League of Strays

by Schulman, L. B.

  Zoe snatched it out of Nora’s hand. “That’s a six-dollar drugstore special. Here, try this.” She handed Nora a skinny, square bottle. “It’s the only one I’ll touch.”

  Nora took a hearty swig. She reminded me of a fault line, shifting and straining all the time. “My favorite part was seeing Harper on his knees, begging Lawrence not to beat him to a pulp,” she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

  I sensed Zoe’s eyes on me. I knew I was being too quiet, but images of Harper cowering on the cement kept playing through my head. Zoe leaned across Nora and offered the bottle to me. Was this a test? I raised it to my lips and swallowed. My eyes watered as the liquid burned a trail down my throat.

  Zoe slapped me on the back. “Want some water?”

  Kade scooped my foot into his lap. All my brainpower sunk into the pinkie toe he was massaging.

  “This is where you hold your tension,” he said.

  “That tickles!” I giggled, drawing my feet under me.

  He moved closer. “Hmm. This could be fun.”

  “Get a room,” Nora snapped.

  I looked to Kade for my defense, but he was lost in thought, stroking the stubble above his lip.

  I’M A PASSENGER IN A HELICOPTER, AND WE’RE FLYING over the rain forest. Kade, the pilot, throws me an easy smile over his shoulder.

  All of a sudden, the craft lurches. Kade adjusts the controls, correcting the trajectory.

  “Poor Charlie. You have a problem with trust,” he says as we soar above the treetops.

  But then the chopper plunges into a downward spiral. I look at Kade. He doesn’t seem at all concerned that we’re about to crash. His gaze remains fixed on the windshield.

  “Do you even know how to fly this thing?” I yell above the dying groans of the engine.

  I look out the window and see the earth getting closer. I squeeze my eyes shut, seconds before the helicopter slams into the ground and splinters into hundreds of pieces.

  • • •

  I woke with a start, terror pulsing through my body. It’s not real, I told myself. Just a dream. Just a dream. Just a dream. I repeated the words until I fell asleep again.

  “Do you suffer from blemish overload?” inquired a squeaky-voiced teen. “Do pimples get in the way of your good times? Then zap those zits with—”

  I fumbled for the cord to my radio alarm clock, yanking it from the wall.

  The next thing I knew, Mom was tapping me on the back. “Charlotte, it’s almost seven!”

  The details of last night slammed into me with alarming clarity, officially waking me up. “I’m sick,” I told her. My eyelashes felt stuck together.

  She laid her cool hand across my forehead. “Not even warm. Get up.”

  “Haven’t you heard of a mental-health day?”

  “No. What’s that?”

  “It’s when kids need a break from school to gather strength so they can make it through senior year.”

  She smiled. “You can’t run from your problems, sweetheart.”

  Running? Who was running? I was jogging in place.

  My conversation with Mom made me fifteen minutes late for class—my third tardy in two weeks. At least I had a note from home, saving me from detention. The hallways were empty, so I slowed down and took the long way to class.

  I tensed when I saw Nora’s PE teacher by the door of the teachers’ lounge, gripping a thick white mug with permanent coffee stains. Mascara tears rolled down her face and dripped onto the collar of her cream blouse. I froze, paralyzed by the sight. I’d never seen a teacher cry before. It seemed so … out of place.

  Mrs. Wilkerson, the art teacher, stood beside Madame Detroit. I ducked into the girls’ bathroom and cupped my ear to the swinging door.

  “I was only going to be a substitute until Marsha recovered.” Madame’s accent was faint, hardly noticeable. Unlike Nora’s impersonation.

  “I have to admit, Pauline, I’m worried. What message will it send?”

  “I tried to deal with it. But I can’t imagine who would hate me enough to do this,” she said. “These are angry kids. I can’t help but wonder what they’ll do next. All I know is I don’t want to be around to find out.”

  “The police think it’s a senior prank,” Wilkerson said.

  I let out my breath. Finally, someone got it.

  “I suppose Tutti’s some kind of joke, too?”

  Tutti? What was she talking about? My orchestra teacher, still recovering from her breakdown, hadn’t returned to school yet.

  “I know it’s—” Wilkerson’s voice faded.

