Homeroom Headhunters (17 page)

ow late was it? My eyes wandered over to the alarm clock.

3:42 a.m.

I flipped onto my back.

Someone was staring at me.

Several someones. I could see cheeks, white as paper. Eyes, ringed in black, blending in with the shadows.

They were standing perfectly still. Not saying a word.

Smiling.

Ladies and gentlemen
…
the Tribe has left the building.

I reached over and switched on my bedside lamp. Light burned through every shadow.

It was just their
MISSING
flyers.

The rest of Greenfield knew them as Jack Cumberland. Benjamin Greenwood. Jimmy Winters. But to me they were Yardstick, Sporkboy, and Compass.

Sully was still Sully.

Almost had the whole set.

• • •

3:43 a.m.

Time had slowed to sludge. There's no way I was falling asleep.

The burn was beginning to heal.

Slowly.

The singed skin had scabbed over, as if the tribesman on my shoulder was wearing a scaly suit of red protective armor.

Is this what I signed up for?

The only clique that should get branded like this is a herd of cattle.

So much for not following the herd.

I had a week.

One week left as a student. One week of being a boy who suffers through homework and steps in poop quizzes. One more week before leaving everything behind for good.

“Nobody can know you're leaving,” Peashooter had said. “Not your parents, not your friends.
Nobody
.”

I was becoming one of them—whether I wanted to or not.

There was no turning back now.

I turned off the light and everything slipped back into darkness.

What was I expecting?

My eyes adjusted to the dark—and I found their smiling faces on the flyers again. Now they looked like ghosts. Nothing but sheets of paper possessed by the dead.

Sweet dreams, Spence
.…

hen I woke up, the world outside my window had gone all white.

“Ten inches and counting,” the weatherman said. “Bet there's gonna be a bunch of happy campers when we start calling out school closings.”

Come on, Mr. Anchorman—say the magic words:
Snow day.

He began listing off closings alphabetically: “Albemarle Middle, Anderson High, Bellevue Academy will only have a half day.…”

It took him forever to reach the G's.

Come on, just say it:
Greenfield Middle.

One more time:
Greenfield Middle.

A little bit louder now:
Greenfield Middle
!

“Congratulations,” Mom said. “Guess who's not going to school today?”

If she only knew.

• • •

I huffed the two miles between my house and Greenfield. The streets had been wiped away in white. Parked cars were nothing more than lumps. The world had been bleached.

I found the building half buried. No footprints stretched over the sidewalks. Not a single tire tread wound through the parking lot.

There, sitting in the window of one of the classrooms, was Sully, gazing at the outside world.

“What are you doing here?” I could barely hear her through the glass.

“Snow day! Thought you might wanna go play.”

“We're not supposed to leave the building.…”

“Come on,” I said. “Just to the soccer fields.”

“Somebody might see us.”

“Ten minutes.”

“I can't.”

“Why? Because your boyfriend says you're not allowed to?”

“Jealous?”

“Hardly.”

Sully turned her head to make sure nobody was behind her. “Five minutes.”

“Not a minute more.” I held up a gloved hand. “Scout's honor.”

We raided the lost-and-found and pulled out a boy's jacket for Sully. It was a few sizes too big, but it would do. She snitched a pair of mismatched mittens.

“Ever wonder whose stuff this used to be?” she asked.

“Long gone now—whoever they were.”

“Kinda sad, when you think about it,” she said. “They're like ghosts.”

Maybe Sully was beginning to think she belonged inside the lost-and-found box too.

“I'm sure they won't mind you wearing them for a while,” I said, forcing a smile.

“Hope not.”

We had a smooth white stretch of untouched snow totally to ourselves. Sully dropped onto her back, arms outstretched. She fanned her hands up and down, plowing through the snow until a set of cotton-white wings sprouted out from her sides.

“I haven't made a snow angel since I was, like, six or something.”

“It shows,” I said. “Your snow angel sucks.”

“Shut up.”

“I'm sorry—but it's true.”

“Your face sucks.”

“At least I know how to make a snow angel.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Prove it.”

There we were, suddenly in the thick of a snow angel duel. With one angel done, we'd stand up, take two steps over to one side, and start all over again.

Before long, nearly the whole field was covered.

“Looks heavenly,” Sully joked.

But you know what? Being with Sully felt pretty heavenly to me.

Too cheesy?
Fair enough
.

Then we had a snowball fight.

There had to have been thirty feet between my face and her fist—but one fastball later, my nose was nearly crushed under the weight of her first pitch.

“No fair,” I yelled. “Warn me next time.…”

“Wouldn't be much of a fight if I told you my every move, now, would it?”

Sully quick-fired another.

“Ow!”

“Got you on the run now!”

Barreling through a barrage of snowballs, I tackled her, sending us both buckling over backward. We landed with a muffled thud on top of one of her snow angels.

“Angel down!” I yelled.

Sully laughed and her breath fogged up before her face. It was as if a ghost were launching out from her lungs.

Things suddenly got quiet between us, and I imagined Sully, years from now—still the smartest girl I would ever meet, hovering above students four or five years younger than her.

Then ten years.

Twenty.

“How's your shoulder?” she asked, breaking the silence.

“Getting better, I guess.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Does it matter?”

Sully dipped her chin. “I should be going back inside now.”

“Your lips look chapped.”

“They are.”

“Here,” I said, fumbling through my back pocket. “Have some ChapStick.”

“You shouldn't share your ChapStick with other people.”

“Why?”

“You never know what germs they might have.”

