The Hurt Patrol (3 page)

Beau's dad just started cussing and pointing. He was a big pointer. These cars were frauds! These dads were frauds! These kids were supposed to be on their own! That was the ONE big rule! Rules are rules, dammit! He grew flushed, and there was flame in his eyes. His rhetoric also grew fiery. Beau watched anxiously. He got the distinct feeling that his car was going to lose.

His dad stormed away.

“Goddam bunch of cheaters!” he snarled. “We'll show 'em, kid!”

He proceeded to pull a bunch of coins from his pocket and start taping them under the back of Beau's car with the duct tape provided at the “pit stop.” Beau watched, perplexed. His dad noticed and curtly explained. “Ballast, Beau. I wanted to tell you that all along—but I thought it would be cheating! But now you know what?
Screw 'em!
” He taped several coins underneath the tail of the gleaming blue body.

Time for the trial run.

Immediately speedier! Definite improvement! Way to go, Dad!!

Beau was thrilled. They were a team: him and his dad! They were a team.

Such a feeling. But then . . .

They lost. They lost
so
badly! They got hammed on sooooo bad! Apparently, the little derby cars were all supposed to weigh the same. Beau and his dad were disqualified.

Jason put his arm around Beau—not painfully, for the first time, ever, and stood beside him, scornful and defiant, blue eyes glittering, his upper lip curled, and his chin high.

Standing beside him, his dad's arm loosely around his shoulders, Beau looked at his striking father's proud stance—like a Roman soldier—no, a Roman
emperor;
and felt strong. He stood tall and stuck out his chin defiantly too. On the way home, his dad bitched about cheaters and how they'd get 'em next year!

Then, incredibly, at one point he even said: “And if goddam red is your lucky color, Beau, fine!”

It was the best night of Beau's life.

Beau's eyes are soft as he remembers. The good eye, anyway. I can see the memories illuminate the unbruised side of his face. A half smile rises from his lips and eye and smoothes his stressed forehead. I smile too.

“So did you win the derby the next year?”

At that Beau's forehead unconsciously furrows again.

“Nah. We were moving again, and missed it.” Beau looks over at me. “Is this too boring?”

I shake my head. Some of it is painful and sad—and familiar—but not boring.

He smiles. “Should I keep going or cut straight to a story about the Hurt Patrol?”

“Whatever,” I say. “I want to hear all the stuff—everything I'd already know if we had grown up together.”

So that was pretty much the way they were, in all their little houses on the prairie. They moved around a lot. Jason was restless, like Pa Ingalls. No one was sure what he was looking for, least of all Gina and Beau.

One of the main problems of being an only child or the new kid, as Beau saw it, was that there was no one to talk things over with who could understand, so if there was a spark of possibility of making a friend, Beau would get very hopeful. Usually, it didn't work out because he had to move again too soon, but he never lost hope. If he just had someone to bitch to and laugh with, it could be so different. Less overwhelming. Sadly, most of the kids he met melted together in his mind. They were usually more interested in kicking his ass than making friends with the new guy. In Beau's experience his arrival usually caused anyone who was socially insecure or just a jerk to pick a fight and see what he was made of.

Beau consistently proved to be made of flesh—and fresh blood. It made moving from school to school very challenging.

Eventually, Beau started high school in Kansas: Garfield High, an average Midwestern high school. The new school was both the same and different. Different = better lunches. The same = random dorks threatening to kick his ass.

But now, Beau was finally a freshman. The end was in sight. Four more years = no more school. And another amazing thing: for once, he wasn't the only new person, transferring late. A girl actually transferred in
after
school started, after he did. So he wasn't even the total focus for once. Awesome!

They wasted no time at Garfield High getting overwhelmed with homework. The final project was assigned at the beginning of the school year. It counted for so much of the grade that the students would work on it all semester. Their US History teacher, Ms. Finch, assigned partners.

“Okay, Darrow, Jess, and Travis: you three. Um, Tony, Homer, and Riley, you three are a team. Okay, Beau, Rae Anne, and—” Immediately the new girl shot her hand up, but fleetingly—too fast for anybody to see—except Ms. Finch.

“—and Julia. You three.” Ms. Finch smiled at them.

Cool. Beau looked over at Julia, really noticing her for the first time and they smiled at each other with instant liking. She had the palest eyes he'd ever seen. Pale green. Rae Anne, the other partner, was a farm girl, pretty in the same way everybody there was, blond and tan and down-home. Besides that, she'd made no impression on Beau, so far, but they nodded at each other amiably. Beau and Julia picked up their collective crap and moved to Rae Anne's table, which had the most space. They all made room for each other.

Julia looked at Beau. “Hi.” She smiled.

“Hi.” Was all Beau could think up.

Julia and Rae Anne nodded at each other, smiling. Briefly they greeted each other.

“Hi, Rae Anne. What's up?”

“Hi, Julia!” said Rae Anne.

Beau wondered how they knew each other. Rae Anne cleared it up as she went on:

“I haven't seen you too much since Bible camp, back in the day.”

“Yeah, that was a while ago! How many summers did you go?”

“I quit the year after you did.”

