“Oh!” she said. “Hi, Miller. Hi, Rafe.”
“Hey, Jeanne,” I said. I could tell she hadn’t seen the game because she didn’t say anything about it.
“Can one of you guys you do me a favor and put this in the Dumpster?” she asked, and held out the garbage.
“Um…” I said.
“Rafe can do it,” Miller said. “He was just leaving. Weren’t you, Khatchadorian?”
So much for asking favors.
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess I was.”
Or impressing Jeanne, for that matter.
Because that’s what football heroes do after the game, right? They take out the garbage.
IN THE NEWS
When I got to school the next day, I was still thinking about that football game. But all of that changed when I saw the Channel 11 news van parked out front.
It was sitting right there when I got off the bus. Some guy with a microphone and a cameraman was talking to the kids who were getting dropped off by their parents.
In fact, he was talking to Jeanne and her mom when I walked by.
“I do think it’s a good thing,” Jeanne was saying. “Everyone knows bullying is a problem, but nobody ever does anything about it.”
Well, you know that got my attention. Time to pull my trusty old stalling trick. I stopped right there on the sidewalk and started tying my shoe, really slowly.
“So why do you think bullying is such a big problem at Hills Village Middle School?” the reporter guy asked her.
“I think it’s a problem everywhere,” Jeanne said. “And if something like this gets people talking, then I’m all for it. It’s a pretty clear message, right? Just—be nice.”
I almost said “YEAH!” right out loud, but I covered it up with a cough at the last second. Then my fake cough turned into a real one, and I started hacking so much that Jeanne and the reporter guy turned around to look at me.
That’s when I got the heck out of there. The last thing I needed right now was a camera in my face.
Still, I was pretty excited. I couldn’t believe someone would want to do a real news story about my art project. (Correction: an anonymous art project that just happened to be done by me.) I guess a bunch of kids must have gone home talking about it the day before, and one thing must have led to another.
Not that I was complaining or anything. Because it looked like SAM was hitting the big time. How crazy was that?
(Hint: not as crazy as it was going to get before it was all over. In fact, just keep reading.)
SPECIAL SESSION
That day in Learning Skills, Mr. Fanucci had a “special session” for us Specials. He started off talking about the BNICE thing and what it all meant, and asking us what we thought about it.
Which basically meant I was keeping a much bigger secret than I ever thought I’d have to keep. My head felt like one of those vinegar-and-baking- soda volcanoes, just about ready to spew.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” Mr. Fanucci said, “and I know you guys aren’t crazy about meeting here in the fishbowl…”
That’s what everyone called it—the fishbowl, since the whole world could see us sitting in there.
“… so I found a different space for Learning Skills.”
That got a round of applause from Flip, Maya, Dee-Dee, and Jonny. I think I clapped a few times, but I was mostly watching the computers in the library. That’s where everyone was still checking out my stuff—including Miller and Tug, sitting in their usual spots.
“But I also want you guys to let me know if anyone’s giving you a hard time,” Mr. F kept going. “And I want you to look out for one another too. Is that fair?”
“You bet, Mr. F,” Flip said. “Don’t worry. We will.”
Remember when Miller gave Factoid a hard time and I didn’t look out for him? Unfortunately, so do I. So I kept my eyes on the window into the library.
Tug had just clicked onto the home page for Art-Gunk.com, and Miller was staring at this one BNICE picture like he was trying to figure out if it was him behind that red silhouette.
It was.
“What about you, Rafe?” Mr. Fanucci said. “Do you want to say anything about this BNICE business? Or bullying here at school?”
I looked over at Mr. F. “Not really,” I said.
“Come on, Rafe,” he said. “Let’s have some participation. This is about you too, you know.”
“Believe me, I know,” I said. He didn’t have any clue how funny that was, but I wasn’t about to tell him.
“I want you to pay attention to what’s going on,” Mr. Fanucci said.
“I am,” I said. And I was. Just not in the way he thought. “I, uh… I think it’s great we’re going to change classrooms.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re glad, anyway,” he said. He was still staring at me, but as soon as he looked away, I looked back out at the library again.
And that’s when everything went straight to Code Red.
Because, with my rotten luck, Tug had found another page on Art-Gunk. A very familiar page. One that I’d created myself.
That’s right. He’d found my Loozer comics. The ones by R. K. (as in Rafe Khatchadorian) Whatchamacallit. The ones with the main character who looked waaaaay too much like me for comfort.
The ones on the very same website as the BNICE pics, starring Miller himself. He might be a red blob, but everyone knew it was him.
So imagine this next part in slow motion, because that’s how it felt.
Tug stared at those comics.
Tug tapped Miller on the shoulder and said something to him.
Miller looked at Tug’s computer.
Miller looked at his own computer.
Then back at Tug’s computer.
Tug said something else.
And then… super… slowly… Miller turned around and looked at me through that fishbowl glass. The corners of his mouth went south, his eyes turned all red and homicidal, and his whole expression looked like one big flashing sign.
And the sign read, WELCOME BACK TO MILLER THE KILLERVILLE.
