I remember…acquiring a flock

 

“UM…IS THE password ‘battery’?” a very nervous voice asked, interrupting the oh-so-healthy lunch Johnny and I were eating: him a sort of wilted-looking salad (he-man jock must eat healthy), and me an awful hamburger (raven shifter doesn’t give a shit).

We looked at the owner of the voice. Johnny was filching my fries, as he’d been doing most of the time since we started our occasional lunches together. We hadn’t reached the usual stage of me letting him have the rest—a silly gesture of mine, always making sure he got the final bunch—so he must have figured, with my head turned away, he could snatch without risking a swat.

Poor mere mortal. While my eyes aren’t on the side of my head in human shape, I nevertheless have remarkable peripheral vision. He grabbed, I swatted a little harder than usual since he was cheating by trying a snatch while he thought I was distracted, he yelped, and said, “Hey!”

The hand he pulled back and clutched to his chest with a bit of jock-type drama, was fry-free.

Mike one, Johnny zero, in today’s match.

I turned my head for a quick look at Johnny, giving him a ravenish cocked head and sideways stare. “That’ll teach you.”

“I’m a slow learner.”

I chuckled. “You are such a dumb jock, Johnny.”

I got a return chuckle. “You are such a goth boy, Mike.”

He stretched the “i” sound in my name, and I could see he was considering saying “Mikey.” Fortunately for him, he caught the Death Star planet-killer beam igniting in my eyes and backed off.

We paused in our personal fun as we realized we were being rude to… I had no idea. When we looked at her again, it seemed to make her more nervous. All I could recall about her was a vague impression she was a sophomore.

“I’m sorry…” I paused, and it took her a moment to realize this was a fill-in-the-blank moment.

“Um, I’m Lisa. Lisa Oliver.”

“Nice to meet you, Lisa. I’m Mike. This is Johnny. I’m sorry if we were rude. Well, I’m sorry I was rude. I don’t know about Johnny. You know how jocks are.”

“Well, no, I don’t know how jocks are.”

It was her turn for a head tilt, followed by the kind of smile which turns ordinary prettiness, or even ordinary ordinariness, into something extraordinary. And the wattage was all directed at Johnny, as she said, “How are they?”

Oh, ho. Johnny had an admirer. And by the look on his face, he was going to need sunglasses if she kept so much radiance going. At which point, the light went off, she flushed, and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

No, no, my dear. You may have used up all of your forwardness allowance for the month, or if you’re as shy as I think you are, for the year, but I haven’t. “Yeah, Johnny, how are they?”

He blinked and came back from wherever his mule-plus-two-by-four-to-the-forehead expression had taken him. “They who? What?”

“C’mon, Johnny, try to follow along. Lisa asked you a question. She wants to know how jocks are.”

“Why? They’re just used to hold a guy’s—”

Johnny turned a bleached-out white, with an “Oh, my fucking God! I was about to explain jockstraps to a girl!” look on his face.

I so wanted to enjoy the embarrassment, especially since the best-buds code of conduct allowed me to tease him about this moment for a minimum of two-point-seven-five years, or him busting me one, whichever came first.

But, best bud ever that I am, I didn’t. I changed the subject. Blushing, blushing Lisa looked grateful, too.

“Okay, Lisa, now we know how dumb a dumb jock can be, let’s get back to…‘battery’?”

Her blush got worse and she started turning away. “Um, no, it was kinda silly, so—”

With the “battery” reference I couldn’t grab her arm to stop her, so I tried words. “Whoa, Lisa, wait a sec. Sit down and talk, huh?”

There were only two chairs at our table, both occupied, but if Johnny had shot up out of his any faster, some part of the back of his legs would have slammed the chair halfway across the cafeteria. He managed to grab it before it fell over though. “Uh, here. Take mine.”

And with a gentlemanly style I would never have expected from most of my classmates, he held the chair for her and scooted it into place when she sat. He then did a track-star imitation getting another chair for himself. After which he did the Goldilocks thing in placing it next to her: not too far, not too close, just right.