“Omg, remember how homesick we all got? I hated going to sleep-away camp! I used to sneak off and call my mom all the time! Why'd you stop going?”

“After middle school they make you decide if you want to be a counselor, and I totally didn't, after the orientation thing they make you do.”

“Why?” Julia tossed her notebook on the table and sat across from Rae Anne.

“Because everything's on you: if the kids cry because they're homesick, especially at night. You're the one who has to wake up and go say comforting crap to them. If they get sick and barf, if they get in a fight with each other . . . it's just
way
too much drama.”

“Yeah . . .” Julia commiserated. “That sounds horrible.”

“I think if I had little brothers and sisters, I'd be better at it. I like your hair. The bangs.”

“Thanks. I think I'm going to cut it off after winter. . . .” Blah-blah—boring talk about hairdos.

Beau looked around. The groups were all buzzing—or not. You could already guess which ones were going to have a good project and which weren't. Ms. Finch chose people she thought would get along, but she didn't know some of the more quietly simmering rivalries or epic betrayals . . . the guys were bad, but the girls were quiet so they got away with more stuff. Beau tried to tell who would be nice; he didn't know most of the others very well yet, but just by studying people's body language, he had gotten good at telling who was going to be trouble. He had learned to spot simmering rage—

“Okay, Beau?” Julia and Rae Anne were both looking at him, curiously.

He'd missed it. Whatever it was. He did that a lot.

“Sorry. What?”

“You and Julia write the text, and I'll take the pictures. Since I live so far out you two will have to do the partner stuff without me,” Rae Anne repeated.

“Oh. Okay. Sure.” Beau nodded.

He glanced at Julia, who smiled back, shyly. He had a feeling they'd get a very good grade.

A week or so after that, Beau & Parents attended his new troop's monthly potluck. It was a warm fall evening, and the three of them descended into the brightly lit church basement.

As required by age, Beau peeled off promptly to sit at the table with his troop instead of with his mom and dad, before they could embarrass him. No one else was sitting down yet, but the table had his patrol flag. He didn't feel confident enough to just go around and mingle, so he sat down and pretended to get a text, to better observe the others in action....

It was noisy. Everyone was greeting friends by joyfully yelling. The yellowed linoleum reverberated with the welcoming shrieks and sneaker squeaks, in spite of the ceiling's useless old acoustic tile.

Beau was just looking around, minding his own business, when his life changed. A tall, good-looking guy plunked down across the table from him. He had dark eyes that already showed faint laugh lines and rich, wavy brown hair, the kind that streaks blond in the sun.

Beau jumped. The guy smiled. Beau regarded him cautiously. Then the guy laughed.

“Hi. I'm Pete. I'm in this patrol too. 'Sup. I saw you looking around, and we haven't met.” Pete grinned. “How's it goin'?”

“Hi. Good. I'm Beau. 'Sup.” They chin-bobbed, in greeting.

Pete wasted no time. Eyes wickedly twinkling, he leaped into action. Leaning in close, he announced, “So, Beau, guess what? My sister likes you. Your partner, Julia.”

Beau almost ejected off his seat. “No, she doesn't!” he blurted, in automatic denial. His ears felt hot. The light in the church basement was suddenly much brighter.

Pete nodded. “No, yeah. She totally does. She's the new girl who just transferred in your class.”

“I know who she is. We're partners.”

“Her name's Julia. That's my sister.”

“I
know
.”

“She said she thinks you're cute. She—”

“She did NOT!”

“Said she thought you looked like somebody famous. I said probably Bart Simpson. She said nah, that wasn't it, so I said, then probably Eric Cartman—”

Beau looked at Pete, terrified that insanity was contagious, which made Pete guffaw. It sounded like a bark.

“I'm
kidding!!
But I told her I was going to tell you she likes you.”

“You did?” Beau looked at this guy, Pete.

“Yep.” Pete nodded, grinning. “I certainly did.”

“What did she say?” Beau touched his ear. Yep—full-on Ears of the Sun. He pictured his blushing freak ears flapping above his head.

Pete didn't even seem to notice Beau's flaming elephant ears. “Just shrugged! That's how I knew she wanted me to tell you.”

Beau looked down at his white rubber toe caps. He felt like there might be an entire butterfly house loose inside him. “You're crazy . . .” is all he could say. He consciously kept his breath measured.

It made him dizzy, because he wanted to gasp and pant; maybe lie on the floor a little. His face got flushed. Pete laughed.

“So go say hi! Just do it! Whatever—she's like a year younger than you are, so it's not even like she's hot! You totally should!”

Beau wasn't sure what that meant. He glanced at Pete, who clarified.

“You know, like a hottie. She's still too young.” Pete sounded like big brothers everywhere. “She moved up a grade when she was little—from second to fourth. She's hella smart.”

“Ummmm . . .”

“Do it! But her friends call her
Jules
. It's like her nickname.”

“Jewels . . .” Beau repeated, thinking of her brilliant eyes and smile. “Yeah. That kind of fits her. Why did she transfer to our school so late?” he asked, wobbly, to buy time.

“She's been going across town to Only Truth till last year, but after she started this year she wanted to transfer all of a sudden.”