The Astonishing Adventures of Fan Boy and Goth Girl (30 page)

"You OK?"

"Yeah."

"Because," she says, grinning, "you look like you're gonna faint or swoon or something." Which is true. "I'm fine," I lie.

"See, it's not a big deal," she says. "The earth didn't stop turning. It was just fun, right?"

And it's weird, but I can barely remember it. All I remember is being transported, going away somewhere else, kissing someone else, feeling someone else. Right or wrong, that's what I felt.

"You've got some lipstick," she says, miming a swipe at her mouth.

I rub my lips, which feel puffy and too moist. My first kiss.

The tips of my fingers come away with a red cloud imprinted on them. Kyra wore red lipstick once, one time that I can remember. My first kiss, and it's all wrong.

Before I can say anything else, the door swings open. A huge, hulking form looms there, a shadowy threat against the backlight from the kitchen. I'm deader than dead.

"Hey!" Cal says. "There you are!"

"Oh. Hi, Cal."

Cal steps out onto the porch and lets the door swing shut. "I called my dad to come pick us—" He breaks off, noticing that I'm not alone. "Hey. Dina, hi."

"Have we met?" Dina asks, frosty. I think she's doing this for my benefit.

"I'm, uh, Cal Willingham. I'm friends with Steve's brother? We went to soccer camp last—"

"Hmm. That's nice." Dina settles back into her chair. Cal shrugs. He's better at dealing with this sort of thing.

"My dad's on his way," he tells me.

"Do we have to leave?" says the alien that has possessed my body.

Cal does a double-take. "Uh..." He has no idea how to handle this. He probably figured I'd be
begging
him to get out of there.

"No, no, it's OK." I've come back down to earth. I think I get it. "I'm ready."

We head for the door together. Dina calls out before I go inside. I turn back to her.

"Remember what I told you before," she says. "It's all about confidence. Do you understand that?"

I nod at her. She smiles at me, then sighs and settles back in the chair, sipping her wine cooler.

Cal pulls me along with him. He's fed up with his buddies complaining about being punished for, well, doing something wrong.

"You ready to tell me about your comic book yet?"

"Graphic novel."

"Graphic novel. You ready?"

"Not yet."

He stews for a little while as we wait for his dad, then finally turns to me and bursts out with what's clearly bothering him even more now: "Dude, what
happened
out there with Dina?"

But I'm not telling.

O
H, WHO AM
I
KIDDING
? Of course I'm going to tell him. I've always told him
everything.
I'll even tell him about
Schemata,
probably when we get to school on Monday and I can show him the artwork.

But I'm not going to tell him about my kiss. Not yet. I want to keep it to myself for a little while. Nothing wrong with that.

At Cal's house, I yawn as I crawl into a sleeping bag on the floor next to his bed. We're both dead tired. We mumble a little bit, talking across and past each other. I think he's saying something about Vesentine's sister. I'm not sure what I'm saying, but I think it's about my aliens-with-green-skin theory.

In the middle of it, I think of
Schemata.
It's OK. I have some great new ideas, ideas that will make it even better than it was before. Maybe it's good that Bendis didn't look at it today; it'll be so much more powerful the next time I get to show it to him. There are other conventions. Other opportunities.

It's all about confidence.
Dina.

If you've got something you want, you have to go for it, you know?
Kyra.

"Hey, Cal?" I cut through the fog to make a connection.

"Yeah?"

"I'm gonna do something. Something momentous."

"Bathroom's down the hall."

"No, you idiot. I'm taking Bendis off The List. I've never taken anyone off before. And I'm—"

"What list? What are you talking about?"

"Never mind. It doesn't matter."

And then I sleep. For endless hours. If I dream, I don't remember it when I waken. They must have been really good dreams, or really bad ones.

I
S THIS HOW IT'S GOING TO BE, THEN
? I get back Cal only to lose Kyra? That doesn't make sense. That doesn't seem right. Why should I be doomed to having a single friend?

Home from Cal's on Sunday, I start to panic. I honestly figured that I would hear from Kyra after the convention. As pissed as she was at me, I figured she'd calm down at some point. Or want details about my meeting with Bendis.

But nothing. No messages. Nothing.

I send IMs and e-mails into cyberspace, but nothing comes back.

You're a suicide wannabe.
I see myself pretending to slash my wrist. Taunting her.

You're a suicide wannabe. That's just a cry for help. Everybody knows that.

What if Kyra didn't, though? What if she really didn't know that?

Try harder next time.

What if she did try harder next time?

No. I'm not going to let myself believe that. I won't. I did not push her to really kill herself.

I hope.

I go through all of the logs of our IM sessions, all of her e-mails to me, looking for clues to ... anything. Anything at all. But nothing's changed. All I turn up are the JPEGs she sent me: Frampton hitting me. The Phys Ed teachers ignoring the whole thing. Etc.

Last night's sleep was great. Tonight's is a mess. Half-remembered nightmares and dreams that seem to be more like badly edited highlight reels from hell.

I wake up Monday to a realization. I've made a decision.

If he hits me in gym today, it will be the last time Mitchell Frampton hits me. Ever.

I
S IT WRONG FOR ME TO WANT THE PAIN
?

I can't help it. I suddenly
want
Frampton to hit me in gym. I'm looking forward to it. I'm praying that he does it. How messed up is that?

As soon as dodge ball starts, I purposely step in front of the ball and get sent off to the Dead Zone. I scan the gym quickly. As usual, Mr. Burger and Mr. Kaltenbach are off in a corner, blissfully ignorant. Kyra is nowhere to be seen.

