Beauty and the Bully (23 page)

Duncan shut his door, turned the stereo back up just slightly, and sat down at his desk, again pretending to be scholastically engaged. He soon heard Freddie's heavy footsteps in the living room. Then on the stairs. Then in hallway. There was a knock at the door of his room.

“Yeah?” said Duncan, as though he'd heard nothing of Freddie's arrival.

The door opened. Freddie completely filled the doorway. Duncan's mom stood behind him, smiling politely.

“Greetings, dor—errr, Duncan,” said Freddie.

“I'll let you kids talk,” said Duncan's mom.

Freddie stepped forward and pulled the door shut. “Evenin', dweeb.”

“Look, Freddie, don't pummel me. Not now, when no one's looking. And definitely not with my parents in the house—that's basically insane. And criminal. I know I haven't firmed up a homecoming date for you yet, but it's not like I—”

“Enough of your dipwaddery,” said Freddie, waving his hands in clear frustration. “It's like you and I, we're never on the same conversational wavelength. It's funny, because we work pretty well together when I kick your ass.” Freddie threw himself down on Duncan's bed. The springs scrinched loudly under Freddie's weight. “Anyway, dork, I came over to discuss my sister.”

“Syd?” said Duncan. “Well, the band's back together so, technically, I
am
fulfilling my part of the deal here, Freddie. And the deal didn't call for me to make her a
good
guitar player. Which would take, like, a genie in a lamp at this point. The deal was—”

“Shut
up
, crapnozzle,” said Freddie. “Seriously. You sit; I talk. Can we do that?”

Duncan nodded.

“Okay. Well, here's the deal. Sydney's mixed up with a dude.”

“What du—?”

“You sit; I talk,” said an agitated Freddie. “We just agreed to this. Like, seconds ago. I am not a patient individual.”

“Right,” said Duncan. “I'll just, um . . . listen. For a while.”

“Thank you. So she's mixed up with a dude, I can tell. Definitely a dude problem.” Freddie fidgeted, running his massive hands through his hair. “She comes home today—from practicing with you guys—and I'm like, ‘Hey, Syd, how's it going?' Now this sort of casual question would normally get me, like, a ten-minute response and multiple anecdotes. But today? Nothing. She walks right past me—
crying,
I'm pretty sure, which is not like her. And she runs to her room, slams the door, cranks up some crazy freak punk music, and refuses to talk.”

Duncan raised his hand.

Hesitantly, Freddie said, “Yes?”

“What'd she listen to? I mean, ‘crazy freak punk' is a very broad category.”

Freddie stared angrily.

“Just curious,” said Duncan.

“I don't know,” Freddie said in a measured tone. “May I continue?”

“Um, sure.”

“So then Jess comes over, and she's all ‘I gotta see Syd! I gotta see Syd! Where is she!' Jess normally likes to chat, too. But not today. So I'm like, ‘She won't come out of her room.' Jess runs past me, practically beats down Syd's door, and goes inside. That was, like, hours ago. They're still in there, as far as I know.” Freddie shook his head. “I'm gonna friggin' kill him.”

Duncan raised his hand again.

Freddie motioned for him to speak.

“Who are you killing? I didn't get that part.”

“The
dude.
Who else do I kill? I only kill dudes. And, I mean, I don't really
kill
them. But I do break 'em.”

“There was no dude in that story, Freddie.”

What the hell did we say to her? Duncan asked himself. Did we insult her playing? Oh, man. Poor Syd. She's slow death on “Louie, Louie” and she's no asset to the band, but wow. What the hell did we say?

“Of
course
there's a dude. The dude is implied. You don't see that? Look, I know my sister. She's not the type to go cry in her room unless a dude is involved. And even then . . . well, he'd have to be a total fartcloud. Syd's a tough girl. The only time she's acted this way before was in seventh grade. The guy was Albert Bavasi. Had to straighten him out with the Freddie Special: a series of face-flushes in the restroom and a taping to a flagpole.” Freddie chuckled. “I can still see a wet-faced Albert struggling. Good times.” He smiled for a moment. “I got suspended because of Albert, too—which was
awesome
—and from then on, no dudes bothered Sydney. Ever. Now that we're at a new school, maybe I need to introduce the Special to the community. So the question is, who's the new dude? And the follow-up question is, where do I find him?”

