“Mr. Hanratty,” my fifth period social studies teacher says in front of the whole class. I haven’t even sat down yet. “You going to be favoring us with more of your particular brand of sullenness this year?”

I write my name on the inside of the 20th Century Civilizations cover: E. Hanratty.

“What are you shaking your head about?” he wants to know.

I’m not shaking my head about anything, I tell him.

He asks if I’m calling him a liar.

“I’m not calling you a liar,” I tell him.

He says he’d like me to apologize to my classmates for wasting everybody’s time at the beginning of the semester.

I apologize to them. Kids snicker. “Don’t let it happen again,” a kid behind me murmurs.

“We’re going to be concentrating this year on Innovators,” the teacher says. “Men and women of the twentieth century who found new ways of addressing society’s problems.” A kid in the last row makes a farting noise. The kids around him make snorty and strangled little sounds.

“Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King,” the teacher goes. “Mr. Hanratty? Any names to add to our list?”

“Richard Speck,” I go.

So on day one I get detention. The secretary outside the vice principal’s office congratulates me on being the first kid called in this year.

I don’t see Flake for three straight periods.

“What’s the matter with you?” a girl asks me on the stairs.

I have to call home when detention’s over, since the buses all left an hour ago. My mother comes to get me and drives a mile and a half after I get in before she says anything. I measure it on the odometer.

“Your friend called four times,” she says. “He didn’t seem to know about your detention.”

“You mad?” I ask.

“No, I’m proud,” she says.

“Sorry,” I tell her.

“So what’d you do?” she says. “Talk back?”

“Talk back,” I tell her.

At dinner my dad tells me I’m grounded.

“No more malt shop for me,” I go.

He tells me I’m grounded an extra week.

Flake can’t believe it when I get him on the phone. “That’s fucked up,” he says. I can hear him sucking down a Go-Gurt. He goes through the things like he’s five years old. “How could you get into trouble so fast with everybody?”

He likes what I told the teacher. He thinks my parents should’ve cut me some slack. “FS,” he goes.

“FH,” I tell him.

All the lights and the TV finally go off around midnight. My dad peeks in to make sure I’m not on the computer or sharpening a spoon to cut out his heart. “You asleep?” he says.

“Completely,” I tell him. I have the covers over my face and a hand off each side of the bed.

“Try and avoid any felonies on day two,” he says. “Though I know you already set a standard for yourself.”

“I think Mom’s waiting for you,” I go.

“You got some mouth on you,” he says.

“Good night,” I tell him.

And I can’t sleep. The digital clock on the nightstand makes loose little flipping noises when the minutes change. I put my underwear over it and then can’t take it anymore and have to see how much time has passed. 1:14. 1:51. 1:54. 1:55. I lie there swearing like I’m calling Jesus Fucking Christ on my pillow radio. The flipping noises keep going, each one getting me closer to school.

I get up and go to the bathroom mirror. My nose is eight feet long and I’ve never had a haircut I liked. My glasses are crooked from always being broken. My lips are too big. If I get any skinnier I’ll be able to pull a sock up to my neck.

“Somebody help me,” I go. I squat on the floor with my hands behind my head and rock in place.

“You look worn out,” my mom tells me at breakfast.

“Can I just have orange juice?” I go.

“I’m worried about your weight,” she goes while she watches me drink it. My dad isn’t even up yet. He’s an econ professor at the college and his first class on Tuesdays isn’t until two-something.

“Your pants are ready,” she tells me, to cheer me up. “If you want to wear those green pants you were looking for.”

At the bus stop I squat again. I pull my knapsack by the straps up to the top of my head. The two ninth-graders waiting with me look weirded out.

“That girl who’s on everybody’s shirts is like Satan,” Flake goes at lunch. “She’s like Evil Incarnate.”

“You ever notice how many people around here wear green?” I ask him. “Everybody wears green.”

“Yo,” a seventh-grader says as he passes our table. Flake gives him a miniwave.

“What’s he want?” I go.

Flake’s looking at the dessert line. “I want like a million billion dollars just for travel,” he says.

“Yo, faggot,” a ninth-grader calls from a table across from us. When we look over he lobs something he’s got wadded up. It’s off by like six feet. Me and Flake make like we’re looking for it way off in the distance. The kid wads up something else, but someone else whacks the back of his head with something and then they get into it.

Two girls from sixth-period art, Michelle and Tawanda, ask if they can sit with us.

“Free country,” Flake goes.

They give him a look and turn to me. “So listen,” Michelle says. When her jeans ride down, you can see the “Victoria’s Secret” on the elastic band of her underwear. “We have to do this World of Color thing with three people.”

“And?” Flake goes.

They look at him again. “Tawanda says you’re really good,” Michelle says to me. She’s got ponytails that start way up on both sides of her head. “She says you’re a really good artist.”

“You’re really good,” Tawanda says.

She was in my art class in seventh grade. She did a self-portrait of a round face with big tears dripping out of the eyes called Coffee Skin! that the teacher went apeshit over. I did a drawing called War the Scourge of Life that had War swinging his mace through a whole city, with tiny bloody victims hanging off the spikes, and it got hung next to hers. After everybody’s stuff was up she told me in the hall that my thing was amazing.

