Homeroom Headhunters

by Clay McLeod Chapman

  “Funny bumping into you down here,” I said. “How did you score such good seats?”

  “What did you just call me?” she asked, her voice competing with the pounding of feet. I saw her hand graze her slingshot.

  “No.” I leaned into her ear. “I said: It’s good. To see. You.”

  Compass hissed at me, acne flaring up, and pressed his index finger against his lips. His right arm now read GUINEA PIG in bold block letters. Once I was sufficiently shushed, he took his finger and pointed toward the basketball court.

  I turned to look.

  Our assistant principal had stepped up to the microphone at the center line, flanked by a V-formation of pom-pom girls. He cued the band behind him to stop, with a wave of his hand.

  “Thank you,” he said as the instruments faded. “I have a few general announcements before the fun begins. As a lot of you know, our winter concert is coming up and.…”

  But no one was watching Pritchard.

  All eyes were focused on Griz waddling up behind him. The bear began to moonwalk across the court, causing some in the crowd to giggle.

  “This year’s concert will be held right here in the—”

  Confused, Pritchard stopped and turned around to see what was so funny. The band thought this was their cue to start playing again, and launched into the next song.

  Peashooter nodded at Compass as the music got louder. Compass nodded back.

  What are they up to?

  I suddenly spotted the umpteen thin-wicked, round red pellets taped to nearly every bracket of scaffolding. How I hadn’t noticed them before was beyond me.

  B-E P-E-R-C-E-P-T-I-V-E, Spence.

  Peashooter pointed to a door tucked behind the bleachers with the word BASEMENT stenciled across the front.

  Am I supposed to book it to the boiler room?

  Before I could ask, Peashooter had lit the first smoke bomb with a match.

  Compass lit the wicks lining his section.

  So did Yardstick.

  Sully pulled out her slingshot and slipped a lit smoke bomb into a little leather pouch. As she aimed, I took a better look at her weapon of choice. The forked frame was a pair of safety scissors, open and locked into place with the blades duct-taped together to form a handle. She had tied off a braided belt of rubber bands through the scissor’s finger rings.

  One eye closed, Sully took aim—and fired.

  Her smoke bomb shot out from beneath the bleachers, a trail of red streaking across the basketball court, and landed in the bell of a tuba. The poor kid playing it burped out one last gaseous note before crimson fumes spewed from the rotund funnel, like a tomato fart.

  You definitely don’t see something like that every day.

  Scattered coughing spread over our heads. You could hear the confusion as werekids began to question one another: “What’s going on? What’s happening? Is the gym on fire?”

  At the mention of fire, the word began to sweep from mouth to mouth—until it lit everybody’s tongue. “Fire? Fire!? FIRE!”

  “Remain calm,” Pritchard stammered into the mic. “Everybody walk single file to your closest exit in a calm, collected manner.…”

  But it was too late.

  The sound of pounding feet picked up again, only this time, there was no rhythm. The tempo was pure panic as werekids raced for the exits.

  No one in the frightened stampede could hear the Tribe beneath their thundering feet, chanting along with the chaos—“BE AGGRESSIVE! B-E AGGRESSIVE!”

  “B-E A-G-G-R-E-S-S-I-V-E!”

  moke rises,” Sully yelled over the commotion. “Keep your head down and follow me.”

  While the rest of the student body blindly collided into one another escaping a blanket of colored smoke, I scuttled to the basement with the Tribe.

  “We heard you burned your last school to the ground.” Sporkboy had Griz’s head tucked under his arm, and he was plucking tufts of fur off its face. “Sounds like a flat-out fib to me.…”

  “What? You think I made it up?”

  “What about stapling Pritchard’s hand to his desk?” Compass asked. “Are you gonna cop to that too—or is it just another tall tale?”

  “Yeah, I took Pritchard down.”

  Sully snorted. “Looked more like you lost your balance to me.”

