Goddamn it. I haven’t had a single bite of burger. I tell the Little Ones to watch my eats.
Heads turn like paparazzi to a coked-up starlet as I walk over. My stomach knots like someone’s wringing out my intestines. I hate doing this when there’s a crowd. The lunch lady scurries into the kitchen. Probably to dial 911. Where are the lunch monitors when you need them?
Then I see her. At the table next to Pitbull. She’s the only one not watching the show. She’s picking at her salad like this is brunch at the Ritz. What the hell? How come she doesn’t do anything? He’s her boyfriend. Suddenly, she does something. She looks up. But not at him. At me. With an expression of . . . what? Contempt? Fear? Pity?
Fuck you, Wynona. Pity yourself. You’re the one sitting on your hands.
My thoughts must be seeping through my pores because her expression crinkles into pissed off, and she storms out of the cafeteria. Pitbull calls after her, but she ignores him.
I tap Brittlebones on the shoulder. “You need something, Charlie?”
“My pie.”
Laughter erupts.
“Why don’t you grab another slice?”
“’Cause this was the last slice of blueberry.”
More laughter.
I push my hood off and turn to Pitbull. He’s clenching the pie in one hand and a fist in the other. I never remember how massive he is until I’m right beside him. I’m five-eleven, and he towers over me. This gigantic dolt has the facial hair of a thirty-year-old and could play professional football. How many times has he been held back? “Why don’t you give him his pie,” I say.
“Sure, hero.” Pitbull flicks the slice at Charlie. It bounces off his chest and lands on the floor.
Louder laughter.
My first thought is Shit, I just washed that shirt. And blueberry stains are a bitch to get out.
Charlie sniffles. I can tell he’s about to burst into tears.
Pitbull squares off and stares me down.
“I got an extra brownie on my tray, Charlie,” I say, without taking my eyes off Pitbull.
“But I w-want pie,” he stutters.
Kids start mimicking his high-pitched squeal. I want pie. Gimme pie. Oh no, my blueberries.
“Well, eat it off the floor then.”
No laughter.
Charlie looks at the pile of pie, slumps his shoulders, and walks off.
Pitbull kicks the heap of blue mush at me. “You gonna do something ’bout it, Scarface?”
A cacophony of oooooh s.
Just to set the record straight, I never start fights. Never. It’s a rule I live by. And I never fight for no reason. That’s another rule. There has to be a reason. A big reason. Like Pitbull. Truth is, if there wasn’t a reason, I’d probably get my ass whupped every time, so I reckon my fisticuffin’ commandments are more self-preservational than moralistical.
I consider breaking my fighting rule and hurling a right hook at Pitbull’s left temple. I could land it before the oooooh s end. But, we’re in the cafeteria. And I’m hungry. And it’s just pie.
I turn.
I hear scuffles and whispers behind me as I walk away.
“Didn’t think so, faggot.”
I don’t turn.
Something slams me hard in the back of the head. A bolt of pain slices my temples and my vision blurs. I drop to one knee. I think baseball bat, but that theory is debunked when I’m doused.
Laughter erupts like in a stadium.
It’s a Mountain Dew cocktail. A high school variation of the Molotov cocktail, except you get engulfed in soda instead of flames. It’s done by opening the can, covering the top with duct tape, shaking it like crazy, and throwing it.
I’m drenched and sticky, and my head is throbbing.
I stand and turn.
Pitbull lifts his arms to say Bring it on.
Teachers swarm. Nice of them to show up.
Mrs. Hershberger scurries to my side and touches my shoulder.
I shrug her off and walk away.
The Little Ones are terrified.
I plaster a smile over the pain. “Anyone want some Mountain Dew?”
They don’t laugh.
“No worries, guys. Just high school hijinks. Go on, get to class.”
They clean up and leave. Charlie Brittlebones is crying. He hasn’t taken one bite of brownie.
I kneel beside him. “Charlie, this ain’t your fault. Pitbull’s an asshole. You know that. If it wasn’t you, it’d be someone else. Now eat your brownie and get to class.”
He sniffles and takes a mousy nibble.
