Dweeb

by Aaron Starmer

  “Good morning, Ho-Ho-Kus Junior High. I trust everyone is having a lovely start to the day. It has been brought to my attention that there was a disturbance this morning in the east wing. Nothing to worry about, children. Everything is under control. But in lieu of our first-period classes, we are going to start our pep rally a little early. Cheerleaders, please assemble in the locker room. Band members, in the gymnasium. Everyone else, report to homeroom, and your teachers will lead you from there. Failure to report to the pep rally is … a failure. That is all.”

  Snodgrass placed the microphone down and stalked around his office, looking for his chair. “Where is it, Xerx?” he said.

  Wendell could still hear the slobbers and snorts at the bottom of the door. He prayed that someone had heard his distress call.

  “You don’t want that water, Xerx,” Snodgrass said. “Let’s get rid of it.”

  Snodgrass approached the closet door and grabbed the handle.

  “Hey, Snod-nose!” came the sound of a familiar voice.

  Snodgrass swung around. “Mr. Green,” he said with a sneer. “To what do I owe the honor?”

  Wendell peered through the crack to see Eddie standing in the doorway. He was dressed in nothing but white underwear.

  “I’m just showing that I don’t hold grudges,” Eddie said with a smile. And even though he was talking to Snodgrass, Wendell was pretty sure the words were really addressed to him.

  “Isn’t that nice,” Snodgrass said, stepping toward Eddie. “Glad to see you back upstairs. Though I don’t think your attire is exactly up to our dress code.”

  “We both know I’ve never been up to code,” Eddie said.

  “Xerxes,” Snodgrass said softly. “Would you please do something painful to that boy.”

  Claws clacked across the floor, there was a low growl, and a dark shadow moved away from the closet.

  Wendell smiled to himself. He had always thought of Eddie as brazen and reckless. His recklessness had now saved Wendell. It was also keeping the plan on track.

  “And they’re off,” Eddie said, standing in a runner’s stance. And then he was off. Wendell could hear Snodgrass and Xerxes bolting out after him and shutting the door behind them.

  Wendell lifted his microphone up. “Thank you, Eddie.”

  “No. Thank you,” Eddie panted back. “Now finish the job.”

  Wendell hurried to the computer. His final task was to establish a link between the AV room and the projector in the gym. The rest would be up to Bijay and Elijah. Wendell only hoped they were okay.

  First, he had to work at extricating himself from the seat. His butt was still lodged between the two arms, and it would take a significant amount of wiggling to remedy the situation.

  As he was trying to use the wall to pry the chair off, there came a knock on the door. He paused. Snodgrass wouldn’t knock, would he?

  “Hello,” Wendell said cautiously.

  “Wen?”

  He knew the voice. In a flash, he was rolling in the chair across the room, his legs scrambling like crab claws.

  When he opened the door, it was like opening the gateway to his dreams. Because there she stood, gorgeous and graceful, her face full of empathy.

  “Oh, Wen,” Nurse Bloom said. “We gotta get you outta here.”

  Chapter 24

  EDDIE

  Eddie had been going for a few minutes, leading Xerxes in circles and curlicues and trying to ignore the strange feeling in his ankle. But it was getting worse.

  As he rounded yet another corner, the numbness shifted and the ankle began to throb. The juice of adrenaline was wearing off. His leg buckled.

  Eddie had never been injured, at least not seriously, but now his ankle was swelling up. Crashing through a ceiling onto a hard tile floor can do that. His pace slowed. On the wall behind him, there was a giant shadow that looked like a lion, or maybe a gargoyle.

  A snarling, gurgling sound accompanied the shadow. It was getting louder by the second.

  The pain radiated up Eddie’s leg into his back until his leg quit completely, and he collapsed onto the floor.

  He had to keep moving. Eddie dragged himself along with his hands like an injured soldier from a battlefield. He watched as the shadow grew even bigger.

  Then he finally saw it: Xerxes.

  The shadow was deceptive, to say the least. Xerxes wasn’t much bigger than a loaf of bread. And more than half his weight was concentrated in his round, snub-nosed head.

