Saturday
Calvin’s house, 7:30 p.m.
It was like looking in a mirror—a horrible, cursed mirror that showed the future. Calvin’s face had never felt like his own; he shared all his features with his father. Same dark brow, straight nose, hollow cheeks, green eyes. His father was himself plus thirty years, and looking at him felt like a threat from life: Behold your fate. Calvin stood still, waiting for their miserable father-and-son ritual to be over.
“I’m not high,” he said hoarsely. Mr. Harker was gripping his throat, almost strangling him. He stared into his son’s eyes, looking for signs that he was lying: sclerotic redness, glassiness, puffy lids, unusually dilated pupils. He didn’t believe anything Calvin said anymore.
Calvin took shallow breaths. His dad was cutting off his windpipe. It was purposefully cruel. Mr. Harker had Marfan syndrome too—it was inherited—and he knew his son bruised easily. But Calvin had no choice but to meet his dad’s eyes, which were boring intensely into his own. It was uncomfortably intimate. At this point, the two barely felt like father and son anymore; it was more like jailer and inmate. What had begun as a normal disciplinary skirmish (“Go to your room!” “No!”) had escalated into an all-consuming battle of wills between the two Harkers.
Father: You will submit.
Son: I will escape.
Calvin felt nervous, even though he knew he didn’t have a reason to be. He was definitely, definitely not high. He hadn’t introduced a single intoxicant into his system for six days. He felt like his old self again. Dead inside, uninspired, trapped.
After he crashed the Jaguar, Calvin’s lockdown had gotten truly serious. Mr. Harker had reinstalled the lock on the basement and enforced it with two extras. He made sure Calvin only did homework, nothing else, and checked his progress every few hours. His mother and sister stayed out of it, which somehow hurt worse than anything.
The week had been a mind-numbing blur of math and Moby Dick and catching up on all the overdue projects he’d been blowing off lately. He’d been allowed ten minutes of Internet a day on his dad’s computer in order to e-mail assignments to teachers. No music, no poetry. His mind felt so blank he couldn’t have written a poem anyway. At night he dreamed of the sky above his head and the ground beneath his feet. In the morning he woke up on a cot amid four blank, windowless walls.
The only thing that had kept him moving forward was the dance. His dad had promised that if he got his shit together and maintained his solid number-one position in the sophomore class, he could go to the Homecoming dance. His drug stash was completely wiped, but freedom would be enough of a high after the week he’d had. And if it wasn’t, hopefully Virginia would have some Percocet.
Mr. Harker finally dropped his hand. Calvin took a deep breath of air.
“You know the rules,” Mr. Harker said. His voice was gravelly and severe. “You will not leave the gym. You will be home by ten o’clock, and you can expect a Breathalyzer and a urine test. Olek will be watching your every move.”
Mr. Harker gestured to the stony Slavic man who’d been lurking in the corner this whole time. He was like no man Calvin had ever encountered in real life. His head was shaved and he wore a gaudy Tag Heuer watch. Calvin could see the tiniest hint of a neck tattoo peeking out of his collar. Thick biceps strained the sleeves of his shirt. Where on earth had his dad found such a man? Certainly not at the Beau Ideal golf course or the Harvard Alumni Association. Calvin tried not to feel intimidated. It didn’t matter if this guy could crush his skull with his fist. Calvin didn’t need to fight him; he only needed to outsmart him.
“If you take drugs tonight, Olek has been instructed to remove you from the dance and return you to my custody. If you give anyone drugs tonight, I will call the police.”
No you won’t, Calvin thought. If the homework prison downstairs revealed anything, it was Mr. Harker’s fanatical desire for his prize brain of a son to achieve academically. There was no honor roll in juvie, and his father knew that. They were both inventive men: Mr. Harker would invent ways to keep Calvin in school; Calvin would invent ways to get away.
“This is a test,” Mr. Harker continued. “If you ever want to leave the house again, you will behave yourself and give Olek no cause for concern. Trust is earned, not given.”
“Yes sir,” Calvin said.
Mr. Harker nodded toward the front door. “Enjoy your evening.”
Calvin went to the door. Olek mirrored his movements, as if connected to him by an invisible tether. Calvin imagined how it would look, entering a high school dance shadowed by a babysitter plucked from the Russian mafia.
Then something caught his eye out the window. A man was walking in a circle around the dented Jaguar in the driveway. Not a man—a boy. But he looked like a man. He was wearing a sophisticated gray wool suit instead of the sloppy khaki pants/blue blazer/random tie combination that was de rigeur among Winship boys.
It was Benny Flax.
“Ve vill go?” Olek asked behind him. Calvin could feel his eyes boring into his back.
“Just one minute.”
He watched Benny circle the car twice, then stare intently at the massive dent in the driver’s side. What are you up to? Calvin wondered. He liked Benny and found him mildly interesting. But Benny was a product of the world. He was always staring at the ground, searching for clues. Didn’t he understand that the true clues of life were in the stars? This world was a speck in the universe. The mysteries here didn’t matter. Benny was on the wrong track, and always would be.
