Beat the Band (14 page)

WE’VE FINISHED ALL OUR WORK
in Math class with five minutes to spare before the end of the day. Which means only one thing.

Mr. Spassnick is going to tell us a joke.

“So, these two guys are out hunting moose,” Mr. Spassnick says, sitting behind his desk, grabbing a New York Mets hat from one of the desk drawers and tugging it on. “And they’re both staring down the sights of their rifles, scanning the trees.” He mimes sighting down a rifle.

I glance up at the clock. The second hand ticks off the time ever so slowly. My books are all stacked up and I’m poised to bolt once the dismissal bell rings. It’s crucial that I meet Helen at her locker before she heads up to the library for detention.

“There doesn’t appear to be anything out in the woods.” Mr. Spassnick grabs his briefcase and places it on top of his desk. He pops it open and starts putting papers inside. “And then, both of the guys hear a rustling sound in the bushes.”

Prudence promised me that nothing really bad would happen to Helen. But that life would have to be made uncomfortable for her if we really wanted her to transfer to a new school. Honestly, though, it was pretty difficult to concentrate on what she was saying at the time. After Prudence touched my arm and Bronte brushed me with her breasts, I just kept imagining all four girls naked and rubbing me down with oil on the couch in my basement. Gina filming the whole thing with her little camera. The five of us spending an entire night tagging all the bases known to God or man and then, when we’d exhausted those, making up entirely new never-before-imagined ones.

“All of a sudden,” Mr. Spassnick shouts, slamming his briefcase shut and springing to his feet, “this guy leaps out from behind a tree and yells ‘Don’t shoot, I’m not a moose!’ Hearing this, one of the hunters — BANG! — shoots the guy dead.”

“Cool,” Justin Sneep calls out.

Mr. Spassnick smiles. “So his friend turns to him and says, ‘What the heck are you doing? Why’d you shoot that guy?’ And the second hunter slaps his forehead.” Mr. Spassnick demonstrates the action. “And says, ‘Oh, dang it. I thought he said he
was
a moose.’”

There are a couple of embarrassed chuckles around the room. But certainly not the reaction Mr. Spassnick was probably hoping for.

“Don’t you get it?” He gestures at us. “Let me try that again. ‘I thought he said he
was
a moose.’ Huh? No? Okay. I thought for sure
that
one would get you guys. Guess we’ll have to try again tomorrow.”

“Please don’t,” someone groans from the back of the room, getting a much bigger laugh than Mr. Spassnick has ever gotten from any of his jokes.

“Who said that?” Mr. Spassnick scans the crowd, but the dismissal bell rings and everyone is up and out of their seats before he can pinpoint the heckler.

I’m first out the door, racing down the hallway, trying to dodge all the bodies streaming from the classrooms. Math is on the third floor. Helen’s locker is on the first, all the way at the end of the art annex. I’ve tried a number of times to get there before her, but each time I’ve been too late.

I am built for comfort, not for speed, so it’s a challenge to run this obstacle course of bodies and backpacks and AV carts and stairs at any kind of high velocity. I am sweating and sucking wind by the time I get to the art wing.

Helen is just stepping up to her locker when I arrive.

“Hey,” I say, huffing and panting. “How’s it going?”

She looks at me as she grabs her lock. “Why are you so out of breath?”

“Oh. I, uh, I just wanted to . . .” Whoa. Light-headed. I lean my hand up against the locker next to hers. “I wanted to make sure . . . you brought your Health textbook . . . to the library. . . . Because I left mine at home.”

“Of course I’m going to bring my Health text.” She starts to dial her combination.

I glance down and catch the first number: 32.

“The question is,” she continues, “do I need to bring a gas mask?”

I force a laugh and grab my stomach. “Yeah, no. I’m steering clear of cafeteria food for a while.”

“That’s probably a good idea.” She dials the second number: 8.

All of a sudden I’m feeling a buzz of shame in my chest. I start to look away, but then I think of the picture on my locker this morning. And the rain of corn niblets in the lunchroom. And all the whispering behind my back. Not to mention the things Helen has been saying about me.

