“Uh,” Amy says, pulling on the bottom of her shorts and still not looking at me, “I better go get my clarinet. Mr. Garfine gets pretty miffed when we’re late for band.”
“Yeah.” I fix my hair and try to figure out why my tongue feels like it’s been replaced by a rubber surfboard. “I probably should get to art. I need to put the glaze on my isosceles triangle before Ms. Z puts it back in the kiln.”
Amy laughs and walks off down the hall. I turn in the other direction and see Morgan and Chris being escorted by Mr. Rozier, because they have him for science this period. Just before they turn a corner, Chris notices me. He points at me and then at Morgan. Then he nods his head and smiles like everything is A-OK.
Which means that nothing is.
12:46
It takes a couple minutes for everyone to calm down, but after saying “Okay, people” about eleven times, Ms. Z finally has our attention. She holds her hands in front of her chest in a prayer position. “Okay, gang, here’s the deal. Some major you-know-what just went down in the cafeteria. Some of you probably dug it, but some of you could probably, you know, use some therapy to work through the kind of stuff that a person might have to work through after surviving a food fight. So that’s what we’re going to do today. Make some art to work through it, or just—”
“Can we have another food fight instead?” Tim Mesinbrink shouts.
“No, Tim.” Ms. Z smiles and sighs. “I’m sorry to inform you we cannot. But this is what you can do: You can draw a picture of the food fight or a food fight you’d like to have. Or paint a picture about either. Or take some clay and sculpt, you know, the likeness of all the food that wound up down your pants.” Everyone laughs. “You can even do something a little abstract. When you close your eyes and think about the food fight, what colors do you see? What shapes? Make those. Okay? Cool. One more thing. We’re going to try something called ‘flash art.’ To get at that gut feeling. You don’t want to overthink the creative impulse. So five minutes. Then we’ll share—workshop our pieces.”
The class jumps right in. A couple minutes later, after some very loud laughter from his corner of the room, Drake Carter says, “Ms. Z, I’m ready.”
Ms. Z screams from behind a giant closet in the corner: “Wow, Drake, you really put the ‘flash’ back in flash art.” Then she peeks her head out. “You sure you don’t want to put any finishing touches on it?”
“Nah, Ms. Z,” Drake says, giggling, “I don’t think I really want to touch it at all.”
A minute later Drake is standing in front of the class with a half-crumpled piece of paper, which is mostly white, except for something yellowish and maybe a little green in the middle. Ms. Z is looking at it confused. “Is that paint, Drake, or did you do something multimedia here?”
“It’s”—Drake’s shoulders shake as he tries to stop laughing—“it’s some of the Twinkie I put up Fernando’s nose!”
Ms. Z almost starts talking about three different times until she finally asks, taking a step away from the paper, “So, that’s a painting of the Twinkie, or just—”
“No! It’s the Twinkie! He blew his nose on this!”
Everyone in class says either “Ugh,” “Yuck,” or “Gross,” but in a “Drake is awesome” kind of way.
Meanwhile, I can barely focus, since I can think of only one thing: What happened to Morgan and Chris? And what was Chris smiling about? Okay, two things.
I turn to Sage Paley, who’s got a bunch of pastels in front of her. “Sage.”
Lost in her art, she doesn’t respond, so I try again. “Sage.” She looks up at me confused, like she’s only learning just now that I’ve been sitting next to her in this class for the last eight months. Instead of actually saying anything, she tucks some of her long, wavy brown hair behind one of her ears. “Sage, do you know what happened to Morgan and Chris?”
Sage blinks her big, spacey eyes a few times. “Sam,” she finally says, speaking my name slowly, half question, half statement.
“What? What?” I ask, anxious for any news she may have.
She points at her drawing. “Does that look like gluten-free pasta to you?”
I turn in the other direction and softly tap Doug McDougal’s shoulder. He sits slouched over something I can’t see.
“Doug. Hey, Doug. Doug.” Because Doug McDougal doesn’t just have “Doug” in both his first and his last name, he’s the kind of kid you need to call a few times if you expect him to notice.