Flake starts doing his constipated-monkey thing. It’s so impossible to describe: he grits his teeth with this sleepy expression and jiggles around in his seat and goes Inka inka inka inka. It kills us both. He’s got thick brown hair and his ears stick out, so he makes a good monkey.

“What are you doing?” Michelle says.

“Inka inka inka inka,” he goes.

“Yeah. Well,” Tawanda says, “you want time to think about it? Want to tell us in class?”

“That’d be good,” I tell them.

“He’s not that funny,” Michelle says.

“Inka inka inka inka,” Flake tells her.

They both get up, holding their trays. “Don’t forget,” Michelle says.

“We want you,” Tawanda says, pointing at me. “For our trio.”

“We want you,” Flake says after they’ve gone to sit at a table full of girls. All of them are talking and looking over at us. Michelle gives the back of her pants a tug.

“You da man,” Flake says. “Tawanda wants to touch your art.”

The whole table’s still looking and laughing and Flake points at his crotch and then at them and then at his mouth. One of the girls nods and waves him over.

“Wouldja draw me a picture?” Flake asks me. Then he grits his teeth and acts sleepy. “Inka inka inka inka.”

Flake looks worse than I do.

“Look at you,” I go when he comes over after supper.

“I’m gonna heal,” he says. “You’re always gonna look like that.”

His dad cut his hair shorter so now his ears stick out even more. Plus he’s got these cartoon eyebrows.

The only thing that cheers us up besides somebody getting hurt is mosh volleyball. It’s the only sport we play. Flake doesn’t like to call it a sport. We invented it ourselves. One of us serves off the roof of the garage and the other has to put it back up onto the roof without letting it hit the ground. The roof edge is low so you can sky and pin the thing to the top and then it just rolls off and is pretty much unreturnable. But what’s great is, to slam it like that you have to throw yourself into the garage wall. The paint’s all covered with scuff marks and our legs are all covered with bruises. My dad hates the game because it knocks stuff off the walls inside. Once we knocked the ladder onto his car.

You also can go up and block somebody’s slam, which means both of you are hitting the wall at the same spot. On some serves, when the return bounces high, you can get way back and get a running start.

We go at it until it gets dark. I jam a finger and Flake gets grit from the roof shingles in his eye. I bang the shit out of my tailbone again and almost have to stop. I slam three in a row, and he starts leading with his knees when he goes up. He nails me in the balls and we have to take a break while I recover. I cut his legs out from under him on a block. “Asshole,” he goes. “Fuckwad,” I go back. “You are such an asshole,” he goes. “You are such a fuckwad,” I go back.

He wins 21–17. When we’re heading in, the neighbor on that side of our yard calls from his kitchen window, “I’m sorry to see that game end.”

A couple hours later on the way home Flake takes a dump on the guy’s picnic table. He tells me about it in school the next day.

We have combination locks for our lockers. Every day I get worried I’m not going to be able to open it. That’s what kind of hopeless feeboid pussy I am—I worry about being able to open my locker. The lock’s no good. You have like two seconds to open it between classes, and everybody else is opening theirs. Three straight days I can’t do it. The first day I try it twelve different ways, getting sweatier and sweatier, while everybody else gets their stuff and slams their doors and takes off. I stand there, looking at my little slip of paper like I can’t read three numbers. During study period I ask for another locker. The janitor comes over to check it out, opens it no problem, and walks away. The second day I bang the thing around, kick it. Knee it. Some of the kids around me cheer. The third day I try to pretend I’ve already gotten what I need.

“Where’s your text, young man?” my English teacher wants to know.

“In my locker,” I tell her.

“What good is it doing you there?” she asks.

“Sometimes I wonder,” I tell her.

“Did you hear me?” she goes. “What’s it doing in your locker?”

I just sit there. The kid across from me holds up his book, to show me what it looks like.

“Why is it in your locker?” she goes.

The second hand makes its little jerks around the clock on the wall. Under the clock there’s a construction-paper sign that says WHO OR WHOM???

“Do you want to explain why to the principal?” she asks me.

“He can’t get his locker open,” some kid finally says from the back of the room. Everybody laughs.

“Is that really true?” the teacher goes.

“Oh, fuck me,” I say under my breath.

When I look up she’s got the kind of expression you get when somebody drops something huge on your foot.

Nobody says anything for a minute. A boy in the back coughs. There’s a plant on her desk, and a picture of Paris. You can tell because of the Eiffel Tower. There’s a carved wood sign like businessmen have that stands up facing us. The sign says YES. AND . . . ?

I have a headache that goes from one ear to the other and over the top and down my neck. I wipe and wipe and wipe my eyes. “I guess you heard that, huh?” I finally go.

“So what’ve you two been up to?” my mom says at dinner. She’s glopping out mashed potatoes onto everybody’s dish.

“Nothing,” I tell her. “Can I have more?”

“You’re always planning something,” she says.

I look at her. “Why’d you say that?” I go.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I hear you up there in your room, murmuring away. Planning on getting even with this guy or that guy.”

“We’re not planning on getting even with anybody,” I go.

The bell rings and she gets up and takes the corn bread out of the oven and brings it to the table. We have to let it cool.

