Don't Care High (16 page)

Well, this was typical. Here he was, the lab partner of the most beautiful girl in the school. Since Day One, he had been secretly dying for even the tiniest bit of her attention. Now, finally, she speaks to him for the first time all year, and it turns out that she's making a play for Mike Otis.
Mike Otis!

His first impulse was to say, “He's married,” but he fought it down. By rights, he should alert Mike to this situation, for surely even Mike could not fail to notice the attractions of the divine Daphne. But then there were the hard feelings. The world was such a complicated place that he could not be expected to spend his time improving the quality of life for others. But if she found Mike beyond her fair reach, would she not then naturally try for his right-hand man, good old Paul Abrams? Realistically, no. However, the spirit of Steve was a powerful weapon to use on someone who looked so much like a leading lady. And the spirit of Steve pointed to the greater glory of Don't Care High.

“Well, the best way to get Mike's attention is to get involved. For example, Mike's really into the basketball team. Why don't you try out?”

“Mike supports the team?”

“Personally,” Paul confirmed. “He's really excited about next Tuesday's game at Laguna.”

Daphne flashed him a smile that turned his knees to water. Then she became thoughtful as she gave him the signal to begin the experiment.

With a huge sigh, Paul sorted the equipment. The divine Daphne may have shown enthusiasm for Mike Otis, but it certainly hadn't changed her attitude toward lab work.

In the three lunch periods, Sheldon passed the word about Mike's sudden interest in the basketball team, and so by the later periods of the day, the hearts and minds of the student body of Don Carey High School had completed the transition from sewers to hoops.

Not so the staff, however. And so, in the final period, Mr. Willis, who had always believed sarcasm to be a legitimate outlet for his frustrations, and whose sprained ankle was acting up again, couldn't resist saying,

“Well, Mike, that was quite an impressive showing you and your followers made at the science fair.” He chuckled. “I guess you're really ‘flushed with pride' about the whole business.”

Mike, who was not easily perturbed, simply nodded. Although Paul felt his feathers ruffled a little, he said nothing.

“That's all in the past anyway,” put in Trudy Helfield. “The basketball team is the big thing now.” She turned and looked directly at Mike. “I intend to try out right after class.”

Paul cast a glance in Mike's direction. The ex-president's black eyes had grown veiled and wary. It seemed as though Mike was developing a sixth sense to detect the beginnings of things he didn't understand that would haunt him just the same. Finally, Mike said, “That's nice,” whereupon every girl in the class over five-foot-four pledged that she, too, would be there at the tryouts.

“Might we do a little photography?” suggested Mr. Willis. “I'm sorry, but I need to every now and then, because it makes me feel so useful.”

Wayne-o strolled into the room. “Hey, Mr. Willis, what's up?”

“Sit down, Wayne. We have a lot of work to do today.”

When the class was out, Paul headed directly home, not wanting to be around as the entire female population of the school converged on the bug-eyed Coach Murphy to vie for a position on the now-famous basketball team. When he got home, his mother greeted him at the door with a newspaper clipping which she shoved under his nose. The headline read:
DON'T CARE STUDENTS ZOO SCIENCE FAIR
.

Underneath, it said:
82 PROJECTS DESTROYED AS LETHARGIC SCHOOL AWAKENS
.

“Paul, what's going on at this school of yours?”

“It was just a little misunderstanding. I don't really know much about it.”

“Oh? Well then, how come you're mentioned in this article? By name, as one of the personal confidantes of Mike Otis. I want you to stay away from this Mike Otis. He sounds like a roughneck to me.”

Paul laughed out loud. “Look, Mom, it's a good school. The people there have more spirit than anyone I've ever seen. And as for Mike, he did a science project, and now he's turning his attention to the basketball team. Some roughneck. I suppose the next time I turn around, you'll be accusing Tinkerbell of homicide.”

