Libba Bray Read online

  “Is Don Quixote mad or is it the world that embraces these ideals of the knight-errant that is actually mad? That’s the rhetorical question that Cervantes seems to be posing to us. But for our purposes, there is a right answer, and you need to know that answer when you take the SPEW test,” Mr. Glass says, pointing to the board, where STATE PRESCRIBED EDUCATIONAL WORTHINESS test is underlined twice. Mr. Glass’s monotone is lulling me into slumber. Zap, buzz, goes the overhead lighting. I’ve put my head on my desk, where I can hear the minute hand ticking hard in my ear. My eyelids are heavy. Almost … Asleep …

  The room is on fire. A row of flames shoots up into my field of vision. I leap out of my chair, knocking it over. It hits the ground with a loud thwack.

  “Mr. Smith? Are you okay?” Mrs. Rector asks.

  When I look up to the front of the room, everything’s fine. No fire. Nothing but every pair of eyes trained on me, which is a strange sensation. Usually, I’m famous for being looked through or over or some other preposition besides at.

  Mr. Glass crosses his arms. “Yes, Mr. Smith?”

  “Uh, no. Sorry. It was a … um …”

  Mrs. Rector’s pursed lips seem to be holding back the words “Usted está un pendejo.”

  The silence is filled by the ego-pulverizing laughter from the gaggle of gum-popping girls on the right. Somebody singsongs, “Fuh-reak …”

  “It was a cockroach on my desk,” I blurt out. “A big one. Like, SUV big.”

  A few of the girls scream and pull their legs up. Our resident class clown makes slurping sounds, which grosses out the Korean exchange student next to him.

  “Nice going, Smith,” one of Chet’s doughy football buddies says, laughing. Steve or Knute or Rock. One of those muy macho-sounding names. A name that says “I can waste you on the Astroturf.” Not like Cameron, which sounds like the person who gets wasted on the Astroturf.

  Mrs. Rector claps for attention. “Mi amigos, silencio, por favor. Settle down, please. Señor Smith, I will give you un pase de pasillo so that you can find el conserje to come spray.”

  “The rest of you,” Mr. Glass pleads, “please turn in your SPEW test prep books to Chapter Five: Why Thinking Can Cost You on Test Day.”

  I take the Get Out of Jail Free pass and head right to the men’s bathroom on the fourth floor. The Conspiracy Theory & Gaming Society—Stoner Kevin, Stoner Kyle, and Part-time Stoner Rachel—is in residence. Technically, girls aren’t allowed in men’s bathrooms, but since only the losers, present company included, ever use this one, it’s a nonissue. Besides, Rachel’s five ten with six tattoos and seven piercings. Nobody gives her shit.

  I guess we’re sort of friends. If getting high in high school bathrooms and occasionally sharing a table in the caf counts as friendship. We exchange “heys” with limited eye contact—my preferred greeting—and they offer me some of the weed they’re using their bathroom huddle stance to try to disguise, as if the smell isn’t a dead giveaway.

  “Thanks, man,” I say, getting in two large hits to take the edge off. I’d toss off the bizarre flame vision I’ve just experienced as an acid flashback except that I’ve never done acid, finding it hard to go willingly to a place that could be frightening, hellish, and totally beyond my control. A place much like high school.

  Stoner Kevin starts in like a TV program suddenly coming off pause. “I’m just saying, the cat is either dead or alive. It can’t be both.”

  Rachel snorts out the hit in her mouth. “You’re wrong, dude. The cat’s both alive and dead until you open up the box and take a peek at it. Until then, all possibilities exist. You create the result.”

  “Look, my friend.” Kevin sticks his head under the faucet, takes a drink from the tap, and wipes his mouth on the sleeve of his Frank Zappa tee. “I don’t make up the rules of quantum mechanics; I just play by them.”

  Rachel passes me the joint, looks at me. “You know about Schrödinger’s cat, right?”

  I shrug.

  “Awww, dude!” the three of them say in unison.

  Kyle’s eyes are bloodshot slits in his grinning face. “This will blow your mind! Okay, so this scientist guy, Schrödinger, did this trippy thought experiment in quantum mechanics where he was all, ‘Hey, what if you’ve got a cat in a sealed box along with, like, a radioactive substance …’”

  “Not that you should put your cat in a box with poison; that’s why it’s a thought experiment …,” Rachel points out.