I wrap my food in a napkin and head to my Subterranean Day Spa and Smoke Shop.
My underground grotto is an abandoned locker room adjacent to an abandoned gymnasium in the basement. It was boarded up a few years back when the new physical fitness emporium was built, but I have my ways in.
The sink in my day spa has one of those faucets that runs for five seconds and then shuts off automatically, so I have to press it a thousand times to rinse my hair. A lump is already forming on the back of my head. I scarf down my cold lunch while I sit under the hand dryer.
Part of me wants to ditch for the rest of the day. My clothes are sticky and my head’s pounding. I can’t deal with teachers today. Or students. Or Little Ones. Or walking. Or talking. Or thinking. Or breathing. Maybe I should stay underground for the duration and chill with my good pal Podiddle. But our dickhead science teacher, Professor Pitstains, has already assigned a big-ass research project, and my partner, Green Day, is expecting me in study hall. I don’t wanna dump the entire assignment in his lap. Not that he’d mind.
I enter study hall through the back door and spot Wynona. She’s sitting front row center. I can only see the back of her head, but I’d recognize Wynona from any angle. Green Day’s sitting rear row right. The farthest seat from the preaching podium. The exact spot I would have chosen. It’s one of those lecture rooms where the rows are tiered so everyone has an unobstructed view of the performing monkey on stage.
Green Day’s real name is Reggie Tibbler, but I call him Green Day because he wears T-shirts with environmental messages and puts Save the Planet stickers all over his books and locker. He’s wicked smart and he reads like crazy. He’s a total geek, but I like him. He’s the only kid in school who’s ever asked me about my scar, and he’s the only person on the planet I’ve ever told how I got it. The football assholes used to bully him, and that’s why I partnered with him in science last year. They saw me hanging out with him and haven’t bothered him since.
“Hey, Green Day.” I slide into the chair next to his.
He blinks his big brown eyes from behind his goofy Buddy Holly glasses. “Good afternoon, Cricket.” He stares me up and down like he’s surprised I’d been walking. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
“How come?”
“The cafeteria ruckus, of course.”
Green Day uses fancy, old-fashioned words when he talks, which cracks me up ’cause he’s being totally serious. Unlike me.
“Yes, it was one humdinger of a hootenanny,” I say, grinning.
He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “To be sure. How’s your head?”
“Sticky.”
We’ve been assigned the Yellowstone Caldera, a very inspiring topic, and Green Day is sketching the internal components of a volcano, which look disgustingly similar to the female reproductive organs. Holy cow, I wouldn’t want to stick any part of me inside that molten mess. There’s a giant poster in health class of Olivia Organs, so I know what those hazardous internals look like.
“Yes, Mountain Dew can be extremely difficult to extricate from hair follicles,” Green Day says as he shades a periwinkle fallopian tube. “Trust me, I know. But not as troublesome as bubblegum.” Green Day draws as he talks, which makes it seem like he’s talking to himself. “The cheerleaders gave me a baseball cap last year as I was entering the homecoming rally. They asked me to wear it to show my support
for the football team. As you know, I’m not a hat person, but I complied, as I felt it a worthy display of school spirit. It turned out the interior of the cap had been laced with numerous pieces of already-chewed bubblegum. My mother had a frighteningly difficult time remedying that clotted conundrum.” His expression is flat, like he’s telling me how fertilized eggs attach to the uterine wall. “She had to cut the gum out with scissors, which, needless to say, resulted in numerous unsightly bald spots.”
“You wore a lot of hats last fall.”
“A season steeped in irony, to be sure.”
I look up and Wynona is suddenly standing above me. She’s biting her lower lip and tugging an earlobe. “I’m sorry about what happened in the lunchroom,” she says.
“You have nothing to be sorry about,” I say flatly.
“Yes, I do. I don’t know why I just sat there. I wanted to say something, but then you started walking over, and I couldn’t say anything then because it would look like, well, you know, like I was taking your side or something. I am sorry. I hope your head’s okay. Maybe, I don’t know, maybe sometime . . .”
