Project X Read Free Page A

potato and throw the gun into the closet.
    â€œCollege,”
I finally go. “Anybody who goes to
college
. . .” I can’t even finish the sentence.
    â€œI wanna be president someday,” Flake goes. “Or maybe Wizard Death Lord.”
    We
got
no Interests. We
got
no extracurriculars.
    â€œI’m goin’ to Fuck U,” I tell him.
    â€œWe’re goin’ to Uzi State,” he tells me back.
    As opposed to our classmates. Our classmates achieve every minute of the day. They Strive Higher and Reach Farther. They put together model UN’s while we sit around in study halls with our mouths open. They’re captains of the mah-jongg JV or Vermont Junior Business Achievement or Hot Pants for Social Change. They think this shithole is something to be proud of. The ceilings are falling in and nobody’s had new textbooks in a hundred years, but they’re all School Spirit. They’re dirps: Dicks in Responsible Positions. When one of them gives us grief for being such lazy shits, Flake’ll lower his chin and go Dirp, like he’s burping.
    â€œLet’s go throw rocks,” Flake goes.
    â€œLet’s not and say we did,” I tell him.
    â€œSo what do
you
want to do?” he goes. We don’t watch TV. We hate TV. TV’s a fucking blight.
    We climb out the window onto the porch roof, jump over the breezeway to the garage, then hang off the gutter and drop down. Sometimes my mother thinks we’re still up there in my room.
    At the practice fields the JV boys’ and girls’ soccer teams are kicking balls around. They’re almost all ninth-graders.
    â€œWhat’re we doing
here
?” I want to know.
    â€œHow about you stop complaining till
you
have an idea?” Flake says.
    We decide to go to the fort we made under an off-ramp. You can only see in from one direction, and it’s bigger than it looks. We found it one day playing a game where you ride through the gap in the guardrail at top speed. The gap’s about two feet wide, and you have to bomb through without hooking a handlebar or elbow.
    Somebody calls “Heads up!” and we duck and a soccer ball whonks Flake right on the head. The ball ends up in some wicked-looking prickers around a Dumpster.
    I’m laughing. The kid who kicked the ball is laughing. He’s still in his follow-through. Some of the girls’ team is laughing.
    â€œBall?” the kid calls. He comes over to the chain-link fence and hangs on it, making faces at his friends.
    Flake goes over to the Dumpster like he doesn’t see the prickers and wades right in. “Ow,” he says, and everybody laughs even more. He tears the ball out of the bush and looks at his hand.
    â€œWho puts prickers around a fucking Dumpster?” he says. “What’s wrong with this fucking town?”
    â€œHey ace, send it back,” the kid goes.
    Flake holds it out in front of him.
    â€œGive it all you got, ace,” another kid goes.
    â€œI’ll give it all I got,” Flake says. I can see he’s planning on kicking it to Peru, but he shanks it sideways down the street.
    â€œFuck,”
he shouts. I know better than to say anything.
    â€œNice
leg
,” one of the kids says and starts to head around to the gate. The girls from the girls’ team have turned away and gotten in a circle to do some kind of trapping exercise. Everyone’s peppy and there’s lots of shouted encouragement. It looks like the Dance of the Tards.
    Flake and the kid reach the ball at the same time. Flake picks it up and turns and booms the thing it has to be fifty yards down the street. It bounces ten feet in the air and keeps going out into the intersection. Cars honk.
    By the time I get there the kid’s got Flake on his back and he’s choking him with the collar of his own T-shirt. I grab the kid by the hair. Somebody punches me on the side of the head. We get piled on. The kid I grabbed