chapter 4
Hunter High kids are all majoring in meanness, and they get big, fat As because it comes so naturally to them. First period, I take the long walk of shame into physics class, where Kai “Pox” Small, Hunter High’s very own shaved-head, six-foot-two-inch brick wall big-time surfer, continues the same brutal imitation of me that so amused and delighted the entire busload of kids only minutes before.
Word of my spastic meltdown also obviously made it into the inner sanctum of the faculty lounge, where things must be unbearably boring if I’m a big event. I notice our teacher, Mr. H, studying me, like I’m bubbling or changing colors, a science problem that he’s determined to puzzle out.
Question: Why did the human doormat suddenly turn into an exploding doormat?
Mr. H shuts down Pox by sliding a finger across his throat, and for that I want to kiss him. Not kiss him kiss him, because he’s married and old and shaped like the first letter of his name, short and boxy. But I do feel grateful when he deflects attention from me by putting himself into the line of fire. He launches into his science teacher comedy routine.
“Why did the chicken cross the road?” he asks. “Because chickens at rest tend to stay at rest. Chickens in motion tend to cross roads.”
Right after that class, with Raymond as my combination cheerleader and bodyguard, I take another walk of shame down the interminably long corridor of lockers toward the classroom of dark, intense Mrs. H for English. Yes, she’s been married to Mr. H forever, and I guess it works for them even though I don’t get their attraction to each other. He’s so jokey, and she starts each of her classes with a poem about death or suffering or the struggle to find meaning in the meaningless nature of human existence.
When I slide into my seat, one of the Double Ds slips in a dig. “What exploded your tampon?” She asks this loud enough for everyone to hear. And to visualize. In every detail.
As degrading as the morning has been so far, I know it’s probably a breeze compared to what’s next. A return to the scene of my crime. Normally I look forward to Western Civ. It makes sense that someone like me who’s not too thrilled about the present enjoys looking backward. I can’t get enough of learning about all the ancient superstitions and what people ate, wore, and cared about. I keep thinking that in the past things must have been better than they are now, despite the lack of indoor plumbing and frozen pizza. Maybe people stuck by their friends and families and they protected and sacrificed for the kids. Maybe there was more tolerance of people who were a little different, and life was more fair. I want to believe that there used to be a time like that, because if such a time existed once, it could exist again.
Ms. Pallas keeps pointing out our similarities with the ancient world, rather than our differences. As she said in class the other day: “People eat and work, they fall in love and go to war. There’s the same day-to-day struggle for existence and night-to-night struggle with fear and uncertainty. Always has been, always will be.”
At the present moment I have my own personal struggle, which is getting through this class and then the rest of the day, and then I can go home and take a nap. I try what Raymond suggests and envision myself wearing a noise-blocking air controller headset to block out any more snotty comments from the surf crew. I imagine the headset huge and hand-knitted in pink yarn, more like earmuffs. I take my seat. Ms. Pallas shoots me a warning look and I do something squishy with my features that I hope translates into the nonverbal-communication form of—No problemo. I have everything under control. You can definitely count on me.
I think that satisfies Ms. Pallas. I sure hope so. She’s very strict. Even the way she wears her hair—an old-fashioned wheat-colored braid that crisscrosses her head like a rope—is tight and intimidating. She has this way of demanding everyone’s complete attention. Even the usual class goof-offs keep it under control. I don’t want to get on her bad side any more than I already have. She writes something in a notebook, and when she pivots around to face the class, the blue scarf draped around her collar makes her deep-set eyes pop with color.
“Continuing with oral presentations,” she says. “Is there a volunteer?”
To my left, there’s already a hand waving in the air. I watch a short girl with dreadlocks named Stephanie take large, confident steps to the front of the room. I settle in. This should be good. Despite how lots of people make fun of a white girl with dreads, I respect Stephanie. She puts a lot of passion into her work. I’m a big fan of her editorials in the school paper, and she even has her own blog, Green from Tenth Grade to Death—One Student’s Commitment to Save Mother Earth.
