by Gary Paulsen
“Which we’re not supposed to see so much as hear,” Mason commented on Devon’s guitar, head tipped, eyes closed, face scrunched in a look of intense concentration, trying really hard, I guessed, to listen for the chords.
“There’s a lot of existential reality in this school,” I told Avery, and hoped I seemed French and intellectual and maybe a little brooding.
“I’m okay with that non-cat and the non-guitar,” Regan said, looking back and forth between Avery and Taylor. “Maybe we can get a picture for the yearbook of Avery and Devon and the nonentities; as editor-in-chief this year, I’m freaking out about how to fill up all the pages. I’ll take anything. Even pictures of invisible felines and imaginary stringed instruments.”
“Everyone in this school except me is nuts,” Taylor sneered.
“And yet you’re the only one in this room failing,” Mason broke the seal on that secret. “C’mon, Taylor, get your books out, let’s finish that book report so we can be one step closer to being free of each other once and for all.”
“Mason is tutoring Taylor,” Regan explained to Avery.
“Taylor’s resisting,” I clarified, because I didn’t think Regan’s commentary gave Avery the full picture. “If Mason were a germ and Taylor were an open wound, Taylor would be studied by the worldwide medical community as the future hope of preventing the spread of infectious disease.”
“Mason’s only working with Taylor to get a recommendation from the principal to attend the mock congress in Boston this summer,” Regan told the one person in this entire school who didn’t already know about Mason’s academic pursuits and extracurricular goals. The rest of us hate Mason for wrecking grade curves, for making all of us look like dopes with the constant extra credit assignments, for always taking all of the honors courses that are offered, and for having a study room in the library on permanent hold for whatever small-group project Mason has once again volunteered to head.
“They can’t stand each other. Two people who loathe each other more do not exist in this world or any universe known to mankind or yet to be discovered. It’s awesome entertainment for the rest of us that they have to work together. We’ve placed bets on how long it’ll take one to smack the other with a thesaurus, and who’ll take the first swing.” I wondered what the current over-under was on Taylor drawing first blood.
“Our school policy is zero tolerance for bullying, so if I should personally witness such behavior, in my role as student body president, I’d have to report it. Was it report it or step in? Hmm, can’t remember.” Regan tried to look as anti-bullying and pro-getting-along as possible. Which just meant trying out a few different kinds of weird and eager smiles in the mirror combined with a furrowed brow for seriousness.
Mason looked up at the ceiling in disgust. “Taylor’s failing English. Our mother tongue. My whole future depends on teaching someone the difference between I-T-S and I-T-apostrophe-S.”
“I’m not failing,” Taylor said. “I’m just not passing by as much as I should be. And you said ‘it’ was an imprecise and meaningless word that takes up space and should be avoided as much as possible. So what’s the big difference if there’s an apostrophe or not if I’m not supposed to use the word in the first place? Geez.”
For a second I thought I was going to lose money when Mason grabbed a book. But the swing never came; instead of whacking the side of Taylor’s head with a good solid backhand, Mason placed the book in Taylor’s hand with a heavy sigh. “Focus.”
Scene Two:
LOUDSPEAKER ANNOUNCEMENT: “This is a weather update: The severe weather alert for the county immediately adjacent to ours is in effect until four thirty p.m. We are advised that strong winds are moving westward and that occasional rain or thundershowers are forecast with possible street flooding in low-lying areas. Total rainfall amounts are projected to vary between one to two inches.”
“Isn’t that, like, a miniscule amount of precipitation that’s hardly even noticeable?” I asked. “I swear, this school is the drama queen of the entire district—always making a big deal out of nothing. It’s not like anyone just reported seeing animals walking two by two to get on a big boat; it’s not that kind of storm.”
“Better safe than sorry.” Regan probably sat on the student-faculty committee that came up with these dipsy-doodle rules in the first place. “I hope they let us out soon, though; I’ve got to get over to the senior center by dinnertime because I’m volunteering today. Speaking of dinner: I’m starving. Anyone got anything to eat?”
