“Hey, Jenna, didn’t anybody tell you? They already gave peace a chance, freak.”
Ned Street is a real witty guy. He’s almost as hilarious as he thinks he is. Last week he stuck a picture of a hippo on Katie’s locker. I took it off and threw it away before she saw it, but he’s always got something else in store. Wedgies, name-calling, kick me signs—he does love the classics. Making fun of my sweater with the peace sign on it is nothing new. He makes stupid hippie cracks every time I wear it. He’s pretty much got a nasty comment for every item of clothing I own, but the hippie jokes seem to be his favorite. His little posse is right there too; Ashley Walsh and Sam Fletcher, grinning away at Ned like he’s some kind of celebrity.
“Thanks for letting me know, Ned. I’ll be sure to bring that up at the next meeting.” I slide my books into my locker and close the door before he can make fun of the pictures I’ve got posted inside: photos from old magazines I found in an antique store on Ottawa Street. Smiling hippies at Woodstock, the cast of Growing Pains grinning at the camera, happy flappers doing the Charleston.
Ned looks a little perplexed.
“What meeting?”
“The International Society of Creeps, Freaks and Weirdos. We meet on alternate Tuesdays. You’re a little late to get on the agenda for this week’s meeting, but I’ll be sure to let them know at the next one.”
This leaves him speechless for about ten seconds. Then he pulls a penny out of the pocket of his jeans, which are the kind where the rear end hangs down to the knees. He flips it at me.
“Here you go, Jenna. Why don’t you go buy yourself a new pair of pants? Looks like those ones are all worn out.”
Ashley makes a face as she turns away from me. “You can totally see her underwear through those pants,” I hear her say.
In the cafeteria, Katie nibbles on salad and sips Diet Coke while Griffin and I have the Friday fish-and-chips special. Katie can put away enough food for four people most of the time, but she doesn’t like to overindulge at school. She attracts enough attention from the resident jerks as it is.
“It dates back to ancient times,” she tells us. “Fish on Fridays, that is. They would slaughter the meat on the first day of the week, which was Sunday, and by Friday it would be rancid, so they’d eat fish instead, because it was caught fresh every day.”
Griffin scrunches up his nose and pushes a strand of long, stringy hair out of his eyes. “I don’t think this was caught fresh any time in recent history. I think it actually might have been grown in a laboratory, as a matter of fact.”
Marie-Claire picks apart a Rice Krispies square with her long black fingernails and shoves it, almost grain by grain, into her mouth.
“So, Jenna, what time are we going tomorrow?” she asks between bites.
“Oh. That. I hadn’t really thought about it. I don’t even really know where this place is.” Nonsense, of course. I’ve only checked it out on Google Street View about sixty times since I found the article yesterday. It’s a big white house that looks like it’s made of Lego blocks, tucked away on a downtown street amid sprawling hundred-year-old brick houses that have all been subdivided into three or four apartments each, the lawns paved into driveways and a cluster of mailboxes on each porch.
“I think we should go first thing in the morning,” Katie says. “Like, seven thirty. Surprise him on his way out for the day, if he’s allowed out on work release or something.”
“What are we doing to do, knock on the door?” Griffin says around a mouthful of fish and chips.
Marie-Claire shakes her head. “No, no. We just wait across the street. Hang out on the corner and smoke and try to blend in.”
“You’re the only one who smokes—which is disgusting, by the way, and is going to kill you,” I say. “And what if he doesn’t come out all morning? Simon had the news on this morning, and it’s supposed to be minus twenty with the windchill factor all weekend. I’m not standing around on a street corner for four hours in freezing weather.” Plus, I fail to add out loud, every time I so much as think about talking to Travis Bingham, my stomach does somersaults.
“So what do you want to say?” Griffin asks.
I shrug. “I don’t really know. I haven’t really thought about it.”
“I think you should just walk right up and kick him, right in the nuts,” Marie-Claire says.
“Yeah, and get charged with assault,” Katie chimes in with a disapproving scowl at Marie-Claire. “I think you should just start by telling him who you are and see what he says.”
“And I think we should play cards,” says Griffin. He pulls a deck of cards out of his book bag and starts to deal out a game of Asshole, our standard lunchtime diversion, and the conversation instantly switches gears, much to my relief.
“Who was the president last time?”
“Not me. I’ve been the asshole for about ten games now.”
“Griffin’s been an asshole for going on sixteen years.”
“You’re hilarious.”
Asshole has to be the lamest card game going, but once you get into it, it’s a lot of fun. The first person to lay down all their cards gets to be the president for the next round; the last person is the asshole and has to give their best cards to the president next hand. As we start laying down our cards, I relax a little. Tomorrow will bring whatever it brings. For now, I’m winning this game, and that’s enough to take my mind off everything else.