Into the Wild Nerd Yonder

  “Yeah,” is all I manage to say, not wanting to sound too dorkish by concurring with, “I wouldn’t want to be late to precalculus.”

  The ride back is as smoky and loud as the ride there, and we get to the parking lot with two minutes to spare before class.

  I look over at Van as he superinhales his cigarette. “Thanks for lunch,” I say, “and my bunny.” I waggle the bunny at him in a thank-you gesture.

  “No problem,” he breathes, blowing smoke out of the corner of his mouth. Then he leans toward me, and I ready myself for a dream kiss. His arm brushes my shirt and the tiniest corner of my chest (not that my chest has corners) as he pushes open my door. “Door sometimes sticks.” He smiles, his face way too close to mine for not having any actual lip-connecting intentions.

  “Oh.” I blush. I get out and look at my watch. One minute before the bell. “See you around,” I call over my shoulder as I run into school like a dweeb who hates to be late for class. I make it to my seat just as the bell rings.

  Before Mr. Bowles begins class, I hear Mike Eastman a couple of seats over say, “Was somebody smoking?” I simultaneously hope that someone and no one thinks it’s me.

  chapter 5

  WHILE BIZZA AND CHAR WOW THE free world with their punk-rock selves during seventh-period lunch, I have study hall. On occasion I have ditched study hall to hang out in the lunchroom (when I know I won’t get caught), but I’m glad I have the excuse of first-day-of-school honors classes homework to stay in. Not that they’d notice. I spied Bizza in the hall before seventh (of course she didn’t see me) talking with a couple Crudhoppers, who seemed totally wrapped up in her bald-is-beautiful look. I watched as she put a hand on each guy’s shoulder, completely sure that that’s where her hands should be. Of course, I totally froze when I could have put my hand on Van’s shoulder, or more. I mean, he did touch a tiny portion of my boob, so that’s gotta mean something, right?

  Study hall “teachers” (Are they really teaching us anything except how to fake bathroom passes?) at Greenville High School are a crapshoot. Sometimes you get the motherly, doting woman who just wants to give you bathroom passes and is fine “as long as you talk quietly.” Other times you get the gym teacher who’s so used to yelling all day that any instance of a disturbance is cause for a shout and a detention. Today is the in between: a home ec teacher who doesn’t take any BS excuse (too used to that with students trying to get out of her own classes), but not too concerned with the noise level.

  I try to focus on my precalc, but my mind keeps floating back to my pseudo-date with Van. I must be drooling or something because I’m snapped back into reality when a girl’s voice asks, “Where are you?”

  I look next to me and notice for the first time that I am sitting next to Dottie Bell, one of the known weirdos of Greenville High. And junior high. And elementary. She isn’t the weird that Bizza and Char want to be known for, but the kind who was just born odd. Her hair is strawberry blond, with the possibility of being quite pretty if it weren’t for the clumping factor due to obvious unwashedness. She wears oddly colored corduroys no matter what the temp is, and never goes anywhere without her denim jacket, which is lovingly covered with a hand-drawn Lord of the Rings symbol (yes, I lose several cool points for knowing what it is). She’s been in several of my classes, usually pretty friendly, but mostly in her own world. I’ve never really gotten to know her, probably because I never put in the effort. Or maybe because she always seemed a little strange and I worried that I’d get sucked into some conversation about things which I know nothing about (except Lord of the Rings, which I do know something about, but I’d rather not everyone else know I know).

  “Where are you?” she repeats with a curious look.

  “Nowhere, really,” I reply hesitantly because I’m not quite sure if she wants to know what I’m thinking about or if she actually thinks I’m on some other, parallel plane. “Um . . .” I manage.

  “Like, you’re obviously thinking about something pretty sweet. Or someone?” She laughs in her lazy voice.

  “How can you tell?” I would not put it past her to be a mind reader.

  “You’re twinkling, like on an old TV show.” She wiggles her fingers in front of her eyes. “Twinkle, twinkle and shit.” I laugh. “Do I know him?”

  Hmmm. She asks like I’d know who she knows. Is there any reason for Dottie to know of Van? Although, really, how could anyone not know of Van?

  “Maybe,” I suggest. “He’s a friend of my brother. We had lunch. And maybe a little more. I’m not exactly sure, to tell you the truth.”

