Boys in the Back Row

by Mike Jung

  “He’s not gonna like it,” I said.

  Eric snorted. “You think?”

  Reverend Cinnamon used to talk about not doing things just to make people stop being mad at you, but I still hated it when people got mad at me, even when it was mean people. And now I was getting mad at myself for hating it when people get mad at me.

  “Don’t tell me you’re worried about Sean getting mad,” Eric said. “You’re not, are you?”

  “No,” I lied.

  “Liar.”

  “Okay, yes. What if he tells Mr. D?”

  “What if he does?” Eric said with a shrug.

  “Well, you know, there’s that whole getting-expelled-from-school thing.”

  Eric sighed. “We can’t get in trouble for something we haven’t actually done yet.”

  “That’s my point—if the teachers know about it, they’ll be watching for it. It would end up being something we didn’t do! Or did do? Wait, now I’m confused …”

  “GAH,” Eric said, slapping his forehead. “So … we need to change the plan.”

  “How?” I threw my hands up in the air. “We’re gonna get the time of the Burns thing changed? I don’t think so.”

  “You know what we need to do is calm the heck down and think this through somewhere that’s not, you know, this hill.” Eric pointed at the house we were standing in front of.

  “Yeah, it’s HQ time.”

  “Fortress of solitude” time means going home by ourselves, and “HQ time” means going to either of our houses together, and we headed to my house just because it was closer. We made a quick stop for fuel—some people call it “junk food”—but we were settled in front of my computer before too long. Mom was at work and Dad was out grocery shopping, so we didn’t even have to feel guilty about bringing junk food into the house like usual.

  “So our biggest problem is—” I began.

  “—that you picked the worst possible time to tell Sean the truth about something,” Eric finished.

  “Yeah, I … wait, the worst possible? That is so cold.”

  “The truth is a dish best served cold. Or something.”

  “That’s revenge, genius.”

  “Whatever, Matt, you’re just so … so … honest.”

  “What, you want me to be less honest?” I said with my most fake-surprised look.

  “YES. Be less honest.”

  “Why don’t you be less honest?”

  Eric cackled. “Didn’t you spontaneously decide all by yourself that we need to be more honest?”

  “My point is, your plan to just lie and tell Sean we chickened out and we’re not doing it would be too much work. We’d have to maintain the lie for months.”

  “Piece of cake,” Eric said, still chuckling.

  “Only if it’s, like, a dog turd cake.”

  “Gross.” Eric opened a bag of potato chips, took out a handful, and handed me the bag.

  “ANYWAY,” I said through a mouthful of chips, “we can’t change the time of the Burns signing, although I guess we could leave earlier.”

  Eric shook his head. “We’d have to leave too early, and who knows what could happen—what if Sean just watches us every second and tells Mr. D as soon as he notices we’re gone? They’d send a flippin’ search party after us before we reach the sidewalk.”

  “And if we leave too late we’ll definitely miss the signing,” I said with a groan.

  Me and Eric. NOT me, Eric, and Sean.

  “So I guess we have to, what, negotiate?” Eric said.

  “Nope. I have a different idea.”

  “Are we gonna beat him up?” Eric said in his most serious voice, and we stared at each other for a few seconds before bursting into laughter.

  “Ah, that’s a good one,” I said.

  “So spill it.” Eric crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows at me.

  “You might not like it.”

  “Only one way to find out.”

  “Let’s just … tell him the truth.”

  Eric sat there silently, then blinked hard.

  “Wait, that’s it? Tell him the truth that we don’t want him to go with us?”

  “Well, I was thinking more like tell him that it’s, you know, a really big deal for me and you.”

  I looked down and started fiddling with the now-empty potato chip bag in my hands.

  “It is, you know,” I said in a quieter voice, “a really, really big deal.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Maybe Sean will get it.” I hope, I hope, I hope. “He kind of went out on a limb asking to go to DefenderCon with us, don’t you think? Maybe he’ll understand.”

  I looked up at Eric, and he spread his hands open in a who-knows gesture.

