The Taming of the Drew (12 page)

“
And
,” said Tio, “you’ve seen this guy. Talk about a pit-bull latching on and refusing to let go! If you’re going to make something like this happen, you’ve got to do it before he gets wind of what's in the air.”

Phoebe said, “But do you think he’ll stand for this? I mean, won’t he just blow?”

“I’m sure his mom will try to make it work. They’ll probably put a lot of thought into picking the same kind of classes he had at Uni. To ease the transition and make sure his grades don’t drop.”
 

Tio said, “So what exactly are you changing then?”

“The people around him?” I was mortified to realize it came out as a question. Because the fact was, there were Uni wanna-bes in every pod. The Dog could find his people anywhere if he really wanted to find them.
 

Gonzo said, ”Your whole plan depends on the Dog wanting to hang with...bottom-feeders like...” he looked away, not looking at anyone one.

“Like us?” I realized my voice was too high and breathy and I tried to make it sound normal. “Hey, it would probably be too humiliating to quit, once he transfers here. Right?”

No one would answer. And no one would look at me. I felt a weight settle in my stomach.

Phoebe muttered, to no one, it seemed. “He can blow out of here any time he wants. Any school in the nation would be happy to get him.”

Viola said, “It’s like the Three Musketeers. All or nothing. Or nothing for all.”

The silence turned into solid dread, so heavy and hopeless that it felt like it was pressing down on all of us. For this to work, everything had to go just right. Everything had to be perfect. The Dog had to be in just the right mood, get just the right classes, meet just the right people. What had I been thinking?
 

Then ever-efficient Helena clapped her hands like a teacher calling a class to order and asked Tio, “And what about your part — are you ready to search for the camera?”

Tio stood at military attention, “Aye, aye, madam!’

“But Helena,” I said, “I don’t understand how this finding-the-camera is going to work.”
 

“It’s simple,” Helena said. “There’s no point in breaking into the Dean’s office.” Yikes. Was that ever a plan? “If the camera’s there, the Dean will keep it locked up or give it to Mrs. Bullard. No one’ll get the photos who shouldn’t. Problem solved.”

There was a long silence, “And so…?” I said.

“Obviously that still leaves the storage area for news and journalism equipment for us to search for the camera.”

“Which means…?”

“Tio has a key to the equipment storage.”

“I
know
that. That’s how he got the camera in the first place. My point is, how’s he going to
not
get in trouble for rummaging through the entire room while school’s in session? Students have to go through it to get to first period journalism class. Lots of teachers have keys, and students will be hanging around outside the door, wanting to get to their desks.” I could feel my heart pounding louder the more I talked about it. “He’s
got
to find that camera before anyone else.”

Alex and Robin smiled at each other. “That’s where we come in.”

For the first time, I noticed Alex and Robin were dressed very, um, ruggedly today. Trucker caps with the flat bills, flannel shirts half-open over white undershirts, thick-denim cargo pants with a wallet on a chain-leash, heavy steel-toed boots. There was even a temporary tattoo of a flaming skull on the side of Alex’s neck.

“What, you’re going to threaten anyone who gets close to the door?”

Robin said, while giving Alex an-eyes-half-closed stare, “We’re going to do something we’ve never, ever, ever done at school before.”

Suddenly I understood. I gasped. “In the journalism doorway?”

Two flannel-shirt shrugs. Alex said, “Sure. We’ll start with the lovey-dovey talk, you know, standing with your hand on the doorjamb above the other person, leaning in. Laughing. Touching — hair and face only. Probably no one’ll come close. But if they do, we’re not afraid to…” there was another one of those smiles, “make out.”

“Wow.” It was all I could say.

Robin said, “Even the teacher’ll be afraid to interrupt.”

Tio said, a trifle smugly, “I think I’ll get at least a few minutes to rummage undisturbed. If I find the big camera, I’ll replace the SIM card with the new one you bought, and then barge out the door like I didn’t know what Alex and Robin were up to.”

I stared at them all. “Helena,” I said, “you’re brilliant.”

