I jerked awake and opened my eyes in time to see Cole fall past my mattress.
Mom charged across the room and knelt on the floor. I scooted over and looked down at Cole, who lay stunned on the floor in a pair of tightie whities.
“Come on,” said Mom as she jerked Cole up into a seated position and gave him a sharp whack on the back.
Cole sucked in a breath and screeched, “Ow! Don’t hit me!”
“Well, stop falling out of bed,” she said, standing up.
“It’s not like he wanted to fall out of bed, Mom.”
“Then why does he keep taking the side rail off?” She stared at Cole with one eyebrow raised.
“Side rails are for babies,” said Frank from his top bunk across the room. His rail was in place and didn’t stand a chance of removal.
“You mean babies who fall out of bed?” She turned and walked out yelling, “Luke, Caleb, get up!”
A loud thump and a yell came from the next room. Mom yelled, “Oh, for Christ’s sake! Put your rail back on! How dumb are you?”
We laughed as we got dressed and then went to look in on Luke and Caleb. Luke lay on the floor, refusing to move. Caleb was pulling on a pair of cutoff khakis.
“What’s wrong with him?” asked Frank.
“Nothing,” said Caleb. “He’s protesting. He thinks Aunt Violet should apologize for calling him dumb.”
“He is dumb. He falls out of bed all the time,” I said.
“I’m going to kick your monkey asses after she apologizes,” said Luke.
“Will that be before or after nuclear annihilation?” Caleb walked out. I followed him with Cole and Frank in tow.
“I’m going to kick your ass, too,” Luke yelled behind us.
“The only thing you’re good at kicking is your own ass,” Caleb yelled back.
We went into the kitchen and got breakfast. Cole decided it was a special occasion and used a bowl. That sucked. I wanted to see Mom’s reaction to Cole’s bowl-less breakfast. She kept finding cereal and milk on the floor, but she couldn’t catch whoever was doing it. There were at least five layers of mess next to the sink. She’d get serious when it got to ten and start staking out the kitchen.
“What’s wrong with Luke?” Aunt Calla stood in the middle of a puddle of dried milk, chopping a pile of fresh dill.
“He fell out of bed again,” said Mom.
“Unbelievable. How can anyone that smart be so consistently stupid?” She looked at me when she asked the question, like I knew.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Is he going to cut his hair?”
Luke yelled something unintelligible.
“I don’t know.”
“Is he going to eat before we leave?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said.
Luke yelled again.
“Is there anything you do know?”
“I don’t know.”
Another yell.
Aunt Calla screeched and tossed down her chef’s knife. She walked to the kitchen door and screamed, “Shut up, Luke, or I’m going to come in there and shave your idiotic head myself!”
Luke stopped yelling.
“Here, take him a banana.” She handed me a banana and went back to chopping.
We arrived at school for the Fourth of July picnic forty-five minutes late. I spent the better part of the drive ignoring Mom and convincing myself she was not even with us, certainly not driving the van wearing a raspberry flapper dress and combat boots. I didn’t really care what she wore, but I cared that other people cared. I don’t know what was wrong with me. I didn’t feel the way they did, but I was supposed to, and it was irritating. If she would just be like the other Moms, I wouldn’t have to deal with it.
When Mom parked I booked it across the lacrosse field with Frank and Cole. We met the rest of The Pack and organized into teams for a soccer game. Ten minutes into the game, I heard familiar snickers from the other players. Laughter like that was usually about my family, but I ignored them until the others stopped playing and stared motionless in the direction of my mom. Zeke Butterfield, a sophomore, doubled over in laughter. I kicked the ball as hard as I could. My aim was true and I nailed Zeke in the side of the head.
“Hey! What’s your problem?” Zeke yelled.
“I don’t have a problem, asshole,” I said. “It’s not funny.”
“Are you crazy? That’s some funny shit.”
I went at Zeke with a fist. Just before I connected, a girl said, “It’s funny, but he’s still hot.” I pulled to the side at the last second, sailed past Zeke, landing on my face. I rolled over and spit out a blade of grass. Zeke stared and a small crowd gathered.
“What’s up with you?” Zeke asked.
“Nothing. Sorry about the ball,” I said.
“It’s cool,” said Zeke.
I accepted Zeke’s hand up and turned to see what everyone was looking at. I should have known. Luke stood next to the watermelon table, running his fingers through his oily hair and making it stand on end. His face was dark with embedded oil and with his long, lean body he looked like a grinning sunflower.