“Or doing your photosynthesis project,” she goes. “Roddy’s mother told me about that.”

“It’s a real project,” I tell her.

“Well, I look forward to seeing it,” she says.

We eat our dinner. Gus sings a song to himself.

“What’ve you learned so far?” she asks. “About photosynthesis?”

“Some strange shit,” I go.

“Don’t swear in front of your brother,” she says.

“Sorry,” I tell her.

“He can swear,” Gus goes.

“No, he can’t,” my dad says.

“Can I swear?” Gus asks.

“No, you can’t,” my dad goes.

My mom’s looking at me like we’re sharing a secret. It weirds me out. She looks tired and worried.

“We got a nice call from the vice principal,” my dad goes.

“Mom?” Gus goes.

“What’d he want?” I go.

“He wants us all to meet,” my dad goes.

“Mom?” Gus goes.

“So we’ll all meet,” I go.

“I thought we talked about this,” my dad goes. My mom remembers the corn bread and starts cutting it up and dishing it out.

“Mom?” Gus goes.

“You have a headache again?” my dad goes.

“Yeah,” I tell him. I must’ve been rubbing my forehead.

“You’ve been getting a lot of those lately,” my dad goes. “Maybe we’ll have to have that looked at.”

“Somebody should look at something,” I go.

“Mom?” Gus goes.

“Yeah, honey?” my mom goes.

His little brain locks. You can see it. He smiles at having everybody’s attention, and tilts his head to get the thought to roll from one end to the other. “Don’t look at me,” he goes.

“We’re not looking at you,” my dad tells him.

“Mom?” he goes.

“Yeah, honey?” my mom says. She really is a good mother.

“Do I have to go to school tomorrow?” he goes. He calls preschool school.

I’m sadder than usual for some reason. “Now what’s the matter with you?” my dad says to me. It makes me jump.

“Do I just have like a sign on my face today?” I go.

“You have a glass head,” my dad says.

“Remember when we used to tell you that when you were little?” my mom asks.

“I have a glass head,” Gus goes.

“You sure do,” my dad tells him.

I do remember when they used to tell me that, when I was little. I remember one Easter and a guy in a rabbit suit, but I don’t know why. “So what am I thinking right now?” I ask them.

“What’re you thinking right now,” my dad says, giving it some thought. “You’re thinking, ‘Why don’t they leave me alone?’ ” Gus takes a bite of mashed potatoes and holds his mouth open so I can see. “That’s it, isn’t it?” my dad goes.

“No,” I go.

“That was it,” he goes.

“What am I thinking now?” I go. I think: Kalashnikov.

“You’re thinking, ‘Why do I have to eat with them?’ ” my mom goes.

I laugh, and it cheers her up, but it makes me sadder than ever. Gus is still smiling. I’m pretty sure the world would be a better place if I was dead.

“Glass head,” my mom goes.

“I don’t know how you guys do it,” I finally go.

Step two is figuring out a way of sealing up the little door in the gym. We talk about it either at Flake’s house or in the fort. After what my mom said about our sitting around and talking about getting even with people, my room’s out.

Step one I get all the credit for, according to Flake. Step one was figuring out we could do it in the gym instead of having to lock up the whole school.

The door’s not very big but it’s a harder problem than it looks like. It has to be something we can do fast. It has to be something we can do with stuff we can bring to school without anybody noticing. And it has to be something nobody’d notice for at least a few minutes.

We’re not coming up with anything right off the top of our heads.

We’ve already figured other stuff out. We’d have the guns in our lockers. We’d go for the all-school assembly before Thanksgiving. They hang big crepe-paper turkeys and shit on the windows and doors, and that might help hide whatever we do to the lock.

I keep coming back to duct tape, because it’s one of those doors where you hit the bar to open it from the inside. But Flake thinks duct tape’s too easy to see and wouldn’t be strong enough anyway.

“With enough tape it would be strong enough,” I go. We’re in his bedroom and he’s got the Great Speeches CD going in case his mother or somebody wanders by the door.

“What’re you, gonna stand there for thirty minutes wrapping duct tape around things?” he goes.

“I don’t think it would take that long,” I tell him.

“Who do you think was the best serial killer?” he goes. He knows I have a book about it.

“It depends,” I go. “Ed Gein was pretty fucked up.”

He looks grossed out. I told him about Ed Gein.

“I keep thinking we could get a hammer or chisel and just smash the shit out of the thing that goes into the wall,” he goes. “You know, the thing that sticks out.”

“Yeah, like that wouldn’t make a gigantic noise,” I go.

“Well, I’d rather make a gigantic noise than stand there for eight hours,” he goes. “If nobody sees you right when you do it, you could take off by the time people came.”

Suppose they came and checked out the door, I ask, and he makes a face. What about we bring a lock, I ask. Like a bike lock.

“There’s nothing on the wall to lock the bar to,” he says.

We think about it. He’s got a sketch of the door and draws lines from the bar in various directions. “What we need to do is do like a test,” he goes.

He’s right. That’s the only way we’re going to figure this out. “We can’t be all set to go and get there and find out it’s not gonna work,” I tell him.

“Who’s got doors like that that we can screw around with?” he wants to know.

