Homeroom Headhunters (13 page)

SPORKBOY FIELD NOTES ENTRY #1:


LOCATION: CAFETERIA


TIME: FOURTH PERIOD. 11:20 A.M.


Sporkboy hefted a tub of dehydrated mashed potatoes across the cafeteria floor. He poured a gallon of water into the vat of desiccated flakes, gleefully stirring up his caldron full of instant spuds with a ruler.


SPORKBOY: We don't use our old names anymore. We're new people now, so we need new names.


ME: New? New how?


SPORKBOY: Nobody wants to be who they were. Now we can be whoever we want to be.


His name used to be Benjamin.


Benjamin Greenwood.


I first found his picture after flipping through three years' worth of Greenfield Middle School yearbooks. Even though the picture was in black and white, I could totally tell that was Sporkboy's carroty-red curly hair. Those were Sporkboy's freckles spread all over his chubby cheeks.


Werekids would pick on him because of his weight.


SPORKBOY: I'd be walking down the hall, just trying to get to class, when somebody would come up and punch me in the gut.


He got called all kinds of names:


Lard Bucket


Garbage Disposal


Barf Bag


Benjamin was in the sixth grade when he disappeared. One day he was getting teased in English class
—
the next, his desk was just empty.


When I pressed him to tell me why he'd left everything behind—his family, his friends, his whole life
—
he grinned so wide his cheeks pinched his eyes until I couldn't see them anymore.


SPORKBOY: I found my real friends.


ME: And nobody picks on you anymore?


SPORKBOY: Peashooter says, “When people tease you, it's only because they're afraid of something they sense in you. Something they don't understand. The only way they know how to deal with it is to make fun of it. That's just because they're scared.”


ME: Peashooter sure has a lot to say, doesn't he?


SPORKBOY: Peashooter always says, “The more you know, the more havoc you can wreak.”


ME: He really says that?


SPORKBOY: All the time. He says, “Limited minds, limited havoc. Bigger minds, bigger havoc!”


ME: Well
…
how about you? What do you say?


SPORKBOY: What do you mean? Whatever Peashooter says, goes. That's the law of claw and fang.


So much for independent thought.


ME: So
…
what's with all the potatoes?


SPORKBOY: You'll see. “Double, double, toil and trouble
…
”


SPORKBOY FIELD NOTES ENTRY #2:


LOCATION: BOYS' BATHROOM


TIME: FOURTH PERIOD. 11:24 A.M.


It took some prying, but Sporkboy eventually told me what his last straw was.


Corn Dog Day
.


Benjamin had sat down in the cafeteria, when some kid from class slid into the seat next to his.


It was none other than Riley Callahan.


SPORKBOY: Nobody ever sat at a table with me. Not on purpose. Certainly not Riley.


Benjamin had a rep for doing whatever people dared him to.


If you dared him to chew an old wad of bubble gum scraped off the underbelly of his desk
—
he'd do it.


If you dared him to pick up a fresh steaming dog turd with his bare hand
—
chances are, he'd do that too.


He and his pals had made a bet that Sporkboy couldn't eat ten corn dogs before the bell rang.


Ten corn dogs in less than ten minutes.


One corn dog per minute.


SPORKBOY: Here was Riley, this upper-tier, in-crowd guy who acted like I didn't exist most days, daring me to dig in
.…

All the other kids circled around the table while he chowed down, chanting out his name: “
Benji! Benji! Benji!
”


He chewed through his fifth corn dog.


His sixth corn dog.


His seventh.


SPORKBOY: The first few corn dogs went down okay. But then my throat started getting dry. By the time I got to number eight, I couldn't swallow anymore. The cornmeal mush started sticking in my throat
.…
It just wouldn't go down.


Rather than realize Benjamin wasn't capable of swallowing, Riley took the palm of his hand and pushed the tail end of corn dog number eight into his mouth.


He literally tried to
shove
it down Benjamin's throat.


The stick running through the middle of the corn dog slid through the meat and stabbed Benjamin in the back of his mouth.


SPORKBOY: It tapped at my gag reflex like he was pushing my upchuck button.


He brought up seven and a half corn dogs.


SPORKBOY: I puked all over Riley.


The entire cafeteria echoed in laughter. The sound still reverberated in Sporkboy's memory.


He told me he'd never eat another corn dog again.


SPORKBOY: Food with concealed weapons is a dangerous endeavor, you know?


SPORKBOY FIELD NOTES ENTRY #3:


LOCATION: CAFETERIA


TIME: LUNCH PERIOD. 11:45 A.M.