“You’re going to eat in the bathroom? Next to a stall? Eww.” But I had to admit: My stomach was rumbling too. I dug in my backpack and came up with some trail mix that I threw over to Regan.
“It’s not like I was planning to suck water out of the toilet.” Regan tossed a raisin in my mouth like I was a one of the seals at the zoo. Eating and throwing things pass time when you’re bored. It’s a scientific fact. Or at least universally accepted. Throwing things you can catch in your mouth and then eat adds to the fun.
Avery looked across the room and made a small squawk of alarm. “Devon is lying down on the floor. Why is Devon lying down on the floor like that?”
Regan, Mason, Taylor, and I glanced over at Devon and, in one voice, replied, “Acoustic set.”
Avery looked blank. Well, sure, first time at this rodeo, who wouldn’t be a little confused?
“Devon’s resting while the lead vocalist takes the spotlight; it’s only for one song. See!” I reassured Avery as Devon jumped up and started playing again.
“Oh. Okay,” Avery said, looking neither comforted by nor comfortable with the fact that Devon is a generous band member who gives everyone onstage equal opportunity to shine.
In fact, Avery was starting to look more and more uncomfortable. Regan and I were gobbling trail mix and balancing peanuts on our noses when we weren’t catching things in our mouths, Mason and Taylor were elbow-jabbing each other into slightly cracked or at least permanently bruised ribs while they huddled over a notebook and tried to hammer out a book report for a novel I’m pretty sure Taylor didn’t read all the way through, and Devon was off riffing in the corner.
But Avery was restlessly shifting back and forth from one foot to the next and compulsively checking the time every forty-five seconds. And just when I’d thought we’d broken through the nerve thing and Avery was starting to feel comfortable with us. Bummer. Maybe it was just me who was starting to feel comfortable. Avery should try to be more like me. I’d have to set a good example for coping with the storm lockdown.
“So, that’s it? We’re stuck in the bathroom?” Avery sounded about ready to explode. I hoped that wasn’t going to happen because a) I was starting to like Avery and b) I wasn’t going to clean it up. Not enough toilet paper in the universe.
“Yup,” I said, nodding, trying to role-model acceptance and patience with my relaxed attitude.
“For who-knows-how-long?” Avery wasn’t following my lead and was, in fact, looking increasingly agitated.
“Looks that way,” I said, again in a great-attitude-to-emulate way. I wished Cary could see how mature and easygoing I was, things I am never accused of outside of this lavatory.
“Pull up some floor, relax,” Regan urged.
“And none of you are worried about the storm?” Avery asked, casting a panicked glance at the really small glass brick window above the sink.
“This school is known for overreacting about bad weather. Someone sees one teeny tiny bolt of lightning in the sky and the whole place is on lockdown. It’s nothing.” I remembered the Great Storm That Wasn’t of seventh grade, when the entire student body had spent ages either sitting on the floor, lined up facing the wall, our arms over our heads, or crammed under our desks with faces tucked down, waiting for the building to collapse on top of us. Final tally: One branch was knocked off an ancient tree. Probably due to a fat squirrel rather than a dangerous gust of wind.
“Yeah, if it was really bad, they
’d be telling us to hide under desks and cover our heads,” Mason said, looking at me as if reading my mind. “Like that time last year, remember? This is sooooo not a big deal. The teachers haven’t even checked on us.”
“The weather cell will pass by and then someone will get on the loudspeaker and announce we’re free to go,” Regan said in the most bored voice I’ve ever heard. “I give the whole containment thing another twenty, thirty minutes tops.”
“I have to call my parents; they don’t know where I am. No one knows where I am.” Avery was about a nanosecond away from totally flipping out. I sat up straight and looked concerned and attentive—but still cool, calm, and collected—hoping Avery would get the hint and settle down.
“That’s not entirely true; WE know where you are,” I said in my most consoling voice.
Regan, who is surprisingly emotionally tone deaf for such a popular person, didn’t get the invisible memo that we were treating the skittish kid gently and, instead, poked Avery in an already sore spot: “Besides, you’re fourteen years old—your folks aren’t gonna freak out about where you are at four o’clock in the afternoon on a school day.”
