Boys in the Back Row

by Mike Jung

  It didn’t even help when the holiday break started, because Eric’s grandmother lived in the same area they were moving to, and his mom decided they’d spend the entire vacation visiting her. We wouldn’t get to hang out during the holidays at all.

  Mom, Dad, and I went to the Cedarville Unitarian Universalist Church when we still lived in Cedarville—I still kind of miss it, even though some of the sermons were really boring. Mom and Dad are always all worked up about politics and stuff like that, so it was the perfect church for them. After we moved, they dragged me along to two other Unitarian churches, a Zen meditation center, and an Episcopalian church that supposedly had a really good choir, but they said none of them felt right, so we ended up going back to the Cedarville church for Christmas and not going to church at all the rest of the year.

  So there we were, going to the Christmas service like usual, driving through a horrible traffic jam in downtown Cedarville.

  “Wow, this is …,” Mom said.

  “Yeah,” Dad said, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as we stopped behind a car that was so shiny and new, it practically glowed in the dark. “And it’s only been two and half years since we moved.”

  “That’s new, isn’t it?” Mom pointed at a building on the opposite side of the street. The words “Yoga Magic” were painted sideways on one wall in huge letters, big enough to go all the way to the roof. The whole front window of the place was filled by a picture of a skinny blond woman in exercise clothes, palms pressed together in front of her like she was praying, and sitting in that hard crisscross-applesauce way where your feet are on top of your legs.

  “Yup,” Dad said.

  “Ugh.”

  “On the bright side, the schools are still terrible, so our reason for moving is still valid!”

  Mom sighed. “Double ugh.”

  “It’s very endearing when you say ‘double ugh,’” Dad said, leaning over and kissing Mom on the temple. She leaned into it. Triple ugh.

  “Why do we keep coming back here if you guys hate it so much?” I said as we drove on—slowly—through the neighborhood.

  “We don’t hate it,” Mom said.

  “Sure we do,” Dad said.

  “‘Hate’ is a very strong word, honey.”

  “Yeah, Dad,” I said. “Stop hating, start participating.”

  Dad snort-laughed. “Where’d you get that phrase from?”

  “From you.”

  It was Mom’s turn to laugh.

  “Hey, look!” Dad pointed at a car that was pulling out of a parking spot half a block ahead of us. “Parking spot! Miraculous! IT’S A MIRACLE!”

  “Hands on the wheel, Miracle Man,” Mom said as we pulled into the spot.

  “What’s that?” I said, pointing at the store we’d just parked in front of. Dad looked.

  “That, my son, appears to be a store that sells dog leashes. And nothing else.”

  People wearing heavy coats and lots of red or green clothes were heading for the church, which looked mostly the same to me—same location on the corner; same big, pointy roof; same stained glass doors. We walked up the front steps and joined the line of people at the doors. Mom and Dad waved and said hello to a few people, but I kept my mouth shut and just waited in line.

  “Hello, Park family!” Reverend Cinnamon waved at us from the chapel entrance as we walked through the front doors. One time I heard a couple of old men at the church making fun of her name, and it made me so mad because Reverend Cinnamon is always nice and never makes fun of anybody. People are terrible, and mean people are extra terrible. “So nice to see you again!”

  “Hi, Cinnamon!” Mom and Dad said at the same time.

  “Happy holidays, Matt!” Reverend Cinnamon gave me a little wave, and I smiled back.

  Mom and Dad have said we used to sit all the way in the front when we still lived in Cedarville, but now when we come back for the Christmas service we sit all the way in the back, which was fine with me. Just being there was weird; sitting in the front row would probably make me feel like a zoo animal—trapped, with nowhere to hide. We found three seats on the aisle, all the way in the corner of the chapel.

  “—focusing on voter suppression, it’s so obvious—”

  “—it’s typical trans-exclusive radical feminist nonsense—”

  “—that Oregon Trail game totally erases Native genocide, don’t—”

  At home, Mom and Dad were the only adults I ever heard talking about stuff like trans-exclusive radical feminists and Native genocide. At this church, every adult talked about that kind of stuff.

