“You gotta do this, man,” Paul Nolan says. “We need you.”
“And you know we pay better than any goddamn pizza job,” Rob Thigpen tells him.
“You don’t want to go back to Pizza Hut, do you?” Sara pats his arm. “Do the work. A-plusses. You name your price.”
187.
So now Adam has that to worry about.
He doubles the page rate for each A-plus assignment, plus a fifty-dollar bonus.
(Might as well make it pay, right?)
Restricts VIP access to bona fide gods. Paul Nolan. Sara Bryant. Jessie McGill. Leanne Grayson.
(Damn it, and Rob Thigpen, though Adam charges that chump a 50 percent markup. It makes him feel marginally better.)
Janie Ng? Funny story.
Adam explains the situation to Janie. Special offer. Guaranteed grades. Top of the class. Janie shakes her head. “Thanks, Adam, but I’m cool.”
Adam frowns. “You don’t want A-plusses?”
“I pull A-plusses already.” Janie grins at him. “I rocked those exams. I’m pretty much a huge nerd at this point.”
“So why bother with me, then?” Adam asks her. “If you’re doing so well on your own?”
Janie shrugs. “Sometimes I just need a break,” she says. “My parents are insane about grades.”
Then Janie cocks her head. “And maybe I kind of like having an excuse to hang out with you.”
“Oh yeah?” Adam says.
Janie winks at him, sly. “Thanks for the offer, but if you ever want to come over and study sometime—”
“Yeah,” Adam tells her. “I’ll let you know.”
188.
A couple weeks into the spring semester, and Adam’s walking along that same long hallway he escaped down with Wayne, the night of the botched exam raid.
(Just being there gives him PTSD.)
(Seeing that janitor, Hawksley, makes him sweat.)
Anyway, Adam’s walking down that hall. Thinking about that night—
—when the vice principal steps out of his office and calls Adam’s name.
Gulp.
He’s a big guy, Mr. Acton. Played tight end on the Nixon football team back in the day. Acton handles discipline at Nixon. You don’t mess with him.
He’s
one
scary
dude.
So, Adam’s terrified. Adam’s thinking, This is it. Adam’s thinking, I’m screwed.
Acton looks him over. “You’re new here,” he says. “You came from where, Riverside?”
“Yes, sir,” Adam says.
Acton nods. “How do you feel you’re adapting to the Nixon mind-set?”
Adam shrugs. Adam has no clue what he means about the Nixon mind-set, unless “the Nixon mind-set” means sucking up to rich kids who live their lives like royalty, in which case, Adam’s all about it.
But Adam doesn’t think that’s what the VP means. “I don’t know,” he says. “I guess . . . good?”
“I was in touch with Mr. Nelson, back at Riverside,” Acton says. “He was surprised I hadn’t met you yet. I hear you two were on familiar terms.”
Adam nods. Adam remembers Mr. Nelson. Mr. Nelson caught him smoking up in the park a couple of times. Busted his ass for it.
Adam never liked Mr. Nelson. The feeling was mutual.
Acton studies Adam. “So what happened?” he says.
Adam blinks. “Sir?”
“By Mr. Nelson’s account, you were a problem child at Riverside,” Acton says. “Here, you’re top of your classes. What happened?”
Adam shrugs. “I don’t really know, sir.”
“Come on,” Acton says. “You must have some idea. What caused this big change?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Adam says. “I guess I just bought into the Nixon mind-set.”
189.
“Have you given any thought to what you’re going to do with yourself once you graduate?” Acton asks Adam.
Adam shrugs. “I was thinking about college, maybe,” he says.
“Any particular field of study?”
Adam shakes his head. “No, sir.”
“Hmm.” The vice principal purses his lips. “I’d like you to talk to Mrs. Dubois,” he says. “She’s the guidance counselor here. Have you met her?”
“No, sir,” Adam says.
“I’m going to make you an appointment.” Acton looks at him again. “You have every reason to be proud of your performance last term, Adam. I’d like to make sure we keep moving in this direction.”