“That's okay,” I said. “I don't care if I catch your germs.”

“How romantic.”

She said romantic. You heard her say it, right?

“You can keep the ChapStick,” I said.

“Really?”

“All yours.” I nodded.

“Thank you.”

I watched her roll the ChapStick over her lips.

“Strawberry,” she said. “My favorite.”

“Mine too.”

“You sure you don't want any? Your lips look like they could use some.…”

“That's okay.” I shook my head. “Don't wanna get your germs or anything.…”

Sully's face was only a few inches away from mine. Our breath fogged up between us—and for that one moment, just for a split second, it felt like the whole soccer field had melted into a mist of our exhales. She started to lean forward.…

The sound of glass being shattered stopped her.

Sully quickly lifted her head and looked toward the building. The window to Rorshuck's classroom was broken.

No sign of who did it.

“I've got to go,” she said, standing up and running back.

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” she called over her shoulder. “I'll see you tomorrow.”

here was a note waiting for me in my locker the next day. My presence had been requested by Peashooter.

Slipping into the last stall, I locked myself inside before climbing up on the toilet.

I popped open the fiberglass panel and ducked my head in.

“Took you long enough,” Peashooter said, waiting for me on the other side.

“I'll bring roses next time.”

He'd graffitied himself again. On his left arm he'd written:
ROBIN HOODLUM
.

On his right, from wrist to elbow, it read:
MERRY MADMEN.

“Step into my office,” he said, pulling me up.

We crawled above Mr. Rorshuck's class.

Easing back the panel by a couple inches, we had a perfect vantage point of all the students sitting below. They lazily gazed at Rorshuck as he attacked the blackboard with his chalk.

Peashooter stared down at the class, lost in thought.

“I had a dream last night,” he said. “It came to me as a question: Why stick with just one school?”

“What? You looking to transfer or something?”

“Do you know how many schools there are in this district alone? This county?
This state?
Imagine how many kids there are out there just like us, looking for a group that they can call their own.”

I could sense where Peashooter was going with all this.

“Now ask yourself: How many tribes do you think we could create? Why stick with just one school when we can grow? Branch out? Increase our numbers?”

“You mean franchise tribes?”

“I mean
revolution
. And it all begins with a few transfer students moving to a new school. Taking it over from the inside.… Beautiful, isn't it?”

Peashooter had totally gone full-blown Napoleon.

“A kid can dream, can't he?” He flashed his devilish grin at me, as if to say he was only joking. I only half believed him. “Let's practice.”

He handed me one of his hollowed-out ballpoint pens and placed a sheet of paper between us. When there was enough noise below, he tore off a corner of the paper and slipped it into his mouth. A moment later, he stuck his tongue out, displaying a perfectly balled-up wad.

“Now you.”

I had a hard time summoning up any spit. “My mouth feels like a desert.”

“Nervous?”

I gave myself a half dozen paper cuts on my tongue before finally wetting the spitball down. “Locked and loaded,” I said.

“Aim higher than the actual point you want to hit,” he said. “Watch and learn.”

He brought the pen up to his mouth. He inhaled through his nose, funneling air into his nasal cavity, down his throat, and directly into the open end of his dart gun—
Pfft!

That spit wad shot out from the barrel of Peashooter's pen and landed smack-dab in Sarah Haversand's perfectly coiffed hair—
Splat!

Sarah swatted the back of her head, unaware of the pellet that had just adhered itself to her blond locks.
Bull's-eye!

“That's how it's done,” Peashooter said. “Your turn.”

“I want Rorshuck.”

“Check out the cojones on you,” he said. “I'm impressed.”

“Here goes nothing.…”

Deep breath.

Ready.

Aim.

Fire!

My first spit wad splatted against the equation Mr. Rorshuck had just scribbled on the blackboard. He spun around, staring down his class.

“Who did that?”

The class stared blankly back at him, as stunned as their teacher.

“Who was it?”

Time was running out. If I was going to make my target, I had to do it now.

“Answer me!”

I went ahead and answered. I answered him loud and clear. I answered by leaning over the open fiberglass and firing up another spitball, hitting Mr. Rorshuck directly in the forehead. The spit wad struck his skin with such force that it left a splatter-pattern of saliva and pulped-up paper across his receding hairline.
Perfect hit!

I turned to Peashooter, victorious. “I did it!”

“Such a shame.” Peashooter shook his head. “You had such potential.…”

“What? Are you breaking up with me or something?”

“You're trying to take away my Tribe.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Sorry, Spencer, but I can't have members of my own clan contradicting me.
You're a traitor to your own kind and not loyal
to us.
”

Before I knew what he was up to, Peashooter kicked my foot off the grid.

I wobbled for a second before my shoulder landed on the fiberglass panel.

I was lying on a flimsy two-foot-by-four-foot sheet of acoustic tile.

I felt the fiberglass beneath my belly begin to sag.

I heard the tile crack.

Oh boy.

“Been nice knowing you, Spencer.”

If it hadn't been for Martin Mendleson cushioning my fall, I would've broken a bone or two. Lucky for me, his shoulders absorbed the bulk of my impact before I landed on the linoleum.

Dust and fiberglass particles snowed through the air as Mr. Rorshuck's math class surrounded me. None looked more stunned than Rorshuck himself, a blossom of saliva-soaked notebook paper blooming on his forehead.

“This isn't the way to the bathroom,” I said.

I took a quick puff off of My Little Friend. Once I got my breath back, I looked up to the ceiling.

Peashooter was gone.