by Yee, Lisa
Okay … the first spit — I guess that means that the school year has officially started. I wipe it off and head to the broken bench near the parking lot. It’s just far enough from the tree so that you can either be in the shade or sit on the bench, but not both. The tree looks like one side got lopped off, and it leans to the left as if it were surrendering. Over the years, kids have carved things into the trunk. Names, swear words, a happy face. Ramen and I call it the “Tragic Tree.” The busted sprinkler under it has created a permanent mud pit.
Ramen’s standing in the mud, chowing down on his beloved noodles. His real name is Luke Serrano, but his nickname is Ramen because he eats Top Ramen noodles every day. “Why not?” he says. “They have lots of different flavors — shrimp, beef, chicken …” He’s like a walking commercial. At the beginning of fifth grade, we were the same size. Now here we are, two years later, and I’m almost a foot taller than him.
It feels like it’s 100 degrees. I’m sweating and my arm hurts. So far today I was slugged twice in the morning, once by the Gorn leader and once by the middle Gorn. Then, right before lunch, I got slugged again, this time by the small Gorn. They are three for three. Woo hoo.
During class I watched my bruises form. They’re still in the early stages, but eventually they will go from red to purplish blue to green and then yellow. If they weren’t so painful, they would be pretty.
I hate the Gorn.
The rest of the day drags, but I get through it thinking about the Star Trek Convention. Over 10,000 Trekkers attend, and it’s packed with Star Trek celebrities, Star Trek seminars, Star Trek memorabilia, Star Trek costume contests, Star Trek screenings, Star Trek everything. Just thinking about it makes me happy. Why can’t I attend Starfleet Academy like Kirk and Spock did instead of Rancho Rosetta Middle School?
Sixth period finally rolls around. Sixth period’s okay. In fact, sixth period is the only good thing about school.
Before we even sit down, Mr. Jiang scowls and says, “I hope you geekazoids are ready to work this year.” He peers over the top of his glasses and looks me up and down. “Marley Sandelski, how is it possible that you’re even skinnier than last year? You’ve grown again, and you could use a haircut. You’re all shaggy. I can’t even see your eyes.”
I smile for the first time all day. Mr. Jiang only makes fun of people he likes. He’s got a new scraggly beard, like Spock’s evil twin in TOS episode “Mirror, Mirror.” But Mr. Jiang is not evil, nor does he have pointy ears or a full head of hair. I’m starting to get a little bit of fuzz on my upper lip, only it looks like dirt. Ramen has a baby face and if you tell him that he goes ballistic. That’s why we all mention it as much as possible.
For a while the AV Club met after school. This is the first year it’s an actual class, although now it’s called “Technical Sciences.” I think it’s great because that means I don’t have to take an elective. With my luck, I would have been stuck in Home Studies, where they force you to cook and sew.
“Here’s the deal,” Mr. Jiang says, lowering his voice. “Even though we’re officially Technical Sciences, among us we’ll still call ourselves ‘the AV Club.’” The entire class, all four of us, break into conspiratorial grins. Ramen and I raise our hands to high-five … only we sort of miss and end up doing a high two instead.
AV stands for “audiovisual.” The AV Club members are the ones who make sure there’s projection, sound, and lighting for all the assemblies and PTA meetings. We’re the ones who wheel in the TV sets when teachers want to show a video. We make sure the DVD players run. We can fix a computer and know when it’s time to replace a mouse.
AV Club runs the entire freakin’ school! Only no one knows it. People think we’re geeks. But when something technical goes wrong, who do they turn to? That’s right. AV Club. The club consists of me; Ramen; Troy, a fellow Trekker who can pick any lock; and Patrick, who claims that he’s the third cousin of Billy Dee Williams, who played Lando Calrissian in the Star Wars movies. He wants to be in the next Star Wars movie and sends a letter to George Lucas every week.
As Mr. Jiang is telling us about the AV convention he went to in Las Vegas, a new student wanders into the room. He takes a seat in the back, far away from the pod we’ve formed near the front of the class.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” Mr. Jiang says.
“Max Cunningham,” the kid mumbles.
Mr. Jiang cradles one ear with his hand. “I can’t hear you.”