The parking lot, 8:00 p.m.
This would probably end up being the worst decision of his entire life. Craig was aware of this on some level. But he’d made up his mind—or at least what constituted a mind after five shots of Woodford Reserve and a Miller High Life. He was drunk. He shouldn’t have been driving. But what did it matter? His car was already wrecked, thanks to that asshole freak Calvin Harker, who’d destroyed the fender and the bumper at Trevor’s party. It was humiliating, having to drive around in this dented hunk of garbage. Calvin hadn’t even apologized.
“Yull be sorrrry,” Craig slurred to himself. He was slumped in the driver’s seat, typing out increasingly garbled drunk-texts to Trevor Cheek.
Dude com outside u cant hide from me
He wasn’t sure exactly what his plan was. He just wanted someone to fucking apologize. Trevor for letting Craig take the fall for the golf team when the whole thing had been his idea. Calvin for destroying his car with his big gay Jaguar. Winn Davis for being so popular without ever having to work for it. The whole school for being a piece of shit and never appreciating him.
You’ll all be sorry, he thought. It was in his power to bring them all down; all he had to do was open his mouth. It was more power than he’d ever felt in his life. Greater than the power of being Trevor’s wacky sidekick and getting invited to parties. Greater than the power of making people laugh with his dumbass YouTube channel. This was the power to annihilate and destroy. He’d felt it when he called the cops on Trevor’s party, and he wanted to feel it again. The only catch was that he’d have to destroy himself in the process. But he didn’t care. It’d be worth it to see the looks on their faces. The entire golf team: expelled. Winship’s reputation: down the toilet once and for all.
He got a text. He squinted at the words, which were going in and out of focus. It wasn’t from Trevor; it was from Skylar Jones.
Dude, AV closet is locked. What the hell u want anyway?
Damn it, Craig thought. He really should have planned this better. He’d come up with a vague idea of getting Skylar, who worked in the audio-visual lab, to project the picture from the golf course onto the wall of the gym the second they announced Homecoming King and Queen. That would have brought the evening to a nice grinding halt! Craig rubbed his temples, wishing he hadn’t gotten so drunk. His thoughts felt sloppy and slow, and he was having a hard time coming up with a new idea. Maybe he could just grab the microphone when the King and Queen were announced and make a shocking confession.
“Ladays and gently-man,” he practiced. “Shit.” There was no way he could deliver a coherent confession in this state. He racked his drunken mind. There had to be another way.
That’s when it hit him. The gun. The shiny silver Beretta he’d borrowed from his dad to use at the science expo last week. He checked the glove compartment, fumbling a little with the latch. Sure enough, it was still there. It wasn’t loaded, but Trevor didn’t need to know that. Craig felt a surge of violent glee as he imagined the scene: Trevor, gun to his head, confessing everything to the entire school.
“Say it,” Craig practiced saying. “Tell them what you made me do.” He made me do it, he thought, revising the memories in his mind. It wasn’t my fault.
He had a small, nagging feeling that maybe this idea was a little too extreme. But it already felt too late to turn back, as if the idea had a will of its own, and was running on full steam, and Craig was just its pawn.
Bullets don’t kill; velocity kills.
The gym, 8:10 p.m.
Virginia loitered by the punch bowl, sipping cup after cup of too-sweet red swill. So far the dance had been . . . weird. Some genius in the senior class had sent out a mass e-mail that morning declaring that it was Opposite Day, so the boys could swoop in and restore order instead of everyone going stag. On the one hand, it was degrading to witness how eagerly the girls of Winship had relinquished the power to choose their own dates; on the other hand, given the general quality of the boys, it was equally degrading to think that was a power worth having in the first place.
And now the Opposite Day thing seemed to be taking on a life of its own. A group of rowdy guys were dominating the dance floor, fast-dancing during the slow songs and slow-dancing during the fast songs. Maybe Virginia should have been pleased by the chaos—she was always complaining about how boring Winship was and how nothing interesting ever happened. But deep down, she knew she relied on the school’s usual monotony so she could seem more interesting in comparison.
She felt bulky and awkward with a cast on one arm and a purse hanging from the other. No one wore purses to dances. Either you put your stuff in your date’s pockets, or you tucked it into your bra. But Virginia was carrying a passport and two sizable pill bottles, which made the purse necessary.
Bring a passport if u have one.
Every time she thought about it, Virginia felt a rush of exhilaration. A passport? Were they running away together? The idea was so crazy, she tried not to get too excited. Calvin probably just needed a government-issued ID to confirm her identity for some reason.
Virginia looked around. The gym was tastefully decorated with blue streamers and strings of lights. It didn’t magically resemble a ballroom the way dances did on TV shows. But it was a far cry from how it had looked last Thursday at the science expo. It felt pretty and romantic, or at least it would have if the buffoons on the dance floor would chill out and stop being obsessed with Opposite Day.
