All Good Children (18 page)

He shakes his head. “We're not allowed off school grounds till the final bell.”

“Yeah, but we're not seriously going to stick around, are we?”

“We have to go to the cafeteria, Max.” There's no expression on his face, but his voice squeaks in exasperation. “We have to follow all the rules.”

The cafeteria is half full. Ninth grade zombies eat their soup in silence. Tyler Wilkins eats a sandwich at a table by himself, rubbing his temples. “This is damaged,” I mutter.

Mr. Graham stands behind us in the lineup, chatting to the cook. “What a nice Halloween dance we're going to have next week. Have you seen the decorations?”

Beads of sweat cling to the lunch lady's whiskers. She doesn't acknowledge the principal's small talk. She's like a tall version of my airport molester. She slaps my lasagna onto a white plate. Red lumps of meat slide out from under the noodles and onto my garlic bread. I groan.

Dallas stiffens beside me while Mr. Graham watches closely.

I'd hate to fail so early in my acting career, so I find a reason for the groan. “This lunch doesn't meet the daily food guide requirements,” I tell the lunch lady.

“Pardon me?”

“It's every student's right to have a meal that meets the national guidelines for good health,” I say.

Dallas turns to me with a sparkle behind the eyes in his blank face. “You're right. This dish does not contain one-and-a-half cups of fruits or vegetables.”

“It's mostly pasta, which is a grain,” I explain.

“We should get a free salad,” Dallas says. “I want potato salad.”

“I want fruit salad,” I say.

Dallas turns to me with his eyebrows raised. “Did you know that one cup of fruit salad contains two fruit servings?”

“I did
not
know that! That's excellent nutritional value.”

“Indeed.”

We don't smile, but inside we're laughing. Our shoulders relax and our breath comes easy. We've found a way to hide ourselves in what they want us to be.

“I guess we'd better pull up our socks,” Mr. Graham says.

The lunch lady wipes her lip.

I pause outside Xavier's door on my way in from school. His mother answers. She wears bright blue pants with a khaki sweater. I can't tell if Celeste has made her up to look old or if that's just her face. “Yes?” she asks. “Oh. Max. Hello.”

“Hello, Mrs. Lavigne. I noticed that Xavier wasn't in school today and I wanted to make sure he's all right.”

She looks over her shoulder into the living room. “He's fine. He has a migraine, so we kept him home.”

“Will he be coming to school tomorrow?”

She squints like she doesn't trust me. “It depends on his health,” she says and shuts the door.

The hallway smells like carpet cleaner. I imagine people sitting behind the walls surveying me, waiting for me to slip up.

I collapse onto our sofa and call Pepper.

“Hello, Max. How are you?” she says. Ponytail, monotone. No lip gloss, no smile. She's not right.

“I noticed you weren't in school today,” I say.

She doesn't respond.

“I'm calling to make sure you're fine,” I add. I pop my eyeballs at the screen, trying to convey a secret.

“Yes. I'm fine.” She doesn't even blink.

“Why weren't you at school?”

“I sprained my ankle, and the doctor said the walk to school might be damaging.”

“That bleeds.”

She stares at me like I'm a stranger. “Is there anything else?”

“You missed the vaccinations.”

“They had vaccinations at the clinic.”

My heart thumps. I breathe through my mouth and wait for a sign that doesn't come. “I have to go,” I say at last.

Ally tiptoes into the room with a packet of licorice to share. “What's wrong?” she asks.

“Leave Max alone for a while,” Mom calls from the kitchen.

Ally threads a licorice string through my fingers and sings, “All my friends were here, but all my friends have gone. All my friends were here, but they left me all alone.” She kisses my cheek.
Pat, pat, pat.
“It's okay, Max
. I
still love you.”

I hold her to my chest and drench her in hormones.

NINE

Pepper's back at school on Friday with a bandage around her ankle and a patch beneath her sleeve. When I ask if she wants to eat with us, she says, “I prefer eating with my girlfriends,” and limps away.

“I bet they taste good,” Dallas whispers. That phrase is our new password. He's such a premium actor, I needed a code to prove that he's not a zombie. Whenever we meet or message, one of us says, “Zombies eat brains,” and the other says, “I bet they taste good.” If we answer properly, we can let our guard down. If we don't—I don't want to think about that.

“Spending time with her fellow dancers may improve Pepper's skills,” Dallas says.

I nod. “Perhaps we should spend time with our fellow footballers.”

“I believe there is a practice after school today.”

“That will present a fine opportunity.”

We turn to each other and nod. We take our humor dry these days.

Zombie football is no fun. It's hard to describe what's different about the team, but it's easy to feel. There's no energy or emotion. It kills me to feign disinterest as a thousand pounds of zombie pile on top of me over and over again.

“We might have to quit the team,” Dallas whispers at the edge of the field.

“I can't. I love football.”

“That's why we should quit.”

I conduct a zombie survey in search of inside information to improve my faking. I tell my teammates I'm exploring the role of sports in adolescent bonding. I call it “adolescent bondage” but the irony gets depressing when no one cracks a smile. I record their answers to questions like, “How do you experience tackling as a social interaction?” and “How does it feel to score?”

“I'm proud to carry out the play,” everyone says. Everyone except Brennan, who mutters, “You know how it feels, Max.”

