“No.”
Mr. Avery brought himself to bear, leaning forward over the desk. He looked toward my dad. “Listen, if we hand out special treatment to everybody who doesn't want to follow the rules, it would be chaos. Sometimes we have to sacrifice to maintain stability.”
I laughed, and I laughed loud. “So I'm sacrificed to maintain stability. That's screwed in the head.”
Dad glowered. “Poe …”
“No, I'm not getting this.” I looked at Mr. Avery “So basically you want to make sure everybody knows their place in this school, right? There's this group and that group and the other group, and the ‘rules’ you make up as you go along let us all know where we should be, right? At least you could admit it.”
Mr. Avery sniffed. “You're twisting things around here. There's nothing wrong with individuality and distinction when you've earned it, Poe. That's what you're not understanding about the jerseys. They earned it on merit.”
I crossed my arms. “I earned my choir uniform on merit.”
He smirked. “But choir has nothing to do with playing Ping-Pong or tennis in PE class, Poe, it has to do with singing.”
I shrugged, pondering the ceiling for a moment. “What does football have to do with playing volleyball in PE class?”
Mr. Avery blinked. “Listen, I know what you're saying, and I know what you're trying to do, but this is a waste of time. I see you as equal to anybody here.”
I exploded. “Don't sit there and tell me we're all the same, because we're not! And YOU make it that way!” I sat back. “I didn't ask for any of this! You screwed me, and now I'm screwing you.”
Mr. Avery almost choked he was so frustrated. “You didn't try out, Poe. You didn't follow the rules.”
“Mrs. Baird TOLD me it was a tryout! You just said there were no rules! God, you're just caving in because people are breathing down your neck.”
He ran his hands over his chubby cheeks, groaning. “I wasn't the one with anybody breathing down my neck, Poe.” He turned to my dad. “I think the best thing to do is talk with Principal Stephens. Maybe even Superintendent Marny I don't have the power to change this even if I wanted to, David.”
Almost on the verge of tears, I clenched my teeth. “You see it, don't you, Mr. Avery? Don't you?”
He sighed. “Poe, I do see it, but this is a mess. I have a job to do, and I'm answerable to the whole school. The whole community. Not just you.” He drummed his fingers on the desk, his eyes drooping. “Sometimes that's just the way the world is, Poe, and I'm sorry.”
“Fine, then. I quit anyway. I never even wanted this in the first place. I never even wanted to be here.”
Dad cut in. “Poe, please.”
“No, Dad, don't. I'm not doing it. I tried to do it your way, and they made it clear. I quit.” I picked up my bag.
He started to say something, but I walked out, slamming the door on my way. Ms. Appleway, with a pensive smile that said she'd heard me yelling, nodded as I passed. “Don't quit, girl.”
Then I was gone.
Chapter Sixteen
Of all the people in the world I didn't want to see, Velveeta was one of them. I walked home, done with Benders High, done with Benders Hollow, and done with the world. Velveeta knelt on all fours in the garden, weeding the dandelions popping up here and there. His lip pooched with a wad of tobacco as he turned his head and stared at me. “Hey, Poe. You ain't in school today?”
I rolled my eyes. “I'm standing here, aren't I?”
“You sure are. I ain't in school, either.”
“I guess you being here is the giveaway.”
He smiled. “Had a doctor's appointment and Aunt Vicky said I could stay home the rest of the day if I weeded.” He pointed. “Chores.”
“What's wrong?”
“Got a boil on my back. Lanced the sucker.” He stood, wiping his hands on his thighs and making a stabbing gesture. White knobby knees stained green poked out under his shorts. “Wanna see?”
“No.”
He smiled. “Your loss. Like a volcano erupting. Mount Vesuvial.” He grimaced, shading his eyes from the sun. “What're you doing out?”
“I'm moving back home.”
“Why?”
“I don't fit in here. And it sucks.”
“That's the stupidest thing I ever heard.”
I stared at him. “Why?”