“My name is MAX!”
“Ah, that’s better. Welcome, Max. Come sit up here with the guys,” Mr. Jiang says.
The new kid comes closer, but still sits a row away. He’s wearing expensive track shoes with green shoelaces.
“I’m sorry to report that the AV budget got cut again,” Mr. Jiang says. “Which means that the new video camera I promised you guys isn’t coming this year.”
We all moan. Our equipment is so old it’s laughable.
“What about the LED board?” Troy asks. He has longish wavy blond hair, and from behind he looks like a girl.
“That still may come through,” Mr. Jiang tells us. “It was ordered two years ago.”
“I’ll bet sports haven’t been touched,” Patrick gripes. He’s done his hair in dreadlocks over the summer and if you didn’t know him, you might mistake him for one of the cool kids. “Their budgets are never cut.”
Mr. Jiang nods as he looks for something on his messy desk. “Priorities can get mixed up.”
Don’t I know it. In the universe called Rancho Rosetta Middle School, here’s our solar system.
In the center is the sun, a large, hot dense mass, a.k.a. the teachers and admin — they’re the dictators and they determine the rules. Then in order of importance/closest to the sun you have:
Mercury, the smallest planet — inhabited by popular, good-looking athletes, like Stanford Wong and Dean Hoddin, plus beautiful, scary girls, like Julie
Venus, sister planet to Earth — inhabited by kids who are active in the student body, smart, and liked by teachers
Earth, the most populated planet — inhabited by regular kids: not popular, but not unpopular
Mars, the red planet, dotted with vast volcanoes — inhabited by drama kids, band members, and artsy-fartsy types
Jupiter, whose strong internal heat causes cloud bands — inhabited by slackers and rebels, like skateboarders, bikers, and bullies
Saturn, the least dense planet in the solar system — inhabited by nerds (awkward, smart kids)
Uranus (unfortunate name), which orbits the sun on its side and radiates very little heat — inhabited by geeks (sci-fi/tech kids)
Neptune, cold, dark, and whipped by supersonic winds — inhabited by dorks (dumb, spazzy kids)
Pluto, which has an eccentric orbit — inhabited by AV Club (a collection of nerds, dorks, and geeks). Sadly, Pluto is no longer even considered a planet.
“If Lando were here, he’d get us new equipment,” Patrick shouts as he waves his arms in the air. Patrick owns the complete series of Star Wars DVDs. What an incredible waste of money. If I had that kind of extra moola, I’d buy a Platinum Pass to the Super Star Trek Convention. The platinum one gets you into the ultra-exclusive panels with stars, a special collector’s T-shirt, and a guarantee of three to ten autographs.
“Kirk could take down Lando any day,” Troy tells him as he shoves a shim into a Master lock and pops it open.
“You’re insane!” Patrick barks.
Troy yells back, “You’re Jabba the Hut!”
“Yeah, well, you’re a Klingon reject!”
Ramen and I jump in and it’s Star Trek vs. Star Wars, full on, full blown. We had this battle every day of AV Club all last year too. Soon, Ramen and Patrick are standing on chairs chanting the catatonic crawl that begins every Star Wars movie: “A long time ago / in a galaxy far, far away …”
This is more than Troy and I can take. We stand on chairs facing them and shout in our best William-Shatner-as-C
aptain-James-T.-Kirk, “Space … the Final Frontier … TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE.”
Mr. Jiang has dozed off. He’s heard it all before.
Max takes it all in without saying anything. He looks like a sixth grader. His black hair is short and he’s pale and skinny. When the final bell rings Mr. Jiang startles and wakes up. As we all head to the door, Ramen rushes up to Max. “Hey, can I ask you something sort of personal?”
“What?” Max asks.
Ramen doesn’t mince words. “Star Trek or Star Wars?” he says point-blank.
Troy, Patrick, and I hold our breath.
Max doesn’t even blink. “Neither,” he answers. “Batman.”
Batman?
“Batman’s a comic book,” Ramen cries. He staggers like someone stabbed him in the heart with a rusty screwdriver. “It isn’t even sci-fi!”
