Gabe Johnson Takes Over (5 page)

Dad got home from teaching his Saturday class at 4:45. “Boiled chicken?” he asked.

“That's what we have. Take it or leave it,” Grandpa said.

Dad grumbled. “You ate this?” he asked me.

“Uh,” I said. I didn't say
uh
because I was against the chicken. I said
uh
because I had no energy. My flesh had gone all trembly and weak. The eighteen minutes of hell workout (or ten minutes or whatever it had actually been) destroyed me. Muscles in my legs twitched. My back spasmed. My head swam. Scared me, sir. I wondered if I was having a stroke.

I pulled on my shoes though. I got ready to go.

At 5 p.m., right on time, Camille rolled up in her dad's pickup truck.

I left the house and climbed in. “Cornell coming?” I asked.

“He didn't answer my texts,” she said.

“He didn't reply to me this morning either,” I said.

“He wouldn't answer my calls last night. He texted about how he's been tired lately,” she said.

“Huh. That's truly weird,” I said.

“Chunk,” Camille said.

“What?”

“Has he mentioned anything to you?”

“No. About what?” I asked.

“About maybe not liking me?” Camille asked.

“Oh, no. Uh-uh,” I said. But that wasn't exactly the truth.

Camille has crushed on Justin for a couple years and he asked me in April why she never got a real haircut and why she wore her pants so high. (I didn't know what he meant even—except she has these blue thrift shop hippie bell bottoms that make her look like she's in 1970.) “Camille is pretty cute, right?” Justin had said.

“Yeah. Definitely,” I replied.

“But she's just too weird,” he said. “I wish she'd wear normal clothes, man.”

He and Camille went to prom together, even though he wasn't enthusiastic about it, even though a year earlier all he talked about was how great it was going to be when he finally got up the courage to make a move on her.

Yeah, he liked her before! Forever! Until the last month or whatever.

Here's the sad truth, Mr. Rodriguez. Over the past year, Justin's grown from a pencil-neck geek to looking sort of like Clark Kent. He's on the swim team and he grew all these muscles out of no place. The last time we hung out just the two of us, maybe three weeks ago, he said the weirdest thing while we were eating this thick and chewy chocolate cake his mom had made.

My memories always revolve around food. I love his mom by the way.

He said, “Chicks dig me.”

Chicks
dig
me! What the hell, right? I asked him how he gained this saintly knowledge and he was pretty nonspecific on the matter, except to say he had been catching a little buzz on the Interweb.
What?!

He did get multiple texts that night and he wouldn't tell me who they were from, which is ridiculous because we were buddies. I went on family vacations with him! I stayed overnight at his house like a thousand times! His dad loves me, calls me
Coolio
! His mom makes me cakes and pies because my mom left me! Then out of the blue, he won't tell me who he's texting with? That hurts, man. Seriously.

“No,” I said to Camille. “He hasn't mentioned anything.”

“Something has gone wrong,” Camille said.

“I…I don't know,” I said.

Camille took a deep breath and then shouted, “Screw Justin Cornell!”

I didn't say
In
your
dreams,
which was on the tip of my dumb tongue.

“Now what about these bamboozling cheer bitches?” Camille asked.

I told her my hunch and it was really just a hunch at that time. Firstly, all funding for marching camp comes from the pop machine. Secondly, Shaver loves summer marching camp and wouldn't cancel it unless suddenly the money to do it was gone. And thirdly, why cheerleaders? The same week the pop price goes up, the new dance squad is announced and marching is suddenly canceled? These are not disconnected events.

Camille pulled the pickup truck over. She said, “I don't believe you.”

I said, “I know in my heart I'm right.”

She said, “I need to talk to Shaver.”

I was like, “What?”

Camille swung the pickup around, nearly creaming a kid on a bike. She headed toward Shaver's shit-ball condo right off Main Street.

“We're going to a teacher's house?”

“He needs to verify the situation,” Camille said. “Otherwise, I refuse to believe it.”

A few minutes later, we pulled up in front of Shaver's place. He and Mrs. Shaver got divorced last year. He moved from Lion's Ridge by Kailey to that hole, poor guy.