“Huh?” he says without moving.
I lower my head down to our table, trying to get Doug’s attention. “Doug, do you know what happened with Morgan and Chris?”
Doug sits up just enough to turn his rock of a head in my direction, allowing me a clear view of his beat-up spiral notebook. Instead of answering my question, he just stares at me, an idiotic smile across his wide face. “Oh man, you’re so dead.”
“What!? What!? What does that mean? Doug, what—”
“All right, people, who’s next?” Ms. Z tries to smile as at least two dozen hands shoot up instantly. Almost every hand but mine. “You guys can decide this. Whoever’s turn it is, that person will come up next, you follow?” We all sit still for a moment, unable to figure out what that meant, until Annie Cantor pops up, walks toward the front of the room with a sheet of rolled-up paper, giggles, turns around, returns to her table, and tries dragging her best, best, best friend, Miranda Waller, to the front of the class with her.
Miranda Waller tries to stay in her seat, mumbles something to Annie, who then instructs Miranda in a loud, friendly, embarrassed whisper to “Shut UP!” Annie walks back to the front of the room, stopping three times on her twenty-foot journey in order to turn around and whisper/shout “Stop!” at Miranda. Eventually, she unrolls her paper, which contains two long, overlapping streaks of paint, one red, one yellow.
“This is the ketch—”
Annie’s uncontrollable laughter. Ms. Z saying, “Take a deep breath” over and over. Annie telling Miranda to shut up. Me wishing that someone with a working brain sat near me. Annie saying, “Okay, okay, okay.” Deep inhalation.
“This is the ketchup and mustard that I put in—”
Annie explodes with laughter. In an effort to get herself under control, she covers her face with her painting, makes a loud hooting sound, and then pretty much hyperventilates. The class’s laughter changes from the “laughing with” to the “laughing at” variety.
I’m not laughing at all.
Ms. Z walks over to Annie, takes her hand, and says something into her ear. Here’s what we’ve been waiting for:
“This is the ketchup and mustard that I put in—” Annie buries her head in Ms. Z’s side and screams, “Jay Bissell’s underwear!”
The class cheers loudly.
Ms. Z looks around the room. “Sam Lewis.” She points to me.
“Huh?” I wasn’t even raising my hand!
A gentle smile. “Your turn to amaze us.”
“But—”
“Please, Sam. Sometimes you choose art, but sometimes art chooses you. C’mon, don’t be scared to work through it.”
So I take my notebook, the one I haven’t touched since coming into class, and stand up. The room turns just a bit, first clockwise, then counterclockwise, but I decide this has nothing to do with my friend Tootsie. I wait for the posters all over the walls to stop moving and then slowly walk toward the front of the class.
I look out onto a small sea of yellow T-shirts and blue shorts. You might think that after everything that’s already happened today and everything that might still happen, I couldn’t possibly care about this, too. But guess what? Turns out I can always find the energy to worry about looking stupid.
I clear my throat. Adjust my shirt collar. Then I ask Ms. Z, “Is a haiku okay?”
“Sure, Sam.” Ms. Z smiles softly.
<
br /> I take a deep breath. This is what comes out:
“Cranium salad
Spaghetti Tripadero
Not all that funny”
But before the class has a chance to respond: the fire alarm.
12:54
I imagine most fire alarms are intended to make you think, Hmm. What’s that loud noise? Huh, I guess there must be a fire nearby. Good thing this alarm is just loud enough to inform me of a fire, but not so loud I can’t think clearly at a dangerous time like this.
But the Wagner Middle School fire alarm is not your good, old-fashioned bell clanger, no sirree. It’s a high-pitched, pulsing electronic wail that goes between extremely loud and way louder than extremely loud. During the cruelest section of the alarm’s three-part song (which sounds something like AAAAHHHHHH-OOOOOHHHH-EEEEEEEEE!!!!!!! ), I can feel the blood vessels in Tootsie swell even more. Our fire alarm is so loud that all I can think is: Must get away from this sound right now.