“Mr. Simms.” Assistant Principal Pritchard's voice cut through the hallway as students started filing their way back inside the building. “Please come to the cafeteria. We have a busted pipe
.…
”


Not a busted pipe
—
but a bust of Riley Callahan rendered in mashed potatoes with a half dozen bread-battered hot dogs stuffed down his throat.


The likeness was quite striking.


A crowd had gathered around the cafeteria doors to marvel at Sporkboy's masterpiece.


Today was Corn Dog Day.


riday night. Time to roam through the mall with my pals or catch a movie at the multiplex with my girlfriend.

Hardly.

Try, sneaking back into school.

There had been a note waiting for me in my locker after fifth period. It was in Sully's handwriting:

Meet me in the science lab tonight.

But when I slipped into the lab, it wasn't Sully who was waiting for me.

I found Peashooter and Compass instead. Compass was carrying a pillowcase with something heavy inside.

“What's going on? Where's Sully?”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Peashooter said. “She asked if we'd come pick you up.”

Suspicion quickly took over.

“You got her to write that note, didn't you?”

Peashooter shrugged his shoulders. His patented grin crept out across his lips. He had tagged his arm with
LOST BOY
.

Why was I here?

Compass reached into the pillowcase and pulled out a jar with some kind of clear fluid sloshing around.

“Here,” he said, holding the empty sack up to me. “Slip this on.”

“You can't be serious. I'm a guy with
asthma
.”

“One drop of this stuff and—
poof
.” Compass swirled the contents of the jar. “Out cold. I hope I got the recipe right. Haven't tested it out on a human subject yet.”

“Yet?”

Peashooter slipped the pillowcase over my head, and something wet dripped across my forehead.

“Deep breaths,” Compass said as the unexpected smell of Mentho-Lyptus seeped through the cotton.

I tried to fight, but my limbs suddenly felt rubbery.

“Maybe you should give him more.” Peashooter's voice sounded like it sank an octave with each word. “Just to be sure.”

My head got heavy. My neck couldn't hold it up.

Anybody got a pillow?

• • •

I woke to a mechanical hum. At least that's how it sounded from under the pillowcase. A full-on migraine pounded against my eardrums, like a marching band was parading through my brain.

The cotton cover gradually slipped off my head. I wished it had stayed on.

I was hanging upside down.

Again
.

Only this time, in shop class. My hands were tied behind my back. Beneath my head was a table saw.

Turned on.

The protective guard had—rather inconveniently—been removed. The saw's teeth blurred together into a continuous streak.

My Little Friend slowly slid out from beneath my T-shirt. It dangled in front of my face before the shoe-lace slipped completely off and fell onto the blade and—
zzzst
!

No more inhaler.

Looking over to my left, I saw Yardstick holding the end of a rope. The rest of the Tribe stood behind him, Sully included, watching me wriggle through the air.

Peashooter stepped up. “How's it hanging?”

If this is the best pun he can come up with, I should be the only one
allowed to crack jokes.

“Oh, you know,” I yelled, over the hum of the table saw. “Hanging by a thread.”

Peashooter held up my backpack. “What've we got here?”

“That's mine!”

Rummaging inside, he pulled out my math textbook. “What's tonight's homework assignment?”

“Review pages thirty through thirty-two.”

“Sucks that you have to carry this heavy textbook just for three measly pages.” He flipped through. “Why not just bring home the ones you need and leave the rest of your book behind?”

He ran my math textbook across the table. The blade chewed through its pages, sending a fine dust of math equations flurrying straight into my face.

If I had any doubt that blade was real, it quickly faded.

“What other homework do you have?”

My language arts textbook was next.

Then world history.

One by one, Peashooter ran my textbooks through the saw until there were none left.

“Now what?” he grinned. “How about…”

He pulled out his staple remover. He pinched me by the nose and tugged.

“You?”

He let my nose go, sending my upturned body swinging back and forth through the air like a pendulum. There was about three feet between my neck and the blade.

“Yardstick!” Peashooter called out.

Yardstick shook his head. “I don't know about this. I don't think we should—”

“Just do it!”

Yardstick eased the rope downward as Peashooter recited:
“Down—certainly, relentlessly down!
…
How fearful
…
the proximity of the steel!
…
Death would have been a relief
.…
”

I turned to Sully. “Can I get a hand here?”

“Sorry,” she said. “My hands are tied.”

Enough with the puns already!