  “I guess. So it’ll be like … appealing to his better nature, huh?”

  I nodded.

  Eric cracked a grin. “You sure he actually has one?”

  I gave out a soft poof of laughter. “No, but let’s find out.”

  We decided to go to Sean’s house right after figuring out our strategy, no advance notice or anything. We were hoping the element of surprise would work in our favor. Or maybe we were just impatient.

  Sean’s house looked a lot like all the other houses on that block—two stories, white with blue trim, perfectly oval bushes on either side of the front walkway, and a lawn so bright green that it probably glowed in the dark. There was a huge jade plant covered with tiny white flowers growing in a giant pot next to the front steps. We’d biked past the house a million times—it was only six blocks from Eric’s house—but we’d never had a reason (or an invitation) to go inside.

  “You ready?” Eric said as we stood at the bottom of the steps, looking up at the front door. I took a deep breath.

  “Yeah. We’re all clear on the plan, right?”

  “Yup.” Eric took a deep breath of his own.

  “We’re just gonna tell him the truth and hope he—”

  “—doesn’t make a joke about us being boyfriends or something, because seriously—”

  “It’s gonna be totally fine!”

  Eric gave me a slow, droopy-eyelid kind of look.

  “Excellent timing on the sarcastic look, but it’s gonna be fine!”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “All right, fine, I’m not either, but it’s the only plan we’ve got,” I said. I tried to loosen up by hunching and dropping my shoulders a couple of times. “Let’s do it.”

  We took the steps two at a time, and I pressed the doorbell with my thumb. A series of five chiming notes rang out inside the house. A few seconds later Sean’s mom opened the door. I assumed it was his mom, anyway—neither of us had ever met her.

  “Can I help you?” she said in a voice that sounded both cheerful and fake. An alpha-mom voice, as my parents would say.

  “Hi, is Sean here?” Eric said, bringing his own fake-cheerful-voice A game.

  Sean’s mom looked surprised, which was both interesting and mysterious.

  “Yes, he’s here.”

  She had a bundle of papers in one hand and a book tucked into the armpit of the arm she was holding the door open with. She propped the door open with her foot, stuffed the book more deeply into her armpit, and stuck the papers up in there too. It was kind of impressive, to be honest. She stuck the free hand in my direction, fake-looking smile still in place, and I took it, partly to keep myself from stepping backward and falling down the steps.

  “Hi. Christine McKenna.”

  “I’m Matthew.”

  She pumped my hand twice, then went through the same routine with Eric.

  Sean’s Mom Christine McKenna had long, very shiny brown hair, extremely white teeth, and blue eyes that made me uncomfortable with how intense they were. Being looked at by Sean’s mom made me feel kind of like a zoo animal.

  “Nice to meet you. Sean doesn’t have friends come by very much—did you two lose a bet or something?”

  She winked to show us she was kidding, but g
eez, what a crappy thing to say about your own kid. It was also weird because Sean still wasn’t really having friends come by.

  “What about his band?” I said without thinking.

  Sean’s mom crinkled up her eyebrows.

  “Band?”

  Whoa. Did she not know what I was talking about?

  Had Sean been lying about his band all along??

  “Marching band, we just need to talk about marching band stuff,” Eric said, smoothly covering up the fact that I was just staring at Sean’s mom, probably with my mouth hanging open.

  “Ah, of course, marching band stuff. Come in, Sean’s in the boy cave.”

  “Is that like a small man cave?” Eric said. She pressed an index finger against the side of her nose, then pointed it at Eric as we stopped at the foot of a staircase.

  “My husband would say the only thing missing in Sean’s boy cave is a girl, or maybe two girls,” Sean’s mom said. “You boys know what it’s like to hear things like that, though.”

  Well, no. If Dad said something like that I’m pretty sure he’d walk up to Mom and ask her to rain fire down on him.

  “Yeah,” Eric said, surprising the crap out of me. I mouthed “really?” at him, and he nodded with a straight-lipped expression.

  “Boys will be boys, even when they’re grown men in their fifties,” Sean’s mom said with a laugh. She was seriously one of the weirdest people I’d ever met.

