Homeroom Headhunters (2 page)

first saw her at the corner of Spring Street and Weeping Willow.

I had missed my bus. That meant I was hoofing it home.

Great.

As far as first days go, this one couldn't have gotten much worse. All I wanted to do now was keep walking until I reached the ocean. Or the edge of the world.

Or my old house.

Who would notice if I was gone?

I was only a few blocks away from school when, out of the corner of my eye, I could have sworn I saw somebody staring at me.

I pivoted and came face-to-face with a phantom photocopy: Runny ink cheeks. Fuzzy button nose. Dark eyes. Bad weather had blurred her features.

Big bold capital letters, lined up along her chin, read:

MISSING.

Below that, in smaller print, her name:

Sully Tulliver.

It was a yearbook picture. I could tell from the pose. The half smile. Didn't think much of it until I bumped into her again at the corner of Tompkins and Remar.

Her eyes seemed to be watching me.

I wondered what color they were.

She must've been about my age. Maybe a little older. Sort of cute.

Who was she?

She was waiting for me at Apricot Avenue and Bougainvillea.

And again at Spruce and Veranda Avenue.

Wherever I went, there she was, staring right back at me.

“What're you looking at?”

I almost expected her to answer. But she just watched me as I wandered off.

I started making up a backstory for her on my walk home. By the time I made it to my block, I had her entire life mapped out:

Sully Tulliver ran away from home because nobody believed her
when she said she'd seen a hand reach out from her new school's ceiling.
Imagine a Lady of the Lake moment, with King Arthur clamoring for
Excalibur—only this time, instead of a sword, it's an inhaler. The kids
at school thought Sully was off her rocker, making the whole thing up
for attention.

I would've believed her.

Wherever you are, Sully—I sure hope it's better than here.

I pulled one of her
MISSING
flyers off a telephone pole and folded it to fit into my back pocket, like she'd written me a note or something.

At home, I pinned it to my bedroom wall.

She looked pixelated. There had to be thousands. Tens of thousands. Maybe even a million little photocopied dots coming together to form her face, making up her eyebrows, her cheeks, the bridge of her nose.

The dots formed her eyes like a constellation of stars surrounding two black planets.

There's Andromeda. There's Orion.

And there's Sully.

Looking into that vast galaxy of Sully Tulliver's
MISSING
flyer, I ended up getting lost in the pixels. I spent the whole afternoon counting them, losing my place, and starting all over again.

“Ready for dinner, hon?” Mom asked, peeking her head into my bedroom. “Who's that?”

“Nobody.” I caught myself just before I said:
A friend.

y mom makes meat loaf sandwiches when she wants something from me.

Here's her technique:

1. Make me my favorite meal.
   
2. Wait until my mouth's full of meat loaf.
   
3. Force me to do her bidding.
   

From the moment I smelled steaming ground beef in the oven, I knew something was up. Sure enough, Mom ambushed me in the kitchen with a plate of her mind-controlling meat loaf.

“Surprise!” She blew a tuft of chestnut hair out of her face.

“To what do I owe the honor?” I asked.

“To celebrate your first day at your new school. I want to hear all about it.”

“Not much to tell, really.…”

“Come on—I made your favorite.” Mom smiled.
“Meeeeat-
loaf sand-weeech-es.”

“With cornflakes crumbled on top?”

“Yep.”

“And barbecue sauce?”

“Yep.”

“And no green peppers?”

“Notta one.”

Honey-glazed carrots glistened under the kitchen light like candy. I could feel my tummy surrendering to my mom already.

Keep cool. Savor my meal. Remain fully aware of the fact that
Mom will drop one of her let's-make-a-deal bombs at any moment.

She held off until my first bite.

“So…are you gonna tell me how school was, or do I have to guess?”

“Sucked,” I said.

“Sucked?”

“Sucked.”

“How so?”

“Just sucked.”

“Any particular reason?”

“A million reasons.”

“Tell me.” She genuinely looked concerned.

“We'll be sitting here all night.…”

“I've got the time.”

“Your sandwich is gonna get cold.”

“I can eat and listen.”

“
My
sandwich's gonna get cold.”

“You can eat and talk.”

“You told me not to talk with my mouth full.”

