“You can eat while we talk,” he says.
We sit at a table full of sixth-graders, including Budzinski. He keeps his eye on us the whole time. I feel like making a gesture toward him, like we’re talking about him.
“I didn’t do anything,” I go. “I was just picking up my books and he kicked one down the hall.”
“Oh, this isn’t about Mr. Lopez,” the vice principal goes.
I offer him a boiled carrot.
He chuckles. “We’ll be sending a note home as well, but I just wanted to remind you that you’re going to be starting that socialization workshop next week,” he goes.
“Oh, God,” I go. I put down my Salisbury steak.
“It’s not going to be that bad,” he goes.
“When?” I go.
“It’s not going to be that bad,” he goes. “You need to give it a chance.”
“Oh, God,” I go.
“Give it a chance,” he tells me.
I push my tray away. I can’t be in school one more minute. “Who else is in it?” I ask him.
He tells me. It’s even worse than I thought. Dickhead, Weensie, Hogan. Two girls I never heard of. Another kid I heard bit the head off a parrot.
“It’s after school,” he goes. “So you won’t miss any class time.”
“Oh, good,” I go.
“The feeling is that you can’t go on like this,” he tells me. “That something radical needs to happen.”
“I think you’re right,” I tell him back. I’m tearing up again. In front of him. In front of the lunchroom. “I think you’re right.”
I go to the nurse’s office. Another headache. I start throwing up, too. During sixth period there’s a knock on the door of the little room where they put me, and when I pull the facecloth off my eyes, Ms. Arnold pokes her head in and comes over to my cot.
“What’s the class doing?” I ask her.
“I gave them an assignment,” she says. She puts her hand on my leg. “Are you okay, Edwin?”
“I got sick,” I tell her.
“I see that,” she says. She smiles the way she did before. I think about her touching my cheek. I start to get a hard-on and pull a knee up to hide it. This is unbelievable.
“Is your stomach bothering you?” she asks.
“Why’re you visiting me?” I ask her back. She’s the last person I want there. When she touches me again I jump.
“Sorry,” she says. She looks embarrassed. “I was looking through your portfolio,” she finally adds.
We keep them in the room, in long narrow cubbies.
“I found the one you called Mental,” she says.
“So?” I go.
“Want to tell me about it?” she asks.
“You saw it,” I go.
“How long’d it take you to do it?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I go.
“It’s quite a piece,” she says.
It’s a big sheet and I filled it with half-inch marks. Sometimes the marks went through the paper. I did it to count minutes the way guys in prison count days. I kept it underneath other things I was working on. By the end it looked black, when you stepped back. There’s like eight million half-inch marks on it. I wrote Mental at the top of it as a joke, after Tawanda saw it.
“You mind if I show it to some other people?” she asks.
“Like who?” I go.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she says. “Like Mr. Davis. Maybe Mrs. Pruitt.”
“I just saw him at lunch,” I go. I close my eyes. I’m so tired. I spread out again on the cot. Big see-through plates bang around behind my eyelids.
“I’ll let you rest,” I hear her say. Then the door shuts behind her.
“Don’t call me, I’ll call you,” Flake goes when the buses are getting ready to pull out. He’s holding out his two bandaged fingers and flexing them, like he’s getting ready for action.
“More stuff to do, huh?” I go.
He heads off without answering. That’s all right with me. When I get home I get five dollars from my money dish and bike to the drugstore. They have Gus’s football but in a different color. I ask the guy and of course they don’t have one with his color in the back. I go back and forth about it. “Hey, kid, it’s a Nerf ball,” the guy finally goes. “You’re not picking a college here.”
When I ride back up the driveway Gus is playing in a scuffed-up area around some tree roots. He’s got a metal airplane without wings and he’s swooping it around and crashing it into the roots. “You get my ball?” he goes.
I pull it out of the cardboard inside my knapsack and hand it over. He looks at it. His was purple. This one’s pink.
“This one’s pink,” he goes.
“Yours was pink,” I go.
“Mine was pink?” he goes.
“Yours was pink,” I go.
“Mine wasn’t pink,” I hear him go as I head into the house.
“Oh boy, is your dad having a bad day,” my mom goes when I pass through the kitchen.
Gus follows me in. “Mine wasn’t pink,” he tells my mom while I head upstairs.
“What, honey?” my mom asks. I shut my door.
I sit on the bed. By this time tomorrow everything will be different. Everything will be over. It doesn’t feel like that.
I have to get stuff together. I have to get organized. I don’t even know what to organize. I should make a list, I think. I pull a piece of paper and a pencil off my desk and write on my thigh. I write: List:
“Was his ball pink?” my mom calls up the stairs. “He says it wasn’t.”
“It was,” I call back down. “He’s losing his mind.”
“He says it was, honey,” I hear her tell Gus in a low voice. He starts whining. “I like the pink,” I hear her say. “You don’t like the pink?”
“Jesus God Almighty in Heaven,” my dad says from his room. He must have his laptop in there.
I can’t sit still. I get off the bed, walk around the room, sit on the bed again.
I call Flake. His mom says he’s out. “Hold on,” she says. “He just came in.”
“You’re blowing me off?” I say when he gets on the phone.
“What do you want?” he goes.
“I wanted to know if you wanted to come over,” I tell him. I look out my window. Gus is booting the Nerf around the back. Over in our neighbor’s yard their golden retriever is standing at their fence, watching him like he’s dinner.
“Maybe we could have one more game of mosh volleyball,” I go.
“Mosh volleyball,” he goes, like he’ll never do that again. Then I think he probably won’t.
“You all right?” he asks. “You’re panting. You sound like a dog.”
“I’m scared,” I finally tell him.
He’s quiet a second. “Don’t wuss out on me,” he goes. “ You hear me?”
“I’m not wussing out on anybody,” I go.
“Are you crying?” he goes.
“No,” I go.
“Jesus,” he goes.
“What?” I go. My mom comes up the stairs and into my room. She sits on the bed and puts a hand on my side.
“Are you gonna make it?” he goes. “Do I have to come over there and sit with you?”
“No,” I go. “I just wanted to see if you wanted to play volleyball, that’s all.” I look at my mom. She looks sympathetic.
“We got a lot to do tonight,” he goes. “How soon can you come over after everybody’s asleep there?”
My mom still has her hand on my side. She smoothes it up and down like she’s rubbing a dog’s coat.
“I don’t know,” I go.
“One? One-thirty?” he goes.
“Yeah,” I go.
“Which?” he goes. “One?”
“No,” I go.
“One-thirty?” he goes.
“Yeah,” I go.
“All right. Come to the garage,” he tells me. “Don’t forget your stuff for the capsule.”