On Monday, Paul turned sixteen. This occasion was marked by a special dinner at Auntie Nancy's house and the ceremonial doing of the dishes, pointing out the fact that there was no dishwasher on the premises. Auntie Nancy also presented Paul with a flashy designer shirt, which he decided to put away until his next visit to Edmondo.

Although Paul had tried to conceal his birthday, Sheldon had gotten wind of it, and bought Paul a double album entitled
The Door Fell Off Our Bus: Flash Flood Selects the 23 Greatest Rock Songs Since Eternity
. In addition, various cards and gifts arrived by mail from assorted relatives sprinkled across the continent.

Surprisingly, the most enthusiastic birthday celebrant was Paul's father. Cancelling meetings by the score, he saw to it that he was home on Monday to greet the birthday boy and usher him into adulthood personally. He presented Paul with an electric shaver, not at all concerned by the fact that his son, as yet, had grown nothing worth shaving. Then, his eyes sparkling with pride, Mr. Abrams pulled out a brand-new copy of
The Driver's Handbook
, and announced that he intended to have Paul behind the wheel of a car inside of two weeks.

For his part, Paul tried to look enthusiastic, and submitted patiently to his father's energetic lectures on the ways of the road. For some reason, he had lost most of his burning ambition to drive. In Saskatoon, driving was a lot more important because everything was so flat and spread out, and the buses came once in a blue moon. But here in Manhattan, practically everything was within walking distance — or at least subway distance — and the most important transportation vehicle was an elevator. Besides, traffic was always at a standstill, there were never any parking spaces on the street, and the public garages all charged five thousand dollars a minute. And since he never left New York anyway, his life as a licensed driver was going to be exactly the same as when he had been a mere child of fifteen.

Nonetheless, Paul could still hear his father raving to his mother long after Paul had headed to his room to go to sleep. While Mr. Abrams described the perfect left turn in the living room, Paul knelt at his window, scanning the building across the street for signs of Rabbit Man. With all the excitement at school, he hadn't really been keeping up to date on the apartments across the way, and here were the consequences. For all he knew, Rabbit Man may have decided to make his warren elsewhere, for his windows were dark, the shades drawn.

Not only that, but the fire-eater now wore heavy bandages on his lower lip. There was a message there somewhere, Paul was certain, about practice not always making perfect.

A new attraction had surfaced a few floors below the fire-eater. The world's ultimate football fan had moved in, and when he was not glued to the TV screen watching pro, college, Canadian and even high school games, he was hard at work ripping up his carpets and laying down Astroturf. It was impossible to see the rest of the apartment, but the part near the window was done up as the end zone of the Orange Bowl.

The people next door weren't watching their set, so Steve had the night off.

He finally drifted off to sleep to the sounds of his father talking about parallel parking.

* * *

At school, Coach Murphy was in a state of unparalleled joy. Not only would he be able to produce five players on Thursday afternoon, but he had a first team, a second team and substitutes. And enthusiasm! The girls had volunteered to put in two hours a day after school, plus individual practice at home, and had even worked out over the weekend. Oh, he had definitely died and gone to heaven! Of course, he did realize that the only reason for this burst of support was an inexplicable decision on the part of Mike Otis to have this team win. But Coach Murphy didn't share the cynicism of his fellow teachers, especially Mr. Gamble. An opportunity like this was to be exploited at all costs, regardless of its source. As far as Coach was concerned, Mike Otis could wear a raincoat as big as Chicago and stick safety pins in his nostrils, so long as he kept supporting the sports program.

On Tuesday, Sheldon and Paul managed to extract a vague promise from Mike to attend the Laguna game. It took quite a bit of begging and pleading, but not as much as Paul had anticipated it would after the science fair. Mike gave in with a kind of bland graciousness, as he had apparently accepted the fact that he had certain duties to this public he had so mysteriously acquired. He was sure that it was all related to some basic idea that was included among the many things at this school that he didn't understand.

“I know how to handle him now,” Sheldon said afterward as the two left the building. “I just let you do the talking. It works like a charm.”

“Why me?”

