Brutal Youth (21 page)

Sarah always went on the longest of anyone in her family, whining about her lonely life at St. Mike’s and the agony of being called Seven-Eighths as the priest yearned for a cigarette and tried not to sigh or drum his fingers on the screen between them. No one who came to confession ever had anything interesting to say anymore. Father Mercedes missed those early years of his priesthood, when people still feared for their immortal souls enough to beg forgiveness for all kinds of crazy bullshit. He missed the young unmarried women, going on at length about their impure thoughts and actions. Those were the days.

He always thought that what Sarah “Seven-Eighths” Matusch really needed was a dose of
real
sin in her life. She confessed to things like looking too long at a shirtless man in the underwear section of a JCPenney catalog, and wanting to see a
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
movie.

The priest only wished the girl were more popular at school. Maybe then she could help him collect the ammunition he needed to expose Sister Maria Hest and the fallacy of noble old St. Michael the Archangel High School.

That’s when an idea occurred to him.

“Who are the ones causing you this grief, Sarah?” he asked.

“The boys in my class mostly,” she said. “And the girls, too. Except for my friend, Linnie. But they make fun of her because she’s fat. She’s actually
really
fat.”

A kind of annoyed energy was building inside the priest. “Please be more specific, Sarah. Who upsets you the most with this hurtful name-calling?”

Her voice rose. “Lots of people, Father. There’s this guy Smitty, who makes fun of me a lot. Sometimes, though … I almost don’t mind because he’s cute.” A heavy silence followed. “At least he’s talking to me. Even if it’s just to tease.”

Smitty.
The priest thought. He asked her for his full name, and said he would check that with the school secretary.

“Sarah, for your penance this week, I’m not going to assign you any Hail Marys or Our Fathers. No prayers at all. I just want you to do something for me. Do you understand?”

Through the screen, he could see the lips on her fishy face tighten. “Like what, Father?”

“I want you to take note of these boys and girls who call you such hurtful names. Observe them. Watch the things they do, and listen to the things they say. Can you do that?”

She took a long time to answer. “Do you want me to be more like them?”

The priest rocked his head back and forth, considering. “I want you to do whatever it takes to get close to them, then come back here and tell me what you learn.”

“You want me to tattle?”

The priest laughed. “Sarah, those boys and girls aren’t like you. They don’t come to confession and ask forgiveness for the wrongs they do. I want you to confess for them. I want you to use your position as one of St. Michael’s truly decent pupils to tell me things that the school’s principal and teachers cannot see for themselves. Together, we can help cleanse this temple of ours. Can you promise me you’ll do this?”

“Y-yes, Father,” she said, then … “Can I also say some regular prayers as part of my penance? They make me feel better.”

Whatever, Seven-Eighths,
the priest thought.
Knock yourself out.

*   *   *

Father Mercedes was no stranger to sin himself, though he preferred to keep his own private. There had been times of deep doubt and panic when he considered unburdening his soul to a sympathetic colleague, but he knew any reasonable priest would not just absolve him—he would be given the penance of turning himself in. That was Confession 101 for any minister who had a crime revealed to him. Father Mercedes would be forgiven by God, but only if he went public with his theft, his gambling, his greed, and asked for mercy. Father Mercedes preferred to make it right instead.

If he succeeded in eliminating the school, he could remove a steep cost from the parish’s budget while simultaneously converting that empty structure into a revenue generator—a nursing home for the elderly (and preferably wealthy) parishioners of St. Michael’s parish. Such a windfall would help balance his grossly misaligned financial books, and that’s where he would find absolution—not in some byzantine religious ritual. Confession was for the Seven-Eighths of the world, the superstitious, the weak-minded.

But first the school had to go, and since it had always been a source of pride for the parish, Father Mercedes would have to change that perception. Seven-Eighths was a critical part of making that happen, though it certainly took her long enough.

“What about the other boys and girls at school?” the priest would ask each Saturday. “How are they treating you? Remember—I asked you to keep an eye open for me.…” Since he assigned her this mission in the early fall, there had been zero progress.

