The Chaos Page 4

  Ben waved a dismissive hand. “Whatever. I just think that’s more a geography topic than something for history class, that’s all.”

  “That’s ’cause you’re failing geography. I keep telling you, you should let me coach you.” We walked around Lester Romero, who’d dropped to his knees in front of me, announcing loudly to anyone in earshot that he would work hard and give me all his money, if I would only give him one kiss. I was still wearing my shorts from dance practice. I pretended I hadn’t heard him. Lester was the class clown. In school, I guess everyone has their own way of protecting themselves. But I bet that Lester’s wasn’t getting him a whole lot of play.

  Ben said, “Lester would be cute, if he stopped playing the fool like that all the time.”

  “I think Pangaea is both history and geography. Can you imagine the whole world when it was one giant continent? And there weren’t any birds, just pterosaurs, and the seas—well, the sea, there would have only been one—was full of plesiosaurs and mosasaurs? Isn’t that cool?”

  Ben was still looking back at Lester Romero. “That’s just like you, girl. Guy right in front of you here and now, begging for you, and you’re on about something that was, like, twenty gazillion years ago.”

  “Two hundred fifty million years ago. Besides, I smiled at him, didn’t I? It’s not like I cut him totally dead.”

  “You, my friend, can be a total geek sometimes. Why do you even know what a mosasaur is? Hey; what’s going on?”

  We stopped at the small crowd of kids gathered in the hallway just in front of the girls’ change room. “Out of the way, please,” said a man’s voice from behind us, loud and terse.

  We stepped back in time to let three paramedics run through, pushing one of those collapsible stretchers on wheels. They yelled for the kids to move aside. As they did, we could see someone lying on the ground, curled into a ball. Ben gasped. “That’s Justin! He’s in my chem class!”

  I grabbed Ben’s hand. “Oh, my god! Is he hurt?”

  “I don’t see any blood or anything.”

  Justin was rocking back and forth. His friend Jack Chu was kneeling beside him, touching his shoulder and murmuring something. I couldn’t hear the words. Jack looked really scared. The ambulance people had reached them. One of them knelt to talk softly to Justin. It looked like one of them was talking to Jack.

  A girl beside us said, “We were making posters for our drama club. And he just freaked out. One minute he was kidding around with Jack, and then he just freaked out.” She hugged herself. She was in grade twelve. I’d seen her around, but I didn’t know her name. “He started yelling all kinds of wacky stuff, dodging and dancing around like something was snapping at his heels.”

  Ben had his cell out in a hot second. “For real? What was he yelling?”

  The girl gave the cell a suspicious look. “Who’re you texting?”

  “Don’t worry, just myself. I’m starting up a school news zine for my journalism class. You’re Mala Something, right?”

  I said to Ben, “Now who’s a geek?”

  “Hush, you.”

  The girl said, “He was yelling, like, ‘Cupcake! Cupcake! No!’”

  Ben looked up from his texting. “Cupcake?”

  “I don’t know what it means, either. And yeah, I’m Mala, but I don’t want you to use my name, okay?”

  “Okay. Confidentiality of sources.” He started texting again. “A concerned friend informed us . . .”

  Mala considered. “‘A concerned friend;’ I like that. You’re really going to print this? When?”

  The paramedics had lowered the stretcher to the ground and lifted Justin onto it. One of them shook Jack’s hand. Jack was biting his bottom lip, clearly trying hard not to burst into tears where everybody could see. The paramedics wheeled toward us, leaving Jack standing there, looking lost and frightened. I pulled Ben out of the way. “Come on,” I said. “Nothing more to see here, and I gotta go. My folks’ll be watching the clock.”

  “But don’t you want to change?”

  I still couldn’t see the change room door, there were so many people hanging about, talking about the excitement. Principal Maclean was shooing people away, but that’d take a while. “I’m never going to get in there now. I’ll just change in the regular washroom.”

  Ben was watching the paramedics go. “D’you think I should try to talk to them?”

  “Nah. Let them do their job. You can ask Justin about it when he comes back.”

  Mala was still standing beside us. “I don’t know how soon he’s going to come back,” she said. “He freaked out really bad, I tell you. That’s, what? The third one since we’ve been back to school?”

