I really don’t want to punch him. I just don’t. So I stand there, hands at my sides.
“Fight! Fight! Fight!”
By the way, this seems like as good a time as any to mention that I am now a big fan of homeschooling.
Morgan says, “C’mon,” takes a step closer, and relaunches me across the sports field. I meet the grass with more force this time, and I can’t say it feels good. Now I’m actually a little mad.
I look up and see Amy, near whose feet I’ve just crash-landed. Judging by her horrified expression, I’d say she can’t help but root for the losing team, which doesn’t make me feel all that much better right now. She bends over and tries to help me up. “Sam, you’ve got to do something.”
I stumble getting up, because I can’t even do that right. “Any suggestions?”
But she just backs up a bit and makes one of those “don’t ask me” faces.
“Amy,” I say as I wipe some of the grass and dirt off my uniform, “I really don’t want to sound prejudiced here, but don’t you know karate or something?”
But here’s Morgan, always ready with a helping hand, dragging me back into Happyland. Amy, thankfully not offended, is pointing at something.
“What?” I yell to her.
She twists her face and keeps pointing to something around waist level, unable to say whatever she’s thinking.
“What?” I yell again.
“Fight! Fight! Fight!”
“Kick him in the . . . ,” she says, and now I understand what she’s pointing at.
Right, of course. My only chance. True, I don’t want to punch him, but kicking is another matter altogether.
Morgan is back in his stance, waiting for me. Chris is drooling and/or foaming at the mouth. My fellow Vikings seem not to be having much difficulty choosing between the sacrifice of their MVAT (Most Valuable ArithmeTitan), on the one hand, and a chance to see an unequal fistfight play itself out, on the other. Meanwhile, our school is, last I checked, on fire. Whatever was popping continues to pop. A new sound from directly overhead alerts me to the fact that the pilot of the Channel 2 News Chopper might also have the pleasure of watching me get beat up. Who knows, if the fire is already under control, they might even film us. What a way to make the six o’clock news.
With exactly one good idea to my name in this situation, I let out what I believe is a pretty solid battle cry (something along the lines of: “YEEAAGHHHGHGHGAAAAHHH!!!”), rush toward Morgan, close my eyes, plant my left foot, and kick hard with my right, as I picture him grasping a certain very sensitive region in agony—
But this is real life, so why would my foot perform better than normal? I miscalculate my blow entirely, hit his upper shin, and, I’m 99 percent certain, break between three and five bones in the top of my foot.
“Ooowww!!!!!” That’s me, by the way.
Morgan rubs his lower leg like a small dog just softly bumped into it, while I hop up and down on my left foot, wishing our PE uniforms came with steel-toed boots.
Of course, the sympathy-free circle of Vikings finds all this hilarious. No one ever laughs at my jokes in class. But this? LOL.
I set my bad foot down as another idea comes to me. I run (okay, limp) at Morgan, because if I hug him, maybe he’ll remember we used to be friends. Or maybe, at least, he’ll have a harder time putting everything he’s got into his punches.
The crowd screams in approval, but soon I find myself on the business end of a really impressive headlock. He’s squeezing the sides of my precious brain quite hard, and all I can think is: Not Tootsie, anywhere but Tootsie. Kidneys, fine. Liver, no problem. Just leave poor Tootsie alone.
And you might think I’m biased here, seeing how Morgan is trying to beat me up and all, but trust me when I say that he really ought to consider switching brands of deodorant (assuming he’s using any in the first place).
He starts whispering something angrily. “Why did you write I’m stupid?” And then an extra squeeze. “Why?!”
“I’m sorry.” The most honest, sincere thing I’ve ever said in my entire life, by the way. “I’m really sorry.”
More whispering. “Why did you tell Mr. Griegs I used to cheat off you?”
“What?!” I think I heard him right, but this makes no sense. “I never said that!”
“Why did you tell Emma Jacobs I think she’s ugly?” Now he’s really mad, or really madder.
