Californium Read Free Page B

heart’s knocking at my chest, and the whole world’s gone quiet, like that instant of silence right before something hits you. Then,
fwap,
something really does hit me. A folder bounces off my head, light and not so bad. I’ve never been drunk, but this must be the feeling:
How did my own folder hit me in thehead? How did it get on the ground in front of me when it’s still right here in my hand?
    The sound of lockers and voices comes rushing in like the start of a record, and there’s a guy standing over me saying, “Sorry about that, little man.” He’s skinny and tall, and he’s got one of those crop cuts where your hair is flat and straight like the Beatles before they became hippies, but there’s also this spot in the back of your head where it’s chopped short and sticks up kind of random. It looks like a mistake. He’s wearing a button-up gas station shirt with the name
Gus
sewn on it.
    He asks me to hand the folder up and I’ve got no choice. It really may have been an accident, and besides, he’s got a couple friends waiting around. So I hand it back up to him and he says, “Thanks, bud,” and slams his locker shut.
    As soon as “You’re welcome, Gus” is out of my mouth, his buddies laugh and all three of them walk away.
    .
    I write down a few names in my Spanish class and me and Keith go over the list at lunch. He circles the names of people he thinks he’s heard of. He tells me the whole thing at my locker is no accident; upperclassmen love getting top lockers because the things they drop can pick up more speed before they hit you. “You’re lucky it wasn’t a history book.”
    After lunch, we’ve got PE together with Coach Scheffler. All freshmen. When class is about over, we’re hanging out in the locker room, waiting for the bell to ring, and all these guys in jeans and letterman jackets start walking in. Who knows how they gotout of fifth period before everyone else, and who’d stop them? They don’t look like high school kids. They’re tall and wide, thick necks and massive thighs. Half of them have five o’clock shadows and it’s only one thirty.
    Most of them go straight into the varsity room, but as the bell rings to end fifth period, one of the biggest guys steps into the hallway. Everybody goes around him like he’s a boulder in a river. Then he puts out his arm, the leather from his jacket crinkling, and wraps it around Keith’s neck. “Here’s our guy,” he yells back into the varsity room. He wraps his arm around Keith’s shoulder. “You want to help out the team?” Only, he’s not asking. He’s telling.
    â€œYou wait right here,” he says to me. When he turns and walks Keith into the varsity room, I catch the name stitched on the back of his jacket:
Petrakis.
    A few minutes later, guys start coming out of the varsity room, one by one, carrying their helmets and wearing shorts and practice jerseys with just their shoulder pads. Petrakis is one of the last guys out the door and he slaps his hand down on my shoulder, telling me it was smart I stayed. He gives me the combination to his locker, which is where he’s left Keith, and says if anything gets messed with he’ll shove my head up Keith’s ass and tie us to the flagpole.
    The bell rings for the start of sixth period, but Keith doesn’t say anything until we’re outside walking. “If you get in trouble for being late,” he says without looking at me, “just say you went to the wrong classroom.”
    I’m nodding and smirking, and because Keith looks more mad than scared, I say, “What’s it like being ‘the guy’?”
    Keith, it turns out, is the guy small enough to fit into a varsitylocker and still move around. Petrakis locked him in there and made him rub his shirt all over the back and sides to dust. “This is exactly