Sully Messed Up

by Stephanie Simpson McLellan

  “Very entertaining, Brewster,” said Green. “But I fail to see how any of what you’ve presented today has answered any of the questions on the assignment sheet.”

  “But that’s not even—” Sully said.

  “No excuses, Brewster,” said Green. “All of you—”

  Hoots and whistles drowned out whatever Green was about to say next.

  “Guy . . . Pad! Guy . . . Pad!” the crowd chanted, many of them resuming the wing flapping and lewd gestures.

  When Sully looked back at the screen, another caption spiraled, Star Wars style, out of the screen’s black abyss: guyPad—He’s Everywhere!

  A staccato of images followed, illustrating the point: Sully crawling through the parking lot on his hands and knees; Sully in mid flail on the back of the bathroom door; Sully spread-eagled on top of Morsixx.

  Sully’s eyes chased his ears around the circumference of his face, while his mouth made an apparent effort to turn itself inside out.

  Flashes of Green ineffectively waving his arms at the class spiraled in and out of Sully’s line of vision, as his eyes rolled around his face like horses on a merry-go-round.

  The classroom walls rushed Sully from every side, and the jeers of his classmates sounded far away. Darkness seeped around the edges of his vision like ink. The last thing he saw before he hit the ground was Tank’s impassive but pointed stare from the back of the classroom.

  CHAPTER 27

  “You’re coming with us, Dude.”

  Sully opened his right eye to a blurry prism of color. The voice in his right ear belonged to Morsixx, but it was the fluid outline of Blossom that leaned over him. A garden of wildflowers accented the warm earth tone of her face. Her multi-colored hair glowed so brightly it made his eye hurt.

  How was Blossom here? She wasn’t even in this class.

  “The herd has gone beyond sniffing, Bee Boy,” she whispered, and bent so close that her purple scarf tickled his messed-up face, before she swept it dramatically over her shoulder.

  “Some boy in your class texted Morsixx who texted me,” Blossom continued. “Come on. You’re coming with us.”

  Sully didn’t move. Not only had his ears migrated to his forehead, they were also on the wrong side of his head, and opposite to his eyes, which had buried themselves upside down in the concave depression of his temples. Deciphering the false cues this delivered him, Sully squinted open his left eye to see Morsixx, his tall, linear, absence of color a relief after Blossom’s rainbow riot.

  Still, a hammer relentlessly pounded inside Sully’s skull. “Go away,” he said.

  “Not this time, Dude.”

  “Take him to the school nurse to get looked at.” Green’s addled expression made it clear Sully was inconvenient roadkill.

  “Oh, we’ll take care of him all right. Mr. Green, is it?” said Blossom. “And we’re going to report you at the same time. What kind of teacher would let this happen in his classroom?”

  “Young lady—” Green began.

  “Save it, Mr. Green.” The flowers on Blossom’s face suddenly looked like lethal weapons. Green took an involuntary step back, gawping and floundering as if he’d been slapped.

  “Let us help you up,” she said to Sully.

  “I can take care of myself.” Sully’s nose wagged uncomfortably on his bottom lip and little spots converged before his eyes as he sat up.

  “Right, Dude. You’re doing a good job of that.”

  “I know you’re worried about being seen with us,” said Blossom. “But even you should realize you’ve done more damage on your own than we could possibly inflict.”

  The image of his sabotaged PowerPoint flashed into Sully’s head. In his mind’s eye, he saw what he hadn’t at the time. Tank’s eyes had traced his every move, like he was adding up a string of numbers on a calculator.

  This vision was followed by another sliver of memory—a parade of faces filing past him, glancing down at his prostrate body as if he were a cadaver at a funeral.

  Morsixx took the jump drive from Green and pulled Sully to his feet.

  “Damage control,” said Blossom. “You need a plan. Let’s go.”

  The trio took the back door out, avoiding the office.

  “We’re taking the rest of the day off,” said Blossom. “This is no time to trust the adults.”