Even though it was a nice evening, his shades were all pulled down. “Doesn't look home,” I said. Then we got out of the car and heard Led Zeppelin muffled but clearly vibrating through his walls.

“He's home,” Camille said. “He's rocking out.”

“I don't like it,” I said.

Camille marched right up to his front door and rang the bell. His walls were literally shaking to that
hey
hey
mama
song.

He didn't answer.

“Maybe the bell doesn't work?” Camille said.

“Maybe he can't hear it?” I said.

Camille pounded on the door. We waited. The song got to that
ah
ah
ah
part, which is a little quieter, and Camille pounded again. Then the song took off and we stood there. Then Camille said, “I'm going in.”

“No!”

She nodded and twisted the doorknob and the door was open. And Camille walked right in! Balls, man! She left the door open behind her and I didn't know what to do, so I followed.

Adrenaline gave me a little strength. At least I wasn't bodily trembling from my ten minutes of hell (and lack of Dew and lack of normal, satisfying, but deadly food).

Shaver was right on the other side of the door, sitting in his living room on the couch, wearing these colorful plaid shorts and nothing else. He had an ashtray and this bottle of whiskey balanced on his big bare gut. Dude was sucking right from the bottle. Lit cigarette in the other hand.

My eyes burned. I thought of Shaver in his prime, teaching us new parts for a new piece, big smile on his face, conducting, gesturing small to make us quiet, gesturing huge to make us loud. Waving his arms around crying, “Let's hear it! Let's hear it!” He's such a good teacher, but there he was shirtless with whiskey.

Camille walked over to his stereo (old school) and turned down the volume.

“Hey, brother,” he nodded at me. “Hey, girl,” he smiled at Camille.

“You're loaded,” Camille said.

“You're breaking and entering,” Shaver smiled.

“You're a teacher!” Camille said.

The smile left his face. “Maybe. Maybe not,” Shaver said. “Maybe not.” He shook his head and shut his eyes. “Maybe?” He opened his eyes and swigged on the whiskey and then puffed his cigarette.

“God,” Camille said. She looked at me. I shrugged. “Mr. Shaver,” she said.

“Yes, ma'am?”

“Chunk says the cheerleaders took the pop money and that's why camp was canceled.”

“Oh?” Mr. Shaver asked.

“Is it true?”

“Is it?” he asked back.

“I believe it's true,” I said.

“Chunk would know,” Shaver said to Camille. “Boy has hidden powers of deep wisdom and knowledge.” Then he laughed, which I didn't appreciate.

“So it's true?” Camille said. “If it's true, then we've been bamboozled.”

Again, the smile left Shaver's face. He grunted. He sat forward and the ashtray slid down his gut and spilled. He plunked the whiskey bottle onto the side table. “You, girl.” He pointed at Camille. “Don't make trouble for me.”

“What?”

He shook his head. He said, “I'm asking you man-to-man. No trouble.”

“She's not a man,” I said.

“Then I'm asking you.”

“Chunk isn't a man either,” Camille said.

“This isn't your business,” Shaver said.

“Oh, my God. It's true,” Camille said. “How could they do that? How could they just take our money?”

Shaver's face went slack. He leaned back in the chair. “Kaus is a lady from hell,” he said.

“What?” Camille asked.

“Please leave.”

“You said Kaus!” I shouted.

“You try standing up to that school board.”

“You have to stand up,” Camille said.

“No.”

“Can we raise the money?” I asked. “For the camp?”

“Good luck to you,” Shaver said.

“Don't be a wimp!” Camille shouted. “You have to stand up!”

“Time for you to leave, Ms. Buzzkill. Right now,” Shaver said. “I'll call the cops.”

“We are
gone
,” Camille hissed.

She blew out the door. I followed behind her. We climbed in her truck. Camille pulled out fast.

“See?” I said. “Told you.”

“Oh, my God. We have to do something. We have to raise money and get our camp back,” Camille said. “For Shaver and for us.”

“For Shaver?”

“He's losing it. Did you see…He used to be so…so—”

“Great.”

“Yeah.” Camille blinked.