“What?!” I do not like where this conversation seems to be headed. “I didn’t—”
“And why did you tell Keith Lopez that I think he sucks as QB?” Morgan does think Keith Lopez is a subpar quarterback, but no way in the world would I tell Keith this (and that’s assuming Keith would even agree to listen to me in the first place).
I’m now more confused than terrified (and I’m extremely terrified), but somehow I’m almost comforted to know we’re talking again. Okay, I’m not. Not at all. Because now I finally get it; Morgan really hates me, which is way worse than him just hitting me.
“I didn’t say any of those things!” I tell his rib cage.
“Liar!” He squeezes harder, like I might not realize he’s upset. “You did!”
The crowd has begun to lose its patience. I’m so bad at fighting that I’m not only losing, I’m getting booed, too. Morgan releases me, pushing me back to my end of the circle.
“You’re a liar!” He points at me as he spits out this last word while his eyes close a bit and his mouth bends down into that strange shape it made last summer, when his mom screamed at him in front of me after we had a water fight in their kitchen (which I’ll admit was not one of my better ideas).
“I’m not!” I try sounding as sincere as possible while still scanning the ground around us for holes big enough for me but too small for him. “I didn’t say any of those things.”
“He’s lying!” Chris yells. “He’s a liar!”
In my effort to clear the air, I say something that maybe isn’t so smart, but what can I do—the noises coming from every direction combined with the look Morgan is giving me are starting to make my tongue misfire. Speaking pretty loudly across the circle, I tell him, “I only wrote that you were stupid.”
The crowd, first chanting, then booing, now starts laughing. I can’t believe I’m thinking this, but where is Mr. Griegs when you need him?
“What?!” he says. I can’t quite tell if he heard me or not, if he’s confused and furious or just furious.
“In that note . . .” I know I need to concentrate here and not say the wrong thing, but it feels like sparks are shooting out of Tootsie, like my brain is about to shut down. “The one you saw by accident. I just, I didn’t, I just wrote that you’re dumb, but—”
Only that’s enough for Morgan. With a little push in the back from Chris, he heads my way and finally gives the mob what they’ve been waiting for all this time. I even see it coming, but it comes too fast. Or could it be I actually think I deserve it? Or, even worse, do I think he’ll want to make up now that he’s finally gotten this out of his system?
All I know is that it comes fast and it comes hard. His fist, my face. Horrible combination. The exact opposite of chocolate and peanut butter.
I’m on the ground (again), feeling like my mouth is now directly below my right ear. The crowd celebrates for a few seconds while I wait to visit la-la land for the second time this afternoon. But somehow I don’t. I close my eyes for a moment and feel my jaw replace Tootsie as the King of Throbbing. When I open them up again, I see Amy, who looks so upset that I almost feel worse for her than I do for myself. Much to my amazement, I somehow stand back up and look over at Morgan, who seems pretty surprised I’m not trying to squeeze my way out of the circle.
“He wants more!” Chris yells. “Yeah! Give it to him!”
And even though part of me still wishes we were MorSam, right now
Morgan pretty much looks like just another kid to me. Another mean kid who makes this the worst school ever. Maybe it’s only because my head is spinning, but I almost wonder if we ever were friends in the first place.
I start running straight at Morgan. He raises his fists, so I go for his legs. This time I’m going to tackle him, just like I didn’t do back in my living room. Because then I was only playing nice, trying to give him a little extra confidence. I jump through the air, hit his body, wrap my short arms around his giant legs, and feel him fall with me down to the ground. My popularity with my schoolmates gets a big boost, but they’re probably just happy because the fight isn’t over after all. Sure enough, Wagner Middle School’s starting running back (who I just tackled all by myself, thank you very much) is soon on top of me, pinning my arms under his legs, getting ready to spin my mouth around toward the other ear, when a familiar voice breaks through the circle.
“Stop! Stop that this instant! Get off him!!”
