Candy to Joanna, who was walking beside her. Joanna starts laughing. “No, listen, yesterday, I saw some birds resting on power lines, and I was real frustrated, so I shouted at them: ‘Bring it on!’ I don’t know if I riled them or not, but one of them dive-bombed toward me. I tried to dodge it, but he crapped on my arm. I shouldn’t have shouted at the birds, I suppose…”
I walk past them and head for the west exit. I’m starting to regret wearing Dad’s white painter pants. The material’s stiff and poofy, and I have to walk kind of bow-legged to keep it from chaffing the inside of my thighs. It makes me feel like a cowboy walking around in his underwear. Plus, they don’t look very good. I would have been better off just wearing my jeans.
The performances have already begun when I get to the auditorium. I sneak around to the left and find a seat close to the front. On stage there’re seven doors lined up in a row along a fake wall. And out of those doors members of the YAA order are coming out one at a time. Most of them are upperclassmen, but I recognize Devon from my grade. Then they go back in those same doors with a loud slam. Then come back out again and continue to slam the doors, creating crazy rhythms. The crowd’s really getting into it. They’re cheering and stomping. Who knew door slamming could be so entertaining? But from that first door slam I’m thinking about that godforsaken house and those loud angry door slams that came from the upstairs. It’s like fate has it in for me. It won’t let me forget. I want to go, but turning around and leaving means the danger of being seen. I don’t have to wait too long, though, before the other students start getting up to leave. Apparently door slamming can take you only so far in the entertainment world. I follow them out.One of the door slammers gets on a microphone and starts announcing, “Be sure to check out our Web site, www.I-Hot.com…” I’m too busy leaving to listen to the rest. That’s when someone slaps my arm. It’s Mrs. Easton, my platinum-blonde algebra teacher and probably the prettiest teacher in the school. She gives me a look as if to say, What are you doing here? I shake my head and keep moving until I’m out of the auditorium and then to the other side of the school heading toward the field. What kind of Web address is I-Hot? It makes me think of blueberry pancakes.
When I get home, it feels real good. It feels like I’ve infiltrated enemy lines and come back alive. I spend the rest of the day building a model F-16 airplane I got at the store last week. It’s very relaxing sitting there at my desk gluing those pieces together. A nice breeze comes in through the window where the sun shines in. I started making models after watching my big brother, Jim, putting together some model ships and cars back when I was in middle school. He was about to start junior high. He’s four years older than me, so at first he didn’t trust me and I had to get my own models. But when I got older, he let me help him do bigger, more elaborate ones. After Jim left for college he used to come home on the weekends. Mom would do his laundry, and he’d sit around eating and watching television like when we were little kids. I visited him a few times, too. The West Georgian is less than an hour away, so it wasn’t a big deal. But that was before Mom died. Since then he’s hardly ever around and never calls, so it’s almost like we don’t know him. I must have seen him a total of two times since the funeral. Both times he didn’t say a word about Mom, even though he was the last to see her before she stopped talking. He hardly even said a word to me. Just, “Hey, what’s up?” Come to think of it, since Mom died it’s like my family disappeared. She was the centerpiece of it all. She was always the one there holding it all in one piece. Once she was gone there was nothing to hold the spokestogether. We all spanned out. Jim stopped
I walk past them and head for the west exit. I’m starting to regret wearing Dad’s white painter pants. The material’s stiff and poofy, and I have to walk kind of bow-legged to keep it from chaffing the inside of my thighs. It makes me feel like a cowboy walking around in his underwear. Plus, they don’t look very good. I would have been better off just wearing my jeans.
The performances have already begun when I get to the auditorium. I sneak around to the left and find a seat close to the front. On stage there’re seven doors lined up in a row along a fake wall. And out of those doors members of the YAA order are coming out one at a time. Most of them are upperclassmen, but I recognize Devon from my grade. Then they go back in those same doors with a loud slam. Then come back out again and continue to slam the doors, creating crazy rhythms. The crowd’s really getting into it. They’re cheering and stomping. Who knew door slamming could be so entertaining? But from that first door slam I’m thinking about that godforsaken house and those loud angry door slams that came from the upstairs. It’s like fate has it in for me. It won’t let me forget. I want to go, but turning around and leaving means the danger of being seen. I don’t have to wait too long, though, before the other students start getting up to leave. Apparently door slamming can take you only so far in the entertainment world. I follow them out.One of the door slammers gets on a microphone and starts announcing, “Be sure to check out our Web site, www.I-Hot.com…” I’m too busy leaving to listen to the rest. That’s when someone slaps my arm. It’s Mrs. Easton, my platinum-blonde algebra teacher and probably the prettiest teacher in the school. She gives me a look as if to say, What are you doing here? I shake my head and keep moving until I’m out of the auditorium and then to the other side of the school heading toward the field. What kind of Web address is I-Hot? It makes me think of blueberry pancakes.
When I get home, it feels real good. It feels like I’ve infiltrated enemy lines and come back alive. I spend the rest of the day building a model F-16 airplane I got at the store last week. It’s very relaxing sitting there at my desk gluing those pieces together. A nice breeze comes in through the window where the sun shines in. I started making models after watching my big brother, Jim, putting together some model ships and cars back when I was in middle school. He was about to start junior high. He’s four years older than me, so at first he didn’t trust me and I had to get my own models. But when I got older, he let me help him do bigger, more elaborate ones. After Jim left for college he used to come home on the weekends. Mom would do his laundry, and he’d sit around eating and watching television like when we were little kids. I visited him a few times, too. The West Georgian is less than an hour away, so it wasn’t a big deal. But that was before Mom died. Since then he’s hardly ever around and never calls, so it’s almost like we don’t know him. I must have seen him a total of two times since the funeral. Both times he didn’t say a word about Mom, even though he was the last to see her before she stopped talking. He hardly even said a word to me. Just, “Hey, what’s up?” Come to think of it, since Mom died it’s like my family disappeared. She was the centerpiece of it all. She was always the one there holding it all in one piece. Once she was gone there was nothing to hold the spokestogether. We all spanned out. Jim stopped
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