Slob

  When you are looking down the barrel of your own imminent pain and suffering, you can’t help but feel relieved that you have someone to share it with. I know that’s not very Buddhist of me, but it’s the truth.

  I tried to save him. Don’t forget that.

  I did it for karma points, however.

  Note to self: Ask Nima if good karma can be revoked, like a driver’s license.

  I made my way through the group until I was standing next to Mason. He was the only other person in this crowd who might be experiencing a similar sense of doom, and I felt a natural inclination to be near him. Also, I hadn’t forgotten the switchblade in his sock. Not that I thought he would use it or anything. It just seemed like a situation where you would want to be near a person who carried a switchblade in his sock.

  I wound up on the evil genius side of his face, but for some reason it didn’t give me the heebie-jeebies. In fact, when I looked at him, I found that I was mentally skipping over the scar somehow.

  “Is this all for us?” he asked in a quiet voice.

  “I’m pretty sure,” I answered. “How come you didn’t get an exemption?”

  Mason shrugged. “I wasn’t in the mood. What do you guess all the mats are for?”

  “Somersaults.”

  “Can you do one?” he asked.

  I remembered that Mason hadn’t been there to witness the dog harness.

  I nodded. I did think I could, actually. As I said before, it’s all physics.

  “Good.” Mason nodded slowly. “How about jumping hurdles?”

  “Not my specialty,” I said.

  “That’s what I figured. Trampoline?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “I bet not good,” Mason said.

  “Probably not,” I agreed. I wasn’t insulted by all this, though. Mason didn’t seem to be making fun of me. The whole time he’d been eyeing the equipment thoughtfully, as though he were working something out.

  “Those tires, the ones standing upright, are the things that worry me the most though,” he said.

  “Really?” I said, surprised. There were four of the tires standing up and permanently fixed to a plank of wood. “Don’t worry. You’ll crawl through those, no problem.”

  Mason looked at me. I was getting so used to the evil genius side of his face that now I could even figure out its expressions. At the moment it looked like it couldn’t believe how thickheaded I was.

  “I’m not nervous for me, I’m nervous for you,” he said. “You’ll never squeeze through those tires. In fact, I could see you getting wedged in there and not being able to get out. I’m sure Wooly thought of that too.”

  I took a better look at the tires. I hadn’t thought about them too much because they looked so harmless compared to the rest of the stuff. Mason was right. The centers were small, so small that some of the average-sized kids in the class would have a hard time fitting through. As you are well aware, I am not average size.

  “See,” Mason continued, “he put them at the end of the obstacle course. It’s like the grand finale, you getting stuck in there.”

  “Holy crap, you’re right.” That was just what Wooly would do! “How did you know that?”

  “I’ve dealt with people like him before. Worse than him.” Mason said grimly. “So here’s how you handle this. You do the somersaults. You do the hurdles. You’ll knock them over but lots of people do, just try not to fall on your face. The trampoline is going to be tricky. No matter what you do, people are going to laugh at you while you’re on it. Fat kid bouncing around, you know. Make one really good bounce, and when you hit the trampoline, start screaming that you’ve hurt your ankle. It happens all the time. Even Wooly won’t try and make you keep going if you’re injured, and you’ll have gotten through at least half of the obstacle course without making a total fool of yourself. It will be bad, I’m not going to lie, but at least you’ll avoid getting stuck in those tires.”

  I stared at him in astonishment. His eyes shot away from mine.

  “Let’s just say I’ve spent most of my life avoiding humiliation,” he muttered by way of an explanation.

  I couldn’t help it. Thoughts of werewolves went through my mind.

  I wasn’t astonished at his plan, though, as good as it was. I was astonished that he had thought this all out for me! He had shown up for gym even though he didn’t have to, and faced with Wooly’s diabolical obstacle course, he was more concerned about me than he was about himself.

