Butter (11 page)

I closed the website before I could change my mind and switched to my “SaxMan” handle. I found Anna online and prepared to be J.P. for the rest of the night.
Role playing
, I thought. Maybe my J.P. wasn't too far off from Tucker's bikini-clad cyber troll.

Hi. What are you up to?

Her reply was lightning fast.

Writing a paper for comp.

I knew that paper. Mine had been done for a week.

How's it going?

Sucks. I totally put it off and it's due tomorrow. My mom says I can't come out of my room until it's finished.

Sorry babe.

Yeah, it blows. Actually, I've been typing all night, and my fingers hurt. Do you want to video chat tonight instead of messaging?

I smiled. Nice try, Anna.

You know the answer to that. So much for mystery.

She pressed harder.

Come on. You could play me my song. I'd love to watch you play it.

I wasn't falling for that.

Yeah right. You just want to see what I look like.

Maybe a little.

If Anna were the kind of girl who used emoticons, I think there would have been a wink at the end of that message.

Be patient. New Year's Eve is only a few weeks away.

She wasn't giving up, though.

What if we wear masks? Let's be silly and hide our faces over video chat.

I actually thought that was a cute idea, but there wasn't a mask big enough in the world to hide what I didn't want Anna to see.

My webcam is busted.

A lie.

I imagined Anna sighing on the other end of the connection.

Okay. Better get back to my paper then.

K. Night.

Sweet dreams.

I closed the laptop and leaned back in my chair. I could tell Anna was peeved. Maybe she was even starting to suspect
I wasn't really “J.P.: all-star athlete, private school whiz kid, and world-traveling heir to a family fortune.”

Although I guess that last bit wasn't too far off. Scottsdale was a pretty lucrative place to be an accountant if you worked for the right people, and Dad always said, “I work for the right people.”

Too bad all that money couldn't buy me a new body. Mom had asked Doc Bean about expensive surgeries like liposuction and lap banding, but he thought it was best to wait until I graduated high school. He still seemed to think we could get a lot accomplished before then.

I looked down at my ample middle. I liked Doc Bean—almost as much as I liked the Professor—but if he thought this weight was going anywhere, maybe he was just a crackpot after all.

My bench was missing. My table sat empty at the back of the cafeteria, as always, but there was no bench tucked underneath. I panicked. What was I going to sit on? I could borrow one of those rickety plastic chairs from another table, but chances were I'd break it. I looked around desperately for the sturdiest unoccupied chair I could find, and that's when I noticed that every table within a twenty-foot radius was packed with kids just staring at me—and not with the usual curious, what's-hegonna-eat-today glances, but openly gawking.
Oh my God. The password didn't work. They know it wasn't a prank.
My eyes moved from table to table until I realized they weren't just staring at me. Their eyes were swiveling back and forth from me to another corner of the cafeteria. I looked to that corner and saw the strangest thing of all.

There was my bench, parked at the circular table of Jeremy
Strong and his minions. It took up one whole side of the table, the ends sticking out awkwardly beyond the table's curved edges. Parked on each of those ends were Trent and Parker. Parker was bouncing up and down on his end, trying to convince Trent that they could make it rock like a teeter-totter, but Trent wasn't listening; he was distracted by something.

He was waving hard, trying to get somebody's attention.
Wait
. I looked over both of my shoulders—nothing behind me. He was trying to get
my
attention.

“Butter! Butter, man, over here! We got your bench!”

I moved slowly, aware of all the eyes following me. “What's going on?” I asked.

Parker slapped a spot in the middle of the bench. “Have a seat!”

Trent gestured around the table. “We all moved your bench over so you could sit with us.”

On the other side of the table, Jeremy folded his arms across his chest and muttered, “We didn't
all
move it.”

“Ah, so you got overruled,” Parker shot back. “Quit your crying.”