She took a left and pulled around by the lake. We drove past the Wilson Beach parking lot. There was a silver Honda Civic in the lot. Justin's car, I'm sure. Luckily, Camille didn't see it.

“Listen. I already talked to Dante. He'll sponsor us if we have a bake sale or something, an event of some kind.”

“Really?” Camille asked. “You did something?”

“Why is that surprising?”

“We need something big, Chunk. We need it fast. Camp is in a week. Would Dante give us a lot of money?”

“No,” I said. “Definitely not. He'll give us some donuts.”

“Uh-huh,” Camille said. She drove way too slow through town. Cars honked at us, but she didn't pay any attention. “We need to make a big event.”

“A very big event,” I said and nodded. “Huge.”

“Like a dance or a…a bachelor auction or art auction or we could go door-to-door and sell donuts?” Camille said.

“We are a band,” I said. “How about a concert?”

“Oh, that's…that's pretty good,” Camille said, nodding. She pulled the truck over to the side of the road. Some dude in a Pontiac shouted at us, I assume about how slow we were going. Camille took in a deep breath and nodded more. “Yeah. Totally. We're a band and we can play our instruments!”

We stared at each other with our mouths hanging open like fools, sir, like we'd just heard a message from God. Then we tried to high-five but totally missed. People like Camille should never high-five.

I can high-five. I'm good like that. With the right person.

It wasn't a great idea really. We had no time to organize the thing. Camille became obsessed with this concert though. She stayed obsessed with it even after it was way too late.

I don't know, sir. I guess I let Camille take charge at first because my leadership bone was in poor condition. I really didn't think anyone would listen to me anyway.

When she dropped me off at home, she said, “I'll come up with a poster for the concert!”

“Uh-huh,” I said. “Great.” I'd already begun thinking of all the problems and our lack of time. I couldn't see how we'd do it without Justin either. Justin is so good at organizing stuff.

Inside, I texted him,
What are you doing? Where are you? Need your help on this. Camille organizing concert. Me too.

He wrote back,
At Wilson Beach with Sellers, Emily, and Janessa. Come down?

It was a hard slap in the face. I blinked. My eyes watered. I almost fell over, sir. Seth Sellers, Emily Yu, and Janessa Rogers? I stared at that text. My heart beat hard in my chest. My mouth got dry.
Janessa?

It just didn't seem possible. I read and reread the text. Then I got mad.

I didn't want Justin to show Seth, Emily, and Janessa a crazy upset text from a psycho blimp. (Janessa sometimes called me a psycho blimp.) So I didn't send one until later. Even though I worked early in the morning, I stayed up until 1 a.m., burning up, man. Then I thumbed the shit in.

Way to drop your friends at first sign of popularity, man. Rude to Camille? Hanging with douche Janessa and Sellers? Don't give a shit that band got screwed? Good going!

About ten minutes later, a text came back.
1. Janessa is my girlfriend. I wanted to tell you about what was going on last week, but you were flipping out. Please don't call her names ever again. 2. Stop being a drama queen. It's band camp, not the Holocaust. Talk tomorrow.

Oh, man, sir. Oh, crap. This can't be real. This is a joke. I tried to thumb up a response, but I couldn't do it. Janessa Rogers. Eventually, I threw my phone on the floor.

Yeah, that's right. Mystery texts? Buzz on the Interweb? Justin “Clark Kent” Cornell, my dork friend, scored the biggest shit-face girl ever to exist in our grade.

She's like a beach volleyball player on TV. What do you think he finds interesting about her? She wears tight pants and she looks super fine. She's part of Minnekota Lake's evil Charlie's Angels (with Kailey and Emily). Justin likes to win. He wins at everything. Debate. Swim team. Hot girls. He certainly isn't hanging with Janessa Rogers because she's sweet and wonderful because she's the exact opposite. She's terrible and mean. But she's hot and she doesn't dress weird like Camille.

Makes me sick.

Seriously terrible.

Screw it.

Just screw it.

Do we get lunch, Mr. Rodriguez? I haven't eaten anything since yesterday.

Gross. I'll take the salad.