I continued. Recklessly.
“And you never told us you had a subscription to Bridal Dreaming magazine!” I said. “That’s where the photo came from. Dreaming about being a bride, Shay?”
Some of the kids started to snigger, and all of a sudden the room felt less tense.
“At least I’m not starring in it,” Shay said. He had a point, and he knew it.
He leaned in closer, in mock concern.
“Tell us, Spin, how it feels to be a boy model. We would really love to see some of your other, more recent, work.”
You know me pretty well by now. I may be a lot of things, but I’m not stupid. There was no way I was going to blab my life story because Shay had got hold of one photograph. He has one photo. ONE, I kept reminding myself.
But there’re about two million more he could dig up soon, a tiny voice in my brain said. When that website of Macy’s goes live. I hate that tiny brain voice. It never, ever whispers good things.
I hesitated.
Edie came in. She picked up the sheet on her desk, looked at it and sighed.
“Oh, wait, don’t tell me,” she said in her slow, bored voice. She closed her eyes and put her fingers to her forehead like she was telling our fortunes.
“Spin does this thing when he was a little kid, probably because his mom forced him to, and Shay’s torturing him about it. Am I right?” Have I mentioned that Edie is the coolest girl in school?
She looked around. Some kids nodded, grinned and started to drift away to their own desks.
“Yep, Edie. Bingo,” said Chan.
Edie glanced over at Shay. “You’re so boringly predictable,” she said, stifling a yawn.
Shay sensed that he was losing the edge in the confrontation. This made him aggressive.
“I’m just asking Little Mr. Ring Bearer here how long he’s been secretly modeling, that’s all.” Shay was always better behaved with Edie around. He made it sound as if it were a serious, legitimate question.
The whole class looked over at me expectantly.
It was now or never.
“Oh, probably for as long as you’ve been reading Bridal Dreaming, Shay,” I said.
There was a beat of silence, then everyone laughed. Even Edie.
The bell rang. I couldn’t believe I had got the last line in. Okay, I couldn’t believe I even thought of a last line, let alone a pretty good one.
Ms. McCoy came in, looking mad.
“Who is responsible for the state of the hall and this classroom?” She picked up one of the sheets. “‘Guess Who?’ What is this? Well, obviously, it’s Luke.” She looked over at me. “Cute picture, Luke. Somebody else must have thought so too, having run off what looks like several hundred copies. It better not have been on the school photocopier.”
She turned to Shay wearily.
“Shay, this is obviously your work. I know your handwriting. Go and collect every single last one of these and put them in the recycle bin in the teachers’ lounge. And don’t touch anything else in there. Or eat anything. Actually, just give them to Mrs. Barnes at the office desk. Then report to the principal. As usual.”
“No problem, Ms. M., got it covered,” Shay said, like he was being very helpful. “I’ll be a model student,” he added from the doorway, giving the class a big wink. You have to hand it to Shay. He’s quick.
Everyone laughed. Shay probably wanted it to be mean laughter. But it wasn’t.
It was just normal laughter.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I INVENT A NEW VERSION OF DODGEBALL(ALL HEAD SHOTS ALL THE TIME)
Never, ever has a day been so long.
Well, maybe it has been for guys at war, or people trapped in an avalanche, or kids forced to visit really, really boring relatives...But you know what I mean. It was the longest day for me. It was unbelievably long.
Shay called me Tux whenever he saw me and kept mock-framing me with his hands like he was taking pictures.
I infuriated him by asking him bridal trivia. “Hey, Shay, what’s new in veils?” or “Quick, Shay: three tips for a winter wedding!” It was all very childish. Tiring too. Because every time I asked him some bridal question, I had to think up another one for the next time he bugged me.
My recklessness was melting away. Worry moved in, stretched and settled down on my mental couch. Shay had obviously just come across that photo by accident. I didn’t know where: doctor’s office? Dentist’s? Who stocked magazines that old? But you could bet that he’d be googling my name to dig up more dirt. And when Macy finalized her website, it would be disastrous; he would see every photo I’d ever had taken. Every shoot. Everything.