I hesitated. Was it a trick? Had they rigged the bench to break out from underneath me? Seeing Trent and Parker play seesaw on the ends of the bench, though, I pushed that thought away and racked my brain for other potential deceptions.

“Well, why would—I mean, I just don't underst—”

“Oh my God, dude! If you're gonna sit, just sit!” Jeremy huffed.

“Hey! Stop being a dick.” The way Trent sliced into Jeremy made me wonder who was really in charge of this group.

Finally, I took a deep breath and sat. The bench held beneath me, and I let out the air I'd been holding in. I couldn't be sure, but I thought I heard the sound of a hundred other sighs behind me, from kids all around the lunchroom. Apparently, I wasn't the only one suspicious of the bench. But now I was on it, and the only thing that had shaken loose was the tension.

The boys around the table visibly relaxed, and Parker gave me that now-familiar smack on the back. “See, Trent? I told you he'd sit with us.”

Trent shrugged at me. “Wasn't sure. Thought maybe you'd think it was weird.”

“Well, what
is
the deal?” I asked.

“Nothin', man. We just, y'know, thought you might not want to sit alone.”

“Yeah,” Parker said. “That, and we want to know what's on the menu.”

“The menu?” I peeked inside my padded cooler. “Just some cold leftovers.”

“No.” Parker lowered his voice. “The
menu
.”

“Oh.”
Oh!
So that's what this was about.

“Well, I—I haven't really decided.” God, this was uncomfortable.

Parker leaned in close. “I put down a twenty that says you won't go for the crickets.”

“A twenty? What? Are you
betting
?”

“Nice, Parker. Real subtle.” Trent rolled his eyes and dug into his lunch.

“Everybody's betting!” Parker said.

“Then put me down for fifty that he doesn't go through with it at all,” Jeremy spoke up.

I fought the urge to throw something at Jeremy and said to Trent and Parker instead, “Look, guys, I know everyone knows about it—”

“Only everyone we
want
to know about it,” Trent said.

Laughter rippled around the table.

“Right. But I don't want to talk about it … y'know, at school.”

“I got ya.” Trent nodded. “Teachers and all that.”

“Yeah, all that,” I agreed.

“But you
are
gonna do it?” Parker whispered.

I forced a nod.

“I'll believe it when I see it,” Jeremy said.

I cocked an eyebrow at him. “You're gonna see it? I thought you had better stuff to do on New Year's Eve than watch me.”

“Oh,
burn
!” Parker howled, and the other boys joined in his laughter at Jeremy's expense. I felt nervous challenging Jeremy, but the response from the other guys was worth it, and as an added bonus, it shut him up for a while.

The rest of lunch passed without another mention of my last meal. I nodded with fake interest at their talk of football and helped Parker comprehend whatever the hell we'd been taught in algebra that morning. At one point, Trent and Parker pushed their lunches to the side to make room for my usual expansive spread, but I waved them off and tucked my cooler into my backpack.

“No, thanks. I'm not hungry.”

• • •

The next few days passed in a blur of cafeteria camaraderie and hallway reverence. My invitation to sit at a new table had a pleasant side effect: the sneers from people who thought I'd pulled a prank and the whispers of pity from those who weren't so sure transformed into open-mouthed stares of confusion and jealousy. People stopped caring about some stupid passwordprotected website when there was much bigger gossip at hand. Everyone wanted to know how the fat kid cracked the cool crowd.

But they couldn't ask me, because now that I was hanging with Trent and Parker, they all had to keep a respectable distance—and keep their opinions at a distance as well.

Not that there was a shortage of people to talk to. Trent introduced me to someone new every day. In fact, by the end of the week, my list of friends had grown almost as long as my list of food. And
that
list was getting out of control.

As promised, I started posting nightly updates listing which food suggestions had made the short list, and I teased my fans with promises of a final menu to come. Each new post generated a flurry of debate in the comments sections of my weblog, as my peers argued over whether cheese would kill me faster than chocolate and whether my final sip on this earth should be Coke or Pepsi. It was hard to imagine these rabid Web followers were the same smiling faces Trent had introduced me to, the same easygoing kids I'd been eating lunch with and sitting next to in class.

