1. Algebra—you can’t add letters and numbers together!!!
2. Christy Bruter
3. My parents’ stupid problems. You married her. Learn to deal with her.
4. Hairspray
5. Ginny Baker
Val witnessed one of the most embarrassing moments of my life.
I was new to Garvin, having just moved in over the summer. If you ask me, the worst thing you can do to your kid is make him start at a new school at the beginning of junior year, especially if he’s a kid like me—quiet, shy, skittish. The chances that I was going to be jumping into any popularity circles were slim to none.
We were in P. E., which sucked, because I hadn’t beefed out yet like a lot of the guys. Some of the girls were bigger than I was. Taller, more mature, better-looking. But while I was walking around like a gawky, just-hatched alien, two guys in our class looked like they’d been shaving since the day they were born: Chris Summers and his football jock friend Jacob Kinney. I hadn’t been at GHS long, but it took only about a day to figure out that the girls thought Chris and Jacob were the only two males on earth.
It was fall, and Coach Radford was all about “taking advantage of the beautiful weather,” which meant he was going to torture us outside instead of inside, making us run the bus loop and soccer field to warm up. What it really amounted to was us swallowing enough bugs to make us puke, and rolling our ankles trying not to get sucked into the mud pit behind the Porta-Potties.
“Four laps,” Coach called out to us as we lined up on the blacktop. “And hustle.” He waited as we scrambled for our places, Chris and Jacob and a few other guys shoving their way to the front, the asthmatic kids elbowing for places in the back, and me somewhere in the middle.
I wasn’t a bad runner. I had played a lot of sports as a kid. I was pretty skinny, which helped, but I hadn’t played anything since junior high, when everybody started filing into little cliques and categories—jocks, potheads, smart kids, artists, whatever. I don’t care what anyone says; if you’re not accepted into the jock population early on, you can forget playing sports, no matter how good you are. That’s just a truth.
Coach checked his watch and blew his whistle, and we all took off, at first everyone running way too fast, just to show… I don’t know… somebody—maybe Coach or Chris and Jacob—something. That we weren’t all that inferior? Or maybe that we just weren’t as inferior as the guy behind us.
The weather really wasn’t bad. The sky was clear and cool, there were birds and sunshine and stuff, and the puddle behind the Porta-Potties had kind of dried up. Best of all, the girls’ P. E. class was stretching out on the soccer field. We about tripped into a pileup on our first loop, as we craned our necks, hoping to see a bent-over hamstring stretch.
All in all, it was an okay run. Until we came around the final lap.
Coach had stepped up onto the sidewalk to talk to the girls’ coach. We had gotten spaced apart by then, some kids burning out and walking, Chris and Jacob lapping pretty much everyone else.
I came around the corner next to the soccer field and plunged into the grass, doing my best to keep a good pace. My lungs were aching, and I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it, that I could keep up with the athletes, even if I wasn’t one of them. My legs pumped over the grass, and I was so in my own world that I didn’t even see Chris and Jacob until I was almost on them.
“Hey, Judy!” Chris called. “Is that your real last name, Judy? Dude, that’s my mom’s name!” I ignored him. “Judy! Come here!” I took a wide curve, going around him, and kept running, sucking in wind, kicking back so hard my calves burned. I angled sharp around the soccer field and pushed myself up the hill to the bus loop, edging out two other runners as I hit the blacktop.
“Walk a lap,” Coach Radford called, then turned back to the girls’ coach and continued talking.
I wasn’t even thinking about Chris and Jacob as I started another lap, coughing, my arms and legs tingling. I was proud of myself. I felt good.
But they were still standing next to the soccer field.
“Hey, I thought I told you to stop,” Chris said as I neared them. They placed themselves right in my path. My heart, which had just slowed down from my run, sped up again.
“My gaydar is going off,” Jacob said, and then laughed like he should have his own cable special.
“Leave me alone,” I said, hoping I sounded tough.
But they stepped together, shoulder to shoulder, so I couldn’t pass.
“Did you hear a little girl cry?” Chris asked Jacob.
“Yeah,” Jacob said. “It sounded like PMS to me. Are you having your period, Judy?”