She scanned the gym for Benny. For some reason she felt nervous about seeing him. Maybe it was the romantic setting. It had been easy to push their weird kiss under the rug in the dismal environments of the hospital and the school cafeteria. But what if tonight it felt like a date? Or worse, like it was Chrissie’s date and Virginia was the pathetic third wheel?
I don’t care if you kiss me. I don’t care if you burn my house to the ground. She kept thinking about those words. Wasn’t it strange that he’d equated kissing with committing a crime?
“Dudes, Opposite Day! I’m using a plate as a cup!”
Virginia turned and saw Skylar Jones dumping a ladle of punch onto a small cake plate. Of course it sloshed everywhere, splattering across the floor. In a way, Virginia was glad she didn’t have Zaire’s expensive clothes anymore. What did it matter if Skylar spilled punch on her shitty Target dress? But at the same time, it was depressing. She missed the feeling that wearing Zaire’s clothes had given her. The feeling of dignity.
One of the teacher chaperones walked past, carrying a plastic case containing the Homecoming crowns: a delicate tiara for the queen and a thick, pointy gold helmet for the king. The tiara didn’t make Virginia feel the remotest bit covetous. Who wanted to be the queen of a bunch of high school sheep? She had bigger dreams.
She hadn’t even bothered to e-mail her vote. It was pretty much written in stone that the golden couple Corny Davenport and Winn Davis would win, despite being juniors. The senior class was a particularly boring one that year, with no standouts like Corny and Winn. Amid cheers and applause, they’d be lifted into the horse-drawn carriage for a victory ride around campus. For Virginia it represented just how pointless it was to be popular: riding around in a circle, feeling special but not actually going anywhere.
She saw Benny across the gym. He spotted her immediately and started walking toward her. He looked . . . amazing. He was wearing a snappy suit that fit him perfectly. There was something in his hand. As he came closer, Virginia could see that it was a rose corsage. A yellow rose, just like the one he’d given her in the hospital. Maybe he’d decided not to come with Chrissie after all.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi!” Virginia said back. The DJ was playing an embarrassing Tim McGraw love song, and a handful of guys were square-dancing to it clownishly. Their dates were giggling at the edge of the dance floor. The whole thing felt like fifth grade. Virginia straightened her posture, hoping she looked as grown-up as Benny. She knew she probably didn’t. Compared to him, she was sure she looked like a ten-year-old who’d broken her arm on the swing set.
She noticed Benny eyeing her cast. He was probably worrying that the corsage wouldn’t fit on it. It didn’t matter. She could just wear it on the other wrist.
“How exactly did that happen?” he asked. He didn’t sound curious. He sounded suspicious.
Virginia cocked her eyebrow. “What, my arm? I told you. Big Gabe crashed into us.”
“Why were you in the driver’s seat? You can’t drive.”
“Um, I—”
Benny cut her off. “And even if, for some bizarre reason, you had attempted to drive, why would that result in your right arm being broken? It should be your left.”
Virginia folded her arms instinctively, as if she could somehow hide the cast. Her mind whirred, trying to come up with an explanation that contained the basic elements of the truth without actually being the truth. Admitting that she’d essentially caused the crash by jumping into Calvin’s lap and ramming her tongue down his throat was not an option right now. Not the way Benny was looking at her.
“Whatever,” she said finally. “I’m not required to tell you every single thing about my life. It’s not like you tell me anything.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Virginia stared at him for a second. “Benny, who do you think you’re talking to? I know everything. About everyone. Did you know Corny Davenport is pregnant?”
Benny looked baffled. “Excuse me?”
“I know that Chrissie White went to your house.”
Benny didn’t respond. He was looking past her at something. Virginia glanced over her shoulder. There was a man loitering at the doors of the gym. He looked like a guy in a mob film who gets shot in the first scene and is credited as Gangster #1. He was too young to be anyone’s dad, and he definitely wasn’t a teacher.
“Friend of yours?” Virginia asked.
“What? No.” Benny sounded annoyed.
Virginia scowled. How the hell was she supposed to know? He’d shown up at the hospital with that dreamboat Rodrigo—for all she knew, Benny had a whole collection of older guy friends to trot out at random times.
“He has a gun,” Benny said. “Concealed under his arm. He’s watching Calvin.”
“Calvin’s here?” Virginia followed Benny’s eyes. She spotted Calvin in a dark corner talking to Skylar and Sophat. Her heart raced and she looked away, not ready to make eye contact with him yet.
“This guy looks . . . serious,” Benny said. Then he turned back to Virginia. “Listen, do what you want. But I advise you to stay away from Calvin tonight. That man could be a drug dealer. Or a cartel enforcer. Whoever he is, he has a gun, and Calvin led him here.”
“Oh my god,” Virginia breathed. It was so thrilling she could barely stand it. This definitely explained the passport thing. Calvin was fleeing a hit man! And he was taking her with him! She opened her mouth to tell Benny but stopped herself. He’d think she was insane to want to go along. Fifteen minutes into the dance and she’d already reached her peak tolerance of Benny’s judginess. If she wanted to do this, she couldn’t expect Benny to cheer her on.
