Dull Boy

by Sarah Cross

  Five, four, three, two . . .

  “Sounds like you’re doing well at your new school, kiddo.”

  My mom clicks in after him, doing her “happy” walk (definitely different from her “angry” walk). “I got a call from your school today.” She’s smiling. What the heck could this be about?

  “Uh, you did?”

  “Assistant Principal Carmine said it’s remarkable how well you’re adjusting.”

  Principal Carmine? The only Carmine I know is Darla.

  My dad sets down a paper take-out bag. “Your mom was so thrilled she even stopped to get Chinese food.”

  “Thanks. Awesome.” I peek inside to see what she ordered. Mmm—it smells so good. I pry out an eggroll and bite into it.

  “Ms. Carmine said you stopped a fight today.”

  I almost hack up my eggroll.

  My mom’s bustling around, all proud, setting the table. “It seems your instincts aren’t all bad. She said you managed to talk two known bullies into not fighting each other, and sitting down and discussing their problems instead. Can you believe that?”

  Uh, noooo.

  No one under eighteen would believe that. But she’s talking to my dad now, not me. Chattering on about how being in an environment “that lacks traditional peer pressure” and where I don’t have to worry about “being cool enough” (did she really just say that??) is allowing me to have a positive effect on the other students.

  I empty a whole quart of beef and broccoli onto my plate. “Do you mind if I take this into the den? I need to do some work on the computer. One of the kids I helped today wants me to IM him to talk about his anger issues. That okay?”

  My mom blinks, a little surprised. “I guess so.”

  “Thanks!” I call out. I’m already gone. Logging in and hunting down Darla Carmine—the freaking craziest girl I’ve ever met. My mom’s not mad at me anymore, which is a good thing, but Darla still has some explaining to do.

  Me: hey there assistant principal. lie to my mom much?

  Carmine314: I do what I can. :) how’d it go w/Catherine?

  Me: not good not horrible. she sends her love.

  Carmine314: lol yeah I bet. are you writing this from the hospital?

  Me: intensive care of course ;)

  Time to move in for the kill and ask a real question. Deep breath.

  Me: so help me understand something. what’s ur place in all this?

  Carmine314: ??

  Me: stalking catherine, enrolling in our school—why? what’s in it for u?

  A new window pops up, this time with Nate’s screen name. I haven’t heard from any of my old teammates since I hung up on Henry the night of his birthday. Now the most detested of all my friends (past and future) wants to talk to me?

  natethegrate: still sulking? ;) u should call h it rily hurt his feelings u didn’t evn get him a prezzie 4 his bday some freind lol

  I’m still trying to respond with something more eloquent than F*** Y** when motor hands gets his next line out.

  natethegrate: *hands u tissue* dry those tears Av lol is it tru ur at that loser skool? u fit in so well ther

  I grit my teeth. Yeah—you’re hilarious. You could go on all night, right? I click over to Darla’s window.

  Me: sorry my a-hole ex-friend is harassing me. give me something good to say.

  Carmine314: in response to what?

  I copy and paste Nate’s hilarity and send it to her.

  Me: I need to get him back w/o sounding pathetic.

  Carmine314: can’t you just ignore him?

  Me: NO!!!

  Carmine314: hmm all right . . . do you want me to hack his MySpace & wreak unimaginable havoc?

  Me: YES PLEASE

  Carmine314: he’s going to love his new My Little Pony layout so much he won’t even mind that his password’s changed & he can’t take it down.

  Me: ur awesome :D

  Carmine314: np that’s what friends are for ;D Me: gtg but 1 more thing . . .

  Me: do u have catherine’s address?

  9

  TONIGHT’S FLIGHT HAS a purpose. I take a few slow breaths, pushing the air as deep into my lungs as it’ll go, till it’s like I’m filled up with sky. And then I push off, with every ounce of strength that I have. I will myself higher, higher . . .

  A branch catches my sleeve and bends upward, scrapes the length of my arm until I rise past it and it snaps back down.