  “Hey, I recognize that shirt!”

  She was looking at my Rocket Cats shirt, which I’d just revealed by unzipping my hoodie.

  “That is so cute! It’s a good thing Frank’s out of town, though. He’d probably have a stroke with two of those in the house at once. It’s bad enough that Sean sleeps in his.”

  Wow, Sean wore a Rocket Cats shirt to bed. He was a legit superfan, just like me. Not even Eric was that much of a fan. It was starting to feel like everything I knew about reality was wrong.

  “MOM.”

  Oh hey, it was Cave Boy himself coming down the stairs, looking at his mom with murder in his eyes. His face looked like a series of V shapes, with his eyebrows, eyes, and nose pointing down, and his mouth pointing up.

  “What are you DOING, Mom??” Sean growled. Dude, so disrespectful.

  “Hi, sweetie—oh right, you don’t like being called sweetie anymore.” I guess Sean’s mom didn’t mind being growled at.

  “That’s because I’m not five years old.”

  “I know, you’re a very large man. You and your dad, I swear. Look, it’s a unicorn!”

  She held her hand out toward Eric and me like we’d just been unveiled or something. I stopped wondering if she could get any more strange and started wondering if she could stop getting more strange.

  “You know, visitors? So rare!”

  Sean just glared at her, his face turning red.

  Wow. I actually felt bad for Sean, which is also as rare as a unicorn.

  “Oh, toughen up, buttercup, I’m just having a little fun with you. Look, your friend has the same kitten shirt as you, it’s cute.”

  Sean looked horrified, then started sputtering in rage.

  “I don’t—he’s not—”

  I wanted to say ARGH, THEY’RE NOT KITTENS, but picking sides in a fight between Sean and his mom was an obvious no-win situation, so I kept my mouth shut.

  “I’m getting back to work, sweetie,” Sean’s mom said, totally ignoring his sputtering rage. “You and your friends have fun.”

  She turned and walked away from the stairs without even looking at Sean again. He tensed up, almost like he was gonna leap off the stairs and kick his mom or something, but instead he took a deep breath, looked at us, and did a “come with me” reverse head nod.

  “Do you really sleep in a Rocket Cats shirt?” I said to Sean’s back. No answer.

  “I mean, I think that’s cool,” I said, but again, no answer.

  Sean’s room was all the way at the end of a hallway, past a bathroom and a window that looked out on a yard. He trudged up to the door, pushed it open with the heel of his palm, and walked in, holding the door open for us behind him. We followed him through the door. It felt a tiny bit like entering a supervillain’s secret headquarters.

  Sean’s room had the same vibe as Sean himself—kind of cool, but also kind of show-offy and impersonal. The walls were the same pale yellow color as the walls in the rest of the house, but they were covered with posters for bizarrely named bands I’d never heard of. One said “Melancholy Sasquatch,” with an illustration of a tambourine next to a big, muddy footprint. Another was a poster for something called “The Shoutycaps War”—all in caps, of course—and a third said “Erin Murphy’s Dog: Live at Big Sky.”

  “Have a seat,” Sean said, sounding annoyed and welcoming at the same time. He went over to his desk, pulled out the swivel chair that was pushed under it, sat down in it himself, and waved vaguely around at the rest of the room. Eric and I sat on the bed.

  “Sorry about my mom.” Sean said it in a voice that was pretty close to his usual I’m-too-cool-to-be-seen-around-you way, but it sounded just a little bit forced. Unusual.

  “No worries,” I said.

  “She’s the worst,” Sean said, making me feel like I hadn’t said anything at all.

  We were in dangerous waters. Sean’s mom really was kind of mean—seriously, who makes fun of their own kid—and we wanted to stay on Sean’s good side, but the rule is you don’t talk trash about someone’s mom. That’s, like, universal.

  “Yeah, well, moms gonna mom,” Eric said in a super-cheerful voice. Sean made a huff sound that was either an angry laugh or just angry.

  “Anyway, so what if you have a Rocket Cats shirt?”