“What happened to your cousin, man?” asked Zeke.
“He had an accident,” I said.
“Did he blow something up again?”
“No. He just fell in some oil.”
I left Zeke contemplating how one falls face-first into oil, and passed Luke, who told a tale about a runaway tractor. He winked at me and described how he narrowly escaped death, but not an oil facial. I shook my head, but backed Luke’s story to a couple of junior girls admiring Luke from a distance.
After I escaped Luke’s fans, I got a plate of baked beans and pie and started looking for Miss Pritchett. I figured she’d be in the middle of the games area, trying to ruin everyone’s life, but she wasn’t there. I found Mr. Hubbert instead. He wore a tan and golf clothes. The bags under his eyes were smaller and he had a mint julep in his hand.
“Hello, Puppy,” he said.
“Hi, Mr. Hubbert.”
“Looking for someone?”
“Sort of.”
“May I enquire as to whom?”
“Miss Pritchett,” I said.
“Really.” Mr. Hubbert’s eyebrows nearly touched his graying widow’s peak. “You aren’t planning anything, are you?”
“No way.”
“Of course, you wouldn’t tell me even if you were. I don’t know why I asked. But you needn’t fear running into your nemesis. Miss Pritchett is ill and won’t be attending.”
“Oh.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Concern for Miss Pritchett was unfamiliar territory.
“You look disappointed. You were planning something.” Mr. Hubbert put his large hand on my shoulder. His long fingers wrapped around and squeezed. “Your year with Miss Pritchett is over. It’s best to let these things go.”
“Is she okay?”
“Of course. It’s just the flu. You have to let it go, Puppy.”
I attempted an innocent face. “I know.”
Mr. Hubbert laughed and walked away.
Miss Pritchett was ill, but that could mean anything. She did get sick a lot. It was the only good thing about her. She took a lot of sick days. But how ill did a person have to be to make the sounds that came out of Miss Pritchett’s window? An uneasy feeling started in my chest, like I’d forgotten something and needed to get home to get it. I followed Mr. Hubbert’s path through the growing crowd, eating my pie and looking for Melody Harper. She’d emailed me a dozen times since school ended. I replied twice. I figured I’d better talk to her quick before she got too mad.
I found her next to the baby pools with her group, drinking a shake and wearing a tennis dress. She had a deep tan and a new henna tattoo on her ankle. Melody looked good, nice, and the same as ever. Just before she noticed me, my mind flitted back and forth between images of Shasta and Sophie.
“Hi, Puppy.” Melody gave me a little wave and ground the toe of her white sandal into the dirt.
“Hi.” Suddenly, I didn’t want to be there anymore. I couldn’t remember why I came in the first place.
“How’s your summer?” She flipped her hair back over her shoulder and smiled, showing no teeth.
“Okay, I guess. How’s yours?”
“Is that all you have to say?” She wasn’t smiling anymore.
“Er…I guess.”
Sophie appeared over Melody’s shoulder and smiled at me, all her brilliant white teeth showing between her moist lips. My face went bright red and I couldn’t stop looking at those lips.
“Puppy?” said Melody.
“I got to go. I’ll see you later, okay?” I skirted Melody and her group. Behind me, I heard their whispers and complaints. I didn’t care. Sophie was smiling at me.
“Hi, Pup. Want to give me the lowdown on your cousin?” Sophie asked. “He claims he had a brush with death.”
“He fell in some oil.”
“Face first?”
“Well, you know he just kind of does stuff.”
“No kidding. Let’s go hear the latest incarnation of his story.” Sophie didn’t mention my stupid blushing and there’s no way she didn’t notice. Instead, she hooked her arm through mine and steered me toward Luke, who sat in the middle of a mass of admirers.
Luke saw us and stepped over several girls to reach Sophie, who let go of my arm. “Hey, Pup. Your girlfriend’s looking at you,” said Luke.
I glanced back to see Melody standing in a circle of her friends glaring at me.
“Yeah. Um…I gotta go find Cole…um…see you later.” I passed Luke, who’d already forgotten me and was kissing Sophie’s neck.
I waved to classmates who tried to waylay me. I had to get away until my clown cheeks disappeared. I tried every door I passed; none opened until the boys’ locker room. I listened for sounds of occupancy and then walked in, leaned against a row of lockers, and slid down to the floor.
