Beauty and the Bully

Having Carly Garfield remove flecks of food from his hair, as if she were a gorilla grooming her mate, was unequivocally the greatest moment in Duncan’s life. He couldn’t imagine what might’ve been the second greatest moment, either. Because watching Carly scrape tiny bits of fishwich from him with her nails was, like, orders of magnitude better than anything he’d ever experienced.

At least not in any detectable way. All love rested on a shifting bedrock of deception, he told himself. His dad had said something like that once—maybe after dropping $3,200 on a TV without consulting Duncan’s mom.

But whatever. The important thing was this: Carly was dotingly picking hardened cafeteria gruel from Duncan’s hair. It was magical. As she did this, she talked almost dreamily about the upcoming TARTS rally. The substance of the conversation was really lost on Duncan, though. He merely enjoyed watching Carly’s eyes move over his face. He responded to nearly everything she said with either “uh-huh” or an inquisitive “really?”

When all the obvious food particles had been extracted from Duncan’s head and clothes, Carly began to involve Duncan in conversation with her friends, the small pod of girls—who turned out to be named Marissa, Chloe, Zoe, Sophie, Kylie, and Hayley—that he had thought of as handmaids. They all seemed fairly standard-issue to Duncan, gossipy, flaky, and vapid. They clearly weren’t so zealous about TARTS—or any other socially responsible cause—as Carly was. In fact, the whole TARTS clique was something of a Carly Garfield cult of personality, a thing that existed because people wanted to get close to her.

Duncan, for example, wanted to get close to her. Thus began his assimilation into the Elm Forest Township High School chapter of Teens Against Rodent Test Studies.

“You’d better see about getting a less gooey shirt or something, ” Carly said to him, smiling. “Before the bell rings.”

“Oh, right,” he said, grinning back at her. “Less gooey is good. I’ll shoot for that.” He stood. “Hey, thanks again for intervening with that big dude. Dunno why he’s got it in for me.”

“Bullies are all the same, Duncan,” she said. “They just care about preserving the feeling of power. The way they do it is to make everyone else feel weak.” She rubbed his arm. “But you’re not weak, Duncan.”

“Thanks,” he said, then walked away. Then he glanced back. Then walked. Then glanced again. He was deeply smitten. He strode toward Stew and Jess, then sat down.

“Yup, no doubt,” said Jessie. “He clearly has many gifts: acting, bullying . . . um . . . Okay, he has exactly two gifts. But he really excels at those two things.”

“I thought Freddie was gonna beat you down in front of your mom, dude,” said Jess. “And then I thought she’d go all Miyagi and start karate-choppin’ Freddie. Because that woman will defend her baby.”

“Yes, no question,” he said. “Yes, I would. Even though I’ve already tried it, and it made me throw up, like, seventeen times, yes. Yes, I would drink a gallon of anything for Carly Garfield.”

“Okay,” said Duncan. “It might be an overstatement to say I’d drink anything. The point is, I would do some crazy stuff for Carly Garfield.” He sighed contentedly.

“Like ruin your favorite shirt and embarrass yourself before a few hundred of your peers,” said Jessie. “Just for example.”

“That’s exactly right, Stew. I think I’ve got an extra gym shirt in my locker. If not, I still have those borrowed band costumes in the car—meant to return ’em.”

“Better to have a cool shirt with caked-on food than a shirt that’s unsoiled but Edwardian,” said Jess. “Not to mention stolen.”

“Remember,” said Jess, “I’m on double-secret parental probation. Detention after school, then home by six. I now live under strict rules. It sucks. So let’s everyone be ready to play.”

Oh, yeah. There was also the issue of Freddie’s sister what’s-her -name joining the band. That needed to be discussed. But later, he thought. This moment is too good to spoil.

Duncan got up from the table and began to walk toward an exit, careful to avoid Freddie’s side of the cafeteria. After seeing the condition of his clothes, a sympathetic lunchroom monitor allowed him to leave. He walked through the empty halls grinning. He grew wistful passing classrooms that he’d sat in as a freshman and sophomore, places where he’d either gazed at Carly or daydreamed about her. All the long years of seemingly hopeless obsession had led, ultimately, to something spectacular. And Jess and Stew always thought I was being pathetic and silly, he thought. Hah. Goal-oriented and determined is more like it.

