Rat (3 page)

“Bullshit,” Emily said. “Colin talked to Liam. He's the one who posted those pictures. We can't let him get away with it.”

“Forget it,” Amanda said. “It's hopeless. They're out there now. You wouldn't believe the creepy emails I'm getting from guys.”

“He did the same thing to me,” I said. “I'm getting creepy emails from guys too. I just ignore them.”

“But that's different for you. You're not me.”

“But you have to do something,” Emily said. “You can't just hole up in your room and get drunk.”

“Why not?” Amanda asked. She sounded defeated. Hopeless.

“It was Liam, right?” I asked.

“Yeah. Craig is in on it too, I think.”

“Of course,” I said. “I don't think you were the first victim.”

“Or the last,” Emily added. “You need to blow the whistle on them. You need to make a stand.”

“Not me, “Amanda said angrily. “I'm not like that.” And then she lay back down in bed and pulled the covers over her head.

Emily and I just looked at each other. After about ten minutes, Amanda was asleep. She seemed okay, and we knew we should leave before her parents got home and started asking us questions.

As I walked Emily back to her house, I really craved a smoke. I hadn't felt that way in a long time. After I said goodbye to Emily, I walked back toward downtown on my own way home. Outside the Brown Bean, some kids from school were smoking. I bummed a cigarette from one of the girls, and she lit it, then smiled at me—kind of cute, kind of like we had this immediate bond because of the damn cigarette. I thought, maybe I should stay there and get to know her. But I felt the nicotine kick in, and I knew I needed to walk. I said thanks and walked on.

I smoked the cigarette down to the filter and even then took one last long draw. Then flicked it into the street the way I used to. I felt good. I felt stronger. But as I walked on, it occurred to me that I was losing ground.

Chapter Five

Part of me wanted to come up with a sneaky way to get back at Liam and Craig. Maybe do the same thing to them that they were doing to me and Emily's friends. I kept thinking maybe Emily would be next. If so, I'd slam those suckers somehow. As I walked to school the next morning, I called Emily and told her what I was thinking.

“Colin, it's so not you,” she said. “It's not your style. Besides, I think it will backfire.”

“But we need to do something—at least for Amanda and Marissa.”

“Go to Mr. Miller. Tell him what's going on.”

“Are you kidding?” I asked. “He already thinks I'm the troublemaker. And he thinks I'm a liar as well. Why don't you go talk to him?”

Emily was silent. She didn't have to say it. If she got involved, everyone would know one way or the other. That's the way it worked at school. And then if it wasn't Lump and Cave getting revenge, it would be someone else on her case for ratting.

“Damn,” I said. “Miller hates my guts. I hate his guts. He'll think I've made up the whole thing and throw it back in my face. Who knows what will happen?”

“Colin?” I heard the pleading in her voice.

“Yeah?”

“If you don't speak up, no one will. Please?” The pleading again.

I sighed and wished I had another cigarette. Then I wished I hadn't smoked the one the night before. I also wished I wasn't going to school at all today and that I was asleep back home in bed. Then I sucked it up and said, “Yeah, I'll talk to Miller. But it's not going to be pretty.” So right before class started, I politely asked my French teacher, Mademoiselle Leblanc, if I could go down to the office. A handful of kids coming into the classroom heard me. Word would be out. Damn.

I shuffled out of the classroom and hurried down the hall. The secretary asked me if Mr. Miller had called for me. I said no. She said he was busy. I said it was important. She talked to him on the phone. A door opened.

“Colin? What brings you here?” he asked.

“We need to talk.”

He gave me a puzzled look. The look also said he didn't trust whatever I was up to. He waved me into his office, and I slumped down into the hard wooden chair in front of his desk as he straightened his tie and returned to his throne. He didn't say anything but spread his hands and waited for me to speak.

I explained about the photo of me first.

“I'd gotten wind of it. But the word was you posted that photo yourself. Just trying to get attention. Not a particularly brilliant thing to do, but if it was done outside school, and it was, we decided we wouldn't touch it.”