  “Well, keep me posted.” She instantly loses interest and begins writing in a tattered notebook. I curiously watch her write, nervous that my flakiness will become fodder for her blog (if she has one, which I’d bet a million dollars she does). Whatever she’s writing, it’s not in English. The letters are from our alphabet, but the words themselves are completely unfamiliar.

  “What language is that?” I ask, and then recoil when I realize how nosy I’m being.

  Dottie doesn’t seem bothered. “I made it up,” she says, still writing. “I call it Dottonian, after myself, of course. It’s based on a certain alpha and numerical pattern. It’s a secret language I use to write to my pen pals.”

  “Pen pals?” I haven’t had a pen pal since we were forced to write to students in Mexico during seventh-grade Spanish class. The only things Lupita and I ever found to talk about were fruit and the color of our clothes. It did not make for very interesting (or long) letters.

  “Yeah. I find them online through my blog.” I so called it. “Only the chosen few get actual handwritten letters. Totally old school. I got the idea when I bought about ten sheets of Star Wars stamps and didn’t know what I was going to do with them. After I framed a couple, of course. Anyway, I send out a letter in Dottonian, and whoever figures it out gets to be my pen pal.”

  “How many have figured it out?”

  “Well, just the one so far. She’s from Denmark. Way cool. Here—” Dottie pauses to fish around in her bag. She pulls out a stack of airmail envelopes held together with a rubber band. Flipping through them, she finds a picture. “Here she is.”

  The picture is of a gorgeous, Scandinavian-looking girl: tall, big shoulders, puffed pink lips. She’s wearing a Renaissance Fair type costume, complete with corset and giant skirt. At least I think it’s a costume. I’ve never been to Denmark.

  “She’s pretty,” I tell Dottie. “Is she your girlfriend?” I don’t know what compels me to ask this. I guess I just assume that if you’re writing letters to some gorgeous Scandinavian, and she’s sending you pictures, something must be up.

  “No.” Dottie laughs. “Although I bet Doug would get off on that.” She shakes her head and puts the picture away.

  “Who’s Doug?” I ask.

  “Doug Emberly. My boyfriend.” She says this in a duh way, but I look at her with a shrug. “We’ve been dating for, like, two years. He was in our honors bio class last year.” I nod with recognition, but I’m really thinking how I don’t even remember her being in my bio class. A boyfriend, a beautiful foreign pen pal, her own language. Dottie Bell’s not exactly what I predicted.

  The bell rings, and I close up my untouched precalc homework. Dottie diligently stuffs and licks an airmail envelope. “See you later. Fligirbig Snurip.” She blinks and walks off. Is she going to tell me what that means, or does she expect me to figure it out? Maybe it’s a test, and if I can’t solve it I’m an idiot. But if I can solve it, what does that make me?

  chapter 6

  MY EXPECTEDLY DISAPPOINTING first day of school ends with Bizza subtly making her way to my locker by yelling, “You wish, jockstrap!” to some faceless letterman down the hall. “Can you believe that guy just asked me out?” she yells to me and everyone else within the tristate area. “Yeah, right.”

  “He asked you out?” I question, intrigued but skeptical. “What did he say?”

  “He said if I couldn’
t get a date for homecoming he’d trade a BJ for a date.”

  Only Bizza could turn some jackass’s disturbing sexual suggestion into a guy asking her out. “Sounds like a catch,” I tell her as I sort my homework books into my backpack.

  “What are you doing now?” she asks me. I used to love hanging out with Bizza after school. We would always go to her house (so we didn’t get drowned out by the noise of the Crudhoppers practicing. Plus, Bizza has better cable) and watch King of the Hill reruns while drinking kiddie cocktails (which were actually just Sprite and the juice from a jar of maraschino cherries, always with a tiny paper umbrella. Actually, the same tiny paper umbrella each week, warped from cherry juice overexposure). Char could never make it because she had to watch her twin brothers after school, so Bizza and I had some tight, just-us times. Sometimes we’d write articles for our imaginary zine, Von Rolio, about what it would be like if we went to school with cartoon characters instead of real people. Sample Von Rolio articles:

  • “Why I Want to Date Bart Simpson: an ode to bad boys, even if they are seriously underage”

  • “Family Guy is fat and ugly. ’Nuff said.”