  “You gotta chill, Dude. You’re giving them what they want.”

  “Oh, and you’re not?” said Sully.

  “Actually, he’s not,” said Blossom. “Morsixx’s armor is that he doesn’t care.”

  “Yah, well, that’s not going to help you when they strip all your stupid Emo armor off you and hang you upside down from a tree,” said Sully.

  “They’re not after me,” said Morsixx. “Don’t you get it? They’re looking for a victim.”

  “So, those signs they put on our locker were signs of friendship?” Sully said. “Wake up. They’ve got you pegged as a victim just as much as they’ve pegged me.”

  “That could have happened, Dude, but they lost interest.”

  “You don’t know anything,” said Sully. “Look, I know you’re trying to help, but how do you expect to help me when you can’t even help yourself. And you,” he said, turning to Blossom. “Easy for you when you can’t possibly be chosen.”

  “What, because I’m a girl?”

  “What’s with all your stupid tattoos, anyway?” said Sully.

  “Stop being so rude,” she said. “I know more about this than you’ll ever know.”

  “What, from all your books? You think reading about something’s the same thing as living it?”

  “I’m not talking about books,” she said.

  “Look at you. You probably come from some hippy happy family, who all bond and sit around reading together, and painting sunshine and rainbows on each other’s faces. Do you get your makeup tips from your mother?”

  “That’s enough, Dude.” Morsixx stopped and towered in front of Sully.

  “My mother’s dead,” said Blossom. The flowers on her face bunched together as if someone was crushing them.

  Sully’s eyes skulked backward until they were hidden under his hair.

  “Oh,” he said.

  “You beaten us up enough so we can talk now?” said Morsixx.

  “I’m . . . you know, sorry,” Sully said to Blossom.

  “Forget it,” said Blossom. Her scarf billowed like purple wings behind her as she ran ahead. She veered to the right, off the path, before suddenly disappearing.

  “Wait up,” said Morsixx.

  “Where’d she go?” said Sully.

  Up ahead, the walking path pulled away from the train tracks, meandering left to follow the narrow river that snuck under the rails. Tall grasses and bramble hid the steep banks, as the river raced to feed the lake in the heart of the park, before spilling precipitously over a sharp fall at Main Street and bolting under the road for the next town.

  “Down here!” Blossom called back. “Come on. It’s beautiful!”

  Morsixx strode in the direction of Blossom’s voice. He pushed through the weeds and disappeared himself. Sully followed at a slower pace, turning his head to the side, so at least one of his eyes had a chance of making out the path Morsixx and Blossom had taken.

  Despite his wariness, Sully’s feet slipped out beneath him, and he found himself sliding the rest of the way on his butt, down the sharp incline of the riverbank.

  “Grab those stalks on your way down to slow your—” said Morsixx.

  With his arms thrown in front to stave off the various weeds that whipped his face, Sully slid past Morsixx and Blossom, before landing in mud and goose droppings at the water’s edge.

  “Thanks for the warning,” Sully said, as he looked up at them.

  “Look around.” Blossom snapped photos wi
th her phone. “It’s like something out of a poem! Smile, Bee Boy!”

  Morsixx and Blossom leaned against the large concrete pad that anchored the tracks halfway up the riverbank. Gripping the ledge, they pulled themselves up into the small alcove under the rails, and then pivoted to face the steel trusses under the rail bridge. The view yawned over crisscrossed steel beams, open to the water underneath, but banked on either side by rusted walls decorated with graffiti.

  “Come up here!” said Blossom.

  “Why?” said Sully. “I’m all wet. It looks like I peed myself. Thanks a lot.”

  “Oh, quit your whining and get up here,” she said.

  Sully grabbed the stalks he’d missed on the way down and struggled up the incline. Failing his first few attempts, he took Morsixx’s offered hand, but scraped his stomach on the way up into the alcove under the bridge.

  “Nice,” he said, lifting his shirt. “See this? I’m bleeding. Are you trying to help me or kill me?”