  I nudged the door open and leaned closer. Without warning, it swung inward, smacking me in the face. I stepped back, stunned. Samantha Hawkins glanced at me with mild curiosity and headed for a stall. Over the sound of peeing, she called out, “There are easier ways to get a new nose.”

  I pushed the door open and sped past the teachers, holding my sore nose. I could feel their eyes on my back. Lucky for me, I’d shown zero talent in introduction to charcoal drawing last semester. My name wouldn’t survive Wilkerson’s short-term memory.

  During the break between third and fourth period, I slipped notes into my fellow League members’ lockers, asking them to meet me in a music practice room after school. With its soundproof walls and thick curtains, it was the perfect place to hold an emergency meeting.

  Kade was the last to arrive, Richie in tow. “I hope this is important,” he said, pulling the already-drawn curtain a quarter inch to the left. He shrugged off his backpack. It dropped to the floor like a lead weight.

  I looked at him, taken aback by his attitude.

  Richie sent me an apologetic glance. “Reid was following us again, but we lost him in the crowd.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. I remembered what Richie had said about how Mr. Reid watched them sometimes. But following them around was a lot creepier.

  “Does he know something about … ?” Nora glanced at the closed curtain but lowered her voice, anyway. “Well, you know. Us.”

  “Nah, this is nothing new. He’s been stalking Richie and me for a long time. Before the League,” Kade said.

  Richie dropped his chin to his chest. “He hates me. Kade says he won’t let up until I leave the school … or graduate, if I last that long.”

  “If you go, I go. We’re a unit,” Kade said. Richie looked up, a smile spreading across his face.

  “Why is he following you? Because of the drug thing?” I asked. I still couldn’t see why Mr. Reid would care one way or the other about Richie’s private life.

  “I told you, he’s a homophobic bastard,” Kade erupted. “Anyway, I don’t want to talk about that asshole. What’s up, Charlie? Why are we here? I’m the one who calls the League meetings.”

  I lowered my head like a wounded puppy. “Madame’s quitting,” I whispered.

  Nora let out a victorious whoop, which, thankfully, was swallowed by the acoustic foam tiles. Was I the only one who felt guilty that Kennedy High was losing a teacher?

  As Kade looked at me, the bearer of good news, a genuine smile replaced the frown that had been etched into his face a moment earlier. “Well, I guess that’s a good enough reason, Charlie.”

  I was glad I had a sweater on, because it covered up the goose bumps that sprung into action when he directed his topaz eyes in my direction.

  “What’s with you?” Zoe whispered in my ear. “Your neck is all red.”

  “Um, allergic to cafeteria food,” I mumbled.

  Zoe started to tell a joke she’d heard, but I phased out, my thoughts returning to Madame. Why didn’t it bother them? We’d done more than send a message; we’d made a teacher quit. And she was leaving because she was afraid. Afraid of us.

  Richie laughed at the punch line. I did, too, but only because Kade’s eyes were like radar, scanning the horizon for blips on the screen.

  “I’ve got a better one.” Richie turned to Kade. “You tell it. The Adam and Eve joke.”
/>   Kade laughed. “You know how it goes.”

  “No one tells it like you,” Richie said.

  They shared an unreadable look, then Kade glanced away. A second later, he looked back, holding Richie’s gaze. Richie blinked and lowered his eyes. It was disconcerting, their exchange. Something I couldn’t, or didn’t want, to define. I checked Richie’s ears. Sure enough, they were red.

  “Oh, wait, I think I know that one,” Nora shrieked. “Let me tell it!”

  Kade waved Nora on. She rewound the joke to get it right. Kade leaned back in his chair, observing us with pride as if we were everything he’d ever hoped for. His royal court.

  “You feeling OK, Charlotte?” Richie asked.

  I nodded, thinking about my AP history class last semester when Mr. Rickman read a quote aloud from the first Inaugural Address of Franklin D. Roosevelt, thirty-second president of the United States: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

  “Sure,” I told them. “Everything’s great.”

  TIFFANY MILLER’S NEWEST BOYFRIEND, A SCRAGGLY HAIRED foreign-exchange student from Paris, pressed her to the cafeteria wall, devouring her with a gaping, hungry mouth. Every few seconds, Tiffany stepped back to get some air. Of course, the public act of lust was for the benefit of the student body. Tiffany was the Most Desired Female at Kennedy, and everyone had to know it. I hoped she’d faint from oxygen deprivation.

