Mom ‘Marly’.”
He flinches, his face wrinkling up. Then, I guess deciding to dismiss my words outright, he repeats himself. “Got it?”
“I mean, your dad calls her Marly. And now you call her that? When did this start? Is there a group chat I wasn’t invited into?”
“You’re so … freakin’ weird,” he mumbles, grips the strap of his backpack tighter, then trudges off, ditching me by the road.
I smirk victoriously. Like father, like son. Except Lee has never threatened me, put a hand on me, or done anything except be a boring lump of meat with an equally monotonous voice. But being on the Spruce football team, he’s in with the crowd of puffed-up, muscled morons I’ve been trying to avoid for years—a crowd who has gained no sense of character regardless of who their coach is.
I don’t seek out anyone in the yard, as there is no one there for me anyway, with my only friends having graduated last year. I go straight through the doors of the school, navigate the echoing halls full of laughter, and locate my locker in the front hall. After putting away some things (and placing my moogle doll on the top shelf to guard everything while I’m gone, like a prince of my metal cave), I shut the locker and head off. A door just a few paces down the hall brings me to my first period class—which isn’t a class at all. I was selected as an office aide for my first hour of the day. It’s like having a free period to do whatever I want, unless my immediate supervisor and Master-of-the-Phone Becky actually has a note I need to run to a classroom, or an Excel spreadsheet to help fill in, or some other kind of mind-numbing, paper-stapling-and-filing busywork.
After the first bell rings, signaling the start of class, Becky has me put to work right away finishing something tedious she started (and is clearly relieved I’m here to do instead). Once the obligatory “How was your summer?” questions are over with, Becky wastes no time launching into a lengthy, gossipy phone call, and the minutes pass quickly. The monotony puts me at ease, and it isn’t long before all my anxieties about the rest of the day melt away.
I’m in the middle of mindlessly cross-checking names on two lists when I overhear Becky, perched at the cluttered front desk, utter on the phone: “… new senior who’s a heaping bag of trouble. A transfer. Doesn’t know Eve from Adam.”
My highlighter hesitates, hovering in place as I listen.
“Yes, a big, big bag of trouble, that’s what I said, Nadine. Oh, he caused a headline-making ruckus at his old school, knocked some poor kid out, sent some other kid to the hospital, and now he’s been transferred over here to our very own Spruce High!” Becky lets out a dramatic sigh, toying with a white feather pen between her long, ring-adorned fingers. “No, I can’t believe it either. As if we need someone like that here in our precious town, stirring up trouble and making us worry. Oh, yes, they’ll hear a word or two from me. Mm-hmm! You bet. I wouldn’t be surprised if this new kid was a devil worshipper. Or listened to the Marlin Manson! Marlin Manson, yes, that’s what I said. Am I sayin’ that right? Marlin?”
I bite my lip as I resume highlighting, wondering who the hell this “bag of heaping trouble” is. I sure haven’t heard anything.
It’s an ugly twist of fate that after the bell rings and tosses me out of the office, I head down the long main hall, take a turn, and arrive at my second period English class to find none other than Hoyt-freakin’-Nowak in the back row. The cocky ringleader of the football douchebags, he’s got a foot up on the desk in front of him, an arm slung over the back of his own chair, and he’s twirling a pencil skillfully between his fingers. He’s wearing gray, stylish skinny jeans, a varsity letterman jacket, and big athletic sneakers, and his hair is always an annoyingly perfect model-boy sweep that never seems to be disturbed, no matter if it’s wet, dry, or caught in a tornado. Even by himself with none of his lackeys around, he’s wearing a smug, satisfied smirk like he’s just won someone over. I’m not convinced that tool wins anyone over.
Hoyt spots me right away. “Yo, Tobes!” he shouts out over the otherwise quietly murmuring students who have