“Yes, ma’am.”
Released from the nurse’s office, Brendan walked out into the hall to find Kim, Harold, and Dmitri waiting for him.
“Holy tomato face!” Harold said in awe. “That is, I don’t mean to say your face is juicy and a great source of lycopene. 24 I mean that your face is the exact shade of a ripe tomato!” Harold fumbled in his bookbag and fished out a crimson crayon. He held it up to Brendan’s face. “See? I was right! Tomato Red!”
“Thanks for your sympathy, Harold,” Brendan growled, batting the crayon away from his face. He tried to arrange his glasses so that they didn’t irritate his sore face.
“Nice technique.” Kim shook her head. “You jumped right into that ball. You got a death wish?”
Brendan shrugged and started walking down the hall toward their next class, chemistry with Mr. Bowley. “I dunno. Just got tired of waiting for him to cream me, so…”
“You decided to attack him with your face?” Kim scoffed. She hitched her green kilt up even higher on her hips, accentuating the long coltishness of her legs. She tended to roll her waistband over to inch the kilt into miniskirt territory, technically against school policy. Not even the teachers had the courage to call her on it. Kim didn’t take kindly to rule-quoting. “Super-dumb.”
Brendan had given up wondering why Kim hung around his little group of losers. She was sporty, confident, and cool. He’d overheard lots of boys who’d called her cute but only when they were sure she couldn’t hear them. Her fierce brown eyes would burn holes in anyone who tried to chat her up. Kim tolerated Brendan, Harold, and Dmitri for some unknown reason. Maybe they were just so hapless that she didn’t have to worry about them asking her out or behaving like normal high school boys. She could be quite abrasive even if she did count you among her circle of friends. “What possessed you?”
“I don’t know,” Brendan said, “I just felt tired of being scared of guys like Chester. I just…” He trailed off. Marina Kaprillian stepped out of the cafeteria doorway flanked by two of her girlfriends. Brendan stopped short with his mouth slightly open. “I uh
… uh…”
Kim followed his gaze and stopped at his side. “Oh brother.” Kim frowned and tugged at his sleeve. “Come on, Brendan. Marina Kaprillian is not for you.”
Marina and her friends saw Brendan standing in the middle of the hall as students passed on either side and they immediately erupted in fits of giggles and went off down the hallway still giggling about something one of them had said with a glance in his direction. Brendan felt himself blush, but he doubted it would be visible over the redness of his face.
“Can you hear me, Brendan?” Kim said, rapping him on the head with her knuckles. “Anybody in there?”
“Ow,” Brendan yelped. “That hurt.”
“I’m telling you,” Kim insisted, jerking her thumb toward the retreating gaggle of girls. “You and that girl. not gonna happen.”
Brendan was suddenly angry. He turned on Kim. “Why not? Am I such a loser that she could never like me? Huh? Is that it?”
Kim was taken by surprise by the outburst. She opened her mouth to say something but caught herself.
“What? What were you going to say?” Brendan saw that she was sorry, but he didn’t feel like stopping. He had to vent at someone. “You think I’m not good enough for her?” Brendan demanded. “She’s out of my league. Is that it? I’m a pimply, goggle-eyed, tinsel-toothed loser. Is that it?”
“No. I wasn’t going to say that.” Kim looked at him. For an instant, Brendan saw something other than disdain in her eyes: a glimmer of…what? Sympathy? Then it was gone. “Forget it!” She snorted in disgust and set off down the hall toward the chemistry class. The knapsack on her back swung back and forth to match her strides, her field hockey stick poking up out of the top like the arm of a metronome. 25
“What’s with her?” Dmitri asked.
“I should apologize,” Brendan said, starting after her. He stopped. “But I’m not going to. She was kind of mean, too.”
“I’ll talk to her,” Harold offered. He was her lab partner and they shared a desk in the next class. “I’ll soften her up.” Harold shook his head and lumbered after her.
Brendan and Dmitri started walking. “Why was she so down on me liking Marina? I mean, sure, I haven’t got a chance but a guy can dream, can’t he?”
Dmitri shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe Kim has a crash on you. Have you ever thought of that?”
“The word is crush, not crash.” Brendan often had to correct Dmitri’s English. Brendan frowned. “And no, I don’t think that’s it. It’s something else…” He felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see Dmitri looking up at him. Dmitri had a gentleness about him that came from always being too small to rely on brute force. His family had immigrated from Poland and they were not very well off. He was an outsider in more ways than one. Brendan had gravitated to the smaller boy for that reason. Dmitri’d had to learn English on his arrival and so had had a hard time making friends. He and Brendan had hit it off almost immediately when they had been assigned seats beside each other in homeroom. Nerd magnetism, Brendan called it. Dmitri was a whiz at math and science, which was a good thing since Brendan was practically useless at both. Brendan helped him with the language, concentrating on the slang words that the other kids used in the halls.
Dmitri smiled, more of a lopsided smirk. “There are worse things to be brave about than a pretty girl.”
Brendan grinned. “Thanks, D. I don’t know why I bother. She thinks I’m a joke. If she thinks about me at all.”
The bell rang to announce the start of class.
“Uh-oh,” Brendan gasped.
The two boys took off at a dead run. Mr. Bowley was a tyrannical old man. They called him Bowelly Bowley but never to his face. Mr. Bowley was a stickler when it came to punctuality. He would stand with his pocket watch in his hand and if you arrived even a second late, he would close the door in your face and point you toward the office to get a late slip.
When they arrived at the door, miraculously it was still open. Not believing their luck, the two boys hurried into the room, taking the assigned workbench that they shared at the back of the room. Brendan checked to see if Kim was still angry. She sat at the front of the room beside Harold. She had her back turned to him. She was looking at the front of the class and though he couldn’t see her face, he could sense by her rigid posture that she was angry.
Brendan followed her gaze and was surprised to see that Mr. Bowley was not there in his customary place at the front of the class glaring at the students. The chemistry teacher, in his pristine white lab coat and polished spectacles, never missed a day of school. He was never sick, never late, and never absent. The students were all certain he was an android programmed by the Board of Education to torture young minds. 26
Today, however, Mr. Bowley was nowhere to be seen. Instead, another man leaned casually against the desk. Dressed in a well-tailored sleek grey suit with a pale green silk vest, the man was tall and thin. His face was… there was no other word but perfect-high cheekbones, a long powerful nose, and expressive grey eyes. He smiled at the class.
“I’m sure you are all wondering where our dear Mr. Bowley has got to. I am happy to say he is perfectly healthy, safe, and sound. Better than sound, truth be told. Mr. Bowley has won the lottery. Understandably, he has decided to take a little time off to absorb his good fortune.”
A buzz of whispering erupted from the students. Everybody was busy consulting with their neighbours. Everybody but Kim. She crossed her arms and glared at the man as he raised his hands for quiet. The man seemed to sense her disapproval and, as he turned his head slightly to meet her gaze, he winked. Brendan found the gesture so odd, almost as if they knew each other. He would have to ask her after class. if she was talking to him. At last the buzz subsided. The man spoke again in his beautifully modulated voice.
“Until he returns, I am your substitute teacher. My name is Mr. Greenleaf. I think we shall get along very well indeed.”
^18 Murderball (also known as Dodgeball): Before becoming the modern pastime enjoyed (or dreaded) by students the world over, Murderball was devised as a means of executing criminals in seventeenth- century Germany. Murderers were sentenced to be pelted with rubber balls until they were dead. However, the murderers became very adept at dodging the balls and so the modern sport of Murderball was born.
^19 Technically speaking, Murderball is not played the world over. Cultures where Murderball is not played