Morgan suddenly lifts up off me, carried away by a force much too strong to belong to anyone I know. I lift my head and see Mr. Glassner (still in his double-breasted blazer, his eyes wide with fury, his angry mouth screaming, “Enough! Enough! Enough!”) raise Morgan up and nearly over his head. Morgan squirms in midair, held tight in what I never before realized are Mr. Glassner’s powerful hands. My teacher’s eyes continue opening wider and wider as his grip tightens, and it looks like he’s getting ready to launch Morgan right over Wagner Middle School. But then, at the last second, Ms. Z breaks into the circle and calls out, “Paul, don’t! Paul, stop! Stop!!”
Mr. Glassner freezes. His face seems to remember who he is and where we are. Before they shrink back down to normal size, his eyes look right at me, and I swear he’s trying to apologize, even though he just saved me and my butt. A split second before Ms. Z pulls me in toward her chest, Mr. Glassner sets my onetime best friend back down again, but he keeps a hand wrapped firmly around Morgan’s upper arm. And even after my head is surrounded by Ms. Z’s arms, her scarf, and her long, frizzy hair, I can still hear the school alarm wailing, because, well, who knows why. Who knows why anything ever happens the way it happens in this crazy place.
1:11
“You okay, buddy?” Ms. Z asks after she lets go of me.
They must have finally turned the alarm off, because I’m pretty sure that’s just an echo in my head.
“Let’s see what we got here,” Ms. Z says, softly lifting up my chin with the tip of her green-and-purple index finger. We’re still sitting on the sports field, only now it’s just the two of us. My back is to the school, but I can picture everyone being herded inside, assuming the school isn’t a giant pile of ashes by now. I think about turning around to make sure, but something stops me.
“Oh boy,” Ms. Z announces, tilting her head to inspect my jaw, “we ought to get you some ice.”
Over her shoulder I can see out toward all the houses that border the school. A bunch of trees in their yards are covered in white flowers. The sun is shining. The grass all around us is really green. My mom would look at all this and say, “Wow, what a day for a picnic.”
“You feel like standing up?” Ms. Z asks.
I can hear voices over by the school. Probably my fellow Vikings, half of them twisting their heads all the way around to see if I’m crying or bleeding (or both), and all of them reviewing the fight and agreeing it was pretty awesome.
“Can you stand up?” Ms. Z tries again.
“Yes,” I say, and not very nicely.
“Great. Let me help you up.” She stands first, brushes herself off, and then offers me a hand.
“I can do it myself.” Which I can, though the fact that my jaw is no longer symmetrical messes up my balance a bit.
“You okay?”
A plane, on its way to who knows where, draws out a thin white line. Even if it were being flown by a blind ape, I’d be happy to be on it right now.
“Why don’t we go back to the school? Nurse Landen should probably have a look at your jaw.”
Planes make clouds because of their exhaust.
“Sam.” Ms. Z puts a hand on my shoulder. “How about we go back?”
I look up at Ms. Z, who’s trying to smile. Which means her mouth is smiling, sort of, but not the rest of her.
“Look, Sam.” She shakes her head slowly. “I’m sorry about this. I’m really sorry. You got a raw deal today.”
I agree with her, but for some reason this isn’t making me feel better. Not at all.
“But, you know, now it’s over.” She smiles again, for real this time, or at least half of her face smiles for real. “Now you get to move on.”
“Move on?” I hate it when people are stupid. I hate it even more when smart people are stupid. I turn and start walking toward the school, but there’s still a handful of students and teachers who haven’t filed back inside yet. A bunch of the police cars are gone, and the firefighters are done watering our school. No smoke and no popping anymore either.
“Well, I don’t know,” Ms. Z says, and pulls up next to me so that the two of us can stare at Wagner Middle School together. “Sometimes you dread something. Convince yourself you’ll die if it happens. And then it happens. But guess what? You don’t die. And not only don’t you die, but once it’s over you can stop worrying about it.”
