Boy Proof

by Cecil Castellucci

  “Great, another stellar day,” I say.

  I flick off my computer and head for school.

  When I arrive, as per usual, I don’t acknowledge a single soul.

  I don’t say, “Hello, Rue.”

  “Hello, Martin.”

  “Hello, Hasan.”

  “Hello, Nelly.”

  “Hello, Inez.”

  “Hello, Katrina.”

  “Hello, Damon.”

  “Hello, Ignacio.”

  And no one says hello to me all day. But I don’t care.

  Last period, I book for Mrs. Perez’s AP English class, making it in just as the bell rings. There is something new today that I don’t like at all. A new kid is sitting next to me.

  I slide into my seat, scanning him with my laser-sharp modified eyes. I notice a smell. It’s skunky, musky, boy sweat. For a second I think I like it. Then I decide it’s gross.

  He stinks, I think. The new boy stinks.

  I move away from him and then look at him sideways. Why did Mrs. Perez have to sit him next to me? It is so unfair.

  I look at him again. His hair is black and slicked back into a small ponytail. There are flakes of dandruff on his black sweatshirt. He is wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt that says Hellblazer. That seems to be the coolest thing about him. I like that comic book.

  I shift away from him.

  He is working on his environmental poem, scratching away like a chicken. I can see by the crinkle in his brow that he is struggling with it. He’s probably not that smart.

  “What are you looking at?” he whispers, turning to look at me.

  He has nice eyes, the new kid, even though the rest of him is disgusting.

  “I’m not looking. I’m smelling,” I say, putting on my best Egg impression. When I have to speak to strangers, I turn into her.

  “Let’s make a rule,” I add. “If you sit here, you have to shower.”

  By reading his face I can tell he expected something different to come out of my mouth. Instead of being shocked, his face cracks into a movie-star antihero smile.

  “I just got off an airplane. I’ve got travel slime,” he explains.

  He looks me over. His pretty eyes look me up and down, taking in my shaved head, my ring-covered ears, my colored-in eyebrows, my pale skin.

  I make my most scary face. The one where I bulge my eyes out like I’m dead.

  “Boo!” I spit at him.

  “Whoa!” He puts his hands up in mock surrender and then goes back to working on his poem.

  “Impressive, it took you thirty seconds to cringe. That’s the longest anyone’s gone ever.”

  “Well, I’m a winner,” he says.

  I look up at the clock. It’s two-twenty. I watch the second hand inch by the face. I concentrate on it and try to bend time like Egg does in Terminal Earth. No such luck. Time won’t move any faster for me.

  I’ve been done with my poem for twenty minutes. I can slip out of school early. There’s a three-thirty showing of Terminal Earth, which is only the best movie ever made, starring Zach Cross as Uno and Saba Greer as Egg.

  I grab my army bag and shove my seat into place with a bang and head out the back door of the classroom.

  “See you later,” the new kid says as I push past him.

  “Not likely,” I say.

  And then he chuckles.

  Asshole.

  I shove the rest of a bagel in my mouth as I go to snag my perfect seat in the movie theater, fifth row from the front, exactly center screen. The theater is dilapidated, frayed at the edges, stale smelling. The curtain, once magnificent, looks like a sad garbage bag.

  But I can see through the wear and tear of time. I can imagine the theater in its glory days, when it was new and bright. When there was a piano on that stage. When Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin had swank film premieres. When there were women in beaded dresses and beaded shoes. When men wore suits and hats were in fashion.

  Sometimes, though, it’s harder to picture.

  I heard from the concession-stand guy that the theater has been sold. That means no more two-dollar first-run movies by this time next year. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, except that I wonder if they are going to reupholster the seats. I like the theater the way it is, all worn and frayed, hinting at its greater glory. They’ll ruin it by making it modern, by adding cup holders to the seats and some bacteria-resistant carpet. I wonder if they’re going to charge fourteen dollars and serve sushi. That would be annoying.