She smiled. “So what about getting the Dog transferred? Do you think Mrs. Bullard did it yesterday?”

I couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes. “She never answered my message. Probably she decided I was psycho.”

Gonzo said, “That may be for the best, you know.”

“How can you even say that?”
 

“Kate, think about it. If the Dog gets transferred to Academy — to the land of the misfits and freaks…”
 

There was a long silence as everyone thought this over — trying to grasp the unimaginable — to fathom how very far the Dog could fall.
 

“…and he ever,
EVER
finds out you were behind it, he’ll…he’ll…” words failed Gonzo for a moment, “he’ll pound you into a tiny Kate-smear.”
 

Phoebe added, in a tiny voice, “and who could blame him?”

“Well,” said Helena, standing and dusting herself off, “I guess we’ll find out what’s up when class starts, now won’t we?”

***

First period was drama. Okay, on the transcript, it says English, but really it’s drama. The Fitz (I knew instantly what Mr. Fitzpatrick was like when he insisted from the first day that the whole class call him “The Fitz”) was a frustrated director. We acted out at least one scene from every classic that the state teaching standards required us to read, plus a few extra works of literature (cough*plays*cough) that he liked. Writing assignments were few and far between.

I was being Lenny from
Of Mice and Men
, when the door opened.

Maybe it was the rage that made him even bigger. All I can say is, until that moment, probably because I’d never seen him, say, looming in a doorway staring daggers at me, I hadn’t ever really realized how large the Dog is.

The Fitz gave a cough, “Can I help you?”
 

When the Dog moved into the classroom, stared for a second and then took a seat in the back, he looked — and I would have sworn this was impossible — even bigger. A desk chair looked like a preschool chair when he sat in it. With his elbows on the desk and him leaning forward, there wasn’t much room left in the aisle on either side. If another football player from University had been sitting across the aisle from the Dog, they’d have been shoulder to shoulder.

Had Academy somehow, over time, actually shrunk?

Or was my imagination skittering all over the place from fear — because it was absolutely clear to me that the Dog knew
exactly
how he ended up here.
 

Which I guess shouldn’t have surprised me. Why would Mrs. Bullard keep it a secret?
 

Dean Verona looked at me over the top of her bifocals. She walked to the front of the class and had a whispered conversation with the Fitz.
 

The class heard him say, “But really, this far into the school year, this is most irregular…” before their whispering resumed again. Before she left, Dean Verona turned and said, “Katharine Baptista?”

Why do Deans do that? You’re pretty sure they know exactly who you are, but they always say your name in public like they’re calling roll and not sure who’s going to answer.

All my words dried up. I raised a hand from the front of the classroom, wishing I on the other side of the thick, reinforced teacher's desk — or, better yet, out of the room.
 

“Here, this is Andrew Petruchio-Bullard’s new schedule. You’re to escort him to each class.” She gave a sharp nod, handed me a slip of thin yellow transfer paper, and left. The door closed behind Dean Verona to total, pin-drop silence.

There wasn’t a soul in all of Legacy who didn’t know who the Dog was. To find him suddenly dropped into the middle of a half-filled, half-hearted fake English class (drama! It’s really drama!), was like finding Elvis breathing in the desk behind you.
 

The class was paralyzed. No one made eye contact.

“Your line, Kate,” the Fitz eventually said.

I tried to get my parchment throat to swallow, but it seemed to only crumple and wad in my neck.

“Kate?” he said again, and I heard a tiny, rising note of panic in his voice.

I cleared my throat. Normally, I enjoy pretending to be someone else, even in front of a classroom, even if I’m pretending to be Lenny.
 

Today, I’d have given a kidney to be someone else. If for only a minute. But I couldn’t seem to do it.

I licked dry lips and tried again. I opened my mouth, exhaled and — a raw sound came out. Water buffaloes in heat made prettier noises. I was mortified.

The Fitz perked up. “Nice,” he said. “I can see where you’re going with that.”

He glanced around the room at the stunned faces of the audience. “Well. Let’s stop on that
distinctive
note and turn to page 197 for silent, sustained reading-time.”