“I’ll see you later,” she said curtly, setting down her cup of punch.
“See you later,” he mumbled back.
She made a point of taking the long way around the dance floor so Benny wouldn’t think she was running straight to Calvin, which she wasn’t. Virginia was a better tactician than that. As she strode into the lobby, she turned to take a last look at the refreshments table, feeling a tiny twinge of guilt for leaving Benny alone so abruptly. But he wasn’t alone. Chrissie had materialized out of thin air, as if she’d been hiding behind the punch bowl, waiting to pounce on Benny the second Virginia left. She watched them for a moment. Chrissie looked like a wide-eyed kitten. She was touching the lapel of Benny’s suit, obviously awed by it. Benny was staring awkwardly at his shoes. He hated compliments. Didn’t Chrissie know that about him? He held out the yellow rose corsage and Chrissie seized it excitedly.
So it wasn’t for me anyway, Virginia thought. She’d been feeling weirdly undecided about Benny for a while now. But the corsage pretty much settled it. It wasn’t for her.
The hallway, 8:45 p.m.
“You want the red pill this time?”
“Nah. I definitely want the blue again.”
“Good. ’Cause I definitely want the red.”
The conversation made Winn uneasy. He wasn’t sure if it was such a great idea for Trevor to have another red pill. Hadn’t he nearly killed DeAndre Bell when he took one of those last time? Whatever, Winn thought. He had bigger problems, and it was impossible to reason with Trevor anyway. Ever since Winn had told him that he knew who the mysterious drug dealer was, all Trevor could talk about was getting more pills so he could “Hulk out” again. The Incredible Hulk was Trevor’s favorite Avenger. Winn’s favorite was Thor, even though it was confusing because Thor wasn’t in the Bible.
They sat side by side against the lockers in the dimly lit corridor. Trevor’s phone buzzed for the hundredth time. He pulled it out and started messing with it.
“Damn it,” he said. “I can’t figure out how to block people on this thing. I want my old phone back.” Trevor was famous for having the junkiest phone on earth, which he never upgraded as a point of pride. But he’d lost it last Friday and been forced to get a decent one because they didn’t make his old model anymore.
“Here, give it to me. Who are you trying to block?”
“Fuckin’ Craig.”
Winn took the phone and scrolled through the barrage of messages. “What does he want?”
“He’s trying to sneak into the dance. I’m like, dude, you’re suspended. Go home and play video games and leave me the fuck alone.”
Poor Craig, Winn thought. He was the latest toy that Trevor had played with and discarded. Trevor did that with everyone. He’d broken so many of the cheerleaders’ hearts that he had to date Tate Prep girls now because none of the Winship girls would go near him. He just used people until he got bored and threw them away. In fact, the only person he didn’t pull that shit with was Winn. They’d been best friends since they were five, even though they barely liked each other half the time. Trevor thought Winn was a bummer; Winn thought Trevor was an asshole. But they were used to each other, and besides, who else was there to be friends with?
“I heard you knocked up your girl,” Trevor said, elbowing him in the ribs.
“Yeah . . . ,” Winn replied.
“Nice.”
It still didn’t feel real. Winn and Corny: together forever. FOREVER. It was a little terrifying. Probably the only reason they were together in the first place was because they had the same first three letters of their last names, so they’d been thrown together constantly in the alphabetized world of middle school. Corny said God made it happen because they were soul mates. But to Winn it seemed hopelessly random, that his entire life’s path was being determined by the fact that his name was Winn Davis and not Winn Jones.
“There he is,” Trevor said. “Hey, Cal! C’mere, buddy!”
Trevor was always doing that, acting all chummy with people he barely ever talked to. As Calvin Harker approached them, a weird feeling came over Winn. He was used to being the tallest guy in the room and always looking down at people. But Calvin was at least four inches taller than him. Winn knew he could snap the guy like a twig, but he still felt strangely intimidated. There was also the fact that Calvin had been part of his and Trevor’s class growing up. He’d been held back after his heart cancer thing or whatever, so now he was a sophomore. But Winn still felt a vague proprietary feeling toward him. Calvin was a weirdo, but he was their weirdo. Except he wasn’t.
“What’s up?” Calvin said. Winn noticed him giving a quick glance over his shoulder. There was an incredibly weird-looking bald guy lurking in the corner of the lobby, watching them. He made Winn nervous. What if he was a cop, and they were all about to be arrested? But Calvin didn’t seem to be bothered by his presence at all.
“You got some more of that cool stuff?” Trevor whispered.
Cool stuff. Sometimes Trevor was such a kid, it made Winn remember why they were friends. He wished he could go back in time to when they were seven years old and life was just cool stuff like playing with G.I. Joes and going hunting with their dads and eating hot dogs at football games.
Calvin looked at them for a second, obviously debating whether to deny that the secret drug dealer at the science expo had been him. Then he shrugged, apparently deciding it wasn’t worth it. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m totally out right now.”
“But you have some of the blue pills, right?” Winn asked, hearing the pathetic desperation in his own voice.
