Jumped In (6 page)

“I need a volunteer to start things off.”

That can only mean one awesome thing.

It means Julisa Mendez takes her hand out of her pencil pouch and shoots it in the air, volunteering to go first, as always. And it means, as always, my gag reflex sets in.

“Listen for her use of imagery,” Cassidy begs after Julisa struts to the front of the class all perfect, and smug and cute … I mean,
I'm
not saying she's cute, but maybe there are a couple guys who think she's cute. Long, shiny, straight black hair, glasses … not cute in a popular girl kind of way, but cute in an
I can't get my head out of this novel long enough to notice you exist
kind of way.

I'm not religious, but I bow my head: Lord, with all your mercy, grace and perfect aim, please utilize your holy lightning to strike her down immediately.

There's no mercy. Julisa oozes on about the
me beneath this pale skin/The thousand vibrant colors of life under the blue-black ocean surface …

Oh, Julisa, Julisa, Julisa. Must you?

She must.

Because she's Julisa Mendez. And she's the go-to girl.

Before the Seattle Supersonics got their asses stolen away, whenever they had trouble scoring, or the team was out of sync, they'd make sure and get the ball to their go-to guy, Ray Allen. Why? Because over time, Ray proved that he could put the rock in the hole.

Well, when a teacher at Puget High School isn't getting her point across and feels like nobody gets it or cares, she calls on Miss Julisa Mendez. Why? Because Julisa
always
gets it. She's always ready. She always has the answer. And it makes teachers feel less like losers when one person knows what's going on.

Orange-red fire looms unseen behind gray-black storm clouds of mountain rock/These are the shades of me …

I look around the class. Nobody's buying it. Nobody's listening.

I'm about to get religious again when I notice that someone
is
listening.

Luis is holding his blue pencil and this teeny tiny piece of paper, and he's got his body curled up on his desk so it looks like he's catching zzz's, but he's looking up every now and then, and he's listening to Go To and taking sneaky notes.

As far as I can tell, I'm the only one who notices.

I snap my head back into position, looking forward fast. I'm not gonna let Luis see that I caught him doing that.

No way.

If he threatened to kill me for feeding him answers, what would he do if he knew I saw him looking all gaga over Go To's poem?

I don't wanna know.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Julisa walk by Luis. He immediately crumples the tiny paper and squeezes it in his fist. He steals a peek in her direction and plunks his head in his hands, frustrated-looking.

What is going on with this kid?

Taking notes during Go To's poem
. No way that's gonna make any sense to me.

Ever.

I think about it awhile and come to the conclusion that he probably wasn't taking notes on the stupid poem. It probably didn't have anything to do with Julisa Mendez. I'm sure he was just practicing his gang script or writing some gang note to some gang buddy about who he wants to cap. That theory makes a lot more sense.

Still, I wonder about it for the rest of the day.

And the day after that.…

 

CONTEMPLATING THE VORTEX

I
OPEN THE DOOR TO THE HOUSE AND 
…

Three,

Two,

One—

“GOOD-BYE, SAM!”

Just like that, Gilbert's got me watching my mom's ghost fly past me, into the street. She opens her car door, then turns and looks at me for a split second. But before I can tell her to come back, she hops in her Honda and speeds away. A black cloud of exhaust smoke hangs in the air.

I watch it slowly fade away.

“A fine and pleasant afternoon to you, Samuel.”

I close the front door and toss Ginny a grunt as I march to my room.

“All right then, kiddo,” she says. “Don't mind me.”

The way she says it stops me in my tracks. I realize what I just did.

But I can't undo it.

So I head in, melt into my mattress and hit the box.

It's “Scoff.”

The drums pound like gunfire. I focus my mind on the lyrics. On the beat. The bass. Kurt Cobain's voice slaying the crowd at the Pine Street Theatre. I listen, and Nirvana takes me away.

That's how this thing is supposed to work.

Not tonight, though.

Instead of the music, I'm thinking about Ginny. About how I just ignore her all the time.

And I'm thinking about Gilbert.

Thinking about my mom's Honda.

About Luis.

I watch him run out the class. Watch him listen to teachers. Watch him work the Rules. I see Cassidy looking our way. She thinks about calling on us, then gives up and turns to some other kid and asks that kid the question instead.

It's unbelievable. We're going on two whole weeks since Cassidy called on Luis. Since then, she's barely even looked at us. Luis and I have pushed the Rules—pushed each other—to the point where we've created a time and space vortex, like we're there …

But we're not there at all.

I catch myself smiling in the dark, because after all the suffering and stress over Luis, it's fine now. He's the best seat partner I could imagine.

He still scares the shit out of me. But I can live with that.