  “I don’t have a shirt,” Sean said, snarling a little bit. “I mean, yeah, sure, I did when I was a little kid, but that was a long time ago. Why would I have one now?”

  I, the kid who wears his Rocket Cats shirt to school on a regular basis and was actually wearing it right there in front of Sean, gave him my best dead-eyed, zombie-faced look, and he immediately straightened up in his chair and reached his hands out in my direction, fingers spread and palms facing me.

  “Dude, it’s totally cool that you wear yours! It’s just, you know, people at school care how I look. You don’t have to worry about that stuff.”

  Just when you think it can’t get any worse, Sean makes it worse! It’s like magic! I was trying really, really hard to think friendly, generous thoughts about Sean, but it was like being kicked in the teeth.

  “Oh sure,” Eric said. “I mean, you gotta do what you gotta do.”

  “Exactly,” Sean said. I don’t know if he missed the irony or just thought it couldn’t be ironic when anyone agreed with him about something, but he leaned back in his chair again, looking satisfied. “Have you guys thought about my offer?”

  His offer? It’s not like he was thinking about buying us each a new car! So conceited. On the plus side, he wasn’t making it harder to tell him no.

  “Yeah,” I said. Eric nodded.

  “And?”

  “And …”

  This is our only chance, I thought, feeling weirdly calm. Eric and I probably won’t ever get another chance to do something like this.

  “Guys, seriously, why’d you come over?” Sean said, his voice sounding less annoyed, and also less annoying. “It’s about DefenderCon, am I right?”

  “Yeah, it is,” I said.

  “Awesome!” Sean grinned and quickly rubbed his hands together up and down.

  He looked genuinely excited, which made him seem much nicer, and which also made me feel like a giant turd since we were about to shut him down.

  Me and Eric. Me and Eric. Not me and Eric and Sean!

  I resisted the urge to take a deep breath, which was hard, because now we were talking about the real thing and doing it my way by being honest, and there was no getting around the fact that Sean had actual human feelings that could get hurt.

  Too l
ate to back out now, though.

  He leaned forward and put his hands on his knees. Ugh, he was like a happy puppy! Why couldn’t he not be a jerk and just be like this every time he talked to us? Every other time, anyway.

  “It would be really cool for all three of us to go—” Eric said.

  “I know!”

  “But here’s the thing.”

  Sean’s face froze. It wasn’t like his expression changed from excited to mad, it just stopped moving at all, in any way.

  “We’ve been planning this for a long time—”

  “—since right after Christmas,” I said.

  “Yeah. And the thing is, it’s kind of a big deal for us, because I’m moving away at the end of the year.” Eric was totally keeping it together. We had ice in our veins.

  Me and Eric. Eric was moving away. Me and Eric. Not me and Eric and Sean. Not Sean.

  “Meaning what?” Sean said, and this time his voice wasn’t happy. It wasn’t anything—he sounded like a robot. His face wasn’t frozen anymore, but it was just as blank as his voice.

  “Meaning this is, like, our last chance to do something we really want to do together before Eric … leaves.”

  “Uh-huh,” Robot Sean said. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

  “It’s really important to us,” Eric said, and I caught his eye and nodded.

  “So … we’re gonna go by ourselves this time,” I said.

  “This time.” There was something in Sean’s voice when he said that, like a little bit of an edge.

  “Yeah, this time,” I said.

  “So that’s it.”

  “Well, no,” Eric said. “We could, you know, do some other comic book thing.”

  “Totally!” I said.

  Sean looked at me, then at Eric, then back at me. For a second I seriously thought he might cry, but then he did the opposite and smirked. It was a hard, mean-looking smirk too.

  “Yeah, that’s not happening.”

  I guess I should have been ready for anything, but after seeing Sean act like a person I actually thought I could tolerate, or even like, it really stung to hear that mocking voice again so soon.

  “Uh … okay,” I said, suddenly off-balance. “We were just trying to—”

  Sean cut me off with a hard slash of his hand.

  “Whatever. I wasn’t serious anyway.”