Dull Boy (10 page)

“You think I haven’t heard that before?” She scrapes her knuckle across her eyes in two fierce motions. And I stop.

“Who have you heard it from?”

My heart beats into my throat and crowds the word out.
Who else is there?
I want to offer Cherchette’s name but my voice won’t cooperate.

“No one,” Catherine whispers. “Just leave me alone.”

We’re quiet for a moment. I’m not sure what to say to break down this wall between us. Catherine’s probably unsure how to get me to leave.

I wish there was a foolproof way to do this. Like when you’re little and you want to win someone’s friendship, so you give them your best-loved toy. One sacrifice and the person looks at you differently.

Maybe I can still do that . . .

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m freaking you out and that’s not what I want—I just want to be your friend. And maybe that’s totally ridiculous to you, and you want me out of your life and I’m going to have to deal with that. But give me one more chance to prove it to you. And then . . . I’ll leave you alone. We’ll talk about this on your terms or not at all. Deal?”

She rubs her eye with the palm of her hand. “Like I have a choice?”

“Catherine . . .” I sigh. “This isn’t easy for me either. Just give me a chance.”

I close my eyes, because I can’t look at her when I do this. This is like the most private thing I have. The biggest secret I’ve ever held. My best-loved toy—the one that has the most potential to destroy me.

Fists clenched, I push upward—everything in my body focused in that one direction. Up.
Up.
A bullet cutting through the air.
Visualize it.
Forget that you have an audience. Forget how much is riding on this.

It’s colder, smoother. I’m slipping through the sky now, arms outstretched to take it all in. Stars in my eyes.

You have to lose something to gain something.

You can’t expect someone to trust you if you don’t trust them.

When I look down Catherine is so small she blends into the night. I can’t see her expression, don’t know if she’s calmed down or if she hates me more than ever.

I hope I’m making the right choice.

 

THE NEXT MORNING
in the car I’m nervous as hell. The ball’s in Catherine’s court now—I promised I wouldn’t bother her. But what if she never speaks to me again? And all of this is just . . . over?

“Avery?” My mom turns her head at a stoplight to check on me. “Are you all right? Are you afraid of someone at school?”

“Um.” I’m afraid of
everyone
right now. How am I supposed to tell her
that
? “Not really.” I squirm in my seat. “I’m okay.”

“Because . . . You know we only want what’s best for you.” She sips her iced coffee, keeps her lips pressed together awhile afterward, like she’s thinking. Jiggles the plastic cup, so the ice sloshes around. “Last night I was so happy you were doing well at your new school . . . but maybe you don’t belong there. I mean, bullies, fights every day? Some of the kids might be jealous of you if you start doing well and getting attention from the other students. Your dad and I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Bingo! This is my golden opportunity: parental self-doubt. Say the word and I’ll be out of there, safe and comfortable in my old school. Where, even if my friends hate me, at least I
know
people.

So why don’t I?

“They’re all talk,” I say, and shrug. “I have, um, this dissection lab in science today. We’re cutting up a worm and I feel sick about it. That’s why I’m being weird. Sorry.”

“Yuck.” My mom shudders. “I think I missed that day when I was in school.”

After that she’s all smiles and conspiratorial “ew” moments, confident that she’s doing the right thing. I wish it was that easy for me—my mind keeps drifting back to Catherine, to the look on her face that I
couldn’t
see last night. Where do we stand now?

Once my mom drops me off, my worries switch gears. I haven’t been in the building more than five seconds when Darla races up to me, grabs my arm, and drags me into the girls’ bathroom.

Three Mary Janes are posing in front of the mirror doing their makeup. When they see me they freak; one of the girls loses control of her eyebrow pencil and it shoots wildly up her forehead, so that she’s suddenly cartoon-angry, one eyebrow slanted to the extreme. “This is the
girls’
bathroom, you freak!”

“Get out!”

