Eliza and Her Monsters - Francesca Zappia Page 0,9
ever gets on the computer. I do these in class when no one is watching, or at lunch while I sit by myself in the drafty courtyard outside the cafeteria. Soon it’ll be too cold to sit out here at all, and I’ll have to find a table inside, which should be fun considering all of the tables are taken every day I walk in.
On Friday, the day of our homecoming game, everyone is dressed in typical Westcliff gold, adorned with football jerseys and face paint and gold ribbons tied in ponytails. In the main hallway, there are five different homecoming banners encouraging the football team to GO FIGHT WIN. On my walk to fourth period, it is banner number three that detaches from the wall as I walk beneath it. The world goes dark. I smack at the banner to get it off, and snickers erupt in the hallway behind me. The banner falls to the floor.
Travis Stone and Deshawn Johnson, the only two students in this school who scare me even on a good day, lean against the lockers nearby and watch me struggle. Travis Stone looks like a vulture in sagging jeans and a buzz cut, and Deshawn Johnson is a kid who half the time is too cool to hang out with Travis and the other half the time not very cool at all. Ten years ago they were two sweet little boys at my grade school who played tag with me on the playground, and they would’ve helped me with this banner instead of watching.
“Nice hair,” Travis says. I brush a hand over my head and find an ungodly amount of glitter trapped there. The look on my face sends Travis and Deshawn into new rounds of laughter.
In the bathroom, attempts to remove the glitter fail. All I manage to do is fill a sink with gold glitter dandruff and get a few other girls to give me strange looks, like I did it to myself. All hope of happiness and a bright future dies.
I walk outside at the end of the day to a gloomy sky, a sharp breeze, and lines of cars vying to leave the parking lot. In a few hours everyone will be back here for the football game, crammed together in the stadium behind the school, shouting their support to the chilled night air and huddled together with their friends. There will be class floats paraded around the perimeter of the football field. There will be a moment of silence and a short memorial for the band members who went off Wellhouse Turn last summer. There will be football jerseys and parties and revelry deep into the night.
I rearrange my backpack on my shoulders and hold my sketchbook in both hands. There are too many cars. I bet college doesn’t have parking issues like this. I bet college is great.
I turn and find Wallace sitting on that same bench again. He has sat there every day this week. I found out yesterday that his last name is Warland, which seems appropriate for someone of his size and stature. Capable of inflicting destruction wherever he goes.
Today, Wallace Warland is not alone. Flanking him are Travis Stone and Deshawn Johnson, forever and always the bane of my existence. Running into my long-forgotten friends once a day is bad enough—twice is asking for trouble. Deshawn stands by the bench with his arms crossed, and Travis lounges beside Wallace like they’re old buddies. Wallace sits stiffly, with his hands covering the papers he’s always writing on, his eyes stuck on the sidewalk somewhere to the left of Deshawn’s shoes.
Wallace did not strike me as the kind of person to begin a friendship with the likes of Travis Stone, at least not High-School-Dickbag Travis Stone. Curiosity makes my feet inch a little closer, pretending I’m debating going to my car. I pull out my phone and stare at the black screen.
“. . . must have typed this. No one can write that good. What is this again?”
Travis tries to take one of the papers. Wallace clamps his hand down.
“What’d you call it? Fan . . . fan . . .”
“Fanfiction,” Deshawn says.
No way in the nine circles of hell. No way is Wallace Warland writing fanfiction. Fanfiction of what? What does Wallace Warland enjoy so much he writes fanfiction about it? Can you have fanfiction about professional sports teams?
“Lemme see.” Travis tries to take the paper again, which makes Wallace lock down tighter.