Slob (16 page)

Arthur started again, a little more loudly but not loud enough.

“What? What are you mumbling about?” Mr. Wooly said.

This was all working out so well, I could have hugged Arthur, I really could have. Time was ticking away.

All of a sudden Jeremy stepped forward. It was a big step. A decisive step. It was the step of a soon-to-be GWAB president.

“We, the members of GWAB, demand to be recognized by our true identities . . .”

It was the GWAB statement they had been working on. Jeremy recited it very well in a loud clear voice that Mr. Wooly could completely understand. The only problem with the speech, from my perspective, was that it wouldn’t go on long enough. Still, I calculated that there would be plenty more time wasted while Mr. Wooly tried to get them to leave voluntarily (good luck with that), then called someone in to forcibly escort them out, then waited for said person to arrive, etc. It was all shaping up perfectly.

I glanced over at Mason to see if he was as happy about this new development as I was. He didn’t seem to be. He wasn’t even looking at Jeremy and Wooly. Instead he was concentrating on something in the far corner of the gymnasium ceiling. I followed his glance, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what was so interesting up there.

“. . . demand to be included in the boys’ section of gym class and to—”

“You’re Birnbaum’s sister, aren’t you?” Mr. Wooly interrupted her.

My happiness screeched to a grinding halt.

For the first time since she’d walked in, Jeremy looked unsure of herself. She was silent for a moment, and I could see her blinking a little too quickly. If she said “No” it would crush me. But I also felt nervous about her saying “Yes.”

No good could come of this, I was sure.

Jeremy jerked her head quickly to one side, which was a gesture she often made to swish her long hair off her shoulder. Of course now there was nothing to swish.

“Owen’s my brother,” she said cautiously.

“Well, that’s just marvelous!” Mr. Wooly slapped his hands together. “Perfect timing! All right, let’s get on with business.”

“But I didn’t finish,” Jeremy objected.

“Oh, I got the gist. You all want to be treated like boys, blabbedy blah. All right, today is your lucky day. You gals will be our honored guests. Where’s the kid with the camera? You’re recording all this for posterity, right?”

“For my video blog,
The Universe According to Sybil
,” Sybil Tushman said.

“Even better! Well then come up front by me, that’s right. You’ll get a better view of the action from here.” He ushered Sybil up front with the greatest respect, guiding her past all the obstacles on the floor.

“Today, ladies”—now he meant all of us—“we have a special treat. Because Mr. Birnbaum and Mr. Ragg were unable to complete the triathlon on Friday, I’ve organized a special event just for them. I hope the members of GLOB enjoy this demonstration, as well as”—he flourished a hand toward Sybil—“the fans of your video thing. Do you have a lot of fans, by the way?”

“A decent amount,” Sybil said.

“Nice,” Mr. Wooly said, smiling. By tonight, most of the school would be watching me tripping over hurdles and flopping around on a trampoline. Rachel Lowry included. Things couldn’t have worked out better for Mr. Wooly if he had planned The Blue and White Rebellion himself. I wondered if my good karma points
had
been revoked and been transferred to Mr. Wooly. I couldn’t imagine any other way that he might have gotten his hands on some good karma.

I looked over at Jeremy. She was staring back at me, her expression full of something big, but what? Fear, anger? I couldn’t tell.

Well, Jeremy, I thought, now you are going to see it firsthand. This is what my life is like. This is who I am now. The big, fat kid. Fatty Fatty Ding Dong.

You’re not Caitlin anymore, and I’m not Owen. Not
that
Owen anyway. Not the Owen that you used to know.

“Mr. Birnbaum! Mr. Ragg! Front and center!”

My guts twisted up and my mouth instantly went dry. I looked over at Mason. He looked terrified.

“I’ve got to get out of here!” he said to me in a panicked voice. “Now!” Then he started for the exit marked Boys’, which led down to the boys’ locker room.

“What are you talking about?” I grabbed him by his upper arm. Me. Owen Birnbaum grabbed Mason Ragg.

