The Shadow Club Rising

  Tyson turned a page in his sketch pad and started a new drawing, forgetting, or pretending to forget the question I had asked when I first stepped in.

  "So, Tyson," I said once more, refusing to let him off the hook, "do you hate me?"

  He shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah, sure," he said. "Maybe a little."

  "Maybe a lot?" I pushed.

  "I don't know," Tyson answered. "Somewhere between a little and a lot—but closer to a little—and anyway, I wouldn't have come to live here if I didn't like you more than I hated you."

  I smiled. "You can't stand me when I drag you out of your room in the middle of the night." Tyson grunted like a bull. Part of my penance, as far as Tyson was concerned, was setting my alarm for 1:00 and 4:00 A.M., then hauling Tyson out of bed to take a leak, with the hope of breaking that nasty little bed-wetting habit of his, which I had so thoroughly announced to the entire school.

  "How do you deal with it when people totally hate your guts?" I asked.

  "Very badly," he answered, and I realized what a stupid question that was to ask him—a kid who always went ballistic at the drop of a hat. "Is this about Austin?" he asked, knowing where I had gone to dinner that night.

  I nodded. "I thought he might give me time off for good behavior, you know?"

  "More like life with no chance of parole?" "No," I said, "more like death row." And then Tyson said something that I'll never forget. "Sometimes people see you the way they want to see you," he told me, "no matter how hard you try to change it. It's like they'd rather twist the whole world just so they can keep seeing you the same lousy way."

  It wasn't long until I knew how true that really was.

  Alec

  Smartz

  THE LETHAL BREW that the Shadow Club had set to simmer would have boiled over eventually, no matter what anyone did—I'm convinced of that—but it was the arrival of a certain person in town that really turned up the heat.

  When some kids move into a new neighborhood, they make no ripple at all. They just slip into the back of the classroom while no one's looking, or simply replace someone else who just moved away. Then there's the kid whose entrance is like a cannonball jump into a still pool. Alec Emery Smartz Jr. was that kid.

  Alec was slim, good-looking, and entered school on the top level, socially, academically, and even athletically. Although he wasn't the tallest kid in school, something about him gave you the impression that he was. He rode into our school in a mythical kind of way and quickly became legend.

  Now, just to be clear on this, I had no problems withAlec. Well, maybe just a little one when it came to him and Cheryl—but I'll get to that.

  I first saw him in the office while I was filling out a tardy slip, because, well, punctuality has never been my strongest point. Alec was having a conversation with Principal Diller like they were golf buddies or something. Principal Diller asked if there were any extracurricular activities he might be interested in, and Alec responded in an "aw shucks" kind of way, saying, "I don't know—there are lots of things I like to do."

  "Well, I'm sure you'll make a lot of friends here," Principal Diller said. Then he caught a glimpse of me and made sure Alec walked in the other direction. I pretended like that didn't bother me.

  From that first time I saw him, I sensed Alec would be the epicenter of seismic activity in our school. It was the way he held himself, and the way he looked at you. Like he already belonged, before even making an effort. And then there was the name—"Alec Smartz." It was one of those cruel parental jokes that would be an eternal mystery. But then on the other hand, it was so obvious that only a moron would try to take advantage of it. Whenever some kid tried to call him "Smart Alec," he would say in a total deadpan, "Gee, that's clever. Nobody ever thought of that before," making the moron feel even more stupid than he was before, if that was possible.

  But I guess, in a way, Alec Smartz was condemned to be what he was, the same way so many people became slaves to their name—like our music teacher, Mr. Musiker, and the guy who runs the fruit stand down on Pine Street, Mr.Groesser.

  It was a few days after dinner at the Paces that I made a point of meeting Alec rather than just see him brush past, or hear people whisper about him. I wasn't quite sure what the whispers were about, but I was getting more and more curious.