  “Wait…that was you in the ceiling?”

  “Surprise.”

  “We are the eyes and ears of this place,” Peashooter said. “If anything happens, we’re there.”

  “Why?” I asked. “I mean…what are you guys doing here?”

  Fair question, right?

  “Take a look.” Peashooter craned his neck. “What do you see?”

  “School?”

  “We see a fortress. A castle. A sanctuary.”

  “So the school’s your own personal clubhouse?” I asked. “And here I thought it was just another boring building.”

  “To everybody else it is.” Peashooter lifted his chin. “But for us, it’s home.”

  “What about TV?”

  “No television.” Compass shook his head. “No cell phones. No video games.”

  “And cafeteria grub for the rest of your lives?”

  “You get used to it,” Sporkboy said as he rubbed his tummy.

  “Sloppy joes from now to the day you die?” I asked. “Really?”

  “Nobody out there cared about us,” Peashooter said. “There was nowhere in the outside world that we felt like we could call home. But this is ours.”

  “And if you get caught?”

  “Nobody knows we’re here.”

  “I know.”

  “Because we let you.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Why choose me?”

  Peashooter grinned as if he’d been waiting for me to ask him that all day long. I couldn’t help but get a little nervous. He raised his arms over his head and took in a deep breath.

  “You’ve fought forgotten ancestors,” he recited. “They’ve quickened the old life within you, the old tricks which they’ve stamped into the heredity of the breed are your tricks.”

  “Uh…” I couldn’t help but stare. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’ve got potential,” Peashooter said. “We’ve seen it.”

  “You mean it’s not my stunning good looks?”

  Awkward silence.

  The acne scattered across Compass’s face deepened in color like some kind of poisonous deep-sea coral. He spoke first, not amused. “It’s your skill with manipulating information.”

  “Sounds like you’re calling me a liar.”

  “Not a liar.” Peashooter shook his head. “A public relations specialist.”

  “You want me to be your tribal press agent?”

  “More like minister of information,” Compass suggested.

  “You’ve got to be kidding.…”

  “No modern war has been won without managing the distribution of information,” Peashooter said. “Besides, somebody’s got to record what happens here for those who come after us. Like Winston Churchill said, ‘History is written by the victors.’”

  War? Victors? He can’t be serious.

  Peashooter continued. “Our war is against the status quo. The state of affairs as the students in this school know it. We know you want to shake things up just as much as we do. Just one look at your clashes in class and it’s easy to see whose side you’re on.”

  “Which side is that?”

  “We saw you handle Mrs. Witherspoon,” he said. “You whipped up that bogus oral report on the Swanahanzi headhunters on the fly, didn’t you? Just think what you could do for us.”

  “You guys don’t need a minister of fibs,” I said. “What you need is a tailor. You look like some postapocalyptic, dystopian athletic squad.…”

  “You really think that matters to us?” Compass asked. The slightest whiff of superiority escaped in his tone. “We don’t have to fit in anymore.”

  “Don’t you want to—I don’t know—grow
up? Go to high school? Get a driver’s license?”

  “And then what?” Peashooter asked. “Graduate? Get a job you hate? Get married and have a family you only see on weekends until you get divorced and retire and end up looking back at your boring, worthless life and realize that it was never your life to begin with?”

  “Who says that’s the way it’s got to be?”

  “Isn’t it for your parents?” Peashooter shot back, his paper-clip piercing twitching.

  Quick. Change the subject.

  “What about you?” I nodded to Yardstick. He’d been quiet this whole time, reflexively rolling the corkscrews of his hair. “Ever get homesick?”

  “This is home,” he whispered.

  “Don’t you miss your families?”

  “This is our family,” Sully said.

  “Odd family.”

  “Maybe.” Peashooter shrugged. “But we’re happy. Can you say the same?”

  Can I?

