Period 8 - By Chris Crutcher Page 0,40

For now. So listen, if I decide we can do this charade . . . hang out . . .” He nods toward the house. “How do I get past that?”

“Do everything from school.” She looks back at the door. “Go.”

“One sec.” Paulie stands and pushes open the door. “Thanks so much, Mr. Wells. You may have saved my life.” Then he is down the walk and in his car.

Two days later, Paulie and Justin pop jumpers in the gym after school. “Arney came askin’ about you.”

“Yeah?”

“Says you took him out on purpose the other night.”

“Came onto my ground,” Paulie says. “Just like you, he’s got no business driving on me. Had to teach him some respect.”

“Onto your ground in more ways than one,” Justin says.

“Yeah, well, I guess I didn’t know how pissed I was until I saw him struttin’ his shit with those varsity guys.”

“Man, you got to get off this passive-aggressive stuff and just get aggressive. Arney’s playing the victim because you said Hannah was fair game when you really meant better stay the fuck away.” Justin starts to drive, pulls up, and bangs a high one off the front rim. He snags the rebound, dribbles behind his back, and charges to hoop as if to dunk, going through the motion even though at the height of his leap he’s four inches below the rim.

“That was about a foot short of a Blake Griffin!” Paulie says. “Give you an eight for form, though.”

“Doc says I may be in for a late growth spurt.”

“Uh-huh. Listen, Jus, Hannah’s stuff aside, something is way whack with Arney.”

“Like I haven’t been telling you that? How do you mean?”

“The lies are stacking up, no pun intended. First he says he’s going to a midnight meeting with the Thumpers when I needed him to do me a favor, but Firth tells me he hasn’t talked to him outside of class or P-8 since the election last year. Then he goes out of his way to tell us all he’s got some inside track on Mary Wells, how she’s different than everyone thinks and how her old man ain’t so bad, and I find out that’s bullshit, too.”

Justin frowns. “How’d you find out that?”

“Never mind.”

“Naw, man, you confide some of this shit, you got to confide it all.”

Paulie feeds him as he breaks to the hoop again. Justin stops, whirls, and buries a short jumper.

“More like it,” Paulie says.

“Spill it.”

“Okay, man, but if I confide it, it’s exactly that: confidential.”

“I ever rat you out?”

“You’ve never had anything to rat.”

“Man, you are killing me.”

Paulie stops, holds the ball under his arm. “Nah, man, you know I’d trust you with anything.”

“Show me some proof.”

Paulie closes his eyes, shakes his head and lets out big air. “Mary is who I cheated on Hannah with. Bro, you can’t tell anyone.” He passes Justin the ball.

Justin spikes it with both hands and sits on it. “You did the Virgin Mary?”

Paulie sits down beside him, lays back on the floor, shielding his eyes from the afternoon sunlight pouring through a high window. “No, I didn’t do the Virgin Mary. I . . . it’s a long story.”

“Like to have that on my resume,” Justin says. “How’d you pull it off?”

“It wasn’t my idea.”

Justin smiles. “I thought there was more to that girl.”

“Whatever you thought, you didn’t get it right,” Paulie says. “Look, after it happened, she didn’t want anyone to know. You know I didn’t tell because you would have been the first. But Hannah comes up to me in The Rocket and says she knows who it was. And she gets it right. Far as I know, two people knew: Mary and me. I sure as hell didn’t tell Hannah and she says she didn’t hear it from a she. Who’s Hannah been hanging with? Stack. I take my life in my hands and go over to Mary’s place, almost lost a body part getting past her old man, but I gotta be sure. I mean, I believed Hannah ’cause, well, I believe Hannah, but I wanted two good sources. Mary says no way she told Hannah. But she says she didn’t tell Arney, either. Somehow, Arney knows. He couldn’t just have guessed. I mean, how many guesses would you make before you picked Mary Wells?”

“All of ’em,” Justin says. “This is some intrigue.” He stands, twirling the ball on his index finger. It spins off and lands on Paulie’s gut.

“No shit.” Paulie grunts, sitting up with the ball