“You know what I mean.”

My second bite of meat loaf was so downright delectable I nearly lost my train of thought.

“Okay,” I said, chewing. A solid stalling technique here for all you future stallers out there:
Chew each mouthful fifty times
before swallowing.

Works every time.

“Well?”

“Okay.” I swallowed. “First thing that happened, right when I first walked into the building, before the first bell even rang.…”

Big sip of milk. A third bite of my meat loaf sandwich.

Tenth chew, eleventh chew, twelfth chew, thirteenth…

“Any day now, Spence.…” Mom was beginning to lose her patience.

“Okay, okay.” I swallowed. “I had to break up this fight with a few eighth graders.”

“Eighth graders…and you? Really?”

“Three of them.” I nodded. “They were going to town on this defenseless sixth grader.…”

“And, pray tell, what was your involvement in all of this?”

“I did what any civic-minded citizen would do. I got right in their face and said,
Pick on somebody in your own grade!
”

“Please tell me you didn't, Spencer.
Please
.”

“I had to, Mom.… They all had penny rolls in their hands.”

“…Penny rolls?”

“They're like brass knuckles for middle schoolers. You hold them inside your fist for extra punch.”

“How do you even know about these things?”

“Middle school isn't what it used to be, Mom. It might've been all peace, love, and understanding when you were in the seventh grade, but now it's more like tribal warfare.”

“Sounds like it.”

“So one of them pulls back his hand, ready to clobber me.” I reeled my own hand back for dramatic effect. “But I duck just in time. His penny-fisted punch lands straight in the assistant principal's face!”

“Wait.” Mom blinked. “
Assistant principal?
Where'd he come from?”

“That's what I'm trying to tell you!”

“Sorry, sorry.”

“He'd come in to break it up—and BAM! Fifty cents right in the nose.”

Mom was staring at me like I had meat loaf all over my face.

“…What?” I asked.

“You didn't have an asthma attack, did you? Because this sounds a lot like a
Spencer had another asthma attack and is cover
ing it up with a whopper
kind of story.”

“Just a little one…”

Mom took in a quick breath, holding it. “You had your inhaler, right?”

I tugged the shoestring from around my neck with my thumb, pulling My Little Friend out from underneath my T-shirt.

“Good.” She released the air in her lungs. “You're supposed to call me if you have an attack, remember?
Always.
You promised.”

“It wasn't a big deal.”

Mom pressed her palm against the side of her head and stared at me. She suddenly looked exhausted.

“You know,” she said, “it wouldn't be such a bad idea to tell me what
really
happened at school today.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Ever hear the story about the boy who cried wolf?”

“You don't believe me.”

She held up her hands. “I just wonder if you'd have an easier time fitting in if you, you know,
told the truth now and then
.”

Now it was my turn not to say anything for a while.

“Dad would've believed me,” I said finally.

“
Spencer
. I didn't say I didn't believe you.…”

“Dad would've thought I'd done the right thing.”

“Well—your father's not here, is he?”

Stalemate. There was nothing left for us to do but stare each other down.

I caved in first. “Who says I want to fit in, anyway?”

“Don't you?”

“Not really.”

“Why not?”

“What's the point of being just like everybody else?”

“Seems like it'd be easier to make friends if you didn't push people away all the time.”

“I'm making plenty of friends already.”

“Like who?”

“Like Sully.”

“Sully?”

Whoops.

“Just some girl.” I shrugged. “She followed me around all day today.”

“Tell you what.” Mom paused for dramatic effect. “I'll make a deal with you.…”

Didn't I tell you?

“Promise me you'll keep an open mind and stay out of trouble,” she said. “And I'll make meat loaf sandwiches once a week.”

I mulled it over. “I'll give you six months.”

“
Only six months?
”

“A trial period.”

“At least promise me you'll be on your best behavior,” she said. “Can you do that much?”

“
Fine
. I'll try.”

My plate was clean. Mom had barely touched her meat loaf sandwich.

“You gonna eat that?” I asked.

“All yours.”

word of advice to all the newbies out there:
Never head to the
boys' room alone.

I should've known better. Between classes on my second day, I stumbled upon Riley Callahan and a couple of his Cro-Magnon cronies sneaking a cigarette in the middle stall.

