I fell slowly,
drifting down from side to side like a piece of paper blowing off a desk. I distinctly
remember passing both stories of the building, looking in the windows at the
neat rows of beakers and bookshelves. Why was this taking so long? I wanted to
hit the ground so badly, and I felt a sudden pang of regret that I wouldn’t be
able to see Alex’s face once he realized what had happened. I knew I wouldn’t
die. I don’t know how I knew; I just had this feeling.
***
It
started in 7th period. The teacher was out of the room, sending the
attendance down to the office. She used to send down one of the students, but
after she caught Alex heading to the bathroom for a smoke for the third
straight time, she stopped letting us leave the classroom at all. I resented
him for this. I resented him for a lot of things. I used to love to take the
attendance down and give a high-five to my older brother, who worked in the main
office at our middle school.
What
the teacher didn’t realize is that her momentary absence was enough to provoke complete
anarchy. Alex took full advantage of this every day, and never missed a chance
to make me the victim. This day was particularly bad. It was the last class of
the last day of school, and everyone was restless in their seats. The door had
barely shut behind our teacher when he jumped up and started drawing obscene
things on the chalkboard. A couple guys belted out in laughter, and the girls
issued some nervous giggles. As soon as he was done with a particularly large
phallus, he signed my name under it, even using the little lowercase letters
I’ve always written in. You asshole, I
breathed under my breath. I jumped up and grabbed the chalk from him and
started furiously erasing my name. Suddenly, the door swung open, and Ms. Wigle
stopped dead in her tracks as she saw the board. I managed to get rid of my
name, but she saw me with the chalk, and that was enough.
“Evan! You should
know better. Sit. We’ll talk after class,” She reprimanded. For a moment I
thought I felt the offending chalk drawings almost tremble at the tone of her
voice. None of my classmates corrected her, lest they become the recipient of
her anger. I was speechless, and turned to incriminate Alex, but he was
miraculously in his seat, pretending to be asleep. I felt the heat on my face
the entire class. When the bell finally rang, she curled one icy finger in my
direction, beckoning me to her desk.
“Ms. Wigle, I—” I
began.
“Evan, hush. Alex,
you stay too.”
“Aw, what did I do?” he protested unconvincingly.
“Here’s
what I saw. You,” she said, pointing
at me, “were drawing things on that board that would’ve killed my grandmother
twice over. And you,” she said at
Alex, “are involved, because you’re always involved. Detention, now. Roof. End
of discussion.” End of discussion—I
knew it was over then. Ms. Wigle was not a diplomatic ruler. There was no room
for debate.
***
“Hey, Brownstain,
you missed one,” Alex jabbed me in the back with the pointy sticks we used to
pick up trash. It was a play on my last name, Braunstein. He had given me that nickname in 6th
grade, after he tricked me into sitting on an open chocolate pudding, after
which everyone thought I had soiled myself. Of course, the name stuck. His names
always stick.
She had given us
the worst job. People were hardly ever caught on the roof, but the litter and
cigarette butts seemed to multiply each night. Some people thought the teachers
put it there, just to give us something to do during detention. I glanced at
Ms. Wigle out of the corner of my eye and decided she would be evil enough to
do such a thing. She was absolutely the most horrid teacher the school had ever
hired, everyone thought so.
The late June heat
beat upon us as we labored silently, neither of us daring to be caught checking
our watches. Alex found a spare moment every time the teacher looked away to
prod me in the head with the stick. Telling him off wouldn’t do anything but
alert the probing eyes of Sergeant Wigle, so I just stormed away from him
towards the edge of the roof where there were some old Pepsi cans. That’s when
he started throwing gravel. Little bits, one by one they hit their mark.
I don’t know if I
was delirious from the heat or what, but something in my head clicked, and I
decided something huge: Alex Miller had finally crossed the line. My mind was
full of every time he’d ever tried to ruin my life. I saw the arrogance on his
face as he chatted up my dream girl, Annie Jones, just to spite me. I felt the
milk drip down my face after it was poured over my head. I heard my favorite
CDs crack, and I smelled the rotten eggs he’d hidden in my desk and my
backpack. I dropped my litter stick and turned to face him, preparing to fight
or scream or something. I envisioned I was turning into some kind of Hulk, all
veiny and muscular, ripping off my shirt and tearing him limb from limb, but
Alex just chuckled. Our teacher had her back to us, updating her grade book,
and she was too far away to hear us if we talked quietly. I was fuming, and
started turning red.
“What’s the
matter, Shit-Shorts? Feeling constipated? In fact, you look like you’re about
ready to drop one right here,” He taunted. I knew what he was doing—he was
trying to get me to start a scene, one that he could blame on me. I still
hadn’t decided how to take him down, so I said nothing. He grew impatient with
me, because I was usually such an easy mark. But as he sauntered over to me, I
had a revelation. A sense of calm washed over me as I understood what I had to
do. It was flawless, the beauty of my plan. There he was, two feet in front of
me, arm cocked for a swift hit to the ribs, when he froze. I was wearing a big
goofy smile on my face, which is something most bullies are unaccustomed to
seeing on their prey. While he was still trying to figure out what I was
grinning at, I gave him a big wink, and shouted, “Alex! Stop! What’re you doing?” It was loud enough for Ms. Wigle to
hear, and she swung around just in time to see me, falling out of sight off the
edge, and Alex, who still had his fist in the air.
***
My hospital room
was more decked out than I could’ve hoped. They got the whole school to sign
one of those oversized cards, and I couldn’t see the window for all the flowers
and teddy bears. My doting mother sat by my side, dotting her eyes with a
hankie as she cooed over her precious little darling, and my father stood beaming
on the other side, boasting to every nurse that passed about how tough his son
was. I lost track of how many people came to visit me, partly because of the
painkillers. They told me about how Ms. Wigle tackled Alex on the roof (now
that I would like to have seen), how Alex is going to go to juvie for aggravated
assault, and how Ms. Wigle is under suspension for letting us up on the roof in
the first place. I know it’s wrong to lie, but I decided it wasn’t lying if I
just failed to correct them, just like my classmates always let me get punished
instead of Alex. I spent 3 days in that hospital, and I got a total of 87
signatures on my two full-leg casts. Annie Jones signed hers with a heart.
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