At seven-twenty the next morning I mounted the stairs and entered the main hall of Crown Hill High. I nodded and said hello to the kids I knew. And they nodded and said hello back to me. But I didn’t hook up with anyone. It was my senior year, but I still felt like a visitor, like a stranger.
There’s not much to say about the first three periods: math analysis, computer drafting, art. I won’t even bother with the teachers’ names. The classes weren’t boring or hard or weird. They were just school.
Right before lunch I had English with Ms. Hurley. I was looking forward to it, and not just because of Josh. I’d seen Ms. Hurley around the school. Most teachers are beaten down, but she glowed. She was from Egypt or Israel or someplace like that. Somebody said that in college she’d been a swimmer. Her olive skin gleamed and her dark eyes shone. Word was that she was excitable, that she’d get so worked up over a poem or a novel that she’d actually cry in class. Kids who had her liked her. I couldn’t help hoping that something good would happen in her room.
I was one of the first there. I took a seat in the center, toward the back. I was just opening my notebook when Josh walked through the door.
“Hey, Josh, over here!” I called out.
He nodded in my direction, then shuffled over and took the seat next to mine.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“Nothing much,” he said, his voice barely audible.
The tardy bell sounded. I couldn’t talk to him then, but I knew what was wrong.
As Ms. Hurley took attendance, Monica Roby came breezing in. “Sorry I’m late,” she said to Ms. Hurley, then she sat next to Franklin Dement, a tall skinny kid who acted in the school plays with her and who helped her with the Viper.
“Please be here on time in the future,” Ms. Hurley said, but there was a smile on her lips. I don’t suppose too many teachers are sorry to see Monica Roby walk into their classrooms, even when she’s late.
Ms. Hurley told us her rules, then passed out our first novel, a book called A Farewell to Arms. Once we all had copies, she sat on her desk, opened the book up, and started reading out loud to us.
The book seemed pretty good. It takes place during World War I. This man lives in a little village somewhere in Europe. From his house he looks out on mountains and a river. It should be the greatest place in the world, but troops are always marching down the road and he can hear fighting off in the distance.
Every once in a while Ms. Hurley would put the book down and ask questions about how it might feel to be in a war. The discussion was pretty lively, but I was only half listening. I kept sneaking peeks over at Josh. When you’re used to a guy being fired up all the time, it throws you off to see him down.
The bell rang ending class, and we headed to the cafeteria. Josh’s shoulders were slumped and his eyes were on the ground. We joined the line, slid our trays along, stopping now and then to have the cooks slop some food onto our plates. We paid and found an empty table in the corner. We both started eating whatever it was we’d gotten.
Then a little buzz ran through the cafeteria. I looked up. Celeste Honor, wearing a T-shirt with Mount Rainier blazed across the front, was walking toward us. “Josh,” I said, glad to have something to talk about, “get a look at her.”
Celeste is a legend at Crown Hill. She has an incredible body and she loves to show it off. Every top she wears is skintight. All eyes were on her—boys’ and girls’. Josh didn’t break into a smile, but he did follow her as she moved past us.
She slowly walked the length of the cafeteria before she sat down and her beautiful body finally disappeared from public view. You could hear the whole room sigh and the ordinary sounds and conversation of lunch return. Somehow Celeste had broken the spell of silence that had fallen over us, too.
“Does she dress like that every day?” Josh asked.
“Pretty much,” I said. “Sometimes she wears less.”
He shook his head and whistled through his teeth.
I took a sip of my Coke. “What’s the word?”
Josh grimaced. “Canning posted the depth charts.” He nodded toward Brandon Ruben, who was sitting at a center table laughing and joking with Colby Kittleson. “Ruben is starting.”
I stared for a while, but then Ruben’s eyes caught mine and I looked back to Josh. His head was down again, and he was mechanically shoveling food into his mouth.
“You’ll get your chance,” I said. “You’ve just got to be patient.”
Josh didn’t look up, but I could see his mouth contort. “Spare me the pep talk, Ryan.”
“Listen,” I went on, ignoring what he’d said. “All you’ve got to do is wait for your chance. If it doesn’t come this week, then it will come next. If not next week, then the week after. I know how bad you must feel, but it will come.”
I wasn’t ready for what happened next. Josh’s head snapped up and he glared at me, his eyes blazing, his index finger jabbing the air right in front of my face. ”You know how I feel! You know how I feel! What a joke! I put every ounce of myself on the field every single day. Every ounce. And I’ve done it for as long as I can remember. But you—you get one injury and you quit. You don’t know how I feel, so don’t tell me you do.”
I was so stunned I’m not sure I would have answered him even if I’d had the chance. But I didn’t have the chance. He stood up so quickly his chair tipped over with a loud crash, and a second later he was gone—out the doors and into the main hallway.
The kids around me were staring. I don’t know whether they’d heard what he’d said, or whether it was just the chair toppling over that made them look. My face was flushed and my heart was pounding, but I picked up my tray as though nothing had happened, walked over to the nearest trash can, and dumped it. The bell sounded. Everyone headed to afternoon classes. It felt good to blend in, to disappear.
I had American history and chemistry left. Mrs. Beck, the history teacher, had a bony, bird-like face and iron-gray hair. She peered down her glasses as she handed out twenty typed pages listing all the reading and writing assignments for the first semester. She told us ten times that she accepted no late work. “On time or zero! That’s my motto.” You could hear the satisfaction in her voice as she said the word zero.
The chemistry teacher, Mr. Woodruff, didn’t look or act tough, but he didn’t have to. Just flipping through the first five pages of that book convinced me I’d have some long nights ahead. But I was too numb from what had happened in the cafeteria to care.