MINE
As soon as the bell rang for the end of class, I started looking for a safe exit.
I looked at the ceiling tiles. Any way of leaving straight up? Nope. And I definitely couldn’t dig my way out. In fact, there was only one way to leave the fishbowl, and that was through the library.
So I tried to make it quick and kept my eyes down. Like that was ever going to work.
Miller slid his chair right in my way—with him in it, of course.
“What’s up, Khatchadorkian?” he said.
“Nothing,” I said. Mostly I was wondering—if Miller killed me right now, but he did it really quietly, would Mrs. Seagrave even care?
The first thing he did was tap his pencil on Tug’s computer, with my Loozer comic sitting there on the screen.
“I always knew you were a loser,” he said. “I just didn’t know you’d made it official.”
There wasn’t any time to come up with a plan, so I went with my old standby: deny, deny, deny, deny, deny.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I told him.
“I mean…” Miller pointed back at his own computer, with that BNICE picture on it. “It looks to me like you’ve been busy. And I don’t remember giving any permission to have someone spying on me and taking pictures.”
I felt like a tree that had been chopped down and hadn’t fallen over yet. But Miller would be fixing that real soon, thanks to his gigantic fists.
But then I heard someone behind me. It was Flip.
“Actually, Miller, those are my pictures,” he said. “I took them.”
“Huh?” I said. I turned around and Flip was holding up his phone.
“See?” he said.
“Hang on a second,” Miller said. But then—
“No, they’re mine,” Maya said. She was standing behind Flip, along with Jonny and Dee-Dee.
“Yeah, right!” Tug said.
“Wrong again. They’re my pictures,” Dee-Dee said. “I did them on my iPad.”
“Obviously those were all done by me,” Jonny said. “Anyone can see that.”
Miller looked at Tug, and Tug looked at Miller.Then both of them looked from me to Flip, to Maya, to Dee-Dee, and to Jonny. You could have heard a tumbleweed blow through that library just then.
So while Miller was still picking his jaw up off the ground, we all booked out of there. I knew I wasn’t out of the woods yet, but it bought me a little time, anyway.
“Wow,” I said, once we were in the hall. “Thanks, you guys.” I couldn’t believe what had just happened.
Except, I could too.
“That was awesome!” Flip said.
“Miller’s still going to be mad,” I said. “Really mad.”
“Don’t sweat it,” he told me, but Flip never worries about anything. “Come on, you guys. Let’s go eat lunch. Chocolate milk’s on Rafe!”
They all headed for the cafeteria, but I hung back. I’d just figured out that I had another stop to make.
“You guys go ahead,” I said, and I gave Flip some money out of my pocket. “Get started without me.”
“Save you a seat?” Maya said.
“Um… I’m not sure,” I told them.
Because where I was going now, it was hard to say when I’d be coming back.
BIG MESS
As soon as I left the library, I went straight to the principal’s office. I think it’s the first time in the history of me getting in trouble that I actually sent myself there.
I figured this was the only chance I had to make things better. Not great, but better, anyway.
I told Mrs. Stricker everything. I told her I was SAM. I told her it was my fault that Channel 11 had shown up, even though I wasn’t the one who called them. I even told her I was sorry, which I was. Sort of.
She didn’t exactly die of shock. But she told me to expect a conference with Mom. And if you’ve been following my story at all, then you know that nothing good ever happens during those conferences.
By the end of the school day, Mom was already there. She looked like she was in one of those movies where the person keeps waking up and having the same day, over and over.
I kind of felt the same way.
For a little while, Mom and Mrs. Stricker talked by themselves. Then they pulled me in there, and I got my punishment: eight detentions. That was one for every picture I’d taken and posted without people’s permission. (Good thing they didn’t know about the ninety-five pictures I didn’t use!) I also had to take them all down from the site and write a report about privacy.
But that wasn’t the really bad part. Or at least, not the worst part.
Mom told me to get my stuff, and that we were going to go home and have a talk. So I walked up the hall to my locker, and when I went past the library, I saw some after-school kids hanging out at the computers. But they weren’t looking at my SAM stuff this time. They were looking at Loozer. I guess word was already spreading that the mystery was solved, and that I was SAM, and that I was also a big fat you-know-what.
When I got to my locker, I saw that someone—maybe Miller, maybe not—had left a little art of their own.
That was the worst part. Or at least, that was the beginning of it.
WHAT DO YOU SAY?
When we got home, Mom sat me down at the kitchen table and took a deep breath.
“Explain,” she said. That was it.
I didn’t know what she was looking for, or what kind of explanation I was supposed to give. So I just started with the thing I was thinking about the most. That’s when I showed her my Loozer comics.
And get this. She actually liked them. She even laughed a couple times and told me that they were good but also that she had some questions.
“I thought Leo was a secret for you,” she said. “I didn’t realize you had started telling people about him.”
“He is! And I didn’t!” I said. “I mean—I didn’t mean to. I just figured nobody at HVMS would ever see those comics. In fact, I didn’t think anyone would notice them at all.”