Calvin shook his head again. “Sorry, man. And even if I did, you can’t take that stuff all the time. Like, once a month, max.”
Once a month? Once a MONTH? Winn felt his stomach sink. His plan was to take it every day! How else was he supposed to deal with having a baby? “Wait, are you serious?” he asked.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s ecstasy. You have to be careful. You’ll end up with serious brain damage if you take it too often.”
“But—except—well—I—” Winn stammered helplessly, wanting to explain that he’d rather have brain damage than face his life right now. In fact, brain damage would probably make it easier.
“I really can’t be talking about this,” Calvin whispered. “It’s a very sensitive time for me.” He nodded toward the bald guy staring at them from the corner. Then, without another word, he walked away.
“There goes my night,” Trevor said glumly. He kicked the locker, and the sound echoed down the dreary hallway. Winn covered his face with his hands.
There goes my life.
The refreshments table, 9:00 p.m.
“So, what do you like most about playing the flute?”
Benny gritted his teeth. Be polite, he ordered himself. Chrissie seemed to have read an article in a women’s magazine about how to make conversation on a date. He looked around the gym for Virginia. Where had she gone? Chrissie was nice and she looked very pretty, but she didn’t seem to understand that Benny didn’t come to dances to chitchat; he came to Be There. It was hard to concentrate on his surroundings with her hanging on him and distracting him. He wished Virginia would come back and run interference on her or something.
“I totally love your suit,” Chrissie was saying for the eighth time. “Is it Italian?”
“I don’t know. It’s my dad’s.”
Benny couldn’t say exactly why he’d decided to wear it. He was just tired of looking like an idiot all the time. He didn’t want to be the hideous nerd Virginia saw him as, but he didn’t want to be the blow-dried, pink-Polo-wearing country club phony either. He wanted to be himself. A capable, intelligent man: a Flax. Last week he’d been too afraid to even touch the suit, like he thought he didn’t deserve it or something. But it was time to stop behaving like a seventh grader with low self-esteem. An invitation to become a man wasn’t going to arrive in the mail—that fact was suddenly obvious. So he’d put the suit on. It was his now. And all the things he’d been afraid of—that his mother would be offended, that Virginia would make fun of him—they just melted away.
“Do you want to dance?” Chrissie said in her tiny voice.
Benny looked at the dance floor, which was empty except for a handful of unruly guys making a mockery of things. Everyone else was milling around outside and in the lobby, waiting for the Opposite Day joke to die so they could start taking the dance seriously and actually enjoy themselves. The scene was utterly emblematic of how things operated at Winship: a bunch of immature guys at the top forcing everyone to tiptoe around them until they got bored enough of acting like ogres for everyone else to have a decent evening.
Benny squinted out the doors into the lobby. Calvin Harker had just ducked into the boys’ bathroom, followed by the tough-looking goon with the gun.
“Hey, can you give me a minute? I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going?”
Benny didn’t answer her. He swiftly crossed the dance floor, narrowly avoiding Skylar and Sophat doing the Macarena to a Taylor Swift song. His heart was pounding. Was Calvin Harker about to get shot by a cartel enforcer? In the boys’ bathroom? At a Homecoming dance? Benny listened at the bathroom door for a second. Then he pushed it open with his foot, peering inside.
Calvin was washing his hands in the sink. The bald man was standing by the urinals with his muscular arms crossed, not doing anything. It was weird. The two obviously knew each other, but they weren’t speaking, and Calvin seemed to be pretending the bald man was invisible.
“Hi, Benny,” Calvin said, noticing him in the doorway.
HI, BENNY. Benny’s jaw clenched, unsure whether the pointedness he heard in Calvin’s voice was real or only in his mind. He stepped inside, not wanting Calvin to think he wasn’t in control. “Hi,” he said back.
“So far so weird, huh?” Calvin remarked.
“What?”
“This whole Opposite Day thing.”
“Right . . .”
Then Calvin seemed to notice Benny glancing at the guy by the urinals. “Oh, don’t mind Olek. He’s my date! Aren’t you, Olek?”
The man, evidently named Olek, made a short grunting sound.
“We’re having a very romantic evening. Think they’ll play our song, Olek?”
Benny narrowed his eyes at them. He didn’t believe Olek was Calvin’s “date” for a second. But who the hell was he?
“Anyway,” Calvin said, shaking the water off his wet hands. “Don’t bother spending your Mystery Club resources on me tonight. I am clean as a whistle.”
“No red pills?” Benny said, testing Calvin and Olek’s reactions. Both of their faces were expressionless.
“No pills of any color in the rainbow.” Calvin grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser.
“It’s your fault, what happened to DeAndre,” Benny accused him. Calvin’s blasé attitude was getting under his skin for some reason. He wanted to see Calvin flinch.
“Excuse me?” Calvin seemed genuinely confused.
“You gave Trevor the drug that wound him up. Then you caused the blackout, which gave him the opportunity to attack.”
“The blackout was necessary. My dad is a prison warden and I needed to escape the bathroom without being seen. I didn’t know there would be such a high price.”