“So?” I said.

She still hesitated.

“Lisa, look. You now know how at least one sports-mad guy is, so you can’t be afraid of him. And me?” I gestured at all my slender elegantness and gave her a big smile. “Not likely, huh?”

She smiled back. “Okay. Well, uh, I, uh, well, we were wondering…” She trailed off, so I inserted the question, “Who’s ‘we’?”

“Um, me, Julia and Ollie, uh, Oliver.”

“So there’s a first Oliver, a last Oliver, and a Julia, huh?” She nodded.

“So what were first-O, last-O, and J wondering?” She rushed it out. “If we could sit with you!”

The words were clearly directed at me, but she blushed again and turned her head toward Johnny. “Um, well, you, too, if you were eating with Mike.”

She was obviously paying attention, if she was aware Johnny would eat lunch with me, at no set times, but at least twice a week, sometimes three. The other lunches, I sat alone.

The request made no sense, until I asked and got answered. Me: “Why?”

Her: “You’re not afraid of them.”

The tiny accent on the last word, the tiny hesitation before she said it, let us both know which “them” she was talking about, though the reality was there was only one “them” it could be.

“But I am.”

They both gasped.

I non-sequitured them. “Have you ever watched The King and I on TV, or DVD?”

Lisa had, Johnny hadn’t. If I were a betting boy, I’d bet his dad wouldn’t allow him to watch a girly thing like a musical.

Some background for Johnny, then. “There’s a song in it called ‘Whistle a Happy Tune.’” I paused to recall the lyrics and leaned closer to them, so definitely no one else could hear. I have a good voice, as close to perfect pitch as it gets. I sang,

 

While shivering in my shoes

I strike a careless pose

And whistle a happy tune

And no one ever knows I’m afraid.

The result of this deception

Is very strange to tell

For when I fool the people I fear

I fool myself as well!

 

Okay, I enjoyed the ego-stroking “Wow!” expressions on their faces.

So sue me.

“I was kind of little when I watched it with my folks. I remember asking them if the words were true. My dad assured me they were as true as true could be, and I knew he would never lie to me. So while I tried whistling for a while, eventually I stopped. I decided whenever I was afraid I was going to act brave and not let anyone see my fear. So…most of the time now, I manage to fool myself into believing I’m not afraid.”

Her eyes were even wider, and like some old cliché says, Johnny was either falling in them or drowning in them. He also leap-frogged over a whole lot of relationship, getting to know you—I refrained from King-and-I-ing them again—stuff which should have come before his declaring he wouldn’t let “them” hurt her.

Yeah, the voice in my head described the look she was giving him with a very sarcastic “my hero!” Probably because no one had ever looked at me like that, and it was unlikely anyone ever would. So, yeah, jealous.

I coughed to get their attention. A quiet, genteel, elegant fairy goth boy cough.

Nothing happened.

I coughed my best imitation of a besotted jock boy cough, risking ruination to my throat.

Nothing happened.

I finally resorted to violence and punched Johnny’s arm. Not as hard as I could because I didn’t want to bruise him or toss his ass on the floor. Ravens in human shape may not have the strength of human-shaped wolves or other fourfers—my very young shorthand for four-footed shifters, which I keep using because: (a) it sounds a little obscene and (b) it annoys the hell out of most fourfers—but we still have a lot more than humans. I straight-armed him—gay-arming likely being hitting him with a beaded bag—and while I pulled my punch, I knew it hurt.

He clamped his hand on his shoulder and shifted toward me. “Hey, goth boy, what the f…uh, what the h…uh, what?”

Aw, Johnny was censoring himself on one of the rare occasions he used, or started to use, bad language. Because he was talking to a girl. So sweet. Also unnecessary in all likelihood. I don’t eavesdrop with intent very often, especially as my hearing makes me privy to far more things than I want to be.

Including the fact—a really, really, really true fact—girls, when they thought themselves alone or out of the hearing range of most boys, plus a little more distance for safety’s sake, could be as foul-mouthed and raunchy as the locker rooms of my memory (previous school), my porn (thirty-seven-character password-protected against inquisitive parental eyes and fingertips), and my imagination.

