Losers (12 page)

Another few steps and Devin recognized me for sure. “Jupiter!” she cried, waving to me as if there was a chance I'd pass without seeing her. As if we weren't the only three people currently standing on this dwarfingly huge block of abandoned warehouses.

“Hey, Devin,” I said wearily, the energy in my body totally zapped from the day. “What are you doing around here?”

As I got closer, the expression on her face changed from surprise to suspicion. “This is Mr. Goldberg. He owns the building.
He's just finishing up totally
over
charging me for the bill for damages from the party,” she said, rolling her eyes to me in exasperation like a secret signal between us. She gestured (like a model; like a game-show host) to the stiff-looking, parent-aged gentleman on her left. Then she shot back, barely concealing her misgivings, “What are
you
doing here?”

“I live—I'm coming back—I mean, I'm just going to visit some relatives around here,” I finished weakly. It was too late. I was as see-through as one of Devin's mesh-netting shirts.

“Ah, that's impossible,” said the building manager. “None of the buildings down that way are zoned for residential use.”

“Yeah,” I said quickly, “late night at the office,” and I hightailed out of there before either of them could say anything else.

W
hen I got to school the next morning, the first thing on my mind was tracking down Devin Murray.

It wasn't hard. People like that usually advertise their presence as a policy. Today, she was doing it in the middle of a squad of girls, telling secrets to each of them in huddled, confidential whispers, then leaning back and speaking to them all. Each of the girls glared at the others, jealous of the attention being paid to them. Crash and his friends clustered around a locker, swapping Erlenmeyer flasks amongst themselves. From time to time, they looked up, noting who was watching. When Crash saw me pass by, he stuck out his hand. I knew what that meant. Without skipping a beat, I extended out my own and met his halfway in a high five.

Devin heard the crack of our hands. She looked up just as I was saying to Crash that I had been to a killer party last night—not exactly the sort of thing to get me on squeaky-clean terms with Devin. And if she didn't hear what I was saying, then she'd probably just think that I was talking about her.

Devin's gaze was followed in quick succession by the combined gazes of all the twelve or so girls that she was talking to.

I felt my face gearing up to blush uncontrollably, my neck already turning red.

“Jupiter, babe.” To my surprise, she met me with twinkling eyes and a broad smile. She swept me up with a friendly arm, wrapping it around my waist, pulling me into stride with her.

I flashed her a broad smile back. I liked this whole being-taken-on-a-ride thing.

Devin brought her face close to mine. “Listen, you creep,” she said into my ear, so low that only she could hear me, “you're going to stay out of my path for the next four years, and I'm going to let you carry on with your pathetic, miserable, loser existence in peace. If I so much as hear another word in my direction from you after this, I will personally see to it that the entire South Lawn sets your clothes on fire after school for Freshman Day.”

I felt my breath slowing to a halt. My legs froze beneath me.

“Wait,” I said. We had just rounded the corner, out of sight from her posse. “I don't want to be on your bad side. I came
looking
for you this morning.”

“Oh yeah?” she said. “Cracking jokes with Crash, that's what you call looking for me?”

“I really wanted to talk to you. I don't even know where your locker is; the only way I know how to find you is to look around for the mob of throbbing admirers.”

She smiled, momentarily self-aware and flattered. “You really came looking for me? What for?” she asked, looking at me with renewed interest. “And do you really think they throb?”

I took a deep breath.

“I wanted to apologize,” I said.

She took a step back and nodded. “Go on.”

“I'm from the Yards. It's true. And my family really does live a few blocks down from where the party was; we live inside an old warehouse. Well, for a few more weeks we do, anyway. And I really didn't mean to delude anyone. Especially not you. And I didn't mean to betray your trust, or to use you or play you or make you feel like I was being anything less than totally honest. I just didn't want to tell anyone because, well, because it's the Yards.”

She cocked an eyebrow at me omnipotently.

“I went to the same middle school as you, to Malcolm X. But I mostly only hung out with the Russian kids there. Well, them and my gaming group. But we were in the same building every day for the past three years, and—seriously—you never even knew I existed.”

Devin looked—not confused, but pensive. Calculating. Not like she was figuring out how to get rid of me, but like she was trying to figure out where I fit in the order of things. Trying to figure out whether I was worth keeping around.