“So you admit that you’re partly responsible?” Why am I pressing this? Benny wondered. Calvin’s cool demeanor was making him feel more and more agitated.
“Trevor’s a monster. He would have done it anyway. Or something worse.”
“You can’t be sure of that,” Benny argued. “You set all this in motion. You gave Trevor drugs. You put him in a violent state of mind.”
Calvin shook his head. “Drugs don’t change who we are. They reveal who we are.”
Benny didn’t know how to continue defending his point. When it came to drugs, he was completely straight-edge. The sip of bourbon from Rodrigo was the most illicit substance Benny had ever consumed in his life. He didn’t feel equipped to debate the philosophy of drug-induced states with Calvin, who was obviously a drug aficionado. Benny glanced at Olek. He couldn’t tell if the man was listening to them particularly closely, or if he even understood English.
“Well, what about what happened on the golf course?” Benny challenged, switching his line of attack. “Do you feel bad about that?”
Calvin held up his hands. “I was just there to golf. I did not participate in . . . that.”
“But you didn’t stop it.”
He met Benny’s eyes in the mirror. “I’m not in charge of those guys. You couldn’t have stopped it either.”
“I wouldn’t have been there in the first place.”
“Well, that is certainly true.”
This time the pointedness of the remark was unmistakable. Benny said nothing, and a tense moment passed.
“I’m sorry,” Calvin said finally. “I didn’t mean it like that. I mean, maybe I did. But you’re being very judgmental and it’s making me defensive.”
“I’m not judging,” Benny said. “I’m just . . . I’m just . . .” The sentence hung unfinished in the air.
Calvin balled up his paper towel and tossed it in the trash.
“I was wondering,” he said, his tone suddenly brisk and casual, “is Mystery Club accepting new membership right now?”
Oh god. “Of course,” Benny forced himself to say. It was against his ethos to exclude people, but the idea of Calvin Harker invading his club made him feel panicked.
“Virginia told me about your investigation into the student-body president election. Very very interesting . . .”
“Very,” Benny said back, like a dumb parrot.
“How do you use that sort of information?”
Benny looked at Calvin in the mirror. “What do you mean, how do we use it?”
“I mean, what do you do?”
Calvin turned from the mirror and looked right at Benny. The wild green of his eyes seemed to be dialed up about ten notches. Do not stare into the eyes of your opponent: he may mesmerize you. Do not fix your gaze on his sword: he may intimidate you. It was one of the principles of aikido. But Calvin’s eyes were so intense, Benny couldn’t make himself look away.
“We . . . We don’t do anything.”
There was a pause. Then Calvin smiled. “That’s what I thought. Okay, let’s go, Olek. Don’t want you to miss one magical moment.”
Calvin brushed past Benny and sailed out the door. The apparently mute Olek followed him, leaving Benny alone. The fluorescent light above his head buzzed irritatingly. Benny looked sourly at his reflection. Why had that encounter been so frustrating? Because Calvin didn’t seem to care what Benny thought of him? No one ever cared what Benny thought; why should that suddenly bother him now?
He left the bathroom, unsure where to go next. He didn’t want to be alone with his reflection anymore, but he didn’t want to go back to sipping endless punch with Chrissie either. He went to the lobby doors and stepped outside. The crowd had thinned as everyone finally started to head to the gym. Only a few stragglers remained, guys leaning against their cars and waiting till the very last minute to put on their ties. The air felt cool and wintry. Benny took a deep breath.
I am calm however and whenever I am attacked. I have no attachment to life or death.
Something rustled in the bush next to him. “Hello?”
A person tumbled out, landing at Benny’s feet. Benny jumped back instinctively. The person tried to stand up but stumbled on himself and fell down again.
“Craig?”
He made a second attempt to stand up, propping himself up on the bush.
“Are you drunk?” Benny asked, though the answer was plainly evident. Craig didn’t seem to have heard the question anyway. He pointed himself toward the door and lurched forward.
“Whoa whoa whoa,” Benny said, stepping in front of him. “You shouldn’t be here. You’re suspended.”
Craig scoffed, looking at Benny like he was just now noticing he was there. “Move, freak,” he said.
Benny didn’t move. “Craig, get out of here. I’ll call a teacher if I have to.”
“Call a teacher, you lil pussy,” Craig slurred. He gave Benny a push.
“Hey!” Benny said. “Don’t touch me.”
Craig reached out and rubbed his hands sloppily on Benny’s face. Benny swatted him away, catching his glasses before they fell off. “Don’t touch me!” he repeated.
Craig stepped back and looked Benny up and down. “What the hell are you wearing?”
“Go home, Craig.”
“You look like a mini-man. Are you a mini-man?”
“Shut up!”
“Move!” Craig stepped to the right, but Benny blocked him. Then Craig stepped the other way, and Benny blocked him again. Something was coming over him. Usually Benny didn’t care what people did—it was his ethos not to interfere in “the way” of life. But he felt his fists tightening with anger. It meant nothing to Craig that he was suspended; it meant nothing to him, what he’d done. A sequence of images flashed in Benny’s mind: the mutilated deer head, the pool of blood, “HI, BENNY,” Craig’s black-painted face. All of them laughing, everything a joke.
