“Pixy Stix!” he said. I took the straw.
“Excellent. Today is a Pixy Stix kind of day.”
“Oh, and . . .” He rummaged around in his coat pocket and pulled out a limp licorice whip. “I saved yours from the other day. I figured you’d want it when you felt better.”
I gave the licorice a dubious look. It had Walter’s coat lint stuck to it, and maybe some dog fur, too, which was weird because Walter didn’t own a dog. But mostly it looked okay, and it was a licorice whip kind of day, too. Heck, with Missy the Cruel leaving, it was an All the Candy in the World kind of day. I took the whip, blew off the big chunks, and stuffed the rest into my mouth.
I opened my locker and, as always, the now-empty ripped box sprang out. I kicked it back inside, parked my backpack, and headed toward gym.
“So what’s got you in such a good mood?” Walter asked. “I haven’t seen you like this since you beat the Neptunian overlord in level nine.”
“That was level ten,” I said. “And Missy Farnham is moving. They’re finally beaming her back to her home planet.”
“I don’t know her,” Walter said. “Is she a seventh grader?”
“Yep.” I ripped off the top of the Pixy Stix tube, tipped back my head, and dumped the whole thing into my mouth at once. I’d never mentioned Missy to Walter before. Since he was in sixth grade, I figured they had no classes together, and I kind of liked having one kid in my life who didn’t know about the puke song.
“Ex-girlfriend?” He wiggled his eyebrows up and down.
“You bite your tongue,” I said around the sugar in my mouth. “The only mammal who would date her belongs in a cage.” I felt a tiny stab of guilt over talking about Missy like that, given the rough time she was going through. But then I remembered about a million jumped ropes with my puke-eating name all over them, and I instantly didn’t feel so bad anymore. “Let’s just say she and I were not best friends, and I might throw her a good-bye party. Everyone but Missy is invited.”
“Wow,” Walter said. “You mean I get to go to a seventh-grader party? I’ve never been to one before. What are they like? Do they have balloons? Do people kiss in the closets? Does anyone bring pickles? I like pickles. I should bring pickles. Is everybody really tall? What should I wear? Are Hawaiian shirts acceptable?”
We had reached the point where Walter and I usually parted ways for first period. I stopped and put my hand on his shoulder. “Dude. I’m not really going to have a party. But if I did, you would be the only sixth grader I’d invite. I promise.”
Walter’s face lit up. “Really? Thanks, Luke. I think your imaginary party will be the best party I’ve ever been invited to.”
I squeezed his shoulder a couple of times. “That’s sad. But you’re welcome.”
Walter went on his way, and I started to head into the gym, but at the last minute, my eye roved toward the corner by the guidance office, where I’d gone into the restroom a few days before. I wondered if Lunchbox Jones was in there now. It was weird how he’d left the robotics meeting yesterday, and part of me was curious what was really going on with that kid. But the other part of me—the part that hated being punched—didn’t care at all why Lunchbox did the things that he did. That part of me just wanted to be able to walk to gym class on legs that weren’t twisted into pretzels in a bathroom behind the guidance office.
But, still . . .
The warning bell rang and kids started streaming around me into the gym. If I was going to make a quick restroom stop, this was my opportunity. Coach Verde didn’t like tardies. If you were tardy, he made you run an extra lap in warm-up.
I mashed my lips together, feeling the stickiness of leftover Pixy Stix dust on them.
I could hardly go to PE with Pixy Stix dust stuck to me. With my luck, a bee would fly out of a three-leafed clover on the football field and sting me on the lips.
That was all the reason I needed.
I headed toward the bathroom, my legs growing cold with every step closer to Lunchbox Jones. But I kept telling myself that today was Missy Is Leaving Day, and it was such a good day, it was sure to be filled with nothing but good luck. Not only would I find Lunchbox in the bathroom, I told myself, but we would become friends. We would high-five over the great news and would share a paper towel to celebrate. No, actually sharing a paper towel is gross, but you get the point.