  “Like she said, Dude. Your whining is getting old.”

  “So, Bee Boy, let’s take this from the beginning.”

  “My name’s not Bee Boy! My name is Sully! Sullivan Brewster! Why can nobody get that?”

  “Calm down,” said Blossom. “Bee Boy is a term of affection. There’s no need to get hysterical.”

  “I’m not hysterical. But we’re probably only talking weeks now. By this time at the end of the month . . . by the end of October . . . Tank will definitely have chosen his victim, just like the last two years. And it’s not going to be me. Period, end of story.”

  “Then you have to stop shooting yourself in the foot,” said Blossom. “Honestly, the way you’re going about this, it’s almost like you’re asking to be targeted.”

  “She’s right, Dude. The more you try to hide, the more they see you.”

  Sully sat between them, one eye on each.

  “I’m just trying to fly under the radar,” he said. “Just till this is over.”

  “Under the radar, huh?” said Blossom. “Maybe I should call you Bat Boy, then, because if you keep this up, you’re going to have more than radar in common with a bat. Like hanging upside down from a tree for—”

  “Okay, okay.” Sully let out a breath it felt like he’d been holding for months. “You’re right. You’re both right. Geez, how did it all get so bad? I made an idiot of myself with my stupid presentation, and it wasn’t just Dodger’s photos.”

  “From what I’ve heard, I’m not going to argue with you, Dude.”

  “I was just trying to get through it without embarrassing myself, but even I couldn’t understand what I was saying.”

  “What photos?” asked Blossom.

  “You see!” said Sully. “It’s not all my fault. Tank, Dodger, Ox . . . they’ve obviously been stalking me from the beginning. They made it look like I horde tampons. Like I love tampons. They showed photos of me hanging in the boys’ bathroom with a wedgie; and then when I fall from the door on top of Morsixx, they took a picture of that, too. Worse than that, they staged it. They’re out to get me!”

  “Okay, Dude, slow down. Let’s figure out where it all started and maybe we can go backward from there.”

  “It started on day one, Morsixx, the very first day. When I get into Sex Ed late on the first day, Green goes on and on, thinking I’m a girl. And you don’t help in English, Blossom. Don’t you know Dodger’s in that class? It was you that caused Wippet to have me read that ridiculous poem in front of the class; and then you got us in trouble by passing notes. If you really want to help me, stop trying to help me.”

  “Don’t try to pin that on me,” said Blossom. “Try paying attention for once. Do your homework. If you want to backpedal out of this, it’s going to take a little effort.”

  “Stick with us, Dude. Stop blaming everyone else and stop trying to go it alone.”

  “And stop being so afraid,” said Blossom. “Don’t you know that bullies can smell fear? It fuels them. You think it would make them stop, but it doesn’t. It makes them worse.”

  She picked up a loose chunk of concrete as she said this and threw it at the steel trusses. Sully jumped as it hit one of the walls with such force that it ricocheted off several beams, before clunking in the water below.

  “Nice arm,” said Morsixx, but even in the dim light, Sully noticed the pinched look of the flowers on Blossom’s face.

  “Thanks,” she said, as the flowers gradually unpinched. “Anyway. What we’re trying to say is that there’s strength in numbers.”

  True, thought Sully to himself. Plus, maybe the opposite of what he’d previously thought was true. Maybe the best way to become invisible was to actually hang out with the two of them. Between the extremes of their ridiculousness—Morsixx’s all-black wardrobe, his new name and laidback ways; Blossom’s tattoos, bright colors and encyclopedic verbosity—who would even notice him? And then he hated himself for even thinking this.

  “Stick with us, Dude. Everyone needs friends. Okay?”

  “Okay,” said Sully. “Thanks.”

  It would be good to have them watching out for him, he thought. It had been hard going it alone and, for all their strangeness, they were the closest to friends that he had. At least they wouldn’t intentionally hurt him.

