Beat the Band (31 page)

“Ewww.
Nasty!
” I hear someone shout, followed by more mutters and mumbles.

This slide is my cue. I sit up on the stool. Take a deep breath. And magically, the words appear in my brain. “Every year, twenty-five percent of teenagers who are sexually active will be infected with a sexually transmitted disease. And while all of the contraceptive methods we will be discussing today can help prevent pregnancies, only latex condoms can help protect against STDs.”

Just then, something greasy, gray, and limp hits Helen’s forearm and clings there. Muffled laughter flutters from somewhere in the center of the room.

Mrs. Turris is too busy scribbling notes on her legal pad to notice.

Helen looks down at the thing on her arm, lying there like a deflated jellyfish. She pinches the edge and peels it off, leaving an oily stain on her skin.

The laughter spreads as the entire class turns to see Helen holding up a very large unfurled condom. Her face contorts into a look of horror as she flings the condom onto the floor and angrily wipes the goo off her arm.

The slurs come fast and furious: “Doggie bag!”, “Wiener wrap!”, “Pigs in a blanket!”

I glance over at my diorama and see that one of the condoms is missing from the display.

Mrs. Turris finally looks up from her desk. “All right! One more outburst and I’m handing out detentions.”

A hot anger roils inside me. The movie plays in my head where I flick on the lights and save Helen from this torment.

But I can’t move. I just keep spewing more statistics, my voice thin and reedy. “Fifty to sixty percent of sexually active teenagers use condoms. Twenty to thirty percent use the pill. And upwards of ten percent will not use any method at all.”

Someone’s cell phone starts playing “Who Let the Dogs Out?”

And then . . .

Several people at the back of the room launch raw hot dogs in the air.

And they rain down all over Helen.

The color drains from her already pale face.

Dive in front of her, goddamn it! Smack them away with your papers! Do
something
for Christ’s sake!

But it’s too late.

Helen’s papers fall from her hand. I think she might be crying but I can’t tell because she runs from the room.

Mrs. Turris bolts up from her chair. “How dare you!” she shrieks. “Principal Tard will hear about this!”

And I just sit there on the stool. My pulse thrumming in my temples. My jaw clenching so tight my teeth ache. Feeling like a complete and utter tool.

I RACE UP HELEN’S DRIVEWAY
, drop my bike, and bound up the steps to her front door. I left school so fast after the final bell that I forgot my coat and now I’m freezing. My nose and cheeks are stinging from the cold.

My mouth is all chalky as I reach for the doorbell. I have no idea what I’m going to say. Or if it’ll seem weird that I’m coming over like this. Maybe she wants to be left alone.

I glance over at my bike. Think about leaving.

But then I remember how I stood there and did nothing while Prudence and her goons threw hot dogs at Helen, and instead I press the doorbell, which makes its familiar tinny
BING-BONG.

I tuck my hands in my pants pockets to keep warm. It’s a while before I hear any movement inside the house.

The door opens and there’s Helen, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy, a tissue in her hand.

“Hi.” I feel my body tense, trying not to shiver. From the cold or from nervousness, I’m not sure. “Are you . . . okay?”

She shrugs.

“Mrs. Turris went ballistic after you left. I thought her head was going to explode. She marched the entire class down to Mr. Tard’s office. It was nuts. But nobody was narcing anyone out.”

“Typical,” Helen says.

“Anyway, she said we could finish our presentation for her after school. Anytime we want before winter break.”

“Fine. Okay.”

I shift my weight. Feel my throat get thick. “Can I . . . come in?”

She looks over her shoulder. “My mom’s sleeping,” she says, her voice hoarse.

“Look. Helen. I just . . .” Just what? Feel like an ass because I didn’t stand up for her? How could I have? I’d never live it down. And things are bad enough as it is without me compounding the problem. Still, I can’t pretend it didn’t happen. “I just . . . wanted to make sure you were all right.”