  Personally, I was beginning to think that Mason Ragg might be a little like The Fonz. Tough on the outside but heart of gold on the inside. Practically the very next second, the gym door opened and in marched Arthur. No kidding. It was like she had ultrasonic hearing for anything related to The Fonz and would appear on the spot if someone even thought about him. Stranger still, she was dressed in a boy’s gym uniform—white T-shirt, blue shorts. Right behind her was Jennifer Crawford, a.k.a. Benjamin, then came Emmie Wiltshire, a.k.a. Robert, then Chantal Samms, a.k.a. George, then three more members of GWAB whose names I didn’t know. They were all dressed in boys’ uniforms. I don’t know where they got them from, but except for Arthur, they didn’t fit the GWAB members very well. Then came Sybil Tushman with her camcorder. Last of all came Jeremy. I knew she would be there, of course. It came to me in a flash that this was The Blue and White Rebellion they had been plotting (blue and white being the colors of the gym uniforms), and now I realized with horror that she was going to watch Wooly wipe the floor with me. And so were her friends. If she was ashamed of me before this, she was going to want to disown me as a brother after this debacle.

  Jeremy’s gym uniform was so big that the shorts reached below her knees, and the T-shirt was almost as long as the shorts. But what shocked me, what made me literally suck back my breath in a gasp, was her hair. The long red mane that she had always refused to cut because our mother had loved it so much had been completely lopped off. Her hair was as short as a boy’s. It struck me as the final betrayal. With a few bold snips of the scissors, she had cut us all out, along with her hair—Mom, Dad. Me.

  Still, I didn’t think she looked very happy as she followed the others to the back end of the gym where we all stood, gawping at them (for the moment, everyone had forgotten about me and Mason and every head was riveted to the GWAB parade). Her head was lowered and her eyebrows were pinched together. She looked mad. Fighting mad. By comparison, the other girls just looked like they were pretending to be angry, but mostly they looked self-conscious as they stood in a clump by the rest of us, tugging at their badly fitting uniforms.

  Suddenly I had two thoughts:

  1. Watch out, Arthur. Jeremy is going to become the president of GWAB in no time.

  2. The Blue and White Rebellion might actually save the day. Wooly was going to have to deal with them, and that would eat up precious pain-and-suffering time that he’d allotted for me and Mason.

  I considered donating a charitable contribution to the organization.

  Like the rest of us, Mr. Wooly watched the members of GWAB in bewildered silence. Then he collected himself and boomed:

  “Excuse me, ladies!”

  Our class was so used to being called “ladies” that all our heads turned toward him. So he made a lassoing motion with his arm in the direction of the GWAB members and clarified things by saying, “You lot! The girls in boys’ uniforms! Out!” His invisible lasso was now tossed toward the gym doors.

  Arthur stepped forward. It wasn’t a big step and it probably should have been. She started saying something. I was pretty sure it was the speech that they had been working on. Unfortunately, no one could hear what she was saying.

  “I can’t hear what you’re saying,” Mr. Wooly said.

  Arthur started again, a little more loudly but not loud enough.

  “What? What are you mumbling about?” Mr. Wooly said.

  This was all working out so well, I could have hugged Arthur, I really could have. Time was ticking away. br />
  All of a sudden Jeremy stepped forward. It was a big step. A decisive step. It was the step of a soon-to-be GWAB president.

  “We, the members of GWAB, demand to be recognized by our true identities . . .”

  It was the GWAB statement they had been working on. Jeremy recited it very well in a loud clear voice that Mr. Wooly could completely understand. The only problem with the speech, from my perspective, was that it wouldn’t go on long enough. Still, I calculated that there would be plenty more time wasted while Mr. Wooly tried to get them to leave voluntarily (good luck with that), then called someone in to forcibly escort them out, then waited for said person to arrive, etc. It was all shaping up perfectly.

  I glanced over at Mason to see if he was as happy about this new development as I was. He didn’t seem to be. He wasn’t even looking at Jeremy and Wooly. Instead he was concentrating on something in the far corner of the gymnasium ceiling. I followed his glance, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what was so interesting up there.

  “. . . demand to be included in the boys’ section of gym class and to—”

  “You’re Birnbaum’s sister, aren’t you?” Mr. Wooly interrupted her.