“Isn’t it a glorious day? Sun is in the sky, birds are in the trees, and Missy Farnham is going to Goat Grove!” I cried as I put both palms on the wooden door.
I burst into the bathroom with more force than I even knew I had. In fact, I burst through the door with so much force, had someone been standing on the other side of it, the door might have hit them right in the face and knocked them backward onto the mildewed floor with the ripped pieces of toilet paper and the upside-down dead beetle by the radiator. I might have even burst through the door so hard that if a person were standing on the other side of it and had been hit in the face and knocked backward onto the floor with the mildew and the toilet paper and the dead beetle, they might get a bloody nose from the impact. And if I had burst through the door with so much force that a person standing on the other side, bloody, had fallen to the mildew and the bugs and toilet paper, they might drop their lunchbox on the way down.
And it might, on its way down, hit the side of the first stall with a thunk.
And the lid of said lunchbox might pop open, a hunk of the plastic handle skittering across the tile and coming to a stop with the dead beetle and the scraps of toilet paper and the blood.
And the lid of said now-broken lunchbox might then flop closed again, off-kilter.
My mouth was still formed on the “v” of “Grove.” My hand was still on the door. My other hand, betrayer, was flung up in the air in a victory pose that I hadn’t even been aware of striking.
I stared at Lunchbox. He stared at me, his hand over his leaking nose.
“Um,” I said. “I didn’t . . .”
His brow furrowed. His eyes turned into bright red lasers, and his free hand creaked into a leathery fist.
So I did what any upstanding guy who’d just accidentally mowed down Lunchbox Jones would have done.
I ran for my life.
CHAPTER 18
PROGRAM NAME: Sitting Duck
STEP ONE: Robot zooms to corner of table
STEP TWO: Robot trembles in corner of table making pathetic terrified beep noises
STEP THREE: Robot shorts out with puff of smoke
If you were ever looking for a way to make the football unit more miserable, you should consider accidentally beating up the scariest guy in school right before class.
I spent most of the period looking over my shoulder, praying that Lunchbox wouldn’t appear, tie me to the girls’ locker room door, and throw dodgeballs at my head. I didn’t even mind running the extra tardy lap (I would have made it on time, but I kind of had to make a little detour to a different bathroom to throw up), because at least then I was already moving. One thing about being a little guy trying to avoid a giant like Lunchbox—I could probably outrun him if I had to. The question was for how long.
Once we got outside, the terror only became worse. There wasn’t one door to watch; there was the entire outdoors. At one point a grasshopper landed on my leg and I ran in panicked circles for a solid two minutes.
I was so busy being frightened, I hardly even noticed that the rest of the class had somehow managed to get through an entire football game without sending one guy to the nurse’s office. I even looked for Brian Blye to make sure he wasn’t stuck in a tree or facedown on the parking lot or something.
I found him, in the end zone, squatting in a ready position, hands on his knees, looking like he might have actually known what he was doing a little bit.
“Hey, what’s the deal?” I asked Roger Sherman, who was sitting in the grass next to me playing some dinosaur game on his cell phone.
“What?” he said. “I’m bored.”
Roger shrugged. “Coach talked a bunch of guys into joining the team. They’ve been practicing for a few weeks now. I guess he’s just getting better at it.”
I scanned the field. I hadn’t noticed, but sure enough, Roger was right. Several of the boys were squatting just like Brian. One of them hiked a football between his legs. It sailed over the shoulder of the quarterback, but two other guys went for it. And they didn’t bump heads to pick it up. They were improving.
“Did everybody join?” I asked.
Roger’s thumb worked frantically over his phone screen. “Almost. I think Coach promised to take them to some big video game tournament in November if they signed up.”
“What?” I couldn’t believe it. If I’d signed up for football, not only would the paws have been happy, I’d have gotten to go to the Alien Onslaught tournament. I’d have even been able to claim it was a school function so Mom and Dad would have had no choice but to let me go. “So unfair,” I said.