“Get off of me!” he shrieked, and pulled away, then hightailed it through the crowds, running toward the boys’ exit door, nearly knocking down Justin Esposito in the process. I was so stunned that it took me a minute to realize what was happening. He had chickened out! All that talk was a load of nonsense. He was a coward, just like me! More of a coward, because I wasn’t running away. I was scared, but I wouldn’t run. At least I could be proud of that.

Nima says that when you start to feel like you are better than someone else, you should probably stick your head in a toilet because at that moment your thoughts are crap.

“Ragg! Get back here!” Mr. Wooly had caught sight of Mason trying to escape and started rushing toward him. The obstacle course slowed him down. He stumbled over the edge of a mat and crashed against a hurdle.

Suddenly, all the bravery that I had been able to muster evaporated. All the confidence that I had in Mason’s plan crumbled.

You know what? I thought. I am just as much a coward as Mason.

That was when I started to run too.

“Birnbaum!” Wooly bellowed. “Don’t you take another step!”

Mason reached the boys’ exit door a minute before I did. He flung it open, and before it could completely swing back shut, we went through. There was a short set of stairs, then a hallway, and then another door that opened into the boys’ lockers and showers. Mason was almost at the second door when I called out, “Why the hell did you show up, Mason, if you were only going to run away? Now you’ve just made everything worse! Wooly is madder than before—at both of us!”

Mason turned around. The expression on his face was the same one I had seen in the school hallway the other day. The look of wild panic.

“Don’t let them see,” he said before disappearing behind the locker room door.

“See what?” I cried.

Jeremy arrived then, her legs pounding down the stairs, and right after her Wooly stormed through. His face was a really alarming color, sort of a lavender, and a little speck of spit flew out of his mouth as he said, “Birnbaum, you are going to haul your carcass back in the gym right this second.” He said it sort of quietly, which was scarier than his bellowing. “And where is Ragg?”

The door opened behind Wooly, and some of my classmates followed him cautiously, not wanting to get in the line of fire of Wooly’s fury but also not wanting to miss out on any of the good stuff.

“Where’s Ragg?!” Wooly repeated, this time in his usual bellow. “Is he in there?”

I didn’t answer, so Wooly stepped forward to go through the locker room door. I stepped back and stood in front of it. From inside the locker room came the sound of a loud crash.

“What was that?” Jeremy whispered.

“I don’t know,” I whispered back. Before I could stop her, she opened the locker room door and slipped inside.

Instantly a cheer sounded from the top of the stairs. I looked up to see the members of GWAB hooting and punching their arms in the air. It took me a minute to realize why.

A GWAB member had infiltrated the boys’ locker room. This moment would live forever in GWAB history, particularly since Sybil Tushman was filming it all at the top of the stairs.

“All right, Birnbaum, out of the way.” Wooly made a movement toward the door, but I stayed put, spreading my arms wide so that I blocked the entire door.

Wooly let loose with a string of threats, ranging from calling in the principal to calling my mom to immediate suspension to making my life a living hell. I had no doubt he would do all those things. But in my mind, I could still see Mason’s frightened, wild-looking eyes and hear his frantic words, “Don’t let them see.”

I understood humiliation. I knew how it could flatten you, how it could make you want to lock yourself in an attic and not come out again until everyone who ever knew you had forgotten about your existence. Oh yes, I knew all about humiliation. I knew a lot less about fighting back. I couldn’t think of any brave, clever retort to say to Mr. Wooly. I didn’t even say, “No.”

All I did was not move.

“MOVE!” Wooly screamed it in my ear so loud it hurt.

Something popped into my head at that moment. It was like Wooly’s scream had shaken loose a thought that had been hiding in my brain, tucked beneath all the other thoughts:

Something in my expression must have changed then too. All of a sudden Wooly looked at me, really looked at me. He pushed his glasses up on his nose.

There was a noise from inside the locker room, a heavy clunking sound.

“Is that young man having a seizure?” he asked, his voice turning very teacherly all of a sudden. “Is that what’s going on in there?”