  My happiness screeched to a grinding halt.

  For the first time since she’d walked in, Jeremy looked unsure of herself. She was silent for a moment, and I could see her blinking a little too quickly. If she said “No” it would crush me. But I also felt nervous about her saying “Yes.”

  No good could come of this, I was sure.

  Jeremy jerked her head quickly to one side, which was a gesture she often made to swish her long hair off her shoulder. Of course now there was nothing to swish.

  “Owen’s my brother,” she said cautiously.

  “Well, that’s just marvelous!” Mr. Wooly slapped his hands together. “Perfect timing! All right, let’s get on with business.”

  “But I didn’t finish,” Jeremy objected.

  “Oh, I got the gist. You all want to be treated like boys, blabbedy blah. All right, today is your lucky day. You gals will be our honored guests. Where’s the kid with the camera? You’re recording all this for posterity, right?”

  “For my video blog, The Universe According to Sybil,” Sybil Tushman said.

  “Even better! Well then come up front by me, that’s right. You’ll get a better view of the action from here.” He ushered Sybil up front with the greatest respect, guiding her past all the obstacles on the floor.

  “Today, ladies”—now he meant all of us—“we have a special treat. Because Mr. Birnbaum and Mr. Ragg were unable to complete the triathlon on Friday, I’ve organized a special event just for them. I hope the members of GLOB enjoy this demonstration, as well as”—he flourished a hand toward Sybil—“the fans of your video thing. Do you have a lot of fans, by the way?”

  “A decent amount,” Sybil said.

  “Nice,” Mr. Wooly said, smiling. By tonight, most of the school would be watching me tripping over hurdles and flopping around on a trampoline. Rachel Lowry included. Things couldn’t have worked out better for Mr. Wooly if he had planned The Blue and White Rebellion himself. I wondered if my good karma points had been revoked and been transferred to Mr. Wooly. I couldn’t imagine any other way that he might have gotten his hands on some good karma.

  I looked over at Jeremy. She was staring back at me, her expression full of something big, but what? Fear, anger? I couldn’t tell.

  Well, Jeremy, I thought, now you are going to see it firsthand. This is what my life is like. This is who I am now. The big, fat kid. Fatty Fatty Ding Dong.

  You’re not Caitlin anymore, and I’m not Owen. Not that Owen anyway. Not the Owen that you used to know.

  “Mr. Birnbaum! Mr. Ragg! Front and center!”

  My guts twisted up and my mouth instantly went dry. I looked over at Mason. He looked terrified.

  “I’ve got to get out of here!” he said to me in a panicked voice. “Now!” Then he started for the exit marked Boys’, which led down to the boys’ locker room.

  “What are you talking about?” I grabbed him by his upper arm. Me. Owen Birnbaum grabbed Mason Ragg.

  “Get off of me!” he shrieked, and pulled away, then hightailed it through the crowds, running toward the boys’ exit door, nearly knocking down Justin Esposito in the process. I was so stunned that it took me a minute to realize what was happening. He had chickened out! All that talk was a load of nonsense. He was a coward, just like me! More of a coward, because I wasn’t running away. I was scared, but I wouldn’t run. At least I could be proud of that.

  Nima says that when you start to feel like you are better than someone else, you should probably stick your head in a toilet because at that moment your thoughts are crap.

  “Ragg! Get back here!” Mr. Wooly had caught sight of Mason trying to escape and started rushing toward him. The obstacle course slowed him down. He stumbled over the edge of a mat and crashed against a hurdle.

  Suddenly, all the bravery that I had been able to muster evaporated. All the confidence that I had in Mason’s plan crumbled.

  You know what? I thought. I am just as much a coward as Mason.

  That was when I started to run too.

  “Birnbaum!” Wooly bellowed. “Don’t you take another step!”

  Mason reached the boys’ exit door a minute before I did. He flung it open, and before it could completely swing back shut, we went through. There was a short set of stairs, then a hallway, and then another door that opened into the boys’ lockers and showers. Mason was almost at the second door when I called out, “Why the hell did you show up, Mason, if you were only going to run away? Now you’ve just made everything worse! Wooly is madder than before—at both of us!”

