Homeroom Headhunters (9 page)

If only.

Mom's car pulled up alongside me and stopped dead in the middle of the street. She rolled her window down and, staring straight ahead, said, “Get in the car.”

Her voice was dull and even. Any emotion had been ironed out from her vocal cords.

I kept walking.

Bold move, I know, but it was my only chance at surviving the night.

Mom stepped out of the car, the engine still running. She was only a few steps behind me, but I didn't stop. Or turn. I just kept walking.

“I have been driving around all night looking for you.” Her voice cut the dark. “There was no basketball game, so why don't you tell me where you've been for the last six hours? Or maybe you've got another fairy tale to share with me?”

I stopped walking and turned toward Mom for the first time. I couldn't see her face. She remained silhouetted by the headlights behind her.

I stormed past her. I just wanted to get in the car and go home.

Mom grabbed me by the shoulder and spun me around.

“Tell me, Spencer.”

Her face was now illuminated by the headlights. Mascara streaked her cheeks, like tire marks skidded across her skin.

I got into the car.

Neither of us talked the whole ride home.

here were the boys in blue?

The morning after our rampage, I expected to find the entire school cordoned off by yellow tape, and sniffing dogs searching for evidence of the delinquents responsible for what had to be a million dollars' worth of damage.

But nothing. The halls were spotless. The bathrooms were immaculate.

Like it had never happened.

Except for one telltale reminder. Our rebellious pièce de résistance.

Griz the Grizzly was still hanging from the basketball hoop, stuffed with funky gym uniforms—an inspired act of athletic taxidermy.

Simms was called over the intercom before the first bell rang: “Mr. Simms to the gymnasium, we have a busted pipe. Mr. Simms to the gymnasium…”

No busted pipe here. Just a bloated bearskin rug dangling from the rim for everybody in my first period gym class to see.

At first I figured I'd feel a swell of pride. But watching Mr. Simms set up his ladder suddenly made me feel ashamed. I found myself wanting to apologize.

“Who do you think did this?” I asked innocently.

“Got me.” Simms shook his head as he cut Griz's limp body down. “Just another dumb prank.”

Griz landed with a soft thud, in a heap of his own fur.

• • •

Almost twenty-four hours later, and the aroma of burned bacon wrapped in used diapers still lingered.

Coach Calhoon could've canceled Phys Ed—but nope:

Dodgeball must go on.

• • •

It was down to me and Martin Mendleson.

“Looks like it's just us,” I said, hoping to break the ice. “May the best man get picked next to last.”

“Stay away from me,” Martin muttered.

“What? What did I do?”

“Pritchard grilled me all morning. He thinks I had something to do with yesterday.”

“That sucks.”

“Quit acting innocent. I told him it was someone else in Griz's costume. And everyone knows you were MIA during the pep rally—so if anybody gets blamed, it's bound to be you.”

So much for solidarity.

But he had a point.

“Come on, ladies,” Coach Calhoon barked. “We don't have all day!”

Coach had selected two captains while the rest of us filed in along the sidelines, waiting to hear our names called. The choice players were quickly divvied up:

Lisa Amazonian on one side.

Walter Goldmedal on the other.

Thomas Olympiad over here.

Jason Conquest over there.

You know the drill. Alpha-athletes first. Then the benchwarmers.

“You take him.” Thomas nodded at me.

“No way I'm getting stuck with that freak,” Lisa fired back. “You take him!”

“You can have them both!”

“Fine, fine.” Lisa rolled his eyes. “We'll take…”

I held my breath.

This was it. The moment of truth.
Please don't let me be the
last
.…

“Martin.”

It's official. I'm the biggest loser in all of Greenfield Middle School.

“All right, then!” Coach Calhoon yelled. He blew the silver whistle noosed around his neck. “Let's play some dodgeball!”

Ten red rubber balls were lined up along the center mark. Players took their positions behind their team's end line, fifteen members on each side.

“The game's not over until only one team is left standing!”

Coach blew his whistle again, and heels skidded across the court as the players on each team raced to retrieve as many balls as possible.

In a breath, the air was full of red flashes.

There was a hiss of rushing rubber. Before he even knew what hit him—
Thwonk!
—Jason went down.

Another red mortar took out Walter directly on my right—
Thwonk!

On my left, three teammates were sent to dodgeball heaven—
Thwonk! Thwonk! Thwonk!

We were getting slaughtered and the game had barely even started.

I hadn't thrown a single shot yet, focusing on my
dodging
more than my
balling
. I felt like a ballerina plié-ing my way through a barrage of cannon fire.

“What're you doing, Pendleton!?” Coach Calhoon shrieked. “Get some action!”

“Doing my best, sir…”

Another comrade, Kerry Steib, was sent to an early grave next to me. My fallen brothers-and-sisters-in-arms gathered on the sidelines while I continued to escape impact.

“Pick up a ball, Pendleton!” Coach screamed.

“Working my way up to it, sir!”