It’s lunchtime the next day, but we’re still in shock over the new kid’s proclamation. “I know,” I moan. “Plus, Batman wears a cape. How stupid is that? A cape?”
Ramen’s eyes narrow. “Capes are cool. Darth Vader wears one.”
“Dorks wear capes,” I say, knowing this will throw Ramen into a frenzy.
“Take it back! Take it back!” he screams. “Dorks wear tights like Captain Kirk!”
“Those aren’t tights, those are pants! Plus, Captain Kirk could whip Luke Skywalker any day.”
“Yeah?” Ramen growls.
“Yeah!” I growl back.
“Clearly there’s something wrong with Max,” Ramen insists as he resumes eating his noodles with his plastic fork. It’s shrimp flavor today. Ramen’s so lame that last year he got an Ewok action figure stuck in his nose and had to go to the doctor to have it removed. Still, he does have a point about Max. There’s something odd about him, but I can’t figure out what it is.
I return to my turkey sandwich. Mom put avocado in it. I love avocados. They’re expensive, but one of my mother’s golfing buddies has an avocado tree and gives us bags of them for free.
It’s already the second week of school. In AV Club Max has proved himself to be an expert in everything. He’s starting to get on my nerves, although Mr. Jiang is impressed with him. He even let Max borrow his AV Pro for the Pro magazine.
“Max wears a Batman shirt every day,” Ramen continues. “How stupid is that?”
Mega stupid, I have to agree again. I wear a Star Trek T-shirt every day, and Ramen wears a Star Wars one, but that’s different. Our shirts make a statement — Max’s just look dumb.
“Shut up!” I hiss. “Here he comes.”
“Hi, guys,” Max says cheerily. “May I join you?”
“Sure,” I say, biting into my sandwich.
“Just don’t go all Batman on us,” Ramen warns.
Max perches on the bench and opens his lunch box. It’s one of those padded kinds. He takes out a plastic container filled with sushi and balances it on his lap. Ramen and I are silent as we watch Max methodically mix a foil packet of soy sauce into the lump of green wasabi. Then he picks up a piece of white sushi with his chopsticks and takes a bite, savoring the taste. When he opens his eyes, he notices us staring at him. “What?” he asks. “Haven’t you ever seen someone eat yellowtail before?”
Ramen and I glance at each other and smirk. Max is so weird.
As the three of us eat in silence, I hear someone call out, “Hey, Marley, can I talk to you?”
We all look up, surprised — but I’m sure no one is more shocked than me. It’s Stanford Wong. Ramen doesn’t notice when some noodles slide off his fork and drop on the ground. Max sits up straighter and swallows his sushi. I blink a few times to make sure I’m not seeing an illusion. The popular kids never wander anywhere near the Tragic Tree.
“Marley!” Stanford calls out again. “I need to talk to you.”
The last time Stanford Wong and I said more than hello to each other, he betrayed me. It was in elementary school. A few days earlier, I had gone to his house to help him work on his model of Stargazer and to admire his 1988 Star Trek: The Next Generation Galoob Phaser. He even let me hold it. But the entire time Stanford seemed distant, like he had something other than Star Trek on his mind.
Back then I liked all Star Trek — any season, any show. Even the Star Trek movies. I recall asking Stanford where he got his phaser, and he was all spacey like he didn’t hear me. Like I wasn’t even there.
The next day he was hanging around the basketball court at recess. He had been doing that more and more — watching the players, studying them. Stanford had even started asking them if he could play. Right. Since when did the somebodies let a nobody into their circle?
“Give up,” I told him. “They’re never going to let you in.” When he didn’t say anything, I asked if he wanted to work on our Star Trek models after school. One of the basketball players snickered when he heard me mention Star Trek.
When Stanford heard him laughing, he turned toward me. He wore an odd look on his face, like he was in pain. “Star Trek?” Stanford boomed. “Are you still playing with Star Trek stuff? That’s only for geeks.”
Stunned, all I could think of was to quote TOS, Season One, Episode 25: “This is mutiny, mister.”
When Stanford turned his back on me, I felt all the blood drain from my face as I began to disappear.