  His shriveled back legs were bound together and held off the ground in a sling. A pair of wheels extended from his hindquarters, as if he were a Roman chariot. Xerxes galloped down the hall toward Eddie, kicking off from his front legs and riding the momentum on the two squeaky wheels.

  If this was a dog, it was the ugliest dog Eddie had ever seen. It was a saliva-slinging, mutant bobblehead on wheels. And within seconds, it was launching itself onto him.

  He quickly stuffed his microphone and earpiece into the waistband of his underwear, rolled over, and used his hands to protect his face from Xerxes’ assault. It consisted of the beast gnawing on Eddie’s neck and making strange guttural noises, a gurgling robble, robble, robble.

  Snodgrass rounded the corner, striding with confidence. He clasped his hands together in delight.

  “Oh, Xerx.” He laughed. “You caught your first delinquent!”

  “Get him off me!” Eddie cried, less concerned about the damage Xerxes was inflicting than the embarrassment of being caught by a dog on wheels.

  As Snodgrass drew closer, he said, “Oh, Mr. Green. This must be so disappointing for you. You must have thought you were so clever.”

  “Cleverer than this little monster,” Eddie said.

  “Xerxes? Why, he’s a prize Chuggle. Part Chihuahua, part pug, part poodle. Superior breeding.”

  Snodgrass was soon standing over Eddie. He bent over and scooped Xerxes up in one arm. He kissed him lovingly on the cheek, though the dog kept wiggling and slobbering.

  “Attaboy, Xerx,” he said.

  “You’ve got me,” Eddie said defiantly as he rolled over. “So what?”

  “I’ve got you,” Snodgrass hissed. “But I’m far from done with you.”

  With one hand on the back of Eddie’s neck, Snodgrass guided him down the steps to the room. There was no telling how this would play out. In a moment, they’d be face to face with McKenzie and Denton, and the plan would be officially exposed.

  Snodgrass gave Eddie a shove. “Move it,” he said.

  Eddie limped his way down through the darkness. When they reached the landing, there was nobody there.

  “Where’s McKenzie?” Snodgrass said.

  Eddie had no answer. Eddie’s job was to distract Snodgrass, while Denton’s job was to distract McKenzie. Maybe the plan was completely falling apart. Eddie only hoped that Elijah and Bijay were finding more success.

  As he punched the code into the door, Snodgrass muttered, “It doesn’t matter where he is, this will all be over soon.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” Snodgrass said, opening the door, “you, him, none of this will be much use to me after tomorrow.”

  “Because of the Idaho Tests?” Eddie asked. “Everyone will ace ’em and you’ll be made superintendent? That’s the plan, right?”

  “The plan, Mr. Green,” Snodgrass said with a laugh, “is not nearly that stupid.”

  He flicked the lights on as he poked his head through the door. Sheets hung haphazardly from pipes attached to the ceiling. Fake heads made out of papier-mâché poked out from beneath blankets on the bunks. The debate-club recording continued its drone.

  In the dark, the setup might have fooled McKenzie. In the light, it was fooling no one. Snodgrass pushed Eddie inside.

  “Owww,” he groaned, his ankle throbbing. In any other situation, he would have been making a run for it. The pain was just too much, though.

  “Get over it,” Snodgrass said, stepping inside. He eased Xerxe
s to the floor, and the dog immediately went into hound mode, sniffing around the room.

  Snodgrass walked over to the bunks and started pulling all the sheets and blankets away, sending the fake bodies tumbling to the floor.

  “Pathetic little charade.” Snodgrass tossed a sheet to Eddie. “Cover yourself, Green. You’re an embarrassment.”

  Eddie begrudgingly obliged, wrapping the sheet around his body like a toga. Xerxes tugged at the corner of it.

  “So, where are the rest of the dweebs?” Snodgrass said.

  “Beats me.”

  “Doesn’t really worry me,” Snodgrass said as he tied two thin blankets together. “We’ll wrangle them up.”

  “Who? You and your genius army?”

  “The students, you mean?” Snodgrass chuckled. “Remarkable, aren’t they? Fact is, I’m almost finished with them as well. You think this is all about a silly test, don’t you?”

