The Julian Game

by Adele Griffin

  “I’m not seeing that guy . . .”

  “Fine, Miss Clandestine. But I’m onto you. I’m going online.”

  “I’m taking a nap.” And I curled up on the Zawadskis’ nubby Barcalounger and closed my eyes, picking and choosing from my palette of Julian daydreams, injecting myself with them like an addict.

  Across from me on the couch, Natalya was clicking away on her laptop. Then, a pause. “Here’s randomness. I’ve been invited to a chat group. It came into my Fulton account. Do you know someone named sir@fultonschool.org?”

  “Nope.”

  “It’s to a link.” Something about the silence made me look over again. Natalya was squinting at the monitor. “Death to Nerbit, it’s called.”

  I opened my eyes and was with her in a pounce. “Let me see.”

  “Did you get one of these?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.” I rarely checked my boring Fulton e-mail on weekends. It was mostly reminders about things like jazz quartet auditions, or bake sales or sports.

  “Looks like it was sent to our whole class.”

  Natalya and I stared at the screen.

  Death to Nerbit

  (because everyone knows that nerbits are vermin)

  click Miss Fancy Ant to enter.

  “Seems kinda spooky,” Natalya said. “Maybe it’s viral. I don’t want to pick up something that destroys my hardware. Should I enter?”

  I swallowed. “I don’t know.” I kept looking confusedly at the page. It was formatted like a tea party invitation. French blue and elegant. In the top left, an old-fashioned perfume bottle. Along the bottom of the page, a cartoon ant with a pair of granny glasses perched on its face picked its way across the grassy border.

  Natalya hovered. Then clicked on the ant.

  Immediately, the atomizer squeezed. A cloud of “perfume” misted over the page. The ant coughed and flipped over on its back, antennae waving, dead eyes turned into double x’s.

  She laughed.

  The page dissolved.

  Hi Girlfriend,

  Lucky you.You’ve decided to become part of the Death to Nerbit Club. After all, we girls need to pull together so we can figure out how to survive existing in such close quarters with Fulton’s very own foul vermin spawn.

  Or maybe we should drive her out?

  Exterminate? Smush?

  So many choices.

  You might want to know a secret about Nerbit. The girl has a double life and there is nothing nerbity about it. Let’s just say our little ant is not so innocent, and leave it at that. For now.

  We will keep you informed as we update.

  Join the Movement.

  “Looks like this is the only entry.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Check for yourself.” Natalya swiveled the laptop so I could take it over. But I couldn’t. I just stared at it. “Raye, what’s wrong? You look like you saw your own ghost. Do you know what this is about?”

  “Yeah, I do.” It took a lot to keep my voice even; I could feel myself slip-sliding into a kind of childlike hysteria. “It’s about me.”

  twenty-six

  I told her everything. Every detail. Natalya listened, frog-eyed, chewing her nails, as I described how Ella and I had used Elizabeth to snare Julian. I told her about the party at Meri’s, Julian’s black eye, my apology, Ella’s midnight ultimatum phone call, the Avenue Cheese catering prank, and, finally, where I’d been last night.

  On the subject of Julian, Natalya had been surprisingly grim. “He obviously confronted Ella, and now she’s after you. It’s just too bad he never thought about how Ella would retaliate.”

  “Maybe I could get him to help me.”

  “You could try,” she said. “From what you’re telling me, it sounds like you two majorly hit it off. And he’s the one person who’d be able to scare her.”

  “Right.” Though it made me feel squirmy inside, especially considering Julian’s recent teasing me for being a nerd and an outsider. Asking him to defend me against Ella seemed pitiful. Maybe I could just take care of it myself.

  “Anyway, this’ll all die down soon,” said Natalya.

  “I hope so.”

  “It will. I’m just glad you’re not ditching me for Ella Parker. I was kind of upset for a while there. I had this crazy idea she was doing it to get back at me. She always wanted whatever I had, when we were kids.” She looked away, chomping a thumbnail.

  “Tal?” I asked. “What do I do?”

  “Okay. First of all, that link’s through Fulton’s e-mail system. So how about let’s get proactive and send Mrs. Field a note about it right now?”