“Are you going to head straight up?” I say, glancing down at her hand and catching the last number — 14 — before she snicks the lock open. “’Cause I was thinking of grabbing a soda. Could you tell Jerooni I’ll be there in a minute?” Thirty-two, eight, fourteen. Thirty-two, eight, fourteen.

“Yeah. Fine. Go ahead.” Helen opens her locker door and starts putting her stuff away. “I’ll meet you up there.” Her locker’s kind of a holy mess. It’s not what I expected, actually. It could rival mine for the amount of junk inside. She’s got all sorts of family pictures, poems, and quotes taped to the inside of the door.

“Cool,” I say. Thirty-two, eight, fourteen. “You want one?” I don’t know why I offered. Easing my guilt, maybe? “If we sit near the back of the library, we can sneak-drink them.”

“Yeah, okay. Get me a Dr Pepper.” She digs some change from the sweatshirt she’s got hanging in her locker, then counts it out. “Never mind. I don’t have enough.”

“No sweat.” I wave her off. “I got it.”

I got it? Coop, dude, you are totally going to blow your cover here.

“I mean . . .” I say, “you can get me next time. See you up there.” I turn and go before I swallow any more of my foot.

I round the corner and am texting Prudence with Helen’s locker combo before I forget it, and before I chicken out. I don’t really have a choice in the matter. This is self-preservation we’re talking about. And since Helen doesn’t seem to feel too bad spreading lies about me, why should I feel sorry about sacrificing her to save my own ass?

I stare at Helen’s locker combination on my screen, feeling slightly nauseous, like I’ve eaten one too many bags of Funyuns.

Before I can talk myself out of it, I hit the “send” button. There. It’s done. I can’t take it back now. Better to just keep moving forward. Focus on the next task at hand: getting all the information we’ll need to fill out the Our Lady of Mercy admissions form.

I GLANCE OVER THE SCHOOL APPLICATION
form again before I enter the library. The girls have already filled in all the easy stuff — first and last name, phone number, home address, date of birth — and left all the doozies for me. Schools attended shouldn’t be too hard, but how am I supposed to get her to tell me what her parents’ work numbers and e-mail addresses are, or if she’s ever been tested for special education needs, or where the hell she was baptized?

And then there’s a stupid student questionnaire that has to be filled out. What are your hobbies? Your extracurricular activities? Books you’ve read lately? Plans for college?

Christ, this feels a lot like homework.

I tuck the form in my back pocket, so it’s handy in case I need to refer to it. I hoist up my backpack with the contraband soda — Dr Pepper for Helen, Mountain Dew for me — and step into the library.

Miss Jerooni looks up from her newspaper when she hears my footsteps. She recoils slightly, like she can still smell the beef bombs I let off in here Monday. Fanny and Alexander must remember me too, because they suddenly start flapping violently around their cage like they’ve just seen a cougar.

I smile big at Miss Jerooni as I sign in. She snaps her newspaper and goes back to reading. If I could work up a nice tooter right now, I’d hound one out loud and clear just to see the expression on her ferrety face.

Helen has taken up residence at one of the tables in the far corner of the library, just as instructed. I hadn’t actually planned the whole surreptitious-sodas-in-the-back-of-the-room thing, but it works out perfectly, because it puts us out of the sight lines of anyone passing in the halls.

I swing off my backpack and pop a squat. “Hey,” I say, digging the sodas out and stealthily handing Helen hers beneath the table. She examines the can, looking at the top, the bottom, the sides.

“What?” I say.

“Nothing.” She studies the soda can again. “You didn’t shake this up, did you?”

“Why would I do that?”

“To make me look stupid. To get me in trouble for having soda in the library. I don’t know.”

“Look, if your soda explodes it narcs me out as much as you, so chillax.” I grab a textbook from my backpack, open it up, balance it like a screen on the table, and place my soda behind my impromptu shield. Helen does the same with her Social Studies text, hiding her Dr Pepper.