“The mall,” I go.

“No, those are different,” he goes. “Besides, who’s gonna let us screw around with doors at the mall?”

I keep thinking.

“Use your head,” he goes.

“Use yours,” I tell him.

We sit there, Flake drawing big X’s on his sketch pad.

“Who’s this?” I ask him, about who’s talking on the CD.

“Charles Lindbergh,” he goes. “Some of those doors in the basement near the furnace were the bar kind.”

“We’re gonna go back there?” I go. “We broke the window. They know someone was there.”

“We’ll check it out,” he says. “We’ll wait a few weeks. If it doesn’t look easy, we won’t do it.”

“I don’t know,” I go.

“Well, then come up with someplace else,” he says, like it’s settled.

I don’t like it but it’s the best plan we’ve got right now. “What’d Charles Lindbergh do?” I go.

“Why don’t you read a book and find out?” he goes.

“I just told you about Ed Gein,” I go.

“Ever hear of the Spirit of St. Louis?” he goes.

“Yeah,” I go.

“So there you go,” he says.

“So I don’t like sports,” I go.

“God, help me,” he goes. “Mother of God, help me.”

“Oh, yeah. Poor you,” I go.

When his dad drives off to pick up some takeout we head into the garage to investigate his tools.

We start with his big red toolbox. He keeps it locked, but even I’ve seen where he hides the key. We root around in it. Everything’s big and heavy, so digging around makes an unbelievable amount of noise.

“What’re you boys doing out there?” his mom calls from the kitchen window.

“Making trouble,” Flake calls back.

“You better not be in your father’s things,” she calls.

He stops rooting for minute, to let her wander into another room.

“What is this?” I ask. I hold it up.

“I have no clue,” he goes. “Put it back.”

There’s nothing it looks like we can use. Needle-nose pliers, regular pliers, a big red wrench I can barely lift, two hammers, two measuring tapes. Little plastic boxes of screws. Rubber gloves.

He grinds his teeth like he does when he’s starting to get pissed. I barely get my fingers out of there before he slams the top shut.

“What about up here?” I point at the particleboard his dad hung on the wall. It has holes for hooks and big stuff hanging from the hooks. Oversized scissors, a T square, an old hand drill, electrical tape, duct tape. Bungee cords. I take one down. “What about this?” I go.

“How long’s it take to take off bungee cords?” he goes. He makes a disgusted noise that sounds like a push on a bicycle pump. “How about Scotch tape?” he goes.

“Okay. It was just a question,” I go.

“You could slide like a rake handle across the door and through the bar,” I tell him a minute later.

“I thought of that,” he tells me. “You can also just slide it right back out again.”

“Yeah,” I go.

He sits on the cement, checking for wet spots from oil or antifreeze or whatever else is leaking out of his father’s car. I squat next to him.

“Worried about your pants?” he goes.

“I got like one nonqueer pair of pants,” I go. “I’m not getting shit all over them for no reason.”

“What’s up with that?” he goes. “Why can’t you buy another pair a pants?”

“Roddy?” his mom calls. It sounds like she’s farther away than the kitchen.

“Right here,” Flake calls back.

We look up at the particleboard and all around the rest of the garage.

“I was always jealous of kids who could take like two sticks and build something that would catch a raccoon,” he goes.

I know how he feels. “It sucks that we can’t think of anything,” I tell him. It really does.

“All we’re trying to do is keep a lot of people in one place while we shoot at them,” he goes. “Why’s it have to be so hard?”

His dad’s car pulls into the driveway. He accelerates when he sees Flake sitting in the middle of his garage and then he brakes before he reaches us.

“Suppose your brakes didn’t work?” Flake goes when his dad gets out of the car.

His dad hefts the takeout bag onto his shoulder like he’s starting a long hike. “My point entirely,” he goes.

“What’s that mean?” I ask once his dad’s in the house.

“Who knows, with him?” Flake goes. He gets off the floor and wipes his hands.

It’s a nice day so his dad and mom come back outside with the takeout and a half-gallon of ginger ale and some plastic cups. They spread out on the picnic table. They don’t ask if we want anything, so we sit in the grass and look over at them. Flake chews on individual blades and then a dandelion stalk. The sun feels good on my back.

“Your parents ever try and get you interested in sports?” his dad calls over to me.

I shrug.

He shakes his head. It looks like they’re having quesadillas. “Music?” he asks.

My mom got me an acoustic guitar one year for Christmas. Gus used to fill it with dirt and drag it around the yard on a string. “Nah,” I go.

“We tried to get Roddy excited about music,” his dad goes.

“You got me one of those pianos for like one-year-olds,” Flake goes.

“You want a real piano?” his mom asks.

“No,” Flake goes.

“We’ll get you a real piano if you want one,” his mom says.

“I don’t want one,” he goes.

“All right, then,” his dad says.

“God,” Flake goes, under his breath.

“Roddy’s grandmother was a wonderful musician,” his dad goes.

Flake’s looking off into the neighbor’s yard.

“Was she?” I finally go.

“She could’ve been a professional,” his dad goes.

“All she ever did was complain about her health,” Flake goes to me. “And she lived to be like a hundred and two.”

“What’d he say?” his dad goes.