  Terminal Earth, my favorite movie, has three screenings left today, and I plan on staying for them all. They say the DVD isn’t going to come out until the summer. I hate having to wait for it. My “friend” on the Terminal Earth message board says she has a pirated copy of it but that it’s all shot from an angle and the time and date are burned into the bottom right-hand corner.

  I can wait. I’m not that desperate.

  I finish my homework before the lights come down — I can do my homework anywhere — and then the previews start.

  Previews are like a little taste of candy. I give them my full attention. I’ve already seen all the movies they’re previewing because I see every single movie. I am always amazed at how much better the movie looks in its condensed form. It’s like the potential of the film is better then the full-length reality.

  Terminal Earth starts. I get that tingly excited feeling that I get every time I see it. I have seen it forty-two times already. I never get bored.

  In honor of watching the movie today, I am wearing my best Egg outfit. Long white cloak, white pants, and white shirt. Hair freshly shaved to a buzzed perfection. Pale white skin. Colored eyebrows. Neutral lips. In the future there is no lipstick. Thank goodness for that. I’d be quite content with a world that doesn’t force women to wear makeup to be beautiful. I’m sure it would destroy my mom though.

  “How can you leave the house without your face on?” Mom says over and over again.

  “My face is on,” I have to say to her. “My plain, not beautiful, just normal, no-makeup-on face.”

  “Ugh, you make yourself boy proof on purpose,” she always says.

  And that’s what I am. Boy proof.

  I have never been asked out. No boy has ever even flirted with me. I am invisible to the opposite sex.

  Egg is not boy proof though. She has a scar on her face and she’s got a bullet mark on her arm and a burn on her back and Uno still loves her.

  The second time the film plays I examine every single aspect of Zach Cross as Uno. I love his crooked smile. The way he swaggers. His monosyllabic lines. The glint in his eye. The way he furrows his brow. He is so handsome.

  I’ve seen every film that he’s been in, but Terminal Earth is definitely the best.

  I also examine the special effects, especially the makeup. I look for clues on how it was done. I look for flaws so I can learn. I am developing my effects eye.

  The third time the film plays, I pay close attention again to the details of the story. There are going to be three films in all and I want to figure out any clues the filmmakers left in the first film. On the Terminal Earth message board there is a lot of speculation as to what’s coming next.

  I have my own ideas. I keep most of them to myself.

  I stay until the last credit of the film rolls and then sit for a bit to digest it all after the lights come on. The usher comes in with his broom and garbage can. I wonder how much he gets paid to pick up the trash. I wonder if he’s an aspiring actor, like the concession girl and the ticket-booth guy. Like everyone in Hollywood, except for me.

  It’s eleven o’clock, and when I get outside it’s dark and a bit chilly. It might even rain by the time I get home. I walk briskly toward La Brea, past CBS Studio, past the Good Stuff n
atural supermarket, past the fancy restaurants and the Orthodox temples, then down La Brea to Third Street and over one short block to my house.

  My Egg cloak doesn’t cut the wind. I might have to winterize it. I think my dad has some fabric in his workshop that he used for some monster’s hair that will work nicely as a lining. I’ll check it out tomorrow.

  When I get home, Mom is in the living room with a mud mask on her face. She’s smoking a cigarette. A nasty habit. I cough to let her know it bothers me.

  “You’re supposed to smoke outside,” I say.

  “Well what am I supposed to do when I’m worried about where you are? I had to sit in here and watch the door. I’m sure I got two new lines on my forehead.”

  I put my keys on the hall table and head to the kitchen to see what leftovers I can eat. She follows me.

  “It’s not my fault you’re not twenty-two anymore,” I say.

  She lets it slide.

  Her mask is half dry. The dry parts are cracking as she speaks. The damp wet parts are like craters on a far-off planet. I laugh.

  “Don’t laugh, Victoria,” she says. “What did I give you a cell phone for if you don’t take it with you to school?”