“Dunno, man.”

Duncan watched Freddie for several seconds. The angry thug made thinking faces, as if the act of searching for an answer might've hurt a little. Duncan was certain that Syd just felt crushed by her epic guitar struggles. The band itself depressed her. “The one thing that I really care about,” she'd said.

“So you're no help here to me at all?” Freddie said. “You offer no insight?”

“Really, Freddie, I don't know. I think the whole band is pretty wiped out over this gig. Everyone's stressed—that's probably what's got Syd in the dumps.”

“Nuh-uh,” Freddie said. “It's a dude. I think it's maybe that Stew dork.”

“Stew?” said Duncan. “I really don't think so.”

Stew Varney, heartbreaker. Hmm. Didn't fit, Duncan decided. Stew was definitely a candidate to have said something to piss Syd off. But shatter her heart? Not likely.

“I'd like you to watch him for me, dweeb, that's all I'm saying.”

“You want me to watch
Stew
? He's been one of my best friends since, like, forever.”

“
I'm
your new best friend, dork.” Freddie stood up and jabbed Duncan's shoulder—not lightly, like a friend might slap another friend, but hard, like cop intimidating an informant.

“Don't think I've forgotten your commitment to getting me a date to homecoming either, stooge. It'd make me very sad to give you a Freddie Special—I'd do it, but I'd be sad.”

“Jess is gonna help you, Freddie.”

“Help me do what, give the Special? I work alone.”

“No, no. Well, she might like to help you with the face- flushing, but that's not what I meant. She said she'd help you prepare for the dance.”

“Teach me all her moves, you mean? Like it's
Dancing with the Stars
?” Freddie spun awkwardly, then leaped—very slightly—and thudded onto the floor, rattling everything in Duncan's room that wasn't bolted to a wall.

Duncan laughed. “If Jess Panger has moves, I don't think you want 'em. She's just gonna help spruce you up.”

“Moi?”
asked Freddie. “I'm unspruceable. I am what I am, doofnik.”

Freddie lumbered out of the room and down the stairs.

“G'night, Mr. and Mrs. Boone,” he said. “It was a pleasure.”

Duncan listened to the Monte Carlo peel off into the October night. He wondered how on Earth—what with daily band practices, TARTS minutiae, and a landfill's worth of neglected schoolwork—he was going to be able to find Frederick Wambaugh a date. He looked down at his desk and saw a TARTS membership list poking out of a three-subject notebook.

He fished it out, then picked up his cell phone and dialed. “Hello, Marissa? Hey, Duncan here . . .”

22

Matchmaking for Freddie turned out to be one of the simpler issues facing Duncan. Without any financial inducement whatsoever, Marissa agreed to be set up with a boy described to her only as “larger than the average teenage male, but visually impressive nonetheless.” She didn't even ask his name. This was probably for the best, Duncan had decided. It seemed that he had a new reserve of TARTS-related clout, and Marissa felt she couldn't refuse him. He smiled, contentedly.

“A great night,” he told himself smugly.

The week of the rally was a swirl of urgent TARTS chores and band practices—hours of band practices. In fact, in the five full days between Duncan's brief lip-on-lip action with Carly and the rally—at which they were to appear together naked—he scarcely saw the girl for whom he'd gone to such ludicrous trouble. Mostly he just saw Jessie, Stew, and Syd.

And Syd, to absolutely no one's surprise, was still sucking on guitar. Moreover, she seemed unusually dour. Duncan could certainly see why her brother was concerned.

“Talk to her,” he told Jessie. “She's bummin' me out.”

She flicked his ear. “I am not the good-mood fairy,” she said. “You're such a moron.”

