The Boy Recession (7 page)

“Now you guys try it,” Hunter says. “All of you.
Flam tap.
”

Hunter’s three students tighten their grips on their drumsticks and repeat on their drum pads what Hunter did on their heads. When they pronounce “flam tap,” they sound awed, as if “flam tap” were a spell from a Harry Potter movie. Actually, it’s a rudiment—one of the basic patterns you start with when you’re learning the drums.

“Awesome! You guys got it!” Hunter says. “Now it’s time for the paradiddle. Your head ready, Molly?”

This is how Hunter teaches music. Today isn’t even the first time he’s hit the kids on the head. Last week, during the first lesson, he taught his students to hold drumsticks and then set them free to run around the room, hitting things. Anything they want—the blackboard, the floor, the music stands, one another…

“Hear how something hollow has a different pitch?” Hunter yelled to them over the racket. “The blackboard has that tinny sound when you hit it, but the wall sounds different. Here, c’mere, hit the wall.”

For his second lesson, Hunter walked his kids to the top level of the bandstand and showed them all the parts of the drum kit. Then he assigned one student to the cymbals, one to the bass drum, and one to the snare drum.

“This is a contest,” he announced. “Which one of you can be
loudest
?”

And then, on Tuesday, he found out that if you hit an eight-year-old on the head on purpose, they think it’s really, really funny.

The fact that we don’t have a faculty adviser in the room while we’re teaching music is good for Hunter. His lesson plans would probably fall apart if you took away that element of danger. But it means that I have to be the responsible one, because I worry that if someone gets a concussion and their parents sue our school, this music program will definitely be canceled.

“Um, Hunter?” I call across the room. “Can you guys maybe get to the drum-pad part of the lesson?”

“Oh, yeah.” Hunter grins and tosses his hair back. He jumps down from the bandstand and jogs to the piano to grab his own drum pad, calling out while his back is turned, “Loosen up that grip, flam tap!”

So this is PMS. No, we don’t have a better name for it yet—and yes, I know we need one. For the past two weeks, Hunter and I have had fun talking about PMS in the hallways and having people give us strange looks, but I don’t plan on listing PMS on my college applications next year. The only person who could legitimately do that is Pam, who spends so much time with actual PMS that it’s an extracurricular activity for her.

Every Tuesday and Thursday, nine third-graders come over from the elementary school on a bus. Hunter and I walk them to the band room and give them lessons in drums or the flute. The room is back the way I like it—
there’s music, laughter, and lots of noise; the instruments our kids rented are in the cubbies.

That day in the hallway, when Hunter told me we should start the music program ourselves, he surprised me. I had no idea he was that interested. When he and I asked our friends from band to help teach, all of them had either signed up for another class or liked having a study hall so much they wouldn’t give it up, which made me realize that Hunter had given up his study hall. Before our first lesson, he told me he’d never worked with kids before, or babysat, or anything, but our students loved him right away. He’s super-patient and so easygoing that he can even deal with No-Teeth Kid, whom I personally think could use some Ritalin.

Setting the program up wasn’t exactly the easiest process in the world, though. When we first met to go over the details, I brought a two-page to-do list, and he brought a bag of Cheetos.

“I think we should figure out instrument rentals first,” I said. “So we can put that information in when we mail out the permission slips to the parents.”

“Right, the instruments,” Hunter said. “Well, there’s a drum set in the band room already, so I’m good.”

“But they don’t start on the drum set when they’re first learning, do they? I thought you used those drum-pad things.”

“Oh, right, the drum pads,” Hunter said, his mouth full of Cheetos. “I still have mine; they can use it.”

“But we might need a lot of them,” I said.

“How many?”

“We don’t know how many kids are signed up,” I said. “We won’t know until we get the permission slips back.”

“True, right, you’re right,” Hunter said. “So let’s find some instruments to rent. Should we just, like, Google places?”

At that point, I realized I was going to have to handle most of that to-do list: the permission slips, the coordination of the bus from the elementary school, the program proposal to the school board.

Sometimes I get so distracted thinking about all the things I haven’t done that I forget about actually teaching. Like right now.

“Kelly,” one of my students says and looks up at me. “Can I stop blowing now? I have a headache.”

One of my redheaded twins has been trying over and over to make a sound with her flute, and she’s light-headed.
Poor girl.

“Yes! Yes, take a break,” I tell her, patting her head. “We’re gonna work on reading music. Everyone take out a crayon! Who remembers what a C looks like?”

Not only have I been doing all the PMS paperwork, I actually have twice as many kids to teach as Hunter does. That’s not his fault, though. And I volunteered to put my name on all the permission slips, and the contract with the bus driver, and the proposal we submitted to Dr. Nicholas. But that was after Hunter told me he wasn’t sure Dr.
Nicholas would trust him with a room full of eight-year-olds armed with sticks.

“I don’t think he likes me that much,” Hunter told me hesitantly, the day before we were supposed to talk to Dr. Nicholas. “Last time I was in that office, he threatened to suspend me.”

“What? Why?”

“Well, freshman year I got one of those UNICEF boxes, you know? How you go trick-or-treating for UNICEF and collect money from everyone? I did that, but I didn’t hand in the box. I just totally forgot, because it was under all this crap in my locker, so… then, remember how they brought those, like, drug dogs to school to go through the lockers?”

I guess I had a totally horrified look on my face, because Hunter started crossing his arms in front of himself, like he was canceling what he just said.

“No, no, no,” he said. “Not anything like that, no. They just opened all the lockers, and they found my UNICEF box in there, like, five months later. That was it. It’s not as bad as you think.”

