Dead Ends (3 page)

My arm shot out instinctively, my fingers finding his elbow.

“Ow!” he complained as I pulled his arm backward to stop the fall.

We both skidded to a clumsy stop at the edge of the school parking lot. He pulled his arm away and squirreled up his
eyebrows. I tried to figure out whether it was anger or confusion on his face, but I just couldn't read it.

“You were about to fall,” I said. It came out sounding like an apology, so I added a snort to my next words. “You're welcome.”

“Oh.” Billy's brow smoothed out, and he rubbed his elbow. “Thanks.”

“Whatever.”

His face broke into a smile that showed off more of that oversize tongue and revealed tiny gaps between all his teeth. “Meet here after school? To walk home?”

“Listen, Special Ed, I'm not meeting you anywh—”

“I'm Billy D. And I'm not in special ed.”

He stomped off before I could reply, and I was left once again wondering how the kid managed to get the last word while I stood around looking like the idiot.

• • • X • • •

I slipped into my first class just before the bell. Raindrops smacked the window, cutting through the drone of Mr. Johnson's lecture. I scowled at the clouds gathering outside. The drops were going to turn into a downpour, and the walk home would be even more slippery than this morning's.

I glared around at the rest of my classmates, wondering how many of them had four wheels and a roof to carry them home warm and dry after school. Getting through winter without a car was rough enough, but at least you could bundle up. Spring brought the cold rains that soaked through everything, no matter how many layers you put on. And even though the
calendar had barely flipped from February to March, spring storms had already arrived.

My eyes fell on a waterfall of wavy dark hair. Nina Sinclair was good scenery, so lucky for me we had almost all the same classes. She also didn't treat me like a thug, which meant she was one of the few people at school I actually bothered with. Unfortunately, bothering with her bothered her boyfriend. I slid my gaze to the right, and sure enough, there he was, next to her, giving me the evil eye.

Calm down, asshole. I'm just looking.

I made sure he was still watching me and deliberately aimed an air kiss at the back of Nina's head. The kid—Timmy or Tommy or some other jockstrap name—clenched a fist on top of his desk. I smiled and made a fist of my own, with my longest finger popping out of it.

If there was a ruder gesture than that, he didn't have time to make it, because Mr. Johnson caught him turning around and put him on the spot with a question.

I figured that would be the end of it, but Tim-Tom didn't like me having the last word—or the last finger—so he pulled a move that too many guys before him had pulled. As soon as class was over, he slung an arm around Nina and turned to mouth at me over her shoulder:
You wish.

That was a mistake.

“Hey, Nina,” I said.

She turned, spinning right out of the boyfriend's arm. “Hi, Dane, what's up?”

“Just sayin' hey.” I smiled and saw Nina blush a little as she returned the grin.

I was always surprised to get that reaction from girls, but it had been happening a lot lately. Maybe it was the stubble.

“Well, see you in algebra,” she said.

She moved to take Tim-Tom's hand, but it was balled into a fist.

“I'll catch up,” he told her.

He waited for both Nina and Mr. Johnson to leave the room, then turned to me, face beet red.

“What's the deal?”

“What do you mean?” I scooped my textbook and spiral off my desk and moved to brush past him, but his hand caught my chest, ever so slightly pushing me backward. The itch started circling my palms. It wasn't so much the touch that bothered me—more the fact that he wasn't afraid to do it. Most guys knew better.

“I'd move that,” I said, nodding down to his hand.

He gritted his teeth and added more pressure to my chest. “Nina's my girlfriend.”

This was going to end badly for me no matter what. A fight would land me in the disciplinary office, but if I backed down, word would be all over school by the end of the day. I had a millisecond to weigh my options, but all I could focus on was the itch.

“Really, you want to move your hand
now
.”

“She's not into you, got it?”

“Last chance.”

“She doesn't do trailer-trash losers who—”

And that was all he said before my fist hit his left eye.