  Eventually everyone settled down and the service began. Reverend Cinnamon gave a quick sermon about the usual stuff—staying grounded during times of commercialism, how Jesus was a brown-skinned Middle Eastern refugee, etc. and so on—followed by the Christmas pageant, which ironically had some family’s white, blue-eyed baby in the role of baby Jesus, but whatever. I liked the part where we sang carols, especially “Silent Night,” when everyone lit candles and the chapel lights were turned off.

  After the lights came back up everyone either milled around, hugging and talking, or headed for the chapel doors to say hi to Reverend Cinnamon, making a gigantic, sloppy, terrifying line. Mom and Dad were talking to a friend of theirs whose name I couldn’t remember, so I put my hand on Mom’s elbow and waited. She’s said a million times that when I do that she’ll definitely ask me what I need as soon as she’s done saying whatever she’s saying, but the actual success rate is probably about 66 percent.

  “Hi, sweetie, what is it?”

  Success! I like it when Mom calls me “sweetie,” but it always feels a little dangerous. It’s kind of like saying “you may now punch my son in the face.”

  “I’m going to get cookies, okay?”

  “Okay!” Mom turned back to what’s-her-name, and I headed for the side door of the chapel, which led to a hallway that went along the back of the church where the classrooms and stuff were. It was the long way around, but it was almost deserted. I saw a group of kids walking ahead of me, and as the chapel door closed behind me they burst out laughing and kind of crashed into each other, shoulders rubbing and heads leaning toward the middle of the group. They disappeared around a corner, and being in the empty hallway suddenly felt like being on the surface of the moon. By myself. After the planet Earth had just exploded.

  I took a deep breath and kept going. Luckily I made it into the meeting hall when it was still mostly empty. There was a stage at one end of the hall and a kitchen at the other end, with two long tables full of cookies right in the middle. The kids I’d seen in the hallway were already there, along with a couple of others—six or seven kids in all. As I walked up to the table they looked at me for a second, and most of them went right back to looking at the cookies, but a couple of them smiled and then went back to the cookies, which I guess was something.

  I took my time looking at all the cookies—at this church you never know how many will be made with stuff like coconut flour or chopped dates—and then looked for a place to sit. More and more people were coming in, but I saw a corner of the meeting hall that still had a couple of empty chairs in it, so I hurried over there.

  I took a chomp out of an oatmeal raisin cookie as two of the kids I’d seen in the hallway started talking about some kind of trip they were taking in super-excited voices.

  “What did your dad say about sharing the house?”

  “He’s still thinking about it—he says there’s not enough privacy when we all stay in the same house.”

  “He says that every year, though.”

  “Yeah. He’ll probably say it next year too, and we’ll probably stay in the same house again anyway.”

  “My mom says it’s way cheaper.”

  “It’s more fun when we can all walk down to the beach together.”

  “Well, except for my brother. He hates walking.”

  “Your brother hates everything.”

  “True …”


  Is this what it’ll be like when Eric moves away?

  Eric and I weren’t going on any trips with our families. The marching band trip was going to be awesome, but the whole band would be there, including the evil people in the band. It wouldn’t be just us.

  I was mad at the two kids talking about their trip practically right in front of me, even though I knew it was totally unfair to them. I was mad at Mom and Dad for saying we couldn’t go to Expo Extraordinaire just because it was in London, I was mad at Jonah Burns for only showing up at two conferences in the entire world, and I was mad at World of Amazement for scheduling its Spring Festival at the same time as one of those two conferences, because right after it was over Eric would be gone.

  I wish we could meet Jonah Burns before Eric moves.

  The band trip is as close as we’ll get.

  We’ll never get a better chance … to …

  … a chance …

  I swallowed a mouthful of cookie, stuffed the rest of the cookie I was holding into my mouth all at once, and realized Eric and I could take one last trip together. A really short one, too: about three miles, round trip.