“Yeah, you were just embezzling money from kids in the third world.”

“No!” Hunter protested, but when our eyes met, we both started laughing. And in the end, whether Dr. Nicholas likes him or not, Hunter has turned out to be a great teacher.

“So that’s one flam tap, two paradiddles, and a flam
tap at the end,” Hunter says. “Are we ready for it? One, two, one-two-three-four…”

Knocking his drumsticks together over his head, Hunter counts off.

“You did it! Awesome! Rock and roll!” Hunter says, giving them high fives.

“Okay, everyone, time to pack up!” I say, standing. “Put your instruments in your cubbies. The bus is already outside.”

After we load the kids into the bus, I return to the band room and notice that the freshman boy with the nice sweaters is holding the door open.

“Hi!” I say to him. “You’re the piccolo!”

“Um…” He smiles. “Yeah. I’m Johann.”

Johann is pretty attractive for a freshman. He definitely looks young, but he’s cute—and probably foreign, with a name like Johann.

“I was hoping I could help out with the music program,” he says, very formally, with his hands in the pockets of his neatly ironed khakis.

“Really? You want to?”

I’m so excited that my voice squeaks, which is embarrassingly amplified because of the band room’s acoustics.

“I can teach, if you want,” he says. “I’ve given flute lessons and piano lessons before, and some percussion. And
my dad is a music professor, so I have a bunch of theory books.”

“Music theory! We haven’t even thought about that.”

“Well, I don’t have to…”

“No, we should! We should be doing that!”

“But if you already have teachers, I can just help out and do paperwork, or whatever you need,” Johann says. “I guess I’m pretty responsible.”

Responsible.
That is exactly what I need. Johann will let me be my Libra self. He’ll be super-responsible, Hunter will be slightly irresponsible, and I’ll make sure everyone gets along.

“Oh my gosh, I love you!” I exclaim.

Johann, embarrassed, looks down at his clogs. I don’t think he’s the kind of guy you should declare your love for.

W
hat is all this crap?

It’s late October, and I’ve fallen into my habit of arriving to first period fifteen minutes late. But this morning, my dad dropped me off only ten minutes late, so I figured I had time to go to the cafeteria for a bacon-egg-and-cheese.

But when I turn from the main hallway down south, there are green streamers all over and balloons strewn across the floor, impeding my way to bacon-egg-and-cheese. In the cafeteria, I notice another weird thing: Eugene and Chung wearing matching suits.

“Yo, Scarface!” I yell with my mouth full.

I pay for my half-eaten sandwich and walk over to Eugene and Chung.

“Happy homecoming,
mio fratello
!” Eugene greets me.

“What’s going on with this?” I ask him, gesturing to the two of them and their suits.

“With what?” Eugene asks.

But he knows what, because he presses the lapels of his jacket smooth and reaches for his shirt cuffs to make sure they’re sticking out of his jacket sleeves.

“You finally figure out how to clone yourself?” I say, looking from him to Chung.

Chung looks down at Eugene, confused.

“Dude, I’m, like, a foot taller than him,” Chung tells me.

“And you’re Asian,” Eugene adds. He turns to me and asks, “You like my special game-day suit? This isn’t one of my regular suits. We got these specially made for homecoming.”

Eugene’s on the football team now. He still sucks as much as ever, but they took all the guys who tried out, because they were so desperate to fill up the roster. The team has played three games so far, and lost every one. Eugene sits on the bench, but he feels like a badass because he gets to hang out with Chung and those guys.

“You guys go shopping together?” I ask them.

“I got us all a deal from Brooks Brothers,” Eugene says. “They’re our team’s corporate sponsor now. The Senators, brought to you by Brooks Brothers.”

“The Senators? What Senators?”

“Our school mascot, Huntro,” Eugene says. “What are you, a Brazilian exchange student? How long have you been at this school?”

“I sleep through a lot of stuff,” I tell him. Then I think about it for a second and laugh.

“The Senators. Really intimidating,” I tell them. “Look at you guys. You look like fuckin’ senators. I bet you kick some ass in those ties.”

“Hey!” Chung points his finger at me. “These ties are Italian silk.”

“Happy homecoming!”

Bobbi Novak comes bouncing up to us. She’s got her team warm-ups on, and she’s drinking some healthy protein thingy.

“Happy homecoming!” Eugene exclaims, and throws open his arms, forcing Bobbi to hug him. She goes right up and presses her miracle tits against his damned Italian silk tie.

“Were you so tired this morning?” Bobbi asks Eugene.

“We were all up ’til midnight last night, decorating the hallways,” Eugene explains to me.

“Hunter, you have to give us your unbiased opinion,” Bobbi says. “What do you think of the decorations?”

She looks really excited to hear what I think, so I say, “Uhhh… I like the balloons.”

“Yay!” Bobbi claps her hand against her protein-drink thingy. “Then it was totally worth it! We were up so late, I just hope I have enough energy for my match this afternoon.”

Eugene jumps in as soon as she says that.

“Your match is at four, right?” he says. “I can make it, I’ve just gotta sprint back to our team dinner as soon as it’s over.”

“And
I’m
going to, like, sprint home and shower in between my game and your game,” Bobbi says, laughing. “You’re coming tonight, right, Hunter? We can be, like, a cheering section for Eugene!”

Before I answer, I look back and forth from Bobbi to the smug bastard in the Italian silk tie.

“You gonna root for me, Huntro?” Eugene asks suggestively, wiggling his eyebrows.

I grin. “Oh, I’ll be cheering you on,” I tell him. “I really hope you score.”