“You know, I thought you went to Malcolm X,” she said at last. “Seriously, I'm not just saying that. I guess I always figured that you lived in the Northeast villas, the same as everyone else. And not…”

“Not in the scumbaggy armpit of the Yards that we all know and love?” I suggested helpfully, trying to keep it in a good humor.

Devin's mouth struggled, trying to decide whether to act pityingly or go along with my joke. Eventually, her mouth broke
into a slow, shy grin, which I think meant that I'd passed, and that we were cool again.

“So…” I ventured uncertainly. “Are we cool again?”

“Almost,” she said. “First thing—never lie to me again.”

“You got it,” I agreed.

“And, also…”

“Yes?”

She smiled at me, that smooth, semi-flirty, make-you-feel-like-your-life's-worth-living beautiful-girl smile that seemed to be Devin's personal trade secret.

And then she said nonchalantly, “Got any idea how to get your hands on a hundred-and-fifty-gallon beer keg?”

“Are you serious?” I stammered.

No, I didn't say that. Her expression made the question rhetorical—and, besides, you didn't say no to Devin Murray. At least, not if you didn't want to cause a rupture in the space-time fabric of North Shore High, and not if you ever wanted her to talk to you again. And especially not if you cared about your reputation.

Since when have I cared about my reputation?
I asked myself, and then I answered my own question:
Since I started having one.
So—how to reclaim a six-foot-tall empty aluminum keg in a neighborhood where entire two-ton containers of oil and iron ore frequently ended up missing?

Yeah, sure.

Perfect.

No sweat.

I could do that.

“Sure, perfect. No sweat,” I told her. “I can do that.”

“Really?” she chirped, and then trilled “cool” as she started to walk away.

Once I was safely out of her attention zone, and her little jean-enclosed hump of a butt began to squiggle away, something that she said suddenly resonated with me. I lunged toward her, reached my hand out, and caught her forearm between my fingers.

She turned around, startled. “Yeah?” she said.

“Sorry,” I said, as a sudden panic seized me and, like every dream I'd ever had about school, I was suddenly standing in front of a crowd, without my homework and without a sharpened number-2 pencil, wearing nothing but my tighty-whities. “Just, what did you just say?”

“What's that?”

“What's Freshman Day?”

She gave me a look like antennae had just popped out of my head.

“Freshman Day,” said Devin, “is this big thing where all the other three classes gang up on the freshmen. The last bell of the school day rings, the freshmen get out, and the second they leave school property—the moment they walk through those doors—everyone jumps them and starts beating them. Seriously. That's what my cousin said; her boyfriend used to go to North Shore and he
knows
. It's almost like mass hysteria, like one of those riots they used to have like during those Salem Witch things. People just get possessed. They need to get out their frustration, and they get it out on freshmen.” She gave me a big, friendly smile. “Or, anyway, that's what everyone's saying. My friends and I are kind of using it as an excuse to cut last
period, go to the mall, and max out our parents' charge cards. You wanna come?”

“Freshman Day,” Reg told me later before gym, “ain't nothing at all. Just a story they tell new kids to make them wet their pants at night. I don't know anyone who ever got hit by Freshman Day. Except this one junior on the dodgeball squad—but you ask him and he just looks at you like you kicked dirt up on his grave. He has this scar that nobody ever talks about, they just call it ‘The Incident' when he's not around. I don't think it's anything important.”

“Freshman Day?” said Dr. Mayhew when I stopped him in the hall. “I have no idea what you're talking about. Perhaps it's best to pay more attention to your classes, Jupiter, and give less heed to the murmurings and urban legends circulating among your classmates.”

“Freshman Day,” said Crash Goldberg, “is the coolest day in the world. Freshman Day means that, if you're a freshman, you get to do anything. Check this—this whole concept of school, the whole notion, relies intrinsically on the stipulation that the students go along with it. If we don't? If we rebel completely and refuse to go to classes? Then there's total chaos. So, the administration, the Powers That Be, let us have our day. That's Freshman Day. They let us do whatever they want on that one day, and the rest of the year, we let them order us around and control us.”

“So it's just for the South Lawn?” I asked. “Do you mean, they only get that one day to do what they want, or only the South Lawn kids are allowed to do what they want?”

“Both,” answered Crash with a toothy smile. Then, remembering something suddenly, he jumped away from me and dashed madly out from the classroom.