“You’re not welcome here,” Benny said. “Get out.”
What happened next happened very quickly. Craig swung his fist, and Benny grabbed it and used his momentum to slam Craig’s entire body on the ground.
“Fuuuuck!” Craig groaned.
“Whoaaa!” people were shouting behind him. “Fight! Fight!”
Craig jumped to his feet and launched himself at Benny. Benny dodged him, and Craig ran face-first into a wall. It was like a cartoon, only there was no funny sound effect (“BONK! BOINGGGG!”), only Craig crumpling to the ground with blood running from his face.
Something shiny had skidded out of his pocket onto the grass. It was a gun. Benny stared at it for a long second, stunned. That’s a gun, he told himself, disbelieving his own eyes. It didn’t occur to him to call for help. His loner/detective instincts kicked in, and he dove down and grabbed it, quickly tucking it into his pants. People were all around now, but Benny barely saw them. He braced himself for further attack. Craig had pulled himself up and was baring his teeth like an animal.
“I’M GONNA FUCK YOU UP, KIKE!” he screamed. He hurled himself at Benny, but Benny leaped out of the way.
Aikido is not used to fight. It is the way to reconcile the world and make human beings one family. It was a saying by O’Sensei, the founder of aikido. But Benny didn’t want to be a family with human beings like Craig. He wanted to punch human beings like Craig in the face.
THWACK!
Craig tipped back like a felled tree. The two seconds between Benny’s fist making contact and Craig’s body hitting the ground felt like a long, infinite eternity. Benny dimly registered the sound of applause all around him. They weren’t cheering for him, he knew. They were cheering for violence—for the triumph of barbarity over civility. They’d be clapping just as loudly if Craig’s punch had been the one to land instead of his own. Suddenly Benny felt dizzy.
Oh my god. What did I just do?
The girls’ bathroom, 9:20 p.m.
Virginia wasn’t hiding. She was just . . . laying low. That’s what she told herself anyway. She was so nervous to see Calvin it was giving her butterflies. And without Benny to talk to, she didn’t feel confident enough to go back into the gym and just stand around awkwardly. This is what it must feel like to be Chrissie, she suddenly understood. But the thought didn’t fill her with compassion; it just made her hate herself for sinking this low. She looked in the mirror and messed with her hair for the millionth time.
Get it together, she commanded herself.
She could hear shouting coming from the lobby. It took her a second to realize that it was actual shouting, not just general excitement. Something was happening out there. She abandoned her reflection and raced out the door. A huge crowd was gathered at the doors.
“What’s going on?” Virginia asked the first person she saw.
“Scooby-Doo killed Craig!” a hysterical ninth-grade girl shrieked.
“What?” Virginia shouted. Without waiting for an answer, she squeezed her way to the center of the crowd. An ambulance had pulled up next to the white horse and carriage. A pair of EMTs were wheeling a stretcher into the back.
“What happened?” she asked someone else. “Is Craig really dead?”
The guy just shrugged. Virginia noticed a splatter of blood on the concrete at her feet. She whirled around, looking for Benny.
“YOU’LL BE SORRY! YOU’LL BE SORRY!” someone was screaming. It was coming from the ambulance. It was Craig. He sounded like a lunatic. It felt like the end of a horror movie where the guy gets dragged away in a straitjacket. What the hell is going on?
Finally she spotted Benny a ways off, talking to a man and a woman. She recognized them immediately. It was that pair of detectives who always showed up whenever anything at Winship got weird. She started walking toward them. Then she felt a hand on her wrist.
“Virginia.”
She turned around, startled. It was Calvin. The red lights from the ambulance flickered on his pale face. His eyes were completely focused on her, like he didn’t notice the craziness around them at all. Or maybe he just didn’t care. She tried to think of something to say, but he spoke first:
“It’s almost time. Are you ready?”
The courtyard, 9:45 p.m.
I have a gun. I have a gun.
He kept thinking it over and over while Mr. Rashid and four other teachers plus the two detectives made him explain what had happened for the eighth time:
“I saw him, and he was obviously intoxicated. I tried to prevent him from entering the dance. He fought me, and I fought back in self-defense. I didn’t mean to injure him so severely.”
Now would be the time to mention the gun, if he were going to. But he didn’t. Why would he help these two idiot detectives? It still felt weird, lying. But it was only the anxiety of being immoral, not the anxiety of actually getting caught. Adults didn’t know anything—that was suddenly very clear. They didn’t have X-ray vision. They weren’t psychic. They weren’t going to strip-search him. He was the good guy here, after all. He’d saved the dance from a drunken, suspended interloper! No one had caught him when he pulled the fire alarm, and no one was going to catch him now. It was a spectacular illusion, the authority of adults.
Only Detective Disco didn’t seem to be entirely buying it. He gave Benny a suspicious look and said, “I’m getting pretty used to seeing your face, Benny Flax. Wherever I am, you seem to appear.”