I think Trent and Parker must have warned everyone with the password not to discuss my last meal in school, because no
one ever made a peep about it. In the hallways of Scottsdale High, it was like my website didn't even exist, like my life had no expiration date. But that imposed silence only made them more bloodthirsty at night, and by the time they all sat down at their computers at home, they spoke of me not like their new friend Butter, but like a lab rat in some kind of demented science experiment.

The two faces of my fellow students were so different, I genuinely convinced myself those vultures online were not the same people as the kids suddenly being so nice to me at school, and they couldn't possibly be the same people who invited me to go bowling on Friday.

“Not just bowling, Butter.
Cosmic
bowling.” Trent was animated, his already loud voice positively booming. “We go like once a month. Everybody meets up at the lanes downtown, and we take up half the bowling alley. It's just a big party.”

“I really can't bowl,” I told him.

Trent laughed. “Bowling is
so
not the point. We just go get drunk. The bartender there knows us. She never cards. You don't even need a fake ID.”

“Speak for yourself,” Parker grumbled. “That chick never serves me.”

“Aw, that's because you have such a baby face.” Trent knocked Parker lightly on the chin, then looked at me. “So, you coming?”

“Eh, I don't know.” Honestly, bowling sounded about as fun as getting a tooth drilled at the dentist, and I wasn't sure I was ready to spend time with these guys outside school. Inside the
walls of Scottsdale High, I could pretend this was really my life, these were really my friends. I was afraid a weekend outing would shatter that illusion.

“Come on,” Parker said. “It's Friday night. What are you gonna do? Stay home?”

“I'll think about it,” I said.

Parker pounced on that. “Hey, Jeremy? Did you hear that? Butter's coming bowling! Awesome, huh?”

Parker had spent the last two days taking every opportunity to needle Jeremy about my presence in their group. And Trent allowed it, which made me wonder if they even liked Jeremy at all—and if not, why keep him around? For appearances? Because he played football with Trent? Because of that whole “keep your enemies closer” thing?

Jeremy looked up from his sandwich. “You're bowling?” he asked me.

“I haven't decided—”

“Yep, he's bowling!” Parker clapped my back. “Trent and I insist.”

Jeremy dropped his sandwich and scooped up the rest of his lunch. “I'm done.” He stood and gave one last disdainful look around the table before walking away. “Lost my appetite.”

I know the feeling
.

Parker watched Jeremy's retreat and winked at me. “Good. Maybe he won't come.”

“He'll come,” Trent said. “Everybody's coming.” He tilted his head up at someone passing behind me. “Even the girls are coming. Right, Jeanie?”

I turned as much as my bulk would allow and saw Jeanie and Anna—
Anna!
—stop right next to our table.

“Coming where?” Jeanie asked.

“Bowling!”

Jeanie narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips, making her already pointy face look downright sharp. “Well, that depends, Woods. You planning on cheating like last time?”

Trent threw up his hands. “Hey, a spare's a spare! Can't help it if you girls don't bring your A game.”

“Just for that, maybe I
won't
come.”

Trent grinned. “Well good, because those itty-bitty shorts you wear are distracting anyway—throw me off my game.”

Jeanie refused to return the smile. “You'll be missing those shorts when I don't show up tonight.”

“All right, enough!” Anna rolled her eyes and put her hands on Jeanie's shoulders to move her along. “We'll come,” she said to Trent. “We
always
come.”

“That's what we hear,” Parker said. The boys burst into laughter, and I joined them hesitantly, torn between wanting to fit in and hoping I didn't look like a dick in front of Anna.

Trent winked at the girls. “See you tonight.”

As Jeanie and Anna walked away, I turned to Trent and said—a little too quickly—“On second thought, bowling sounds great. Count me in.”