There were only a few players left. Miraculously, I was still alive. Usually I'd be black and blue by the final whistle, but today I was ducking and covering like a pro.

Olympics, here I come
.…

I was standing there, alone on the court, and then it struck me why.

Nobody had been aiming for me.

They're saving me for last.

The other squad formed a ring around me. It'd been a while since I'd boned up on the Phys Ed rules of engagement, but I was pretty positive this wasn't how you played dodgeball.

Not that Coach Calhoon seemed to mind. Quite the opposite. From the big grin spread across his face, I would've gone so far as to say he was enjoying himself.

“Looks like it's just you, Pendleton.” Calhoon's chest swelled. “Let this be a lesson—
Don't you ever jerry-rig my gym with your
stink bombs again
.”

My gym teacher was using the class to brandish his own vigilante justice.

There's no way this could've been aboveboard.

Or legal.

“One word of this to Pritchard and I could have you fired,” I shot back.

“Who do you think Pritchard would listen to? It'd be your word against mine.” Calhoon turned toward his werekids. “Ain't that right, team?”

Thomas grabbed a ball. Then Lisa. Even members of my own team picked one up and began bouncing their ammunition. The hollow
thwonk
of dribbled rubber reverberated through the gym like church bells before a funeral.

My funeral.

“Any last requests?” Thomas asked, ready to put me out of my misery.

“Tell my mother I loved her?”

“Say good-bye,
newbie
.…”

(Quick question: How long does one have to wait before he or she is officially no longer a newbie? Does it take a
newer
newbie to come in before the
older
newbie loses newbie status? Or is one cursed to be a newbie until the day one dies of a dodgeball-related death?)

Thomas brought his arm back, locked and loaded…

Only, the ball in his hand withered. The rotund rubber cannonball shriveled into an enormous dried cranberry.

“What the…?” Thomas started.

“What are you all waiting for?” Coach Calhoon barked. “Finish him!”

Lisa reeled her arm back and let fly a streak of red rubber.

Good-bye, cruel gym class
.…

But in mid-flight, the ball lost momentum. It veered off course and sank harmlessly to the floor, the air hissing out like an untied balloon.

Next thing you know, every ball was shriveling. No matter whose hands it was in.

Walter's ball.

Jason's ball.

One moment, the whole class was about to sacrifice me to the dodgeball gods—the next, their hands were clinching sagging red rubbery sacks.

It was Martin who first noticed the paper clip sticking out from his ball. He plucked it from the deflated rubber. “Where the heck did this come from?”

I didn't need a closer look to know it was a paper clip unfolded to a slender needle, weighted with a bulb of Scotch tape around its rear end.

“We're under attack!” Coach Calhoon blew his whistle, then hit the gymnasium floor. “Duck and cover!
Duck and cover!
”

Everyone was so busy watching him that no one noticed the shifting shadows beneath the bleachers. No one but me.

Between each row was an open slit, perfect for an attack. Just aim through one of the openings, fire at will, and take out an entire gym class's worth of dodgeballs.

So cool.

It amazed me how stealthy the Tribe could be, moving around Greenfield without being noticed. They had mastered the art of covert classroom tactics and clandestine counterattacks.

Peashooter was right. They could do whatever they wanted.

Sign me up.

“Spencer Pendleton to the office, please.” Pritchard's voice abruptly crackled out from over the intercom. “Spencer Pendleton to the office.”

Just when I thought Pritchard had gone soft, it sounded like he wanted to pin the smoke-bomb attack on me after all.

“Catch you guys later,” I called out to my classmates. “Better watch your balls.…”

A kid doesn't need a hall pass after an announcement like that.

Dead man walking.

y eyes wandered around Pritchard's desk, taking an inventory of every stray pencil and loose sheet of paper.

No stapler this time. He must've attack-proofed just for me.

“I can explain,” I started.

“Explain what?” Pritchard was acting all curious, like he had no idea what I could possibly be talking about.

Well—this is new.

There was a dinged-up book sitting on his desk. The cover was half torn, its pages curling into themselves.

“
The Catcher in the—
what?” I tried reading upside down.

“
Rye
.”

“Never heard of it.”

“You wouldn't get your hands on this until high school,” Pritchard said. “It's not on any seventh grade reading list, but you strike me as someone who reads a bit above his age level.”

He pushed the tattered batch of pages across the desk.

“You brought me in…just to give me a book?”

Pritchard smirked. “Considering all the after-school detentions you're serving, you're going to have a lot of time on your hands. Might as well bring along something good to read.”

“My punishment is to read a book?”

“Who says reading's a punishment?”

“Me.”

“I devoured
Catcher
when I was your age. Finished it in less than two detentions, so I started reading it all over again from the beginning.”

“I'm sorry…but did you say when
you
were in detention?”

Pritchard nodded.

Just what is he up to?

“So you didn't call me in to talk about yesterday's smoke-bombing?”

“I've got no proof you had anything to do with it—do I? Unless there's something you want to share with me.…”

“Nope.” I shook my head. “And just so we're clear, this has nothing to do with any other hypothetical catastrophe that might have happened here recently?”