I glance up at Miss Jerooni, then look back at Helen. “Get ready to open. On three. One. Two. Three.”

I cough loudly to mask the spritzing sound as Helen and I simultaneously crack open our cans. Miss Jerooni turns the page of her newspaper, completely clueless.

Helen — looking relieved — takes a quick sip and smiles at me, like we’re brothers-in-arms or something. Then she stares at my balancing book with a funny expression.

At first, I think that my fortress of soda-tude might be falling down. But it’s holding firm.

“I thought you said you forgot your Health text?” Helen says.

Oh, crap. Not cool, Coop. You can’t be slipping up like that.

“Huh. Look at that. Hiding in plain sight.” I laugh. “I can’t tell you how many times I rifled through my backpack. And my locker. I even asked Mrs. Turris if I’d left it in her classroom. Funny how you can search the same place over and over and still not find what you’re looking for. Even though it’s right there the whole time.”

“Less is more, fella,”
I hear Dad whispering in my ear.

“Yeah, I do that all the time,” Helen says. “Sometimes I’ll be looking for my house keys for hours and then, when I finally give up, I’ll find them, like, right there on my dresser.”

Bingo. Opportunity knocks. It’s a stretch, but if I don’t start ticking off the boxes on this form, I’ll never get everything I need.

“My parents won’t even
give
me house keys anymore,” I say. “I’ve lost them probably ten times. It’s a good thing my mom doesn’t work, so there’s always someone home.” Okay, so my mother works
now
. But she didn’t used to. “How about your parents? Do they both work?”

“Yeah.” Helen opens her notebook and starts flipping pages

Damn it. That’s no help. I need details.

“My dad’s a machinist,” I say. “He wants me to go to trade school so that we can open a business some day. Redmond & Son. Or something like that. But I don’t know. It’s not really my thing. What about you? You think you’ll do what your parents do?”

“No way,” Helen says. “I hate math, even though I’m okay at it. And teeth gross me out.”

All right. We’re getting closer. Math? Math could be anything. But teeth? That’s a dentist, right? What else could it be? Oral surgeon, I guess. Christ, this is a pain in the ass.

“Teeth, huh?” I say. “So, who’s the dentist?”

“My mom’s a dental hygienist.”

“Really? That’s weird, because my family’s looking for a new dentist. Where does she work?”

“Bayview Dental.” Helen looks at me warily. “What’s with all the questions, Coop?”

I glance around, feigning innocence. “Questions? Was I asking questions? No, I was just . . . talking.” Bayview Dental. Bayview Dental. That’s easy. Because it rhymes with . . . what? Gray screw rental? That doesn’t help.

Helen pulls out a sheet of printer paper. “So, I found this interesting Web site where they talk about all the tests they have to do to make sure that condoms are effective.”

“Really?” I lean over and pretend to look at the page. I better leave her dad’s occupation alone for now. Move on to something else. “That’s fascinating. Wow, they really put those condoms through the ringer. You know what all those tests remind me of? The time when my sister was in elementary school and they did all these evaluations on her. You know. To find out if she had special needs. They said she didn’t have them, but I still have my doubts.” I laugh.

Helen glances at me sideways. “Huh.”

“So, uh, you ever have to do that kind of thing? You know, testing for special needs?”

She turns on me, her eyes narrowed to slits. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

I reel back. “It doesn’t mean anything. Geez. I was just . . . making conversation.”

“Oh, yeah, right. Casual conversation about my ‘special needs.’ Real funny.” She looks pissed. “And here I was thinking we were getting past all that immature crap. Stupid me.”

Okay, so does that mean she
has
special needs and is sensitive about it? Or that she
doesn’t
have special needs and is mad at me for implying she does?

“I’m sorry,” I say. “That didn’t come out right. I wasn’t making fun of you. I was just . . . trying to get to know you better. I mean, if we’re going to be partners and all, I figured . . . I don’t know. I guess I’m not very good at this ‘get to know you’ stuff.”