Homeroom Headhunters (16 page)

COMPASS FIELD NOTES ENTRY #1:


LOCATION: LIBRARY


TIME: 10:00 P.M.


It wasn't too difficult to find Jimmy Winters's photograph in the yearbook. Someone had already played connect-the-dots with his pimples.


COMPASS: Acne vulgaris has run in my family for generations.


Compass always has a crop of creamy mushroom-capped acne sprouting from the surface of his oily skin.


Even today, the outbreak of whiteheads stretches over his nose, his forehead, his cheeks
—
like a cluster of toadstools about to pop.


COMPASS: I tried benzoyl peroxide, prescription medication, even alpha-hydroxy acid baths. But the pimples grow back.


His classmates always made fun of him.


“Look at the size of that oil slick!”


“Don't walk behind him. You might slip.”


“Bet you could funnel that oil from your face and fuel my dad's car!”


COMPASS: You get used to it. After a while, you just grow thick skin.


Thick, scaly, red skin. With whiteheads.


COMPASS FIELD NOTES ENTRY #2:


LOCATION: SOCCER FIELD


TIME: 12:00 MIDNIGHT


Compass asked me to run an errand for him before Thanksgiving.


He wanted me to sneak onto the soccer field with a flashlight and a pair of rubber gloves to hunt for
…

COMPASS:
Amanita muscaria
.


ME: Musca-what?


COMPASS: Mushrooms. From the fly agaric genus? They're a highly psychoactive basidiomycete fungus. Pretty poisonous stuff. They sprout along the soccer fields at night. We have to pick them before Mr. Simms mows in the morning.


ME: What do you want with a bunch of mushrooms?


COMPASS: Just a little science experiment.


I had to get down on my hands and knees to sift through the grass.


Then I had to pluck each mushroom from the soil and hold it up to the flashlight, just to see if it fit Compass's criteria:


White-gilled. Deep red cap. White spots.


A. muscaria!


The resemblance between the toadstool and Compass's complexion was uncanny, but I figured I shouldn't mention it.


Sore subject.


COMPASS FIELD NOTES ENTRY #3:


LOCATION: SCIENCE LAB


TIME: 1:00 A.M.


Before he became Compass, Jimmy had been at the top of his class. A's in every subject. Particularly the sciences.


Chemistry was his jam.


There was one event every year that Jimmy counted down the days to: the Greenfield Middle School Annual Science Fair.


Jimmy had won first place two years in a row. He wouldn't settle for second on his eighth-grade presentation. There was one more blue ribbon in his future, and he'd stop at nothing until it was pinned to his lapel.


COMPASS: For my project that year, I had been thinking about isolating certain strains of food-borne bacteria. But my chemistry teacher, Mr. Fitzpatrick, said, “No pathogenic agents.” I had to keep it safe.


Jimmy settled for something simple:


Developing his own supermushroom.


The day before the science fair, Mr. Fitzpatrick had Jimmy stand before his science class to explain his project. Jimmy was never one for public presentations, mainly for complexion-related reasons.


COMPASS: I told the class I would be winning the blue ribbon with an inorganic compound I'd developed that would increase crop yields by forty percent. To illustrate the success of my macronutrients, I'd decided to use my fertilizer to grow a giant fiber head mushroom
.…

But someone at the back of the classroom had apparently snorted. “
Fiber head
?” they said. “You mean, like,
a whitehead
? 'Cause I can count a couple fiber heads about to burst across your nose right now!”


COMPASS: I'd show them. I'd win first place and head to nationals and win there, too. Then I'd come back to Greenfield and every last student would beg for my forgiveness.


He'd begun his Nobel acceptance speech already.


Jimmy's science project was a piece of cake. He would grow his own mushroom, from spore to sprout, in a matter of minutes.


COMPASS: Amateur stuff, really. All it took was one shoe box full of soil, a household microwave, some fungal-tissue cultures
—
and my own special blend of growth hormones.


Jimmy had already calculated the proper amount of moisture and fertilizer he'd need for germination.


COMPASS: But not too much. A little dab will do you
.…

Jimmy would microwave the mycelium right there in the cafeteria, getting that mushroom to grow before the judges' very eyes.


COMPASS: See you in the winner's circle
.…

The not-so-simple part? Keeping the other students from tampering with it.


Somebody had poured red food coloring into his spore samples the night before.


Science fair sabotage.