“Sorry—the following conversation is classified,” Darla says. “You’ll have to complete your beauty routine elsewhere.” She fires up her inhaler and zaps the wall-mounted hand dryer with a bolt of electricity. It starts sparking and smoking and the Mary Janes run out like . . . uh, like girls who just saw Darla set a hand dryer on fire. I knock it to the floor and stomp on it till it stops sparking. Darla digs this purple, hockey-puck-shaped device out of her backpack and slaps it against the center of the door. As soon as the purple disk makes contact, two spindly metal arms shoot out from either side, and tiny drills at the end of each arm quickly bore holes into the cinder-block walls, effectively securing the door. The purple disk lights up and the air fills with the noxious smell of lavender.

“We’re in trouble,” she says.

Um—there’s a barricade-slash-air-freshener on the bathroom door.
Obviously
doesn’t even begin to cover it.

“I should have predicted this!” Darla rages, pacing back and forth in front of the sinks. “Yesterday was so
Catherine ex machina
, so unexpected, so perfect—it was all I could think about when I got home. Because either she jumped in because a rumble is her equivalent of a food fight, and she didn’t want to be left out—or she
is
capable of caring about others and working with them! That means we can still reach her! I was so excited I didn’t stop to consider the consequences.

“Fool! And you call yourself a great mind!”

“I never—” I start. But then I realize she’s talking to herself. Cool. So I didn’t have to understand any of that. “Um . . . what’s the problem?”

“Big Dawg’s mother got involved,” Darla says. “Maybe you noticed that personalized football jersey he was wearing? They’re ridiculously expensive, and now that it’s ruined his mom is
livid.
She’s adamant that someone be punished for it. I don’t think Big Dawg named names, but cutting stuff up is Catherine’s specialty. The office is definitely going to try to pin it on her.”

“Damn it.” I stomp on the dryer once more for good measure. She was sticking up for me. “We can’t let that happen.”

“Exactly. Catherine’s record is already a mile long. This could be the offense that puts the final nail in her juvie coffin—so to speak. It’s not her fault that she has, umm, unusual weapons at her disposal.”

I raise my eyebrows. Darla coughs and barrels forward. “I have a plan. It’s not the most
brilliant
plan, but there’s a seventy-two percent chance it’ll work. Just . . . one of us has to take the fall, and the other has to be a witness and back up everything that person says. Are you a good liar?”

“Darla? If lying was a sport I would letter in it, go to state, get a college scholarship, and be a first-round draft pick.”

Darla blinks. “Sports metaphors—not my thing. Is it safe to say you mean yes?”

“I mean ‘hell yes!’ Let’s do this.”

T
en minutes later Darla and I are sitting in the office, waiting for our meeting with the principal while the secretary jams out to her iPod and works her way through an early-morning bowl of Cookie Crisp. Catherine just got called down over the PA system and Darla’s busy adding the final touches to my costume before she arrives: I’ve got two three-pronged hand rakes (apparently they’re called “cultivators” in gardening circles) strapped to my hands, and Darla’s securing them with duct tape and boxing wraps, winding them around and around until I effectively have claws.

This is so not going to work.

I want to bury my head in my hands so that no one passing the office will know the moron-claw loser is me—but I’d probably gouge my eyes out with the rakes. “He’s not going to fall for this.”

“Shh—I told you to practice saying
‘snikt.’
” Darla pins the boxing wraps so that they’re snug around my wrists. “It’s all about the delivery. Now, let’s rehearse your story.”

“Out loud??”

“Yes! You have to practice now so you don’t choke later. Trust me—I’m a master of disguise.”

I groan. Darla is the worst chameleon ever. And I’m taking advice from her? “Maybe you should do this, then.”

“No way. It’s already a given that you’ll lose half your arm hair when I rip that duct tape off. No reason we should both suffer. Besides—you’ll be great.”