  “… and the atom either decays and kills the cat—or it doesn’t. Until you open up that box and observe, everything’s a probability.”

  “Wrong,” Kevin says. “You’re hung up on the observer effect. You don’t control the outcome. You don’t create the reality. Face it—the cat’s either alive or it’s dead.”

  Rachel blows her nose on a paper towel. “If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?”

  “I thought it was ‘If a bear shits in the woods,’” Kyle says.

  “You can’t hear a bear shitting in the woods,” Kevin insists.

  “How do you know? Have you ever heard a bear shit? Maybe they’re loud.”

  “Dude, you’re missing the point.” Rachel tosses the wadded paper towel. It misses the trash can and rolls under the sink. “The point is probability and reality. And that’s where parallel universes come in. Reality splits into two possible outcomes—one where the cat lives; another where the cat dies. From every choice you make, another world is created where a different reality happens.”

  “So you’re saying if the kitty dies in our reality—boom!—there’s another reality born where Whiskers is alive and well and chasing mice in the garage?” Kyle tucks his long, stringy blond hair behind his ears.

  “Totally.”

  There’s a flush from one of the stalls. Weird, because I didn’t hear anybody come in, and I didn’t see another pair of feet under the doors. The door bangs open, and a really small dude with a huge ’fro comes barreling out, pushing up his sleeves. It takes me a minute to realize he’s a dwarf. He pumps the soap dispenser hard several times.

  “There’s no soap? Are you kidding me? That’s a health code violation—totally unsanitary.”

  Stoner Kyle waves his hand in front of his nose. “What’s unsanitary is what you just did in the stall, Gonzo.”

  The Gonzo guy toddles over to the ancient window and cracks it. “You guys mind not smoking that shit around me? I’ve told you I’m asthmatic.”

  Rachel shrugs. “Dude, designated smokers’ lounge. Find another bathroom.”

  Little Dude catches me staring at him and I can feel my face reddening. I hope I haven’t pissed him off; it’s just that I’ve never seen a dwarf before.

  Kevin makes introductions. “Gonzo, Cameron. Cameron, the Gonzman.”

  Gonzo walks straight up to me, folds his arms over his chest and sizes me up like knives are going to be drawn, positions taken, and the orchestra is tuning up for the big fight-at-the-gym musical dance number. “You a gamer?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Huh,” he says, still checking me out.

  In the mirror, Kevin puts drops in his eyes. “Gonzo’s gonna try to beat the Captain Carnage high score at the arcade today.”

  “Oh,” I manage. “Cool.”

  “Yo, what’s that?” Gonzo nods toward the floor at a slab of balsa wood covered in what look like weird sand-art formations. It’s ugly as hell, whatever it is.

  “This? This is the social sciences project that’s gonna keep me from doing summer school.” Kyle holds it up for examination.

  Gonzo cocks his head to one side. “What the fuck is that?”

  Kyle snorts. “Hello? It’s Stonehenge?”

  “Looks more like Shithenge to me,” Gonzo says, turning away.

  Rachel and Kevin bust out laughing.

  “Oh my God! That’s it! Dude, that is totally Shithenge!” Rachel says.

  “Shut up, you guys,” Kyle mumbles.
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br />   “Hey,” Gonzo says, slapping his hand against the door just as I’m trying to slip out. “You should game with us today. ’S gonna be insane.”

  “Gonzo rules at Captain Carnage!” Kevin shouts between snorts of giggling.

  “It’s ’cause I always grab the ticket that protects health. You grab that ticket and you’re golden for a few levels.”

  “Sorry, man. Can’t go,” I lie. “I’ve got this … thing I gotta do. After school. You know.”

  He knows I’m full of shit but he nods. I nod. And there we are.

  “Shithenge,” Kevin snickers. “Dude, you are so screwed!”

  “I said shut up, man!”

  Gonzo takes his hand away. “Sure. No problem. Catch you next time.”