“Well, that’s a lesson,” Mom said. “I’m sorry, Rafe, but it is. Posting your comics online means you lose all control of what happens to them. That’s not always a bad thing. People get to see your art that way. But you need to think about what it means to make it available like that.”
I knew, I knew, I knew.
Or at least, I did now.
“I have another question,” Mom said. “What made you want to include Leo in the first place?”
“Well…” I said. “I don’t know if this is going to sound weird, but it was like he wanted to be in there. He kind of asked.”
“I can understand that,” Mom said.
Mom’s used to the way I talk to Leo sometimes. But she also seemed a little sad. Not about me. About Leo. After all, he was her son the way he was also my brother. And then he died. It’s not exactly the happiest subject in our house, even though we all still love him.
“What do I do now?” I said. “I mean, what if people start asking me about him?”
“You tell them as much or as little as you want,” Mom said. “It’s up to you, Rafe. You can also just say, ‘I don’t want to talk about any of that.’ Period.”
“Yeah,” I said. I knew she was right, but it still felt complicated. Leo had been a secret for a long time. And even though I was the one who put him in the comic, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do about it now.
“One more question,” Mom said. “I want to ask you about this Loozer character.”
Oh, man. Here it was.
“Do you feel like a loser?” she said. “Is that where these comics are coming from?”
I knew that was what she was going to ask. But still, when I started to answer, it was like my throat got shut down for repairs. I felt like I had two pieces of double-stick tape down there, with a golf ball stuck in the middle.
Finally, I just said, “I don’t want to talk about any of that.”
“Period?” Mom said, with this nice smile.
I just nodded, ’cause I was afraid that golf ball was going to turn into a crying thing if I said anything else.
“Fair enough,” she said. Then she grabbed me and gave me this big hug instead of lecturing me or talking any more.
And you know what? I cried anyway. It wasn’t a big deal. I’ve cried in front of Mom before. Heck, I’ve cried in front of you before, if you’ve read some of my other stories. I guess I just had to “get it out.” That’s what Mom calls it.
So I did.
Lucky for me, Georgia was at a friend’s house, so I didn’t have to explain anything to her nosy face. But Junior was right there. He put his chin on my leg and I patted him on the head, which made me feel better too. For real. He’s a great dog. And even if I felt crappy just then, I knew it was going to be okay. Maybe not in five minutes. Or even five days. But soon, anyway.
For starters, Mom was way less mad about Operation: S.A.M. than I thought. She said putting up my pictures of famous paintings hadn’t done any harm, and I think she was even a little proud of my idea. She didn’t give me any punishment on top of those detentions. In fact, she didn’t even make me quit football.
And that brings me right up to the next thing in this crazy story.
Which also happens to be my favorite part.
END RUN
Flash forward! Again!
It was game three of the Falcons’ season. We were playing the Sloatsburg Middle School Rams, and the score was 7–7, coming down to the end of the fourth quarter.
We knew we had to score soon if we were going to have any chance of winning. There was enough time for one turnaround, but that would just put the ball in Sloatsburg’s hands. It was all down to this.
“All right, let’s do it,” Coach said. “Highway Eleven, guys. Highway Eleven.”
We didn’t have a lot of audibles for plays, but everyone knew this
one by now. We’d practiced it all week. Highway Eleven was the name for my special take-the-hand-off-and-run play.
Quinn had scored our first touchdown of the game, so nobody from Sloatsburg had even seen Highway Eleven yet. Which made it our secret weapon. Which kind of made me our secret weapon.
And that’s when I got my next, brand-new, really big, really good idea—right there, walking onto the field for the play. I never even saw it coming until the idea hit me all at once, like a strike of lightning to the brain.
Miller never saw it coming either.
“Hey, Miller,” I said. “You know that deal I asked you about before?”
“Huh?” he said.
I slowed down and kept my voice low. “You know. About Maya, Jonny, and Dee-Dee?”
“Not now,” Miller said.
“Yes. Now,” I said.
Then I stopped, knelt down, and started tying my shoe. Even though it didn’t need tying.
“What are you doing?” Miller said. “Get up.”
I kept my face down so only he could hear. “I score, and you leave my friends alone,” I told him.
“Let’s go, Khatchadorian!” Coach yelled. “Keep it moving.”
“Yeah, Khatchadorian,” Miller said, squinting at me like he had fists for eyeballs. “Keep it moving.”
“Do we have a deal?” I asked him. “Or do I get lost on the way to the end zone?”
My heart was banging around playing defensive tackle against my ribs, but I held my ground.
“Here’s your deal,” Miller said. “Run the play or die.”
“All riiiight,” I said, making it sound a lot like You’ll be sorrrry.
He didn’t even answer. But I could tell I had him feeling kind of nervous now. He wanted to win this game. Miller wanted to win every game, which was a definite advantage for me.
“You sure about this?” I said while we were still getting into position.
“Shut up, you guys,” Jeremy said. The ref handed Quinn the ball, and we all got ready for the snap.
“Hike…” Tug called.