“Hey, Puppy.” Cole’s voice echoed against the metal and I jumped, banging my head against a bicycle lock.
“What the hell, Cole? What are you doing in here?”
“I don’t know. It’s the only door that’s open.” Cole sat opposite me under a shelf that held the basketballs and bats. His arms were wrapped around his brown legs and he looked bewildered.
“Yeah, I know,” I said with a sigh of relief. Being startled made my flushing go away and I wondered if it was like hiccups. If someone scared you, it went away.
We sat listening to the quiet in a place known for noise, avoiding each other’s eyes and looking pathetic as hell. I couldn’t think of a cool explanation for why I was there, and I was dying to know why Cole was.
“So you going to stay for awhile?” asked Cole.
“I don’t know, are you?”
“Maybe.”
“Me, too.” I picked at my shoelaces, stealing looks at Cole. “Okay man, I can’t stand it. What are you doing in here?”
Cole gave me a miserable look and said, “Tiffany’s out there.”
“So.”
“She’s mad at me.”
“Why?”
“How should I know? I didn’t do anything. Why are you in here?” Cole looked around like he wanted something to throw.
“Melody’s mad at me,” I said.
Yeah, that worked and it was a lot better than saying I blushed like an idiot.
“Why?”
“Cause I didn’t want to talk to her.”
“That’s why Tiffany’s mad at me. She acts like she’s my girlfriend or something.”
“Why would she think that?” I asked, fearing I already knew the answer.
“We kind of had a thing,” Cole said, looking bewildered again.
“Like the thing you had with her before?”
“Yeah, kind of. I don’t get it. What’s their problem?”
“I don’t know,” I said, but I did know.
Cole was popular. Girls were always sending him notes and calling him. I didn’t know what it was, but Cole had something girls liked. It’d all been okay until this year. We made the basketball team and for the first time we had away games. The cheerleaders rode the bus with the team. Mr. Carter and Mrs. Wainwright, our coaches, sat in the front of the bus grading papers or listening to their iPods. Before long we all figured out the coaches didn’t care what we did as long as we were quiet about it. I learned how to French and unhook a bra by the third away game.
On our fourth drive home, Tiffany sat with Cole. I was making out with Melody and happened to open my eyes at the right moment. Over Melody’s shoulder I saw Tiffany’s head go down into Cole’s lap. I was trying so hard to get my hand under Melody’s bra, it took me a few seconds to realize what was going on. The bus ride seemed to go on forever and I never did get under Melody’s bra, but Cole got things I didn’t even think were possible.
After that, it was all downhill for Cole. Every girl in our class was mad at him. None of them would say why. Finally, on Valentine’s Day, Melody told me why the girls were mad.
“They’re mad because of what you did with Tiffany,” I told Cole the next day.
“What’d I do?”
“You know, on the bus after the Clearwater game.”
“But that was like forever ago,” said Cole.
“I know.”
“And why do they care, anyway?”
“Beats me,” I said.
We went over it and over it, but we couldn’t get a grip on the exact problem. We decided in the end that girls were crazy and the whole thing blew over by March. Then it happened again, Cole and Suzie Underwood on the bus coming back from a field trip. Cole was caught in another firestorm of girl hate with no idea what he did wrong. I thought it was over by the end of school, but Tiffany was mad again.
“So she did it again?” I looked Cole over, trying to discern how he managed it. All Cole’s face revealed was pride and confusion. Neither was anything new.
“Yeah. The last day of school after the assembly. You were already gone.”
“But she was mad at you. How’d you get her to do it?”
“I don’t know,” said Cole. “We were making out and she just did it.”
“How’d you get her to make out with you? She hates you.”
“I don’t know. She just wanted to. I never asked her.”
As good as it sounded, and it sounded pretty damn good, maybe it wasn’t worth it, if a guy ended up hiding in the locker room afterwards. Of course, I never even got under Melody’s bra, so my chances of a BJ were low at best.
“You can’t hide in here all day.” I was ready to go since my face was back to normal.
Cole didn’t answer. He peeled a scab off his knee and poked at the pus with his fingernail.
“Come on,” I said. “We’ll just ignore them and they’ll get over it like last time.”
“Okay,” said Cole, sounding unconvinced.