It doesn’t help that Ms. Z is responsible for our orderly evacuation. While the rest of the class sprints out into the hallway (we’re wearing our PE uniforms, ready to run), Ms. Z waves her hands around her head (like the alarm is a very large and very annoying bug buzzing in her ear) and screams, “Go. Go! Just go!!”
Once we get out into the hallway, teachers are yelling things that definitely should not be yelled in a public school, things that wouldn’t be allowed in a PG-13 movie. Kids are racing all over the place, running into each other, crashing into walls, banging into lockers. Apparently, everyone has forgotten how to exit the building.
Somehow I soon find myself, without a single one of my classmates in sight, standing out on the blacktop. I’m a bit relieved to be here because of a fire, and not in order to have my butt kicked by Morgan. Also, I know there couldn’t possibly be a real fire nearby, because when have you ever heard of an actual fire at an actual school? We only have these ridiculous drills so the grown-ups can force us to file out obediently a couple times a year and then lecture us about how our lack of respect could get us killed if this had been a real fire.
I get far enough away from the building for the alarm to become just an irritating siren when I see a bunch of Vikings running toward the west end of the building, near the faculty parking lot. I follow after them, turn a corner, where OMG:
An actual fire.
Okay, it’s not really a fire, but there’s a broken window with purplish smoke pouring out of it. It’s coming from Mr. Rozier’s room.
The room where Morgan is supposed to be right now.
A trio of hysterical fire trucks pulls into the parking lot and spits out a bunch of firefighters, dressed and ready for action. Above the din of sirens and alarms, I hear a number of teachers attempting to herd us away from the building and onto the sports field.
The herding is pretty sloppy, since everyone is looking back toward the school. People are bumping into one another, tripping over potholes, tripping over the people who tripped over potholes, tripping over the people who tripped over the people who tripped over the potholes. No one is saying nice things to anyone. I scan the crowd for Morgan and Chris, especially Morgan, but at only fifty-five inches tall, I can’t exactly see over the stumbling crowd of blue and yellow.
A loud, glassy pop freezes the crowd momentarily, followed by another, then another. Each pop is answered by a few hundred people shrieking. Then a voice through a megaphone:
“TEACHERS! YOU MUST MOVE YOUR CARS! TEACHERS, MOVE YOUR CARS TO MAKE WAY FOR THE FIRE TRUCKS!”
Just like that, almost all the adults in our mob disappear, creating a teacher-to-student ratio that is not going to lead to much successful herding. After all, us students aren’t much interested in going where we’re supposed to go, since the alternative is standing dangerously close to what is now a big-time fire.
I make my way to the edge of the herd and see flames shooting out of the windows of Mr. Rozier’s room. Every few seconds a sharp pop, coming from the same direction, makes me jump. The firefighters have a hose on the building, but the fire doesn’t seem to care. I can’t tell if I’m excited or terrified or stunned or what. Maybe I’m actually all three things, because all I do know is that everyone around me looks like a confused zombie who just drank a Big Gulp of Mountain Dew.
The first three fire trucks have been joined by another two, along with a half dozen ambulances and at least ten police cars. This impressive collection of flashing sirens makes me feel like the carnival has come to town, assuming there’s a carnival that also burns down local schools (not a bad idea, now that I think about it).
The alarm (still raging) and the pops are suddenly joined by a dull crash. I turn my head quickly to see that two faculty cars are doing a convincing imitation of Siamese twins joined at the trunks. Mr. Rozier, probably among the least pleased of all the teachers to begin with, jumps out of his car to scream at Ms. Z, who was driving the other car.
“Mika! Are you blind?!” He throws his hands over his head for emphasis.
“Dan, please.” Ms. Z holds out a single hand in an effort to hold him back while she collects herself.
“You could have killed me!” Now he’s pointing at her.
“C’mon, Dan. I didn’t see you.” She’s looking down at their cars. “Ah, Dan. Look, man, I’m real sorry.”
“Sorry? You’re sorry?!”
