshole.”
Danny looked her over closely. “You have piercings?” he asked.
“Not now,” she said. “Thanks to you.”
“When did I do this?” asked Danny, showing a puzzled expression.
“When you got up from the table at lunch. You jostled me, and now my piercings have completely healed over.”
Danny looked from Sin to Laurette and the other girls. “Wow,” he said. “For a girl named Sin, she’s doing pretty well with faith-healing.”
Sour Girl’s complexion was now clear, and if she smiled she’d probably be pretty. Danny reached out to stroke her cheek. She slapped his hand away, assuming, no doubt, that he was mocking her. She didn’t like to be touched on a cheek covered with zits.
But now that Danny had almost touched her, Laurette and Sin were staring at Pat’s smooth skin, probably for the first time, since as friends they had trained themselves not to notice her complexion.
Now my work here is done, Danny said silently. He jogged off down the hill.
This was going to be a great year.
* * *
IN THE FIRST two weeks of school, Danny never ran fast except when Lieder wasn’t timing him. It was a running joke and got him called to the principal’s office.
“He can time me whenever he wants,” said Danny. “He times me a lot.”
“But you never run fast when he’s timing you,” said Principal Massey.
“I don’t like being timed.”
The Lost Gate Page 31