I moved between the rows and stopped in front of where the Dog hulked in a chair.

He looked up. The tiny scufflings of the room stopped, everyone uncertain, afraid, not sure what the rules were now. “
What
?” Drew barked. “You wouldn’t
dare
say something to me. Not after what you’ve done to me. You can’t possibly be that stupid.”

I tried to swallow, stopped, started all over again.
 

“What?” he barked again, this time putting his palms flat on the desk like he was going to shove himself up.

Maybe he pushed me too far. In that moment, like when I’m in the circle of trees, something happened. It was like I just let go. Not exactly the same way as the trees, because there was no hope, no peace. Instead, all the emotion drained away. It was like I could see clearly and a calm voice in my head said, You know what, Mr. Big Dog, you really have got a swelled head. Someone’s been catering to your every whim for far too long. Just who the heck do you think you are, coming into my pod, my class, my friends and acting like this?

I leaned over, put my hand on the desk and tapped it with my index finger, “That’s my desk you’re sitting in.”

He frowned at me.
 

“My bag under the seat.”

He gave a half-twist in the chair, stopping himself before he could be caught bending over to see if it was true.

“Unless,” I said, “you also prefer fringed moccasin shoulder bags — in which case I could be mistaken.”

A laugh chuckled around the room and then, just like that, the Dog was merely a guy. A guy who mistakenly sat in someone else’s chair his first day in a new class.

I said, “Hand me the bag, toots, I’ll sit over there.”

His shoulders got, if anything, bigger, like he was swelling. “Did you call me
toots
?” he said in disbelief.

“If you force me to get on the ground and crawl under your legs to get it, I will.”

No one was even pretending to read an assignment, not even the Fitz.

Drew lurched sideways, almost toppling the chair, grabbed the strap of my bag with one hand and swung it at me. I caught my bag in the chest with an “oof.”

That dented my good humor a bit and reminded me there was business to deal with. “Meet me at the door when the bell rings and I’ll show you where –“ I lifted the paper with his printed schedule, looked at the list of classes and blinked.
 

I tried not to smile, I really did.
 

I cleared my throat. “I’ll show you where Introduction to Pottery meets.”

The scufflings of the room got much louder and there were an unusual number of coughs as I wove my way to a new seat. Personally, I was feeling wonderful. My day had changed completely. There was still a teensy-tiny possibility the trees could be saved.
 

***

When I met him after Pottery period, Drew staggered out the door with spiky hair — a look I’d already come to recognize as a sign of severe frustration combined with fury. If he could bottle it, it’d make a great gel.
 

I could guess what tipped him over. I don’t know what it’s like in other places, but in Academy, pottery attracts a certain, well, type of politics. Superficially it might appear that you
must
be vegan and have hairy armpits. In actual fact, to
truly
be a Pottery Person, you must have both 1) a burning, unquenchable desire to convert other people to your causes, and 2) such a finely-tuned sense of injustice that slamming 20 pounds of clay around barely takes the edge off.

Pottery Politics are intense. And estrogen-soaked.

Drew wouldn’t make eye contact, but stood, taking up a large part of the hallway as he glared down the corridor into the space of the atrium, not reacting to the students who streamed past him like water around a giant boulder.
 

“We’ve got a ways to go for your next class, Psych.” My voice came out tour-guide perky, but he didn’t budge. I kept my eyes on the slip of paper in my hand, “I wonder — who picked your classes?” Maybe it wasn’t too late to change some of them.
 

He gave me a stab of a glance. “Why?’

Still not moving.

“Did
you
pick them?”

That earned me a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding level stare.
 

“Fine,” I said and turned and headed back into the surging stream of students. Let him keep up if he could. I walked into Psych, grabbing a textbook from the shelf on the stand beside the door on the way, dropped my bag, gave it a sideways shove with my foot under my chair like I always did and flopped in my seat as the bell rang. I was surprised when the Dog slid into an empty chair to my right almost the exact same time I did. That’s probably what sports can do for you — good reaction time.