  He goes to give me a fist bump, a token of bathroom stoner etiquette. I give a sort of wave that looks more like I’m holding up a stop sign. Our hands slide off one another in an awkward fist bump/wave collision. And then I’m out the door.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Which Treats of the Particulars of High School Hallway Etiquette and the Fact that Staci Johnson Is Evil; Also, Unfairly Hot

  The pot’s kinda lame, but I’ve got enough of a buzz going to coast through the amount of time required to drop my books in my locker and wait for the end-of-school bell. It’s my misfortune to have a locker on the first-floor main hallway on Park Avenue, so called because it’s where all the popular types congregate to formulate their plans for world domination: planning secret parties, leaking the info that there is a party that most of the student body isn’t cool enough to attend, deciding who’s in or out or in need of torturing that week. It’s a busy schedule, and it requires a lot of hallway. I do my best to accommodate them by being unnoticeable, which, basically, involves my just having mass and occupying space.

  My smart and universally adored sister, Jenna, is among the attractive evil cabal. She’s standing beside the water fountain with her dance squad, her dark blond hair pulled up into the requisite ponytail and cascading ribbons. They’ve got their colors on today, the snappy blue-gold combo of our fearless team, the Calhoun Conquistadors of Hidalgo, Texas.

  Hola, Calhoun Conquistadors! I admire the use of alliteration, but somehow I doubt the school board really got what the Conquistadors were all about when they chose them for a mascot. Maybe the whole raping, pillaging, looting, suppressing cultures thing just blipped off their social consciousness radar. Whatever. It makes for a nifty T-shirt logo. Who doesn’t love men in metal hats?

  Jenna’s seen me but she’s pretending she hasn’t. When you’re pre-majoring in perfection, having a brother who’s a social paramecium is a real drawback. While our tense family situation has forced me further into my shell, it’s made Jenna into a shining example of teen perfection. Perfect hair, perfect grades, perfect social standing. Through her endless pursuit of the perfect, she’s trying to erase us all—the dad who lives through his work, the mom who lives through her children, the scattered way our family communicates through notes left on the fridge and cell phones and no real face time. In a way, I admire her ability to swim against the tide. Me, I’m a drifter—right downstream and over the falls along with the rest of the driftwood.

  I should just let it go, this social snub. I should just hang on to what’s left of my high and motor on to Eubie’s, but I can’t help myself. I may suck at football, basketball, tennis, and just about every other sport out there, but I can absolutely letter in cruelty.

  “Hey, Jenna. Were those your birth control pills I found in the bathroom this morning?” I say, full of pep.

  The other dance teamers gasp. One lets out a giggly “Oh my God.”

  Jenna’s a cool customer, though. She’s used to my brotherly hijinks. “No, I think those were the ones Mom meant to take before you were born. Don’t you have a meeting of the Social Outcast Society to attend? If you hurry, you can get a good seat.”

  Point Team Jenna.

  Everybody laughs, and it would be boffo if I could just fade into the lockers right now. But against the uniform pert tan-blondness that is the dance team, my shaggy dark hair, British-musician-on-the-dole pale skin, and six feet of seriously awkward body stand out like a strip of film negatives plopped down on top of their happy group photo.

  One of the Hotness Crew smirks. Staci Johnson. I’m not too proud to tell you that it makes me go a little expansive in my Fruit of the Loins. Staci Johnson is a shallow social climber who would never allow me within a ten-foot radius of her rather magnificent body. I know this. But what can I say? My penis is a traitor.

  “You’ve got mustard on your shirt,” Staci points out.

  “It was cheeseburger day.”

  “Oh my God, you don’t actually eat in the cafeteria every day?”

  “I have a thing going with one of the lunch ladies. Bernice. She’s the one with the hairnet and the mustache. But mum’s the word. Wouldn’t want to spoil the big prom surprise.”

  Someone whispers, “God, your brother is so weird.”

  “Just ignore him,” Jenna says with a sigh. “We do.”

  Chet strides up, all six feet of him, and drapes his arms over my sister like a big daddy gorilla. It’s a clear message to the hallway—She’s mine. Chet nods at me in that ages-old macho greeting: I have acknowledged your existence, peon. Do not ask for more.

  “What are y’all doing for spring break?” Staci asks, arching her back so that her butt sticks out in a noticeable way.