He laughed, then spit a stream of brown loogey on the grass. “You don't fit in because you don't want to fit in, girl.”
“So?”
“So, it could be different.”
“How's that?”
“You could not fit in because you can't fit in.” He smiled, a tendril of tobacco stuck to his front tooth.
“It's all the same anyway, Velveeta.”
“No, it ain't. You could fit in, but you don't want to. I can't fit in because some things just aren't meant to be.”
“You could fit in just like anybody else.”
He made a dopey face, like I was the dope. “You get yourself a haircut, some normal clothes, and wear some pretty makeup and you could be anyone you wanted. Me? You put me in a thousand-dollar suit and you still got a dork named Velveeta. Ain't nothing changes that.”
I clenched my teeth. “I didn't come over here to listen to this. Especially today. I don't need a guilt trip about how good I have it.”
He frowned, then smiled. “Well, I don't want you to go.”
“Why?”
“Because you're the only friend I got here, that's why. And besides, I didn't figure you for a faker.”
“I'm not a faker.”
“Are too, going home like a whipped puppy with his tail ‘tween her legs.”
“Don't tell me you wouldn't leave if you could.”
He screwed his eyes at me, the expression constantly changing on his long, odd face. “What makes you think it would be different anywhere else I went?” He shrugged. “I'm stuck with me.”
“You wish you were somebody else?”
“Half the time I wish I wasn't anything, other half I wish I could jump outta my skin and leave it in a heap on the floor.”
“Pity party for Velveeta.”
He knelt, digging up a weed. “Ain't nothing wrong with saying how I feel, and ‘sides, you don't have to make me feel bad on account of you feeling bad.” He cocked his head up at me. “Don't you have some bags to pack or something?”
I watched him root the weeds out for a minute more, thinking about what he said, then walked inside.
• • •
By the time Dad got home, I'd been lying on my bed doing absolutely nothing but thinking for three hours. I heard him down in the kitchen, no doubt organizing groceries for dinner, and padded downstairs. “Hi.”
He turned. “Hi.”
“I'm sorry about today.”
He shook his head. “No, I'm sorry I didn't come to my senses before this.”
I leaned against the entryway. “I'm not leaving.”
He smiled, then nodded. “I figured you wouldn't.”
“Why?”
“Because I know you. At least I think I do.” He walked up to me, put my head in his hands, and kissed my forehead. “We'll do this together, okay?”
His eyes mirrored mine. “You could lose your job. You know that.”
“We'll deal with that as it comes. I spoke to Mrs. Baird this afternoon and got pretty much the same story. I've scheduled a meeting with Superintendent Marny tomorrow and we'll lodge a formal complaint with the school board. We'll get to the bottom of this.”
He turned away then, back at the counter and putting away vegetables. I watched him for a minute, not exactly knowing what to do with myself. Mom would've never done this. “No.”
He turned around. “What?”
“I don't want you to do this.”
“Poe…”
“No. It's not worth it. It is stupid, and I didn't even want to be in choir. The only reason I did was to get back at Anna Conrad.”
“She's the one who wrote the letter?”
“Yes. I slapped her today. Out in the hall after practice.”
“Because of Velveeta?”
“No. Yes. I don't know. Because she is who she is.”
“Well, that doesn't change the fact that what's happening is wrong.”
“Dad, I really want to handle this myself. I've thought about it. That's all I've been thinking about since I got home.”
He stood across the kitchen from me, and he looked alone. So alone. “Are you sure?”
I smiled. “Yeah, I'm sure.”
Chapter Seventeen
Theo met me at the soda and candy machines in the main building the next morning, and as I put my coins in for my morning Mountain Dew, he pointed to the machine. “You know what that thing is, don't you?”
I looked at the dispenser. “My first assumption would be that it's probably a soda machine. I suppose it's not, though.”