“I don't live in a trailer,” I said calmly, shaking out my hand.

But I don't think he heard me through his own girlie squeal. He pressed both hands over his eye and stumbled back, knocking a few desks out of place.

“What is this?” Mr. Johnson's voice boomed from the doorway.

Guess I wouldn't be seeing Nina in algebra after all.

Within seconds, we were on our way to the warden's office. Tim-Tom had cried something about me hitting him, which I didn't bother to deny. But I told Mr. Johnson he'd touched me first to make sure I wasn't the only one bound for detention.

My palms were still tingling when we took our seats outside the office.

“Hi, Mrs. Pruitt.” I winked at the secretary.

“Dane.” She gave me a thin-lipped smile. “Shame to see you under these circumstances again.”

I shrugged.

Mr. Johnson and Mrs. Pruitt ducked their heads in a whispered conversation, as if it was a secret from us why we were there. Then Johnson left and Pruitt rapped on the warden's door. Just above her fist, a little plaque gleamed gold with black carved words: THEODORE BELL, DISCIPLINARY OFFICER. Pruitt pushed the door open without waiting for an answer.

“Ted? Dane Washington and another boy here to see you.”

As always—Dane Washington and “another boy.” With an introduction like that, who could disagree that the odds were against me? I spent the most time there, so naturally I was the one who most likely deserved to be there. “Another boy” would be sent back to class without punishment.

Mrs. Pruitt waved us into the office and closed the door. I knew the routine and sat silently, but Tim-Tom launched right into his side of the story. He blathered on for almost a whole minute before he noticed the warden's hand in the air, a quiet command to shut up. The warden studied us for a moment, paying particular attention to the swollen tomato that used to be Tim-Tom's eye socket. Then he swiveled his chair ever so slightly toward me.

“What happened?”

“You're asking
him
?” Tim-Tom pointed at his busted eye. “I'm the one who got hurt.”

The warden kept his gaze on me, waiting.

“He put a hand on me; I asked him to move it; he kept it there and called me a name; so I hit him.” I knew the warden liked it short and sweet.

“I didn't touch him!” Tim-Tom burst out.

The warden flicked his eyes toward the noise. “What is your name?”

“Toby Smith.”

Huh. Toby. Close enough.

The warden finally gave him a chance to tell his side of the story—an elaborate lie about how I'd tripped, and he'd put out a hand to try to catch me, but instead of thanking him for the help, I'd punched him for no reason at all.

I chuckled and raised a hand. The warden nodded.

“I would like to revise my statement. I didn't hit anyone. His face actually fell into my fist.”

The warden's mouth twitched, then he launched into the
usual speech about words being just words and violence being something else entirely. I glared at Toby. I knew what was coming next. The warden went on to say that an unkind word is not enough to provoke a punch. He told Toby we should all be careful about putting hands on people, in case the touch is misunderstood, but that, in this case, it didn't sound like a violation of school rules.

I watched Toby's face through the entire speech.

Was that a smirk?

I didn't mind so much getting called down to the disciplinary office. The chairs were comfortable enough, and Mrs. Pruitt's candy dish was always full of jelly beans. She'd let you have as many as you wanted, no matter how much trouble you were in.

I didn't even mind when the warden lectured me about self-control and respect. But there was one word he always stuck in that speech that got my palms itching.

“Unprovoked.”

That was what he called it when I threw a stick into the spokes of Jimmy Miller's bike and sent him face-planting into the gravel next to the bike rack. But Jimmy had stolen my English report, changed the big red A to an F, and taped it on my locker for everyone to see—for everyone to think I was some kind of failure.

And when I smashed up Brian Chung's art project because I'd overheard him telling someone I was a dirtball who needed a shower—the warden called that unprovoked, too. The word pissed me off every time. It was like saying people had permission to go around treating everyone like shit, but nobody had a right to shut them up.

Was he blind? Couldn't he see Toby sitting there right now,
provoking
me with that smirk?

