Lemonade Mouth (5 page)

Which spoke volumes about screwed-up priorities.

Finally Mrs. Ledlow asked everyone to show respect for our award-winning guest presenters by giving them complete silence. She went back to her chair and the lights dimmed. Then in a sudden torrent of sound, Dick Dale and His Del-Tones came roaring through the overhead speakers. I was pleasantly surprised. For a few seconds everybody sat in the dark listening to delicious middle-eastern guitar riffs like the start of an Arabic surf adventure. It was “Miserlou,” and my hands knew every twist and turn. But then, from unseen corners of the room, five or six wide-eyed men and women dressed in black overalls and white face paint wordlessly bounced, unicycled, danced, crawled and pretended to swim their way to the pyramid of sports equipment arranged at one end of the gym floor.

Apparently a troupe of clown-faced mimes dribbling basketballs to surf music had something to do with safety and empowerment.

By then my heart was pounding in my chest. What I was about to do was a risk, a bold act of defiance that would undoubtedly have repercussions. In my unhappiness and confusion, I admit I considered chickening out. But the moment passed. Within seconds, before the clowns got too far into their act, I stood up and strolled four or five paces onto the parquet floor, then turned around and threw off my jacket. I was wearing the very same T-shirt that had so traumatized the delicate sensibilities of the administration only the day before. Next I unfolded a cardboard sign I’d prepared, holding it up for everybody to see. In case there was anyone at the back with bad eyesight, I shouted the words over the music:

MY SHIRT, MY DECISION!
DON’T LET THE SCHOOL TAKE AWAY YOUR RIGHTS!

As I’d expected, there was an immediate uproar.

Some of the teachers jumped out of their seats and ran toward me. At first most of the kids in the bleachers just looked surprised, but within seconds it seemed like the entire wall of them stood up and yelled. Some laughed, some waved their fists, and a few grinned and applauded.

“We’re human beings, not cattle!” I called out, surprised at the pleasant rush I felt. I was enjoying the chaos.

The music stopped and the lights came on. Suddenly Ms. Stone, the algebra teacher, stood very close. “What do you think you’re doing?” she spat up at me. “You’re disturbing our assembly!”

I could feel the blood pulsing through my veins. In the excitement, it took a moment to focus my thoughts. What exactly
was
I doing? But then it came to me.

“I . . . I’m trying to change the world.”

Mr. Brenigan, his face purple, appeared huffing and puffing behind her. Less than thirty seconds later, they walked me to the exit doors. I glanced over at the mimes as we passed them. They didn’t seem overly concerned. They were just following my progress across the floor, apparently waiting for the anarchy to work itself out so they could start again. In fact, I could almost swear that one of them gave me the thumbs-up sign.

But my newfound boldness was short-lived.

Minutes later, I sat quietly in Mr. Brenigan’s office while he read me the riot act. Away from the shouting crowds, I began to question the wisdom of my protest. What was I trying to prove, anyway? It wasn’t as if the school rules were going to change. And when he sentenced me to a full
week
of detention, I felt all the fear and unhappiness I’d been wallowing in ever since school began well back up inside me. Plus, I hated to imagine how mad my mother would be when she learned how much trouble I’d gotten myself into. As Mr. Brenigan’s stern voice droned on about disappointment and harsher punishments to come, I felt Sista Stella deflate inside me.

Soon after that, I was back in class just as friendless and alone as ever. Perhaps there was a little more whispering when I walked into the room, but other than that, nothing much had changed except that now I was a certified, publicly acknowledged freak. As I took my seat I could feel in my pocket the envelope that contained the documented proof of my own foolishness.

Eighty-four.

As if any more proof were needed.

WEN:
So Much for Sympathy

Mr. Prichard gave me detention for swearing in class. That meant I wouldn’t be able to go to the band tryouts that afternoon unless I cut detention. And this wasn’t even the worst of it. My problems were so much bigger now.

It wasn’t long after the stiffy incident that I found out just how badly I’d screwed up my life.

During second period I tried to calm myself down. I could play it cool, act like Social Studies had never happened. I even managed to convince myself that maybe I’d been wrong, that nobody had actually noticed Happy Roger at full mast. This was just a normal day like any other, nothing to worry about.

It was a delusion that made me feel better.

But not for long.

By third-period Algebra my worst fears were confirmed. When I walked into the room there was a strange lull in the usual chatter, and as I strolled to my seat I could feel everyone watching me. I tried to ignore the strange vibe, and even pulled off a casual hi to Ted Papadopoulos, whose chair was next to mine, but he wouldn’t look at me. He kept his eyes fixed on Ms. Stone, who was writing on the board. I opened my backpack and pulled out my notebook. That’s when I heard giggling from the back corner of the room. I turned. Trisha Myers, Ashley Ducker and Georgia Cole were whispering and laughing—and, I thought, looking everywhere but at me.