  “Wanna play their game?” Peashooter asked. “Go ahead. Riley Callahan will always treat you like crap. Sarah Haversand will never know you exist. No one here will ever believe you. And then you have us—offering you the chance to actually be a part of something.”

  I pictured it in my head.

  Me. Answering the call. Joining up. Belonging to something.

  It would be like being thirteen forever.

  And you want to know the crazy part?

  What Peashooter was proposing didn’t sound crazy at all.

  Greenfield Middle School. Home, sweet home.

  Kind of had a ring to it.

  etter get back before anyone realizes you’re missing,” Peashooter said before he and the rest slipped into the shadows of the boiler room.

  “I can’t just go back to class,” I protested. “It’s already fourth period. Pritchard’s probably pinning this all on me as we speak.”

  “You’re a smart guy. Figure something out.”

  Before I could balk—he was gone. All of them were. It was as if they had disappeared into the walls of the building.

  Now what was I supposed to do?

  My brain sputtered out nothing but a series of brain farts. I was still in shock over their invitation into the seedy underbelly of disorganized academia.

  Just tell the truth, a little voice at the back of my head peeped. Absolve yourself.

  Yeah, but who’s going to believe the truth when it’s coming from you? I answered back. I’m Public (Education) Enemy #1 now. Best to keep a low profile.

  I decided to head to the nurse’s office and tell her I was feeling sick from smoke bomb inhalation. I was sure she’d write a pass to get me into my fifth period class.

  Instant alibi.

  Miss Braswell bought the act—hook, line, and stinker. I threw in a few coughs as well as a puff from My Little Friend for safe measure. She made me lie down on the vinyl bed for the rest of the period.

  So far, my plan was working perfectly.

  Just close your eyes until the bell rings. Take a nap.

  Assistant Principal Pritchard’s voice rumbled over the intercom. “I’d like to speak directly to the students responsible for today’s incident in the gymnasium.…”

  It was like the voice of God was speaking directly to me. And He didn’t sound all that happy.

  This isn’t good.

  “I’m offering you an opportunity to turn yourself in,” Pritchard continued. “If you voluntarily come to my office before school ends, this will be seen as a willingness on your part to comply. If you don’t, I cannot offer you any leniency when I find you.…”

  Pritchard’s voice thundered through school: “And rest assured, I will find you.”

  I’m in way over my head. What have I gotten myself into?

  As if to validate my fears, the fiberglass panel over my head pulled back, and a folded piece of paper dropped onto the bed. The ceiling closed itself before Miss Braswell noticed.

  I turned over onto my side and unfolded the note.

  Two simple sentences: Hide in the last stall in the boys’ room. Wait there until we contact you.

  • • •

  I had called home to tell Mom there was a basketball game at school that night. I’d get a ride home with some friends.

  Friends. Mom should’ve seen right through that one.

  My new “friends” had me huddled on a toilet seat, knees pressed against my chest, for what felt like hours.

  Sitting in that silence, I was overcome by how quiet—how eerily soundless—the school could be when nobody was inside it.

  Mausoleum quiet.

  Necropolis quiet.

  I peered between my feet, deep into the toilet bowl, where the white porcelain was swallowed by shadows.

  I felt myself at the edge. One step forward and I’d be in a free fall forever.

  It’s not too late. You can still walk away from this.

  Couldn’t I?

  Could I?

  “Spencer?”

  The voice from above my head startled me. Looking up, I discovered Sully.

  “Everybody’s gone,” she said. “The place is ours.”

  • • •

  Peashooter entered the center circle of the basketball court. Less than ten hours ago, Assistant Principal Pritchard had been run over on the very same spot by five hundred panicked students rushing for the door. Remnants of the stampede still remained: tossed-off pom-poms, crumpled notebook paper, an abandoned backpack.

  Now Peashooter stood before the empty bleachers and grinned as if those empty rows of pine planks were the rib cage on a corpse pecked clean of its meat—and he was the vulture with the fullest tummy.