  • “Why Do All Anime Guys Look Like Girls?”

  We have more titles than actual articles, which is why Von Rolio still holds the “imaginary” title.

  We haven’t worked on Von Rolio since the end of last school year and the beginning of my skirt assignment and Bizza’s road to hair-gone-missing. As much as I’d like to get back into the zine, I can’t help but assume that Bizza’s under-grown hair has outgrown it.

  “I already have a ton of homework,” I lie as I stuff my backpack and lift it like it’s a heavy set of weights for emphasis. I do have homework, but it’s definitely manageable.

  “On the first day? Sucks to be you. Why don’t we just hang out for a little while? I could really go for a kiddie cocktail.” She smiles at me, and I’m sucked in by the Bizza charm, happy that some of the Bizza I know (and like) is still there.

  “Okay. Sure,” I say optimistically.

  “But let’s go to your house,” she adds, already walking three steps ahead of me down the hall. “The cleaning people are at my house today. Mom hates when we get in their way.” My house? We never have maraschino cherries at my house. But we always have the Crudhoppers.

  Van appears right on cue as we’re heading out of the school, Barrett beside him. “What are you two lovely ladies up to on this fine first day of school?” Van asks, and I simultaneously blush at him thinking I’m lovely and barf at him thinking Bizza is, too.

  “Oh, ya know, just chillaxin,” Bizza tells him.

  “Cool, cool,” Van responds.

  Barrett shifts his weight impatiently. He’s seen Van talk to girls before, but it’s gotta be weird that it’s somehow become his sister and her friend. “We’re going back home to practice. You guys need a ride somewhere?”

  “Totally. We’re going to your house, after all.” Bizza bats her eyelashes at Barrett, who smiles uncomfortably.

  “We’ve both got cars. Who wants to ride with me?” Van asks me and Bizza like whoever goes with him wins the ride-with-a-sex-god contest. A contest that I’d like to win, of course, but can’t think of how to say “me” without looking pathetic. Or pissing off Barrett.

  Bizza doesn’t miss a beat and says, “Ooh. I’ve never been in a Gremlin before. I’ll go with you, Van.” Without looking back at me, Bizza calls, “See you at your place, Jess.” Somehow it didn’t sound pathetic when Bizza said it.

  Barrett looks at my stuffed backpack and generously takes it off my back. He weighs it against his own bag. “Damn, Jess, are they making you carve all your homework on stone tablets? What do you have in here?”

  “Four textbooks filled with nine hundred pages each, for which we will only get through about two hundred pages this year.”

  “Trade you.” Barrett switches his bag with mine. “So how was the big first day of sophomore year?”

  “Average,” I answer. “Most of the same people in my classes as last year, similar expectations. Shouldn’t be too hard.” I rewind through my day and remember, “I sat next to Dottie Bell in study hall. Do you know her?”

  “I’ve heard of her. Isn’t she the girl who tried to join the boys’ gymnastics team because she refused to wear a leotard in public?”

  I forgot about that. I don’t blame her, really. Who wants to have to shave your pubes just to compete in a sport? Let alone the nightmare it would be when you have your period. “Yeah. That’s her. Did you know she made up her own language?”

  “Yeah? What’s it called? Dorkese?”

  “Clever. So that must mean you speak Asswipian,” I retort.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to off end you and your new bud.” We reach Barrett’s car and get in. He starts the engine with the radio at automatic blast, but I click it off.

  “She’s not my bud,” I say defensively. “She just sits next to me in study hall. No biggie.”

  “I’ll start to worry when you come home speaking in a frequency only dorks can hear.”

  “So you’re saying you’d be able to hear it, then?” We go back and forth like that the whole ride home. It bothers me that Barrett keeps referring to Dottie, who he doesn’t even know, as a dork. I think she may be interesting, in a somewhat freakish way.

  When we get home, Barrett heads directly toward the basement. I take out my precalc book and spread out on the coffee table as I click on King of the Hill.

