player were two brothers with Afros, Dominic and Will. Mostly when they got together, they smoked dope and drank cask wine out of old jars with the labels peeled off, while they speculated on what image should go on the cover of their first album, whether they should tour the United States or Japan first, etc. Once, when Charlie had gone to watch them jam, Will had suggested a âbrother wrestle.â Me and Dom against you and Whiskey . Charlie had pretended he thought Will was joking. Now he wishes he had gone for the brother wrestle. Better to wrestle together against someone else than to wrestle against each other.
Foxtrot
According to the lecture that was delivered in a special assembly on the first day of term, the beginning of eleventh grade was the time to focus on academic goals and to begin thinking seriously about life beyond high school. From the studentsâ perspective, theyâd been expected to focus on academic goals ever since they started high school, and as for life beyond school, they were about as capable of thinking seriously about that as they were of imagining life on Mars.
For the girls, there was something far more pressing than exams to think about in first term: the school prom. Within a week of being back at school, Charlie had seen the girls in his homeroom excitedly showing each other pictures of dresses in magazines, had heard them agonizing over skirt length and fabric color, lowering their voices, presumably to discuss whose bow tie and cummerbund might be matched to their dress.
The official line was that the guys couldnât care less about the school prom. Jokes about potential partners might be made, but all suggestions were resoundingly rejected, backed up by the vehement declaration I havenât even thought about it . In truth, it had been on Charlieâs mind ever since he heard the girls discussing it. The problem was, all the students were expected to attend the prom with a partner. And even though, technically speaking, girls could invite boys to the prom, in reality, they never did. It was the boys who did the asking and the girls who had the luxury of accepting or declining the invitations. Charlie wished it was the other way around. He was no good at those sorts of things. To help with the process, he had compiled a mental list. At the top of the list was Sasha Piper, a girl he would never even think of actually inviting, but who would be the girl he would choose if he was in one of those American movies where the school dork becomes popular overnight and is suddenly pursued by the beautiful blond cheerleader type who previously did not even know his name. Not that Charlie considered himself the school dork. Still, he had enough social awareness to know he was not in Sasha Piperâs league. Probably, Charlie thought, Sasha was at the top of every eleventh-grade boyâs wish list, but none of them would have the guts to ask her, and she would end up going to the prom with a boy from twelfth grade.
Next on Charlieâs list was Shantelle Simpson, the girl who sat in front of him in math and occasionally shared a joke with him, a girl he would ask if fate threw him an unexpected opportunity, even though, in all likelihood, she would say no. Then there was Melissa Capelli, his biology partner, who was shy but pretty and would possibly say yes if he timed it right. His last resort was Bronwyn Chambers, a girl from his homeroom who he didnât fancy in the slightest but who he suspected had fancied him since he started at the school, a nice girl, although a little on the chunky side with unfortunate frizzy black hair, very unlikely to get any better offers and, therefore, almost guaranteed to say yes.
Charlie did not know if his friends had such lists. He would not ask, but he bet that Whiskey did not have a list of four, of whom one was an impossibility and one extremely unlikely. He would most definitely not have a last resort. He would not need to. It
Foxtrot
According to the lecture that was delivered in a special assembly on the first day of term, the beginning of eleventh grade was the time to focus on academic goals and to begin thinking seriously about life beyond high school. From the studentsâ perspective, theyâd been expected to focus on academic goals ever since they started high school, and as for life beyond school, they were about as capable of thinking seriously about that as they were of imagining life on Mars.
For the girls, there was something far more pressing than exams to think about in first term: the school prom. Within a week of being back at school, Charlie had seen the girls in his homeroom excitedly showing each other pictures of dresses in magazines, had heard them agonizing over skirt length and fabric color, lowering their voices, presumably to discuss whose bow tie and cummerbund might be matched to their dress.
The official line was that the guys couldnât care less about the school prom. Jokes about potential partners might be made, but all suggestions were resoundingly rejected, backed up by the vehement declaration I havenât even thought about it . In truth, it had been on Charlieâs mind ever since he heard the girls discussing it. The problem was, all the students were expected to attend the prom with a partner. And even though, technically speaking, girls could invite boys to the prom, in reality, they never did. It was the boys who did the asking and the girls who had the luxury of accepting or declining the invitations. Charlie wished it was the other way around. He was no good at those sorts of things. To help with the process, he had compiled a mental list. At the top of the list was Sasha Piper, a girl he would never even think of actually inviting, but who would be the girl he would choose if he was in one of those American movies where the school dork becomes popular overnight and is suddenly pursued by the beautiful blond cheerleader type who previously did not even know his name. Not that Charlie considered himself the school dork. Still, he had enough social awareness to know he was not in Sasha Piperâs league. Probably, Charlie thought, Sasha was at the top of every eleventh-grade boyâs wish list, but none of them would have the guts to ask her, and she would end up going to the prom with a boy from twelfth grade.
Next on Charlieâs list was Shantelle Simpson, the girl who sat in front of him in math and occasionally shared a joke with him, a girl he would ask if fate threw him an unexpected opportunity, even though, in all likelihood, she would say no. Then there was Melissa Capelli, his biology partner, who was shy but pretty and would possibly say yes if he timed it right. His last resort was Bronwyn Chambers, a girl from his homeroom who he didnât fancy in the slightest but who he suspected had fancied him since he started at the school, a nice girl, although a little on the chunky side with unfortunate frizzy black hair, very unlikely to get any better offers and, therefore, almost guaranteed to say yes.
Charlie did not know if his friends had such lists. He would not ask, but he bet that Whiskey did not have a list of four, of whom one was an impossibility and one extremely unlikely. He would most definitely not have a last resort. He would not need to. It
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