“What do you care?” Flake goes.

“What’d you say to him?” his dad goes.

“He was telling me about her,” I go.

He looks skeptical but keeps eating. Flake’s mom is off in her own world, looking at her ginger ale.

“How did I end up with a kid with no ambition?” his dad finally goes. His mom shakes her head, like she doesn’t know.

“Don’t worry about the no ambition part,” Flake tells him.

“You got some?” his dad asks.

“I’m working on it,” Flake goes.

“You don’t look like you’re working on it,” his dad says.

“I’m working on it right now,” Flake goes.

I whack his leg to shut him up. He tears up more grass and won’t look at me.

His dad spreads out the quesadilla’s wrapping with the palm of his hand. “Glad to hear it,” he finally goes.

“What’d you do to your hand, Roddy?” my mom asks as soon as we come into the house.

“Burned it,” Flake goes.

“How’d you burn it?” my mom goes. She’s all alarmed. She gets in front of us.

“Wasn’t careful,” he goes.

“Were you playing with matches?” she asks. She looks at me.

“Oh, no,” he goes.

“Let me see,” she goes. She takes his hand with both of hers. He cleaned the paint off with thinner and that made the blistering worse. There are pink bubbles from his thumb to his pointer finger and down to his wrist.

“I got aloe,” she goes. “You want aloe?”

“My mom gave me some,” he goes.

“Well, I hope you weren’t doing something stupid,” she goes.

“Sometimes I need to be more careful,” he tells her. He means it.

“Were you guys doing anything stupid?” she asks me.

“He was already hurt when I got there,” I go. “I just brought him over here.”

We’re up in my room a minute and a half before the phone rings and my mom calls up the stairs that it’s for Flake.

“Were you painting in my garage?” his dad asks him. I can hear every word he says.

“We tried to clean it up,” Flake says.

“You didn’t try too hard,” his dad goes.

“I can hear like every word he’s saying,” I tell Flake.

He nods. “I’ll clean it some more,” he promises.

His dad swears a few times and then gets off the phone.

We sit and stare at his hand for a while. “Edwin,” my mom calls.

“Edwin,” Flake goes.

I go over to the door and open it. “What do you want?” I call down to her.

“There’s a boy here to see you,” she goes.

I look over at Flake, who thinks it’s funny.

“I don’t know any boys,” I go.

“I’m sending him up,” she says.

Hermie comes up the stairs two at a time.

“Who said you could come over?” I go.

“Your mom,” he goes.

“My mom said you could come up,” I tell him. “Who said you could come over?”

“I said,” he goes.

“You said?” Flake goes. “Midgets make the rules now?”

“Don’t make me kick your ass,” Hermie goes. He’s having the time of his tiny life. “Listen,” he goes. He’s looking around the room.

“Don’t get comfortable,” I tell him.

“I got a proposition for you guys,” he goes.

“A proposition?” Flake says.

“Yeah, a proposition,” Hermie goes. “You wanna hear it or not?”

Flake grabs him by the shorts and the collar of his shirt. I can hear Hermie grabbing at the banister as they go downstairs and complaining about something all the way out. The back door slams, then Flake comes walking back up and shuts the door behind him.

“Did that boy leave already?” my mom calls from the back of the house.

Or maybe it’s this: I remember we hiked up to this park on the top of a hill one Saturday in October when all the leaves were down. It was hot and we all had our sweatshirts piled on the back of Gus’s stroller. We took turns pushing him up this steep path. It was so steep he was almost lying down. My dad joked about us getting nosebleeds. At the top there was this great view but a storm was coming so we couldn’t stay long. Going back down I jumped on this tree branch to swing on it but slipped off and hit my head. I landed on the grass but it felt like cement. Everybody asked if I was okay and I thought I was. But later I kept feeling like I had to open my eyes wide and squeeze them shut. And when I shook my head it was like I was still shaking it when I stopped. I got more headaches after that, too. I was talking to Flake about it once when he complained that I got a lot of headaches and I told him about falling. I made it sound like I’d been higher up than I was. I told him I thought I might’ve really fucked up my head. I expected him to make a joke but instead he asked me all these questions like he was a specialist. He asked if I got dizzy for no reason. He asked if I saw all right. He asked if I got extra horny.

“What’s that got to do with my head?” I asked him.

“You’re fucked up normal,” he said. “I don’t think you’re fucked up abnormal.”

I knew what he meant, but since then I asked him if he sleeps all right and he does. I think it depends on what day you catch me.

He gets detention for having spent fifth and sixth periods wandering around the school looking for Matthew Sfikas. He did his looking by peeking into ninth-grade classrooms one by one. Finally a teacher noticed and went out into the hall.

“You don’t even know what he looks like,” I tell him in the detention room. He’s alone and there’s one kid waiting outside the door for the monitor to show up. I only have a minute before the buses leave.

He sits there hanging on to the front end of his desk with both hands like the floor’s gonna tip.

“Why get a hundred years of detention for this kid?” I tell him on the phone that night. “Why not just save him for our thing?”

“Save him for what?” he finally goes.

“Our thing,” I go.

There’s a little buzzing on the line. Nothing works right in either of our houses.