He narrowed his eyes, peering at it suspiciously. “Nope, it's not. Might look like a convenient bit of technology to quench the thirst for a few pennies, but it's not. It's actually a method of cradle-to-grave marketing indoctrination to continue our desire to consume properly.”
“It's a soda machine.”
He laughed as we passed a sign on the wall advertising candy bars. “It's target marketing. Complete inundation of a product to create and keep addicts like you within their clutches, and it's happily promoted by our public education system. You get it before school, during school, and after school now. It's inescapable.”
“It's a soda machine.”
“Yeah, a soda machine and advertising that our dear school receives healthy amounts of compensation for. Money. The district got together and decided they would promote adult-onset diabetes, obesity, and the leading cause of tooth decay in America. They're teaching us how to consume mass amounts of sugar through constant media indoctrination. A good lesson in my book.”
I rolled my eyes. “I've seen you put money in them.”
He shrugged. “Just trying to be a good student consumer.”
“Where do you come up with this stuff?”
“I don't come up with anything. You see a soda machine, I see the true motivation of our public educators exposed. I added ‘em up last year. There are thirty-seven corporate advertisers in this school, from the machines to class promotions to sponsored events. It's all about the money, baby, and I'm just lookin’ out for you,” he said, then quick as a flash, he kissed my cheek as we walked. His lips were warm. I threw my soda in the garbage at the door to the courtyard, and Theo smiled. “There's some buzz going around.”
“About what?”
“Anna Conrad. It seems she was horrifically and systematically beaten on the right side of her face yesterday. The assailant is unknown.”
I smiled. “My hand still aches.”
He nodded. “Figured it was you.”
I rolled my eyes. “So is she after me now?”
“Nope. She won't say a word about it.”
“So what's the big deal?”
“Colby Morris.”
“What does Colby Morris have to do with that?”
“Anna won't give up who did it. Word is Colby thinks Velveeta did it because of the note. The Golden Boy is on the hunt for the Cheese Man.”
My stomach sank. “Shit. Vel wasn't even at school yesterday.”
“Shit is what's going to hit the fan. My intuitive sensibilities are telling me it'll probably come down before next hour. Current affairs. If not, then after school or some other time. Did I ever tell you I'm almost psychic?”
“He didn't do it, though.”
“A bloodbath awaits.”
• • •
I fidgeted all through second hour, wondering what I should do. Five minutes before class let out, I excused myself to the bathroom and walked to Mr. Halvorson's class, waiting across the hall. I had to catch Velveeta before Colby got to him, but I didn't know what class Velveeta had before Halvorson's, so I was stuck.
When class let out, the halls went from dead silent and empty to a chorus of voices and bodies bumping into each other. Then I saw Vel turn the corner at the end of the hall, his head down, shoulders hunched, and his eyes at his feet, the usual way he walked anywhere.
As Velveeta passed the restroom at the corner, hands snapped out and clenched his upper arms, and the flash of two Benders High varsity jackets yanked him into the bathroom. I started, almost yelled, but shut my mouth and double timed it down the hall.
As I neared the restroom door, a football player, a guy I'd seen around, stood next to the drinking fountain. He blocked my way as I tried to go in, smiling down at me. “Ladies’ room is at the other end.”
“Get out of my way.”
His smile disappeared. He didn't move, just shook his head.
He wasn't expecting it, and when my knee jerked up and caught him square in the balls, he folded like a paper doll. I banged through the door, then stopped, wide-eyed. At least fifteen guys, most in varsity jackets, filled the place. With a wall of bodies in front of me, I couldn't see anything, but I could hear. I could hear Colby Morris swearing, I could hear the thud of a beating, and I could hear Velveeta.
I pushed through the smiling and laughing crowd, and as it gave way, I saw it. Velveeta curled up in a fetal position under the far sink with his arms protecting his head and Colby Morris, his hands braced on the porcelain above, kicking and stomping the living crap out of him. Over and over and over, so fast and vicious that his leg looked like a piston. Blood spattered on the tile walls and floor, and Velveeta grunted and whined with each blow.