From her hemp shoulder bag she removes a binder with her presentation, and begins reading in a voice that sounds like she’s presenting a proclamation to the United Nations. “Topic: Is contemporary society more—quote—civilized—unquote—and less violent than the ancient cultures that we have been studying? To those who argue that modern mankind has evolved in any meaningful way, I offer indisputable evidence to the contrary: Number one…”
Behind me, Pox Small clears his throat. Danger ahead. I immediately go into emotional duck-and-cover response because I figure he has just come up with another so-called hilarious comment aimed at me. But when he whispers, “If it’s yellow, it’s mellow,” I’m relieved. This is mean of me, but I’m happy that the bull’s-eye has shifted to Stephanie. He’s latched onto her reference to number one. Stephanie recently posted IF IT’S YELLOW, IT’S MELLOW hand-made signs in all the student bathrooms, her one-person campaign to cut back on flushing and trim the school’s water consumption by half.
If that were me in front of the class, I’d be praying for an earthquake to hit, but not Stephanie. She folds her arms across her chest and stares down Pox without blinking. I admire how she stands up for herself and what she believes in. I also admire her blouse, which is gauzy and embroidered white on white; I saw it on sale at Global Mama, the fair-trade import store downtown.
“Number one,” she repeats with extra-hard emphasis. “At this very moment, innocent animals are suffering barbaric torture under the guise of improving civilization. In corporate labs across this so-called enlightened land, you’ll find poor, helpless monkeys being injected with chemicals so toxic that these innocent creatures—who possess nerve endings the same as yours and mine—develop humungous cancerous tumors.”
Stephanie’s voice quivers at the word tumors. She reopens her binder, and with a dramatic flourish she whips out a picture of a big-eyed, helpless monkey tied down on a gurney.
Pox now starts making sarcastic little monkey eeking sounds. He’s got the rectangular jaw and underbite for it. I can’t believe he’s pulling this stunt in Ms. Pallas’s class, and neither can she. She gives him the look she’s known for, a flash of her cold blue eyes that usually makes anyone shut up. But Pox is on too much of a roll. He keeps eeking, and the laughter builds up around him. Stephanie keeps going on with her rant. The worse he gets, the louder and more outraged she gets. I swear that they are fueling each other.
“What is the justification for abusing this animal?” She pounds a fist on a nearby desk. “I’ll tell you! Money!” A stamp of her foot. “So that greedy corporations can sell their overpriced products to consumers who have been brainwashed from birth to believe that they can’t possibly live without softer hair, redder lips, and armpits that don’t smell like armpits were designed to smell!”
As much as I admire Stephanie, she is asking for it with that last line. She practically handed Pox a script to start sniffing his own pits, and most of his obnoxious surf crew joins right in.
Knock it off, Pox. I think. Someone should tie you down and experiment on you.
“Knock it off, Pox! Someone should experiment on you.”
I start at hearing my own thoughts expressed aloud. The voice is coming from the back of the room, and I’m not a ventriloquist. “Let her finish, a*shole.”
All heads now turn to Alix Wolfe, serious surfer and the toughest girl with the worst temper at Hunter High. I get a gag reflex just thinking about getting in her way. It’s not like she’s Stephanie’s best friend or anything like that. I doubt that she has any particular love for monkeys or the environment or Stephanie. It’s that Alix can’t stand Pox and the feeling is mutual. Everyone knows that. Nobody knows exactly what started the feud, but I think that maybe it’s because Pox can’t stand that a girl is as aggressive and competitive, in and out of the water, as he is. Other girls who surf, even the really good ones, also flirt shamelessly. Around guys, they pretend to be weaker and less skilled than they are. Not Alix. She shows off at every opportunity. She torments Pox and vice versa. Raymond says it’s been this way forever, both of them always ready to get into it with each other.