  I do a couple of problems, no Bizza and Van. I get up for pop, no Bizza and Van. Precalculus finished plus an episode and a half later, Bizza and Van finally walk in together. Holding hands.

  chapter 7

  IF BIZZA HAD ANY HAIR, I’M PRETTY sure it would be messed up. She wears a cat-ate-the-canary grin, while Van looks as vacant and mysterious as ever. As soon as they see me, Van drops Bizza’s hand and pushes his way to the basement. “S’later,” is all he says, and I don’t even know to whom.

  “Did I miss anything?” Bizza plops herself down on the couch next to me. “Oh—I love this episode! When Peggy jumps from the airplane and her parachutes don’t work! Hilarious!”

  Only an evil slut would think someone breaking all of their bones is hilarious. I don’t care if they’re just a cartoon character. I don’t want to let Bizza see that I’m jealous, though, so I try to be nonchalant as I ask, “What took you so long? Did his shitmobile break down?”

  “No. We just took the long way home. I wanted to hear some of the Crudhoppers’ demo CD, so he played it for me. While we parked in a parking lot . . .”

  I brace myself.

  “. . . And made out! Aahhh! Isn’t he so scrumptious!” She falls back against the pillows dramatically.

  While I try to think of an answer to that question that does not include the words “no” or “shit,” I calculate in my head the last actual time I professed my crush on Van aloud. The whole thing started back in seventh grade during a Bizza and Char sleepover. Bizza dared me to dance around the Crudhoppers’ band practice in my new “Precious Littles” (I kid you not) brand bra and underwear set. I was almost through the basement door, Bizza and Char dying in a giggle fit at the top of the stairs, when I burst out crying. I confided to the two of them that I couldn’t let Van see me in that dorky underwear if I ever wanted him to like me. That got a big “Oooohh!” from Bizza and Char, but like good friends they promised they wouldn’t tell. Of course, I couldn’t count on the same from my big brother, who heard the whole basement-stair melodrama. That month, Van was at our house for dinner, and Barrett lovingly shared (in front of God, Van, and my parents) that each night before I went to bed I blew a kiss in every direction, just to make sure it reached Van’s house. I politely retaliated two weeks later, when Barrett brought home a new girlfriend and I strategically placed a pair of his skid-marked underwear in the middle of his bed.

  I guess I figured that since Van knew what a dorky, kid-sister crush I had on him, I had no chance w
ith the guy. But just because I had mild (i.e., for three weeks or less) boyfriends in eighth grade and freshman year, that didn’t mean my crush had to stop. That would be like me stopping from fantasizing about making out with Rupert Grint just because I had real make-out sessions with real people, not imaginary, movie-character-wizard ones. I know that. And so does Bizza. And just because I don’t talk about Van twenty-four hours a day anymore (although I do still secretly practice late-night Van-directional kissing), one would think that my improbable but still obvious devotion to Van would prevent someone—someone who has called herself my best friend since first grade—from hooking up with him. Perhaps the memory was hidden away in a lock of her hair that is now in the garbage somewhere, because Bizza is not acting the least bit remorseful. In fact, she’s going on and on about the whole damn thing.

  “I totally made the first move. You inspired me, Jessie, with the Kevin Blane Affair.” The Kevin Blane Affair is what Bizza, Char, and I call a blistering summer romance I had with my next-door neighbor’s cousin who was visiting from Texas for two weeks before our freshman year. Maybe it was that dream I had about him the day we met (my subconscious has an annoying way of planting boys in my dreams), but something about the whole boy-next-door thing mixed with the impermanence of it made me turn all gutsy. Kevin and I snuck out every night just to make out in the hammock they had in their backyard. And I was the one who started the whole thing by making up some excuse for us meeting in the middle of the night, like “I hear there’s going to be a meteor shower tonight.” I can be very seductive with science. Thank god he left after two weeks because my lips were getting chapped, I never got enough sleep, and, truthfully, he was a pretty bad kisser.

  Ironic, then, that my impulsive make-out saga inspired Bizza to have her very own make-out saga with my very own crush! Couldn’t she have been inspired by my sewing or good grades instead? Is she trying to emphasize that I should be over Van anyway since I had a make-out saga with another guy? Is that why she brought the Kevin Blane Affair up? I bet Van’s a way-better kisser than Kevin (my fantasies have him right up there with Rupert Grint–quality kissing, and Van’s not even a wizard), not that I’ll give Bizza the satisfaction of my asking.