“What are you doing in here?” Riley flicked his cancer stick into the toilet.

“I was just leaving.…”

I spun 180 degrees, but it was too late. I found myself flanked by two eighth graders. They flossed their arms through mine and carried me kicking into the middle stall—where Riley was waiting, toilet seat up and everything.

How considerate.

“We've got to stop meeting like this, Riley.…”

“Shut it,” he said. A red welt had blossomed across his forehead from his run-in with the locker. His eyes were swollen from my inhaler hose-down. Each socket was wrapped in a pink ring, like he was suffering from a nasty case of cotton-candy conjunctivitis. “I don't care how tough you think you were at your last school; maggots start at the bottom of the food chain.”

“I'll make a note of it, thanks.”

Next thing you know, I was completely inverted, literally head over heels above the bowl. The change in my pocket was falling out, landing in the water with a series of loud
kerplunk
s.

Kerplunk, kerplunk, kerplunk!

“Make a wish,” Riley said, flushing.

You better believe I made a wish. It was something along the lines of,
Please oh please oh please get me out of here
.…

“How long do you think you can hold your breath?”

“Not long enough.”

“Too bad,” he said. “I bet a blast from your inhaler would come in pretty handy right about now.…”

All I could do was breathe in deep and close my eyes before the whirlpool sucked my head in.

Riley's cronies gave me a few moments underwater to reflect on how life at Greenfield had been going thus far for me.

Let's see: Day one—asthma attack. Day two—head flushed down toilet.

Only 178 school days left to go.

“Better find your spot on the totem pole fast,” Riley called out from above the water's surface, “or some friends who'll watch your back.”

When I washed ashore, I found myself alone, stranded on my own tiny toilet bowl island.

A bathroom-bound Robinson Crusoe.

I sat there listening to the sound of water dribbling off my clothes.

Blip.

Blip.

Blip.

“Mr. Simms.” Assistant Principal Pritchard's voice crackled from the intercom above my head. “Come to the boys' locker room. We have a busted pipe. Busted pipe in the locker room…”

That's when it caught my eye. Some peculiar bathroom-stall graffiti.

A stick figure. Holding a spear.

Just above its head, somebody had written:

WE ARE WATCHING YOU.

If there's one thing I've discovered, no matter what academic institution I've transferred to, it's that you can learn all you need to know about a school by its graffiti.

If you want to find out what's
really
going on within the hallowed halls of your school, don't crack open the yearbook. Sneak into the rear stall of the boys' bathroom and read up.

This is where the real history is written.

Who kissed who. Who used to like who.

The graffiti here sucked. That was just a sad fact. A finger painting from a kindergarten class would have been better than what was thrown up on the walls here.

So I fished a Sharpie out from my soaked shorts, then peeked through the stall door.

All clear.

I found a free space and started. I didn't have a lot of time before the bell rang, but more than enough to sprawl my masterpiece above the toilet paper dispenser:

A portrait of our own beloved Riley hunched over in
The
Thinker
pose, deep in contemplation, with his shorts down at his ankles.

I am the Van Gogh of vandalism.

Suddenly I heard a shuffle from the neighboring stall.

I leaned over and peered under the stall partition.

There, in plain view, I saw a pair of bare feet.

Someone's in the bathroom with me. Right in the next stall. A
second ago it was empty
.…
And what's up with the missing shoes?

“Hello?”

The feet disappeared.

“…Hello?”

Silence.

“Who's there?”

Okay. Keep calm. Whoever it is, they're probably just as scared as
I am.

Play it cool, play it cool and—

I rushed out of my stall and kicked open the neighboring door.

“Gotcha!”

Empty. I threw open the other stall doors to see if whoever it was had slipped into a different toilet.

Nobody. I was completely alone.

The bell for class rang. I looked down and noticed ink smudges on my hands.
Great.
I beelined for the sink. A good way to get caught throwing up graffiti is to have black Magic Marker all over your fingers.

The ink wasn't coming off. I kept scrubbing, until I saw something behind my reflection. Above the row of stalls.

Turning around, I looked up at the ceiling as a fiberglass panel slipped back.

“You've got to be kidding me.…”