“He could be first,” I go. “We could start with him.”

“Yeah,” Flake admits. I can tell he thinks it’s a good point.

The next day before homeroom someone trips a seventh-grader when he’s coming down the stairs with his art project. His art project is the Seattle Space Needle made out of elbow macaroni. Flake and I are at the bottom when he lands. Macaroni ricochets off lockers.

He sits there wailing and scooping up the pieces that are still glued together. He doesn’t care who sees him. Kids with lockers nearby look sympathetic. Some kick macaroni back toward him.

“Somebody should help BG out, there,” somebody from our grade goes. He got called Baby Gherkin after some kids saw him in the shower in gym.

A girl carries a bigger piece over and sets it down next to him. “Thank you,” he goes.

People step around him going up and down the stairs, and he tries to fit a couple of the pieces back together.

When I see Flake before third period his middle finger is wrapped in this fat bandage. It looks like a Q-Tip. He’s happy about it. He says they were doing dissection in science and he put the little plastic scalpel with the razor blade in his pocket. He only remembered when he put his hand in his pocket later. “Look what I did to my finger!” he says to the vice principal when he goes by while I’m standing there. Kids laugh. “Ouch,” the vice principal goes. It looks like he’s already heard about it. He doesn’t seem to get that he’s just been given the finger.

After lunch Flake spots me at the other end of the room and waves both hands. Both middle fingers are bandaged. When I ask him, it turns out that after he cut the first finger he stuck the scalpel in his other pocket.

“You gotta be fucking kidding me,” I tell him.

“No,” he goes, like he lucked out twice. “Hey, Mrs. Pruitt!” he calls. He sticks up both middle fingers.

After school we decide to walk home when Flake’s detention is over. I sit on the steps and wait, watching the other kids with their friends. When he finally gets out we hang around the end of the playground for a minute before heading home. A ninth-grader comes up and asks if we want to buy any shit.

“What do you got in mind?” Flake goes.

The kid has a white kitchen garbage bag in his knapsack. He shows us the inside of it without taking it out. I can’t tell if Flake knows what he’s looking at.

“White crosses,” the kid goes.

We look at them. You can tell Flake’s thinking the kid might be fucking with us.

“What happened to your fingers?” the kid asks.

“What fingers?” Flake goes.

“Those,” the kid says, pointing at the bandages.

“Boating accident,” Flake goes.

The kid takes some time to work that out. “So you interested?” he finally says.

“How much?” Flake goes.

The kid tells him.

“I don’t think so,” Flake goes, like that’s too much. The kid shrugs and twist-ties his bag and zips up his knapsack. He walks back over to his friends.

“You know what white crosses are?” I ask.

“You?” Flake goes.

“Yeah,” I go.

On the way home Hermie comes running over from a side street. He must’ve seen us going by. “What happened to your fingers?” he asks Flake.

“Boating accident,” Flake goes.

“Yeah, right,” Hermie says. “That kid try and sell you something?”

“How do you know?” Flake goes.

“He’s always ripping people off,” Hermie goes.

“How’d you know he was trying to sell us something?” I go.

“I saw you,” he goes.

A black Camaro goes by and does a U-turn and slows down when it reaches us. A girl hangs out the window and a much older guy is driving. “Eat shit, Herman,” the girl goes.

“Fuck you,” Hermie calls.

The guy guns the car and they peel out.

“My sister,” Hermie goes.

“You got a sister?” Flake goes.

“I guess I must, if that’s her,” Hermie goes. I laugh.

“Shut up,” Flake goes.

“Duh,” Hermie says. Flake lets it go.

“So what happened to you?” I finally ask Hermie. He’s got like a huge scuff mark on the side of his head. It’s a black-and-red scab.

“Budzinski,” Hermie moans. He touches the scab with his fingers like it’s come off before.

“I’m gonna have to see this Budzinski,” Flake says, like he’s impressed.

We walk along for a while. Nobody says anything or asks where Hermie thinks he’s going. You can see how happy he is about it.

“My dad’s got a gun, you know,” he goes.

“Everybody’s dad’s got a gun,” Flake goes.

“I know where he keeps it,” Hermie goes.

“I guess we’re all in trouble now,” Flake tells him.

I start to say something, but I don’t even know what I was going to say. I’m such a loser and a half. I’m the kid you think about when you want to make yourself feel better. If I were me I’d talk about myself behind my back.

After a sign-up sheet for achievement tests went around the homerooms last week, he had us get out his father’s guns again when the house was empty and he squatted on the bed and had us hold the Kalashnikov and the carbine up over our heads. Here’s my achievement tests, he said. Here’s yours.

For the next fifty years, people who weren’t anywhere around will swear they were right here when it happened. “So there I was, bullets flying.” Shit like that. It makes us wish they were here. Then we could shoot them and they’d get what they want: proof they’re not bullshitters.

Flake gives me a 50 percent chance of wussing out. He says if I do he’ll shoot me himself. “I’ll shoot you, you fuck,” I tell him. It always makes him laugh.

He says to remember that out of everybody in the gym there’s still only going to be two kinds of people: the ones who don’t know anything about us, and the ones who don’t want to know.

