‘No. I haven’t,’ Ernest says with finality. ‘You said you want me out of this business. So why would you want Fergus in? This is why I never said anything. I knew I’d end up having conversations like this.’
‘Just stop with the melodrama, OK? You make it sound like the mob.’
‘Well. Once you’re in, you’re in for life.’
Ernest is at least relieved Fergus isn’t considered a pawn. If she’s indeed thinking in terms of a chessboard, then Phoebe sees her son as some kind of knight-in-waiting. Which is good. Ernest figures this makes him a rook. Or maybe the king. But a knight’s job is to protect the king, yes? Wait. The analogy is falling apart, as surely as this notion of Phoebe’s. ‘What makes you think he even—’
‘Because Fergus worships his father,’ she says. ‘He’d want this more than anything in the world. Dummy.’
The corner of Ernest’s lips pinch together. ‘How do you know?’
‘What was Fergus doing when you went into his room?’
The sound of Ernest thinking.
‘How do you not know?’ Phoebe asks.
‘It doesn’t change anything. Out of the question. Period, full stop.’
‘Fine. If you don’t want to talk to Fergus, then you can talk to Flynn.’
‘Why do I need to talk to Flynn?’
‘Violin. She wants to quit.’
‘Quit? She’s amazing. Quit and do what?’
‘Ernest, how do you not know?’
Ernest slaps at the arms of the easy chair. ‘Would you stop with that? I don’t read minds. That’s not my superpower.’
‘She told me she’s thinking about taking up MMA.’
Ernest thinks back to what he’s just witnessed in Fergus’s bedroom. MMA. Something involving art? Movies? Costume design? ‘Mixed Media… Acting? I don’t—’
‘Seriously? Mixed Martial Arts,’ Phoebe says.
The sound of Ernest thinking again.
‘You’re making this up,’ he says.
‘I am, in fact, not making this up.’
Ernest sighs. His head droops while his thoughts turn once again to chess. If he is indeed the king, then heavy is the head that wears the crown. Maybe that’s why the damn piece can only move one plodding space at time.
Ernest hauls himself up from the chair, groaning in discomfort. He feels like he’s gained ten pounds since sitting down a few short minutes ago. ‘I’ll talk to her. Tomorrow.’
‘Or now,’ Phoebe says. Husband and wife square off in a staring contest.
‘Fine.’ Ernest is no match. ‘But she can’t play her violin while she’s dressed up like Ninja Garden, though.’
‘What’s Ninja Garden?’ Phoebe asks.
Ernest places his hand on the small of Phoebe’s back. Gives his wife a kiss. ‘Mmm. You taste like toothpaste.’
‘Don’t even think about it.’
Ernest steps away, his posture deflating—sadly, he reflects, the only thing left capable of deflating at the present. He retreats to the bedroom doorway. ‘When are we done with this, by the way?’
‘Done with what?’
‘Parenting. When do we get to go back to just the two of us? The movie nights? The trips to Belize? The lazy Saturday mornings where we don’t have to get dressed?’
‘Last time I checked?’ Phoebe replies. ‘Never.’
Nineteen
World History teacher Michael A. McDill is a funny man, Flynn thinks.
Hilarious.
Unfortunately, he’s funny to most of the Benjamin Franklin High School students, not because he spends time writing and performing comic material, but because of his maroon cardigan. And his accent, a homespun mix of Midwest twang and Southern drawl. In short, he’s funny the same way a straight-to-DVD, sci-fi shark movie tends to be funny: unintentionally so.
For starters, the nearly 70-year old McDill introduces himself to every incoming class by telling the long, punchline-averse “joke” (students retelling this use air quotes without exception) that he’s old enough to remember when “an apple for a teacher” meant a piece of fruit; no recharging cord required.
Hilarious!
To compound the legend, poor Mr. McDill still uses an egg timer (!) while giving timed tests (!!), and notifies students of said egg-timed tests using a blackboard (!!!) instead of a SMART one. ‘If Mark Twain could do what he did with a pencil and paper,’ Mr. McDill has said about matters technical, ‘it ought to do for us.’
What a strange old man, indeed.