  I reached into my jacket pocket and dug out the crumpled sheet of paper I’d been carrying around to torture myself with, smoothed it out, and looked at the words spelled out in big, red letters at the top:

  DefenderCon Schedule

  “Wait, let’s do what?”

  “Let’s go to DefenderCon.”

  Eric stared at me with his mouth literally hanging open. I cackled.

  “You look like a cartoon character with your mouth like that. All that’s missing is the tongue hanging out.”

  We were in one of the music wing’s small practice rooms, which had the benefit of being soundproofed so nobody could listen in on our conversation. I had my flute, and Eric was just sitting in a chair. He was in the corner that you couldn’t see from the little window in the door, though, and since it was still the first week of January (which meant it was still the first week of orchestra instead of marching band) we were probably safe for the whole half hour between the end of the school day and the start of practice.

  “What are you talking about?” Eric said. “We can’t go to DefenderCon!”

  “Yes, we can.”

  “How??”

  “We can walk—I mapped it. They’re not much more than a mile apart.”

  “Dude, you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, I know, but look at this. I’m gonna—” I saw somebody walk past the window of the practice room, so I handed Eric two sheets of paper with one hand and lifted my flute with the other. Eric looked back over his shoulder just as someone else actually stopped to look in, probably checking to see if the room was occupied.

  “Yeah, practice a little, we gotta make it look good.”

  I played the first thing that popped into my head, which was the new Alex Gino song, “Kitten Time.” I wasn’t very good at it, but it worked—the face disappeared from the window as I fumbled through the melody and Eric looked at the papers.

  One of the papers was the World of Amazement Spring Festival schedule Mr. D had handed out before the holiday break, and the other was the DefenderCon schedule. I’d done some strategic highlighting on both, and as Eric looked at them I played a few warm-up exercises. It was kind of shocking how rusty I felt after not playing either piccolo or flute for six months—my cheeks started feeling tired after playing one arpeggio in C, for example, and I sounded super wispy. I felt a little embarrassed when I finished and looked at Eric, but he wasn’t paying attention to my flute playing at all.

  “So let me get this straight.” Eric had one schedule in each hand, and he waved them around for emphasis. “Jonah Burns will be at DefenderCon on the last day of our World of Amazement trip.”

  “Yes.”

  “You know we have to do marching band stuff the whole time, including the last day.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “But the last day is …” Eric looked briefly at the paper in his left hand. “… ‘Have Fun at World of Amazement Day,’ which is—”

  “—the day after the Spring Festival! Meaning it’s not really a marching band day!”

  I lifted my flute and played a short trill for dramatic effect. It sounded good too.

  “No, but we’ll still be there with the rest of the band. The teachers are probably gonna do check-ins and stuff.”

  “No doubt, but think about it—if we’re going on rides and checking out the gift shops and stuff, there’s no way the teachers can keep track of everyone at every second—”

  There was a flash of motion in the window, so I quickly played a few notes from a Tchaikovsky solo I’d played last year (“Dance of the Flowers,” I think) just to maintain our cover.

  “That makes sense.” Eric dropped his hands onto his knees and was staring off into space, which meant he was picturing the scene in his head. “Nobody’s gonna want to go all on the same rides all at the same time. So …”

  “So there should be windows of time when we can sneak out and get back without anyone noticing!” I raised a fist in the air.

  “You’re hilarious,” Eric said. “Is that like a dork power salute?”

  “Yes. Obviously.”

  “Super-dork powers, activate!” Eric raised his fist too, dropping one of the schedules in the process.

  “For the honor of Dorkskull!” I pumped my already-raised fist.

  “Seriously, though, this is a pretty risky plan.” Eric reached down and picked up the schedule off the floor, then handed them both back to me. “We could totally get kicked out of the Spring Festival.”