  “I’ve got a mission ski trip with my church,” Chet says. “Trying to get Jenna here to come, too.”

  Jenna beams. It would be so tempting right now to say something like, Wait, Jen, don’t you have an abortion scheduled for that week? But Chet would probably kick my ass. Hell, Jenna would probably kick my ass.

  Staci twirls her hair around one finger. “Well, me and Lisa and Carmen are going to Daytona for the YA! TV Party House.”

  “Omigod, you are not!” one of the wannabes squeals. “If you get to meet Parker Day I will be so jealous!”

  YA! TV—Youth America! Television—is the barometer of cool for teens everywhere, and Parker Day, with his highlights, vintage rocker clothes, souped-up sneakers, and sly smile, is its most telegenic host. Half the kids in school walk around spouting his trademarked phrase, “You smoked it!”

  “Actually, we need a fourth to make it happen,” Staci says. “Jenna, you should come with us.”

  “To Florida?”

  “It would be fun.”

  “Yeah,” Jenna says. “But expensive.”

  Staci sticks her butt out just a little farther, which I didn’t think possible, and my penis, the mutinous bastard, fires up again.

  “Well, think about it,” Staci says. “It’s gonna be completely mammoth.”

  “Yo, Cam,” Chet says. “Nice stunt with the cockroach.”

  “What cockroach?” Jenna asks.

  “The Cammer here pulled a fast one. He said he saw a cockroach to get out of English class.”

  Jenna gives me a look. The look says, You are disappointing Mom and Dad.

  “You didn’t miss anything, just more Don Quixote. My pastor thinks we shouldn’t be reading that stuff. Said it can give kids the wrong ideas, make ’em question everything and get all weird. It happened to this one kid he knew, and the parents had to get him straightened out.”

  “Oh my God,” Staci says, like this bullshit Chet’s telling her is as sad as some little kid dying of cancer.

  “From books? I don’t believe that,” Jenna says, and I feel a glimmer of hope that she will not fall to the forces of evil.

  “It’s true!” Chet insists. “Anyway, it’s all good. His folks sent him to this church that’s got everything from a school to a restaurant, so you never have to go outside all that much, and he’s pretty much there all the time, away from negative influences. It’s like what happened to me with my injury.”

  Here we go. The girls practically swoon.

  “I could’ve questioned s
tuff. I could have let it change me. But I didn’t.” He grins. “You’ve gotta stay positive. Right, Cam?”

  Oh, absolutely. I’m big, big, big on the thumbs-up to the positive. I can’t go a day without wanting to draw a happy face on every surface I see.

  “Right,” I say.

  “You coming to the game, bro?”

  “Can’t. It’s against my religion.”

  Chet smirks. I’m pretty sure the Bible says Thou Shalt Not Smirk, but that could be a rumor. “Yeah? What religion’s that?”

  “Apathy.”

  Jenna looks like she could cheerfully strangle me. Staci Johnson turns to her posse and giggles. “Whatever!”

  “See? That’s what I’m talking about,” Chet says to the others like I’m not even there.

  And in a way, I guess I’m not.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  In Which a Brief Sanctuary Is Found, I Fail to Comprehend Jazz, and I Am Forced to Have a Conversation with My Asshole Father

  Eubie’s Hot Wax sits one block away from the university, nestled between a head shop disguised as an incense and candle store and an art studio famed for its stained-glass cat selection. It’s a little oasis of sounds sans the attitude of the mega music store in the mall. It’s my favorite place in this dusty Texas town.

  At Eubie’s there are no six-foot risers announcing the latest release from a pouty-lipped nymphet with only one name. No college music majors earning extra beer money while snorting out pretentious statements like “Well, sure, I guess the Copenhagen Interpretation’s an okay band, but they wouldn’t have been anything if Pet Sounds hadn’t come out first.” Just bins upon bins of obscure LPs and CDs from newer bands mixed in with jazz and novelty stuff like my personal fave, the Great Tremolo, whose songs about the pain of life were written solely for recorder and ukulele. You have not felt angst till it’s been filtered through Portuguese and nose-thrumming vibration. Plus, he has the highest voice I’ve ever heard in a dude. When he reaches for that one ball-breaking note in every song, I can’t help losing it every time.