  It was one of those rare mornings when I was actually on time. He and Cheryl were locking up their bikes. Apparently Cheryl had forgotten her lock at home, so Alec was chaining both of theirs together. I'd be lying if I said it didn't make me a little bit uncomfortable. He and Cheryl had been spotted together on several occasions since his arrival in town.

  "Hi, Cheryl," I said, which was pretty much the limit of our conversations these days. Cheryl and I had been best friends for most of our lives, and for a short time we were more than friends, but now, well, I didn't know what we were. Accomplices, maybe. Co-conspirators. I missed our friendship but had no clue how to get it back.

  "Hi, Jared," she said in a strained sort of way. "Have you met Alec?"

  He shook my hand. "Nice to meet you."

  "Yeah."

  He was much friendlier than I had imagined he would be, but I should have guessed that—after all, Cheryl would never hang out with a creep.

  "I hear you're a runner," he said.

  "Was."

  "Still are," said Cheryl. "He's just not on the team this year, that's all."

  I offered no further explanation.

  "Maybe we could go jogging sometime," Alec suggested.

  "Jared doesn't jog—he runs."

  Alec glanced toward the school. "Listen, I gotta go—the soccer coach wants to talk to me before class. It was nice meeting you." And off he went with a confidence that divided the packs of kids in his way.

  I turned to Cheryl, wearing a smug little grin.

  "Don't look at me like that," she said.

  "Like what?"

  "Like you know something." Cheryl checked her kickstand. "And anyway, I can be friends with anyone I want."

  I had to laugh. "I didn't say anything about you and Alec!"

  "But you were thinking it."

  "Then you need more practice at reading minds."

  Cheryl blew into her hands to warm them, and now that I had caught my breath from the long run to school, I was beginning to feel cold myself.

  "So what do you think of Alec?" she asked.

  "I think he's OK."

  "Everyone likes him."

  "He seems like a likable guy."

  The first bell rang, and Cheryl turned to hurry into school, having never been tardy in her whole life.

  "Cheryl," I called to her before she got to the school steps. When she turned, I said, "I think you two look good together."

  She gave me her famous prosecutor's gaze, ready to deny that they were "together" at all, but instead she just said, "Thanks," and went inside.

  I had to admit I wasn't lying. I thought they really did make a nice couple—and it really ticked me off.

  Our school's just a block away from Pine Street—which was unfortunately the only street in town where all the pine trees had been cut down and replaced by sycamores. The street was lined with shops and cafes that had died when the mall opened up a few miles away, and then were reborn when people decided malls were boring and quaint little street shops were cool.

  Among the various cafes was Solerno's Pizzeria, a place run by an old grimace of man whose taste buds must have been removed, because his pizza had more salt than the ocean, and enough garlic to keep the town free of vampires. Still, when compared to the school cafeteria, Solerno's was a world-class restaurant, and so kids flocked there during lunch, hoping for a thick slice of god-awful pizza, and hoping to catch miserable old Solerno in a less awful mood than usual.

  That same afternoon, I ran into Alec and Cheryl at Solerno's during lunch. Alec was actually talking to the old man, suggesting that he change his selection of spices. I have to tell you, I would have laid down and worshiped Al
ec myself if he got through to Solerno, but, true to form, the old man threatened to hit him with a broom.

  Still curious as to what made Alec tick, I sat down with him and Cheryl, and we suffered through our pizza together.

  The conversation didn't go much of anywhere, until Cheryl decided it was time to get cute.

  "Did you know Jared has a hidden talent?" she told Alec. "He can drink soda through his nose."

  "Oh, c'mon, Cheryl, I haven't done that since fifth grade."

  I have to admit, it was something I was once rather proud of—and although it always gave me one heck of a brain-freeze, it was worth it to impress friends and disgust adults, back when I was ten.

  "Now that's something I'd like to see," said Alec. "I'll bet you can't do it anymore."