  “Forget that, we could get expelled.” I didn’t really want to think about that too hard, but it was too obvious to ignore.

  “Yeah. That would be bad.”

  “So … what do you think?” I looked Eric in the eye and fiddled with the keys on my flute. “Is it, you know, a good plan?”

  “It’s an AWESOME plan!” Eric smiled, and this time it wasn’t a scary-clown grin—it was a real, this-is-the-best-thing-ever smile, and I relaxed. “It’s risky, sure, but …”

  “But it’s, like …” I took a deep breath. “Our only chance to, you know …”

  Eric’s smile faded a little. “Yeah. I know.”

  “I mean, we’re not going to London for Expo Extraordinaire.”

  Or anywhere else.

  “We have to do it,” Eric said, sounding like he had something stuck in his throat, then coughing into his hand.

  “Yeah.” I said, suddenly feeling super determined, which was way better than feeling sad. “I mean, think about it. It could be legendary.”

  “It means playing hooky, basically.”

  “It means breaking a lot of rules.”

  “Dude, you’re hilarious,” Eric said with a grin, sounding like his usual self again.

  “What?”

  “You can’t WAIT to break so many rules all at the same time.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “It’s obvious.”

  “No it isn’t.”

  “You might as well hold up a sign that says ‘law-breaking nerd’ or something.” Eric did a wiping motion with one hand, palm facing me.

  “I’m the biggest law-abiding nerd in the whole school! Do you actually know me at all?”

  “Everybody knows that, but I’m the only one who knows you also have this hidden troublemaker thing going on—I mean, come on, look at this bananapants plan you just came up with.”

  “Welp, sometimes the operation of the machine is so odious and makes you so sick that you just can’t do it anymore. Or something.”

  “Ha!” Eric sat up as straight as he could and pointed at me, all dramatic and stuff. “Proof! I have no idea what it is you just said, but it’s totally proof!”

  “It’s by Mario somebody. Mom has a mug with that quote on it.”

  “You’re a total rebel, Matt.” Eric was grinning so hard I could see
his gums. “I see you.”

  “Dude, that grin is terrifying. You look like a homicidal clown.”

  “Seriously, though, we could get in super-serious trouble,” Eric said. “No, actually not. I’m moving to another state, so they can’t really do anything to me, but YOU could really get in trouble.”

  “Dude, who cares? This is, like, our grand finale, right? How cool would it be?”

  “Really, really cool.”

  We had to take a minute to just sit and think about it, because ghosting the entire band and going on a secret expedition in a strange city without permission was next-level stuff. It could be legendary, and having a legendary stunt under my belt would be good for next year. It’d help keep my mind off the fact that Eric would be on the other side of the country.

  I took a deep breath and blew it out with a long hooooooooo sound, and Eric nodded without saying anything. Then we both practically jumped through the roof as someone knocked really hard on the practice room window. Skye Oh was glaring at me through the glass, and she jerked her thumb in the direction of the band room while mouthing the words “let’s go!”

  I nodded and started taking my flute apart, while Eric looked over his shoulder at Skye and waved. She waved back, but also did one more very emphatic thumb-point toward the band room before disappearing from view.

  “Has Skye always been this bossy?” Eric said as he stood up.

  “Yeah, but she’s always right too.”

  “She never does that to me.” Eric made a fake sad face.

  “It’s probably an Asian thing,” I said. “She acts like I’m her little brother or something.”

  “Huh. How much older is she?”

  “I’m two months older than her. Summer does it too, but at least she actually is older than me.”

  I finished packing up my flute and stood up, intending to stuff the printed schedules into my back pocket, but instead I held up the DefenderCon schedule so we could both look at it. I looked at Eric and did a big, theatrical gulp that wasn’t totally fake. He broke out the scary-clown grin, but he also grabbed my shoulder and shook it, and when we left the practice room he put an arm around my shoulders and shook my whole upper body hard, and I smiled broadly enough that I probably looked like a scary clown too.