then closed it. He shrugged. Somehow I knew who he meant: Mr. Boggs. “But what I do hear, it’s not good.”
“Okay. Appreciate it.”
Knox pointed at me but kept his eyes on my father.
“I know. I will. I will,” Harnett said, nodding.
Knox sighed again and nodded. He pivoted on his crutch and turned to face the dusk. He inhaled deeply before leaving.
“It may be a warm October,” he said, “but it’s going to be a hell of a winter.”
25.
IT WAS CALLED FUN and Games. How something so innocently titled could end so badly, I don’t think anyone could have suspected. With the semester nearly half over, the boring but predictable fitness tests had finally run their course. That these mindless time-killers were finite seemed to befuddle the gym coaches, Mr. Gripp and Ms. Stettlemeyer, both of whom had spent most of the previous seven weeks relaxing on the bleachers.
“Starting today, we’re going to be splitting up the class,” announced Mr. Gripp. He was a tall man who went everywhere in a sweatshirt and gym shorts and had the drowsy bad temper of someone who had been doing this for way too many years. “Girls are staying with Stettlemeyer here in the gym. Guys, you get your pick. You can do this unit Ms. Stettlemeyer has planned or you can come with me to the weight room and, you know. Do weights.”
We were scattered across the floor. Ahead of me several feet was Celeste. A circle of females kept her sealed off from Woody, who nonetheless beseeched her with puppy-dog expressions. I kept my eyes down and repeatedly told myself the same thing: Incorruptibles existed, all right, and Celeste was one of them—nothing anyone could do could damage her. My hand crept to obscure the yellowish remainder of my bruise. Keep your distance, I reminded myself, but it wasn’t because I feared her wrath. It was because I was afraid she would smell my cemetery reek, and that the wrinkling of her fine features would telegraph to everyone in the room what kind of monster I really was.
“Listen up, people! I’m calling my unit Fun and Games!” Stettlemeyer shouted from around the rubber-cased whistle she kept clenched in her teeth. She delivered everything in this fashion, which was funny enough when she was urging us to “Push it!” but downright hilarious when she was caught attempting to compliment someone’s hairstyle. There was snickering, but as usual Stettlemeyer was deaf to it. “Here’s what we can look forward to! Various light athletics! Volleyball! Badminton! Table tennis! Scooter ball! And we’ll change it up almost every session! I think you’ll be pleased by the wide variety!”
I certainly didn’t welcome the uncertainty of a “wide variety,” but the other option, the weight room, worried me even more. Located at the top of a narrow flight of stairs off the gym, it was an ominous space more or less owned by Woody and his ilk. I visualized dumbbells and weight racks and other more complicated machinery, all twisted to cruel use against me.
Gripp hitched up his shorts. “Okay, everyone who’s coming with me come with me.”
There was a tense moment during which no one moved, and then Woody yawned, slapped Rhino on the back of his shaved head, and stood. In seconds boys everywhere were scuffling toward the weight room door. After a moment of herding, Gripp scanned the remaining crowd until he found the straggler, me, all the way in the rear. My skin burned as every girl in the room turned to face me.
Then Gripp shifted his gaze to where one other boy sat, on the far side of the group of girls. Like me, he was short and slim, but where my features were small and dark, his were large and freckled, and he wore his blond hair to his shoulders. He looked only vaguely familiar. Was he in my biology class? English? If so, I knew absolutely nothing about him. Well, I knew one thing: I envied his ability to skate by unnoticed.
Gripp screwed up his face as if it were his sworn duty to call out such miserable pussies. Then, maybe too old for such shit, he changed his mind and was gone. “Okay! Everybody! Calisthenic formation!” Stettlemeyer clapped her hands. There was groaning and sighing and sneakers squeaking from shiny maple flooring, followed by the mechanized configuration of orderly rows. I lurched and scurried and finally landed in the last row. I noticed the blond kid choosing a spot far