Models by Macy would bury me.
* * *
My class had the whole afternoon to visit the FUNdraiser events.
There was a “penny carnival” in the cafeteria, where for mere pennies (okay, every game was at least twenty-five cents) you could win fantastic prizes like dollar-store pencils or hair elastics or a tiny bouncy ball. I won two pens, a small bottle of shampoo and a travel-size deodorant.
The grand prize was a huge basket of shampoos and soaps (notice the slightly insulting personal-hygiene theme), which Frey won. He quickly traded it to Angela Boyko, who’d won a gift certificate for a large pepperoni pizza. Both of them looked totally satisfied with the trade.
Even with all the excitement of winning small personal-grooming products, it was hard to stay happy. Whenever I stopped moving, I started worrying.
I was with a group of guys who were laughing and talking and enjoying our day without classes. I got quieter and quieter. I felt alone and depressed.
But, hey, nothing like a little enforced dodgeball to cheer a fella up! There was a mandatory, schoolwide tournament, homeroom versus homeroom. Each homeroom collected two dollars per student for the FUNdraiser.
Dodgeball.
The ultimate contest of strength and agility. The purest form of sport. The... Okay, it’s just a goofy game where kids smack each other with balls and race around like crazy. Most kids love it. Usually I did, too, but right at this moment it seemed kind of pointless.
We started against 7D. 7D was Tyson Kemp’s homeroom. You remember Tyson Kemp? Way back in chapter 6 he made a brief appearance as exhibit A in my demonstration of how bullies have changed over the years. He’s the freakishly big former bully who is still as strong as a gorilla.
Tyson Kemp lived for dodgeball. It was the only semilegal violence the school still allowed. He took out all his math-related frustrations on the opposing team. He fired the ball so hard it stung. And, predictably, he played dirty. He made dodgeball a blood sport.
It was pure chaos in the gym, kids yelling and running and balls flying and people getting pelted. Tyson was picking us off like a sniper. I saw Chan crumple after a particularly nasty head shot, his glasses skidding across the gym floor. As I picked them up, I thought that pretty much the only rule in dodgeball is “no head shots,” right? Really, if you were to look in the dodgeball rulebook, there’d only be one rule: no head shots.
Well, Tyson was all head shots all the time. He made a point of throwing at people’s heads. Even when he had a clear body shot—a wide-open back, for example—he’d go for the head.
So anyway, I was hovering at the back of our side, watching all of Tyson’s cheap head shots, when it hit me (no lame pun intended). Here, right here in this gym, was my chance to get out of tomorrow’s modeling shoot!
A head shot could easily be a face shot, couldn’t it? Wouldn’t it be a shame if my face got in the way of one of Tyson’s throws? Wouldn’t it break something, or swell up something awful? So bad that, say, any modeling this weekend, and possibly for weeks afterward, would have to be cancelled? That would be such a pity.
Okay, it wasn’t a perfect idea. Maybe it was even a seriously flawed one. But it was an idea. I didn’t have any others, and I was getting desperate. I somehow didn’t feel quite so depressed now that I had this little project to work on.
“Thanks, Spin,” panted Chelsea as I took a ball to the chest that was aimed at her head.
“You rock, Spin,” yelled Mario as my right shoulder saved him from a killer Tyson shot.
Every time I came back in, I took hits all over my body, but it was like there was some sort of invisible shield over my face.
The whistle finally blew to end the game. My shoulders sagged. Just my luck. My face hadn’t even touched a ball. Not even close.
All of a sudden, a ball rocketed at my head, thumping me hard enough that I fell to my knees. This is something you don’t expect to happen when the whistle has blown.
I picked my dazed self up and looked around. Tyson was grinning right at me.
You moron, I thought. Can’t you do anything right?
I didn’t know if my brain voice was talking to Tyson or to myself.
I’d finally got my head shot. I’d certainly have a huge bruise and a large bump.