  I spotted Zoe, sitting alone at a table by the arched entrance to the cafeteria. She also watched Tiffany, who made a halfhearted attempt to slip out of her boyfriend’s grip. The struggle seemed to turn him on more. Free at last, Tiffany glided through the cafeteria like a bride at a reception, garnering more votes for prom queen.

  Zoe caught my eye. She strutted to the snack line, imitating Tiffany’s Barbizon-graduate walk. It looked like she was modeling the latest in Third Infantry Division wear. I laughed into my napkin.

  When lunch was over, I followed Tiffany and Monsieur Paris as they stumbled down the hall, occasionally veering to the side to let people pass. I turned toward the locker beside me and pretended it was mine. It didn’t matter, though; they didn’t know I was alive. Monsieur Paris’s hand swept under Tiffany’s shirt, and she tossed her head back, laughing.

  With a seductive smile, he strutted off. Tiffany waited for him to turn a corner, then walked past me into her classroom. A few years ago, she would’ve elbowed me as she passed by, but now I’d turned invisible. I could live with that.

  I stood there, thinking of Kade—imagining his lips, a velvet softness, seeking mine …

  “Miss Brody? The bell is for class. Not naptime.” My calculus teacher, Mr. Furino, stood in front of me, wearing his lunch-time workout gear. I clutched my backpack to my stomach and moved past him.

  A crash of something hard against metal snapped me out of my lust-induced daze.

  “What’s going on?” asked Jill Bengley from behind me.

  “Morris is getting the crap beaten out of him,” someone answered.

  Another voice said, “It was only a matter of time before he got his butt kicked.”

  A book slid out of my arms. I didn’t bother to pick it up. I tore around the corner, crashing into kids.

  Beside the stairs, Richie was crumpled on the floor, his shoulders trembling with quiet sobs. Blood trickled down his chin.

  Dave Harper stood over him. “I know you’re behind this. You were at the post office, weren’t you? I know I heard someone back there.” He bent down, giving Richie a magnified view of his arm cast. “Doc says no sports for months. How about I break both your legs as payback?”

  Richie closed his eyes.

  “Lost your voice, homo? Whatcha think?” Dave gave him a shove with his uninjured arm. Richie rolled onto his side, retracting his legs to his chest like a turtle without a shell.

  I couldn’t stand it any longer. I’d only taken one step when someone grabbed my shirt and yanked me back. I jerked around, fists clenched.

  Kade’s eyes were slits. “It’s under control, Charlie.”

  His grip on my wrist was so tight that the slightest movement hurt. I glanced at Richie, helpless. “But we can’t just let him—”

  Kade’s other hand clamped over my mouth. I had a sudden urge to sink my teeth into his palm. How could he stand by and let his best friend get pummeled? What was wrong with him?

  “Get the hell out of my way!” cried a familiar voice.

  Zoe barreled through the crowd, pushing people to the side like bowling pins. I waited for Kade to charge her, but he stayed still and slowly lowered his hand from my mouth.

  Zoe wedged herself between Dave and Richie. “Get away from him!” she cried.

  Dave grinned. “Oh, look at this, a girl’s come to your defense.”

  I couldn’t stand there and watch Zoe get slammed. I shook my arm free of Kade’s grip and lunged forward, but he snagged my shirt again and reeled me back.

  “Stop it,” I said. “They need us!”

  “Back off!” Zoe cried, giving Dave a shove. She kneeled down.

  “Who the hell are you?” Dave asked.

  “His girlfriend, that’s who.”

  That’s when I got it: this was a performance, written and directed by Kade Harlin.

  Zoe twirled her fingers through Richie’s hair. “Are you OK, baby?”

  Dave shook his head and laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding. Gay boy has a girlfriend? Yeah, whatever.”

  “I don’t care what you believe, douchebag.” Zoe jumped to her feet, her nose an inch from Dave’s.

  “You want to tell me where lover boy was Monday night?” His voice was as hard as the fist by his side.

  “Which Monday?” Zoe asked innocently.