  I don't know what came over me then. I guess I'm still a sucker when it comes to being challenged. So I took a deep breath, shoved my straw up my left nostril, pinched the right one closed, and began to guzzle. Drinking soda through your nose is like riding a bicycle—it's a skill you never quite forget. I downed the entire cup in fifteen seconds flat.

  Cheryl laughed and applauded, and I felt . . . well . . . stupid for having actually done it.

  "Cool," said Alec.

  And that's when I thought I saw something change in him. The grin on his face was the same, but something about him suddenly shifted, and grew colder. Or maybe it was just my brain-freeze.

  "I can do that," Alec said.

  Cheryl laughed. "I wouldn't advise it. You should leave it to the professionals."

  "No, really," Alec said, and before any of us knew it, he shoved his own straw up his right nostril—making me realize how completely asinine I must have looked—and began to drain his Dr Pepper into his face.

  "Alec . . ."

  It was a second before he gagged, coughing a spray of fizzing soda all over us. Some girls at the next table got spritzed; a guy behind us stood, fully prepared to give him the Heimlich; and from behind the counter, Solerno said, "You puke uppa my pizza, you don't getta no more!"

  Alec quickly regained his composure, if not his dignity.

  "Don't worry about it," I told him. "It takes years of hard work to master."

  But he said, with a harshness hidden deep within his smile, "Practice makes perfect."

  I looked at Cheryl, who just shrugged as if it were nothing, but somehow I knew better.

  It only took a few days more until I knew all I needed to know about Alec Smartz. The stories circulating around school painted a whole gallery of pictures.

  Painting number one: Still Life With Algebra.

  Mr. Kronisch, our math teacher, gave bears of exams that were the subject of many a nightmare. For this reason his midterms were called the Kronisch Inquisition. Alec, being new, isn't expected to take the test, but he does anyway. He aces it, throwing the curve so far into orbit that everyone else's score goes down half a grade.

  Portrait number two: Self-portrait With Saxophone.

  While still scouting out the school those first few weeks, he wanders into Mr. Musiker's room during a mostly pathetic band rehearsal (which is no great surprise, since our band's rehearsals are always mostly pathetic).

  "Do you play an instrument, Alec?" Mr. Musiker asks.

  "A few," he responds, then proceeds to borrow Chelsea Morris's alto sax and plays a number that could get him a recording deal with the jazz label of his choice. You can almost hear the blood draining from all the wanna-be band stars in the room.

  Portrait number three: Alec at the Bat.

  Alec wanders innocently onto the baseball field—but by now I've come to realize that Alec doesn't really "wander" anywhere. All his casual arrivals are as well calculated as his answers on the Kronisch Inquisition. Today the baseball team is getting ready for the upcoming season.

  "You interested in going out for baseball?" the coach asks.

  "Well, it's not my sport," says Alec, "but I'll give it a try." Long story short, now there's a new shortstop, and a grin on the coach's face that has never been seen in all his years of coaching our losing baseball team.

  When asked how he got so good, Alec says, "Nowhere in particular. I'm just good in any sport that involves a ball." It's a statement that makes all the coaches drool, and all the jocks run for cover.

  When someone enters a school with as much noise as Alec did, emotions are bound to run high—in both directions.

  "I don't like him," I heard Drew Landers, the star swimmer, say, obviously anticipating the day Alec Smartz "wandered innocently" up to the pool.

  "I don't trust him," Tyson said, and for once Tyson's paranoia was reflected by many others.

  "I heard he was a genetically engineered cyborg," said Ralphy Sherman, who had never uttered a word of truth in his life. And what was scary was that some kids believed him.

  I had my own theory, however. Simply put, Alec Smartz was just plain good. It was the kind of "good" that was not locked into a specific sport or subject. Alec was one of those rare individuals whose talent was like a suitcase he could carry through anyone's door, whether it was the door to the music room, the math room, the gym, or even the door to a pizza place, where he inhaled a can of Dr Pepper through his nose one week after seeing me do it, breaking my twelve- ounce record by four seconds.