We left the locker room and wandered back to the field, avoiding the food area where the girls usually congregated. Luke and Caleb were playing touch football. We watched them running in the sun, shirtless and smiling. I pulled off my shirt and ran into the game. I leapt into the air and caught the other team’s pass, then withstood the crowd’s hisses. We did a do-over since I wasn’t part of the team when the pass started. I managed another interception and spent the next hour dodging guys a head taller and thirty pounds heavier. By the end I was pretty scraped up and my shorts were green from grass stains.
I left when Mr. Hubbert announced it was time for organized games and went to find Frank and Cole. Frank was easy to spot on the sidelines. He never joined any game if he could help it. His back was to me and he stood behind Cole and some other guys from our class. I came up behind Frank, but before I could speak, I heard what he was listening to.
“She is such a tasty piece,” said Zeke.
“Which one?” asked Cole.
“Either one. I’d like to get me some of that.”
I looked to see who they were talking about. A group of girls were practicing cheers in their bikinis. They were wet and slick from running through the sprinklers and didn’t seem to notice half of their male classmates drooling over them. Ella and April were among them, but their presence didn’t register with me. I was too busy looking at Sophie. Her red hair was knotted on top of her head and she wore a regular bikini, not the Brazilian, but that didn’t make her any less incredible. She was curvy, where most of the others were built like two-by-fours. She hopped up and down showing Ella a cheer and there were more than a few mouths hanging open on the sidelines.
“Dude, you are so lucky. You get to spend the whole summer with them. You ever see their tits?” Jamie Elkland asked Cole. He was my sisters’ age, and I didn’t know him very well.
“I wish. It’s not like they walk around with their tops off or something,” said Cole. “But I think she kind of likes me. Maybe we’ll go skinny-dipping.”
“Which one? Ella or April?” asked Zeke.
They were talking about my sisters. They were talking about my sisters’ tits. I didn’t even realize my sisters had tits. That natural development was beyond my imagination. I grossed myself out by looking to check. Sure enough, they did.
I took two steps towards Cole and Zeke, but was knocked back by Frank, who turned suddenly and ran into me.
“Sorry,” said Frank and rushed off.
I watched him go, surprised by the pained look on his face, but I quickly forgot it as I rammed my hand against Cole’s shoulder.
“What the hell?” Cole spun around, then took a step back. “Oh, Puppy. I didn’t—”
“I bet you didn’t. You talking about my sisters?”
Their guilt-ridden faces betrayed the truth I already knew.
“You better stop looking at them or I’m going to kick your asses. You got that?”
Zeke, Jamie, and Cole nodded assent and I walked off, so mad I could’ve punched somebody. Then I saw Frank eating some cotton candy, all hunched over and morose. He didn’t talk nasty about my sisters. Like April said, he was a good guy. I joined Frank, took a hunk of the cotton candy he offered, and decided to forget the whole thing. After all, Cole didn’t stand a chance with April or Ella. They weren’t interested in guys yet. I was sure of that.
We got home a little after midnight. I sat in the van until everyone else got out, surveying the yard and the distance to the door. Beatrice wasn’t in sight, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t lurking around the corner with a huge glob of goo, waiting for me. I shoved open the van door, stumbled out, and broke for the house. I ran past the others and knocked into Mom. She dropped an industrial-size box of laundry detergent, which burst when it hit the ground.
“Puppy! What is your problem?” yelled Mom.
I stood on the porch inside the screen door, looking back and forth like a distressed weasel.
“Beatrice might be out there,” I said.
“Oh, for crying out loud. Stop being a wuss and help me clean up this mess.” She kicked at the detergent lying in snowy heaps around her feet.
“No way. That’s what she’s waiting for.”
“Puppy, so help me God, if you don’t get out here and clean this up, I’m going to spit on you.” Her hands went to her hips and she glared at me through the screen. Luke and Ella laughed behind her. April knelt down and began scooping the detergent back in the box.
“It’s okay, Mom. I’ll do it,” she said.
“April, it’s not your job,” said Mom.
“I know. Don’t worry, he’ll pay me back.”
An hour later, I went to bed, followed by Frank. Cole stayed out in the living room talking. After a half hour, he tried to sneak in unnoticed. I rolled over when he came in, but I couldn’t go to sleep. I listened to Frank’s snores and thought of Sophie. She was Luke’s girlfriend and off-limits, but it didn’t bother me. Dreaming was allowed.