But before we get a chance to learn where this friendly dialogue is headed, a third car, not wanting to be left out, decides to join the twins, and the crash of shattering headlights is added to the other soothing sounds already in the air. Mr. Rozier screams out his most outraged “WHAT?!” so far, but Captain Megaphone interrupts everyone before the identity of Driver Number Three (my money’s on Mr. Griegs, even though he’s supposed to be at the hospital) can be revealed:
“STUDENTS! MOVE TO THE SPORTS FIELD! NOW! I REPEAT, MOVE TO THE SPORTS FIELD NOW!!”
Captain Megaphone sounds even less happy than Mr. Rozier.
Reluctantly, we do what we’re told, herding ourselves in much the same manner as the adults herded us before. More tripping, stumbling, falling, and cursing. Somehow I eventually find myself, along with everyone else, on the Wagner Middle School sports field.
Scanning for familiar faces, I finally locate Amy and am about to call her name when I feel a strong push on my back. I turn around.
Morgan.
He’s standing right in front of me, and (along with everyone else, I guess) he doesn’t look too happy. “I’m totally gonna kick your butt, Sam.”
I look at Morgan and for a moment everything else around me disappears. The crowd, the sirens, the fire, the purple smoke, that angry voice coming through that megaphone. Just me and Morgan. And for some weird reason, all I can think is: Well, at least now I know if Morgan decided to forgive me after I decided not to blame him for throwing that salad bowl.
1:00
“Fight! Fight! Fight!”
You’d think with a real fire nearby, with about twenty emergency vehicles parked outside our school, with a news truck or two having probably shown up by now, and with a three-car pileup tossed into the mix for good measure, my fellow Vikings wouldn’t be so interested in what everyone knows will not be much of a fight.
“Fight! Fight! Fight!”
But maybe the lopsided nature of this matchup actually explains everyone’s enthusiasm. Maybe they’d all be chanting, Sam’s totally going to get his butt kicked, it’s not even going to be close! Sam’s totally going to get his butt kicked, it’s not even going to be close! Sam’s totally going to get his butt kicked, it’s not even going to be close! if that were the kind of thing that made for a good chant. But, of course, it doesn’t. So, instead, the old standby:
“Fight! Fight! Fight!”
A large circle (with about twice as much empty space inside it as the one I was at the center of not long ago) ha
s formed around us. Chris, looking as happy as I’ve ever seen him, stands behind Morgan, egging him on. Morgan is bouncing up and down a little, doing strange things with his hands, which are pretty much fists at this point. Either he’s not entirely sure he wants to do this or he simply can’t decide exactly how to start hurting me.
I’m really hoping it’s the first of those two.
As for me, I’m quickly reviewing my knowledge of self-defense, only to realize all I can come up with is “X-A down,” which, yes, is how you assume a defensive stance in Alien Wars. Unfortunately, my knowledge of fighting, until this moment, has been exclusively virtual and two-dimensional.
Welcome to the real, three-dimensional world, Sam.
“Fight! Fight! Fight!”
Morgan comes toward me. I close my eyes and feel two hands hit my chest as I am launched backward through the air. When I open my eyes, I discover that I am no longer standing.
“C’mon, get up!” Morgan orders me.
I’m really not trying to make him any angrier, but sometimes I just can’t help myself. “You forgot to say ‘please.’ ”
But rather than correct himself, Morgan instead demonstrates his good manners by coming over and yanking me up. An awfully generous act on his part, if you can ignore the fact that he’s helping me up just so he can put me back down again.
“Fight! Fight! Fight!”
“C’mon, Sam.” Morgan holds his fists up but doesn’t move.
“C’mon what?” I’m not being sarcastic. I really don’t know what he could possibly want from me, other than staying somewhere inside our circle of ex-friendship so I can provide his punches with a good target.
For some reason, Morgan lowers his hands. “Take your best shot.”
“Yeah!” Chris screams with glee. “Let little Sammy boy have a chance!”
And I actually think about it for a moment. I close my right hand into a fist and take a step toward Morgan, but then something stops me, something other than me knowing that my pathetic punch won’t do a thing to Morgan anyway.
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