As a spy, she offered him so little scandal and so much repetitive complaining about her nickname, her classmates’ use of swearwords, and other low-grade misdeeds that he found himself punishing her with unnecessary—and spiteful—amounts of penance. It started with fifty Our Fathers and fifty Hail Marys. The next week, when she still produced no useful intelligence, the penance doubled. Sarah spent hours on her knees, murmuring prayers.

Ourfatherwhoartinheavenhallowedbethyname

She recited them so much and so often that the words lost all meaning after a while, and her mind became a jumble of syllables that vacuumed up her entire consciousness. Her parents, naturally, were grateful to the priest for inspiring such piety in their daughter, although they secretly wondered what sins she had committed to deserve such harsh penance.

With the first snow drifting down one Saturday in December, Sarah stepped into the confessional with her eyes glazed and her lips moving soundlessly:

Ourfatherwhoartinheavenhallowedbethynamethykingdom

The girl wavered on her knees. “Forgive me, Father.… Forgive me, for I have sinned…,” she began.

Father Mercedes put his hand on the screen. “Sarah, Sarah,” he said, feeling sincere pangs of regret. “Let’s cut it out with these prayers. Just tell me what I need to know about the kids at St. Mike’s.”

“It’s wicked there,” the girl said.

“Wicked,” he repeated.
Sure. Whatever.
“Yes. What do you know that is wicked?”

The girl was just a ghost behind the confessional screen, and the priest’s patience was short. He rattled off examples like a grocery list: Which girl is sleeping with which boy? Which are on drugs? Who’s cheating on tests? Where can he find out—?

Seven-Eighths began crying, little tears streaming down her freakishly narrow face. “I can tell you,” she said. “But please stop these
prayers,
please. They’re in my head. They won’t turn
off
.…”

“Yes, Sarah,” he said, his voice low and tender, reassuring. “Of course. You can stop them. I’m telling you that you can stop.”

But first …

“There’s this girl,” Seven-Eighths said. “And they say she has a notebook.…”

TWENTY

“That’s a neat trick, setting yourself on fire like that,” Green said, placing a reassuring hand on Davidek’s shoulder. Stein was leaning against the vending machine behind them, rolling his eyes. He’d been the first to hear about Davidek volunteering to be Hannah’s freshman. Green and LeRose were the second and third.

LeRose was pacing around them, puffing out his cheeks as he exhaled. “Jesus, I never thought I’d see a guy fuck
himself
up his own ass.”

“I guess your dad is holding back on some of his tricks,” said Stein. He had been an even bigger bastard than usual since Lorelei dumped him.

Davidek put his hands over his face. “
Guys
 … please.”

“Sorry,” Stein said, a rare apology. “Just kidding around.”

LeRose flipped him the middle finger and turned back to Davidek. “Why was I wasting my time looking out for you?” he said. “Wish I’d known you were just going to kamikaze yourself.”

Me, too,
Davidek thought. Only Stein knew it had been an accident, and he advised Davidek to play it off like a deliberate choice. “Better to be a badass than a dumb-ass,” he’d said. So that’s what Davidek was doing.

“Maybe she’ll take mercy on you,” Green said, trying to find the bright side. “Maybe she’ll be glad you’re not afraid of her, like everyone else.”

LeRose scratched at the scar on the back of his head, which always itched when he got nervous. “You just keep telling yourself that, girls.”

*   *   *

For now Davidek was untouchable. The seniors had backed off when Hannah scribbled his name next to hers on the Brother–Sister sign-up sheet, as if he had contracted an incurable—and possibly contagious—disease. Although, in a way, they were relieved.

When they had all been trying to nudge Hannah toward Stein, it was because they expected her to inflict some heinous torture on the punk, but when word spread about her diary, and plans to make her freshman reveal its contents to everyone … that sounded more like heinous torture aimed at them. Stein might even be a willing participant in something like that. Suddenly, steering anyone to Hannah seemed like a horrible idea, but mobs have never been especially good at considering unintended consequences.

When Davidek volunteered himself as Hannah’s “little brother,” LeRose and Green convinced their upperclassman friends that this was the best possible outcome. Davidek wasn’t an asshole like Stein, and could be persuaded to look out for them. Plus, he didn’t seem to be afraid of Hannah, which might disarm her. Better for them all to be nice to him—at least for now—and not tap-dance on the land mine.