I ran forward, screaming that he didn't do it, and two guys grabbed me, one covering my mouth with his hand. I fought and kicked and struggled but couldn't move, pinned to the wall. Colby kept kicking, his foot slamming repeatedly against Vel with sickening thuds. Colby's shoe left a bloody footprint on the tile floor as he turned, his chest heaving as he stared at me. There was no smile, no laugh, nothing but a slit of rage for a mouth and a hazy, almost trance-like look in his eyes.
Silence filled the bathroom. My eyes went to Velveeta, but he lay unmoving. Tears streamed down my face, and I yanked away facing Colby. “He didn't do it! I did! I slapped her!”
Chest still heaving, he glanced at Velveeta, then back to me. “So fucking what. Maybe that will teach you a lesson, bitch.” He looked around at his buddies. Some looked away, others stared at Velveeta, others laughed. Colby shouldered through the crowd, and as he passed me, he slammed my chest, forcing me against the wall. “Say a word and I'll kill him.”
I grimaced. “You asshol—”
His hand flashed out and he slapped me, his fingers stinging my ear. “Shut your fucking mouth.” Then he stomped through the door.
By then, guys were filing out, disappearing, and none of them, not a single one, would look me in the eye. In another moment, the place was empty. The whole thing had taken less than three minutes. Velveeta lay still.
I fell to my knees, touching his shoulder and calling his name, trying to control myself, but I couldn't. I sobbed over his bloody face and he groaned, opening the eye that would open. The other eye had a deep cut above it, blood pulsing out with the beat of his heart. His nose was swollen and pouring blood, and his lips were mashed. He said nothing.
I reached up and grabbed a wad of paper towels, running them under the faucet and pressing them to his eye. He winced, groggy, and I told him it would be okay. It wasn't okay. It was so out-of-bounds I didn't know what to do with myself. This was my fault. One hundred percent my fault. Colby Morris was psychotic. Then the bathroom door opened.
Mr. Halvorson walked in, took in the scene, told me not to move him, then ran out. Two minutes later he rushed back in, told me help was on the way, and knelt beside us, taking more paper towels and scooting me out of the way. “Who did this?”
I slumped against the wall. “You know who did this. Every body in this school knows who did thi
s.”
“Tell me.”
“Colby Morris and half the football team.”
Velveeta groaned, his one good eye staring me down, letting me know he'd heard what Colby said. There was a warning in that look. “I fell.”
I shook my head. “It was Colby Morris. I saw it, and at least fifteen other guys saw it, too.”
Chapter Eighteen
Velveeta checked out of the emergency room four hours later with nine stitches above his eye, a broken nose, a chipped tooth, and two bruised ribs. I sat with him the whole time. He looked like he'd been put through a blender.
Two cops had come in and taken a report, but Velveeta refused to say who did it or to press charges. I told them who'd done it, but they said there was nothing they could do unless the victim pressed charges. Vel wouldn't. His aunt tried, but with no result. My dad came down and tried, too, but nothing worked, and after that, Dad talked to the cops out in the hall.
As we drove home, he told me that charges could possibly be filed if the district attorney thought it worthwhile. We'd find out soon enough. I shook my head. “He's expelled, right?”
Dad sighed. “I don't know. I'm sure the school will do an investigation.”
“They could start by talking to the football team.”
“I know, Poe, I know.” He glanced at me as we pulled in the driveway. “You might have saved his life.”
“He thought Velveeta was the one who hit Anna. Because of the note.”
Silence.
“It's my fault.”
“It's a misunderstanding, yes, but it's not your fault. Colby Morris is responsible for this.”
I couldn't help it. Tears built in my eyes. “No, it's my fault. None of this would have ever happened if I hadn't pushed it.”
Silence.
“You agree, don't you?”
“There is absolutely no excuse for what happened to Velveeta, Poe. None. You made a mistake with Anna, but Colby is responsible for this.”
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