Homeroom Headhunters (14 page)

e buried ourselves in the boiler room later that night. Candles cast a grid of shadows through the pipes, and Griz the Grizzly was sprawled out on the floor like a rug. His helmet head was perched upright, so his blank eyes stared dumbly at me.

“It is time to honor one of our own.” Peashooter placed his hands on Compass's shoulders. “You, Compass, have shown allegiance. You're a true hero.”

Sporkboy started clapping wildly.

Yardstick added his applause.

Compass raised his hands in a gesture of light-headed gratitude, wincing as he waved with three quarters of his fingers. He presented his mummified pinkie to the rest of us and recited:
“At
times he regarded the wounded soldiers in an envious way. He conceived
persons with torn bodies to be peculiarly happy. He wished that he, too,
had a wound
…
”

Sporkboy and Yardstick cheered, reciting along with him:
“
…
a red badge of courage!”

Compass believed in the Tribe so much that he was willing to lose a limb for them.

This was what would be expected from me when I joined.

If—
if
—I joined.

Once you're in—you're in for life.

Could I really do it?

Griz looked like he was pleading for my help. I knew how he felt.

“All right, everybody.” Sully pulled out a milk crate and plopped it down on Griz's back, snapping me out of it. “Sully's Salon is open for business.”

She held up a rusty pair of electric clippers and buzzed at the air.

“Listen up,” Peashooter announced. “Tonight, in honor of Compass's great sacrifice, we all must follow in his footsteps and offer up something of ourselves.”

Sporkboy blanched. “Are we cutting off our pinkies now?”

Peashooter was growing flustered. “In order to form a greater whole, the individual must surrender what he holds dear. Tonight—we shear ourselves of our individualism so we can become a stronger Tribe!”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Sporkboy asked.

Compass leaned over and whispered, “He wants us to shave our heads.”

A sudden rush of protest passed through Yardstick. “But I like my hair.…”

Peashooter persisted. “Ever hear of esprit de corps?”

“I failed French,” Sporkboy piped up.

“It's a military term. It means the morale of the unit. We cut our hair as a show of solidarity. Consider it an act of tribal camaraderie.”

Yardstick averted his gaze. One of his dreadlocks slid into his face, the paper clip attached to the end swinging pendulously before his eyes.

“We're all doing this,” Peashooter said. “No exceptions.”

“What about her?” Compass nodded at Sully.

She didn't hesitate a second. “Any of you come near me and I'll cut off more than just your hair.”

Nobody argued.

“Who's first?”

Peashooter sat down on the milk crate.

“I need a weed whacker.” Sully wrapped a smock from art class around his neck and began to hack away at that dense crop of locks.

To be honest, the whole Tribe was a bit
unkempt
in the hair department. Each of their heads was topped by a wild thatch, which no shampoo had ventured into for a long time.

“I don't think this qualifies as hair anymore.” Sully studied the clump she'd just severed from Peashooter's head.

“Funny,” he said. “Just wait until it's your turn.”

“Fat chance.
Next
.”

“My turn, my turn!” Sporkboy squealed. “Just a little off the top, please.”

“What's the rush, Sporky?” Compass snorted. “Squirrels living in your hair?”

“You're next, Compass,” Peashooter said.

The sneer on Compass's lips dwindled. “I thought I already made my sacrifice.”

“For the Tribe,” Peashooter reminded.

“Some things we do in the name of science,” Compass rationalized as he plopped onto the crate. “Others we do in the name of the Tribe.”

Once Sully had mowed through the thicket on top of Compass's head, Sporkboy took his turn. Then Peashooter turned to Yardstick.

“Come on,” Peashooter ordered. “We don't have all night.”

Yardstick didn't move. He brought his arms up to his chest and bowed his chin.

“It'll grow back,” Sully offered. “Promise.”

Yardstick kept his eyes on the floor and slowly stepped forward. “What have I got left?”

“You've got us,” Peashooter said. “That's all you need.”

I was surprised to see how young Yardstick and the rest looked without all that hair hanging in their faces.

Amazing what a couple years between haircuts can do.

Even Peashooter. His translucent skin made him look like a newborn lab mouse.

“Last but not least.” Peashooter nodded at me.

“No, thanks,” I said. “I just got a trim.…”

“Nonnegotiable, sorry. But if it'll make you feel better, I'll bat my eyelashes and say
pwetty pwease.
”

“My mom will kill me.”

“You want to be one of us—or not?”

It was a good question. One I'd been asking myself more and more lately.

I looked to Yardstick. His face was washed of all emotion. Sporkboy, too.

I sat down on the crate.

“How'd you like that haircut to begin just below the neck?”
I quoted from
The
Outsiders
.

“Not bad.” Peashooter looked impressed. “Now you're getting the hang of it.”

I was. I had to keep up with the Tribe and all of their recitations somehow.

More and more, I was reading. Retaining.

Learning.

To the lemmings, textbooks did nothing but weigh our backpacks down.

But to the Tribe—they became bibles.

The Compass Book of Chemistry. The Yardstick Book of Algebra.

