"Good morning," he cries, as if he were the first person to come up with just the right words to describe a perfect day. He holds out one hand to someone in the crowd. "Mallory, come join me."
A super tall guy wanders over to Brian in the center of the circle. He looks shaky as he scans the crowd. His hair is neon orange, and it's bushy and very long. He has it crammed into a ponytail, but it looks like any second the rubber band will explode and his hair will escape to roam the earth, staging military coups and taking high-profile hostages. He has the absolute worst acne I've ever seen, and the redness of it vibrates against the orange of his hair so that he's almost difficult to look at. He's quite grotesque. But I like his white jeans and his white T-shirt and his white bomber jacket. He's clearly a reject from some other private school. Journeys is the stopping-off spot for a lot of kids on their way to juvenile detention.
"This is Mallory, everyone, who's come here from the Learning Center. Let's welcome him to our community."
"Welcome, Mallory," everyone drones.
Mallory scratches at his neck just where the pimples are the most swollen. Brian stares at him until Mallory clears his throat and mumbles, "Hi." Then he practically runs for the outer rim of the circle.
Brian smiles kindly at Mallory and then calls to the ceiling in joy: "Does anyone have something special to share?" My ex-friend Hildie Peterson raises her hand, and Brian smiles warmly at her. "Yes, Hildie?"
"I just wanted to say that I noticed the tree at the edge of the schoolyard is blooming." She twinkles her slanty eyes at Brian, who twinkles right back.
"Yes! We're so lucky to have an autumn cherry tree on our campus! I think everyone should make it their business during Afternoon Personal Time to go and enjoy those gorgeous blooms! See how they smell, stroke them, lie under the tree and notice how the sun dapples your body with light." He stretches out his arms as if the entire universe is giving him a massage. "Let's all thank Hildie for this wonderful reminder of how beautiful our world is!"
I'm not kidding. This is Morning Meeting. This is my daily hell.
"Does anyone else have something to share?" Brian trains his eyes on the crowd. (Well, he trains one eye on us, one at the wall, but I'm pretty sure he's trying to look at us.) Most of us look at the floor, but to my disgust and horror Jacob raises his hand. Brian smiles at Jacob with a mixture of revulsion and pity. "Yes, Jacob?" he coos. "What do you have to share?"
"I've decided on my individual project for this year." Jacob sprays the poor girl standing next to him, but she's too nice to wipe it off right away. "My individual project is me."
"Oh?" Brian asks, raising one eyebrow with delight. I guess he isn't delighted enough to raise both eyebrows.
"Yes!" Jacob says eagerly. His entire skinny body practically vibrates with excitement. "My individual project this year is going to be self-improvement."
Brian claps his hands. "Wonderful! I think it was Aldous Huxley who said, 'There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that is yourself.'" Brian slowly rotates in the middle of our circle so that he can make precious eye contact with each and every one of us. When his eyes meet mine he thinks, Troublemaker. "I think we should all be supportive of Jacob's efforts this year! Let's give him a round of applause!"
Everyone claps for Jacob Flax, and a few people start whistling and catcalling, including Gusty Peterson, who shakes his fist while yelling, "Yeah! Yeah!" Evil Incarnate holds up her hands over her head and claps super enthusiastically. I watch Jacob to see if he understands what's happening, but he is blushing and smiling with glee.
He has no idea he is being mocked.
EXPLORATIONS OF NATURE
After Morning Meeting I head to my first class, Explorations of Nature, which is biology in disguise. Every one of our classes is supposed to be interdisciplinary, which is another word for "confusing." Math is called "The Language of the Universe," and English is "Story as Cultural Artifact." I have Maria Callas warbling in my ears, but that doesn't keep me from hearing my ex-best friend, Hildie Peterson, think, Why does she have to sit so close to me? when I take the chair behind her. I'm sitting here because it's the only padded chair left, but of course she's so self-centered, she would never think of that.