  “It isn’t?” Eddie rolled his eyes. Snodgrass had to be lying. If it wasn’t about the test, then what could it be about?

  “The test is just the last thing to put on my resume,” Snodgrass explained as he tied the end of one of the blankets into a lasso. “You really believe I want to be dealing with zit-faced losers the rest of my life? A bigger future awaits a man who can control the masses. I’ve been fielding offers.”

  “From who?” Eddie was starting to feel out of his league. He couldn’t picture Snodgrass as anything but a vice principal. Then again, he didn’t really know how adults thought.

  “Whoever pays,” Snodgrass answered. “Corporations. Governments. Bring on the highest bidder.”

  Then Snodgrass twirled his blanket-lasso in the air and tossed it over Eddie’s head. It fell around his body and landed on the floor at his feet.

  “Uh …,” Eddie said.

  The next things happened in such quick succession that Eddie could do nothing to stop them.

  Snodgrass threw the other end of the lasso over a pipe and gave it a yank. The hoop of the lasso tightened around Eddie’s ankles. Then Snodgrass put all his weight into it, slamming Eddie into the floor. Like a captain hoisting a sail, Snodgrass hoisted Eddie in his snare.

  Three seconds later, Eddie was hanging helplessly upside down.

  “And the race is over.” Snodgrass laughed. “Look at ’im, Xerx. Strung up like a rabbit.”

  Eddie swayed gently back and forth, his ankle throbbing and blood rushing into his head while the ceiling seemed to rumble above them.

  Chapter 25

  ELIJAH

  “…Cheerleaders, please assemble in the locker room. Band members, in the gymnasium. Everyone else, report to homeroom, and your homeroom teachers will lead you from there. Failure to report to the pep rally is … a failure. That is all.”

  Snodgrass’s voice filled the dark locker room, sending Elijah to his feet. Suddenly it was his moment to act. Tyler was gone.

  After a few minutes, Elijah heard high-pitched chatter in the hall. It seemed as though it was getting closer. He didn’t care who it was. Instinctively, he hurried to the wall and started yanking at the locker doors. When he finally found one that wasn’t locked, he threw it open and squeezed inside.

  “By my calculations, we will have at least one thousand two hundred fifty-six people in the gymnasium,” a girl said.

  “Our cheers should be at least one hundred decibels, then. For optimum effect,” another girl replied.

  Through slits in the locker door, he saw the room fill up with green and blue, the school’s official colors.

  “Come on, ladies, line it up and look sharp!” someone said loudly. “A flawless performance will mean a flawless future.”

  They fell into two lines with ease.

  “Ten minutes! Concentrate! Focus!” It was Karen Esposito calling the shots. Elijah could just see her face, as stern a face as he had ever seen.

  The girls quieted down. No one said a word. For nearly ten minutes, they didn’t do a thing.

  Finally, the sound of an air horn leaked into the locker room from the gym.

  “That’s us, ladies!” Karen yelled. “Let’s move! Let’s motivate! Let’s do this!”

  They began their march out of the locker room. As soon as the last two girls were almost out of view, Elijah opened up the locker and quietly hurried after them.

  The gymnasium was bursting at the seams. Students and teachers sat shoulder to shoulder on the bleachers, but everyone was calm and spoke in controlled whispers.

  Elijah could see the school band on the bottom row. Their uniforms had been modified—the sleeves removed and the shoulders heightened and trimmed to sharp points. They resembled a punk-rock army created by a corporation. Which is to say, they weren’t punk rock at all. Everything controversial about them was manufactured.

  The lights went out, and everyone stopped talking. The band took it as their cue.

  The bass drum thumped, slowly at first, then gradually faster until it sounded like a heartbeat. The band members began pumping their fists; the crowd followed suit. Then the trombones kicked in, playing a frenzied fight song.

  A strobe light started flickering and the band swung into full gear. Horns were blaring. A guitar screamed. Kids were ripping into the percussion.

  Elijah watched over the shoulders of the other cheerleaders, from the darkness on the edge of the locker room. No one noticed he was behind them.