I don’t call Flake or hear from him for a week. He wanders by in the hall a few times at school. I get up in the morning, get my stuff together and head for the bus. I come home, go up to my room and dump my stuff on the floor. I do homework. I do better than the teacher expected on a social studies quiz.

My dad asks a few days into this if I want to play catch. The next night my mom calls up the stairs that there’s a special on about naval firepower.

After I’m supposed to be asleep I walk around the house without turning on the lights. I take the Bible out of their downstairs bookcase and read it in the afternoons. I think about copying down parts but never get around to it. I like Leviticus and Revelations. I look at the pictures in African Predators. There’s one of a leopard that got ahold of a baboon. The baboon’s face is being squeezed shut by the bite.

“So now you’re not eating?” my dad asks after a while.

Gus comes into my room and sits with me sometimes, then goes out again.

“Can I tell you something?” my dad says, another time, at dinner.

“No,” I go.

Finally, after a week and a half, I call Flake’s house. The phone rings and rings and no one picks up.

In the mornings when I look in the mirror to comb my hair it looks like I have two black eyes.

My dad sits there while I have breakfast. He asks how I’m sleeping. I tell him I have no idea.

Hermie starts hanging out with me before the homeroom bell rings in the morning. He doesn’t say anything about Flake. At first he doesn’t say much at all.

“Listen, you gotta help me get back at Budzinski,” he finally goes.

“Who is this kid?” I go.

He points across the playground but there’s like forty kids where he’s pointing.

It’s about the third day he’s been hanging around, and we’re both watching other kids have fun. A bunch of them are seeing how many it takes to clog the tunnel slide for the grammar school. They’re falling out and getting stuck and everybody’s screaming.

He scratches his back through his SCREW THE SYSTEM shirt.

“You ever wash that?” I ask him.

“My mom does,” he goes. “You ever wash those?” he says about my pants.

Near the window where Flake and I broke in I can see the girl who was crying three straight days last week. She’s creeping around trying to sneak up on a pigeon. The pigeon keeps walking just out of her reach.

“You don’t look so good,” he goes. I make a face and he drops the subject.

Two other girls are standing there making fun of the one who’s creeping around after the pigeon. Every so often she looks over when she doesn’t think they’re looking. She’s the kind of girl who follows along with all the conversations and smiles whenever she gets noticed. The sun comes out and the whole playground gets warmer.

“So would you help me?” he goes.

“Help you what?” I go.

“With Budzinski,” he goes.

“I’m not gonna help you beat up some sixth-grader,” I tell him.

“I don’t want you to help beat him up,” he goes. “I just need help with a plan.”

“A plan,” I go. “Just hide behind a bush and hit him with a stick.”

“That’s a plan?” Hermie goes.

“He’s a sixth-grader,” I go. “Take his candy. Push him down in the sandbox.”

This pisses him off so much he shuts up for a while.

“I went after him with a stick,” he finally goes.

“You went after him with a stick?” I ask him.

“He took it away and hit me with it.” He looks ashamed.

This is what my life has come down to. I’m talking to sixth-graders about who beat who with a stick.

Hermie’s tearing up, just thinking about it.

“Hey, it happens,” I tell him.

“No it doesn’t,” he goes. “Not to anyone else.”

“I get my ass kicked all the time,” I tell him. “Are you kidding?”

He wipes his face and looks at his feet. He has an expression like getting compared to me isn’t a help.

The bell rings for homeroom.

“Somebody’s gotta do something,” he goes as we stand up and head inside. We get shoved aside by everybody who’s more anxious than we are to get in.

“We don’t even know what we’re going to do about the doors,” Flake says as soon as I come into his room that night.

“I know,” I go.

He’s lying on his back in his underwear with his arm over his eyes. One of his bandages is soaked with dried blood.

“You bang your finger again?” I go.

He doesn’t answer. “I got the guns out by myself,” he finally says. “I think I know about the safeties and everything now.”

“Good,” I go. It’s nice to have some good news.

“Sit down,” he tells me.

There’s an open jar of peanut butter on the chair. I pick it up and ask where the top is.

“What is it with you and stupid questions tonight?” he goes.

I roll the jar under his bed. It keeps going until it hits the wall. “This place is a shithole,” I tell him.

“You mean this town?” he asks. He sounds worn out.

“You gonna keep your arm over your face all night?” I go.

“What do you care?” he goes. “You showing off your outfit?” It’s quiet. I move my feet back and forth while he lies there like he’s dead. “You gonna play one of your speeches?” I ask.

“No,” he goes.

His mom’s screwing around with the blender downstairs. She was setting it up when I came through the kitchen. Now it sounds like she’s trying to grind rocks.

“How was the dentist?” I go.

He grins without moving his arm off his eyes. “I need braces,” he goes.

“When’re you supposed to get ’em?” I go.

“Turns out I got an overbite,” he goes. He finally takes his arm off his face and sits up. His neck is against the headboard.

“Is that comfortable?” I go.

He looks away and shakes his head. “So did you see our friend today?” he asks. “Or that other fucking midget? Budzinski?”

“Nope,” I go. “But that doesn’t mean they weren’t there.”

He makes a face.

“So what’re we gonna do?” I go.

“First thing we gotta do is solve the door problem,” he tells me.