Our school doesn't have desks in the classrooms because Brian thinks they conceal our inner states and inhibit the free motion of our bodies. I glance at David, who is seated on his teacher stool, staring out the window and stroking his goatee. All the girls think he's totally hot, and they all flirt with him, which is pathetic, but what's even more pathetic is that he flirts right back.
"Hi, David!" Hildie calls, flashing her blond hair at him.
"Hildie," he says in an intimate tone. His black eyes practically rub against her as he smiles.
I don't know how he hasn't gotten fired.
Today David has written another Robert Frost poem on the board. The poem says:
Then when I was distraught
And could not speak,
Sidelong, full on my cheek,
What should that reckless zephyr fling
But the wild touch of thy dye-dusty wing!
Either David likes Robert Frost or Frost is the only poet he knows. That's okay, because I actually like him. Frost, not David, who I especially dislike today. On the little table in front of him is a mutilated caterpillar. What used to be a cute, fuzzy, green little wormy animal has become a science exhibit for how gross nature is. Class hasn't begun yet, but I don't care. I raise my hand.
David pretends not to see me. I can hear him thinking, Oh God, not again. This does nothing to stop me. I wave my hand in his face. The second his eyes flicker over me, I launch into it: "What right do you have to kill that poor defenseless creature?"
"I didn't," he says wearily. "I found it dead on my lawn." I catch a brief flash of the caterpillar lying helplessly in front of David's Birkenstock sandal, motionless. But I can't tell from the image if it was really a goner yet.
"How did you know it was dead?" I hear sniggering behind me, and a whole wave of thoughts rushes over me. Not this again. Why can't she shut up? God, her neck is fat. This only strengthens my resolve. "Maybe it was just stunned."
"It was dead."
"Did you hold a tiny mirror up to its nose to see if it was breathing?"
"Kristi, I can tell when a caterpillar is dead."
"Did you try to resuscitate it?"
"How do you suggest I do that?"
"You could get a tiny straw."
"Surely you're not serious."
I open my mouth to assure him that I am quite serious (I'm not), but he holds his hand up in my face. "So, how is everyone today?" David asks the class at large.
"Better than that caterpillar," Casey Spinelli says in his squeaky voice. Everyone laughs.
Ha ha ha.
David pretends to be amused as he leans over the tiny cadaver. "I found this poor little guy this weekend. He'd frozen the night before. I thought this would be a great opportunity to begin our unit on anatomy."
I look around the room to see if anyone is buying his story about the caterpillar's natural death. Last year, when he tried to show the tenth-graders the internal organs of a frog, Brian stormed into the room, red-faced, and gave David a lecture about the sanctity of all life. David is no longer allowed to use animals in his classes. We can't even have bug collections. This is the one thing I agree with Brian about. How would you feel if a huge frog drugged you, cut you open, and splayed you on a corkboard so the tadpoles could jab at your liver?
"Crowd around, everyone," David says as he waves us up. We all stand around him while he pokes tweezers around the caterpillar's eensie-weensie internal organs. We trade off with magnifying glasses so everyone can get a big, gross eyeful.
Once David is done with the caterpillar, he hands out a chart of human anatomy. I see what's coming, so I raise my hand and stand right in front of David's face. Whenever I feel partner work coming on, I go to the bathroom s
o that by the time I come back everyone already has a partner and I can work alone. I practically beg David with my eyebrows, Please let me go! But he's onto me, because he thinks, Not this time, Kristi, just before he announces, "Everyone find a partner and quiz each other about internal organs."
Time for Plan B: Initiate isolation sequence.
I discreetly slip my earphones on. Maria Callas is getting to the first big crescendo when I feel a pressure on my arm. Hildie is standing over me, and when I look at her she rolls her eyes. "Everyone else has a partner. David said I should work with you." This is when I notice that Bella Polokov is not here today, which means that poor Hildie is without her usual ally.
I would rather be consumed by a million caterpillars in an act of misguided revenge than work with my treacherous former best friend, but all I can do is shrug. She sits next to me, crossing one perfectly toned leg over the other. She looks at me uncertainly as she thinks, I may as well make the best of this. "Who first?" she says.