  “Fourth,” Ben told her. “If you count Nurse Maudella.”

  Mala shook her head. “No, she just quit to spend a year in the Antarctic.”

  Ben grimaced. “And you don’t think that’s insane?”

  “It’s not the same,” I said. “Anyway, Phil Billinger from our class came back. He’s okay.”

  Ben replied, “Concetta wasn’t okay, though.”

  Concetta was a lower-grade kid. Last week she’d told her parents that her morning glass of milk was talking to her. They’d started giving her juice instead. A few days later she jumped from the second floor landing inside the school. She landed on another kid, broke his back. Both of them were still in the hospital. Concetta told her folks her juice had told her to do it. Now the hospital had to watch her when they gave her any liquid to drink at all. That’s what Panama had told me. She’d heard it from Khadijah. A few parents had pulled their kids from the school, but Mom says the fact is, kids crack up in schools all the time. She says the adolescent years are the time when anyone who is schizophrenic usually goes nuts for the first time. I’m sure that’s true, but the fact is, school is hell on everybody.

  We stopped outside the door to the girls’ washroom. Mala took the hint and went looking for her friends. Ben grinned at me. I knew why. It was time for the Friday afternoon game. I said, “Back in a sec.” I ducked into the girls’ washroom. There was one girl doing her hair. I pretended to be looking for a clean stall. In a bit, the girl packed up her things and left. I did a quick check; all the stalls were empty. I poked my head out of the washroom. “Coast’s clear,” I told Ben. No one’s inside.” He and I checked up and down the corridor. The fuss over Justin was dying down. Most of the lower-grade kids had already been picked up by their parents. There must have been a football game, or something; there were still a few kids hanging around. Mandy Grabowski, Sharmini Dhosh, and Prue Smith from my class were shrieking happily at each other about some stupid thing or other, their long, sleek hair swinging as it framed their perfectly made-up faces. A Horseless Head Man was perched on Sharmini’s shoulder, facing backward toward me. It winked at me. I don’t see you, I don’t see you, I thought. I wasn’t losing it. I wasn’t catching whatever Phil and Justin and Concetta had. Wasn’t it bad enough that I was growing bits of lumpy black skin overnight? I yanked on my sleeve again. I needed to go talk to Auntie Mryss. She was always on about the manifestations of the Last Days. She knew weird. Weird was her vacation home. “All clear,” I said. “We can go now.”

  “Not yet.” Benjamin pointed with his chin. Mike Doucet and his buddies were swaggering down the middle of the hallway, their voices booming deeply as they laughed. Tafari was with them. He glanced at me, and my heart pounded, but he looked away like I hadn’t even registered. Ben must have seen my face. “You broke up with him, girl,” he said softly.

  “I know.”

  “That was a cold thing to do, Scotch. You know I love you, but that was cold.”

  “I know.”

  Tafari was wearing the hoodie I’d given him. Deep moss green, like his eyes, with the Raptors logo across the front. It still looked as good on him as ever. I scratched at the patch of raised skin on my wrist, under my sweatshirt. It had gotten bigger since my last dream.

  Ben’s eyes followed the movement of
my hand. Softly, he said, “Scotch, did Taf hurt you or something?”

  For a second I didn’t understand. Then I got it. “You mean did he hit me? OMG no, he didn’t! What’s wrong with you?”

  “Jeez. All right. Just asking.”

  “He’d never do anything like that to me. Look, I just suck, okay? But it was better I make a clean break.”

  Ben’s face went still, like a judge collecting evidence before handing down the verdict. “Why? What did he do that was so awful?”

  “It’s not like that. It just wasn’t going to work out.”

  Tafari’s eyes had a haunted look. And did he startle, just a little bit, when that Horseless Head Man leapt from Sharmini’s shoulder and circled round Mrs. Finchley’s head?

  “I guess.” Ben didn’t sound completely convinced. Which made sense, since I didn’t convince me even one little bit.

  The guys had gone past. The hallway was nearly empty, and no one was looking our way. “C’mon,” said Ben. “Let’s go.” He squeezed past me through the open washroom door. I let it shut behind him, joined him at the sinks.