I’m still grumbling when Catherine slouches into the office, a crumpled hall pass in her hand. Smiling awkwardly, I cross my arms over my chest and try to hide the claws under my armpits.

“Deny everything!” Darla stage-whispers at Catherine. “Trust us! We’ve got you covered!” She’s nodding like a bobblehead and double-thumbs-upping like there’s no tomorrow. Reassurance with thousand-volt cherries on top.

“Like I would do anything else,” Catherine mutters. She leans against the wall, red-rimmed eyes flitting between the secretary’s desk and the principal’s door. “Can I get this over with?”

The secretary’s music is cranked so loud that her earphones buzz like eager insects; her eyes are glued to the blog she’s reading.

Catherine tosses her crumpled hall pass into the secretary’s half-full cereal bowl. It floats in the milk for a sec before the secretary hurriedly spoons it out.

“What is wrong with you brats?” she sputters.

“I
said
, ‘Can I get this over with?’” Catherine points at the principal’s closed door. “You called me down here.”

The secretary shuffles some papers on her desk, stops muttering under her breath long enough to send Catherine in. She narrows her eyes at us. “What do you two need?”

“We’re here to see the principal about yesterday’s unfortunate incident,” Darla says. “He’s expecting us. We checked in about ten minutes ago?”

“Hmm, that’s right. Try to behave yourselves.”

We smile like angels and she warily puts her music back on.

“Okay, now let’s practice!” Darla says. “Last chance! We’re down to the wire! Here—I made you a cue card.” She hands me a three-by-five card with my lines written on it in tiny letters.

I clear my throat. “I . . . sometimes like to role-play.”

Darla nods excitedly like,
go on
.

“I pretend I’m Wolverine from the X-Men. Yesterday after school I was practicing martial arts moves on the baseball field . . . and I . . . I imagined I was surrounded by Sentinels.” Every word is painful. “Those are the robots that, um, try to destroy the X-Men. I was fighting them when Big Dawg and his friends showed up, and I show remorse accidentally—”

“No! You’re not supposed to read the part in parentheses!” Darla swats my arm. “You’re supposed to ‘show remorse’!”

“Oh.” I fake a few sniffles, but it sounds like I have something caught in my nose. Not convincing. “. . . Big Dawg and his friends showed up, and I accidentally hit Big Dawg with my claws when I . . . did a, uh, spin-kick-double-claw-strike combo.”
What??
Where does Darla get this stuff, Street Fighter? “I thought I was all alone. I didn’t realize he was there until I had hurt him and it was too late. I am so, so sorry. I’m so sorry. Cries.”

No—wait. That part’s in parentheses. I’m supposed to cry??

Darla makes an annoyed sound. “Could your eyes be any drier? I thought you said you were a good liar.”

“I said I could lie; I never claimed to be friggin’ Shakespeare—agh!!”

A stream of fiery liquid shoots out of Darla’s wrist-watch and sprays me in the face. An unbearable burning sensation rages in both my eyes. Thick, mucus-y tears are flowing down my cheeks, snot’s bubbling out of my nose like a volcano.

I hear a door click open, the polyester swish of our principal’s thighs rubbing together.

“Start saying ‘I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry’!” Darla hisses. “Here he comes!”

“Mr. Pirzwick? Ms. Carmine? You have something to tell me?”

“I’m sorry,” I blubber, wiping my nose and eyes with an open palm and spreading snotty tears all over my face. I snort when I should sniff and a blob of mucus explodes in my hand. If I wasn’t myself I would throw up right now. “I’m so sorry.”

“He didn’t mean to hurt anyone,” Darla adds.

“I was the one who scratched Big Dawg on the baseball field,” I say. “I’m so sorry. It was an accident. I was . . .”

Um. I would like to refer to my cue card right now, but I can’t see.

“Role-playing,”
Darla hisses.

“Pull yourself together, Mr. Pirzwick.” Someone stuffs a tissue into my hand and I do a quick wipe job.