"I don't care," I say.
Here we go again with the martyr routine, I hear her thinking. "Okay. Where is the stomach?"
I point to the heart.
"No, Kristi. Where really?"
I point to the brain.
"No!" she says, already frustrated.
"I'm pretty sure that's it, Hil," I say innocently. "That's got to be the stomach. Yup. I'm one hundred percent sure." (One good thing about hating your former best friend is that you know exactly how to push her buttons.)
"It's the brain and you know it." She frowns as her crystalline eyes search the room.
"That's right. See if David can tell us. David will know. David is so smart."
She jabs her hand into the air, savagely arching her back for emphasis. If anyone else tried a move like that they'd look spastic, but Hildie executes it perfectly. An Olympic committee would give her all sixes.
David comes over and says, "Yes," as if he's so tired, he can barely utter the word.
"Kristi keeps saying the brain is the stomach and I can't work with her." Hildie pouts her pink lips at him.
I concentrate my beam on her. One of these days I'll figure out how to make her head explode with my psychic waves.
David nods wisely. "Do you need to start your contemplation early today, Kristi?"
"Yes. I need to go contemplate really, really bad," I say to him. He hands me a slip of paper with the assignment. I take the paper and leave the classroom. I don't even look at stupid Hildie because I can hear her thinking as I go: Why is she such a bitch?
THE CONTEMPLATION ROOM
Absolutely no one is allowed to speak in the Contemplation Room. Brian once said he almost named it the Temple, but he thought that the word was too suggestive of religion and he didn't want to make any atheists or agnostics feel excluded from the educational experience here at Journeys.
I slide into my favorite seat next to the window. The tree Hildie mentioned in Morning Meeting looks pink and fluffy, like cotton candy.
I hear the click of a door and see Betty Pasternak, the Self-Expressions teacher, come out of the conference room with the new kid.
He looks around the room for a seat and spies me. I feel him thinking, Interesting, which is pretty unusual because most people have a negative reaction when they notice me. I would smile at him if smiling didn't make me look snide, so instead I blink at him. He strolls over.
I've never seen such skinny legs in my life. His knees seem to almost poke through his jeans, and his feet are huge. When he gets to my table he puts his hand on the back of the chair opposite me and raises his orange eyebrows.
I nod.
He sits down and leans forward on his elbows. Up close his acne is quite vibrant. Huge red bumps cover his entire face and neck. Where there aren't fresh pimples there are raised red patches. It makes me feel a little sorry for him. I smell hints of cigarette smoke on him, which I think is kind of cool. I like people who don't do what they're supposed to do. "This place is psycho," he whispers.
"Wait until Processing on Friday," I tell him.
"Processing. Is that when they grind us all into sausage and feed us to our parents?" He grins wickedly.
I stare at him, trying to decide whether he's a nice guy with a dark sense of humor or an ax murderer with a taste for chubby girls. I wait so long to speak, I feel him thinking, What is her problem? I'm already blowing it.
"My dad's a vegetarian, so..." I taper off. I have no idea why I just said that. My dad is not a vegetarian—at least he wasn't the last time I saw him, two years ago—and it has nothing to do with anything.
I hear a shushing noise. Betty Pasternak is holding her fingers to her lips at us. Some of the other students are looking, too. I hear them thinking, They're perfect for each other.
It's not a compliment.
Without even asking, Mallory grabs my notebook and rips a piece of paper out of it. He writes with my pen, What is the deal with this school? and pushes it at me.
I write, It's progressive. Like colon cancer.
He laughs. How long have you been here?
Since ninth grade. I'm a sophomore. How did you end up here?
Got kicked out of my last two schools. I don't deal well with education.
You're in the right place. They don't really have that here.