“Yes, sir,” Adam says. “Thank you, sir.”
“No need to thank me,” Acton tells him. “Just keep up the good work.”
190.
So, that’s a new one.
Adam figures he should be scared of the VP. Figures he should be hunched over in a bathroom stall, breathing through a paper bag right now.
Figures he should be terrified at how close he came to discovery.
But Adam . . .
doesn’t really care.
Adam’s proud of himself.
Adam’s an honor-roll student.
The teachers like him.
Hell, Mr. Acton likes him.
Paul Nolan shakes his hand. Leanne Grayson hugs him on the regular. The popular kids swarm his locker, and everyone else at Nixon looks at him like he’s a god.
Adam realizes he’s so much more than just Adam anymore.
He’s the Pizza Man now.
And life is pretty damn good.
191.
One afternoon in March, about a month into the new term.
Adam’s holding court at Cardigan’s, across the street from Nixon. Handing back math papers, geography assignments, chemistry labs. Selling IDs to a couple of runty sophomores. Gradually the place clears out. Adam pays off Wayne and Devon and Lisa. Devon and Lisa drift away.
Wayne sticks around.
He’s kind of fidgeting. Can’t look Adam in the eye.
“Hey, man,” Adam says, thinking, This is about the exam stuff again. “How are you holding up?”
Wayne nods. “I’m okay,” he says. “I’m fine.” He looks around, fidgets some more, like he has to go to the bathroom or something. “I, uh . . .”
Adam looks at him. “What’s up, Wayne?”
Wayne doesn’t say anything. Wayne’s creeping Adam out. Wayne’s making Adam think maybe he’s about to crack.
Like,
maybe Adam should go home and delete a bunch of homework files off his computer,
stat.
But then Wayne straightens. “Are you, uh, going to the spring formal?”
Adam blinks. “Are you asking me out, dude?”
“No.” Wayne blushes. “No, man. No.”
“It’s cool if you are,” Adam tells him. “It’s just, I have a girlfriend and stuff.”
“Jesus, man,” Wayne says. “That’s not it at all.” He laughs. “It’s like, you’re tight with the popular girls, right?”
Adam shrugs. “I mean, yeah.”
“Exactly,” Wayne says. “Do you think you could, you know?”
“No, Wayne.” Adam checks his watch. “I don’t know.”
Wayne’s bright red. Out it comes. “Do you think you could get me a date for the formal?”
192.
Adam nearly laughs in Wayne’s face.
Holds it in.
Barely.
“You want me to get you a date?” he asks Wayne. “You think I’m the love doctor or something?”
Wayne shifts his weight. “No, I just—” he says. “Forget it. I never went to formal before. I just thought maybe you could help.”
“Why formal?” Adam says. “Why not prom?”
Wayne grins. “Well, I just figure if formal works out, maybe I can take care of prom myself.”
Hmm, Adam thinks.
Interesting, Adam thinks.
Hilarious?
Sad?
All of the above.
“I could pay you,”
Wayne says. “If you want.”
Adam thinks about it. Thinks: I always liked a challenge. Thinks: Let’s see how much pull I have with these popular girls.
Thinks: Let’s see how close I am to god status.
Adam shakes his head. “Put your wallet away, Wayne,” he says. “I’ll do it for free.”
193.
Adam tries Janie Ng first. Figures, Janie likes him. Maybe she’ll do him a favor.
He finds her in the hall the next day between classes. “Are you going to formal, Janie?”
Janie’s eyes kind of light up. “If the right guy comes along,” she says. “You?”
“Still deciding,” Adam says. “Waiting for the right guy, huh?”
“Uh-huh. Know anyone who might be interested?”
“I might,” Adam says. “You know Wayne Tristovsky?”
Janie’s smile disappears. “Wait, what? You want to hook me up with Wayne Tristovsky?”
“For me, Janie,” Adam says. “As a favor. I’ll discount your next paper or something.”