  CHAPTER 28

  Even before Tuesday started, Sully could feel that things were turning around. Because he was no longer avoiding Blossom and Morsixx, and was thus able to take the bus, the extra hour of sleep alone vastly improved his mood. No more fear of running into the Purse Lady, and no more long, early morning walks.

  His stepdad had an early meeting, and his mom and Eva left before breakfast for a school field trip, which freed Sully to have a nice, slow breakfast in daylight. Fulfilling their promise, Morsixx and Blossom kept him out of harm’s way on the bus.

  It was a relief not to have to carry his backpack around with him everywhere, since he resumed using his shared locker with Morsixx, and he found it surprisingly calming to have a normal conversation with Morsixx before class. Mr. Green was actually courteous to Sully after Blossom, true to her word, had reported Monday’s incident to the office; and Wippet gave them the class to work on their essays. Winston didn’t try to hug him or play hide and seek. At lunch, Sully took a seat in the cafeteria with Morsixx and Blossom, just like a normal kid, with no one looking at him or laughing at him.

  It was his best day of high school so far, and he began to think his paranoia really had got the best of him.

  Until a table erupted in laughter by the window.

  “Hey, Brewster!” someone shouted. “Nice confession!”

  A guy down the table held up his phone and pressed the play button, revealing a video loop of Sully falling down the riverbank over and over. When the kid turned up the sound, a voice broadcast across the cafeteria. The syntax and intonation were off—sound bytes clearly edited and reordered—but the voice was definitely Sully’s:

  “My name is Sully. Sullivan Brewster. I’m a girl. When I fall for boys, I make out like some sex pervert. How did it all get so bad? When it’s my time of the month . . . when I get my period with no warning, it looks like I peed myself. Geez, I’m bleeding. Why can nobody get that? That’s why I love tampons. If you want to help me, just buy me tampons. Thanks a lot.”

  Every eye in the cafeteria veered from the screen to Sully himself, who sat, mid-chew, his eyes riveted to the screen, which started to play the video again.

  There were only two people with him at the rail bridge where this video was shot, and they were sitting right beside him.

  CHAPTER 29

  Sully’s eyes wobbled uncertainly toward each other. They crossed in an arc over his mouth and crawled into the hollows of his cheeks. They blinked in slow motion, one at Blossom and the other at Morsixx, taking note of the protest, defense, outrage, and challenge that charged across
their faces.

  Their mouths were forming words, but Sully’s ears had folded over each other, effectively blocking out sound. The entire scene played out like a silent movie at quarter speed, giving Sully’s eyes ample time to gulp in every detail of the activity around him.

  How could he have been so stupid? Blossom had pretended she was taking pictures because the rail bridge was like a poem, when she really must have been capturing him on film. Morsixx had pulled him up, not to help him, but so that he’d be closer to the microphone. He had wanted so badly to believe they were really trying to help him, and part of him still couldn’t believe they’d done this to him. But it was the only explanation, because they were the only ones who’d been there.

  He pushed himself away from the table, noticing out of the corner of his eyes that his chair fell soundlessly in slow motion. Pockets of students rose to their feet, crowding around screens and throwing their heads back, grins cracking their faces with gaping black holes. Fists pumped the air. Bodies swayed. Hands clapped. Only when he reached the door to the atrium did the roar of laughter crash around him all at once. As Morsixx grabbed him by the shoulders, and Blossom stepped in front of him, their voices caught up with the movement of their mouths as if part of a movie that had just stopped buffering.

  “ . . . exactly what we’re talking about!” Blossom’s hands were on her hips, as if she’d been scolding him.

  “Stop, Dude. We’ve got your back.”

  Sully yanked away from Morsixx and maneuvered to the side.

  “That’s what you call having my back?”

  “I know it seems bad, Dude, but—”

  “How could you do this to me?”

  “How could we do this to you? Don’t be an idiot,” said Blossom.

  “No one else was there!”

  “That we were aware of,” said Blossom.

  “You can’t seriously believe we’d do that,” said Morsixx.