“You know how we all thought Hannah would be the worst thing to happen to a freshman? It’s starting to look like the
best
thing—at least for you,” Green told him. “This is a chance for you to show who you are.”

“That means you’re going to have to talk to her some more,” LeRose said. “And keep us in the loop.”

Davidek still didn’t see Hannah very often. No one did, except in class. She kept away from everyone, gliding from room to room without lingering in the halls. She had perfected her sense of stealth.

Since she left school every single day for lunch, Davidek waited for her outside during the start of break one day, and caught her walking to her car with an armload of SAT prep manuals. “Taking the test soon?” he asked, a little too chipper. He could tell she sensed an ulterior motive.

“Yeah, this Saturday, over in Freeport,” she said. Bruised rings of lost sleep hung below her eyes, and light-colored roots were peeking through the windblown tangle of her fiery hair.

“Once you’re done, I guess you can get back to picking on me,” he suggested jokingly.

“I never picked on you,” she answered.

“I know.… I just meant, like … They said you had something bad planned for spring. At this Hazing Picnic thing…?”

Hannah dropped her books onto the passenger seat of her Jeep. “You heard all that, and you still chose me. I’m eternally honored.”

Davidek gritted his shoe against the ground. “To tell the truth, I didn’t know you were
you
 … ‘Claudia.’”

Hannah considered this. “Believe it or not, that actually makes me happy. You were running from the mean Hannah, but maybe you found the nice one.”

Davidek’s face brightened. “So all this crap about a diary, and embarrassing secrets, and making your freshman read it at the Hazing Picnic … none of that’s true?”

Hannah slid into her seat and fired the Jeep’s engine. Blue smoke belched into the frozen air. “Oh, it’s true, all right,” she said, slamming the driver’s door. “We’re going to pull the pants off this place, you and me.”

Davidek walked up to the window. “You think there’s a chance we could …
not
 … do that?”

She turned off the engine and rolled down her window. “You’re sweet, Peter, but do you understand why everyone at this school is so fucking miserable?”

He shrugged. “Tough times, I guess…”

“Tough times,” she repeated. “Actually, it’s because the church is putting pressure on Father Mercedes, he’s kicking Sister Maria’s ass, she’s beating up on the teachers, and the teachers are coming down as hard as they can on the students, who are shoving it back on each other. Everybody’s pissed off and wants to fucking hit somebody, but this whole system has only one rule: You can’t hurt anyone who can hurt you back. So Sister Maria can’t clock Father Mercedes, the teachers can’t tell Sister Maria to fuck off, and the students can’t punch out the teachers. They have to take it out on someone else. That’s you and me. We’re at the bottom of the pyramid—or, at least, we used to be.”

“Maybe the thing to do here is just … turn the other cheek. You know?” Davidek suggested. “Be nice and see if people—”

Hannah hopped out of her Jeep and raised her fist to punch him in the face. He winced, drawing back, and she hit him on the shoulder, twice. “Two for flinching,” she said, getting back behind the wheel.

“You see what happened there,” she said, slamming the door again. “You thought I was going to deck you, so you backed off. That’s what we’re doing right now with this notebook. Except in the end, we’re
really
going to knock them out.
Hard.
Remember how I said we were at the bottom of the pyramid? Well, we have the chance to make the whole fucking thing crumble.”

The Jeep’s engine roared to life. “Now, step back, Peter, and turn the other cheek over on the sidewalk,” she advised, blowing him a kiss. “I don’t want to run you over.”

*   *   *

Mrs. Arnarelli took down the Brother–Sister sign-up sheet after a few weeks. She felt sorry for Lorelei, who walked by every day to see if her name had been written down by anyone. There were lots of seniors who weren’t attached to a freshman yet, but nobody was interested in her. Audra had not only refused to pick Lorelei, but ordered that no one else protect her either. “Let the Fanboys shove her through the blades,” Audra’s friend, Allissa Hardawicky, had joked.

Stein was the only other unselected freshman. No one had picked him, because no one could figure out what to do with the combative little prick. He couldn’t have cared less, agonizing in ways they couldn’t see as he pined over Lorelei—who refused to speak to him. “She won’t even let me apologize for whatever I did. I thought we had this connection, and understood things about each other without even having to say them. I need her.”