Upon reaching his locker, Duncan dug through a mound of scholastic miscellany until he found the spare gym shirt— relatively clean, if heavily wrinkled. He removed the Zeppelin shirt slowly; it clung to his skin in places where cafeteria goo had hardened. Then he slipped the gym shirt on and stretched it a bit, hoping to make it slightly more roomy. He had little success. He looked at a hallway clock. Approximately four minutes until the bell would ring. He ripped a page from a spiral binder and snatched a pen from his backpack. Duncan rested the paper against his locker and began to scribble:

F—Excellent show today. Well done. Really perfect. Couldn’t have gone better. Thumbs-up. Hope your sister can meet us at 4:30. Address is 402 Wheatland St., two blocks north of the Citgo. Meet in the garage. Thanks! D

Was that too girly? he wondered. Eh. No time to edit. Duncan folded the note into a neat triangle, then rushed to Freddie’s locker. The bell rang just as he was stuffing the note through a ventilation slot. Duncan hurried off—he certainly couldn’t be seen conspiring with the thug who’d just harassed him. Plus Duncan wanted to get back to his own locker to chat with Carly.

Each short break between classes that afternoon was more delightful than the last. Carly, having actually witnessed Duncan being victimized, was treating him as if he were an adorable mouse she’d rescued from a laboratory—and not a fat one. That is to say, she was fawning over him: petting, smiling, giggling. She asked if he wouldn’t like to attend a brief TARTS recruitment presentation after school in the auditorium. She’d been posting brightly colored notices about it all day, but was afraid no one would show.

Duncan sighed another happy sigh. The TARTS thing would be short, Carly had said. Twenty minutes, tops. Plenty of time for him to get to get to Fat Bar—um, the Flaming Tarts’ practice. Besides, Jessie had detention to serve.

As it turned out, the TARTS thing certainly could have lasted twenty minutes or less. After an appalling slideshow, featuring obese rodents dragging themselves slowly through a maze, and few short statements by Carly and Dr. Wiggins, they were ready to distribute pamphlets and adjourn. But then they asked if anyone had questions. Duncan, wishing to appear completely engaged, raised his hand.

“So which local labs and institutions, other than Elm Forest College, of course, have the worst track record with respect to rodent experimentation?”

Carly beamed, then quickly became serious, answering the question by rattling off a list of Midwestern universities and corporations.

By the end of her answer, Duncan’s hand had shot up again. And then again. And again. And again. He peppered Carly with questions, and she seemed to appreciate it. Eventually, Dr. Wiggins as well as all the other TARTS members and recruits left the auditorium. But Duncan and Carly remained, he in a plush front-row seat and she at a podium. Their Q and A lasted an hour; then they walked together to their cars, which, of course, were parked side by side. Duncan pretended to be fearful of another Freddie attack.

They conversed awhile longer in the parking lot; then Carly hugged him good-bye. Hugged him! Like with both arms squeezing. It was breathtaking.

Literally, he had breathing issues, he was so happy. He began to hyperventilate as he opened the Reliant’s door. Carly had already smiled, given him a wiggly-fingered wave, and driven off, so she didn’t actually see a light-headed Duncan sitting at the wheel of his car, his head between his knees taking deep, calming breaths.

He sped out of the EFTHS parking lot, rather recklessly eased through a few stop signs, and raced home. When he arrived at his driveway, he saw Jessie’s car parked along the street.

Then, just ahead of her car, he saw a black Monte Carlo—the same car Freddie had left school in the day before, the very Monte Carlo that he’d been tossed onto.

“Freddie’s sister,” said Duncan. “Oh, yeah.” He stared at the garage. “Wonder how practice is going.” He approached the side door of his garage with dread. He took note of the flaking brown paint, knowing that his dad would make him paint in the spring. He stood at the closed door and listened. He thought he heard laughter. Anxiously, he turned the door-knob and entered.

“Hey, everybody, really sorry I’m late. Couldn’t be helped. There was this TARTS thing that Carly invited me to, and I couldn’t very well say—”