“If you like that sort of thing,” Roger said. “I didn’t sign up, and now I get to sit out during gym class and play games on my phone, and Coach doesn’t even notice. They get to go to one tournament. I get to play for an hour every day without anyone yelling at me. And I won’t get a concussion trying to beat Goat Grove. Awesome, right?”
As if to punctuate his point, the guy in the middle of the field snapped again, and the ball got stuck in the quarterback’s face mask. Panicked, he ran forward, knocking down six other guys before Coach could catch him and stop him.
“Yeah, I guess you have a point,” I said.
The rest of the day went by slowly. Missy was especially annoying in all our classes, like she was trying to set a record of annoyingness so we wouldn’t forget her after she left. Walter ran out of Pixy Stix before lunch. I couldn’t stop stewing about the fact that Brian Blye, who probably didn’t even play Alien Onslaught, was going to be at the tournament and I wasn’t. And my smallpox plan was starting to look like it might have a few holes in it.
My mood had turned all the way around, and what had begun as the best day ever ended up as the worst day ever. At least it was Thursday, so I’d get to play with Randy for a while.
I was so happy when the final bell rang, I wasn’t even paying attention to where I was going until I got to my locker and ran chest-to-chest into Lunchbox Jones.
I gasped, trying not to look him in the face, using the same advice they give you at the zoo not to look directly at the gorillas so you don’t incite a riot. But I couldn’t help looking. Last I’d seen him, he was cupping his nose, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to find his nose all swollen and mangled and maybe even missing from the way it had been bleeding.
It wasn’t any of those things. It was maybe a little pink on the end, and I could see some brown dried blood crust around the edge of one nostril, but otherwise it looked totally fine.
It was the two black eyes that didn’t look fine at all.
“Excuse me,” I squeaked out, suddenly all perfect gentleman-style. I may have even adopted a British accent. “I was just getting to my locker here.”
Lunchbox didn’t move. He also didn’t speak. He seemed to be totally happy to just be standing there making me tremble. The handle of his lunchbox had been taped.
“Um, I’m sorry about your nose,” I said. “And your, um, lunchbox. And the toilet paper and stuff.”
He continued to stare at me. His nostrils flared a little, like a bull’s. It made me think of the breathing he’d done down my back at robotics practice.
“So, um, no hard feelings?” I held out my hand as if to shake, but he only glanced at it and made no move to take it. “You know, I’ll just come back to my locker later. Tomorrow or something. I don’t really need my jacket. It’s not that cold out. I like it when it’s a little brisk. Gets the old bones working.” Great, now I was a perfect senior citizen gentleman. Soon I’d be calling him “sonny” and shuffling off for my four o’clock bowl of oatmeal.
To my surprise, he moved then. Just a long step to the side, wide enough for me to get to my locker. He watched as I fumbled with the combination, having to try it twice before it would work, kicked the torn box back inside, and grabbed my jacket.
“So I’ll see ya,” I said, moving away slowly, going off the zoo advice that you should never run from a stalking cheetah.
Once far enough away, I turned and headed toward the door. I could already see Dad’s car out there. It was so far away.
Just as I reached the double doors, I heard it.
Low, growly, unmistakable. Hard to believe, but definitely there.
“See ya, Luke,” it said.
Only it sounded normal.
(with no car alarms going off or windshields shattering or stuff.)
CHAPTER 19
PROGRAM NAME: Discovery
STEP ONE: Robot picks up lots of junk
STEP TWO: Robot finds jewels in junk
STEP THREE: Robot stuffs jewels into cheeks like a squirrel
The next day was a teacher in-service day. Nobody really knew what that meant, only that we got a free day at home. No getting up early, no eating cardboard pizza in the cafeteria for lunch, no having your head popped off by a lunchboxcarrying maniac between first and second periods.
And all Alien Onslaught all day.