  Karen, standing at the front of the two lines, held up her hand and began counting down on her fingers. When she reached one, she stepped into the flashing lights of the gym. The other girls followed at her heels.

  As the music slipped into a sultry beat, they sashayed to the middle of the gym, where the strobe light made them look like machines. Elijah followed a few steps behind.

  With his awkward stride and his short dark hair tied into tiny pigtails, he was certainly the black sheep of the bunch. No surprise, really. It was the first time Elijah had ever held pom-poms, or worn a skirt, or stood in the middle of a gym in front of his entire school pretending to be a girl.

  “A … B … A, B, C, D, A … B … A, B, C, D, A!” the cheerleaders chanted, punctuating each letter with perfectly executed kicks and pom-pom pumps.

  It was impossible for Elijah to keep up. He gave it his best shot, but he felt like a dancing bear—a beastly, clumsy center of attention.

  The crowd was taking notice, and rather than laughing, they were pointing and whispering. They seemed annoyed that someone was tainting a perfectly good pep rally. Elijah could feel their angry gaze, and he knew he had to just go for it.

  “This … is … a … test,” Karen chanted into a megaphone, “but it’s not only a test!”

  “Not only a test!” the other cheerleaders echoed.

  “This … is … a … test… but it’s not only a test!”

  “Not only a test!”

  Elijah sidled his way over to Karen. As she turned her back, he made his move, snatching the megaphone from her hand.

  She froze. The other cheerleaders froze. The strobe light went off. A spotlight came on. Every eye in the gym zeroed in on the boy dressed as a girl, standing center court and holding a megaphone.

  It came violently and instinctively, like a gasp for breath taken after an underwater swim.

  “Listen to me!” Elijah screamed into the megaphone. “You must listen to me!”

  No one in the gym made a peep. Their attention was locked on him.

  The blood rushing into Elijah’s head was creating a sensation of both pure fear and pure excitement. The entire school was listening. This was the moment he had always yearned for, the chance to incite the crowd.

  “That’s right,” Elijah said into the megaphone, his voice cracking. “Because this concerns all of you. All of us. Do you know where I’ve been the last week?”

  No one responded.

  “Of course you don’t. And you could never guess, so I’ll just tell you. I was locked in a room in the basement of this school, compliments of our goo
d friend Vice Principal Snodgrass. Why? Because apparently, I stole money from a bake sale. Hid it in my locker. Like a fool.

  “It’s not true, of course. But honestly, you’re probably thinking what does that have to do with me? Why should I care? You should care because Snodgrass believes something that I don’t think any of us believes. He believes kids like us can be manipulated. He thinks we’re not capable of making our own decisions, so he makes them for us. Behold the evidence.

  “Roll it, Bijay!” he yelled, pointing to the bare brick wall where the video projector was aimed.

  Nothing happened. Maybe Bijay hadn’t heard him. So he yelled it again.

  “Roll it, Bijay.”

  Nothing. All eyes moved at once from the wall back to Elijah. He knew their patience was waning.

  “Wendell? Bijay?” he whispered into his microphone.

  Dead air.

  In a room packed to the rafters, Elijah suddenly felt like the loneliest kid in the world. He scanned the crowd for a friendly face. But all he saw was a sea of conformity. For the last year, he had been writing in his journal, referring to his classmates as sheep, as carbon copies of one another, as worthless clones. It wasn’t until that moment that he truly could appreciate how diverse and interesting they all had once been.

  He had prepared and practiced his speech. It was supposed to be complemented by incontrovertible evidence—the images of Snodgrass’s dastardly deeds.

  But the images weren’t coming. And as scared as he was of what might happen next, he had to just say something. The speech wouldn’t work now, but maybe if he just told them what he was feeling … words and ideas, even in this day and age, might still be enough.

  So he said into the megaphone, “I never liked any of you … and it’s been that way for a while.”

  Blank stares were the crowd’s response. He paused, cleared his throat, and soldiered on.

  “I never liked how you dressed, how you talked, what you valued. I never liked how you treated me. You all scared me. But what’s happening to you now is so much scarier. You’ve changed. Not because you wanted to. But because Snodgrass thought he knew what was best for you.