  By the time I left Natalya’s house, Mrs. Field, the head of our Upper School, had already written back that she and tech support were all over it.

  What we didn’t bother to tell Mrs. Field was that the first e-mail was only a blast. Everyone had the link, and the damage was done. Now they could follow it endlessly, easily, like the Pied Piper.

  But Natalya swore this wouldn’t happen. “Ella Parker’s been picking on girls since kindergarten. And the truth is you’re fundamentally too normal to bully for long. Trust me, she doesn’t have enough ammunition.”

  “Okay, but”—I inhaled deeply—“you really need to be right about this.”

  Monday morning, I walked into Fulton unsure whether the buzz was about me or about the fact that at any moment, a dozen Mac guys would be crossing onto campus. Already girls were sticking themselves against the windows like flies on fruit.

  “They’re here,” screeched Lindy.

  Even Ella, who’d been glacially avoiding my eye, allowed herself a glance as the MacArthur newspaper staff pounded out of the school van. I recognized Henry Henry among them, his hair a wild mess, loping along in uniform-violating flip-flops.

  Julian was the next to last to get off. I didn’t know whether to be thankful or petrified that he’d shown up at all. In response to my how’d it go w/EP? text of last night, he’d sent me a cryptic answer telling me that he’d spoken with her and everything was “solid.”

  Solid was the kind of word I could easily obsess over. What did it mean? That Julian and Ella were friends? Solid as a rock? Solid gold? Solid needed a weapon, a hammer, to break it into bits. But I wasn’t going to lose my mind over this. I had to keep it together.

  So far, only the Group had made an active connection between me and Ella’s e-mail. Or so it seemed. Lindy’s smirk and Alison’s semi-snooty brow lift probably could have happened on any other day. Still, I was employing every avoidance tactic.

  Luckily, none of the Group was on the Delta staff.

  Our paper’s adviser, Jane Stalghren, was an English teacher who’d graduated Fulton six years ago. She had off-the-charts more media knowledge than MacArthur’s mentor, Mr. Barlow, who regaled us with his mean squint and geezer sideburns, and that was about it. As soon as we’d assembled, girls on one side and guys on the other, Jane took over, remembering all the visitors’ names and inviting a round table-style discussion on how to make our respective newspapers as kick-ass as possible.

  But I could only obsess on the fact that Something Was Not Right.

  Julian was like a stranger. After an exchange of hellos, he basically refused to acknowledge me in any way. He contributed almost nothing to the forum and stared zombie-like out the window the few times I spoke. Checking his watch constantly for most of the meeting, like he couldn’t wait to be out of there.

  I guessed the truth. Ella, or someone in the Group, had not only forwarded him the link, but probably filled his head with lies. What else had they told him? My worst fears were realized in a jumpy bloodrush, as if I’d eaten a five-pound sack of sugar for breakfast.

  At one point, Julian had slouched so deep in his chair that the crown of his head was lower than the seat back. His discomfort was obvious; he was enduring his time in this room with me like a prison sentence.

  When the bell rang and Jane invited the Mac guys to the cafeteria for a snack
before they went back to their campus, I saw my opportunity. I had to deal with it.

  “Julian?” I sidled up as he stood with his friend James Woo, who was The Wheel’s editor-in-chief.

  Julian’s polite, pretend surprise as he turned to me was worse than the entire preceding hour and a half. How could he look at me like that, like I was just some ditzy Jay-Kay groupie? Was this really the guy who less than forty-eight hours ago had told me he liked hanging out with me better than any girl in his own crowd?

  James seemed to get it. As he discreetly stepped aside to let us talk, I whispered, “Julian, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I—it’s just—Coach called a lax meeting now, so I can’t stay.” Another check on the watch. “Whoa, and I’m late. I better move.” He made me feel like I was stalking him as I followed him into the hall. “I’ll catch up with you later. Promise.”

  “Does this have anything to do with Ella?”

  “Ella Parker? No.”