“Maybe we’re soul mates,” Benny said back, feeling mildly astonished at himself. He’d never been sarcastic with an adult before. He’d been raised to be respectful.
The detective’s female partner snorted. “Let’s get out of here, Disco.”
“You’re a good man, Benny Flax,” Mr. Rashid said, slapping him on the back in a way that made Benny feel more like a good dog than a good man.
Suddenly a huge, cheering crowd surged out the lobby doors into the courtyard. For a second Benny thought the cheering was for him. But then he realized no one was even looking at him, which made him feel foolish and egotistical. They were cheering for someone else. They were cheering for . . .
Calvin?
“God save the king!” people were shouting. Calvin towered in the middle of the crowd, smiling hugely while they herded him toward the horse and carriage.
Benny felt a soft hand on his wrist. He turned around, hoping it was Virginia. It was Chrissie. She kissed him on the cheek—a quick, incredibly soft and graceful kiss.
“I heard what you did!” she breathed. “You’re amazing.”
“What’s going on?” he asked her, shouting over the noise. “What are they doing with Calvin?”
“He’s Homecoming King!” she squealed.
Benny watched as Calvin was hoisted by the crowd into the carriage. Was this for real? In what universe was Calvin Harker the Homecoming King?
Chrissie was clapping and giggling. “Isn’t it funny? It’s Opposite Day!”
Benny shook his head. “He . . . he must have rigged it.”
“What did you say?” Chrissie shouted.
“He rigged it!” Benny shouted back, not sure why he was even explaining this to her. “Why would he do that?”
Chrissie shrugged. “Maybe he just wanted to be a king for a day. Wouldn’t you?”
Benny shook his head. “No. I believe in democracy.”
“You’re just like my grandfather!” Chrissie said, which at first Benny assumed was an insult. It was like Virginia calling him a ninety-year-old man. But when he looked at Chrissie’s face, her wide eyes were full of . . . awe. Apparently it was a compliment. She sighed deeply and leaned against him. Benny adjusted himself so that she wouldn’t feel the gun in his pants, which she seemed to take as an invitation to plaster herself even closer to him.
In the carriage, Calvin extended his freakishly long arm toward the crowd. As if she weighed nothing, a girl was lifted up in the arms of the crowd. Benny watched as her small hand was engulfed by Calvin’s long, bony fingers. It was Virginia.
“God save the queen!”
“Long live Opposite Day!”
Look at me, Benny pleaded with her in his mind. But he was lost in a sea of people, and she wasn’t searching for him. She was laughing—not the mean, smirking laugh he was used to seeing. Her smile was radiant, and her pale skin shined as if glowing from within. On top of her head sat a delicate silver tiara. It looked perfect, nestled in her thicket of curls. Calvin’s crown looked goofier, plunked on his gaunt head like he was the king of the skeletons. But his smile was so genuine and warm, it was hard to mistake his handsomeness. The two waved together, and Benny noticed a corsage of red roses tied around Virginia’s cast.
She hates red roses, you idiot.
They looked like a bizarre pair of newlyweds. Benny felt a pain in his chest like someone was hitting him with a metal pipe.
“It’s so romantic,” Chrissie said, nuzzling her face into Benny’s shoulder.
As the carriage pulled away from the curb, the cheering swelled to a new height. Calvin’s grim Russian friend was standing at the edge of the crowd, watching the hoopla with a surly expression. Evidently Benny and Olek were the only ones who were not amused by the spectacle. Everyone else was smiling and hugging and laughing. Benny saw Corny Davenport giggling with her friends. Even she thought this was funny, even though the crown on Virginia’s head belonged, by all rights, to her.
The carriage grew smaller and smaller as it traveled down the road. Then, just as the horse was about to circle back, there was a loud collective gasp from the crowd.
As if alighting onto a soft cloud, the King and Queen leaped from the carriage. Benny watched, slightly stunned. Virginia stumbled. Don’t hurt yourself! he screamed in his mind, watching her arm. In a swift motion Calvin swooped down and helped her up. Then they were running into the forest.
Olek swore loudly in Russian, “Tchyo za ga`lima!” Then he took off running.
The realization hit Benny like a truck: Calvin had rigged the election and made himself king so he could use the carriage ride to escape. Virginia had handed him the idea on a silver platter when she told him about DeAndre and Trevor.
“Oh my god.” Benny slid out of Chrissie’s arms and sprinted after Olek. Within seconds he had overtaken him. The two ran down the dark road toward the distant carriage.
“Opposite Day forever!” The shouts behind them grew distant.
The pounding of Olek’s feet slowed, then finally stopped. Benny stopped too, his lungs burning. He bent over, out of breath. His eyes met Olek’s across the darkness, and for a weird moment it felt like he and this Russian stranger were on the same team. The losing team.
Benny squinted toward the edge of the forest. He saw a tiny blur as Calvin darted between two trees and disappeared. Virginia followed him into the shadows.
She was gone.