From the third row of McDill’s class, Flynn taps the capped end of a ballpoint against her cheek, thinking of what else needs be added to her map. The map is a Tolkienesque battleground in a made-up country, on a made-up planet, where two alien armies will eventually meet for a climactic battle. She’s trying her best to concentrate on Mr. McDill and trench warfare in WWI Stalinist Russia, but dammit if that discussion hasn’t given her imagination something to chew on. It’s just too tantalizing not to commit to paper. The world’s next great graphic novel, perhaps. In any event, this thing she has chugging through her mind is eating up all her brain’s available RAM.
What’s that?
A sudden rustle of paper and backpack. The noise and movement shake Flynn out of her trance. She surveys the room, looking for context.
Judging by the stack of paper Mr. McDill is now distributing to the head of each row, it looks like a quiz is at hand. A pop quiz at that.
But she’s ready. Sort of. She’s been pouring all of that World War I history into the outline of her epic story. Mustard gas. Artillery. No man’s land. And a powerful subtext about the futility of warfare. Oh, how Mr. McDill loves his subtext, Flynn thinks as she stuffs her notebook into her shoulder bag.
The boy one chair ahead, who’s kinda cute but needs a haircut in the worst way, hands back the quiz. She looks it over, tapping her pen against her cheek again. She also notices, in her peripheral vision, just one row away, Kaylee Yocum and her friend, Sloane Walker. They could be sisters: bottle blondes and soccer teammates who describe themselves as dumb jock BFFLs in their Instagram bios – Flynn has rolled her eyes said bios, and is most certainly not a follower. In fact, about the only way to tell the two apart is when they smile. Kaylee’s is dominated by two oversized front teeth. Flynn thinks she looks like a rabbit.
Kaylee passes a tiny slip of paper to her friend. The rabbit and Sloane are cheating.
Flynn turns her attention to the quiz. Her concentration serves the same purpose that blinders do on a Thoroughbred racehorse: distractions are blocked. She has to rack her brain on the ninth question, but then recalls a little mnemonic that jogs her memory. The first major trench lines were completed in November 1914.
She hands her paper in second, just after Hunter Aziz, whose parents immigrated from Bangladesh, and who has a good haircut, and is getting cuter by the day.
Mr. McDill accepts her quiz without a word, then continues grading Hunter’s. Flynn heads back to her desk. The whole way, she stares at Sloane, who is busy transcribing test answers. Kaylee notices, and returns Flynn’s stare: What are you looking at?
In response, Flynn frowns. The message she shoots back isn’t telepathy, if only because teenage girls have no need for words when a single look is so much more effective. Quit cheating. Bitch.
Kaylee answers Flynn’s silent command with one of her own:
Go fuck yourself.
---
Twelfth grade Honors English class.
Fergus Smith’s favorite. Most days, he tries his best to write down Mrs. Kirschbaum’s every word. He does so for two reasons: one, he loves the assigned stories, and two, he loves the girl sitting three seats to his left. Bree Campbell is the only other English student who matches Fergus’s clear-eyed intensity when it comes to taking notes.
Except today’s notes aren’t on Kirschbaum’s lecture. In fact, nothing on this page of his comp book even mentions Catcher in the Rye, which he’s already read. Twice. Instead, Fergus is brainsto
rming. He’s coming up with ideas of how to develop a friendship with a girl three seats down, a girl who doesn’t know he exits. A girl who never seems like she’s doing much, except holding the universe together.
Fergus glances at Mrs. Kirschbaum, and then back to his page of “notes.” It reads more like a business plan. Atop the page, in bold lettering, is the plan’s Objective: attend the senior prom with Bree Campbell. Next is a list of Strategies. Among these Strategies is one that will help Develop a Friendship with Bree.
Finally, under each Strategy is a specific Tactic, including these:
- Drop books in the hall, start a conversation about prom if/when she offers to help.
- Instagram a pic of a corsage, #promwithme.
- Offer to compare notes on the themes and motifs of Catcher in the Rye.
Fergus is thinking up a fourth tactic (the first quickly dismissed as cliché) while staring in Bree’s direction, when he notices someone staring back.