Ah, well, he could be disillusioned later.

Although, as it turned out, Lisa was as sweet as she appeared to be. I hate being wrong almost as much as I enjoy being right, which I am, in reverse order: (a) most of the time, and (b) not a lot.

Unfortunately, letting my attention wander to “wuv, twoo wuv”—I didn’t have high hopes Johnny and I would ever get to watch The Princess Bride together—gave Johnny enough time to punch me back. I suspected his blow hurt me the same amount mine had him. It must have been some innate jock precision about inflicting sports-related violence on others, or maybe the coaches had private classes.

Lisa sighed and looked at both of us with exasperation. Very effective exasperation for someone at least a year younger than us. A peripheral view of Johnny said he was as embarrassed as I was.

It took a lot of guts for her to walk over here, in plain view of the packed cafeteria, to talk to me. Less so with Johnny, as doing so was only risking the possibility of girl-with-a-crush rejection.

“Lisa, I’m sorry. Really. It’s just… I don’t know what I can do. Look at me.” I gave her a hand-wave guided tour of seated me. “Grace, style, elegance, sings well, dresses better, an A student if the grading is fair. But he is not big enough or strong enough to protect anyone. Hell, Principal’s Daughter is two of him.”

“Naw. Four,” was Johnny’s contribution.

I glared at him, looked back to Lisa, lifted my hands helplessly. “I would if I could, but what good is—”

“Safety in numbers.” Another Johnny contribution. Which was pretty smart.

Predators go after the weakest one in the herd when it’s alone, making it easier to capture and devour. Sometimes they don’t rely on chance and cut the weakest one out of the herd. But if the herd—the flock I now knew I was about to create—stuck together, the least member of the group everyone already viewed as the least could be protected.

“For a dumb jock, sometimes you come up with good ideas.”

“For a goth boy, sometimes you’re smart enough to recognize the brilliant workings of my mind.”

So maybe…just maybe, and not a lot more than only a possibility, this might work. It was worth a try.

“Okay. Lunch is almost over, but if they want to come over for the last few minutes, sure.”

Lisa gave me one of those smiles of hers. The kind of smile you hoped to get, and would work very hard to get. Johnny, the bastard, didn’t have to work for it at all, because, twoo wuv, et cetera, et cetera.

She turned in her chair to look at the whole sea or ocean or swamp of students and nodded. Most students didn’t go back to the classrooms until they had no choice, so with the crowd I wasn’t sure how effective a seated nod would be. But it worked.

Julia and Ollie were obviously watching closely, saw, and headed right toward us. Julia would have made it without a problem, but Ollie tripped and fell, dropping to one knee with a loud “Ow!” as his book bag dropped, popped open, and most of its contents spewed out.

The problem was…it wasn’t an accident. A girl I didn’t know except for knowing she was one of the Four’s hangers-on, deliberately stuck out her foot so he’d trip. We all got up and started toward where Ollie was on hands and knees, gathering his stuff.

Lisa—nervous, shy, hesitant Lisa—looked at us, said, “I’ve got this,” squared her shoulders, and with her head held high, marched over to the scene. With a shared look, Johnny and I held back, enough to be available if needed, but not enough to appear “in charge” of whatever was about to happen.

When we got there, the mocking smiles and nasty chuckles of the girl and her friends were gone, but the residue was still there.

“You okay, Ollie?”

“Uh-huh.” Ollie didn’t look at Lisa when he answered, focusing on getting the last item into his bag.

Lisa impressed me even more by being smart enough to recognize offering to help Ollie get up, or even worse, doing it without asking, would embarrass him far more than he already was. He was fourteen or fifteen. He was a boy. A girl helping him get up after a trip and fall? The taunts would never end.

When he stood, though, the look in his eyes was one of gratitude for what he knew her intent would have been, if it could have been.

Lisa ignored the table and spoke brightly to both her friends. “Ollie, have you met my friends, Johnny and Mike?”

