Chapter 7

I spent Monday, the MLK holiday, hiding in my room, playing the games I'd discovered on my computer over the weekend. Fortunately, that basically killed the whole day.

Unfortunately, I couldn't stay there all week, and it was a lonely drive to school on Tuesday without Jeanne. When I got out of my car in the seniors' parking lot — I was actually doing pretty good with this driving stuff now — I noticed Tanya Szerchenko standing at the door to the school. As I approached, I wondered how someone could look that beautiful and miserable at the same time.

I hadn't really had a good chance to admire Tanya from afar before. When we were speaking — two weeks ago now — she was either sitting down next to me, sitting down across from me, or standing next to me while we walked to the cafeteria or waited in line. I knew she was fairly tall for a girl, about 5'7" or even a little taller. Her shoulder-length hair was blonde, the result of her Ukrainian heritage. She was slender, with breasts that didn't so much call attention to themselves as they called attention to the entire package.

It was only now, though, as she stood there, apparently waiting for someone — me? — that I could appreciate how well put together that package was. Even wrapped in a winter parka against the cold, even with a long beige skirt that almost completely hid her legs from sight, she took my breath away.

"Hey," I said hesitantly as I took the steps two at a time.

"Can I talk to you a minute?" she asked, speaking even more hesitantly than I had.

"Sure," I said. The steps leading to the entrance of the school were stone, and Tanya was leaning on the foot-thick stone railing running up each side of them. I sat down on the cold stone, and she sat down next to me.

"I just wanted to say that I'm sorry," she said.

"Okay," I nodded, when it looked like she was expecting an answer.

"I'd only known you for three days," she said, "and when they started telling those stories about you, I didn't know what to believe. I should have just asked you."

She'd hung her head during most of her apology, but now she was looking up at me through impossibly long eyelashes.

"That's okay," I finally blurted out, the chill air turning my exhalation into a white wisp that dissolved above her hair.

"One of my friends said that you were denying the whole thing," she continued, "and I realized that all that video crap was just so much talk, and that I should have had a little more faith in you."

I smiled down at her.

"Since we're in Religion together?" I joked.

She gave me the beginnings of a grin.

"So we're still friends?" I asked.

"Still friends," she offered me her hand for a shake. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to crush her against me and kiss her, but I accepted the handshake. I walked her in to her locker, and continued on to mine, much happier than when I'd gotten out of my car.

It certainly wasn't a complete thaw of last week's freeze-out. I got a few hand-slaps in Government, but by the time I reached Mrs. Palmer's third period seminar, it was clear that the tide was running against me. She twice ignored my hand during our continuing discussion of Bartleby, just as Mr. Carruthers curtly accepted my identification of Gamma Cassiopeia as the subject of my research project. In contrast, when Aaron and Cammie, sitting in front of me, selected the star Pollux, in the constellation Gemini, you'd think they'd just discovered another planet.

Mrs. Jenkins, on the other hand, clearly wanted to believe me. We were still discussing the book of Genesis, having spent most of last week arguing over her decision to call it a "creation story," which most of the class interpreted as giving it the same weight as the Hindu creation story or even, God forbid, the Navajo creation story. Mrs. Jenkins, God bless her, had refused to knuckle under, and the discussion had been lively and even heated. Finally, though, she turned to me.

"Mr. Sterling," she said, "tell us about Noah."

Needless to say, I didn't get very far as a solo artist. It soon became a duet, and then a trio, and then a symphony, with even Tanya offering her opinion.

Tanya walked me to lunch, and sat with me at "my table," but nobody else joined us. At one point, I caught a glimpse of Stephie holding court on the opposite side of the cafeteria. She looked up to see me looking at her, and gave me a look that was filled with triumphant malice.

The worst part was that Jeanne refused to come around. I spent another quiet dinner hour that evening under the glares of three Sterling women.

Wednesday was yet another day in the cold war. Its high point was Cammie Rowe turning around to me in Astronomy just before the bell rang.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Yes, I'm fine," I nodded. "I —"

The bell rang and she turned around immediately. Or perhaps she turned around and then the bell rang. I like to think it was the former. The only disturbing news of the day came during seventh period, when I got a note from Coach Torianni indicating that my tryout the following day, with a scout from the St. Louis Cardinals, had been canceled. I thought nothing of it at the time; probably he was just delayed somewhere and we would reschedule it when he was free. After all, it wasn't like I was going to be going anywhere.

That cancellation, however, was like the crocuses in spring — a small but certain promise of things to come. On Thursday, Coach Torianni caught me as I came out of Astronomy class and brought me back to his office.

"I got bad news, Trick," he said when we were finally alone and he had brushed off my protests that I had a Religion class for which I was going to be late.

I had become almost inured to bad news recently, so I stoically sat there across from him and waited for him to begin.

"Look, kid," he finally said after a long pause, "I'm not gonna sugarcoat this. Auburn and Alabama have both withdrawn their scholarship offers."

"What?" I asked, my heart once again pounding in my chest.

"I dunno," he said. "I kind of thought this whole thing you and your girl got into would just blow over, like any other high school thing. Because you know, I didn't want to believe that you did anything like what they were saying, you know?"

I nodded.

"But somebody's been talking to the coaches at these schools," he said. "I got calls into 'em, but you know, I don't really know these guys, just the scouts that showed up at our games last spring. So I can tell 'em you're denying the whole thing — you are, right? That's what Rabbit told me."

"Yes, sir," I choked out.

"Good," he nodded. "But they got no reason to believe me, and somebody's already told 'em your girl's side."