  “Fri-DAY eveNING!” he exulted. He did a little victory dance, checked that the counter was dry, then hopped up onto it. I went to one of the sinks, turned on the water, and washed my sweaty face. I slung my T-shirt off and used it to dab at my pits. Ben said, “You gonna change into your good-girl clothes now?”

  I stuck my tongue out at him, but I took my knapsack into one of the toilet stalls, wiped the seat off, and perched on the edge of it. My street clothes were inside the knapsack; both sets. My real clothes were on top: Tight white baby doll T-shirt with a sweet scooped neck; long-sleeved, form-fitting dark green Lululemon hoodie with white racing stripes; low-slung Apple Bottoms jeans with my wallet hanging from the chain clipped to the belt loop. I pulled that outfit out and balanced it on my knees while I rummaged for the deadly dull Mom-and-Dad-approved clothes I’d stuffed into the bottom of the knapsack.

  Ben called, “What you doing this weekend, Scotch?”

  “Me? Whatever the hell I want. Mum and Dad are going to Buffalo for the weekend!”

  “No way. You mean, they’re taking you and Rich? There’s some great shopping in Buffalo.”

  “As if they’d let me buy anything I’d actually want to wear. It’s better than that, though. They’re leaving us here! By ourselves!”

  “Whoa.”

  “They say they’re trusting Rich to check in with his parole officer.”

  “Big of them, seeing as they’re the ones that got him in trouble in the first place.”

  “I know. I still haven’t forgiven them.”

  “When’re you and Rich going to tell them? About the apartment, I mean?”

  “Soon. Maybe when they get back from this trip. Rich only has to check in with his officer once more, and he’ll be free and clear.”

  “And if you wait a few days, you’ll have enough money for your half of the deposit.”

  “Yeah.” Oh, man. Dance practice, Tafari, and now this; yet another wave of guilt. Apparently I was going to be swimming in an ocean of it this afternoon. I had to win the one-on-one battle. I had to. I was a couple hundred short of my half of the security deposit money for the apartment my brother Rich and I were going to rent downtown. At the very, very bottom of my knapsack were the new boots that I’d wear with my outfit for the battle. They’d been worth every penny of the two hundred or so I’d paid for them. Right? I would win the one-on-one battle easy.

  I stripped down to my underwear and shoved my dance practice clothes and my real clothes back into the knapsack. I pulled on the black polyester parent-approved slacks—God, I hated that word! Only old farts like my folks wore “slacks” anymore. I yanked the baggy, boring old beige sweater on over my head. When I pulled my head free, there was a Horseless Head Man balancing on the top of the stall door. I yelped.

  “Scotch?” called Ben. “What happen? You all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Just tripped on the hem of my pants.” I glared at the Horseless Head Man. It just grinned. That’s all they ever did. Then it disappeared. Okay; they did that, too. I unclipped my wallet from its chain, slid it into my handbag. When I stepped out of the stall, Ben took one look at me in my good-girl duds and shook his head. “It’s like you’re two people; Miss Scotch Bonnet ‘hot pepper’ Smith, and, I dunno, the Virgin Mary, or something.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ll be able to be all Scotch all the time when Richard and I move out.”

  A toilet flushed. Ben squeaked. He leapt off the countertop and dashed toward the door of the girls’ washroom. Before he could make it, though, a stall door opened, and Gloria came out. Oh, great. I’d forgotten to check that last little stall around the corner. Glory looked around, spied Ben. “I thought I heard his voice in here!” she said happily. “No, don’t you leave now! You’re totally busted.”

  Ben sighed and came back. “What’s your deal? The three of us do this all the time.”

  “Used to do this all the time,” she replied. “Used to be the three of us.”

  “Is not me who messed that up.”

  She rounded on him. “And you think I am?”

  I opened my mouth to say that of course she was, but Ben cut in with, “Takes two to tango, Missy.”

  He was ponting at both of us. “Hey!” I said. Ben shrugged.

