Butter (8 page)

I breezed through the lab, not caring whether I botched the HTML code, and hurried to the World Wide Web. I started with the most likely list. The blogger had yet to post anything new, so the list remained the hot topic. I scrolled through hundreds of comments before I saw my own:

Want to watch a train wreck?

Log on to
ButtersLastMeal.com
and see if you can keep down your lunch.

A few comments later, I saw this:

Holy crap! Follow the link a few posts up by “Butter.” Dude is crazy!!!

Followed by this:

Is that for real?

And this:

It's legit. Check it out. I just posted the link on my site too. Seriously messed up … and awesome!!

After that, the comments just dropped off a cliff, like suddenly everyone had lost interest in this site. They'd been distracted by the next Web craze. My heart raced.

My fingers were shaking as I typed in the address to my own site, still less than twenty-four hours old. At first glance, my page looked no different from the night before. It was like any virgin blog, with one lonely entry followed by miles of blank space. But something caught my eye and caused my throat to close up—a tiny number, below my post and off to the right. “Twenty-seven comments.”

Twenty-seven? Just since last night?

Blood filled my ears, drowning out the
click-clack
of keyboards around me. The hammering in my chest picked up pace, and I had to remind myself to take a deep breath. Doc Bean was always telling me to “take care of the ticker.” A guy my size couldn't afford to let his heartbeat get out of control. I
mustered up patience I didn't know I was capable of and waited for the drumming of my heart to slow before clicking open the comments page as calmly as I could.

The first few posts were unsurprising—the anticipated
what the hells?
and
whatever, dudes
. Then the comments began to catch me off guard.

Wicked, man. I'll totally watch.

Sweet! Where's my popcorn?

If you go through with it, I'm in.

Excellent. Way to take control!

It was hard to keep track of the emotions spinning inside me, to catch one and hold it down. One second, rage:
People really don't care if I die? Why didn't anyone tell someone?
The next, a thrill:
Hell yeah, they're impressed! Who else has the balls to pull this off?
And finally, fear:
What if I
don't
pull this off?

It was too much to feel all at once; the emotional roller coaster made me sick to my stomach. I wanted to puke right there in the computer lab. Like I said, though, I couldn't lock on to one way to feel about it, so I just kept reading … until I saw a name that would set my course once and for all.

Jeremy Strong had added his two cents.

If this douche actually goes through with this I'll eat a stick of butter myself! I know him and he's way too big of a pussy to kill himself. And by big I mean massively beast-monster huge. Guy's a Sasquatch. Tune
in December 31
^st
and watch Butter EMBARRASS himself to death—by not showing up. Besides, Butter, don't you think people have better things to do on New Year's Eve than watch you slobber all over a pile of food and chew with your mouth open? Get a life.

That post alone was enough to set fire to my veins, but it was followed up by a few in kind, probably friends of Jeremy's, also calling my bluff. Those challenges—especially the one from Jeremy—were the gut-check I needed. And the reminder of why I'd made the threat in the first place.

I would get the last word on this. On New Year's Eve,
I
would get the last word. They could call me Sasquatch and Fat Ass and Pillsbury and Butter, but nobody was calling me a fucking liar.

“Death by food” will turn up some strange results on Internet search engines. I spent the last ten minutes of lab looking up all the ways a single meal can kill a person. It turns out, not too many. Most of the information I found involved drawn-out painful bouts of food poisoning. That sounded a) unpleasant and b) pretty anticlimactic, seeing as how the goal was to carry my death live on the Internet. I didn't have any plans for a cliff-hanger ending or hospital-room sequels. This was going to be a one-time performance.

“Find anything interesting?”

The voice startled me back into the real world. I looked up to see an empty classroom and a teacher at my side.

“Class is over,” he said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose and peering over my shoulder.

I moved my hands over the keyboard as fast as my chubby fingers could fly and deleted the search history.

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I thought it would be okay to look something up on the Internet since—since class is over.” I was hedging. I really didn't know how long the teacher had been watching me—or how long class had been over, for that matter.

“Yes, well, these computers are not for personal use at
any
time, understood?”

“Understood.”

Then I stuffed my lab notes in my backpack and hoofed it into the hallway before the teacher could write up a detention slip or question me further about my search.

I was in such a rush to get to seventh period I didn't even see the Professor until I ran smack into him.

Ever get body-checked by a five-foot-ten, 423-pound teenager? It looks something like this: First, everything you're holding goes flying. In the Professor's case, that meant a stack of sheet music and two long flute cases. Then, you stumble backward a few steps in a kind of spin. The Professor looked more graceful doing this than most, because I think maybe he studied dance back at Juilliard too. Finally, you hit the floor. Or if you're lucky, like the Prof, there will be a wall of lockers to break your fall.

I held out my hand, and the Professor took it, using the support to set himself upright.

“Sorry,” we both said at once, then laughed.

“Late for class. Wasn't watching where I was going,” I said.

The Professor shook his head. “No, I'm the one not paying attention. I jumped right out in front of you there.”

“Where did you come from?”

He jerked his thumb at the door behind him. “Teacher's lounge. You?”

“Computer lab.”

“Hmm. Another elective?” He raised his eyebrows.

“Nah, nice try, Prof. Lab's required. And I have to take it next semester too, so don't be looking to rearrange my schedule.”

The Professor laughed and started gathering up his fallen instruments and sheet music. “Tell you what—I'll let you off the hook for next semester if you agree to take band senior year. What do you say?”

What senior year?

I sighed. What the hell.

“Okay, Prof.”

The Professor looked up from where he was crouched on the floor. “Really?”

“Really.”