“Freshman Day?” Ms. Fortinbras said, flashing me an indulgent smile from the teacher's desk where she sat. “I think that's what they call it when they need to act out on some poor, ego-filled upstart freshmen and let off some steam. I don't know who the ‘they' is, of course—just that random, anonymous
they
that always seems to be lurking in the shadows of high schools. But seriously, Jupe, I wouldn't worry too much about it. You're not the type of guy who makes enemies or gets on anyone's trash list. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about.”

“Forget it,” said Vadim. “Even if I
did
know what was up with Freshman Day, I wouldn't tell you. Maybe you can ask all your new, cooler friends what to do about Freshman Day. They don't touch us, you know. They stay away from the geeks. Maybe we don't fit into your little scheme of how to get girls and pass classes the easy way and pretend you grew up speaking English and ignore all your old friends.”

Then he slipped back into the crowd of geeks and vanished inside. I took a tentative, investigating step toward them. It was met with snarls of intolerance and a cursory, warning glare from a boy in a wheelchair whose fingers curled protectively around his laptop. He gave me a look like he could change my grades, erase my Social Security number, and/or zap my bank account with a flick of his wrist.

Fearing for my electronic identity, I backed away.

“Freshman Day?” Sajit laughed. “You really believe in that?”

“What's not to believe in?” I asked, startled. Everyone had a different version of what Freshman Day
was
, but it never occurred to me that all these legends might not even be
based
in fact. The one thing about high school I'd learned so far was, there were secrets everywhere. Was it possible for there to even be secrets about things that didn't happen in the first place?

Sajit beckoned me to follow, then led me into the elevator.

The elevator was legendary. All schools were required to have elevators for disabled students to use, but hardly anybody was actually
allowed
to use them. It was rare that anyone had reason to, and it was even rarer than rare that someone filled out all the forms, waited for them to get processed, and scored an elevator pass.

“How'd you get that?” I said, eyeing his green laminated pass in admiration as he slid it out from his wallet, flashed it to the teacher walking past, and pulled me on with him.

“I'm connected,” he said, shrugging noncommittally.

The elevator itself was super horrid. It was decorated with months-old announcement sheets and cafeteria menus, and the floor stuck to the soles of my shoes like flypaper. Today it also smelled like puke, but I still felt like royalty when we stepped in.

“So, Jupiter, man,” said Sajit, “where've you been? Word on the street is, you're too cool to hang out with your old friends.”

“Not all my old friends,” I told him, recognizing the tone of his voice—friendly and teasing, rather than jealous and teasing, the way Vadim's had been. “I've just found a new token gay friend to have instead of you.”

“Who?”

Suddenly, I realized I was headed toward a severe danger zone—I might not be allowed to tell.

“I can't say,” I said. “But it's someone who you'd never guess was—”

“Is it Bates?”

My mouth hung open. “How did you know?”

Sajit pulled the emergency stop button before the doors could open.

“Honey,
please
. I am the ultimate air traffic controller on high of gaydar, thank you very much.”

“But he doesn't act—”

“So, dish!” He was past the headline, past the news, and into the clever back-and-forth
Crossfire
dissection of it. “How did you find out? What have you been doing?”

“Well, for one thing,” I said, “we went to Bubbles.”

“Bubbles?” Sajit groaned. “
Quelle
nightmare, Jupe. These days, I'm all about the sophistication.”

“Damn,” I said, sinking back against the wall. I felt a wad of months-old gum touch the back of my spine through my T-shirt, and I immediately lifted myself back up. “Sajit, you're crazy. You're totally hooked up. You operate, like, fifteen different lives, and you've totally managed to pretend you've never even
been
to the Yards. How the hell did you do it?”

He pulled his head back, baffled. “What do you mean?”

“What do you mean, what do I mean? I mean, everyone I know from the Yards is either still in the Yards, or we're so wrapped up in trying to
not
look like we're from the Yards that none of us just
deals
with it. None of us are just happy with what we
are
. Vadim is trying so hard to act fluent in C++ that he
barely remembers he owns a Mac. Reg doesn't do anything but sports. And me—well, Devin Murray just found out how close I live to the club where her party was, and now I have to try and convince her not to shame and disgrace me in front of the entire school.”