He was
tired
is what he was. His sleep had been disturbed all week by a mix of worry and excitement—and it was about a 70/30 mix, dominated by worry. Saturday was going to be the band's first gig ever. And, unlike most first gigs for most bands, it seemed like theirs was going to be absurdly well attended, both by the local citizenry and a few members of the media. Carly had coordinated the rally expertly. She had a kind of genius for organization. Attendees of the Elm Forest homecoming parade were going to get an earful of pro-rodent rhetoric whether they wanted it or not. They would also get an eyeful of naked high school students. The homecoming court was going to be pelted with rubber rats by protesters (Duncan's idea) while being serenaded by one of six rodent-centric songs from the Flaming Tarts. How Carly had gotten representatives from both state and city government to agree to speak at the rally was really a mystery to him, but he could vouch for her persuasiveness.

On rally morning, Duncan awoke with two things weighing heavily on him: (1) he was expected to strip naked in public on a slightly chilly day, and (2) his band's rhythm guitarist had zero rhythm and a functionally useless guitar. To address the first concern, he would wear boxers under the robe and rat tail. A simple enough solution. If Carly questioned his commitment again, at least he'd be
mostly
naked. He could claim to have been afraid of peeking out of the robe prematurely during his performance, thus ruining the surprise of the mass streak. And, hell, if Carly really gave him flak, he could always jettison the boxers when he was safely offstage.

The second problem—Syd's sucking—really had no obvious solution.

The rally was to begin at noon. Duncan had his gear packed and loaded in the car, and his rat tail on at 7 a.m. He had already finished breakfast by the time his mother came downstairs.

“Morning, Dunk,” she said.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Are you so excited for the rally today?” She dropped two bread slices in the toaster.

“I guess.”

“You
guess
? You were up awfully early for someone who's not sure he's excited.”

“Well, if you knew I was excited, why ask? I'm a teenage male. You pretty much know I'm only going to say ‘Fine' or ‘I dunno' or ‘I guess' when you ask me something.”

“Why is that?”

“I dunno.”

“Don't be a wiseacre.”

“Fine.”

“Duncan, will you please stop this?”

“I guess.”

She stared at him with mild annoyance. Then she smiled. “Well, your father and I are excited for your show today. We can't wait.”

“You
what
?!” he snapped. “Oh, you can wait. You can wait until I'm rockin' the United Center on the band's tenth North American tour in support of our fifth platinum album. You are definitely not seeing me today. Or any other day anytime soon. You aren't allowed.”

“Duncan Boone,” she said didactically. “I am watching your show today whether it's allowed or not. This is not negotiable. I am your mother. They pried you from my body with metal tools. I can do whatever I want to you.”

“Gross, Mom.”

“Your father and sister are coming, too.”

The toast popped. Duncan stomped off to the garage. He stood alone, psyching himself. He put some Dinosaur Jr on the garage's grime-covered CD player. He bobbed his head, closed his eyes, and visualized an idealized rally scene: pogoing suburbanites at the edge of the stage, random acts of hedonism, excited fans—whipped into madness by the Flaming Tarts' cosmic awesomeness—flinging clumps of the Watts Park grass into the air. And, of course, the sound of Duncan's voice and his elliptical guitar wizardry. He shut off the CD player, grabbed his guitar, and bent a series of notes, the opening riff of what was supposed to be the rally's first song, “Fat Rat Trap.” Duncan barked out the first verse:

He spun, jamming in a theatrical yet economical way, until he fell totally at ease with his mastery of the Tarts' set. He was ready. First gig, first audience. The band was ready. Except, well . . . Syd. What to do? He still couldn't say.

Duncan drove to Watts Park with the gear. It was the sort of crystalline autumn day that all virtuous rallies deserve. Cloudless sky, brilliant sun, leaves whipped into small circles, air stirred by sharp breezes. Dogs chased rubber toys and toddlers toddled. Adults chatted with one another and caffeinated themselves. Duncan lugged band equipment.

“Damn,” said Jessie, ambling up behind him. “This tail keeps creeping up my butt. Is this a problem you're having?”

“No, I'm, um . . . my tail and my butt are in balance. Thanks for asking.”