“When’s the assembly?” I go.

“Friday, fourth period,” he goes. “You finish the stuff we’re gonna bury?”

“Pretty much,” I go. “You?”

He gets up and roots around in his closet. There’s a little poop stain showing through his underwear. He throws shirts and shoes out into the middle of the room, then comes out with a pile of papers like a phone book.

“You’re gonna bury all that?” I ask him.

He looks proud.

“What is it?” I go.

“None of your fucking business,” he goes. The first page is all filled with writing. He holds the pile in front of me before he puts it back in the closet. He’s careful about how he hides it again. Then he throws the shirts and shoes back in over everything he’s arranged.

I had like five pages to bury, so now there’s that to feel bad about.

“A wedge,” he goes. “Jesus Christ. A wedge.” He’s still standing next to the closet.

I don’t get what he’s talking about.

He bunches his fingers together and makes a little move with his hand to demonstrate. “To seal up the side door. We do it from the outside. From outside the gym, in the hall. One of us brings a little wedge and a hammer. Bang, you drive it in under the door. Nobody from the inside can open it.”

I’m still looking at him, trying to figure it out.

“We wait till everybody’s in the gym. Then one of us does that,” he goes.

“Where do we get a wedge?” I go.

“A wedge,” he goes. “Anywhere. You make one. It takes two seconds.”

I think about it. It makes sense. “So we gonna test it?” I go.

“We don’t have to test it,” he goes. “It’s a wedge. What’re we, testing to see if a wedge works?” He flops down onto the bed again, happy. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before. I can’t believe even you didn’t think of it.”

I have a new headache or else the same one that just keeps coming back. “So this means we can do it Friday?” I go. But he’s already thinking about something else. He’s excited again. “You gonna have trouble with your fingers?” I go. Meaning with the guns.

He shakes his head, still thinking about whatever the other thing is.

“Roddy? Homework?” his mom calls up the stairs. We both jump.

“He’s just going,” Flake calls.

We listen for her leaving the bottom of the stairs.

“Do we know how much kick these guns have?” I go.

“Listen to you: Joe Pro,” he says. “How much kick.”

“Well, who knows,” I tell him. The headache makes me squint.

“Just hold on to it,” he tells me back. “Don’t hold it like a faggot and you’ll be fine.”

“I’m not gonna hold it like a faggot,” I tell him.

“Then we’ll be fine,” he goes. “Look, you better go.”

I get out of the chair. “What about the thing with Hermie?” I go.

He does a thing with his hand like bugs are around his head. “We gotta stall him for a week,” he goes. “Lemme think about it.”

“You think about it, too,” he tells me, after I say I’ll see him later.

Gus has to finish before he gets dessert. I sit upstairs on my bed with my hands back on the sides of my face. I can hear my dad talking to himself in the downstairs bathroom. “Nobody flushes in this house,” he says. Gus is singing to himself instead of eating. His new favorite song is “I’ve Got the Whole World in My Pants.”

He quiets down. My dad turns on the TV. Down the street a dog starts doing the same bark for ten minutes in a row.

I find myself squatting over by the bookcase. I stopped flipping through the serial killers book when I got to the picture of Richard Speck. He doesn’t look like anybody I know.

“Where’d you get that book?” my mom asks from over my shoulder. She smiles when I jump. I didn’t hear her come in. “I can’t believe they have books like that for kids,” she says.

“It’s not for kids,” I tell her.

“That’s for sure,” she says. She puts away some laundry she’s folded in my drawer and picks up my green pants. “These are about ready to go out, aren’t they?” she asks.

“Leave them,” I tell her.

“We can try to find you a new pair like these,” she says.

“They’re okay,” I tell her.

She drops them and holds up her hands like I’ve gotten all bent out of shape. “Why’re you crying?” she asks. She kneels down next to me. “What’s wrong?”

“I bit my tongue,” I tell her.

She wants to see, so I open my mouth. “I don’t see it,” she says.

“It’s on the bottom,” I go. I can’t tell whether she believes me or not. She gets to her feet and watches me for a minute, then picks up the laundry basket and heads downstairs. I hear her saying something to my dad.

I lie down and slide under the bed. I push my hands against the planks holding up the box spring. I hear Gus get halfway up the stairs and then stop. “Where’s my ball?” he asks somebody.

“What?” my mom says. She’s in the TV room with my dad.

“Where’s my Nerf ball?” Gus goes.

“I think you left it outside,” she tells him.

“I want it,” he goes.

“Didn’t you leave it outside?” she asks.

“I want it,” he goes.

“Well, we can’t get it now,” she tells him. “We’ll get it tomorrow.”

He’s quiet a minute and then keeps coming upstairs. I can see his feet inside my room. “Edwin?” he says.

He goes back downstairs. “Where’s Edwin?” he asks. “He’s up in his room,” my mom tells him.

He comes back upstairs. “Edwin?” he calls.

I’m crying again. “Edwin?” he calls.

“I’m under here,” I tell him.

He gets down on his hands and knees and looks under the bed. He laughs and crawls under with me. He’s small enough to slide up next to me and roll over on his back. “Are we hiding?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I tell him. We lie like that until my mom comes up to put him to bed.