COMPASS: When it was my turn to present my project, I flipped the switch
—
and sure enough, the machine warmed my spores. In seconds, I could see tiny fiber heads budding up from their shoe-box bed. They kept growing. Thirty times their normal diameter in three seconds!


Stopping the mushrooms from growing wasn't something Jimmy had factored into his experiment. They inflated outward, their red caps overflowing.


None of the judges knew what to do. The spores looked like water balloons about to burst. Was this a part of the experiment?


The judges took a step back, two steps, three
—
until:


BOOM!


A fine mist of red-splotched spores exploded out from his crop, covering the judges, Jimmy, and every student within a ten-yard radius.


Instant pimples.


One of Jimmy's competitors started laughing, pointing at our crushed junior scientist and his spore-spewing project.


More laughter. Before long, the whole cafeteria was guffawing at Jimmy's science project.


The blood in his body rushed into his head. His face went purple.


And just like a whitehead pinched between your fingertips, he popped.


COMPASS: “Think you can all laugh at me?” I yelled. “I'll show you! All of you! We'll see who laughs last!”


After the science fair, nobody ever saw him again.


But Jimmy's been here all this time, just beneath Greenfield's skin, waiting to rise up once more.


e had a full four-day weekend ahead of us. From Thursday through Sunday, the hallways at Greenfield Middle would be empty.

No students, no teachers. Not even Mr. Simms would be hanging around.

The whole school would be utterly abandoned.

Doors locked, lights off. Completely vacated.

Well.
Almost
.

• • •

I had made up my mind.

I'd tell the Tribe I wasn't joining their ranks. No matter the consequences, I wouldn't be revoking my Still Student Status.

What was the best way to break it to them? Let's explore my options:

Option A:
It's not you, it's me
.…

Option B:
Been nice knowing you fellas, but I just found out
I'm being transferred to a swanky private school in Vermont.
Catch y'all at the class reunion.

Option C:
Things have gone too far. I'm in way over my head.
When I first found out about the Tribe, it felt like I'd met a
group of like-minded, marginalized kids who wanted me for
me. But the more time passes, the more I realize I'm changing,
and if this is who I have to be in order to join, then I won't do
it. Not to my mom. I'm out.

I wanted to tell Sully first. Maybe she'd even decide to come back with me.…

One more time and that's it,
I swore to myself.
You can sneak
out just one last time.

But first—I had to get through dinner.

You've never seen a man tuck into a turkey as fast as me.

“You don't have to eat the whole thing by yourself, you know,” Mom said. “There are two of us here.”

This was our first holiday dinner on our own, and we hadn't talked for most of the meal.

“Almost forgot.” Mom rushed back to the kitchen.

She returned to the table holding her hand behind her back. “I saved something special for you. I know how much you love them.”

She brought her hand up to me, trying to smile.

A turkey wishbone.

I stared at the forked breastbone pinched between her fingers, the tiniest fleck of meat still clinging to it.

Dad and I always tug-of-warred with the wishbone.

Mom knew that.

“Spencer?”

I took hold of one end and started pulling. “Wonder how Dad's doing.”

“Beats me.” Mom pulled back on her end of the bone. “Why don't you call him up? He owes you one.”

“Dad doesn't owe me anything.” I yanked hard, snapping the wishbone in half.

Mom flinched. She had the larger bit of bone.

“Make a wish, Mom.”

• • •

Thanksgiving is a time to show appreciation for all the wonderful things that have happened throughout the year.

Walking back to Greenfield, I took the time to reflect upon what I had to be thankful for.

Let's see
…
I'm thankful the tryptophan from the turkey kicked
in, sending Mom to bed a little earlier than usual tonight.

I'm thankful for whoever leaves the window open in the industrial
arts class.

I'm thankful for having packed a flashlight.

But I'm most thankful for My Little Friend. After having him
destroyed in the shop, it was good to have him back by my side. More
like my chest, actually. We've been through thick and thinly oxygenated
blood cells together.

I took a puff before crawling through the window.

Finding Sully without alerting the others would be a challenge. I couldn't just call out her name. That would draw too much attention.

Passing through the left bat wing of the building, I noticed a glow emanating from behind the science lab's door. A cerulean light flickered across the floor.

I placed my hand on the knob.

Unlocked.

Opening the door, I discovered the blue tongue of a Bunsen burner lapping at the darkness.

Sully stood before the continuous stream of flammable gas as if it were a tiny campfire, casting her shadow across the classroom walls.