“But it wasn't me. That's not my body. Just my face. If you want me to prove it, I'll take my clothes off right here.” Leave it to me to push all the wrong buttons.

Miller gave me a look of disgust. “Spare me, please. But, for the sake of argument, who is it you think is behind this prank?”

“Liam's the mastermind. Craig is along for the ride, I think.”

“Same two boys you claimed were harassing the old man?”

“Yes.”

“You have some kind of grudge match going on with each other?” he asked.

“No.”

“Can't you just keep it outside the school grounds?”

That's when I explained about Amanda. “And she's not the only girl being harassed,” I added.

“What would motivate anyone to do that?” he asked, still skeptical.

“It's like blackmail. A way to get some girl to do what they want.”

Miller looked even more disgusted. “Like sexual favors?”

“Something like that,” I said.

Miller looked doubtful. I could tell that he just wanted me to go away. And I knew he still didn't believe I was telling the truth. “So if this is really the case, Amanda should go to the police.”

“She'd never do that.”

“Then you should go to the police.”

What a cop-out. “Right,” I said. “Then have half the student body hate me.”

“Hey, you've already ratted to me on your friends.”

“They're not my friends,” I said flatly. “And they deserve to be ratted out, but I came here hoping you might help me. And you're not willing to do that, are you?”

Miller was closing down. This meeting was coming to an end. “I don't know what else I can say,” he concluded, which led me to understand that he didn't truly believe that this thing was playing out the way I described it.

I got up to go.

When my hand was on the doorknob, Mr. Miller suddenly added, “I'm going to ask around, see what I can find out about this sort of thing.”

There wasn't any conviction in his voice. I figured it was just a brush-off so he could get on with his paperwork.

When I got back to class and found my seat, everyone was looking at me as if they knew where I'd been and what I was up to.

Chapter Six

Back in the hall, I had that craving again for a smoke. I was going to have to bust that one. No way was I going to go back to smoking. But it was an indicator that I was weak. That this was getting to me. Other kids were looking at me. A hint of a smile here and there. They probably liked the idea that maybe I was in trouble again. Maybe I was just paranoid. I wished that I was older—out of school and away from here. I wished I was on a pilgrimage, hiking through the Himalayas. I blinked and waited for it to come true. But nothing changed. Same old school, same old halls, same old me.

And the same old rules.

I guess I wasn't paying much attention to where I was going. Someone opened a locker right in front of me. I smacked into it.

“Whoa, sorry, man,” a voice said as I took a step back. It was Jerome. He was new this year. Word had it that he'd been transferred because of some kind of trouble at his other school.

I laughed. “No. My fault. Head in the clouds.”

He smiled a kind of crooked smile. “It's cool. You're Colin, right?”

“Yep.” I shrugged and started to walk away.

“Chill,” Jerome said. “Wait till the crowd thins so we can talk.” Jerome was one of those white-kid gangsta wannabes that I never understood. He had the look down and the body language, but it just didn't all come together as anything but a pose. But I was curious, so I hung back and waited for the crowds to thin.

“Too bad about that photo thing of you on the Internet. Dirty trick, whoever did it. Hey, I know what it feels like when people make fun of me. You know what I'm saying?”

I nodded. I'd always steered clear of Jerome because of his attitude, but here he was trying to show me a little concern. Weird.

“I always found ways to get back,” Jerome said. “Check this out.” From inside his locker, he took out a leather case of some sort, looked over his shoulder once, then opened it. Inside was a deadly-looking knife and a set of brass knuckles. “We all need to have some kind of self-defense these days, don't you think? And some way to get back at whoever is dogging you… if you have to.”

Jerome closed the case and put it behind some textbooks in his locker. “If you're interested, I can set you up with whatever tools you might be needing. It'll cost you, but not that much.”

I felt a little freaked at this. I'd seen Jerome himself hassling some younger kids at school. He was no saint. But was this part of his mission? Selling weapons on school property? Maybe Emily was right. Things were getting pretty nasty. Maybe I didn't have a clue. How had it come to this? “No thanks,” I said. “Not my style.”