I start walking very, very slowly to the school. Not because I want to. Because now that “it’s over” I’ve got so much to look forward to: walking around with a giant bruise on my face that reminds everyone who won the Morgan-Sam battle, having exactly no friends, and watching my ex-friends from halfway across the cafeteria while they sit around and laugh about the fact that I have more bruises on my face than friends in my life. Sure, it’s over. Everything’s over.
We slowly walk toward the school together without talking. I almost want to thank Ms. Z for being quiet, for being smart enough to know there’s no point in trying to cheer me up. Until out of the corner of my eye I notice her stopping.
“Sam,” she says.
I don’t respond.
“Sam,” she repeats herself, this time almost firmly.
I don’t even stop walking.
“C’mon, Lewis, seriously,” she says, sounding low on patience.
We’re already on the blacktop. Fifteen more seconds and we would be inside. “What?” I stop and ask, but not because I’m interested.
Ms. Z catches back up, looks at me, looks away, looks back at me, bites the corner of her mouth, inhales, exhales, but doesn’t say a word.
“What?”
“You’re right,” she finally says, staring straight at me. “This sucks. This sucks in a major, major, major way. And you know what else? Middle school, it pretty much sucks too. And I speak from experience. I mean, you’ve only been here for two years. This is my thirteenth year. Thir-teen, Sam. So, you know, I’ve seen some nasty stuff.”
Ms. Z trails off. Looks over toward the fire trucks, maybe at her smashed-up car.
“Yeah, so?” I ask.
“So. So that’s the deal, which”—she raises her eyebrows—“you probably already knew. And, well, so here’s my advice, and a promise, too: Wait. Be patient. You’re not going to be here forever. And in the meantime, even though you and this place don’t fit together so great all the time, be you. Morgan and the other guys might not approve, but other people do and—”
“Like who?”
“Who?” Ms. Z asks me right back, confused.
“Yeah, what other people are you talking about?”
She doesn’t say anything.
“Seriously.” I can feel the parts of my face that weren’t already red turning red. “Who approves? Tell me that”—I cross my arms—“Ms. Zuckerman.”
Ms. Z closes her eyes. She doesn’t blink, she closes her eyes. For what seems like a really long time. Then she remove
s her glasses, wipes her eyes with one of her baggy sleeves, and, I think, sniffles. When she opens her eyes back up and I see them without her glasses, they’re bigger and greener than they’ve ever been before. I can barely look at them they’re so big.
“I do, Sam,” she says. “I approve. I do. And I know there are other kids who do too, even if this”—she points at the building—“this stupid place makes it hard for them to admit it. So, I don’t know, be nice to the ones who are willing to admit it. Because that’s all you can do. That’s it.” Ms. Z puts her glasses back on, sniffles again, turns back to the school, and walks the rest of the way to the building, all by herself, because for some reason I can’t move.
1:19
“How do you feel, son?” Principal Benson asks from the side of his desk. Not only has he brought his chair around to sit closer to me and Morgan, his legs are crossed as well. Maybe this is what you learn in principal school: where and how to sit for a postfight conversation.
“I’m okay,” I tell him, or Morgan.
“Samuel”—Principal Benson uncrosses and recrosses his legs the opposite way—“do you know what our number one responsibility is here at Wagner Middle School?”
I just shake my head, because I really don’t feel like having this or any other conversation with Principal Benson right now, especially with Morgan sitting right next to me.
“You might believe it is to educate you, but, as vital as that task is, it is not. No, our number one responsibility is your safety.” He pauses for a moment, because I guess he wants to be sure I’m surprised. Fine, I’m a little surprised. Get on with it already. “And we failed to meet that responsibility today. For that reason”—another pause, who knows why—“I would like to apologize to you personally. You have my word we will never allow such a thing to happen to you again. No, sir. Not on my watch.”
“Okay,” I say, because now he’s clearly waiting for me to say something. “Thanks.”
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