Ha. Already relegated to second place in any listing. I kept my smile hidden.

“Um, no.” He looked at the two of us. We nodded at him. “Um, uh, hi.”

Our “nice to meet you, too,” was sincere and simultaneous.

There was a repeat introduction with Julia, before Lisa went on with the same brightness, this time to her two friends, who were apparently now ours, as well. “The guys and I were just talking about a word. ‘Battery.’ Did you know it means intentional, offensive touching? I didn’t.”

My folks are kind of old-fashioned, which is not surprising, given how long they’ve been around, and they’re fans of Rudyard Kipling. The content of the poem which came to mind is probably not considered kid-friendly or PC these days, but in Julia’s and Ollie’s eyes, there was a whole hell of a lot of dawn coming “up like thunder outer China ’crost the Bay!”

They gave her their best “Oh, really? Wow!” looks.

“Yeah, and if someone hurts you on purpose, you know, maybe making someone trip and fall and bruise his knee, your parents can sue. Of course, if they apologize, like Banker’s Son—” There was an audible gasp from several students nearby. Was Lisa the first to use those words about him besides me? “—then it couldn’t have been intentional and everything’s okay.”

I wanted to bang my head against the nearest hard surface. Baby steps, Lisa, I wanted to say. Baby steps. This whole safety-numbers thing only started a couple of minutes ago. It was far too soon for a frontal attack which might become the same disaster as the Charge of the Light Brigade, though with no one to hail the fallen as heroes.

I had no bugle to sound a retreat, so Lisa went on.

She then looked at the girl who tripped Ollie, not trying very hard to make her surprise believable. “Oh, hi, Jane! I didn’t see you there.”

And she kept staring, with a different bright smile on her face, one I didn’t think, from what little I could see of it from the side, I’d ever want directed at me.

After a moment, Jane had her own fill-in-the-blank moment. “Uh, I might have tripped Ollie. Not on purpose. Sorry.”

She didn’t look at Ollie, and her voice was several football field lengths from sounding like she meant it. But the words were spoken. Which was all Lisa was after.

I’m not sure if Lisa would have let it go, even though she wasn’t the one injured, but fortunately for everyone the five-minute bell and the “Get your asses to your classes” announcement happened.

We went our separate ways.

I decided I would stick with the classics and wait for the other shoe to drop.

For a while it didn’t.

My raven insisted in no uncertain terms…the certainty being a feeling as if I were being asked if I wanted the raven equivalent of a two-by-four slammed between the eyes of a Missouri mule to get its attention…these three were my flock.

My flock kept growing.

I said nothing to encourage anyone; neither did Johnny. I made no promises, no pronouncements, but still, over the next two weeks, the group which gathered for lunch grew, until there were about twenty of us. And every time, if Johnny showed up and there was someone seated next to me, on both sides, one or both would get up so Johnny could sit.

“Battery” became the word of the day, the week, the damned year.

Flock Members 1 and 7 would happen to be passing by one or more of the Four, and F-M 1 would just happen to say within Four-hearing distance, “Hey, F-M 7, the battery on my car died. And it’s a new battery. Kinda weird, huh?”

Or F-M 9 would happen to say, also within Four-hearing distance, “Hey, F-M 12, gosh, I need a new battery for my whatever. You wanna go get one with me?”

I kept expecting someone, boy or girl, to slip and talk about needing to get a new dildo battery. They didn’t.

Two members of the Drama Club, with a special fondness—boys after my own heart—for old movies and musicals discovered On the Town. The Four were then favored with students walking by singing about New York being a helluva town, what with the Bronx being up and the Battery being down. Or just someone whistling or humming that part of the tune.

I couldn’t persuade them of the risks you run when you tease vicious animals and the bars of their supposed cages are intangible. They didn’t know they were part of my flock, so I had no power to issue a cease-and-desist order.

I shut up, watched, hoped.

For a while it worked—safety in numbers. Until it didn’t.

And who better to target than me? Or me, through Johnny?