“What?” I asked them, still holding onto the slim hope that this might have nothing to do with that morning.

Trisha shrugged and made a face as if she wasn’t sure what was so hilarious. I scowled at them and turned back around. But that’s when Georgia said, “Hey, Wen? How was Social Studies? I hear your presentation was . . .
stimulating.
”

The three of them broke into fits. A few other kids started giggling too. Ted covered his face with his hand, but I could see he was shaking with laughter.

It took all my willpower to prevent myself from jumping out of the window.

After Algebra, it seemed like the whole school knew. Everywhere I went, people were snickering. In the hallway before American History, this junior, Ray Beech, bumped into me and shouted, “Hey! Watch where you’re going, Woody, you horndog!” And that was all it took for his buddies to fall over each other, laughing so hard they were practically in tears.

The humiliation was unbearable.

Thing was, last year I’d kind of screwed things up with my two closest buddies and now I was a little short on friends. That’s why I’d been so determined to fit in this year. Until today I’d been imagining popularity, envisioning tables of kids turning to wave to me as I entered a room. But instead, kids were veering away from me like I was the plague. And I couldn’t blame them. To be seen with me was committing social suicide. And it was all Sydney’s fault. I knew I should just get over it, but I couldn’t. I’d stuffed the envelope with the drawings under a pile in my locker, but even now when I closed my eyes I could still picture the delicious charcoal curves of her nakedness.

I know it sounds funny, but I was furious. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t my fault that my penis had betrayed me. Sure, it was attached and everything, but it wasn’t like I had any control of the little bastard. Could I help it if for some infuriating reason it had a thing for my dad’s girlfriend?

I’d been damned to social purgatory by a dim-witted organ beyond my command.

After the seventh-period bell I stood in the hall halfway between the gym, where the Marching Band tryouts were about to start, and the stairway to the basement, where freshman detention was about to begin. I felt paralyzed with indecision.

Azra Quimby appeared from the crowd, her stuffed backpack over her shoulder. She came right up to me and just stood there, which kind of freaked me out. Finally she said, “Excuse me, Wen. You’re standing in front of my locker.”

“Oh.” I stepped aside. “Sorry.”

Azra and I had kind of a weird relationship. We used to be best friends. Along with another girl, Floey Packer, we’d been kind of a threesome, almost inseparable. But that all ended last year when I’d made the mistake of asking Azra out. Now that we’d broken up, everything was uncomfortable between us.

A few seconds later she was crouched down, pulling things out of her backpack. Without looking up at me she said, “What are you doing here? Don’t you have detention?”

“Oh, you heard about what happened?”

She nodded. “
Everybody
heard.”

Another wave of shame washed over me. But I refused to let it show. “I’m trying to decide what to do. Today is Marching Band tryouts. Should I really forget about band and go to detention like I’m supposed to, or should I skip detention, accept whatever the consequences may be, and go to tryouts like I’d planned? What do you think?”

She stood up, her backpack restuffed and rearranged, and slammed her locker door shut.

“I don’t know,” she said, barely looking at me. “But I gotta get going or I’m going to miss my bus.”

So much for sympathy.

Alone again, I realized I didn’t have much time left. In less than four minutes the after-school activities bell would ring. So I took a deep breath, gripped hard on my trumpet case handle, and made my decision.

I ran toward the gym.

When I got to the open double doors, I could see a crowd of kids, each with instrument cases at their sides, standing around a table set up at one end of the gym floor. Jonathan Meuse stood in the thick of it like a scarlet-haired king holding court. He was already explaining how the Marching Band budget was smaller this year, so anyone who got in this year would be expected to sell a lot more chocolates than ever to pay expenses. But then he noticed me at the door.

“Oh, look who it is, folks!” he called. “Woody! Woody Gifford! You here for the tryouts, Wood-man?”

Everybody turned. A bunch of kids laughed.

Suddenly my legs turned to jelly. I felt every molecule in my body shrivel up. It occurred to me as I scanned the grinning faces that I might be better off spending my after-school time alone at home in front of the TV.

“No,” I said, lamely, backing into the hallway. “I . . . uh . . . have detention.”

As soon as I was out of sight I started running, my head as warm as a brick oven. I couldn’t get away from there fast enough. When I came to my locker I stopped, yanked open the little metal door, shoved my trumpet and case violently inside, and then slammed the locker door shut again. For a few seconds I just stood there with my forehead pressed against the cold metal.

There’s something incredibly humiliating about not being cool enough to try out for Marching Band.

A moment later I dragged myself toward the basement stairway. I figured I still had a half a minute or so before the bell.

OLIVIA:
An Introverted Virgo of the Worst Kind