  “When did you ever feel school pride?” His question ricocheted across the court. “When did this place ever make you feel like you belonged?”

  There were only the five of us scattered about the gym—but from the boom of his voice, Peashooter may as well have been spurring on an army of hundreds.

  “Never. That’s when. And you know why…? Because you don’t belong.”

  Peashooter turned to Yardstick. Somehow, he had managed to scale one of the basketball backboards. Now he was using the basket as a seat, his scrawny butt crammed in the hoop, and his daddy longlegs dangling.

  “You never belonged,” Peashooter said directly to Yardstick. “Not to them. Not in this building. Not to anyone—but yourself.”

  Compass was sitting a few feet to my left. He was already riled up.

  “There was a time when I walked among the student body of Greenfield wanting nothing more than to belong.” Peashooter looked up toward the ceiling and shook his head. “I tried so hard. And still—I wasn’t good enough. And still—they didn’t care.”

  Sully sat to my right. I glanced over to see how she was reacting to all this, but there was no peeking through that eclipse of hair.

  Peashooter continued. “But the joke was on me. On all of us—because we fell for it.”

  Sporkboy was in the front row, beaming like a teacher’s pet with rabies. He picked up a discarded pom-pom, lit it on fire with a match, and tossed it high into the air.

  Sully drew her slingshot and fired off a penny. Direct hit! The burning tassels burst into sparks, dissipating in the air like a dying Fourth of July firework.

  “We tried their slave-brained way of life. But their lives aren’t theirs at all! They’ve been conditioned, just like the students before them and the students before that. That’s not school pride. That’s what lemmings do.”

  Peashooter turned to Sporkboy.

  “Remember what a lemming is?”

  “It’s a rat,” Sporkboy promptly responded, pleased with himself for remembering his biology lesson. A wide grin spread across his face until his cheeks pinched his eyes.

  “That’s right.” Peashooter nodded. “A stupid rodent that follows other stupid rodents. It’s their nature to follow blindly, one after another, until they run off a cliff and drown in the sea. If the lemming ahead does it, so w
ill the lemming behind. Every last one of them!”

  Yardstick’s legs began to swing through the air. Peashooter’s speech was working its magic on him. On all of us. I imagined this was the Big Game and Peashooter was our coach, giving us our pep talk before hitting the field.

  He was psyching us up for battle.

  For war.

  “This school? This school has no leaders. The sixth graders blindly follow the seventh graders, who blindly follow the eighth graders, who blindly march into high school. None of them, not one single student, stops to ponder what might happen if they were to break from the herd.”

  Peashooter paused and everything felt deathly quiet. All I could hear was the dull thud of my own heart pounding against my chest.

  “Until now. Until us.”

  Peashooter walked up to me. He continued to address everyone, but from the glint in his eye, I could tell this was meant particularly for my ears.

  “No more GPA. No more aptitude testing or placement testing or cognitive testing or any of it. Because we are not grades!”

  “No!” Sporkboy yelled back.

  “We are not yearbook photos!”

  “No!” Compass chimed in along with Sporkboy.

  “We are not basketball starting lineups!”

  “No!” Yardstick followed along with the others, their voices growing stronger. More confident.

  “We are not status updates!”

  “No!” Sully and I added to the chorus.

  “We are free!” Peashooter raised his arms over his head. “Free to make a home for ourselves! Free to do what we want! To read what we want! To belong where we want! That’s what true school spirit is. All that stands between us and making this school ours are the five hundred mindless rodents who follow each other from class to class, day in and day out. Lemmings learning how to be better lemmings!”

  Sporkboy was the first to leap to his feet, charged. Yardstick hopped down from the backboard. Compass popped up from the bleachers and followed along.

  Peashooter scanned their eager faces. He had them right where he wanted them.

  I turned to Sully and discovered she was already standing.

  I was the only one left.

  “True school pride is emancipation from the herd. To shake up the status quo!”