We trade notes like that until the rest of my Explorations of Nature class gets here to write their daily contemplations. David sees me and comes over, stroking his beard, which means that he expects me to show him my Frost pastiche on anatomy. I show him the paper Mallory and I have been trading back and forth because I know he won't bother to read it. He nods and heads for Hildie's table, where she's staring prettily at her notebook, chewing on the eraser of her pencil with her perfect pearl teeth. David leans over Hildie and looks at her work. I'm pretty sure he's smelling her hair.
He's a teacher? Mallory asks.
He seems to think so, I write back.
By the time the lunch gong rings, I feel as though Mallory and I are almost friends. I even catch him thinking, She's cool. It's been ages since anyone thought that about me. Not even Jacob thinks I'm cool. He hangs out with me only because he's so uncool that he doesn't even consider coolness a factor when choosing friends. This is mostly why I tolerate him.
I lead Mallory to the World Bistro (a.k.a. the school cafeteria), where we get in line for the ratatouille. All the meals are cooked by the students in the Culinary Arts class, a requirement I'm putting off until senior year. The last thing my found wardrobe needs is exposure to an open flame. Every week they serve a different nationality of food. Last week we explored the Indian subcontinent; this week we're doing regional French. Next week is supposed to be Scandinavia, but no one is excited about the wonders of pickled fish.
"Uh. Hi, Kristi," I hear lisped behind me.
"Hi, Jacob," I say as I wipe spit droplets off my shoulder. "This is Mallory."
Mallory sticks out his hand toward Jacob, who doesn't even notice the gesture because he's staring at Mallory's acne with unconcealed awe. "How do you do?" Mallory says grimly.
"Hi," Jacob finally says, then looks at me, horror stricken.
I ignore him.
One of the student servers, a freshman with huge cheekbones and a tiny mouth, plunks a bowl of ratatouille onto my tray. "Nice attitude," I tell her.
"Get bit," she sneers.
"Hey, you have a nasty animal clinging to your head," Mallory tells her. "Oh, wait. That's your face."
She doesn't miss a beat. "There's this substance called soap?" She smiles meanly at his acne. "It's widely available in drugstores?"
Mallory narrows his eyes at her.
Her eyes get even narrower.
I like freshmen with spirit.
"Is there someplace where I can smoke?" Mallory asks me. He points at the slop on my tray. "I've lost my appetite."
"Smoking isn't allowed on school property," Jacob says over his shoulder. He heads for our table, expecting me to follow h
im. When he sees I'm still standing with Mallory, he stamps his foot.
Mallory rolls his eyes at me.
"Go behind the bushes by the parking lot," I tell him.
He walks away, his tiny butt barely moving. Everyone stares at him as he goes.
"He should really go to a dermatologist," Jacob says as we sit down.
"So?" I ask.
"Maybe his skin would get better if he quit smoking," Jacob says. "Plus, he doesn't look good in white. It creates too much contrast with his acne. And isn't Mallory a girl's name? Did you notice Eva Kearns-Tate looks kind of sick these days? She's ghastly pale and—"
I put on my Maria Callas headphones and tune Jacob out.
OIL SPILL
The best kind of practical joke is one that seems like an act of God. That is the first rule of shenanigans. The second rule is that you have to be present to watch the shit go down. What is the point of engineering a brilliant prank if you're not there to enjoy it? The third rule is that you have to make yourself known to your victim but present yourself as a helpful agent of good, which only heightens the pathos of the whole situation. Finally: never give the same name twice.
My favorite setting for practical jokes is this spot in the park right behind Journeys. The park is bordered by a super-busy concrete bike path. Right where the bike path makes a sharp turn is a spot that has been polished very smooth by lots of feet and tires. It is so smooth, it feels and looks like polished pewter. Just where the concrete is smoothest, there happens to be a very shallow puddle, and in the middle of that puddle, there happens to be an invisible layer of motor oil.
How do I know this?
Because I put it there.
I get a Dixie cup full of water, and I bring my pint of motor oil wrapped in a paper bag. First I pour the water around until it's a thin layer, and then I very carefully dribble oil over the water. Something about the way the water floats over the polished smooth concrete and the way the oil hovers on the water makes this spot the slipperiest surface known to man.