“My parents freak out if I lock the bathroom door when I take a shower.”
As much as I wanted to be understanding and non-confrontational because of Avery’s fragile state of mind and obvious panic at being trapped in the john during a storm, I couldn’t keep from rolling my eyes when I heard that.
Avery saw my skepticism and tried to explain. “What if I slip on a bar of soap, hit my head, get knocked unconscious, land in the water that collects at the bottom of the tub after my forehead bumps the drain thing shut, and then drown because they can’t get to me fast enough because they’re having trouble trying to unlock the door with a Phillips head screwdriver?”
“And they think that’s a likely scenario?” I wondered what kind of family Avery came from if that was the logical conclusion to their kid wanting a little me-time in the shower.
“My parents have heard of stranger things happening.”
Sometimes Taylor’s lack of a filter gets to the heart of the matter in a way diplomacy never can. Like this time: “Your parents are neurotic.” Then Taylor turned to Mason and smirked. “Hah! Neurotic: vocab word.”
“Now spell it.” Mason is very hard to impress. I was on Taylor’s side in this situation.
“You’re a buzzkill,” Taylor said. “I used it correctly in a sentence. And I keep telling you: I don’t need to know how to spell.”
“Yes, you do. We’ve gone over this before. Spellcheck on your computer is not the same thing as knowing how to spell.” If a person could expire from sheer frustration, I think we would have had to figure out how to store Mason’s body until we were released from the Non-Storm Watch-for-Nothing.
Avery, who wasn’t nearly as worried about Mason’s will to live as I was, started pacing, collar-tugging, hands-through-hair-running; your basic gestures indicating full-on panic mode. Avery would be a great charades partner; very readable clues and expressive movements.
Even Regan finally noticed Avery’s agitation. “You okay?”
“Not really,” Avery’s eyes got huge. “Is it just me or does this room seem to be running out of, I don’t know, oxygen?”
“Highly unlikely.” I took a deep breath to demonstrate how oxygen-rich the room was. “Yep, oxygen levels seem fine to me. Look at my hands: My fingertips and nailbeds are nice and pink which means my O2 saturation is good.”
“Are you getting claustrophobic? Do confined spaces make you uncomfortable?” Regan apparently never heard that people, especially edgy people under stress, are highly susceptible to the power of suggestion and that you should always offer positive ideas and never give them more grist for the crazy mill. Like offering up additional crises to factor in to the already tense and, let’s face it, unstable, mix.
“Not as much as the lack of air. Can we open a window?” Avery eyed the window above the sink. I wondered if Avery was thinking about trying to chisel one of the glass bricks free to try to suck in some additional fresh air. I had a compass in my backpack that might help.
“During a storm?” Taylor snorted. “And people think I’m the dumb one.”
“No one thinks you’re dumb,” I said. “We think you’re disagreeable. Maybe even a little abusive.”
Mason protested: “I think Taylor might be dumb. I think we can’t entirely rule out that possibility.”
Regan finally noticed that Avery was starting to actually pant in fear, and dug deep for a little human compassion: “Sit down and put your head between your knees, breathe deep and slow. We’ll all just breathe together, calmly. No one’s going to panic or run out of air.” Regan was speaking slowly and carefully, like a hypnotist putting someone under, gesturing to the rest of us to start breathing together too. “It’s allllllllllll goooooooooood. Verrrrrry comforting and laaaaid baaaaaaack.”
The room was silent. Mason, Taylor, Regan, and I were quietly breathing, synching our breaths, soothing Avery down together like some Zen crisis-response team. We were a nanosecond away from busting out some yoga poses and chanting.
Until Devon shattered the silence with an ear-piercing, blood-curdling, toe-curling, heart-stopping, mind-numbing shriek: “ROCK AND ROLL!”
I looked up and all I could see of Devon were finger-snapping and head-bobbing. Devon was twirling in a funky shuffle-slide across the floor, head back, eyes closed, complete abandon.