  “They cause brain cancer, Mom. Do you want me to get brain cancer?”

  “Victoria. Please. Everything causes cancer.”

  “I would prefer if you call me Egg.”

  She knows this. I tell her all the time.

  “Egg is not your real name.”

  I slam the fridge door shut. I have found a bag of baby carrots and some leftover mac and cheese.

  “My meal will be fluorescent orange tonight,” I say. “Very futuristic.”

  “It’s eleven-thirty.”

  “Since when do I have a curfew?” I say.

  “I hate you walking around the neighborhood at night.”

  “There are people around,” I say. “And I’m not a baby.”

  “If you don’t want to be treated like a baby, don’t act like one.”

  The mask, now completely dry, is flaking off onto her pink silk bathrobe.

  “Mom, you look like a lizard,” I say.

  She throws her hands up in the air and goes to the bathroom to wash the mask off.

  I go to my room.

  Mom always starts acting more motherly toward me when she hasn’t had an acting job in a while. It’s like all of a sudden she has too much time on her hands and nothing to do except get in my face about everything.

  I wish she would just let me live with Dad. Dad is perfect, even if he is so focused on his work that you can’t even say anything sometimes or he’ll blow up at you.

  Mom has to ruin that as well.

  “He’s just perfect because you only see him once a week,” she says.

  “You are just jealous because of how well Dad and I get along,” I always say.

  “You think I make your life hell? Living with your dad would make me seem like a kitten.”

  “Meow, meow,” I hiss at her, clawing the air with my hands.

  I can’t wait to go to college and be on my own.

  I’m dreaming about Zach Cross. He takes me to an L.A. Kings hockey game. They’re playing the Toronto Maple Leafs. He’s from Toronto. He rolls up his program and whispers into my ear that he would like to make out with me but the paparazzi are watching. I think it is so great that he notices things like that. Later in the dream we find a utility closet at the Staples Center and make out. I am making out with Zach Cross. It is out of this world.

  That stinky new guy arrives late to AP Global History, my favorite class. He sits in the front row right next to Mr. Gerber’s desk. Right in front of me.

  “Nice of you to join us,” Mr. Gerber says. “I expected you in this class yesterday.”

  “Hey, no problem, man,” the new kid says, and I notice he takes out a little sketchbook and places it on the corner of his desk.

  Mr. Gerber turns back to the board and writes The French Revolution in his obnoxiously perfect cursive. Mr. Gerber is wasting no time getting right back into the semester. I like that. Then he turns back to us, his mostly sleepy students, and he leans his hands on the back of his chair and asks us, defeated, “Who can tell me what they learned about the French Revolution in their required winter-break reading?”

  My hand shoots up in the air.

  “Is there anyone else who’s done the reading who wants to try before Miss Jurgen enlightens us once again?”

  The class just shifts in their seats.

  “It’s called required reading, folks, because I require you to read it,” Mr. Gerber says, exasperated. “This is an AP class. You actually have to do the work.”

  And then that new guy raises his hand.

  “Mr. Max Carter, I’m pleased you’ve decided to jump right in. Do tell us all you know about the French Revolution.”

  I leave my hand in the air.

  “Mr. Gerber, I always answer the question first,” I say. “I always enlighten the class.”

  “Miss Jurgen, please,” Mr. Gerber says.

  This is my special class. This new guy doesn’t know the protocol. So I lean forward and enlighten him.

  “I always say my piece and then Mr. Gerber adds on to it,” I say.

  “Interesting,” Max says. Then he flips open his little black sketchbook and jots something in it.

  I hear everyone in the classroom start to snicker. I can imagine Rue behind me pressing her lips together and Nelly shaking her head down at her desk.

  I don’t care what they think.

  “Max, why don’t you share what you know about the French Revolution and use your free time later to sketch,” Mr. Gerber says.