He gathered his last few sheets and stood up, crumpling the papers in one hand as he made a fist and pointed at me. “That's a promise?”

“Promise.”

“Well I'd shake on it, but my hands are a little full here.” He shrugged and displayed the crooked piles of paper tucked under his arms and between his fingers.

Good. I didn't want to shake on it anyway.

“And Professor?”

“Don't take it back!”

“No, it's not that. It's just … I'm sorry about last night, about being rude and about telling my parents I was coming to Logan's. That probably put you in an awkward spot.”

“No apology necessary. I was sixteen once too, believe it or not.”

“Or not.” I grinned.

“Very funny.” The Professor checked his watch as best as he could with his arms full of crap. “We're both late for last period. You better run.”

I rolled my eyes. “Prof, do I look like I run?”

He took a few steps backward, moving down the hall. “Well, walk fast then.”

I waved and headed in the opposite direction down the hall.

“Butter! One last thing.”

I turned to listen.

“The Brass Boys are playing an early show at Logan's tomorrow. Then we'll be there after closing to rehearse if you want to come by.”

I shrugged. “I'll think about it.”

“Up to you. But band next year—no second thoughts about that, okay? That's a done deal.” He began walking backward again and pointed that paper-fist finger one more time. “Senior year. You promised.”

I forced myself to smile and nod until he turned away. I felt awful lying to the Professor. It was even worse than lying to Anna.

I decided I would go to Logan's. It would make the Professor
happy, and I wanted to do something nice to make up for the letdown coming his way. Besides, one last jam with the Brass Boys sounded pretty good. I started making a mental list of other “one last” things to do as I shuffled off to class.

• • •

“You're late.”

Man, was I blowing it with teachers that day.

“He's not late. He was helping a teacher in the hallway.”

“Mr. Woods, when this school starts appointing hall monitors and you take up the post, then I will defer to your opinion about what constitutes permissible tardiness. In the meantime,” the teacher turned her attention back to me, “you
are late
.”

I'm sure at that point she reached for a detention slip, but I wasn't watching. I couldn't look away from Trent Woods, the “mouth” that hung out with Jeremy, and as I stared, that mouth opened once again.

“I'm serious. I saw him picking up a bunch of papers for the Professor.”

That must have stopped the teacher, because when I finally looked up at her, there was no detention slip in her hand. In fact, she looked sorry she'd called me on my lateness at all. The Professor's name had that kind of impact around school.

She pinched her lips together. “Just sit down.”

I took the oversize desk, reserved for me, right next to Trent. I dared to glance across the aisle at him, and this time I definitely did not imagine it—he was giving me a big thumbs-up.

I probably should have smiled or nodded or thanked him or
something, but shit, I was totally off my game. Kids I didn't know going out of their way to talk to me; kids who I thought hated me risking detention to stick up for me—what's a guy supposed to do with that? I was still staring like an idiot at Trent's thumb when I felt a thump on my back.

I turned around as far as I could without drawing the teacher's attention. Behind me was the guy who had answered for me in algebra earlier, and now that I got a good look at him, I could see he was a friend of Trent and Jeremy's. He grinned and reached his arm around my shoulders to give me a fist-bump.

“You are a. Total. Badass,” he whispered.

Okay, now I was so far out of my comfort zone, I was in the
Twilight Zone
.

“Uh, thanks?”

“No, thank
you
.”

“For what?”

“Shh!” some girl to our right huffed.

The kid behind me lowered his voice even more. “For keeping things
interesting
,” he breathed.

“Legendary,” Trent agreed, and his loud whisper carried farther than ours, catching the teacher's attention.

She shut our conversation down with threats of detention, but I could still hear the boys' words.
Legendary. Badass
. Were these guys really friends with Jeremy Strong?

I fidgeted through class, and the instant the bell rang I was on my feet.

“Thanks,” I was finally able to say to Trent as we gathered up our backpacks.

“No problem. I'm Trent. This is Parker.” Trent gestured to the fist-bumper behind me.

“I'm—” Might as well embrace it. “I'm Butter.”

“Oh, we know,” Parker said. “And, dude, pretty soon
everyone
will know.”

“Yeah. Listen, about that—I know I put it out there and all, but I don't know how far I want it to spread.” I thought of the girl at the soda machine, of the twenty-seven comments, of the teacher looking over my shoulder. “If someone's parents or a teacher found out—”

“We will
not
let that happen,” Parker promised. “Anyone who narcs on you will hear from us.”

Trent was more thoughtful. He leaned back on his heels and crossed his arms. “Good point though, Butter. Maybe you should password protect it—keep out the tattletales.”

“Okay,” I agreed easily. I was dazed to even be having a conversation with these guys. “I'll think of a pass—”

“Make it ‘margarine,' ” Trent ordered. “And we'll spread the word.”

“Ha!” Parker slammed a hand on a desk. “Margarine. Spread. Nice.”

We wandered out of class, and I spotted the girl from the soda machine at a locker across the hall. “What about tattletales who already saw it?”

Trent traced my stare and caught the girl as she cast a concerned look at me and a confused glance at the two boys standing next to me.

Trent nodded meaningfully at Parker. “We'll take care of
that too.” He started walking backward down the hall and switched to his big-mouth voice. “Best prank ever played, that website,” he called to me. Then to Parker, “You fall for that, Park?”

Parker moved in the opposite direction, shouting back at Trent. “No way. But I bet some suckers did. Hope nobody was stupid enough to go crying to their mommy.”

The guys disappeared into the crowd of students, and my eyes came back to the girl across the hall. If there was any pity left in her, it was disguised under a deep-red blush and a scowl. She slammed her locker shut and stomped away.