I pocket my RIG and ask, “Does it feel like it always felt?”

“Only for some of us.”

“You weren't at school Tuesday,” I whisper. “You missed the vaccinations.”

He shakes his head. “Nobody missed those vaccinations. I'm allergic to eggs so I took the shot at the hospital.”

“The hospital where your mother works?”

He nods. “They have medical staff in case of emergencies.”

“Good decision,” I say.

Coach Emery walks over and pats Brennan's shoulder.

“Time to go, son.”

The whole school comes out for Monday's football game— more fans than I've ever seen. It's drizzling and windy, but students crowd the bleachers. They sit in uniform side by side, gray and greasy like zombie sardines. Parents claim their own section. My mother sits behind Dr. Richmond, bundled up and biting her lip, waiting for the worst.

Kayla climbs to the top of a zombie pyramid and shouts, “Go, Scorpions!” with a big vacant smile on her shiny face. Brennan turns away—Kayla split up with him this weekend. She says fifteen is too young for romance. He pretends not to care.

The Blue Mountain Devils descend from their bus in silence, heads high, helmets cradled in their arms like rifles. “Looks like the other quadrants have been vaccinated,” I whisper.

Dallas nods. “My father says it's happening everywhere.”

The Devils are devils no longer. They don't look our way while they warm up, don't say a word on the cold muddy field. It's like we have no history.

The game is freakishly quiet. There's still the thud of feet, clash of armor, scream of whistles, but there's no shouting, no laughing, no swearing or grunting. We make the plays with a vague dedication, like we want to do what's right but we've all forgotten why. We're big and strong, we run fast and hit hard, but nobody cares. We're just taking a ball and putting it somewhere else.

Whether we lose our ground or gain ten yards, each whistle is followed by a feeble clap from the spectators. The bleachers gleam with wet bared teeth that pass for smiles.

Dallas fakes it well. I don't. Not at all. I just don't want to. I want to run.

I intercept a pass by leaping four feet in the air and landing in a sprint. Zombie Devils are easy to dodge and shove. I guard my ball like a stray dog and run it for twenty slippery yards. The wind roars in my ears. My heart pounds in my head. I feel like I might rise from the ground. I tear into the end zone and slam the ball to the earth. I jump up, kick my cleats, and turn to the friends who are supposed to be running over to congratulate me.

They stand scattered across the field, yards away, smeared in mud. They're identical but for the numbers on their jerseys. Dallas leans on his left leg, clapping out a rhythm with the rest of them. I don't know why the sight hits me so hard. It's like my team is part of the background—they blend with the dead grass and cold skies, the naked trees beyond the bleachers, the rows of staring, vacant eyes. I'm yards away from them and the space between us forms a void instead of a path.

A scream flies up and out of me from some hollow place I didn't know I carried—a long drawn-out fury that rises in pitch and intensity until it pierces the clapping from the field and the stands, then tails off in a guttural growl as my breath runs out.

I can't bear the thick silence that follows. I drop to my knees and rest my butt on my cleats, rocking and moaning in the end zone like my baby just died. Mud soaks into my skin and I want to melt with it, lay myself out on the field like compost.

Dallas jogs to my side and shields me from the rain. He shakes my shoulder and says, “What are you doing, Max? Get up.”

I sway in his shadow.

Coach Emery squats beside him. “You can't be here, Richmond. Go back with the team.”

Dallas shakes his head.

The coach wraps his fingers around Dallas's mask and stares him scared. “Your father is in the stands watching you right now.” He rises with a fake smile. “Go back with the team before you're both caught.”

Dallas nods and walks away, leaving me exposed.

Coach Emery performs a first-aid check: airways, circulation, scrapes and abrasions. “Stretch out your legs,” he says.

I can't move. I'm too depressed. I'd rather be a zombie than feel like this.

My mother is suddenly all over me, looking for wounds. I shift onto my ass and let her take me apart.

“He has a very bad sprain,” the coach tells her. “Could be broken, judging by the pain.”

“I'm a nurse,” she says.

The principal walks up, hands on his hips, bald head glistening. “This is a strange situation.”

“A very bad sprain,” Coach Emery repeats.

Meanwhile I'm sitting like a stone while Mom prods my extremities. Mr. Graham stares down at us, unhappy. Mom pinches my Achilles tendon.

“Ow!” I pull my leg away.

“Yes, it's badly sprained,” she says. “But the bone's not broken.”

“Are you telling me he screamed like that because of a sprained ankle?” Mr. Graham asks.

Coach Emery chuckles. “These tough kids. They tackle each other all day without complaint, but pull a muscle too far and they cry like little girls.”

“Should that happen?” Mr. Graham asks. “I didn't think that was supposed to happen.”

“With purely physical pain, yes, it can still happen,” Mom says like she's being interviewed. “But, as you can see, it's very short-lived.” She points to me, quietly slumped in the mud.

“Brennan! Richmond!” the coach calls. “Help Mrs. Connors take her son off the field!” Mr. Graham surveys me as Coach Emery helps me stand. “Right now!” the coach shouts. He turns to Mom. “He'll have to take a break from football until this heals. No Halloween dance either. Have him study from home this week and keep him off his feet.”