I turn up the volume on the box and I'm back at Pine Street. The crowd is loving Kurt. He's loving the crowd right back, even though he's the kind of guy who would never show it. He smashes his guitar into the drums and dives, arms wide, into the mosh pit. The place erupts.

Then the video is gone.

And all I see is Ginny's sad smile.

It's clear sleep isn't gonna happen anytime soon.

'Cuz this Ginny thing is bugging me.

I head out to the living room to see what's going on.

Bill's in his easy chair, snoring in front of a blaring TV, a Fudgsicle-stained stick in his hand.

Ginny's popping in a movie.

She turns and catches me standing there and pretends to have a fainting spell. “You're up! It's SIX THIRTY—
P.M.
It's waaaay past your bedtime, young man!”

I almost laugh. Ginny's acting is really bad.

“Dinner's put away in the fridge. It's my famous green chili chicken chow mein. Just this once, I'll nuke it for you.” She points her wooden spoon threateningly in my direction. “But tomorrow, by this time, you'd better be fast asleep, Samuel Ryan Gregory!”

She winks, just in case I hadn't gotten the fact that she was playing with me.

Oh, Ginny …

“And it's okay if you eat out here because it's movie night. We're watching a classic.”

“Okay.” I'm gonna stick this out if it kills me.

Ginny turns to Bill and gets loud in his ear. “Look who's up late, Bill.” And she heads into the kitchen to grab my food.

Bill cuts off a snort and shivers awake. “Sam, you're up.”

“Yeah.”

“Did I tell you? Anderson and I are going fishing for steelhead below Snoqualmie Falls. There's a spot for you in Anderson's camper van. Of course it'll be riding low with all the snacks and sodas he's got loaded in there.” He chuckles at the thought. “I've still got that slick outfit set up for you. Fenwick rod, Shimano reel. The whole bit. I've told you that, right?”

He's told me a hundred times. And for the hundred and first time, I tell him I'll think about it.

The movie starts up. It's
The Sound of Music.

Ginny's back out with some popcorn, grape soda, and a plate of food. “It's a Mexican-Chinese fusion,” she tells me.

“Ah, you and your fusion,” Bill says.

“You love my fusion.”

Bill smirks. “That I do.”

Ginny winks at him.

Soon Bill's back to snoring and Ginny's talking me through the movie. “Maria's going to sew the children play clothes out of those old curtains.”

Bill shakes off a snore, snorts and urgently sucks in a deep breath. Goes back to snoring.

Ginny crunches on some popcorn. “That is one resourceful nun, huh, Sam?”

“Yup.”

So this is what seven thirty looks like.

I wonder what Rupe and Dave are doing right now.

 

THE REVENGE OF CASSIDY

“
H
OW MANY OF YOU HAVE HEARD OF
L
ANGSTON
H
UGHES
?”
Cassidy asks.

Julisa's hand shoots up. Her pencil sharpener flies through the air.

“Okay, Julisa. For the rest of you, Langston Hughes is one of this country's most famous poets. He was raised by his grandmother, in Kansas…”

I didn't get much sleep last night. Thinking about the movie … that nun, Maria, the von Trapp children and the captain, risking it all for freedom, singing their way over the Alps with a bunch of Nazis hot on their heels.

Seriously, how can you sleep after that?

So out of all the possible wrong things to do, I do one of the worst: I yawn.

I look over at Luis.

He didn't see.

I focus back on Cassidy. “Hughes attended Columbia University and struggled with racial prejudice there. He eventually graduated from Lincoln College and went on to become a major voice in one of our greatest artistic and intellectual movements, the Harlem Renaissance.”

I can't help it. I yawn again. I feel my eyelids slowly close.…

I see that nun, Maria. She's got her guitar slung over her shoulder, hiking the jagged rock.

And I'm there.

I'm one of the von Trapp children, trudging over the snowy Alps, bare knees knocking, frigid in my leather suspendered lederhosen shorts. I look down the trail below and see a nasty Nazi climbing our way. I must alert Maria. I turn to relay the information, but she's right at my side. She says “
psssst,”
and she slugs me in the arm and I—

Bolt upright, waking up in Cassidy's class. I look up. Luis's eyes are wild. He jerks his head forward, commanding me to pay attention.

Cassidy sees the whole thing. She's talking to the class, but she's looking directly at us, pissed. “We'll be reading two poems by Hughes, ‘Harlem,' from
Montage of a Dream Deferred
, and ‘The Negro Speaks of Rivers.'”

I blew it!
What the hell was I doing?

This
is definitely it.

Cassidy's glare is fixed on us. She asks, “Boys, what do you think that means:
a dream deferred
?”

It's all my fault.

She lurches toward us.

Luis is gonna kill me.

Cassidy's a shark, shooting forward to devour its prey.

This is it.

This
is the moment.