Mitchell Frampton lopes over to me, grinning, his blond hair hanging into his stupid face. I try to look scared. I try to contain my glee. The only thing that makes this less than perfect is Kyra's absence. She would
love
to see this. She would want to record it for posterity on her cell phone.

I've rolled up my sleeve just slightly, just enough to show the lightening bruise there. A nice little target for him. How could he possibly resist?

The first blow is almost familiar. I wince with pain as the tender, bruised flesh reacts. But it's OK. This time, it's OK.

I turn toward him, bringing up my left hand. I have to do this perfectly. If I screw this up—

I don't want to think of that. I bring up my left hand.

And then Frampton steps back, surprised, shocked that I moved, his face contorting in anger, in something like betrayal...

And then he squints...

And then he screams.

It's a short scream at first, not loud enough to be heard over the thudding feet of the dodge ball game. He looks almost ashamed of himself for screaming and he stops, blinking at me in confusion.

Big mistake, that blink.

He steps toward me and screams again, and this time the scream doesn't stop. It gets louder and higher and more primal. He cries out, tears streaming down his face. I step back, brushing my hands together as if to dust them off. Which, actually, is sort of what I'm doing.

Frampton bellows with pain. The squeak of sneakers stops and the dodge ball bounces off into a corner. Everyone's staring. I hear Mr. Kaltenbach say, "What in the
hell—
" and then he breaks into a run, heading our way.

Frampton keeps screaming, clawing at his eyes, which is the wrong thing to do, but I'm not about to tell him that. I imagine this is what Oedipus must have looked like.

Revenge is a dish best served cold,
someone once said. And I agree. I just happen to like it with a little cayenne pepper.

Frampton keeps wailing and starts stomping his feet. The whole time, he's rubbing his eyes, rubbing that ground pepper deeper and deeper into his mucus membranes. What an idiot.

Mr. Kaltenbach huffs and puffs to a halt. Mr. Burger is close behind him. "What did you do to him?" Burger yells, pointing at me. "Talk to me! What did you do?"

I just shrug my shoulders, as if to say, "Search me." Which they could do and all they'd find is a slight odor of chili, really.

I grin as Mr. Burger fumes and Mr. Kaltenbach tries, fruitlessly, to calm Frampton down. The pepper won't blind him—I don't think—but I bet he'll think very carefully before he decides to use me as target practice again.

Everyone's watching. Everyone's staring. And they're not staring at Frampton. They're staring at me.

So I cross my arms over my chest and strike as tough and defiant a pose as I can.

Mr. Burger's lips form a tight line. "Fine. Principal's office."

I
T'S A FIRST FOR ME
. I've never been dragged to the office by a teacher. Not once. Not in elementary school or middle school. Never.

The secretary, Miss Channing, smiles at me as I come in. Sometimes I come down to photocopy stuff for teachers, so she knows me and likes me. But when she sees Mr. Burger behind me, clearly pissed off, her smile dissolves into confusion.

"Who's in?" Burger barks in that annoying jock tone of someone who's used to being listened to.

Miss Channing doesn't want to take crap from this guy. She pretends not to hear, making him ask again before she says, "Mr. Sperling."

Burger sighs. "What about—"

"Dr. Goethe is at the school board. Discussing the
lacrosse
incident." A smile tugs at Miss Channing's lips. Mr. Burger is the JV lacrosse coach, and while he's not implicated in what happened to the varsity team, the stink still rubbed off on him a little bit.

"OK, OK. Fine." Mr. Burger directs me to a chair. "Watch this one," he intones, pointing me out for Miss Channing as if I'm on a lineup of the world's most-wanted terrorists.

Mr. Burger stomps off into Mr. Sperling's office and closes the door. Miss Channing looks at me, uncomfortable. I guess she's used to the burnouts and the head-cases sitting here, not the honor roll students.

"Hi, Miss Channing," I say.

She smiles at me, then loses the smile and looks at me like I'm a purebred racehorse that just fell flat on its face out of the starting gate.

A few minutes go by and then Burger emerges, throwing me a dirty look before informing Miss Channing that he'll be in the nurse's suite with Frampton if he's needed, and could she get someone to cover his next class? Miss Channing, forgetting that I'm right here, mumbles something fairly unprofessional under her breath as she picks up the phone. I never realized that adults could be so petty and hate each other, too. I thought that was the exclusive province of kids. I don't know whether this news is heartwarming or depressing.

I also don't know what happens next. Miss Channing gets off the phone and tells me to go wait in the chair outside Mr. Sperling's office. So I pick up, shuffle ten feet to the left, and sit down again. I sniff my left hand. A little peppery, but no big deal. I thought this through: I brought leftover chili for lunch as my alibi.

I wait and wait and wait. Kyra's right. Mr. Sperling is passive-aggressive. What's the point of making me wait out here all this time?

Finally, the door opens and Mr. Sperling fills it like a titan. He's big and fat, with a tie that hits only about midbelly, leaving a tract of uncovered shirt to bend around to the belt. He always looks like he's been running, no matter what he's doing. I've seen him a couple of times in the halls, at assemblies. And when I won a Math Team event last year, he shook my hand. But that's about the extent of my involvement with him.

"Come on in," he rumbles. And instead of going back to his desk, he turns to his side so that I have to squeeze by him in order to get into his office.

He shuts the door, then grunts as he makes his way back to his chair, which—I notice—has no arms. He sits down and the chair protests. "Have a seat."

I sit.

He picks up some papers on his desk and scrutinizes them, furrowing his brow and
hmphing
to himself every now and then. I'm sitting here in my gym shorts and a T-shirt and he's doing paperwork?