The double doors to the study hall crash open and Pitbull barrels in like a running back through two defensive tackles. His nickname is mostly on account of the way he plays football. Like a rabid dog. Turns out Buster’s a nickname too. His real name is Bartholomew. A sophomore called him Bartholomew once, and the kid missed a week of school, Pitbull pounded him so ugly. Bartholomew. What a joke. Like calling Freddy Krueger Frederick. Wishful thinking, Mom and Dad. Northern Maine’s butt-plugged to the borders with wishful thinking.
I turn to Wynona, but she’s already talking to a girl a few seats over.
Pitbull’s entourage marches in behind him. Pitbull peruses the room; when he sees me, he smiles big and wide, then flips me the bird. He sees Reggie and converts it to a double bird. Fortunately, Green Day doesn’t notice because he’s busy sketching a bloody discharge erupting out of the top of a volcano.
My throwdown with Pitbull is getting closer by the minute. He’s been hassling me like a warthog in heat since last spring, saying I have a horseshoe stuffed up my ass and that’s the only reason I managed to kick the snot out of two of his football buddies who were bullying some Little Ones. He’s been promoting this fight like he’s Don King or something.
Wynona returns to her seat. She ignores Pitbull, who’s directly in front of her, faux-boxing with one of his football pals. They’re both wearing varsity jackets with enormous drooling wolverines embroidered on the back. If our school were located in a more civilized part of the world, they’d be throwing their fists into a nice game of rock, paper, scissors instead of at each other’s heads. Fighting ain’t a big deal here in Lumberjack Land. It’s like a hockey game brawl. Everyone pretends to be against it, but it’s what they root for. Which is messed up when you think about it.
I wonder what Wynona was going to say to me. “Maybe sometime . . .” Maybe sometime what, Wynona?
“Cricket, did you know there were volcanoes near Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire approximately one hundred and twenty-five million years ago?” Green Day asks.
I don’t answer him. I’m pretty sure he’s speaking rhetorically anyway.
Wynona looks at her watch, shakes her head, and picks up a book.
Pitbull’s noticed me again. He’s flicking his chin in my direction and whispering to his teammates. One of his pals is holding him back by the bicep. He yanks his arm away and steps toward me. “You wanna go right now, Scarface? Finish what you started, asshole.”
Everyone in the room looks at me.
I stare at Pitbull without flinching.
I see Green Day shift in his seat out of the corner of my eye.
“Cricket?” His voice is low and jittery.
“Don’t worry, Reg. He won’t do nothing in school.”
Wynona sets her book down. “Buster, please.”
He ignores her.
The door swings open and Mrs. Emory rushes in even later than usual. She breaks up the football huddle and they take their seats in the second and third rows. Pitbull starts fiddling with Wynona’s night-black hair. He looks like a toddler poking a kitten.
Mrs. Emory walks the aisles as everyone settles in. She’s a spindly brainiac. Tall and gangly with long limbs and a puny head. Kinda like me.
Green Day passes me a sheet of paper. It’s labeled Yellowstone Caldera Project Outline and Research Strategy. Jeez Louise, it’s typed and everything. And we just got the assignment last week. Green Day’s a schoolaholic.
The word Strategy makes me think about my boathouse boxing workouts with Caretaker. Caretaker and I have been working on a Pitbull fight strategy since the beginning of the summer. You need a strategy when you fight a dude that’s got a hundred pounds on you and is gonna charge you angry and wired like a pit bull. Brawling’s more about mind than size. A lot more. Most people don’t understand that. Don’t get me wrong. Some swizzle stick, chess champion, asthma dork ain’t gonna mindify his way out of a down-home ass-whupping. But a small fighter with skill and brains can stomp an ignoramus no matter how much poundage the dunderhead’s got on him.
One thing Caretaker said stuck in my head like peanut butter to the roof of my mouth. He wasn’t exactly talking about fighting, but I knew he meant it about fighting—one of those metafornical-type tales where the teller aims the words at your ears while he’s poking you elsewhere. He said if a killer dog ever charges you with the aim of chomping you a chew toy destruction, grab him by the front legs and yank them apart like you would an oversize turkey wishbone. You’ll rip the dog’s heart in half. I think about that heart-ripping story a lot when I’m training for my Pitbull fight.