Unfortunately, this someone else is not Bree Campbell. Instead, it’s Nixon Trombley, a student who should be on the football team but isn’t. Plays bass guitar: kinda cool. Everything else: not so cool. If the comings and goings of the Benjamin Franklin High School senior class were catalogued on a popular TV show, the actor playing Nixon Trombley would be in his 30s.
Trombley uses two fingers and points from his own eyes—he doesn’t have to spread his fingers very far apart—to Fergus. He then points toward the front of the room: Hey, Bub. Class is up there, not over here. Nixon’s feeling a bit territorial. Everyone at Ben Franklin who keeps tabs on such things knows that Nixon, and only Nixon, is going to ask Bree to prom.
People, Fergus thinks, paraphrasing his assigned book. Always ruining things for you.
---
How can you curse at someone without opening your mouth?
Flynn now knows, and she clears her throat. Aggressively.
Kaylee aggressively ignores her, and presses forward with her campaign to a) curry favor with Sloane, and b) skew the class’s bell curve. She hands back another slip of paper while another student handing in his quiz obstructs Mr. McDill’s view.
Having finished already, it’s safe for Flynn to use her backpack. In her front pouch, she retrieves a roll of Scotch tape. She then crosses left ankle over right knee, and frees a shoelace from one of her bright blue Converse Chucks, her tongue tucked into the corner of her mouth.
Seconds later, Sloane emits a small shriek. A cheat sheet has disappeared.
Upon immediate reflection, Flynn knows Sloane’s yelp was only one part fright, and 19 parts tattle. Clever. The smoking gun for this crime, after all, now sits in Flynn’s lap. Sloane thus sees an opportunity for a double-coup: cheat the quiz, and get Flynn in trouble.
That bitch.
Mr. McDill obliges. ‘Ladies? Anything amiss back there?’
Flynn and Sloane do their level best to stare holes through one another. Each girl performs some kind of calculation about the cost-to-benefit ratio of ratting the other out. A classic Mexican standoff.
Until it’s not.
‘I think someone, like, threw a spitball, or something,’ Kaylee says through large front teeth. ‘I was just like, finishing my quiz, and something hit my desk. It was just like, disgusting.’
‘Yeah. Same here.’ Sloane offers her completed test, and turns to more important matters, like searching her hair for split ends.
Mr. McDill maneuvers from behind his desk. His eyes are sharper than his face by about 20 years. But the eyes also register a certain weariness at having to deal with crap like this for the 3,000th time. ‘Flynn, don’t shoelaces go in shoes?’
Kaylee looks at Flynn, enjoying the smell of her victory.
Meanwhile, McDill also looks at Flynn. From outward appearances, this living relic—the one who knows the origin of “an apple for a teacher”—seems to sorely miss the days of corporeal punishment.
---
A flawless oral book report nears its end.
However, a thought darts across Fergus’s mind just before he delivers the climactic line. Nixon Trombley is about to find out that not everyone is down with the assumption that Nixon, and only Nixon, will ask Bree Campbell to the prom.
He takes a breath and wraps up with these words:
‘And that’s part of the reason Salinger’s work still resonates. Teenagers are learning all about the world. And part of what they learn is that the world lies to them. Adults lie to them. So teens seek experiences, and people, that feel authentic. I hear the echoes of Holden’s longing for an authentic relationship with Jane when I come across passages in contemporary YA novels. I also hear those same echoes when my dumb sister—’
Chuckles from the class. This is good. Fergus smiles.
‘—makes me read one of her dumb comics. But then I see these very same issues explored in works like Gaiman’s Sandman, for example. A detachment from, and disenchantment with, the adult world. That the adults can’t really help. Or, as Holden himself puts it…’
Fergus looks down so he can recite the exact passage. He takes a deep breath.
‘… I’ve been making a list of things they don’t teach you in school. They don’t teach you how to love somebody. They don’t teach you how to be rich or poor. They don’t teach you how to walk away from someone you don’t love any longer. They don’t teach you how to know what’s going on in someone else's mind. They don’t teach you anything worth knowing.’
