“I was studying in the gazebo yesterday and left my bag while I went into Cup of Jo. I didn’t notice until I got home, but my cell was missing from inside. Do you know if the bagel shop or anyone has cameras up? I could watch their tapes to see who took my phone.”
“Don’t you remember crap-ageddon?” She laughed at my confused face. “A few months ago. Someone let their dog crap all over the knoll. Kids kept stepping in it. They stationed a cop after the third week or something. Like a cop literally sat in the gazebo all day to keep the crapper away.”
“Oh yeah. So no cameras.”
“No. Sucks. Sorry.” Her thumb jerked over her shoulder. “I gotta go.”
“Thanks. Bye,” I called, walking backward up the alley.
? ? ?
Perfection that the first funny rite happened when Viv and I were in the same third-period classroom, along with Trent, Jess, Conner, and Campbell. Of course, perfection happened by Viv’s design. It began as rustling. A sharp intake of breath. A pop that made me jump in my seat. A smell. I’ve never had a pet, but there is something all-at-once recognizable about the repulsive scent of canned cat food. I was convinced that if Harry’s boy from another planet, a catless planet, had been in that room he would have named the smell instantly like I did.
“Oh my god,” I heard Jess say.
I swiveled around. Mr. Novak muttered something about keeping the chatter down, barely taking his eyes off the whiteboard.
Campbell, at the desk behind me, was fixing the newly opened can of cat food with a doomed stare. A top layer of gelatinous goo reflected the fluorescent light. A mauve processed meat jelly peeked from under it. A can opener lay abandoned. Viv stood at her desk for a better view.
“Oh shit,” Jess said, up on her knees, staring over Campbell’s knit beanie.
“Duuuuude. That is rough,” Trent said. He extended a fist across the row for a bump; Campbell left him hanging.
A gag burped up from Campbell’s throat. He withdrew a spoon from his pocket. I covered my mouth with a hand. The spoon cut into the jelly meat. I wanted to look away. The spoon disappeared inside his mouth; it came out clean, except for a few streaks. His eyes went red and teared. There was a gurgle from his stomach. His hand shook putting the soiled spoon into his pocket. He took two audibly deep inhales and exhales.
Trent and I exchanged a look of revulsion. “You’re a champion, man,” he told Campbell.
“I’m going to puke,” Campbell said weakly. Trent grabbed the can, held it far from his body, and speed walked to the trash at the back of class. When he returned to his seat, Campbell had his forehead planted on the desk.
The rite had been unmissable. Every kid in that classroom had watched in confusion and disgust. Presently I think our whole plan hinged on Campbell and his courage without us realizing it. If he had refused, chucked the can in the trash, told his friends, it would have been too easy for the rest to bow out also. Campbell had done the disgusting without complaint. He was a champion. The rest of our initiates would carry on.
For the rest of third period I couldn’t shake the feeling that Campbell had deserved the cat food rite less than any of his friends. And I wondered, had Campbell’s secret, that he was once a kid a lot like us but had shed that old identity for a shinier, popular one, made Viv angry with him?
Word of one more rite reached me by the start of lunch. Rachel stood up in the middle of the history class she and Graham shared. She told Mr. Rooney, their teacher, that his curriculum made her want to puke because it glorified the colonizer and ignored the slaughter of indigenous nations who were already here before here became the United States. She ended declaring that America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, in fact was a country built on stolen land and the corpses of indigenous peoples and slaves. She was ordered out of the class for the rest of the period.
Even if I hadn’t known that Graham had chosen Rachel, it was undeniably his work.
Viv insisted we eat lunch in the courtyard’s amphitheater, on the top cement riser. We had good seats for when Trent stripped down to his boxers and humped the flagpole. Students crowded around. Whooped and hooted. Trent continued for longer than I’d told him to in the embarrassing rite’s instructions. There was a furious whistle, signaling the arrival of campus security. They hauled Trent off the flagpole. He held his clothing against his chest, a victor’s grin causing a few kids to ask if Trent was on antipsychotics.
It was better than I’d imagined.
Viv lazily tossed a grape into her mouth, chewed, and then waved to the sky. “Behold, we are the masters of the universe.”
Harry snorted.
Her words bounced around in me for the entire afternoon.
? ? ?
? ? ?
Our initiates met us at the western corner of the apple orchard, two rows of trees in, along the dirt lane. It was half-past midnight. Concealed by the trees, we distributed black beanies with two holes cut for eyes and mouths. Graham gave out cans of red spray paint and I recapped the plan.
“Everyone knows which houses they’re hitting? Good,” I said.
“Don’t deviate,” Graham warned.
“Keep your masks and gloves on at all times,” Harry added.
“At one a.m. exactly, Jess, Amanda, Rachel, and Campbell will run home using the green belts,” I said. “Conner and Trent will stay to finish breaking the windows with us because we all live on this street.” Each of us had been assigned the houses nearest to our own to help with a fast getaway.
“Won’t it be suspicious when none of your houses are hit?” Jess asked.
Graham said, “Who says we’re not hitting our own houses?”
“You guys think you can re-create the drawing?” I pressed.
“It’s not exactly a Picasso,” Amanda said snidely.
“Good. Then you shouldn’t have a problem making sure it looks like a bird,” I retorted.
“Everyone set their cell alarms so they vibrate at one,” Harry said. “Masks on. Gloves on, and—”
Graham cut him off. “Move out.”
Our formation broke apart as we hit the sidewalk, each of us splinters aimed at our targets. I flew uphill in the direction of my house. The neighborhood would be transformed into a nightmare landscape within minutes. All the oblivious, selfish families on our street would wake up to red, red, red. We would make them feel a fraction of the fear Goldilocks must have felt. They deserved it.