Dull Boy (2 page)

I try to tell myself it’s because I need to eat, or I’m getting sick, but I know it’s not that simple. Something’s wrong with me.

“C’mon,” I say. “I’ll walk you home. And if any of those kids are waiting for you, they’ll have to deal with me.”

“Okay.” He takes my hand with his tiny, tear-covered one. “Thanks.”

Aww. See how nice that is?

For a second I forget that I’m a first-class deceiver, a destroyer of property and all-around screwup.

I
t doesn’t take long to be reminded. When I pull out my phone again, it’s full of texts from Nate and Milo, and a voice mail from my mom.

I delete it; I already have that lecture memorized: she’s going to give me more hell about destroying Henry’s dad’s car, blah blah, hell, blah.
Not
that it was destroyed. I just . . . broke the door and shattered some windows when I slammed the door too hard. It was an
accident
. And it was totally his choice to buy a new one.

I also have to buy Henry a present.
This
is important. Because even though Henry’s my best friend, I’ve blown him off a lot lately. Like, he’ll want to hang out and play Xbox, or practice moonsaults on his trampoline, but when he calls I’m halfway across town waiting for some crisis to occur, so I end up resorting to my I’m-studying-at-the-library lie.

But what’s the alternative? Tell him the truth?

Tell him that I quit wrestling after I broke Mike G.’s arm not because Coach made me, but because my strength was out of control and I was afraid I might hurt someone again?

And that, um, not only do I have
powers,
but that I feel like I need to do something good with them so I’m more than just a destructive force?

He’d think I was totally delusional. Or he’d make me show him, and
then
he’d believe me—but that would be worse. Because he’d brag to Milo and Nate. And then the news would be everywhere.

I can’t come clean and fix everything, but I don’t want Henry to think I’ve forgotten about him. We used to do a lot of cool stuff together. Like in seventh grade, when we plotted out this whole wrestling rivalry, and we put on WWE-style shows between classes. He’d hit me with a folding chair that we stole from the orchestra room, and I’d elbow drop him in the hallway. We spent a lot of time washing chalkboards that year, but it was worth it.

Those are some of my best memories. I’ve just been busy lately, and “all heroism, no play” means that the only “super” I’ve been to my friends lately is super lame. I need to make it up to them, to prove I’m not a deadbeat friend. I’m hoping a kick-ass birthday party will help.

Unfortunately, since I
made
that kid take the twenty bucks, most of my money’s gone and I have to go the cheap route and get Henry a bargain-bin Incredible Hulk T-shirt—and hope he just thinks it’s ironic. Then I zip home and climb in through my open window, grab some wrapping paper and the decorations, slap on some cologne—because hey, there will be girls there—and fly to Roast under cover of darkness, cutting through the woods or empty parking lots whenever possible.

I really shouldn’t be flying, but if I get there any later, Henry’s surprise will be ruined—and then I’ll really be screwed. My friends barely trust me to pull this off as it is. I just hope they appreciate it, because if anyone saw me flying, I would be dead. DEAD. Scientists would have me in a government lab in about five seconds, checking to see if my pee could cure cancer.

Vivisection leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Roast is crowded when I get there, just like Milo said it would be. Basically, every kid who doesn’t feel like going to Denny’s is here—late-night hangout options are slim. Tack on adults who don’t like sports bars, a scattering of poets, and you’ve got table availability that’s almost nil.

But I won’t be deterred. It’s Henry’s birthday; I’m on a mission.

I stake out a spot by the massive coffee roaster (it looks like a furnace, but smells better), and wait for a four-person table to open up—then, when it does, I pounce, throwing all my stuff down to claim it.

Paper Pikachu hats tumble out of the bag. A few sophisticated hipsters gape at me, appalled.

“Birthday party,” I explain. And then I ignore them.

I go to town decorating, setting out the matching paper plates, napkins, noisemakers—every ridiculous item you can imagine. Nate’s friend Lacey even stuffed a few balloons in the bag, so after I order something (a cupcake and a smoothie, so the manager doesn’t kick me out), I sit down and start blowing them up, tying them off, and then taping them to the table.

Awesome. Henry’s gonna pee his pants laughing.

I need permission to hang the birthday banner, so I pop one of the paper hats on my head and beeline to the nearest employee: a girl around my age who’s dressed all in black. She’s busy pushing a broom around, messy brown hair hanging in her face. I figure she won’t mind being interrupted.

“Hey, do you mind if I—”

“The sign-up list is over there,” she says, jerking her head toward the counter. In a . . . not-very-friendly way. “What? Aren’t you here for open-mike night?” Then she squints at my head. “What the hell are you wearing?”

“Uh . . .” My hands go to the Pikachu “I Choose
You,
Birthday Boy!” hat; suddenly it seems like a bad idea. “Nothing.” I slip it off my head. God, this is gonna seem even stupider. “Do you think I could, uh, hang this banner? For my friend’s birthday?”

She blows a piece of hair out of her face, scowls. “I don’t care if you hang your
self
.”

“Uh . . . okay, thanks.” I slink away from her, cringe all the way back to my table. Yikes. What’s her problem?

The banner is rainbow-colored. It’s shiny and metallic, and crinkled tinsel dangles from the edges, like fringe on a scarf. It’s the most obnoxious thing I’ve ever seen.