“Sully,” I said, catching my breath. “Just who I was looking for…”

“You found me.” She managed to smile, but she remained right where she was.

I took another step inside the lab.

“There's something I need to tell you.”

Peashooter popped out from under a desk.

“You've passed your final pop quiz,” he said. “Congrats—you're almost one of us.”

Almost?

I heard the door shut behind me, jolting me forward. I turned around and found Yardstick, Sporkboy, and Compass standing behind Peashooter.

Graffitied across the length of Sporkboy's arm was:
MY KID
IS AN HONOR ROLL STUDENT
.

The three boys raised their javelins over their heads and sounded the battle cry.

Peashooter signaled for silence.

“On nights like these,” he proclaimed to his Tribe, “we point our noses at the stars and howl long and wolf-like.”

Sporkboy tilted his head back and howled. Compass and Yardstick added to the chorus.

“It's our ancestors,” Peashooter continued, “dead and dust, howling through the centuries and through us!”

Sporkboy lead the Tribe through another round of howls. Peashooter and Sully joined in, making it sound like a wolf pack had been let loose in the building.

Compass pulled out a coat hanger that had been unraveled and straightened, with one end bent into a shape I couldn't make out. He held the twisted knot over the Bunsen burner's flame.

“Break out the marshmallows,” I said. “Love me some s'mores.”

“Sorry—no s'mores for you.” Peashooter shook his head. His complexion looked cobalt-colored from the Bunsen burner's glow.

“Then…what's the hanger for?”

He rolled up the sleeve on his left arm, exposing the bulb of his shoulder.

There, rising up from the rest of his flesh, was a spiral of pink skin.

Scar tissue.

“A scar nobly got, or a noble scar, is a good livery of honor,”
Peashooter recited. “Shakespeare said that.”

“Then poke Shakespeare with that thing—not me!”

“We all have one,” Compass said. “Look.”

The rest of the Tribe bared their shoulders. Under the blue light I could make out the patterns in their cauterized skin.

It was a version of the Tribe's stick figure, spear raised over its head.

I turned to Sully.

“You too?”

Sully pulled up her sleeve—and sure enough, there it was, hugging her shoulder.

“No thanks.” I took a step back. “My body's not an option for tribal product placement.”

“Hold him down.” Peashooter motioned to Yardstick.

Before I could even make a break for it, Yardstick had me bent over the desk.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

Sporkboy grabbed my hands and pinned me in place. He leaned over and said, “Pretty cool, huh? Just wait till you see it on yourself.”

“Joke's over, guys. Let me go, okay?”

“The thing with sterilization, see,” Compass started, “is that you want to maximize the temperature and minimize the luminosity.”

“Now's
really
not the time for a science lesson.…”

Sporkboy yanked back the sleeve of my shirt and uncovered my skin.

“By opening up the air hole as far as it will go”—Compass kept going—“you get this perfectly blue blaze. The hottest component to the flame you don't even see. The invisible tip of the inner flame is where things get
really
hot.”

“Let me go!”

“Too late to back out now.” Peashooter shook his head. “You're one of us, Spencer. And when you join the Tribe, you carry the mark.”

“I don't want to be one of you!”

“That's your fear speaking. Trust us, Spencer—you never have to be afraid again. Not with us on your side.”

My eyes widened as Compass brought the coat hanger directly before my face. The tip of the hanger had turned into an orange knot of hot wire.

“Quit wiggling,” Sporkboy muttered. “You'll ruin it.”

“Time out time out time out time out…”

No matter how much I struggled, they wouldn't let me go.

“The pain is temporary,” Peashooter said. “But the pride is forever.”

Somebody took my hand.

Looking up, I saw it was Sully.

“Bite down on this.” She slipped a pencil past my lips. “It's okay to close your eyes. I did.”

I squeezed my eyes shut as Compass pressed the end of the coat hanger against my shoulder.

“This is gonna sting.” I don't recall who said that.

Quick, Spence: go to a safe place in your mind.

Your own deserted island.

The Alaskan tundra.

With Dad.

I bit down.

The pencil snapped. Through the splinters on my tongue, I tasted the salty tang of graphite.

Between my gritted teeth, a roar erupted and echoed through the empty halls of Greenfield.

“Done,” Peashooter said. “You can let him go.”

Yardstick and Sporkboy released me.

Only Sully kept holding my hand.

I glanced down at my shoulder. Reddened flesh, bits of coconut skin flaking off around the seared edges of my new wound.

I'd been branded.