"Who would do that?" I asked.

"Somebody you pissed off," he shrugged.

"But who would they listen to?" I continued.

"That's a good question," he said. He'd been sort of rocking back and forth in his little swivel chair, and now he stopped and sat up, as if it hadn't occurred to him before. "Somebody you pissed off who's pretty well connected. Got any ideas?"

Of course I didn't. I had no idea who I'd pissed off over the last three years. I didn't even know who my friends were, let alone my enemies.

"Oh, Jesus, I know who it is," he finally said after a minute's thought. "Oh, God, kid, I'm afraid you may be well and truly fucked."

"Who?"

"Van Carlen," he said. "Your girl's dad. 'Dutch.'"

"The car dealer?" I asked.

"Yeah," he nodded. "That asshole's tied into booster clubs all over the country. I think he might of even gone to one of these schools. Damn it!"

He pounded his fist down on the desk, nearly making me jump out of my seat. We both sat in silence; Coach was obviously racking his brain to see if he could figure any way out of this, while, for my part, I was just a stunned observer, caught halfway between the idea that this was happening to me and the idea that it was happening to someone else who I just happened to be watching.

"Just let me think, Trick," he said. "Make some phone calls. I'm just a gym teacher and a baseball coach. This is way outta my league. But let me see."

"Sure, Coach," I said. I got up and numbly walked down the hall. As I approached Mrs. Jenkins' class, I realized that I didn't have a note to excuse my absence. I retraced my steps to the gym, but Coach was nowhere around. By that point, it was already twenty minutes into fifth period, and I just gave up. I was going home. The hell with this crap.

I slowly shuffled down the deserted hallways to my locker to dump off my books. When I opened it, though, I found a note inside: "Meet me at the mall, in the Cinnabon, at 4:30 this afternoon. Very important. RC."

I stood there in the hallway, my locker open in front of me, racking my brain to remember an RC. After five minutes without any success, I just dumped all my books in my locker and started wandering the halls. Twenty minutes later I was still there when the bell went off to signal the end of the period and the classes burst into the hallway in the race for the cafeteria.

By then, I'd decided to spend my sixth period study hall in the library, looking over old yearbooks. In the meantime, though, I had to sit through lunch. I got my food and took my table, and then spotted Tanya coming out of the serving line with her own tray. I caught her eye and smiled, nodding at the chair opposite me, but it became clear that she'd really rather be somewhere else. Finally, though, she walked over and slowly sat down across from me.

"If you lied to me, I will never speak to you again," she said quietly. I noticed that she'd been crying.

"What happened?" I asked her.

"Paula Owens," she gasped, "came up to me in third period, and told me, in front of everybody in the class, that she'd seen the little video she said you sent Stephie, and she couldn't believe that I'd want anything more to do with you."

"I swear," I said with as much conviction as I could, "I would never tape a girl, ever."

She gave me a long look, as if she could see deep into my soul. Finally, she nodded.

"Okay," she said. "But like I told you..."

Now it was my turn to nod. Fifteen minutes later, though, when neither one of us had said a word to each other and our lunches were turning cold on their trays, I excused myself, and heard her sigh as I got up to leave the table.

I got to the mall at four-fifteen, having completely failed to figure out who needed to see me outside of school that badly. Ricky Cratty was a lowlife jerk who was rumored to deal in drugs. If he wanted to see me, I was probably in more trouble than I thought. Rebecca Clemmons was an airheaded Stephie wannabe; I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that I'd dated her at some point over the last three years, particularly given the remark Rabbit had dropped about my "working my way up" to Stephie. But ever since we'd been in fourth grade together, she'd demanded to be called Becky, and it would have been odd if she'd dropped that in the past three years. There were also juniors and seniors in the book with those initials, but I didn't know any of them. So I would just have to wait to find out.

I scanned the mall, trying to pick out a face that I recognized from school. There were so many kids, though, and so many that I didn't really know anymore, that I quickly gave it up. I looked down at my watch — 4:40 — and looked back up to see a woman standing in front of me, taking off her winter coat, her stylish hat, and her sunglasses.

"Ms. Carter!" I yelped. "You're RC?"
"Rachel Carter," she said as she pulled out the chair opposite me and sat down even before I could stand up to greet her.

"I don't have a lot of time, Patrick," she went on, glancing up and down the mall as she talked. "I told them I have a doctor's appointment and they want me back at 5:30."

"Who?" I asked. "What are you talking about?"

"Patrick, they're going to try to have you expelled," she said bluntly.

"What?" I whispered.

"I've been typing up the papers and assembling the packet this afternoon," she continued as she scanned the mall. "They're going to notify you tomorrow after school."

"Expel me!" the words shot out of my mouth in an explosion. "What the hell for?"

"'For conduct that disrupts the learning process, '" she quoted.

"But I haven't done anything," I protested.

"Shhhh," she silenced me. "I know that. Actually, they know it, too. When they heard rumors about this video clip today — they being Mister Peterson and Superintendent Frostman — they called Miss van Carlen into the office. I couldn't hear what she told them, but apparently it didn't satisfy them. If they had a video, they wouldn't be as worried as they are. In fact, it was after she left that they decided that 'conduct that disrupts the learning process' can be read to mean 'presence that disrupts the learning process.'"

"So just because Stephie's spreading this story about me," I asked, "I'm the one getting kicked out of school? That's not right."

"No, it's not," she said. "How old are you?"

"Huh?"

"How old are you, Patrick?" she repeated.

"Seventeen," I said. "I'll be eighteen in a couple of weeks."

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Marsh Alien

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