The Tribal Book of English Lit, King Peashooter Edition.

One thing Peashooter was right about:
Limited minds, limited
havoc.

Bigger minds most definitely mean bigger havoc.

Sully wrapped the smock around me. She leaned over and whispered, “I'll be gentle, I promise.”

The buzz from the clippers sent a tremor through my neck.

Bzzt
. I watched the first tuft of hair drift through the air like a feather, landing at my feet.

Bzzt
. The next patch fell upon Griz's head. Then another.

Bzzt
. Griz suddenly looked as if he was getting hair implants.

Compass took the opportunity to step up to the crate and elbow me in the ribs. “I need you to pick up some potassium nitrate for me.”

“Potassium
what
?”

“
Saltpeter
. Peashooter wants me to whip up another batch of smoke bombs. I'm running low on a few ingredients.…”

“Hold still,” Sully said as she continued to mow. “Don't want to lose an ear, do you?”

“Now that you mention it,” Sporkboy said, leaning in on the other side of me, “think you could pick me up some bottle rockets?”

“What am I?” I asked. “A tribal delivery boy?”

“Think of it as going undercover,” Peashooter insisted. “You're covertly slipping between two worlds without raising suspicion.”

So, I'm not their inside man.

But an
outside
man.

“All done,” Sully said. “Here. Take a look.”

She handed me a cracked compact mirror. The fracture in the glass ran directly down the middle, splitting the reflection of my freshly shorn head into halves.

Who was that supposed to be?

Me?

“Of all those in the army close to the commander none is more
intimate than the secret agent,”
Peashooter recited. He slapped the palm of his hand on top of my new dome.

Whenever I was with Peashooter, I found myself getting swept up into his rhetoric, but the second I stepped away and attempted to reflect on what he had said, the fog of his words would dissipate from my brain.

“That's all fine and good for whoever said that,” I responded. “But they probably weren't just glorified gofers.”

“Are you challenging me?”

“I thought that's what you wanted from us,” I said. “Stand up to the status quo.”

Peashooter seemed ruffled. “I'm the
status quo
now?”

He started to pace. I hadn't gotten up from the milk crate yet.

“Not status quo,” I started, noticing that Yardstick had moved up next to Sporkboy.

“Then what, exactly?”

“You mouth off about not being like all the other cliques in school,” I said, slowly rising. “You say we should reject the petty tyranny of the in-crowd, but you guys have become the innermost in-crowd. You're like the
inner
in-crowd!”

I was surrounded by a ring of shiny scalps.

Peashooter was right in my face. He didn't flinch, so I tried not to flinch either.

I lifted my chin. Peashooter lifted his.

“Don't forget who found
you
,” he muttered under his breath. “I saved you from the status quo.”

“You're like everybody else here at Greenfield. More than you know.”

Peashooter's fingers slowly curled into a fist.

“Barbershop's closed, boys,” Sully said, breaking us up. “Bonfire time.”

“…Fire?” I asked.

“Come see for yourself.”

• • •

Sully led me up to the roof, where we built a shaggy bonfire. She lit a match and tossed it into the heap of recently cut hair. Loose curls burst into flame, and the smell of burned hair filled my nose.

“You're like a den mother to the others, aren't you?”

“Yeah, right.” She half laughed. “I'm a real regular Wendy Darling.”

“Who?”

“From
Peter Pan
.”

Note to self: Read more books.

“Peashooter always says knowledge is power.”

“Just not more power than he has,” I suggested. “Must get kind of lonely being the only girl among the boys.”

“One girl is worth more use than twenty boys,”
Sully said.

Another book reference. It was hard to keep up with them all.

There was a hiss and crackle from the fire engulfing the bits of clippings. The flare cast a long shadow across Sully's face, half hidden behind her hair.

“How come you don't cut your hair?” I asked.

“It's how I mark the time away from home.”

It was well past her lower back.

I brought my hand up and tucked her hair behind her ear, exposing her cheeks. I could see freckles on her pale face.

“It's hard to see you underneath there,” I said. “It's like you're hiding.”

As quickly as I caught sight of her, Sully dipped her chin. Hair and shadow swallowed her face. “Who says I'm hiding?”

“Sorry…”

“Just 'cause I'm a girl doesn't mean you can get googly-eyed on me, okay?” she said. “I don't need to deal with some puppy-dog crush.”

“Who says I've got a crush?”

“Sure act like it.”

“Well, sure sounds like
somebody's
got a high opinion of herself.”

“I'm not some sugar-and-spice-and-everything-nice kind of girl, okay? If you want somebody to bat their eyelashes at you, stick to the chicks at school.”

“You
are
a chick at school. You're more at school than any other chick I know!”

“You know what I mean.”

Silence.

Sully ran her hand over the slope of my scalp. “You don't look all that bad with a shaved head.”

The two of us stared at the embers by our feet. They looked like the coiled wires inside a lightbulb being turned off, low-wattage orange diminishing into ash.

“Why haven't you asked me for anything from outside?” I blurted. “Everybody else has.”

She thought about it for a moment. “There is one thing.…”