Randy did have school, so it was my turn, for a change, to beat some levels. I popped a bag of popcorn, poured myself a soda, and settled into the Ultimate Gaming Zone.
But Dad had different plans. He appeared just as I slipped the first bite of popcorn between my teeth.
“Come on, Luke. Put the headset down. We’re going to clean out the garage.”
“What? No way. Don’t make me. I don’t want to.”
I knew this was no way to get Dad to change his mind. In fact, Dad never changed his mind on anything, ever. So it was a wasted effort, but I had to try. It was sort of my job as a kid.
“You can play when the garage is clean. Come on, the sooner we get out there, the sooner you can do your alien thing.”
I groaned, put down the controller, and followed him. “My soda will be flat by the time I get back,” I grumbled, but he didn’t care.
The first half hour was the worst. We straightened the ball bucket from when Rob and I used to play catch together. I told Dad he might as well throw all of that out, since Rob was definitely not going to be throwing anything to me anymore, but Dad kept it all. We went through Dad’s old tools, throwing away bent nails and rusty screwdrivers. We aired the tires on Mom’s bicycle and stood the rakes and shovels and hoes up in one corner. They kept falling over and thunking me on the back of the head.
Winter was definitely coming, and it was starting to get cold and gray outside. My fingers were numb, which made it hard to pick up the tiny screws that had fallen over on one shelf, and my nose kept running.
But somewhere after that first half hour it started not being so bad anymore. Dad and I took turns making up stories about horrible things that happened to guys while they were cleaning the garage. He taught me songs that Paw Morris had learned in the navy and had passed down to Dad when he was a little boy. Most of them had bad words and Dad had to keep reminding me not to let Mom ever hear me sing them.
And then Dad talked about what life was like when he was a kid. How he could ride his bike for hours around the neighborhood and nobody would ever ask him where he was going or where he’d been. He talked about how Maw Mazie was the best cook in the neighborhood and everyone would always come over to eat with them.
He told me about the first time he met Mom. They were little kids and she was outside selling lemonade. He thought she was cute, so he paid five whole dollars for a cup. And then she let him sell it with her, and they spit in Clyde Pill’s lemonade because Clyde always picked on Dad because Dad was smaller than him. Dad said when he s
aw that white loogie hanging off Mom’s lip and dropping into Clyde’s lemonade, he knew right then and there that he would love her forever. He said it took a lot more years, though, for Mom to decide she loved him back.
We worked while we sang and made up stories and talked, and within another hour, we’d almost finished. Dad got the broom and started sweeping dirt and leaves outside, and I rummaged in a back corner. I found a trunk full of old books there, including an old yearbook from Forest Shade Middle School.
“Is this yours?” I asked, pulling out the book and sitting on the bumper of his car to leaf through it.
“Would you look at that,” he said. “I haven’t seen that old thing in years. Yep, that’s mine. But Mom’s in there, too, of course. Seventh grade.”
I turned to the index in the back and found Dad’s name. It listed three pages he was pictured on.
The first was his school picture from that year. I laughed out loud. His hair was sticking straight up in the back, and his thick glasses made his eyes look huge. He had a big, goofy grin on his face, showing all his teeth, covered by what looked like twenty-seven pounds of steel.
“Braces were a lot more of an ordeal when I was your age,” he said. “You’re lucky you don’t have to have them.”
“You were really funny looking back then, Dad,” I said, though the truth was he was mostly really happy looking. Like he’d never had a Missy the Cruel or a Lunchbox Jones or even a Clyde Pill to worry about, even though I knew he did.
“I was pretty funny looking, wasn’t I?” he asked.
I turned to the second page he was listed on. The page was full of photos from a school dance. Dad was front and center, slow dancing with a blond girl, the same spiky hair and same goofy grin on his face. The girl’s hands were on Dad’s shoulders, and she was smiling shyly at the camera.
How Lunchbox Jones Saved Me From Robots, Traitors, and Missy the Cruel Page 10