  Whether he worked hard to be so good I couldn't quite say, but that didn't matter because he made it look easy. In fact, he seemed to get his jollies by making everything look so easy that the rest of the world looked bad.

  Thanks to him, the entire school now qualified for membership in the Shadow Club.

  Freaks

  Like Me

  NOBODY SEES THEMSELVES as "the bad guy." Even the nastiest, most evil people are heroes in their own minds. I thought I was still a pretty good guy. In the past, whenever I had screwed up, people never got too bent out of shape. "Your heart's in the right place," they would always say, and that's how I still felt about myself. Even when my brain took an extended vacation, I could be forgiven, because my heart was in the right place. Of course the Shadow Club's victims would never believe that, but I just assumed that everyone else who knew me would. Sometimes it takes a good left hook to open your eyes.

  The fight started as Tyson's—not mine. Although it was now harder for kids to whip Tyson into that fighting frenzy he was so famous for, it wasn't impossible. Those same kids who had always tormented him now worked overtime to make him nuts. Like Tyson said, people see you the way they want to see you . . . and sometimes they manage to turn you into the very thing they want to see.

  It was just before lunch, when everyone was most irritable, that our school's designated nuisance, Brett Whatley, heaped one too many rude remarks on Tyson's head. By the time I happened by, they were already into it, swinging full force, and bouncing back and forth across the hall in a locker-bashing brawl. I have to admit, I seriously considered just walking the other way, and letting the fight take care of itself . . . but like I said, my heart was in the right place. See, if Tyson won the fight, he'd probably be suspended, and if he lost the fight, he'd be drawing pictures of things burning again. I couldn't let either one happen, and since no teacher arrived to break it up, I took it upon myself. I pushed my way through the chain of spectators, squeezing myself into Brett and Tyson's airspace, and taking a nasty elbow to the ribs from Tyson before he realized it was me.

  "Back off!" I yelled at Tyson, loud enough to break through his anger.

  "But . . . but he called me a—"

  I turned to Brett, before Tyson could finish. "You want to fight someone, Brett, why don't you start with me?"

  And for an instant Brett Whatley looked scared. The kid was practically a head taller than me. But here he was, backing away from me.

  It only lasted a second, though, until he remembered that he had an audience.

  "Well, if it isn't Jared Mercer," he sneered. "I should have known I'd find you holding Tyson's leash."

  He couldn't even come up with an or
iginal insult. He stole that one from Star Wars.

  "Why don't you get a life and lose it," I told him.

  "You and Tyson deserve each other—you're both a couple of losers."

  Although I thought I was immune to Brett Whatley's brainless taunts, they were starting to get to me.

  "Just leave us alone."

  He crossed his arms, sensing he had the upper hand. "Why? What are you gonna do, Mercer, put a bomb in my locker? Or maybe just a razor blade in my sandwich."

  Hearing him say that knocked the wind right out of me. Those comments came so far out of nowhere that I thought I had somehow missed part of the conversation. "What?"

  Then a voice from the sidelines chimed in as well. "Maybe he'll just break your kneecaps in your sleep."

  And someone else said, "Or maybe he'll just kill your dog."

  I looked at the faces of the kids around me. I couldn't tell who had spoken—but by the look of distrust on their faces, it could have been any of them. Some of them even backed away, as if I might actually do those things to them. These were kids I knew, kids I had studied with, played with, and joked with for years. Now they were kids I suddenly didn't know, or at least they didn't know me. Did they really believe I was capable of such awful things because I had been in the Shadow Club?

  Brett sneered at me, sensing the support all around him.

  "You know, there's a word for freaks like you," he said.

  But whatever word he had in mind, no one was hearing it today, because I launched at him with both fists swinging. "I would never do those things!" I screamed as I fought him, making each word strike home with another wild punch. "I would never . . . never . . . never . . . never . . . never . . ." Finally Tyson pulled me away—he was the calm one trying to cool me down.