“Come on, guys, just let me get through,” I said. I hated pleading, but there was no way I could take them on, so what else was I going to do?
“I told you to stop and you didn’t stop. You know what happens to little fags who don’t do what they’re told?” Chris asked. I didn’t answer. “They get punished. Drop and give me ten.”
I slumped, met his eye. “Come on, Chris, just let me go,” I said, this time begging for real.
“Push-ups, bitch,” Chris said.
“Show off those massive guns for the girls. Or the boys. That’s more your speed,” Jacob added, pinching my bicep so hard I had to yank away.
They knew I couldn’t do push-ups. They’d seen me during calisthenics. My arms were twigs.
I hesitated, rubbing my bicep. Most everybody had already finished the walking lap. A few girls had turned and were watching us.
“I guess I could find a different punishment for you,” Chris said. “But you won’t like it.” He turned to Jacob. “How fast you think he would run if we tossed his shorts onto the soccer field?”
“Okay, okay,” I said. Slowly, I got into push-up position. My arms started shaking immediately.
“Count ’em out! One!” Chris barked, and I lowered myself, getting about halfway down before having to come back up again. “Lower! Two!” I inched myself closer to the ground, sweat rolling down the tip of my nose. I blew out a breath. “Lower! Three!” I went down again, but this time my arms gave out and my chest flopped to the ground. “Get up! Now, girlfriend!”
Jacob toed me with his sneaker, and I pushed myself up.
We kept going—four, five, six, seven—and each time my arms gave out and I fell, my nose filling with grass. Eight, nine.
“Last one! Ten!” Chris called, and as I lowered myself, he kicked a wet dog turd under me, milliseconds before my arms gave way.
I tried to avoid it but only managed to roll about halfway over, my ribs landing square on the poop. I let out a disgusted cry as the two of them fell over each other with laughter.
I sat up and the turd was stuck to my shirt. It clung, curled, and fell back into the grass, leaving a smelly stain. Chris and Jacob bumped shoulders, laughing, their faces red and their eyes watery.
We heard two whistles trill, and they jogged off, still laughing. I gagged and spit a few times, then staggered to my feet, buzzing with anger and embarrassment.
And that’s when I saw her. A petite girl with long black hair and dark, haunted eyes, staring at me through the net of the soccer goal. She was cute, even with her mouth puckered with anger. She didn’t say anything, just waited until all the other girls had jogged up the hill to the bus loop and then slowly stepped out of the net and followed them up.
***
Later, in Computers, she plunked her books down at the console next to mine.
“I hate that guy,” she said, by way of introduction.
“Who?” I asked, pulling the headphones off my ears and letting them dangle around my neck.
“Chris Summers. The guy who was messing with you during P. E.”
My face burned. Up close she was even cuter, despite all the black eyeliner and the torn clothes. She smelled good, too. “We were just playing around,” I lied, and I felt stupid, because I knew there was no way she was going to believe that.
“My boyfriend? Nick Levil?” She said these as questions. I nodded. “Chris messes with him all the time. Jacob, too. They all do. Yesterday they threw his Algebra book up on the roof of one of the mobile units. Nick got in trouble for it. They act all golden child in class, and they’re the football stars, so the teachers never believe they could do anything wrong. Angerson actually accused Nick of throwing his book up there himself. For attention.”
She sat and started clicking around on the computer.
“I think I know that guy,” I said. “Nick Levil. He lives on my street.”
She narrowed her eyes, biting her lip and studying me intensely. “You should hang out with us after school sometime,” she said. “You know where Blue Lake is?”
I nodded.
“We go there pretty much every day. Stacey and Duce, you know them? And Mason Markum.”
Again, I nodded. I knew of them, but we weren’t exactly friends. Duce was one of those real hard kinds of people, always glaring and punching walls and stuff. Mason Markum lived a couple houses down from mine.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll come by sometime.”
Mrs. Burroughs shut the classroom door and told everyone to get started, so we put on our headphones and got to work. But after a few minutes, Valerie tapped my shoulder with her black fingernails. I lifted one headphone away from my ear.
“Eventually, Chris and Jacob will get theirs. Karma, baby.” She grinned. I grinned back.
Yeah. Karma.