every friend I could get, including Laverne, I knew this, yet I felt the lie coming all the way up my throat. “Yep, got ’em,” I said.
“Atta boy,” she said, nodding herself into a half-dozen new chins. “You read through that salmon packet?”
“What?” I only vaguely remembered the BLOUGHTON SCREAMING EAGLES folder I held in my hand. More students, class about to start, another lie I couldn’t stop: “Oh, sure, I read it.”
“Well, don’t forget, during study hall today you can come down to the office and get all settled for band.” Horrifically, she winked. “I remember you said you had a special liking for band.”
I saw a girl turn to her friend and mouth in disbelief the words special liking. I nodded quickly in Laverne’s general direction and made telling head-fakes toward Mr. Pratt’s class. She seemed to understand and waved cheerfully, oblivious that half of the class waved at me in perfect mockery as I entered. Still, Laverne’s information had been useful. Anything to get out of study hall, where idle, bored kids were bound to start saying, or throwing, anything.
I sailed through Pratt’s class with no trouble; cautiously, I let myself nurture optimism. Calculus went just as well; Coach Winter, apparently a feared figure on the practice field, kept order with drill-sergeant authority. It was biology that I most feared, and that was where problems began anew.
Gottschalk demanded that notes be taken, and it was still early enough in the semester that students paid attention. The lights were dimmed to facilitate viewing transparencies on an old-fashioned overhead projector. I was glad for the darkness: no one could see me and I could resist looking at any faces, Celeste Carpenter’s in particular. Between statements by Gottschalk, the only sound was the scratching of pencils. It was during such a moment that my stomach, empty for nearly forty-eight hours, constricted and squirted out a noise of at least six seconds in duration.
I clutched my gut and waited for the laughs. They came. “Lunch is one period away,” Gottschalk sang from the front of the room. The titters died down. I clutched my gut and made frantic pleas to God, even though they were what my mother would’ve called wasted prayers. About one minute later, another sound, this one like a blast of flatulence. More laughter. Again, Gottschalk reined in the class; again, a few minutes later, more elongated and high-pitched squelching. If I were someone more confident and with a cooler head, I could have laughed these off, even turned them to my advantage—I’d seen guys successfully woo girls by magisterially claiming their own farts. For me, it was too late; the absurdity was reaching outrageous levels. In a twisted bit of mercy, I could not fully concentrate on my own mortification, as I was gripped by hunger pains the likes of which I’d never felt. I had to eat.
I rode out the rest of the class by taking notes so fanatically they ran off the page and onto the desk. All I could think of was food: the distasteful spread of yesterday’s lunch was now my most fervent desire, if only I had the money to buy it. When the lunch bell rang, it was all I could do not to sprint for the door. I pretended to tie my shoes so I could be the last one out.
I staggered the wrong way down the hallway, applying one hand of pressure against my stomach. Smells drifted at me from everywhere: vanilla shampoo, cherry lip balm, Cheetos breath, an underarm deodorant reminiscent of lime. My mouth swam with saliva. I heard shouts fade toward the lunchroom, footsteps, too, and then echoing around my skull was the last in a series of lockers slammed shut.
Laverne’s advice about unreliable lockers came back to me verbatim. I let my steps drift to the right until I found myself at an arbitrary locker. I looked both ways. My blood felt thin.
I pulled at the handle. To my surprise, Laverne was right—the lock did not hold. Only the lower corner of the door remained jammed in place. Inside the locker I could see a hooded sweatshirt, a backpack—and a purse. Just one meal and then the money would be returned, I swore it, and I’d slide the repayment, with interest, through the vent. I shook the door and it thundered like a sheet of aluminum. Too loud, though no more so than my stomach. I kicked at the corner and it crashed like a