She smiles. Her face softening. She glances over her shoulder again. Then looks back at me. “Come on in. But be quiet until we get upstairs.”

I step inside her house. We walk past the living room. I peek in to see Mrs. Harriwick asleep on the couch and hear her heavy sleep breath rising and falling.

“What’s she think about all of this?” I whisper as we head up the stairs.

“She doesn’t know.”

“Seriously?”

Helen leads the way into her bedroom and closes the door halfway. “I just told her I had a really bad stomachache.”

We sit on the plush light-blue carpet. The whole room’s all pale yellow and powder blue. Neat and clean like the rest of the house. My mom would faint if my room were ever this tidy.

“So . . . I don’t get it,” I say. “Why didn’t you tell your mom what happened?”

“She doesn’t know about any of it.” Helen bites the corner of her lower lip. “She’s got enough to deal with. She hasn’t been able to work for more than a year. I don’t need to bother her with my stupid stuff.”

“Don’t you think she’d want to know?”

“I tried telling her once. When it all first started. But it was the worst time for her.” Helen’s gaze drops to her leg, where she picks at a thread on her jeans. “Her boyfriend had just broken up with her, and then she started having these dizzy spells. It was like she just couldn’t hear what I was saying. I haven’t brought it up since.” Helen clears her throat. “I don’t know. It’s weird. Sometimes I feel like she’s making the whole thing up. Because she feels bad for herself. I know she isn’t. I’ve been with her at the doctor’s. It’s just . . . a big coincidence, right? The timing of it all. And you want to know something even worse? I get mad at her. How mean is that? She can’t help that she’s sick. But I get angry sometimes when she goes on about it. And then I hate myself for getting so upset. Horrible, right?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Makes sense to me. It’s like, everything’s out of control so you get mad because it all sucks. Doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.”

“Feels that way sometimes.”

“Yeah, well, you’re one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, so . . .”

She glances up. “Thanks. And thanks for coming by. It was sweet of you.” She lowers her gaze.

“So what are you going to do now?” I ask.

She shrugs. “What’s there to do? I’ll get over it. Or not. I mean, look, there’s only four hundred and fifty-seven actual school days left until I graduate, right?”

“You’re
counting
the days?”

“Not really. Not anymore. I was last year, for sure. I downloaded a counter onto my computer. I guess I never took it off.”

“What about going to a different school?” The question isn’t one millisecond out of my mouth when I feel my stomach clench, remembering the Our Lady of Mercy application. But then I relax, recalling that she never heard from them.

“Sure, I’ve thought about it. A lot. But then the bad guys win, right?” Helen looks at me, her head tilted and her eyes a bit narrowed. My gut grips up again. “It’s funny you’d ask that, though.” She stands and moves over to her desk. Flips through a small stack of mail and finds an envelope. Oh, shit, she got the letter. How could I have missed it? Okay, just stay chill. “I received this last week. It’s totally bizarre.” She pulls a page from the envelope. Oh, God. I think I’m going to puke. “It’s an acceptance letter from Our Lady of Mercy.”

My lungs constrict. It’s hard to get a full breath. Is she remembering all those questions I asked her? My unexpected chattiness? Still, would she be able to put it together so fast? She didn’t see the application. She doesn’t know the questions on it. But what if she takes the time to follow the bread crumbs all the way to my doorstep?

I get a sudden urge to confess everything. About Prudence and Bronte and Gina and Kelly. About the pranks. About the application form. Laying it all out for her.

Yeah, right. Just going over it in my head, it sounds so awful. It’s too much. She’d never forgive me. Ever.

No. I just have to remain calm. I know nothing about this. She’ll never make the leap. Unless I give a hand by acting all suspish.

“Huh,” I say, feeling majorly carsick. “What’s bizarre about that?”

She stares at me. “I didn’t apply.”

“Well . . . maybe they made a mistake. Or, you know, maybe they have scouts. Like in sports. Maybe they saw your grades and said, hey, we’d like her at our school.” Maybe I should just shut up now before I dig my own grave.