  “Because she’s done something awful. I should have told you about it last night. She’s gone online and she’s spreading these insane, outrageous stories about me . . .” But the subtle freeze in his face held me off from saying more.

  “Look, I really can’t talk now. Sorry.”

  “Jule-ee-ann!” At the sound of Alison’s blade-saw voice, Julian’s charm snapped on with his smile.

  “Ali-cat, howzit?”

  “We need to chat the deets for next Saturday. We’re thinking downtown at Fluent, but everyone’s meeting at Limon’s house first.”

  “Tell me as you walk me out.” With a final, excruciating smile for me. “See ya, Raye.”

  Alison tucked into Julian’s arm at the elbow like they were starting up a square dance. Julian didn’t look back.

  “Raye from the Clue party?”

  I turned. Henry Henry must have sacked the cafeteria and plundered at least half a dozen bagels, which he’d stuffed in his blazer pockets. Part of one stuck like a fishhook in his mouth. “The what?”

  “Night at the Mansion. We were in the billiard room with the goblets of red wine, as I recall.”

  “Oh. Right.” I nodded, getting it. My eyes gave up on the last square inch of Julian as he vanished around the corner. I turned back. “Except the crime was actually in the pantry with Mark Calvillo’s right hook.”

  “True, true.” Henry swallowed the rest of his bagel. Painfully. I pointed out the water fountain at the end of the hall. We walked over, and then I waited out his long drink from it. “You ever see Papillion?” he asked when he was through, twisting his shoulder to wipe his mouth. His straw hair was stuck up in defiant angles on his head like a punk hedgehog. But he definitely had a sneaks-up-on-you-type cuteness. “With Steve McQueen?”

  I shook my head.

  Henry broke another bagel in two. “I was at Jules’s house when you two were online dissecting The Magnificent Seven. I was supplying his best points.”

  “No way.” And here I’d thought Julian’s flashes of brilliance had been all his own.

  “Any rate, see Papillion. It’s McQueen’s golden performance, hands down.”

  “Okay.”

  Henry looked at me. “I know, I know. I’m utterly divine, with a pinch of the unpredictable. That’s what you were thinking, yes?”

  “Well . . .” He’d put a smile on my face. If only my mind weren’t in such a scramble. “Not sure yet,” I told him.

  “Good enough.” He must have sensed my distraction. “Awright. Move along, old sot. Is what you’re thinking now?”

  “Not exactly . . . I’m sorry, I’ve got to be somewhere.”

  “Exactly. Me, too. Back to lockdown. Cheers.” And he peeled off, his loot-weighted blazer flapping out heavily on the sides like a duck.

  Alone, I checked the halls and library in search of Natalya. When I couldn’t find her, I went to the media center to sneak-check my phone messages.

  “There you are.”

  “What is it?” From the look on her face, not good.

  “Did you see the new post from Ella?”

  “No.” My heart quickened. “I haven’t checked the link since this morning.”

  She leaned past to swivel the monitor and log on to her school account. “Stay calm. You won’t be happy.”

  “But Ella’s got nothing on me. She can make up whatever psycho things she wants, but it’s not like . . .”

  My words died. The picture told different.

  There I was. Pouting, glossy lips and synthetic blue wig and Ella’s camisole the color of my skin. It might as well have been my skin. I was basically naked since the light had illuminated me from behind, silhouetting the outline of my body through the silk.

  I didn’t have the kind of breasts that inspired slang—knockers-type breasts—but I had enough going on to make that picture mean something. I had enough that my hand reached out and instinctively covered the monitor to shield me.

  This was the raunchiest shot. The one, as I recalled, that had sent Ella into snorts of laughter—“Ooh! Let’s send this one to him, he’ll be up all night!”

  “No, delete that,” I’d told her, and she’d agreed.

  Except that she hadn’t, because here it was.

  I pressed my thighs against the table to hold myself upright. The weird thing about this moment was that even as it was melting down on me, I knew it was changing me in ways I couldn’t fully grasp, and that I’d never really be the same anymore. It was too big, too public, too catastrophic.