  “Four days ago,” Dave said. He looked down at Richie. “I think you know which Monday, loser.”

  “That’s an easy one. He was at my house.” She lifted her T-shirt, which read SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, and leaned over to wipe a spot of blood off Richie’s chin. Everyone gawked at her black lace bra. “All night,” she added.

  Zoe leaned down to kiss Richie on the mouth, then stood up and turned on the heel of her boot.

  Dave slipped into the crowd.

  Zoe reached behind her back for Richie’s hand and dragged him down the hallway behind her.

  The show was over. Everyone scattered to class. All except Kade. I counted the stains on the frayed tan carpet.

  “Richie’s my best friend,” Kade said. “You think I was going to let him get the crap beaten out of him? I knew this would happen, Charlotte. I had a plan.”

  Not Charlie. Charlotte.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, rubbing the dull throb in my wrist.

  Slowly, like the sun climbing above the horizon, he smiled. The whiteness of his teeth brightened the dimly lit hallway.

  “Forgiven,” he said, caressing the tip of my chin.

  RICHIE, ZOE, AND I CAUGHT UP WITH EACH OTHER THREE blocks from school.

  “How are you doing?” I asked him.

  He tried to smile, despite a lip that was double in size. “Never better.”

  Zoe raised her right hand. “So, Morris, you promise to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?”

  “Scout’s honor,” he said. “Never mind. Scratch that, the scouts hate gays.”

  “Did you feel anything when I kissed you this afternoon? Even the tiniest anything?”

  Richie scratched his head. “Uh, you mean like fireworks?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

  “It was as exciting as … flossing a piece of spinach from my teeth.”

  Zoe swung a notebook at him. It made contact with his hip, and he flinched. “I bet I did wonders for your image,” she said.

  “I don’t care what anyone thinks of me!” he bristled.

  Zoe stuck her tongue out at his mini-outburst. “Just joking, my friend.”

  Personally, I was relieved to catch a glimpse of his backbone. Richie muttered an apology and bent down to tie
shoelaces that were already double-knotted.

  Zoe shook her head dramatically. “Richie Morris, I hereby declare that you’re undeniably, irreversibly …”

  “Contentedly …,” I added.

  “Gay!” we said together, cracking up.

  We fell onto the damp, semi-frozen grass next to the sidewalk. I wrapped my scarf around my mouth, closed my eyes, and tried to soak in the weak rays of sunlight.

  “Yo, Morris!”

  My eyes flew open. Dave Harper loomed over us. I searched the street for Kade, willing him to pop up from behind a parked car. I’d come to believe that he was always around, somewhere. Contrary to my theory, he didn’t surface.

  I could throw myself at Dave’s leg, I thought; that might buy time for Richie to run away. Then again, if a 250-pound defensive lineman couldn’t stop the school quarterback, what prayer did I have?

  “For the record, I don’t get you, Morris,” Dave said. “But I guess I misread you. So I’m apologizing, OK?”

  He glanced at Zoe, his eyes drifting down.

  “The right boob accepts your apology,” Zoe said. “But the left one thinks you’re an asshole.”

  Dave aimed his keys at an emerald green convertible parked down the street. It chirped twice. “Well, I’ve got business to do. No one’s going to mess with me and get away with it.”

  He strode to his car, and with a screechy U-turn, sped away.

  Zoe bowed. “Hear ye! Hear ye! The great Dave Harper has apologized. Sort of. Not for trying to kick your ass or anything, just for thinking you were—gasp—gay. Let’s go find Kade. He won’t believe this!”

  Richie tensed. “No! Don’t tell him.”

  Zoe pursed her lips but didn’t say anything.

  “Why? Dave thinks you’re not involved,” I said. “That should make Kade happy.”

  Richie rose to his feet, peeling a strand of wet grass off his pants. “I’ll call him later. He doesn’t want anyone to see us together. Not ever.”

  He swung his backpack onto his shoulders, gave a closed-mouthed smile, and walked away.

  COLLEGE ADMISSIONS WERE ROLLING IN NOW, AND HOMEwork had slowed to a crawl. The teachers probably assumed the seniors wouldn’t do the work, anyway. Suddenly, I had a lot more time on my hands. Time to think. Time to worry.