“Thanks, Dev, way to add to the tranquil atmosphere.”
Devon couldn’t hear me, but fist-pumped and danced in circles as if to agree.
Despite the fact that my heart hurt really bad because of the sudden stop/pause/restart that had just occurred because of Devon’s unexpected bellow, I couldn’t help but admire the unselfconscious joy of a musician in the midst of a heavy groove.
Although the moment was clearly over—our brief blip into the serene enlightenment of third-eye-opening meditation was a thing of the past—and we were back to being a bunch of tense middle schoolers hunched next to the toilets, it wasn’t half bad to sit there watching Devon jam.
I’ve been to real concerts before—you know, professional musicians, actual instruments, audible music—that were a lot less fun that sitting on the bathroom tiles watching Devon air-guitar.
Devon was smart; all you ever hear is about how more traditional musicians and bands have legal hassles with their management or financial disagreements with their labels and distribution problems and struggles to get air time on the radio. But Devon’s artistic freedom and creative integrity were still intact.
Apparently, there’s a lot to be said for marching to the beat of one’s own drum. Or guitar, as the case may be.
Scene Three:
“Hey, I know!” Regan bounced off the floor and looked as enthusiastic as only a natural-born leader can. Regan’s probably been waiting for a chance like this for ages, ever since the webinar on how to rally the morale of the masses during a crisis. “Let’s take our minds off being trapped in the bathroom. Taylor, put the book down and come over here. Wanna be like King Tut?”
Regan grabbed a roll of toilet paper from the shelf next to the sinks and started wrapping Taylor from head to foot and then tossed Avery another roll. “Here. Make a mummy cat. The ancient Egyptians used to bury their pets with them, so it’s historically valid, plus you’ll feel better with something to do.”
Why we didn’t think of wrapping up Taylor years ago, I’ll never guess. I had a brief image flash through my mind of using strips of newspapers dipped in paste instead of TP, turning Taylor into a ginormous piñata. Or at least paste over Taylor’s mouth, just until the storm passed. Or until we graduated and went our separate ways.
We didn’t have newspapers and paste, so Mason and I started tossing toilet paper at each other, like two-person juggling, keeping three rolls in the air at all times. Avery wrapped the cat in layers of toilet tissue and started to smile as it looked more a
nd more like a tiny dead ancient Egyptian house pet. I could tell that the previously ragged breathing had started to regulate when Avery started humming happily.
“Thanks. I do feel a little better.”
“Sure you do,” Mason said. “Always good to keep your hands busy. Takes your mind off your worries.”
“So does talking.” I was dropping more rolls than I was catching or throwing so it was time to turn this boat around. I’m not very athletic or coordinated, but I am articulate and clever. “Let’s play ‘would you rather?’! Mason, would you rather have a job cleaning up after a kangaroo with loose bowels or live in a sweaty giant’s work boots?”
“I would rather not play ‘would you rather.’ Regan, poke an airhole in the toilet paper so Taylor can breathe. I’m pretty sure someone like Taylor doesn’t have any brain cells to spare.”
“Okay, then, how about ‘guess who it is by the smell of their armpits’?” I should work for a toy company; I am never at a loss for something to do, I am a veritable font of good ideas for amusement. Lucky for these guys I was there.
“No fair.” Regan did a quick pit sniff. “I just ran laps before the weather got bad. I stink like fetid death.”
“Good point.” I sniffed and actually smelled Regan’s point. Eww. “How about ‘truth or dare’? Truth: What’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done?”
“Brought a stuffed cat to school on my first day.”
“Well, since you mentioned it: What’s the deal?” Mason stole a peek at the cat who was mummy-wrapped and still half-poking out of Avery’s bag.
Avery started in on that multiple syllable thing so I knew, for some reason, the nerves were kicking in again. “Oh, uh, well, my, uh, my little brother must have, uh, hidden it in my bag this morning. Just snuck it right in there without me even noticing. Because I was worried about the new school.”
“That was thoughtful. Has it helped?” Regan sounded like the answer was obvious: Hadn’t helped a bit.