  Dear Nerbit Haters,

  Check out everyone’s favorite Friday Night Special, Miss Lonely Heart herself. Our sources had no idea what was in store for us when we visited La Nerb for help with homework one evening.

  Or should we say ho-work? Imagine our faces when she put away her books and then “rewarded” us with her hot slut act. It’s shocking what certain types of losers will do to get attention.

  Desperado, mucho? But it got us thinking: Class Contest!

  Sooo send us your best Nerb story and we’ll post it. Special points for any tale where Lonely Heart gives us her best:1. Showing off

  2. Sucking up

  3. Retard speed walk Ciao, Everybody! “I’m going to be sick.”

  Natalya quickly logged off. “It doesn’t seem as bad, looking at it the second time around. The shock’s the thing. I mean, it’s nothing anyone hasn’t seen before, right? There are boobs everywhere in the world. On TV and movies, and in real life. Most kids have seen it all.”

  Naked actors on television were different. Julian and me alone in his den on Saturday night—that was different, too. “But this is against my will. And now that it’s here, it’s here forever. In fifty years, my own grandchildren will be able to pull up this picture.” Though I could hardly process anything past the horror of this moment.

  “Look, I get it. Sucks is an understatement.” Natalya laughed nervously. “You’ve got to remember, though, that Ella’s extreme bitchery is no secret here. But you’re going to need to be strong, Raye,” she continued more gently, with a hand on my shoulder as if to click me into alignment. “Because I think Ella’s enjoying herself with this one.”

  twenty-seven

  This girl has freaked me out since Day One. Always thought there was something Way Off about her. Now we know!

  Anyone else think Nerbit’s nipples look huge?

  Her boobs are def. lopsided.

  My mom tried to return a sweater from her Daddy’s stinktique and he wouldn’t let her & she pitched it in the garbage out front . . . that shop blows.

  Her left boob is bigger.

  SHE WALKS LIKE SHE IS WEARING A DIAPER.

  Ever notice how Nerbit eats a pickle every single day? Sexually frustrated!

  No it’s just her left boobie is going off to the side more. Her boobies aren’t bad which is why she is showing them off.

  She sits in front of me & scratches her head & picks at her scalp every friggin’ minute. howzabout some dandruff shampoo?

&
nbsp; Are her lips real or filler?

  My brother thinks she’s hot, but he’s a butthead.

  I hated reading them and I couldn’t stop reading them. Checking the link like a bad habit for the first two nights. On the third night, when I thought things had died down, Ella refreshed interest by posting the first picture she ever took of me, dorky and sweaty and startled in my Hooter the Owl shirt. Not a big deal, really, but it kept them going until she stuck up a couple more from my “photo session.” They were both full-frontal and the camisole held less light, but my expression was horrifying, a cross between a cartoon duck and a Playboy pinup.

  big surpize—commented someone who’d named herself “nichole66.”

  nerbs looking for her closeup added “princesskate.”

  The Group led the game, but other girls were starting to play, too. I was becoming infamous. By day, I ignored the stare-downs in the cafeteria. I kicked away the bottle of dandruff shampoo left outside my locker. I batted off the handful of plastic ants planted on my chair.

  By night, I rehashed the day by reading all the comments that mocked the way I walked and talked and wore my hair, and how I supposedly hooked up with hundreds of guys and whether or not my breasts were good, bad or possibly deformed.

  Friday, they’d thought up some new fun. If any teacher spoke my name, someone had to cough one of my nicknames right after. Toward afternoon, I just stopped raising my hand and kept my head down.

  “Faulkner coughed eleven times during afternoon Chem lab, and by free study, when Mr. Davis took my name, at least twenty percent of the room coughed,” I told Natalya as we sat on the back wall, waiting for the bus to her house for the weekend. “Is name-coughing really that funny?”

  “It is if you’re bored in Chem lab and free study,” Natalya answered. “Let it roll. You’ll get through it. The physical self is stronger than you might guess.”

  Sometimes Natalya really did sound like her Syfy idol, Mr. Spock. But I was glad to be at her place for the whole entire weekend, where we’d decided to complete the entire Midnight Planet marathon—even though she’d seen it already.