Jerome gave me that crooked smile, and I couldn't quite guess what it meant. “Just trying to help a brother out,” he said, closing his locker. “Later.” And he snapped the lock in place and walked off.

I sat with Emily in the cafeteria and told her about my meeting with Miller. I didn't say anything about Jerome. Emily seemed to be kind of moody. Maybe she was worried about Amanda and Marissa. Maybe she had other worries. Or it could have been me. In my head, I was still hiking the Himalayas, trying to make the whole school thing vanish.

Just then, a fight broke out. I'd noticed these two guys, Matthew and Tyler, arguing when I walked into the caf. Tyler was no saint, but Matthew was much worse. I'd known them both since elementary school. Matthew had been pushing little Tyler around plenty of times, but now Tyler was beginning to kick back. It was obvious from where I was watching that Matthew was the one who started this and the first one to throw a punch. Tyler just weaved out of the way for the first swipe. And the second. But Matthew landed a third on Tyler. Tyler went down but came up swinging.

Everyone else had already backed off and given them room to fight. People were shouting and cheering. No one moved to break it up. Miss Leblanc was the first teacher on the scene, and she bravely pushed through the mob and made a good effort to get them to stop. Matthew had Tyler down on the floor, using his advantage of weight and brute force. I couldn't see what was happening to poor Tyler, but, happily, I saw him pop back up onto his feet. Maybe he'd been taking self-defense classes or something. He got one good punch into Matthew's jaw just as Mr. Miller walked into the room and the crowd opened like the Red Sea to let him through. Everyone knew better than to get in Miller's way.

For an average-sized man, Miller seemed to have some incredible strength. He grabbed them both by the back of the shirt and pulled them apart. Within seconds, the two school security guards were on the scene and each took hold of one of the fighters. They walked them quickly out of the cafeteria, and the kids began to shuffle back to their seats.

“Wait,” Mr. Miller shouted to them. The mob turned. Some were smirking. Some looked kind of sheepish. “Would someone tell me who started this?” He wasn't quite able to cover up how angry he was.

No one spoke a word. It would have been pretty obvious what the story was. But no one wanted to get involved. No one wanted to snitch. The old code of silence.

Mr. Miller looked angrier than ever. “Anyone?” he hollered.

Dead silence.

I wanted to stand up and tell Miller what he wanted to hear. But Emily touched my wrist and just shook her head. I glared at her, but I could see that she was concerned about me. I already had my issues. And I wasn't sure Miller would even want to hear from me again, not even on this. So I sat there and kept my mouth shut.

The cafeteria went strangely quiet then.

I felt a little nauseous and a bit disgusted as to how things had changed at school. Weapons, fights. No one speaking up about anything. Maybe those nights in the Himalayas would be pretty cold, but I couldn't help but think about being someplace far, far away from here.

Chapter Seven

The Himalayas were too far away, so when I got home that night I retreated to my sketchbook in my bedroom. Ever since I was a little kid, I'd been drawing things. I almost never showed anyone my sketches. I'd always sketch real things, usually animals, but put my own interpretation on them.

I more or less raised myself. So being alone with a sketchbook was my idea of…well, not exactly being alone, if you know what I mean. I had my characters, my friends—snakes, dinosaurs, dogs, wizards, crazy caricatures of my teachers. The people all had big noses or big chins or big guts and, of course, women with big breasts. My creatures and humans all had big eyes—sort of Manga style.

My parents both had demanding jobs—ten to twelve hours a day. They always made sure there was food in the house and that all the bills were paid, but by the time they came home, they were beat and didn't have much time for me. They felt guilty about this, I know. But what the heck. It could have been a lot worse. Sometimes, when they were feeling like they'd truly ignored their kid, they'd buy me a new bike or something. At Christmas, I always made out big-time. Pretty much whatever I wanted. Truth is, I didn't want that much.

So there I was, alone in my room again, drawing in one of my dozens of sketchbooks, and I found myself sketching this amazing, ferocious rat.