Nobody mentioned the football game at school on Monday. It was as if it had all been a bad dream that no one wanted to talk about. The halls were quiet; the posters were down. Everything was back to normal.
In English Ms. Hurley had us read a short story about some guy with two doors in front of him. Behind one door was a lady and behind the other was a tiger, or something like that. I read the thing beginning to end, but I just read words. I didn’t follow it at all.
The discussion never got going. Even Monica was strangely quiet. A couple of times I caught her sneaking peeks at Josh’s empty desk. For a while I wondered if somehow she’d heard what a beating he’d taken and felt sorry for him, but that made no sense.
Just before the dismissal bell, Ms. Hurley clapped her hands to get our attention. “I almost forgot,” she said, holding up a stack of papers. “A new issue of the Viper is out. Monica and Franklin and many others worked hard on it. So please don’t take it if you’re just going to throw it away.”
I grabbed a copy on my way out the door. I headed to the computer lab, where I finished up some end-of-the-chapter questions for history class. As I waited for the printer, I pulled out the Viper and flipped through it.
The main story made fun of Mr. Hagstrom, a French teacher who was notorious for talking too much about his Brittany spaniel, Buddy. Then there was a sci-fi/fantasy thing about how the school’s water was tainted with some strange chemical that made everyone live their lives in reverse. Adults were sucking their thumbs and wetting their pants while babies were driving cars and reading Shakespeare. Maybe it was funny and I just wasn’t in the mood, but I was about to toss the whole thing when a short piece on the last caught my eye.
Jocko Come Home
PLEASE HELP! Our beloved dog, Jocko Spaniel, is missing. Jocko is a fun-loving hound who loves to roll on the ground with boys. Around girls, Jocko slobbers uncontrollably and howls. If you find him, please call 1-800-Clueless. P.S. Jocko desperately needs neutering!
It was playing dirty, pure and simple. All afternoon I seethed. When the dismissal bell rang, I went to the front steps and looked everywhere for Monica. I was always running into her around the school, but the one time I wanted to see her she was nowhere to be found.
Then it hit me. She’d be in the publishing center, a little room in back of the stage. That’s where the staff of the Viper met, and I’d heard Franklin say something about a party.
I walked down the hall to the theater. The main lights were off, but I could hear laughter coming from behind the black curtain that was pulled across the stage. I strode down the center aisle, hopped onto the stage, and pulled the curtains apart. There were six of them, Monica and Franklin and Linda Marsh and some freshmen and sophomores I didn’t know, sitting at a long table eating cupcakes and drinking Coke and talking. Everyone stopped when they saw me.
“That was a cheap shot, Monica,” I said.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. Josh didn’t deserve that, not after what he’s done for this school.”
She smiled her know-it-all smile. “‘After what he has done for the school,’” she echoed, looking at her friends. “Tell me, Ryan, what is it that he has done for this school?”
“Maybe you didn’t notice,” I said, “but he’s given us something to be proud of, some reason to be glad we go to Crown Hill High.”
She continued smiling sarcastically. “Oh, I am so delighted to go to a school where the jocks sit together in the center of the cafeteria hooting at girls and copping cheap feels. My heart swells with pride!”
“I wasn’t talking about that.”
Her smile disappeared. She picked up a Viper and waved it in front of me. “Well, that’s what I was talking about.”
I felt the ground slipping away from me. “Other guys were louder and grosser than Josh, and you know it.”
She glared. “What about Celeste Honor? Was that some other guy too?”
“Come off it,” I said. “Celeste has been asking for something like that for years. He was just joking around.”
Monica tilted her head. The smug smile returned. “Well, that’s all I was doing, Ryan. Just joking around. If you can dish it out, you’ve got to be able to take it. Isn’t that what guys always say?”
I stood there, suddenly feeling stupid. I needed to come up with some answer, but I couldn’t think of anything. I swallowed, then I turned and walked away. The heavy curtains rustled as they closed behind me. When I walked out of the theater, I could hear the whole bunch of them laughing.