Janie shakes her head. “I don’t think so, Adam. Not even if you paid me.”
194.
Leanne Grayson laughs in Adam’s face. “I’m sure I could find someone better, Adam.”
“I’m sure you could, too,” Adam tells her, “but I’d be so grateful, Leanne.”
“Sorry,” she says. “Who are you taking?”
Adam shrugs. “Victoria, I guess.”
Leanne winks at Adam. “Well, if she’s busy or something . . .”
“Thanks,” Adam tells her. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
195.
“Why are you so concerned about who your friend takes to formal, anyway?” Sam asks Adam, his voice tinny through the receiver.
“I just—” Adam wedges the phone against his ear. Studies his econ textbook. “Wayne’s a lonely guy, you know? And I guess he wants to go to formal pretty bad.”
Sam’s watching hockey in the background. They were supposed to watch together. Adam’s calling to tell Sam he can’t make it.
(Homework.)
“You’re a good friend,” Sam says.
Adam thinks about Wayne. Poor, pathetic Wayne.
“Yeah,” he says. “I guess I am.”
196.
“What about you?” Sam says. “Are you taking Victoria?”
“To formal?” Adam flips a page in the textbook.
Highlights a key concept—
(market saturation).
“I guess I hadn’t thought about it,” he says.
“You should take her,” Sam says.
“She hasn’t said anything about it,” Adam says. “I don’t even know if she wants to go.”
“She wants to go.” Something’s happening in the hockey game in the background. People are cheering. “A girl like Victoria?” Sam says. “She’s just waiting for you to ask.”
197.
“The formal?” Victoria says. “Really?”
“The formal,” Adam says. “You know, dresses, dinner, dancing. The formal.”
Victoria giggles. “I know what it is,” she says. “I just never would have thought it was your style.”
“Is it your style?” Adam asks her.
“Maybe,” she says. “Are you asking me on a date?”
Adam grins at her. “Depends who else I can find between now and then.”
“You loser.” Victoria punches him. “Maybe I’ll just find someone else, then. Maybe Chad will take me.”
“Or maybe we should just go together and save ourselves the trouble of finding other people,” Adam says.
Victoria rolls her eyes. “Such a romantic.”
“I’ll pick you up at eight,” Adam tells her. “In a month or so.”
198.
Sam was right. Obviously.
Victoria’s thrilled about formal.
(Hey, she’s a freshman girl. She goes gaga over formals. Dresses, expensive hairdos, romance.
It’s like popular girl catnip.
Plus, she gets quality time with Adam, which doesn’t always happen when business is booming.)
(And business is booming.)
Wayne and Lisa and Devon are kicking homework ass. The gods are thrilled with their new A-plus standard. Pizza Man Enterprises has seven hundred Likes on Facebook. Adam himself has a thousand Twitter followers.
(#success)
(#godmode)
(#PizzaMan)
(#winning)
Brian’s shipping IDs as fast as Bondy can make them. And Adam’s taking a cut of the whole
fucking
pie.
Life is good.
Life is very good.
And then they catch the kid who swiped Mr. Powers’s Applied Science exam.
199.
The kid is a sophomore—a stoner named Ryan Grant. He wears weird punk-rock T-shirts and always reeks of weed. And Mr. Acton makes him for the exam fiasco.
“Hawksley identified him,” Darren tells Adam. “The old janitor, you know him? I guess he saw this Ryan guy in the hall yesterday and it triggered something.”
“Crazy,” Adam says. “What’s the kid saying?”
Darren shrugs. “I heard him pitching a fit in the office when I walked past,” he says, “but you have to figure he’d deny everything anyway, right?”
“Right,” Adam says.
“I mean, it’s cut-and-dried. Hawksley saw him. And he’s in the Applied Science class to begin with.”
“Sure,” Adam says.
“Of course he did it,” Darren says. “Ryan Grant is a loser.”
200.