  Glory glared at me, then she peered into the mirror in front of one of the sinks. She took a cosmetics bag out of her gym bag, got a brush out of there, and started brushing her hair. She took her sweet time. The gym bag, the cosmetics bag, and the back of the brush all had the same MAC logo. Perfect Black Barbie, complete with matching accessories. She looked at Ben’s reflection in the mirror. “So you’re going to be the one who’s all responsible, making sure Sojourner practices? Some sleazy guy who hangs out in the girls’ washroom?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Please. It’s Ben.”

  Glory sniffed. “Don’t matter. He’s a boy, and he not supposed to be in here.”

  Ben said, “Come on! Like I’m gonna be peeking up any girls’ skirts. Besides, it’s not like there’s anyone in here.”

  Glory hissed. “I’m here, all right? You trying to tell me I’m not anybody?”

  I said, “You know he means nobody else, Glory. Just the three of us.”

  Softly, she replied, “You really hurt Tafari, you know?”

  And there it was. “Well, you seem to be working hard at making him feel better.”

  Ben muttered, “Two girls fighting over a guy. How original.”

  Glory kept brushing her hair into a sleek wave. “I told you; he and I have been talking, is all.”

  I glared at her. “I bet.”

  She actually looked hurt through the anger. “Time was, you used to trust me.”

  “Time was, you weren’t trying to steal my boyfriend.”

  She put the brush down and turned to face me. “Which boyfriend, girl? You dumped him, right? So tell me, nah? Is which boyfriend of yours I trying to steal?”

  I had nothing to say to that. I looked down at my feet.

  “And stop talking about ‘steal.’ Like a boy is a candy bar you carry around in your purse with no will of him own.”

  “I’m saying,” muttered Ben in agreement. He stepped in between us, a ref keeping two warring prizefighters apart. “Okay, okay, I got it. Here’s what you two are gonna do. We’ll cut Tafari in half, and you can share him.” Glory and I stared openmouthed at Ben. He said, “Only I get his bottom half first. Kind of like a finder’s fee.”

  Glory was the one who broke. She glanced at me. She sputtered out a short laugh. Which got me started laughing, too. Glory’s laugh always did. She and I both just fell out giggling. I high-fived Ben, and then Glory and I were hugging.

  “Is he all right?” I asked Glory. “Tafari, I mean.”

  “He will be.”

  “He’s mad at me?”

  “He’s sad. And hurt, and confused. He really liked you, Scotch.�
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  Ow. “Not anymore, though, right?”

  She smiled ruefully. “He’s trying not to, but the boy got it bad for you, girl. You should talk to him.”

  “I—”

  The washroom door opened and two girls came in. They eeped in alarm when they saw Ben. “It’s all right,” he said. “This girl was fainting”—he pointed at Gloria—“and I just helped my friend carry her in here so we could get some cold water on her face. You all right, sweetie?” he asked Gloria. She nodded and fanned herself, trying to look faint while her eyeballs were practically bulging out of her head with the effort of not laughing.

  I said to the two surprised girls, “We’re going now.” I bundled Ben and Glory out of there, the three of us giggling like old times. Friday night! We stopped in the hallway to sort our various knapsacks and bags.

  “You guys,” said Glory shyly, “I’m going to that patty place in the market. Wanna come?”

  Ben replied, “Can’t. Gotta screen that new Star Trek movie for GSA on Monday. You could come with me to that.”

  Glory and I sometimes attended meetings of the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance. It was Ben who had persuaded us to give it a try. I shook my head. “Not this time. My folks want us to be home to see them off.” I kinda liked the GSA, but they always wanted to talk about politics and demonstrations. Me, I’d rather talk about Katastrophe and Meshell Ndegeocello.

  Glory’s eyes widened. “Your folks are going away? Without you?”

  “Yeah, for the weekend!” I exulted. This felt good, the two of us talking again. I’d never been this angry at Glory before this. It’d hurt to not be her friend. “I gotta run. They’re expecting me home. Ben can fill you in.”

  Ben shouldered his bag. “But I’m going to my movie.”

  Glory said, “I’ll go with you, Ben.”

  “Cool. Scotch, you sure?”

  “I really can’t. I’ll catch you guys later.”

  “Say hi to Richard,” Gloria told me, blushing. How could I have forgotten? Glory had a thing for my big brother, not for his best friend, Tafari.

  It was going to be a great weekend.