Nipping NippingBowl number sixteen of Tonic Soup starts my very last day as a freshman with a kick. Call me vain, but since camouflaging my bad breath with peppermint is a matter of social-life-or-death, I opt to brush my teeth three more times. I can still taste Tonic Soup. So I gargle with Listermint. And I miss the bus. Which means that Mama is driv ing foul-mouthed me to school.
Even before my hand is on the car door, my annoyed chauffeur is hunh-ing at me. As much as I’m tempted to negotiate with Mama—you lay off the Tonic Soup, and I won’t need to gargle and brush for ten extra minutes—I refrain. Risking Lecture Number Four (I Do Everything for You) seems hardly worth ruining the happiest day of every freshman’s life. As of 3:05 this afternoon, we’re sophomores.
So I sit quietly, hunched down in my seat in hopes that Mama will forget about me. Fat chance of that when we approach her new client’s office, the doctor she’s visiting this morning to organize his badly disarrayed bills. An especially loud hunh is aimed at me. It’s raining, and my hair is going to get soaked, but I can’t take this irradiation by irritation a moment longer. We’re just a quarter mile from school. So I tell Mama, “You can just let me off here. I’ll walk the rest of the way.”
Mama glances at her watch and her lips tighten with annoyance. Heaven forbid, Ho Mei-Li is a second late to crunch numbers. Without putting up the least bit of re sis tance to my suggestion, Mama swerves into the parking lot, as she orders me, “Hurry! No late!”
Naturally, I slowpoke along on the sidewalk until I’m past glaring distance. And then I hustle to school, grumbling to myself about Torture by Tonic Soup. I’m trying to figure out a way to convince Abe that the soup builds lean muscle mass (his goal in life), when a familiar Neanderthal grunts, “Yo, Nip!”
I keep walking, head down as I’m caught in a storm of why’s. Why now? Why today, the last day of school? Ku Klux Kosanko has pretty much left me alone since Abe and his baseball buddies had a “chat” with him at the beginning of the year for harassing me.
But a car slows down, way down.
“Chopsticks, I’m talking to you,” taunts Steve Kosanko. His voice has an edge to it like I should be prostrating myself in front of him. Out of my periphery, I can see his huge forehead and a thick unibrow. “Maybe Half-breed Ho no speak English.”
No, Idiot, I respond in my head as I walk a little faster. It’s just that I don’t speak Stupid.
Steve’s cackle follows me. I can smell his hate the way you can always smell your yard after it’s become some dog’s personal outhouse.
Remind me again why I insisted on walking the rest of the way to school? I’d kick myself except then I’d probably trip, and I’m determined to walk like I don’t hear Steve nipping at my heels with his racist pig comments.
“Fung, twung, wung, low hung.”
And here I thought time was supposed to mature us all. Obviously, Steve is stuck in some kind of elementary school time warp, proving that once an imbecile, always an imbecile. Another round of jeering laughter washes over me like mud. Steve’s voice deepens to a leer: “Wanna check me out, Ho? Free, looky, looky.”
I hike my backpack higher onto my shoulders as if my books and papers could shield me. Say something, I yell at myself. Don’t take his crap. But if words can’t hurt you, how can they help you?
My eyes race up and down driveways, hunting for a good escape route. The huge “Lincoln High, Home of the Patriots” sign is up ahead. But I don’t want to give Steve the satisfaction of seeing me bolt. Just ignore him, Mama would tell me. As if that ever works. Ignoring Steve just makes him madder that he can’t screw with my head.
Against my better judgment, I look over at Steve, hanging out the driver’s side window like the dog he is: a pit bull, ugly and mean. I may have x’ed Steve Kosanko out of every yearbook picture he’s ever spoiled, but I’ll never forget how mean his eyes can look. He’s shorter than I am, but outweighs me by a good fifty pounds. All muscular upper arms and skinny legs that don’t look like they can sprint. Trust me, he can. He got enough practice on me in grade school.
When I first complained about Steve, my fourth-grade teacher, Mr. Enoch, just patted me on the head and said, “He’s got a crush on you.” Right, more like he wanted to crush me. My fifth-grade teacher gave me a look like Come on, what can this puny kid do to you? Well, nothing except turn school into a three-season hunting ground for Patty Ho.
But then Abe morphed into Lincoln’s all-star pitcher with a team of he-men friends. Friends who enjoyed pounding on bullies. Friends who let Steve know I was off-limits. Friends who are graduating.
Before I know what Steve’s planning, before I can dodge out of the firing line, he rears back and spits. A giant glob lands on my cheek and slides down, sluggy tears. All the voices inside me—the strident one telling me to get my ass in gear and stand up for myself, the mousy one whispering to haul my ass out of here—are speechless.
My feet are rooted into the sidewalk. I can’t move.
Then my heart hardens into a pellet of disbelief as I stare at the guy sitting in the passenger’s seat. Mark Scranton, lust object since sixth grade when he moved into my neighborhood and my heart. The guy whose voice I can pick out in the most raucous soccer game. The guy whose campaign speech I wrote.
Et tu, Mark?
Mr. Class President won’t meet my eyes. And I won’t stop staring. Finally, Steve’s car peels down the street, leaving fart fumes. And only then do I wipe my cheek on my sleeve.