I’m just about done hanging it when the applause starts. Followed by microphone feedback, and the obligatory “Welcome to Roast’s open-mike night! Thank you all for coming!”

Ugh. No offense to poets, but I hate poetry. The only thing worse than people expressing their innermost feelings is when they have to make them rhyme.

I settle into my seat and take a big slurp of my smoothie; lean my head against the wall, anticipating agony. There’s a girl sitting at the table across from mine who looks like she’s getting ready to read—she’s in the middle of some weird transformation: from geek to goth?

She’s busy wriggling into a black t-shirt with a metallic silver coffin on it, tugging it on over a tee that says: I ❤ ROBOTS. She takes off her glasses and blinks a few times before one of her friends—this cute blonde: wavy hair, pink hoodie, tiny-hearts-and-cupcakes charm bracelet on her wrist—starts lining the girl’s eyes with black eyeliner.

“Stop blinking, pleeease,” the blond girl singsongs.

“Sophie, you’re poking me in the eye. It’s an unavoidable reaction. I’m—
ow!
—protecting my cornea.”

“Tell your cornea to take one for the team. Otherwise you’re gonna look like a raccoon.”

There’s one more person at her table: a guy, my age but, uh, sensitive-looking? He’s the only person here who’s more overdressed than I am. He keeps adjusting his trench coat, like he’s trying to pull it closed more, twisting the collar and tightening it around his throat. I hope he’s not the blond girl’s boyfriend. Probably not, since geek-to-goth girl is sitting between them.

Trench-coat boy is shuffling through some papers, glancing around with pale blue wide-open eyes, this overly serious nervous expression on his face.

“Are you sure you want to read this?”

“Of course I’m going to read it,” geek-to-goth girl says, standing up and pinning anarchy-symbol buttons all over her pants. Then she rolls her pants up to her knees to reveal pink-and-black striped tights. “That’s why we came here. There’s an eighty-seven percent chance that she’ll respond favorably this time.”

Anyway: so the open-mike thing starts, and the first person to bound up there is the geek-goth-punk-circus girl. Seriously, I don’t know what she’s supposed to be. Tack on a pirate patch and it might start to make sense.

No, it wouldn’t.

“Hi. I’m Darla Carmine,” she says, leaning into the mike, “and the poem I’m going to read is called, ‘More Than Meets the Eye.’”

Hmm. Maybe I judged this girl too harshly. I cross my arms over my chest, nod my tentative approval. This might be awesome. I hope it’s about Optimus Prime.

She reads, complete with dramatic pauses and Shakespearean gestures:

WTF kind of poem was that? That was horrible! It’s worse than the limericks I wrote for our poetry unit in seventh grade. Plus, the whole time she was reading it, she kept looking at the angry floor-sweeping girl with these “meaningful” glances.

Wait—was that a lesbian-crush poem?

Hmm.

Then she says, “Thank you,” and takes her seat to the sound of polite applause.

The angry floor-sweeping girl snorts—she’s like right next to me, sweeping up stray pieces of tinsel. “That poem sucked,” she says.

To me? Uh . . . I look around. Either that or to the voices in her head.

“Word,” I say, giving her a we-agreed-on-something, that’s-a-basis-for-a-civil-friendship nod.

“Yours will probably be worse.”

Or not. “How many times do I have to tell you? I’m not here to read a poem—it’s my friend’s birthday.”

“Uhhh . . . your invisible friend?” She does this blink-blink, you’re-a-moron thing, then points at my mostly empty table.

“They’re coming,” I say. “They’re just late.” Like . . . twenty minutes late. People are hovering around my table; they keep asking if they can take the chairs and I have to shoo them away. Finally I whip out my cell and call Nate, because this is getting ridiculous.

“Dude, where are you?” I say when he picks up.

There’s music in the background, a girl’s laugh. A tinkly voice saying, “Is that him?”

“Av?” Nate laughs his life-of-the-party laugh. “We’re at Henry’s house. Where’re you?”

My mouth opens but no sound comes out.

 

EVERYTHING IN my BODY
gets hot. No.

Not here. Please.

I try to breathe—not to look embarrassed, or off my game. To stay
cool.
Especially now that I have an audience. I’ve been using my extra-loud cell-phone voice, mostly for angry girl’s benefit, so she knows I’m not some loser.

But I
am
a loser. My friends—at least two of them, since I know Milo was in on this—lied to me. Tricked me. Because I’m that gullible. That stupid. That unimportant.

My hand trembles until it’s in a tight fist against my head. Nate’s voice is gone, the music is gone, replaced by the sound of plastic cracking, all the guts in my phone compacting, tiny pieces raining down on the table. Like insect parts.

I crushed my phone.

I take a deep breath. And then another one.

Lower my hand to the table, knock the pieces to the floor.

You don’t know what it’s like. You don’t
want
to know what it’s like.

I feel like I need to break something, and then another something, and then more somethings—and then myself. Like this feeling
isn’t
going to go away. Ever.

It isn’t hormones, it isn’t adrenaline—something’s wrong with me. I’ve got all this power, all this strength, all this aggression in this
normal-looking
body, and I feel like I can’t contain it, like I’m going to explode. And working out doesn’t help. Running doesn’t help. Flying
sort of
helps, because the push and pull to stay in the air is so intense—but that comes with its own dangers. Being caught. Apprehended. Poked, prodded, tested.