“Guess not.” Pritchard leaned over his desk. “But the next time I call you to my office for something you've
hypothetically
not done, believe me, it won't be to borrow a book.”

I took a quick puff from My Little Friend to ease my breathing.

“Go ahead.” He nodded at the book between us. “Take my copy. But be careful. Read at your own risk. A book like that can turn your whole life upside down.”

Pritchard had no idea how upside down my life already was.

Maybe this could turn it right-side up again.

• • •

I was late to Witherspoon's class, thanks to my heart-to-heart attack with Pritchard.

She made up for my tardiness when she asked me to stay after the bell.

Today's really not my day.

She still had a few weeks left wearing an eye patch, thanks to my pencil-harpooning. It was pink to match her outfit. She looked like a pastel pirate.

“As I'm sure you're well aware, Spencer,” she started, “you've been here barely more than a month and already you've come perilously close to failing.”

“I'm a fast worker,” I said, staring at her injured eye.

“Keep it up and you'll be sitting at the same desk next year when you repeat my class.”

Every last wisecrack withered on my lips, leaving my head a hollow husk.

“It's not like I
want
to stay a seventh grader forever.…”

“With the way you've been acting,” she said, “I would've believed you wanted to be held back until you turned thirty.”

Like the Tribe: eternal middle schoolers.

“That's not what I want, Mrs. Witherspoon. Honest…”

“Oh—so you do know my name? How lovely. So tell me, Mr. Pencil Gun: Why should I believe a word you say?”

“Because…” I was at a loss for words.
“Just because?”

Witherspoon pondered this for a bit. “What if I were to offer you a deal?”

“I'd take it.”

“Don't you want to know what it is first?”

“No offense, ma'am, but if the alternative is repeating this class again next year, I'll pretty much do whatever it takes.”

Like run from one end of the school to the other in nothing but my
underwear. Or swallow broken glass. Or submit my body to science
class for experimentation.

“Considering your oral report made such an impression on your classmates,” she said, “I'd like you to spend the rest of the semester researching your Swanahanzi tribe.”

The tribe I made up? The group of headhunters that never even
existed?

That
tribe?

“I want a full report on my desk before Christmas break,” she continued. “Five pages—typed out, double-spaced—detailing the origins and rituals of your so-called
cannibals
.”

“Is it too late to negotiate the terms?”

“If you're resourceful enough to conjure up an entire tribe of fictitious anthropophagi off the top of your head, then taking a month to write a paper on them shouldn't be a problem.”

“But…
how
? You know they don't actually exist.”

“Then write about a tribe that
does
.”

• • •

I took the long way to Mr. Rorshuck's class. What was the rush? I ended up wandering the empty halls wondering what I was going to write about for Witherspoon.

With each class I passed, I could hear the disembodied voice of the teacher inside droning on about math.

Science

History

English

A dozen decrepit subjects bleeding into the hall.

“Spencer…”

Is it just me—or did someone whisper my name?
I didn't want to know.

“Spencer!”

There it was again.

I looked up—and sure enough, there was Peashooter, looking down at me from an opening in the ceiling. He whispered down. “Meet us in the gym tonight.”

“I can't,” I said, trying to keep my voice low. “I'm grounded.”

“Did it sound like I was asking?”

Before I could respond, the familiar rattle of keys echoed through the hall. Mr. Simms was coming. I lowered my head as we passed each other.

“Who're you talking to?”

“Just myself.”

“Sounds like you're giving yourself a pretty hard time.”

“Nothing I can't handle,” I said, turning just in time to collide with—“Mr. Rorshuck!”

“There you are, Mr. Pendleton. We were beginning to worry about you.”

Simms would have to mop the sarcasm off the floor if Rorshuck kept this up.

“Tell me why you're not in my classroom right now?” he continued. “If I'm not mistaken, the bell rang twenty minutes ago.…”

“I was just talking with Mrs. Wither—”

“Do you have a hall pass?”

“No…”

“Wandering through the halls without a pass is a punishable offense.”

“But I was talking to a
teacher
!”

“See me after school today, Mr. Pendleton. You and I can continue our conversation during detention.”

I glared at Mr. Simms, hoping he'd throw me a lifeline. No such luck.

“But that's not fair—”

Rorshuck cut me off. “Two days of detention. Now get to my class before I make it three!”

It was official:
Worst Day Ever.

I peered up to see if Peashooter was still there, listening in. The ceiling panel had been pushed back into place.

God—what I wouldn't give to be up there with the rest of the Tribe right now. I'd throw it all away just to be done with these teachers and their status quo.

I'd leave all this crap behind in a heartbeat.

No more me.

The end of Spence.

That got me thinking.…

Whoever Peashooter had been before forming the Tribe, that kid didn't exist anymore. None of them did.

As far as they were concerned, their former selves were dead to the world.

Nothing but ghosts now.

Then it hit me: Every ghost deserves a good story.