Adam has his meeting with Mrs. Dubois—
(the guidance counselor)
—that afternoon. She’s good-looking, for an older woman. She makes Adam call her Bonnie. She asks Adam a bunch of questions about what he wants to do after high school, gives him a career guide, and tells him to come back when he picks out something that interests him.
Adam takes the handbook. Thanks Mrs. Dubois—
“Bonnie, please.”
—and stands to leave. Then he stops.
“Bonnie,” he says, “what’s going to happen to that kid who stole the exam last semester?”
Bonnie’s face clouds. “Expelled,” she says. “Maryvale Tech.”
Whoa, Adam thinks.
(Maryvale Tech is where they send all the problem kids. The supreme screwups. It’s basically a holding pen where they keep you until you do something bad enough to land you in juvie. Or full-on prison. And pretty much everyone at Maryvale winds up in prison eventually.
It’s just how it is.)
“There’s a chance he could apply to come back here in the fall, if his parents are interested,” Bonnie tells Adam. “But I don’t think that’ll happen, in this case.”
“Wow,” Adam says. “So that’s it, then.”
“Yeah.” She smiles and shakes her head. “Some kids you just can’t help, I guess.”
201.
Ryan Grant.
Maryvale Tech.
Heavy shit.
“Good riddance,” Audrey Klein says when Adam hands back her history assignment. “He was a burnout anyway.”
“Yeah,” Adam says. “What if he was innocent, though?”
Audrey thinks about it for, like, half a second. “Who cares?” she says. “He was a loser. It’s not like he was doing anything with his life.”
Adam thinks: Maybe Audrey has a point.
Adam thinks: Maybe Ryan Grant didn’t even like Nixon.
Adam thinks: He’ll fit in better at Maryvale, anyway.
But still, Adam thinks. Heavy shit.
202.
Wayne’s thinking the same. “What should we do?” he asks Adam.
Adam looks at Wayne. Adam shrugs. Adam’s feeling guilty.
But Adam can’t tell Wayne that.
“What should we do?” Adam says. “We should keep our mouths shut, Wayne.”
Wayne blinks. “And just let him
take the fall? They’re expelling him.”
“They’re sending him to Maryvale,” Adam says. “It’s not so bad. Maybe he’ll fit in better there.”
“Are you kidding?” Wayne says. “I heard some kid got stabbed there last month.”
Adam knows this. Adam heard the same thing. “What do you want to do?” Adam says. “You want to walk into Mr. Acton’s office and tell him we stole the exam? You want to book a ticket to Maryvale ourselves?”
Wayne shudders. “No.”
“I feel shitty about what happened,” Adam tells him. “But it’s not like he was doing much at Nixon anyway. Those kids will worship him for stealing that exam. They’ll make him a god.”
Wayne thinks about it. Wayne nods. “I mean, I guess you’re right.”
“I know I’m right,” Adam says, and wonders if he means it.
203.
“Anyway,” Wayne says. “You find me a date to formal yet?”
Adam hesitates. “I’m working on it,” Adam tells him. What Adam doesn’t tell him is: I’m striking out.
(With every girl who Adam thinks would be remotely interested in doing him a favor.)
“Who’d you talk to?” Wayne asks him. “You ask Sara Bryant yet?”
Adam sighs. “Wayne, you’re not going to formal with Sara Bryant. Sara Bryant hates the ground we walk on. She—”
Just then, Sara Bryant walks by. “Are you talking about me, Adam?”
“Hey, Sara,” Adam says. “Just figuring out who’s doing your next assignment. Nothing major.”
Sara frowns. “I didn’t give you my next assignment yet.” She narrows her eyes at Adam. “What are you really talking about? Are you gossiping?”
Adam looks away. He still can’t look Sara (freaking) Bryant in the eye when she’s in full-on Beast Mode. “Wayne was just wondering who you’re taking to formal,” he says.
Beside Adam, Wayne sucks his teeth. Sara blinks. “Who’s Wayne?”
Adam points to Wayne. Wayne kind of shrugs. “He doesn’t have a date,” Adam tells her.
How to Win at High School Page 13