Their hostility charges the room. Pox, pumped up, swings around in his seat. “Who you calling an a*shole, a*shole?”
“Shut up, Pox,” Alix comes back.
“No, you shut up!”
“Wrong! You!”
Ms. Pallas tries to intervene. She really tries. Her eyes flash with a threat. In a tone low and intimidating, she orders Alix and Pox to stop it now. But things are moving too fast.
That’s when the air in the classroom does something strange. Strange as in the same strange as yesterday. I hear a rush, like all the air is being sucked out of the room, and into the void comes static, and in the static I hear that music again. Faint notes repeating themselves, vibrating not in my ear but in some place deeper. I try to hum along. I let the notes pull me in their direction.
From the back of the room, a mass streaks past me. I see an arm lunging and pulling its body behind it. It’s Alix, like a deadly Pox-seeking missile. She’s on him, her right fist connecting with his left ear. The room explodes into total chaos. Ms. Pallas waving her ruler, pounding her hand on a desk. The Double Ds shrieking with excitement. Books fall to the floor. Ms. Pallas rushes across the room. Chair legs squeal. Stephanie is taking large, loud gulps like she’s hyperventilating. There’s a rumble and then a clap of thunder from outside. Real thunder. But the sky is totally clear. The overhead light flickers on and off a dozen times. Ms. Pallas, arms stretched high, ruler held high, orders in a voice that can’t be ignored this time: “Stop! I demand it!”
It takes two of Pox’s surfing buddies—short, wiry Gnat and him, Brendon—to pull Alix off of him. They have her between them, one on each arm, her feet off the ground, her short, powerful legs pedaling hard like a cartoon roadrunner.
“Put her down!” Ms. Pallas orders. “Immediately!”
Alix’s feet hit the ground, her knees buckling slightly. She spins to Ms. Pallas and holds up her palms in surrender. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Your classroom is a hate-free zone. No-tolerance policy. Principal’s office. Suspended.”
But when she’s halfway to the door, she freezes, seems to have a second thought, and whips back around. Pox holds up his fists in defense. Ms. Pallas positions her ruler against her chest like a ninja warrior. Alix stabs her finger in my direction. “Hey you.”
I actually do that lame thing where I look behind me and turn back around when I realize she’s talking to me. I point to my own chest, mouth the word Me?
“Yeah, you. I hate everyone, too.”
The room shakes as she slams the door behind her.
No one moves. Not Ms. Pallas, whose jaw is clenched, or Pox, who is holding his ear in either real or fake pain, or Stephanie slumped against the chalkboard, or Gnat or Brendon, or the Danish foreign exchange student, who looks like he might cry, or the Double Ds, or Raymond. And not me. I definitely stay put, even when the bell rings for the end of class.
The only one to rise is Ambrosia. I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned her yet, because it’s a rare Hunter High student who can get this far into a day without Ambrosia’s name coming up. As always, she looks completely serene, the After from a commercial about taking a sun-drenched, massages-around-the-clock vacation in some paradise.
She takes her time putting her books into her backpack, and I swear that she’s savoring the moment, lolling around in the sheer pleasure of everything that just happened.
What did just happen?
She straightens the creases in her skirt, sways her back, and tucks some loose strands of long, dark hair behind her ears. Big hoop earrings, her trademark, catch the light and glitter real gold, not the filled kind.
This next part, I’m sure of it. I’m not imagining it. Ms. Pallas glares at Ambrosia, who holds up three of her fingers with their long, red-painted nails. It’s like she’s flashing the teacher some kind of gang symbol. The letter W? The number three? It happens fast and then it’s over.
Ambrosia then peers over her shoulder.
At me.
Her eyes narrow like a cat catching a glimpse of a mouse. Her lips press together and I can tell she’s humming. I can’t hear the melody, but …
Ambrosia winks.
The hairs on my arms stand up like bristles on a brush.