Helen’s expression grows cold as she studies the letter. “No. It says they’ve reviewed my application form.” She tosses the papers back on her desk. “Somebody must have filled one out with my name on it and sent it in.”

You better tell her now, dude. Before she figures it all out on her own.

Why? What does it matter? Either way she’s going to hate my guts. Why throw myself into the fire before I have to?

Because it’ll be better coming from you. She’ll respect your honesty.

Ha! What a crock! That’s what parents say to their kids so they won’t try to get away with stuff. No. I can’t risk Helen never wanting to speak to me again. I like her too much.

The other voice in my head is stunned into silence. Neither of us can believe I admitted it. But it’s the truth. I don’t want to lose her. Besides,
how
would she find out? Sure, the dots are all there, but it’d take a hell of a lot of connecting to see the whole picture. It’d be stupid to implicate myself. Never confess to anything, remember?

I take a breath. Keep my composure and say, “Why would anybody do that?”

“To get me to leave the school.” Helen plops down next to me. “Don’t you get it, Coop? People like Prudence and her friends think they can just maneuver people like pawns. If you give into it then it never stops. I’ve been able to deal with it. Not always as gracefully as I’d have liked but . . . I don’t know. What about the next girl they target? What if she’s not as strong as I am? I don’t even want to think about it.” She shakes her head. “What I’d like to know is where they got all the information to actually fill out an application.”

I turn away. Remembering how she was able to read my thoughts when we were playing “If you could.”

I need to change the subject. Find something else for us to talk about before she sees the guilt on my face. My gaze drifts around her room. Helen’s got several U2 posters framed and hung on her walls: I could get her talking about her favorite band. A chair in the corner with an old teddy bear sitting square in the middle: Or ask who gave her the stuffed animal. Some running trophies on her desk: Maybe guide the conversation around to cross-country.

It all seems too jarring. Like I’m not listening to her.

And then I get an idea.

“Can I ask you something?” I say.

“Sure.”

“How did this all start?”

Helen rubs her hand along the plush of the carpet.

“I mean, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“No,” she says. “It’s fine. It’s just . . . the whole thing’s so dumb.” She takes a deep breath. “It was in eighth grade. You probably didn’t see it, but I was in the school musical.
Grease
.”

“Sean told me he saw you in the junior-high yearbook.”

“Yeah, well, back then, Prudence and I were best friends. And this guy she was dating, Drew Avery, had already been cast as Danny. So we decided to audition because we did everything together. She’d go for Sandy so that no other girl would get to kiss Drew in the show. I just went along to support her. I thought I’d try out for one of the Pink Ladies. ’Cause it’d be fun for us to hang out and do a musical together.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So, I do my audition, and Mr. Krantz, the director, stops everything and says that he doesn’t need to audition anybody else. That I was going to play Sandy. Prudence didn’t even get a part. I told her I wasn’t going to do the show but she said I had to. She’d rather have someone she could trust playing Drew’s girlfriend than some skank she didn’t know.” Helen shakes her head like she’s still trying to figure it out. “Anyway, everything seemed fine until a few weeks later, when Drew started acting all weird around me. Saying how talented I was. How exciting it was to work with me. The next thing I know he dumps Prudence and asks me out.”

“Oh, crap.”

“Yeah. ‘Oh, crap’ is right. I mean, what am I supposed to do? Even if I did like him — which I didn’t — I was never going to date him. Prudence was my best friend. And so, Drew is furious with me when I turn him down and then he goes crawling back to Prudence, saying I was the one who came on to him. That I convinced him to break up with her by saying all this nasty stuff about her.”

“The hell? And she believed him?”

“I tried to tell her the truth but she wouldn’t even listen. And that was it. She stopped talking to me. Except to tell me that she’d make sure I never stole anyone’s boyfriend ever again. It only took her a few days to get all our friends to ignore me. And shortly after that, the whole Hot Dog Helen rumors started spreading.”