TURNS OUT THAT I WAS together with Relly in two classes. Bio and art.
I missed the second day of school. But then the fever broke and my dad said I'd have to go back.
In art, the teacher said he wanted everybody to do a project about something they didn't understand. It could be technical, like perspective or shading. Or it could be a subject. There was the usual stuff: racism and abortion and God and eating meat. "I don't understand," one whiny-voiced girl said, "cruelty to our fellow creatures."
I went a little more specific. I brought in an old Look magazine I'd found at my grandparents'. It was from the Vietnam War days, all warped and wrinkly and stinking of their moldy basement. The thing I didn't understand was a picture of three Buddhist monks sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk, wrapped up in fire. Their faces shone through the billowing flame, like skulls seen through wispy veils. The real thing from the olden days. Full page, full color.
The teacher was clearly freaked out. But he tried to be cool and ask me what I didn't understand.
"They did it to themselves," I said. "It was a protest against the war. Get it? But why? How would anyone do it?" There were a couple of gas cans to one side, surrounded by a pool of liquid fire.
He made some lame suggestions about "the triumph of the human spirit." And he said I could make a collage, like I was a fourth grader. And went on to talk with Heather Potts about her collection of Kalico Kitten pictures.
Relly came over and looked at my burning monks. "Crot Almighty," he said. He made up words like crot and draghole and poxy and used them even if you didn't understand. "Where'd you get this?"
"Old magazine."
"And you want to understand it?"
"That is so messed up," a guy named Nick Byers said, looking over Relly's shoulder. "Why would you bring that to school?" I guess he thought girls shouldn't be into such flat-out freakout stuff. Makeup, soccer, TV, baby-sitting. Those were OK for girls. But burning monks, Brain Hammer, playing the bass. Those were supposed to be just for guys. And weird guys at that.
Relly looked close at the picture. "They look almost happy," he whispered.
"Yeah. Not quite. But almost. Maybe it's better than happiness," I said.
That should have been enough to scare him off. But it didn't. He kept asking me about the picture. And he was really listening to my answers.