  And then I’m free; I’m past the tops of the tallest trees and into the crisp, cold air, doing my best to navigate by landmarks that I can see from above, by the patterns I’m learning.

  Catherine lives in a more rural part of town, where the houses range between neat but old and totally run-down. I land in a field and then check mailboxes until I find hers: 11605, the word Drake stenciled on the metal in faded white letters. There’s a rusty blue pickup truck propped on cinder blocks in the front yard. The tailgate is down and a few cats are curled up in the back. A black pickup truck sits parked in the driveway but the cats seem to avoid that one.

  Other than the occasional twitch of a feline tail, it’s totally still out here. A television flickers through the front window, the only light on in the house—and I can hear what sounds like sports announcing, the muffled roar of the crowd. But there’s no sign that anyone’s awake. Looks like I’m safe.

  Or not.

  I’m halfway around the house when a skinny thirty-something guy in jeans and no shirt comes out. He’s carrying a bulging garbage bag, muttering that the whole place smells like cat urine.

  Mr. Drake doesn’t notice me. He’s too busy wrestling with the bag of garbage, trying to cram it into a metal trash can—but the bag’s too fat to fit. He keeps trying to force it and getting pissed. Until finally it rips.

  Bottles, cans, and all sorts of refuse tumble out. Catherine’s dad kicks the trash can with his bare foot and almost trips over it—then starts kicking the individual pieces of garbage, cursing.

  In the middle of all this, a small black cat with a white patch over its eye tiptoes toward the mess and starts lapping at a crumpled food wrapper, speedy and nervous, like it knows it’s in trouble if it doesn’t get its fill and get out of there—but the cat’s not fast enough. Catherine’s dad’s foot shoots out and catches the cat under the ribs, sends it flying. “Damn cats!” he yells. He picks up a stray bottle and hurls it in the cat’s direction, then storms into the house.

  I count to sixty to make sure he’s not coming back, then pick my way across the yard, searching for the cat so I can check if it’s okay. No luck at first—but then I see it dart out from under a drainpipe. It runs along the back of the house and leaps at an open first-floor window.

  As if on cue, Catherine appears and plucks the cat out of the air, curls its body into a U, and cradles it against her chest. Kisses its nose.

  A weird smile spreads across my face. She caught that cat perfectly—almost like she knew it was going to be there. And she’s being nice to it. So I wonder:

  Does she have a psychic bond with cats?

  And, uh, if so . . . is night vision part of the equation?

  I squat down but it’s too late: two sets of glowing eyes lock onto me like freak-seeking missiles. Catherine uncurls the cat and lets it drop; vaults over the windowsill like a ninja. Nice!

  But, ah, I don’t have much time to admire her moves—seeing as how she’s coming toward me with a tonight-you-die look on her face. Scrambling backward like a crab, I experience a moment of agility envy. She’s in my face before I have a chance to say hello. Claws bright white in the moonlight.

  Catherine grabs my throat with one hand and shoves me back.

  “Stop!” she angry-whispers. “Just stop!”

  My skin tingles where one of her nails scraped my neck. I expected her to scream at me, to blow up like she did at school. So this . . .

  “All of you—stop!” Catherine’s voice is raw and on the verge of breaking. Her words explode like a burst of air, the s
ound just barely attached.

  All of you?

  Who? Darla and me?

  “I’m not here to spy on you,” I say, afraid she’ll stop listening if I don’t explain fast enough. “I’m no danger to you. I swear. I’m just like you and—”

  “You think I haven’t heard that before?” She scrapes her knuckle across her eyes in two fierce motions. And I stop.

  “Who have you heard it from?”

  My heart beats into my throat and crowds the word out. Who else is there? I want to offer Cherchette’s name but my voice won’t cooperate.

  “No one,” Catherine whispers. “Just leave me alone.”

  We’re quiet for a moment. I’m not sure what to say to break down this wall between us. Catherine’s probably unsure how to get me to leave.

  I wish there was a foolproof way to do this. Like when you’re little and you want to win someone’s friendship, so you give them your best-loved toy. One sacrifice and the person looks at you differently.