Completely invisible, under my hair, on the back of my head.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I HAVE A VERY CLOSE SHAVE (AND BY THAT I MEAN B-A-L-D)
After lunch, we went to the gym. The teachers had opened the outside doors to air out the smell of dodgeball and set up another bunch of FUNdraiser activities. Ms. McCoy pointed them out.
“Okay, class, on your left: bake sale, popcorn station and dunk tank! Whoops, there goes Mr. Kowalski!” she laughed as the sound of a teacher hitting water filled the gym.
Mr. Kowalski was just climbing out of the tank, the strands of the hair he usually combed over the top of his head straggling like wet seaweed down the side of his face. The guy from grade eight who’d dunked him was grinning and being high-fived by the other kids in the line.
“And on your right,” Ms. McCoy continued, “face painting, fake tattoos and, for any brave folks who’ve filled out a sponsor sheet, the head-shaving station.”
Wait a second. What was that? What was that last one?
Head-shaving station... I stared. A kid in grade nine was sitting there in one of those hair-salon smocks, grinning, while a hairdresser shaved off half of his long hair. A bunch of kids were cheering and clapping. I ran over and grabbed a pamphlet.
Blah, blah, blah, money goes to the children’s hospital, blah, blah, blah, sponsors, blah, blah, blah, head shaved. It was perfect! Here was something worthwhile (who can argue against helping sick kids?) that would result in me being completely bald. BALD! I was pretty sure being bald would get me out of that shoot tomorrow. Not much of a market for bald kids in advertising.
I must have been away when they handed out the sponsorship forms, so I grabbed one and took it into the corner of the room. I had brought sixty-two dollars of my own money to contribute to the FUNdraiser (not only because I felt horribly guilty about starting this whole thing off but because it was a great cause). This seemed like the perfect way to donate it.
It had to look believable. I used three different pens and changed my writing so it looked like I’d walked around and got different people to sponsor me. I put down Mom for twenty dollars, Macy for ten and our neighbor, Mrs. Fitzpatrick, for ten. Then I added five dollars from Red and five from Dan, who cuts the grass at our building. So that’s...fifty bucks, right? I put down myself for the last twelve.
Then I took the form to the woman at the table.
My heart was pounding.
“Okay, hon,” she said. “Good timing. Sheila’s free.”
As I walked over to the chair, some girls from my class who were at the fake-tattoo booth called, “Spin! You’re doing the headshave?”
“Yep,” I said casually, “can’t wait. I’m all sponsored-up and everything.”
“Ah, another victim,” grinned Sheila, sweeping up the hair from under her chair.
She sat me down and put a plastic cape around my neck.
“Gorgeous hair, buddy. Nice and thick and curly,” she said. “Well, here’s your last chance. You sure about this?”
I looked at her in the mirror they’d propped up in front of the bleachers.
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Totally, totally sure.”
Most of my class had heard I was doing the headshave and gathered around the chair. It was quite a party atmosphere. Shay was there too. He was unusually quiet. I called over to him.
“Hey, Shay, take a picture!”
He turned and stalked away, probably to dunk some teacher.
My class started up a “bald” chant. The tune was sort of like the organ at hockey games, only here, they repeated the word “BALD” slowly at first, then quicker and quicker, ending in a loud “BALD!!”
Sheila held the clippers up high and got the class to count down from five.
“Five! Four! Three! Two! One! SHAVE!”
Now, I’m no stranger to the clippers, but this was nothing like the weekly haircuts I get from Scott, Macy’s “hair wizard.” Scott always looks really busy, but I sometimes think he’s just back there making snippy-clippy sounds behind my head. How much hair can you actually trim every week?
This was the exact opposite of a trim.
The clippers came down and shaved a line right down the center of my head. Whoa! That first line of baldness felt weird and scary and exciting at the same time. The class cheered as row after row of my dark hair slid onto the floor.
Becoming bald was quite an interesting sensation.