Fergus looks up while his words linger.
Bree looks back. Unless she’s just a big phony, she’s interested.
If there were a mic available to drop, he would. (Has there ever been a better reason to spend three days working on a book report?)
Mrs. Kirschbaum breaks the silence by starting a round of applause. ‘Fantastic, Fergus. Very well done.’ The English teacher retakes the lectern. ‘Great literature challenges. It inspires. It helps us meet all sorts of interesting people…’
She says more, but Fergus barely hears. He practically floats back to his desk. With a single report, Fergus Smith has become to high school English what Mozart was to music: young and brilliant and impossible to ignore.
Fergus slides into his desk. He steals a glance at Nixon, who in turn looks like he’s chewing on cat shit.
To be fair, Fergus concedes, someone chewing on actual cat shit might be an interesting person to meet.
---
The bell for fourth hour rings. Students file into the hallway.
Flynn Smith steps out a good 60 seconds after her classmates, still reading the yellow slip of paper she exchanged for the white one—the cheat sheet—now in McDill’s custody. As he filled out the canary form, her teacher expressed more than once how baffled he was. ‘This was you? You’re sure?’ he had asked. Flynn, for her part, remained tight-lipped. ‘Because it doesn’t seem like something you’d do.’
In any case, Flynn has never received a note like this, and is still reading it over when she’s stopped by Kaylee and Sloane. Teammates off the field as well as on.
‘Uh, like, you wanna explain what was the point of all that?’ Sloane asks.
Kaylee chimes in. ‘Yeah. How about we mind our own business.’
Flynn looks at each of the junior strikers, each thicker and taller than she. Flynn sets her jaw. ‘Or, how about we not cheat?’
‘What do you care if I get a decent grade? Mr. McDorkle’s tests are stupid. They’re freaking hard.’
‘And you’re trying to make her ineligible, which would affect the whole entire school,’ the rabbit-toothed Kaylee adds, spreading her arms. ‘Bitch much, Flynn?’
A small crowd has gathered, drawn by the curse word and the raised voices. So it’s Kaylee, Flynn concludes. The head of this particular snake; the one itching for a fight. She’s feeding off the attention because it’s rare. She’s used to playing second fiddle to her better-looking friend.
Flynn tucks the yellow slip of paper in her back pocket. She takes a step towa
rd Kaylee. ‘The test is supposed to be hard. So when you get an A, you know you’ve earned it,’ Flynn says, then punctuates her sentence. ‘Bitch.’
Kaylee steps back. She angles her body, left shoulder forward. If she throws down, she’ll lead with a wild right, Flynn sees. Kaylee might as well storyboard the ensuing fight sequence.
‘What did you say to me, whore?’
‘You heard me.’
On cue, Kaylee lunges at Flynn, right arm flailing.
The punch never connects. Nor is it easily countered by Flynn.
There’s no need.
Some unseen force slams into Kaylee. Carries her the width of the school hallway. With a metallic clatter, the soccer co-captain is thrown up against an open locker.
Flynn turns to the source of the unseen force.
Fergus.
He and Kaylee unpeel themselves from the locker and slide to the ground. At once, Fergus tries to help Kaylee to her feet. She’s in too much of a daze, having absorbed the brunt of Fergus’s attack.
Wait. That’s not right.
Fergus wouldn’t have attacked Kaylee.
Flynn looks to her left. Fergus indeed slammed Kaylee into the lockers. But as it happens, there’s a perfectly good explanation: he was thrown.
By Nixon Trombley.
‘How many times do I have to warn you, you little shit!’
Fergus finishes up with Kaylee. Flynn wants to tell him not to bother, but keeps it to herself. Fortunately, Kaylee’s backpack has protected both her and Fergus from the full physics of the collision.
Fergus faces his assailant, and makes an announcement Flynn knows isn’t true. ‘You don’t scare me, dickhead.’
Courageous, and also foolish. Honestly, she didn’t think her brother had it in him. It now leaves her with the same question as everyone else in the hallway: will her brother risk throwing a punch at Nixon, the Humvee disguised as a high school senior?
I, Superhero Page 9