  Maybe I can still do that . . .

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m freaking you out and that’s not what I want—I just want to be your friend. And maybe that’s totally ridiculous to you, and you want me out of your life and I’m going to have to deal with that. But give me one more chance to prove it to you. And then . . . I’ll leave you alone. We’ll talk about this on your terms or not at all. Deal?”

  She rubs her eye with the palm of her hand. “Like I have a choice?”

  “Catherine . . .” I sigh. “This isn’t easy for me either. Just give me a chance.”

  I close my eyes, because I can’t look at her when I do this. This is like the most private thing I have. The biggest secret I’ve ever held. My best-loved toy—the one that has the most potential to destroy me.

  Fists clenched, I push upward—everything in my body focused in that one direction. Up. Up. A bullet cutting through the air. Visualize it. Forget that you have an audience. Forget how much is riding on this.

  Up.

  It’s colder, smoother. I’m slipping through the sky now, arms outstretched to take it all in. Stars in my eyes.

  You have to lose something to gain something.

  You can’t expect someone to trust you if you don’t trust them.

  When I look down Catherine is so small she blends into the night. I can’t see her expression, don’t know if she’s calmed down or if she hates me more than ever.

  I hope I’m making the right choice.

  10

  THE NEXT MORNING in the car I’m nervous as hell. The ball’s in Catherine’s court now—I promised I wouldn’t bother her. But what if she never speaks to me again? And all of this is just . . . over?

  “Avery?” My mom turns her head at a stoplight to check on me. “Are you all right? Are you afraid of someone at school?”

  “Um.” I’m afraid of everyone right now. How am I supposed to tell her that? “Not really.” I squirm in my seat. “I’m okay.”

  “Because . . . You know we only want what’s best for you.” She sips her iced coffee, keeps her lips pressed together awhile afterward, like she’s thinking. Jiggles the plastic cup, so the ice sloshes around. “Last night I was so happy you were doing well at your new school . . . but maybe you don’t belong there. I mean, bullies, fights every day? Some of the kids might be jealous of you if you start doing well and getting attention from the other students. Your dad and I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  Bingo! This is my golden opportunity: parental self-doubt. Say the word and I’ll be out of there, safe and comfortable in my old school. Where, even if my friends hate me, at least I know people.

  So why don’t I?

  “They’re all talk,” I say, and shrug. “I have, um, this dissection lab in science today. We’re cutting up a worm and I feel sick about it. That’s why I’m being weird. Sorry.”

  “Yuck.” My mom shudders. “I think I missed that day when I was in school.”

  After that she’s all smiles and conspiratorial “ew” moments, confident that she’s doing the right thing. I wish it was that easy for me—my mind keeps drifting back to Catherine, to the look on her face that I couldn’t see last night. Where do we stand now?

  Once my mom drops me off, my worries switch gears. I haven’t been in the building more than five seconds when Darla races up to me, grabs my arm, and drags me into the girls’ bathroom.

  Three Mary Janes are posing in front of the mirror doing their makeup. When they see me they freak; one of the girls loses control of her eyebrow pencil and it shoots wildly up her forehead, so that she’s suddenly cartoon-angry, one eyebrow slanted to the extreme. “This is the girls’ bathroom, you freak!”

  “Get out!”

  “Sorry—the following conversation is classified,” Darla says. “You’ll have to complete your beauty routine elsewhere.” She fires up her inhaler and zaps the wall-mounted hand dryer with a bolt of electricity. It starts sparking and smoking and the Mary Janes run out like . . . uh, like girls who just saw Darla set a hand dryer on fire. I knock it to the floor and stomp on it till it stops sparking. Darla digs this purple, hockey-puck-shaped device out of her backpack and slaps it against the center of the door. As soon as the purple disk makes contact, two spindly metal arms shoot out from either side, and tiny drills at the end of each arm quickly bore holes into the cinder-block walls, effectively securing the door. The purple disk lights up and the air fills with the noxious smell of lavender.