It didn’t take very long—less time than it takes to get a haircut, that’s for sure. I guess that when you’re shaving a head, you don’t have to be all picky about lengths and getting things even. You just fire that sucker back and forth, and presto, you’ve got a bald head in front of you.
And there I was. In the mirror. Totally bald. I tilted my head from side to side. Yep, pure baldness. Without my hair, my nose looked bigger, my eyebrows darker, my head huger and whiter. I was delighted.
I shook Sheila’s hand, high-fived all the kids in the class and then borrowed Chan’s cell phone.
I ran into the hall where it was quiet. The air felt cold whirling around my bald head.
“Good afternoon. Models by Macy, Macy Spinelli speaking,” said Macy in her fake smooth, professional phone voice.
“Hi, Macy, it’s me. Got some news,” I said, sounding very important.
“Oh, hi, Beauty,” she said, dropping back into her regular voice. “What’s up, kiddo?” She sounded distracted. I could hear computer keys clicking in the background.
“I shaved my head.”
“WHAT!”
“My head. My hair. It’s all shaved off.” I was enjoying this moment so much. So very, very much.
I couldn’t stop smiling. “We had a fundraiser for sick kids, and I shaved my entire head.”
There was silence at the other end of the phone. Oh, Macy, do I have your attention now?
“You’re joking,” she said finally.
“Nope!” I said cheerfully. “I’m completely bald here! Not a hair on my head.”
There was another silence. I held the phone about a foot from my ear, waiting for the explosion.
“Oh, Beauty, you’re such a good little guy,” Macy said quietly. She sounded as if she was going to cry.
“Did you really do that for charity? Such a generous guy...”
I couldn’t believe it.
“So, you’re not mad?” I said tentatively.
“Mad? Somebody does something so beautiful, and I’m supposed to be mad?” she asked, sniffling.
I have to admit, I didn’t expect this reaction. Yelling, yes. Arguing, definitely. Crying, not at all.
“I won’t be able to do the shoot tomorrow, I guess,” I sighed, pretending to be sort of sorry about it.
“Oh, that,” Macy said, as if it was unimportant. “Don’t you worry about that, Beauty. Besides,” s
he said with a laugh, “I know a good wig place. See ya, sweetie.”
And she hung up.
Leaving me standing there, staring at the phone, bald and confused.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
BREAKING NEWS: TEACHER-STUDENT HOCKEY GAME ENDS IN BLOODBATH
It was the third period in the FUNdraiser hockey game against the teachers.
We were in the arena across the street from the school, and pretty much the whole school was there. They kind of had to be. The teachers were either playing or cheering. That’s not to say that everyone was paying attention. We’re in junior high, remember. Kids were mostly running up and down the stands, throwing popcorn at each other. You know, regular stuff.
To be honest with you, it hadn’t been a very good game so far. Mr. Bruseker, the phys ed teacher, was killing us single-handedly.
Hey, Mr. B., if you’re trying to impress anyone (like, for example, Mademoiselle Lamont, the new French teacher), she might have happened to notice that you’re playing against children. Just a tip.
I’d mostly sat on the bench with Chris “Wall of Pain” Fedorek, just watching the game and banging my stick against the boards whenever our team did something right. There was a lot of pressure playing in front of the whole school. Most of the guys were pretty nervous, though Coach was trying to keep it light and fun.
Shay had spent most of the game screaming at the defensemen. Forwards like Shay always assumed that if they just got the puck, it was practically guaranteed to be in the net within seconds. We all knew that he’d had lots of chances, but Mr. B. (the man who plays every position) had shut him down.
It was 4–0 for the teachers, even though the principal, Mrs. Walker, had finally benched Mr. B. early in the second period. She’d taken his place.
I hadn’t talked to Mrs. Walker since my monster lie. I had successfully avoided her in the halls. The trick was to walk fast with your head down, or hide in a group of people when you walked past her office.
Mrs. Walker was sort of at my level, as a player. She could mostly stay upright, but she flailed a lot too. And there were problems stopping. Always with the stopping, hey?
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