  Mason turned around. The expression on his face was the same one I had seen in the school hallway the other day. The look of wild panic.

  “Don’t let them see,” he said before disappearing behind the locker room door.

  “See what?” I cried.

  Jeremy arrived then, her legs pounding down the stairs, and right after her Wooly stormed through. His face was a really alarming color, sort of a lavender, and a little speck of spit flew out of his mouth as he said, “Birnbaum, you are going to haul your carcass back in the gym right this second.” He said it sort of quietly, which was scarier than his bellowing. “And where is Ragg?”

  The door opened behind Wooly, and some of my classmates followed him cautiously, not wanting to get in the line of fire of Wooly’s fury but also not wanting to miss out on any of the good stuff.

  “Where’s Ragg?!” Wooly repeated, this time in his usual bellow. “Is he in there?”

  I didn’t answer, so Wooly stepped forward to go through the locker room door. I stepped back and stood in front of it. From inside the locker room came the sound of a loud crash.

  “What was that?” Jeremy whispered.

  “I don’t know,” I whispered back. Before I could stop her, she opened the locker room door and slipped inside.

  Instantly a cheer sounded from the top of the stairs. I looked up to see the members of GWAB hooting and punching their arms in the air. It took me a minute to realize why.

  A GWAB member had infiltrated the boys’ locker room. This moment would live forever in GWAB history, particularly since Sybil Tushman was filming it all at the top of the stairs.

  “All right, Birnbaum, out of the way.” Wooly made a movement toward the door, but I stayed put, spreading my arms wide so that I blocked the entire door.

  Wooly let loose with a string of threats, ranging from calling in the principal to calling my mom to immediate suspension to making my life a living hell. I had no doubt he would do all those things. But in my mind, I could still see Mason’s frightened, wild-looking eyes and hear his frantic words, “Don’t let them see.”

  I understood humiliation. I knew how it could flatten you, how it could make you want to lock yourself in an attic and not come out again until everyone who ever
knew you had forgotten about your existence. Oh yes, I knew all about humiliation. I knew a lot less about fighting back. I couldn’t think of any brave, clever retort to say to Mr. Wooly. I didn’t even say, “No.”

  All I did was not move.

  “MOVE!” Wooly screamed it in my ear so loud it hurt.

  Something popped into my head at that moment. It was like Wooly’s scream had shaken loose a thought that had been hiding in my brain, tucked beneath all the other thoughts:

  I am a boulder. Boulders don’t move.

  Something in my expression must have changed then too. All of a sudden Wooly looked at me, really looked at me. He pushed his glasses up on his nose.

  There was a noise from inside the locker room, a heavy clunking sound.

  “Is that young man having a seizure?” he asked, his voice turning very teacherly all of a sudden. “Is that what’s going on in there?”

  I have to admit, this pulled me up short. Was that what it was? Did Mason have seizures? It was possible that Wooly was lying to me in order to get past me. On the other hand, it made sense. It would explain why Mason had run away from me so frantically in the hallway. I had once seen a person have a seizure on the street. It was horrible-looking. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and her legs and arms thrashed around. She drooled all over herself.

  “Get out of my way!” Wooly screamed. The kids crowded up behind him now, ready to storm in the locker room and see the infamous Mason Ragg having a seizure.

  I am a boulder. Boulders don’t move.

  For a moment I thought Mr. Wooly might try and shove me out of the way. He might even hit me—he certainly looked angry enough to. I braced myself for a blow. For a second my eyes glanced up at Sybil, who was still holding up her camera, capturing the whole scene and part of me thought, Yes, do it, Wooly. Hit me. Then everyone can see what a maniac you are on The Universe According to Sybil.

  But though he was a maniac, he wasn’t a total moron. He knew he couldn’t touch me without getting tossed out of the school.

  “Andre!” Mr. Wooly screamed without taking his eyes off of me.

  “Yes?” Andre said. He was right behind Wooly.