I have to admit, this pulled me up short. Was that what it was? Did Mason have seizures? It was possible that Wooly was lying to me in order to get past me. On the other hand, it made sense. It would explain why Mason had run away from me so frantically in the hallway. I had once seen a person have a seizure on the street. It was horrible-looking. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and her legs and arms thrashed around. She drooled all over herself.

“Get out of my way!” Wooly screamed. The kids crowded up behind him now, ready to storm in the locker room and see the infamous Mason Ragg having a seizure.

For a moment I thought Mr. Wooly might try and shove me out of the way. He might even hit me—he certainly looked angry enough to. I braced myself for a blow. For a second my eyes glanced up at Sybil, who was still holding up her camera, capturing the whole scene and part of me thought, Yes, do it, Wooly. Hit me. Then everyone can see what a maniac you are on
The Universe According to Sybil
.

But though he was a maniac, he wasn’t a total moron. He knew he couldn’t touch me without getting tossed out of the school.

“Andre!” Mr. Wooly screamed without taking his eyes off of me.

“Yes?” Andre said. He was right behind Wooly.

“Go get security.”

Security! Not the principal?! Security!

We had one security guard, a big guy with a bald head and perennial sweat marks under his armpits who sat by the front door and looked bored. He was going to love this. I wondered if, unlike Wooly, he had permission to use force against me.

Mr. Wooly stuck his face close to mine. I could smell old coffee on his breath and could see the tiny red veins on the creases of his nostrils, that’s how close he was.

“If that kid is having a seizure in there,” Wooly said, “and he injures himself, or
drops dead,
then it will be your fault, Birnbaum. You hear me?”

If he had known the truth about me and my parents, he couldn’t have said anything more perfectly designed to tear my heart out.

I felt tears burning my eyes, and my throat was swelling and every muscle in my body was begging me to let it move, but I had promised Mason not to let them see, and I would not let them see. Jeremy was with him. If things got too bad, she would get help.

I felt a cold tap on my back. The locker room door had opened. Jeremy appeared by my side.

“It’s over,” she said.

“Over?” I couldn’t wrap my mind around the words. They had come so close on the heels of Wooly’s comment about Mason dying that I felt a rush of fear.

“The seizure is over,” Jeremy explained quickly. “He’s okay. He’s just resting.”

Wooly made his move then, pushing past me into the locker room. I let my body be pushed aside. It didn’t matter anymore. As the cops like to say, “The show is over, folks. Nothing interesting to see here.”

My mind let my body have its way. I slipped down to the floor and sat there with my knees up and my head on my knees, eyes closed. I felt overwhelmed with exhaustion. I wanted to be back in my bed, alone. I wanted to sleep for three days straight.

I felt a light brush against my left arm, and I opened one eye to see that Jeremy had crouched down beside me. We looked at each other for a moment without saying a word. It had all been so strangely similar to that night two years ago, only back then I had been blocking the door from Jeremy, not Wooly, and it had not ended with everyone being just fine.

“You did a good thing,” Jeremy said. “That was really . . . you know, heroic.”

I nodded. I didn’t feel heroic. But maybe it’s one of those overrated things.

I almost felt sorry for the security guard. He came rushing through the door, his underarm stains already creeping farther down his uniform than I had ever seen before, ready for a full-blown riot. But when he burst into the locker room, he was told that he wasn’t needed after all. He still hung around for a few minutes in the hopes, I’m guessing, that some new riot would break out. No such luck. Mason’s teacher’s aide appeared and quickly ushered him out. She must have had some harsh words for Wooly because he came out of the locker right after, muttering angrily to himself. He walked right past us without even noticing me and Jeremy on the floor. The noon bell rang. Gym class was over.

Jeremy went back to her classroom (GWAB had slipped out of the lunchroom for The Blue and White Rebellion, since they had lunch right before we did), and I changed back into my clothes and headed out of the gym. It was almost as though nothing had happened. Almost. But on my way out of gym class, Andre Bertoni failed to thump me anywhere on my body and no one made any farting noises as I passed by. If someone less of a bully magnet than myself had defied Wooly the way I had just done, there probably would have been some hooting or some “You rock”-ing. But no one knew what to do in my case, so they didn’t do anything. And you know what? That was fine by me.