“Remind me what this pop quiz is supposed to prove, exactly?”

“That even when death is imminent,” Peashooter called out, “you're not afraid! A member of the Tribe never shows fear.”

“Do I have to lose a limb to prove it to you—or can I just write an essay instead?”

Peashooter motioned to Yardstick to lower me even closer to the blade.

“Would you please stop doing that?!”

“Sorry,” Yardstick said. “Boss's orders.”

There couldn't have been but a couple inches between my face and the saw.

A drop of sweat rolled down to the tip of my nose. It hung there for a moment before finally dripping onto the table saw, bursting across the blade.

“All the way!” Peashooter suddenly ordered.

I took in a deep breath and pinched my eyes shut.

Start saying your prayers, Spence. Anything you want to get off
your chest, now's the time.
Better get cracking:
Mom, I'm sorry I
haven't been the best son and that I've made your life harder by being
such a handful, and I know I've been acting really weird lately, but
that's just because I've been angry at you and Dad because it's not fair
that you two would make a decision like this without talking to me first,
because this is my life too, and it's not fair that we had to move, because
if we hadn't I wouldn't be suspended over a table saw right now, and I
wish, I wish I had worn a fresh pair of underwear today, but now I'm
going to die before I even get to kiss a girl, which totally sucks and—

The hum from the blade stopped.

I opened one eye. Then the other.

Everything seemed intact.

The Tribe had rolled the table saw out from under me at the very last moment. The crew was now crowded around me, snickering.

“Oh
hardy-har
,” I said. “Very funny.”

Everybody busted out laughing.

“You should've seen the look on your face!” Peashooter guffawed.

“Can you cut me down now,
please
?”

Yardstick was about to release me when we all spotted Sporkboy leaning over the table saw. “These blades are pretty sharp, huh?”

He tapped his thumb on the blade's teeth.

I glanced over at Peashooter. That grin crept across his lips. “Think fast, Sporkboy!”

Peashooter flipped the switch on the table saw.

“Ben!” Compass reached out just in time to bat Sporkboy's hand away as the blade abruptly hummed back to life.

The pitch of the buzzing lifted up an octave for a split second.

Zzzm!

A fine red mist spritzed both Compass's and Sporkboy's face.

Compass's acne dribbled down his cheeks as if his zits were melting.

Wait—that's not acne. That's blood!

His eyes widened as he brought his hand up.

Where did the tip of his pinkie go?

“What were you thinking?!” Sully yelled at Peashooter.

“I was just trying to test Sporkboy's reflexes,” he pleaded. “I didn't think…”

His words dwindled away.

Sully shot into action: “Yardstick, put Spencer down and grab as many paper towels as you can. Peashooter, get ice from the cafeteria. Sporkboy—
find his finger!
”

Sully grabbed Compass by his shoulders. “I need you to lie down.”

He nodded and let her help him to the floor.

“This is going to hurt, but I got to apply pressure to slow the bleeding.” She kept his arm elevated. She pulled out a rubber band from her pocket. Grabbing his pinkie and ring fingers, she wrapped the rubber band around the pinkie's lower knuckle.

“We've got to take him to a doctor,” I said. I was glad to be back on my feet but I was still shaky—either from being upside down or from the sight of blood trickling down Compass's arm.

“Nobody leaves the building,” Sully insisted. “Those are the rules.”

“What are you going to do?” Compass whimpered to Sully.

She took a deep breath. “Cauterize it.”

“You can't be serious!” I said, rocking back and forth.

“You got any better ideas?” Sully asked.

“Yeah! Take him to the emergency room!”

“No!” Compass quickly reanimated. “No emergency rooms, no doctors.”

“But you just lost a finger!”

“Just the tip.” He swallowed. “We made a pact.
Never leave
the building
.…”

This was full-blown nuts.

“For a group that's supposed to not follow the rules,” I said, “you sure have a lot of them!”

Compass's eyelids began to flutter. Wooziness was washing over him. He turned to Sully. “There's a Bunsen burner in the science lab.…”

“I'll need bandages from the nurse's office,” Sully said. “And a metal ruler.”

“What do you need a ruler for?” I asked.

“To heat up and press against the stump.”

I felt my gag reflex spasm at the back of my throat.

“If we're really doing this, then let's go!” Sully ordered as she slung one of Compass's arms around her shoulder. Yardstick took the other.

“Found it! Found it!” Sporkboy suddenly shouted, holding the tip of Compass's pinkie in the air like it was the last bite of a french fry. “Three-second rule!”