  “All right, Mr. Gerber. Basically when the monarch of an absolute monarchy is weak, it is easily brought down. The king, Louis the Sixteenth, was a very weak monarch. The nobles wanted power that had been taken away from them by the monarchy. The bourgeoisie resented the privileges of the nobles, and the bourgeoisie and the peasants criticized the tax system . . .”

  Blah, blah, blah.

  I stare at the back of Max Carter’s greasy head. I want to look right into his brain and erase all he is saying.

  He’s showing off by adding little splashy details.

  “Well, most of that isn’t from the required reading; it’s from the PBS documentary The Revolution,” I say.

  Max turns around and stares me down. He knows nothing about boundaries or personal space. He is looking too intensely at me. He is looking right down deep inside of me. I don’t like it.

  “I know,” he says. “My dad made that documentary.”

  Oh, shit. Max Carter. His dad is Flint Carter, the documentary filmmaker.

  I can hear the class breathing as one. They want to see what’s going to happen next. They’re dying to see the fireworks.

  “Well, Miss Jurgen,” Mr. Gerber says, his mood brightening a little bit. “It looks like someone is finally going to give you a run for your money.”

  Then Mr. Gerber turns back to the board and pulls down a map of France and begins his lecture on the origins of the French Revolution.

  Max is still turned around in his seat looking at me.

  “Turn around, face front,” I say to him.

  “Yes, ma’am. Good to know who the autocrat is,” he says, chuckling, and turns his eyes back to the front of the room.

  “Is that an insult?” I ask.

  “Yeah, you could definitely take it that way.”

  “And I’m a miss, not a ma’am,” I say.

  “Actually, you’re neither. Those words apply to women of refinement,” he says. Then he opens his sketchbook again and jots something down.

  I jostle my desk into the back of his seat.

  “Hey!” Max says. “Relax.”

  Rue, who is sitting behind me, reaches out and takes my arm.

  “It’s okay,” she says to me. I shake her off.

  “It is not okay,” I say.

  Mr. Gerber turns ar
ound. Clearly, I have committed some kind of classroom crime by slightly shoving my desk. I’ve never seen Mr. Gerber look so disappointed in someone before. I have been his best student all year.

  “Miss Jurgen, I don’t know what the problem is, but why don’t you leave the room until you can calm down,” Mr. Gerber says.

  I shove my books into my army bag and walk out. Fuck that guy Max. He’s a jerk. I notice he’s the only one not freaked out by my behavior. He’s not scared. He’s actually chuckling as I leave the room. He’s like a hyena, always laughing.

  I head straight for the library. Straight for the history section. Straight for the French Revolution. I will know more about it than Max Carter and his stupid genius father.

  As a rule, I eat by myself, under a tree on the far side of the quad. But today I don’t make it past the corner table, where the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Club sit every day, unseen.

  “Egg! Egg!” Rue is shouting for my attention. She’s so loud, I can’t ignore her.

  I’m caught.

  Rue is patting the empty seat on the bench next to her with one hand and motioning for me to join them with the other.

  Martin looks up at me with his moon-round face and smiles.

  Martin is pear-shaped and doughy. His eyelashes are extremely long. He is sensitive and smart, but not as smart as I am. Rue is his girlfriend. She is thick-waisted but not really fat. She wears a scarf and a fedora hat all the time because she loves Doctor Who, but they don’t go with her glasses and my mom would say that the browns wash out her pale skin. I think she should at least get rid of that old fedora or get over Doctor Who; I don’t know which is more outdated.

  Martin and Rue are so in love it makes me sick. They are in the kind of love you want to be in. They respect each other. They give each other space. They have individual personalities but they complement each other. I envy them.

  I hate anybody in love.

  I mean, how did two such geeks luck out so young? I think Rue is just as boy proof as me, and yet she has a boyfriend and I don’t. Not that I would want Martin. Not that I care about any of the boys around here. I’m the only other girl in the club, but I wouldn’t date any of these guys even if they were the last men on earth.