Wynona spins around and swats Pitbull’s hand away from her head. She’s got a fake smile plastered on. Pitbull keeps poking her like he’s checking the firmness of a bundt cake.
Saying I have a crush on Wynona is an understatement. She’s been global warming my southern hemisphere ever since she moved here. She’s only lived in Naskeag for three years, and that length of time don’t count for nothing in Maine. Maine’s glacial. She’s lived in Maine all her life, but if your house isn’t inside the county lines and wasn’t built by the bare hands of a blood relative, you’re from away. Mainers are wicked particular about geographical origins. Hatchin’ chickens in the stove don’t make ’em muffins. Whatever the hell that means. To make matters worse, Wynona’s from Portland, so she’s also a suthunah.
I look at a rendering of a volcano in Green Day’s textbook. Lava. I gaze at Wynona’s coal-colored mane, and another four-letter L-word comes to mind. I wasn’t going to admit this but here goes. The old L-word has tickled the lining of my cranial squeezebox during various Wynona ruminations. I don’t know, though. Tough to affix a word to something when you don’t know its meaning. And even if I did, how can you L someone you don’t know? You can F people you don’t know, but you can’t L them.
But if I’m not prepared to use the L-word, what word should I use? Attraction? Lame. Caring? Super lame. Fondness? Oh, sweet Jesus, just bedazzle my ass in leather chaps and ship me off to Big Gay Al’s. Lust? Disrespectful. Don’t get me wrong. I get plenty knotted south of the equator when Wynona’s nearby, but it’s the good kind of knots, not the knotty kind. Not like the raunchy naughtytime hankerings I have when I reminisce about the working girls I knew when I lived in Boston with my foster whore. Yeah, I had friends who were pros. No big deal. I ain’t whore-aphobic.
Wynona’s dating Pitbull is an enema I’d like to get to the bottom of. My guess is she’s ice-screwed herself to Pitbull since he’s the quickest route to Popularity Peak. I can’t imagine she’ll care much for the view once she’s up there, though.
I look at the back of Wynona’s head. Pitbull’s still fiddling with her long black hair.
I imagine her spinning around and screaming like Bette Davis in Of Human Bondage. “It made me sick when I had to let ya kiss me. I only did it because ya b
egged me, ya hounded me, you drove me crazy! And after you kissed me, I always used to wipe my mouth! Wipe my mouth!”
The vision makes me chuckle.
CHAPTER 7
When the final bell rings, I grab my books from my locker and head to the courtyard to meet the Little Ones. As soon as I step outside, I know I’m gonna be in a fight. Every eye is on me. Hundreds of them. It’s a familiar glower. Like I’m some friggin’ horror movie villain.
Andrew Pendleton, one of my roomies at the Prison, is sprawled on the ground, sobbing next to his knapsack. Pitbull’s hovering over him, flipping though Andrew’s Spider-Man comic book. He looks like Godzilla in his army fatigues and green T-shirt.
Tiny bubbles tingle in my calves, float to my thighs, stomach, chest, throat, head. The pressure builds.
So, today’s the day. I guess this afternoon’s cafeteria incident motivated him.
I push my hood off, drop my books, and start toward Pitbull.
I know what the landscapers were thinking when they decided on cobblestone, but I’m thinking something totally different. Wobbly and uneven. Tricky to keep your footing. And damn hard on the noggin when you go down. Not like dirt or grass. I stuff my iPod in my pocket next to my letter and wonder if what’s about to happen should be listed as a reason on my response to Foxy Moxie. Reckon this could be diddled on either side of the page.
The sun’s bright, so I squint, which the rabble probably figure I’m doing to look angry and badass, but I’m not. I’m just trying to see. I’m not badass. Angry, yes, but not badass.
I smirk. Pitbull gawks at me with the same confused expression he gets in class. He can’t figure out how a skinstick like me comatosed his linebacker buddies. His teeth are brown, and he drools when he barks. “Well, looky here. Asshole season opened early this year. You ready to eat some dirt, hand-me-downs?”