He turns red, and I know I have him.
“I heard you kicked him in the shin yesterday. His father called to complain and—”
“Lex Pinkston is an evil boy who—”
“I know exactly who Lex Pinkston is and his father—”
“I prayed for you last night, Prince Tony.”
“You did?” He doesn’t know how to react to this one. Church and state and all. This is a public school. “Why did you pray for me?”
“I pray for you every night. True.”
“Thank you,” he says, blushing again.
“When are you going to start protecting the good people of Childress Public High School?”
“What would you have me do?”
“Expel Lex Pinkston.”
“For what?”
“For being evil.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“So you are admitting Lex Pinkston is evil?”
“I said it’s not that easy.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“First, Mr. Pinkston is a school board member and we have to be delicate when—why am I explaining myself to a seventeen-year-old girl?”
“I’m going to say one thing to you, Prince Tony, and then I’m going to walk out that door.”
I stare into his eyes, and I see him swallow once. He digs me, and he knows that Lex Pinkston needs to be kicked in the shin and slapped every so often, if only to maintain the balance of power within the student body so that evil doesn’t get out of control; the boss man sees this because deep down, Prince Tony is a good man—even if he is a wimp who plays both sides of the political fence—and like Billy Budd, Prince Tony needs a Captain Vere to protect him from the evil people in the world. I fancy myself a more adroit and less dreamy, less starry Captain Vere. Captainess Appleton, at your service. Word, all you lime-suckers.
“You’re a good man, Prince Tony,” I say, “and I believe that you will eventually clean up this school and protect the common students from the selfish interests of school board members like Mr. Pinkston. My money’s on you, Prince Tony. My money is on you.”
I get up and start walking out of his office.
“You simply cannot assault students in my building, Ms. Appleton. I will not endure your vigilante approach to—”
“Search your heart, Prince Tony. You know what’s the right thing to do. I believe in you. And I’m praying for you. Every night.”
I walk out of his office, and his ancient wrinkly secretary Mrs. Baxter—who wears the reddest lipstick I have ever seen on any woman, and looks like a patriot with blue hair and white skin—asks me, “How’d it go in there?”
Mrs. Baxter is pretty nice, and I think it’s safe to say she’s an Amber Appleton fan.
“I’m praying for your boss,” I tell her. “He has the ability to turn this school around.”
“If he only had the chutzpah,” she whispers, with her hand shielding her ancient lips so that only I can see.
“Viva la revolution, Mrs. Baxter,” I say as she writes me a pass, and then I jog up two flights of stairs so I can check out Doolin’s Accelerated American Lit class, where I learn all about civil disobedience and that cool cat Henry David Thoreau, whom I admire a whole bunch, because he represented hard-core and even went to jail for his beliefs, which is saying something. True? True.
CHAPTER 5
Practical Life Skills class, where I work on my prom dress.
Semi-boring history, and then I’m at Ricky’s locker.
“Amber Appleton slapped Lex Pinkston in THE FACE. Bad girl! Bad girl! Bad girl!”
“If you don’t stop saying bad girl, I’m going to tickle you.”
“No! Ricky Roberts does NOT like to be tickled. No tickle-tickle.”
This is as close as Ricky gets to making a joke, because tickling is his favorite. I get him good under his armpits, and he doubles over and yells “Hi! Hi! Hi!” until some bearded teacher I don’t know comes out of his classroom and asks if everything is okay.
“Beautiful,” I say to the beard.
“Amber Appleton is my best friend. She makes omelets with tequila and takes me on missions and I am taking her to prom in a limousine! Yes,” Ricky says.
The beard nods once, real serious—as if Ricky told the beard that he needed to donate a kidney to the president because it was the beard’s civic duty or something—and then the beard walks back into his classroom.
Truth be told, there are a lot of teachers who are scared of Ricky, because he flips out sometimes and punches himself in the head, which can get a little intense.
As we walk to Donna’s house together, Ricky counts aloud, and I enjoy the afternoon winter sun on my face.
Bobby Big Boy always pisses himself whenever we are reunited, so I pull a few paper towels from the roll, and then let him out of his room. In the tiled hallway, he circles me seven times, like he has been snorting cocaine all day, and then he pees on the floor, so I wipe up the yellow puddle and give Thrice B a kiss. He tries to slip me the tongue, but he doesn’t make it into my mouth or anything.