Apparently not, because a second later, “another boy” was dismissed.

Once the door was closed again, the warden slid a sheet of paper across the desk to me without a word. I knew the drill, and he knew I knew it. Take the paper home to Mom, have her sign off, showing she knows I'm a bad boy, then drop the slip in the warden's mailbox on my way to detention tomorrow.

Really, they would've saved a lot of paper if they'd just given me something reusable, like one of those little coffee cards with boxes for stamping.
Ten detentions earn you one free suspension!
In fact, my card would be almost full. At Twain, it took only seven detentions to get suspended, and this one made six for me. It would've been a hell of a lot more, but Mom convinced the principal to wipe my slate clean at the start of second semester. Principal Davis cared a lot more about straight As than a straight attitude. He wasn't about to lose one of his top performers.

Now I was back on the brink—one detention away from suspension. A single toe out of line after that, and I'd be expelled. Mom couldn't afford private-school tuition, so for me, that would mean enrollment at the alternative high school—the place for thugs, dumb asses, and people with no hope of going to college. In other words, just about all my old friends.

Almost everyone I ran around with in junior high had disappeared from Twain by the end of freshman year. The ones who'd stayed in touch dropped me one by one when they
turned sixteen and started getting cars. Maybe they didn't want to haul me around. Or maybe those cars drove them into the kind of trouble only alternative-school kids could understand. I didn't care to find out. I wanted to stay at Twain as much as Mom and Principal Davis wanted me to, but dicks like Toby made it impossible.

I snatched the paper and stuffed it into my backpack.

Mom was just going to love this.

Rain was dumping so hard outside school I didn't even bother to lift the hood of my jacket or try to use my backpack as a shield. I just dove straight into the downpour. The quicker the assault, the faster the misery would be over. All around me, the pounding of the rain mixed with slamming car doors and shrieking girls hurrying across the lot. One noise pierced through the rest.

“Dane! Dane, wait up!”

I ducked my head, pretending not to hear him, but in an instant he was at my side, splashing across the muddy baseball diamonds.

“It's raining,” he said, a little breathless.

“I didn't notice.”

Every step through the field was another spray of mud on my jeans from Billy's stomping. I snapped my head in his
direction, intent on telling him to tread a little lighter when I noticed the splashing wasn't just an accident of his heavy footfall. His eyes were fixed on the ground, deliberately seeking out the biggest pools of water. He hopped from foot to foot, puddle to puddle, intentionally making a mess with every step. His face was split open in a wide grin, and his eyes crinkled at the corners.

Something in his expression caused me to swallow my words. I didn't speak again until we hit the street.

“You go that way.” I pointed down toward the road where I'd first spotted him. “I'm going through the gardens.”

“Then are you going to beat up Mark?”

“What?”

“Mark. You said you were going to kick his ass later.”

Billy ignored my instructions and followed me up the grassy lawns, retracing the path we'd made that morning. The rain was letting up now, turning into a mist.

“Oh.” I shrugged. “Maybe.”

Billy squinted and pushed back a chunk of wet hair. “All bark and no bite.”

“What?”

“That's what my dad would have said. When people say they're going to do something but don't do—”

“I know what it means,” I said.

“And sometimes it's ‘all talk and no act—'”

“I
know
,” I repeated.

“So are you gonna?”

The clouds above us turned a lighter shade of gray as we reached the garden's crooked brick pathways.

I had a good enough reason to confront Mark, but I wasn't looking for a fight at the moment.

I wondered sometimes if Mark and I should have been friends, growing up on the same street and all. But there were a lot of kids on our block, and I'd never made much effort to get to know any of them. I didn't get chummy with the kids at school, either. I was always too embarrassed to invite any of them over to see our ugly house and meet my crazy mom. I was waiting—until we moved to a house with a kitchen floor that didn't peel, until Mom stopped framing lottery tickets—but nothing ever changed, and by the time I realized it wasn't
going
to change, I'd already made more enemies than friends.