On Wednesday morning, Mickey Pardo decided to go to school. He’d convinced himself that he was finally coming down from his painkiller cloud, and anyway he’d been sort of missing the place. So he showed up for second-period physics class and really enjoyed listening to Mrs. Alsadir go on about a load of trippy shit involving quarks. He couldn’t follow much of it, but it was all kind of cool anyway.
“Are there any questions?” Mrs. Alsadir asked.
“I just want to say I am totally loving this trippy shit!” Mickey called out.
Mrs. Alsadir just smiled uncomfortably and went on with the lesson. Mickey didn’t have a textbook or a notebook or a pen. He sat in the back row, alone. And after a while he climbed up on the lab station in front of him and lay on his side. Still Mrs. Alsadir said nothing.
Then he got a call from Jonathan, so he decided to take it, and shuffled out into the hall. He was wearing a brown jumpsuit, his combat boots, and he had some old necklaces strewn around his neck, along with a pair of black aviator glasses. His cast was huge and gleaming and white, except for the places where he’d spilled coffee and food on it.
“Will you be returning?” Mrs. Alsadir called out. He ignored her.
“Dude?” Mickey said to the phone.
“Anything interesting happening?” Jonathan asked. “I’ve been looking for Arno—he should be back. Can you believe he went down to Florida with my cousin?”
“Huh,” Mickey said. He smelled something good, like bacon, and looked around.
“She had a day between her NYU interview and her Sarah Lawrence interview, so she went down to South Beach. I don’t even want to think about what they did down there. And I had to cover for her, and now she’s back. But Arno didn’t come in today. Have you seen David?”
“He goes to Potterton, remember?” Mickey said. “I’m at Talbot.”
“Oh yeah. Listen, I’ll check you later.”
“Sounds good.” Mickey looked up and down the corridor. What was that good smell? A small eighth grader came down the corridor then, and he was eating something. A BLT. Mickey looked at it. Mmm.
“Mickey Pardo,” a stern male voice said. But Mickey didn’t hear. He dropped the phone. The kid with the BLT kept coming.
“Actually, why don’t I come by your house after school,” Jonathan said, to air. “We’ll go find Arno together.”
Mickey spread his arms wide, like he was signaling that he was about to make a fair catch. He wanted that sandwich. The eighth grader tried to pass him on the left, then on the right.
“Mickey Pardo!” the adult male voice yelled. Too late. Mickey had wrapped the kid up in his cast and the sandwich was up in the air.
“Wait,” the kid said, his voice muffled by the fact that his head was jammed into Mickey’s chest.
Mickey pushed the sandwich toward his mouth and heard voices all around him. He felt like he hadn’t eaten in days. As he closed his jaw, the sandwich shot into the air and Mickey closed his mouth on something soft that was still moving. Mmm, bacon, Mickey thought.
“Aaah!” the eighth grader screamed, as Mickey bit into his hand.
And then Mickey was slowly separated from his food. And phone calls were made. And he was being sent home for biting an eighth grader.