I wince at the memory of that day. Fellow Star Trek geek Stanford Wong is long gone. Standing before me is someone I don’t know … star basketball player Stanford Wong. He’s my height, only muscular. His hair looks like it has goop in it and the tips are purple. The basketball shoes he’s wearing look complicated and expensive. From the way he’s standing, with one hand on his hip, it’s painfully clear that he’s not from my planet.
“What do you want?” I ask. I wonder if this has anything to do with the Vulcan salute he gave me at the Hee-Haw Game.
Stanford looks at Max and Ramen. Both just gawk at him with their mouths hanging open. I’ve seen people look at him that way — like he’s some big shot, when really he’s a jerk.
“Uh, Marley, can I talk to you?” the jerk asks again. “Alone?”
“I guess,” I say as we move away from the bench. I can feel Ramen’s and Max’s eyes following us.
Stanford is holding a basketball. He always carries one around school, probably to telegraph, “I am a jock and you should bow to me.” There’s an awkward silence. Finally, he says, “You still into Star Trek?”
I nod. What a stupid question. I’m wearing my VULCANS RULE T-shirt. I don’t tell him that I have a plastic figure of Sulu in my pocket. “What about you?” I ask.
Stanford shakes his head. “No. Not so much. Maybe a little. Hey, I wanted to give you —”
“HEY, STANFORD!” someone yells. It’s Gus, one of his basketball buddies. I had Honors English with him last year and he drove Mr. Glick crazy with his questions. “Come on! We gotta go!”
The rest of Stanford’s gang is standing around waiting for him. There’s Tico — he’s never been mean to me — and Stretch, the best-looking kid at our school, and probably any school in America.
“We’re waiting!” Gus shouts.
Stanford looks distracted. “I … um, do you hate me?”
That’s a weird question for him to ask. Should I lie or tell the truth?
“I guess so,” I say.
His shoulders slump. “Never mind, then. I gotta go.”
“Then go,” I tell him. But he’s already gone.
What was that all about?
I watch Stanford Wong rejoin the planet of the popular kids, then I return to the broken bench, and the Tragic Tree, and Ramen and Max.
“What did he want?” Ramen asks.
“Was that Stanford Wong?” Max says. “Isn’t he a legend around here or something?”
“What did he want?” Ramen asks again.
“Nothing.”
“He came all the way over here for nothing?” Ramen asks.
I nod and take a bite of my sandwich even
though I’m not hungry.
Horrible sounds are assaulting me as I make my way down the narrow staircase. The closer I get, the worse it is. I cover the rubber Spock ears I’m wearing and peer into one of the rooms beneath the Rialto stage. I see a little kid, her feet dangling from the piano bench, pounding the piano keys.
“I’m home!” I yell above the noise.
Mom smiles, then turns to the little girl in pink overalls. “That’s great, Kylie. Now let’s try it again. This time I want you to wiggle your fingers in the air to relax them before you start.”
My mother’s a piano teacher. She’s also the organist for the Rialto. Every now and then Dad will run silent movies, and Mom will play the ancient Wurlitzer. It’s a really big, beautiful organ with rows of glistening keys. I like to imagine it soaring through space like the Enterprise, and leaving a trail of musical notes in its wake.
Dad doesn’t call the Rialto a movie theater; he calls it a movie palace. He takes the tickets, keeps the concession stand stocked, runs the projector, cleans up — pretty much everything. My family owns the place. Our upstairs apartment is tiny, but I have the run of the theater when there are no movies playing. In its heyday it seated 1,200. Nowadays, if there are twelve people per show, Dad’s happy.
This theater is nothing like those sterile mall multiplexes with their endless row of ticket booths stuffed with bored high schoolers who wouldn’t know a cinematic classic if they saw one. The Rialto’s beautiful, from the red velvet curtains to the statues of gargoyles. Fancy lights line the theater walls and hand-painted clouds and angels are on the ceiling. Even the bathrooms have shiny gold faucets. I know. I’m in charge of cleaning them.
Every now and then, there will be a television special or magazine article about old theaters and the Rialto will be featured. For a couple weeks after, we’ll have lots of business. But gradually the lines thin and it’s back to the regulars — mostly movie buffs or the occasional man trying to impress his date with his knowledge of films.