“Because you're nice, Ambition. Not flashy, and you certainly don't have a silver tongue like mine. But Mike doesn't respond to reason anyway. He responds to your natural inherent niceness.”

Paul wasn't sure just how to take this. On the surface, it was a compliment, but Sheldon's use of the word
nice
seemed ever so slightly tainted. The expression “Nice guys finish last” kept cropping up in his mind, and Paul couldn't seem to remember any of those late movies counting
nice
among the many attributes of Steve.

“Anyway,” Sheldon went on, “the basketball game is practically in the bag. We've covered all the angles. And it occurs to me that since it's barely four o'clock, this would be an excellent time to sample some Mexican cuisine. Did you know that there's a great Mexican place not too far from Don't Care High?”

“No, and I think I'd like to live a little longer before the great secret is revealed to me. Honestly, Shel, my stomach has just recovered from that stupid souvlaki you forced down my throat last time.”

“Come on,” scoffed Sheldon. “Tell your stomach to follow me, and we'll really see what it's made of.”

* * *

That evening, despite paralyzing stomach pains brought on by three possibly tainted enchiladas, Paul passed the written examination to earn his beginning driver's permit. Mr. Abrams treated this as the equivalent of a victory at the Indianapolis 500.

“All those other test candidates had no idea what they were doing, but you were great!”

“But everyone passed.”

“There's a difference between just getting by and knowing what you're doing. You knew what you were doing.” He then dismissed the many drivers' education programs available to students, and reiterated his intention of teaching his son personally.

“Gee, thanks, Dad,” said Paul weakly. He'd had no complaints against New York recently, but here was one. These streets were patrolled by lunatics, bumper to bumper. A person should learn to drive in a sane place — like, oh, let's say, Saskatoon. He could accept that this was a very un-Stevelike sentiment, because Steve always knew in advance that he would emerge unscathed driving through the minefield, the landslide and the washed-out bridge. But since no one had provided Paul with a copy of the script, it was fairly obvious that he would drive a quarter of a block, and then four fleets of taxis would appear from nowhere and grind him into a thin layer of dust over the bike lane. He sighed. Considering the insanity that was going on at school, the career of Paul Abrams, driver extraordinaire, was a needless complication.

And as the practices raged on and basketball fever took over Don Carey, Paul allowed himself to forget about driving and concentrated on Mike Otis. Maybe it was his being mentioned in the paper as one of Mike's confidantes, or Daphne's notice of him as a good friend of Mike's, or possibly his and Sheldon's general reputations as the ex-president's main men, but Paul felt the need to get closer to Mike. His attempts were unsuccessful, as they had always been in the past. Concessions could be gained and promises extracted, but the man himself remained a complete mystery.

Still, despite his knowledge of Mike's strange circumstances, his suspicious political career and rise to power, and his off-beat personality, Paul felt that Mike was someone special. In the words of Peter Eversleigh, Mike really was “the main dude.”

Finally, Paul knew he wanted to
win
on Thursday.

L
aguna High laughed when it heard that Don Carey had put together a team and was going to dare to bring it over on Thursday. The Laguna Student Council had dispatched a letter to the students of Don't Care High which included the passage:

“… We urge you to keep your team home, as cruelty to animals is distasteful to us. We have also heard that you place great faith in a person named Mike Otis, and we have obtained a picture of him. By the time this letter arrives, we may have stopped laughing….”

“It's an outrage!” Sheldon howled in the cafeteria. “And that's why we want everybody to be there!
Everybody!
We'll show them how a
real
school sticks together behind its team and its true leader!” So, on the day of the big game, students did not even visit their lockers after class. Some headed for subways, some for private cars, and some started out on foot.

At exactly three forty-five, the principal of Laguna High became edgy as he watched the influx of Don Carey students swarm past his window, heading for the attractive, modern sports complex. He called together his staff in an emergency meeting, ordering them all to stay to act as security for the game.

“These are the monsters who levelled the science fair. How can we know how they'll react when our team starts slaughtering them? So nobody goes home until they're gone.”