  “We’re in trouble,” she says.

  Um—there’s a barricade-slash-air-freshener on the bathroom door. Obviously doesn’t even begin to cover it.

  “I should have predicted this!” Darla rages, pacing back and forth in front of the sinks. “Yesterday was so Catherine ex machina, so unexpected, so perfect—it was all I could think about when I got home. Because either she jumped in because a rumble is her equivalent of a food fight, and she didn’t want to be left out—or she is capable of caring about others and working with them! That means we can still reach her! I was so excited I didn’t stop to consider the consequences.

  “Fool! And you call yourself a great mind!”

  “I never—” I start. But then I realize she’s talking to herself. Cool. So I didn’t have to understand any of that. “Um . . . what’s the problem?”

  “Big Dawg’s mother got involved,” Darla says. “Maybe you noticed that personalized football jersey he was wearing? They’re ridiculously expensive, and now that it’s ruined his mom is livid. She’s adamant that someone be punished for it. I don’t think Big Dawg named names, but cutting stuff up is Catherine’s specialty. The office is definitely going to try to pin it on her.”

  “Damn it.” I stomp on the dryer once more for good measure. She was sticking up for me. “We can’t let that happen.”

  “Exactly. Catherine’s record is already a mile long. This could be the offense that puts the final nail in her juvie coffin—so to speak. It’s not her fault that she has, umm, unusual weapons at her disposal.”

  I raise my eyebrows. Darla coughs and barrels forward. “I have a plan. It’s not the most brilliant plan, but there’s a seventy-two percent chance it’ll work. Just . . . one of us has to take the fall, and the other has to be a witness and back up everything that person says. Are you a good liar?”

  “Darla? If lying was a sport I would letter in it, go to state, get a college scholarship, and be a first-round draft pick.”

  Darla blinks. “Sports metaphors—not my thing. Is it safe to say you mean yes?”

  “I mean ‘hell yes!’ Let’s do this.”

  Ten minutes later Darla and I are sitting in the office, waiting for our meeting with the principal while the secretary jams out to her iPod and works her way through an early-morning bowl of Cookie Crisp. Catherine just got called down over the PA system and Darla’s busy adding the final touches to my costume before she arrives: I’ve got two three-pronged hand rakes (apparently they’re called “cultivators” in gardening circles
) strapped to my hands, and Darla’s securing them with duct tape and boxing wraps, winding them around and around until I effectively have claws.

  This is so not going to work.

  I want to bury my head in my hands so that no one passing the office will know the moron-claw loser is me—but I’d probably gouge my eyes out with the rakes. “He’s not going to fall for this.”

  “Shh—I told you to practice saying ‘snikt.’” Darla pins the boxing wraps so that they’re snug around my wrists. “It’s all about the delivery. Now, let’s rehearse your story.”

  “Out loud??”

  “Yes! You have to practice now so you don’t choke later. Trust me—I’m a master of disguise.”

  I groan. Darla is the worst chameleon ever. And I’m taking advice from her? “Maybe you should do this, then.”

  “No way. It’s already a given that you’ll lose half your arm hair when I rip that duct tape off. No reason we should both suffer. Besides—you’ll be great.”

  I’m still grumbling when Catherine slouches into the office, a crumpled hall pass in her hand. Smiling awkwardly, I cross my arms over my chest and try to hide the claws under my armpits.

  “Deny everything!” Darla stage-whispers at Catherine. “Trust us! We’ve got you covered!” She’s nodding like a bobblehead and double-thumbs-upping like there’s no tomorrow. Reassurance with thousand-volt cherries on top.

  “Like I would do anything else,” Catherine mutters. She leans against the wall, red-rimmed eyes flitting between the secretary’s desk and the principal’s door. “Can I get this over with?”

  The secretary’s music is cranked so loud that her earphones buzz like eager insects; her eyes are glued to the blog she’s reading.

  Catherine tosses her crumpled hall pass into the secretary’s half-full cereal bowl. It floats in the milk for a sec before the secretary hurriedly spoons it out.