The Bully Book (12 page)

I shuffled my way toward the stairs. Something snagged my foot and I tumbled over the rickety chair. I fell on the desk and heard its leg snap. I scrambled to stand it back up in the dark. The leg hung by a splinter of wood. As I straightened it, I felt a drawer in the desk that I hadn't seen. A secret drawer. Inside was a smooth springy sheet of 8½ x 11 laminated paper. I grabbed it and rushed up the basement stairs. On the final step, some light was leaking in from the party. I read the page:

How to Make Trouble without

Getting in Trouble, Rule the School,

and Be the Man

The Bully Book! That first page that Clarence strong-armed from Daniel!

I folded it up and jammed it in my pants pocket, climbed the last step, and made my way back to the party. The front door was only 35 feet away from me. I picked up my pace and …

“Colin! There you are, Colin Greene! I've got Clarence right here!”

I froze in my steps. My shoulders were practically in my ears. I felt the stolen Bully Book page burning a hole in my pocket, giving off a glow anyone could see.

“Clarence, this is Colin Greene. He's been doing our walks.”

I turned slowly, like a snake charmed by Ms. Corbinder's voice. And there he was: tall, dark hair flowing down over his eyes. Dark eyes, like he was wearing a bit of makeup, like a goth kid. Strange.

“Are you Richard Greene's little brother?” he said flatly, a combination of suspicion and boredom. “You don't look like him.”

“Well … I'm glad about that,” I said, trying to seem natural.

Clarence gave a small laugh. “That is something to be glad about.” His face turned serious. “But why are you here? I don't know you.”

Ms. Corbinder nudged him lightly on the arm. “Clarence, Colin does our walks, I told you. You be nice.”

“I'm being nice, right?” Clarence said. His look seemed to pierce my lie. He knew that I had The Bully Book page, I could sense it. He knew my name wasn't Colin Greene. There was silence and staring for what felt like a minute.

“Well, I need to attend to our guests.” Ms. Corbinder broke the stalemate. “You two play nice.”

She left, but Clarence never looked away. “Really. What are you doing here?” he repeated.

“Just like your mom told you.” I swallowed my fear. “I do your walks … I like birthday parties.”

Clarence leaned in close and examined my face like he was checking my pores for dirt. I was extremely tense. For a moment, I was sure he had caught me.

But then he pulled back, and his expression turned to boredom again. He left me without a word and disappeared behind the elbows and hairdos of the people at the party.

I made my way out the door and biked home—ecstatic. Like I'd escaped from the cave of a dragon.

I have a Bully Book page. It's in my hands right now.

I hope you understand what I'm saying.

I wish I could just talk to you. I would tell you these things and I would check on you. But I can't do that. This book will stay here at the school, but I'm moving on to bigger things.

I just want people to know what I did here this year. I don't want to be forgotten.

But I also know I can't be connected to this. I'm going to be an important person someday, a lawyer or politician—maybe the president. And I'll get there using the lessons in this book.

But if anyone finds out I wrote it, my career could be ruined.

So just like you've got to keep this book secret, I have to guard my identity. And I just hope the book can live on its own.

You have to keep it going.

I don't have a clue what to do with this thing.

How to Make Trouble without

Getting in Trouble, Rule the School,

and Be the Man

I guess it's pretty self-explanatory, but this page really only says that it's a book that will teach you how to be cool. After that, there's nothing. There isn't a single thing about how to pick the Grunt.

How can I change my fate from reading a single page?

At least it proves the conspiracy is real. That's saying something. But I already see the evidence everywhere.

I was doing my recess routine today, walking around with my hands in my pockets, mumbling to myself: general loser stuff. I could see Adrian and Jason had started a game of football and all the guys were pushing each other around. Melody was playing four-square with Ruth.

Then I saw something strange. Colin and Donovan were off together, in the field past the jungle gym. Donovan was stalking around Colin in a circle. Colin stood frozen.

As I walked toward them, I could hear what Donovan was saying.

“You're the grossest, Colin. You're a slimeball. You're wet like you just came out of your mom. Do you still kiss your mom, Colin? Are you that gay?”

“Hey!” I said, not thinking. “Why don't you shut up, Donovan?”

A strange feeling came over me. I didn't know why I said it, and even though I knew it could be trouble, I wasn't sorry and I wasn't scared.

Donovan's shirt came untucked and he pulled it back down over his stomach. The pudge was returning.

“What did you say?”

I was surprised by it myself. I faced around to Colin, who seemed terrified, and realized how wrong this all was. Here in the field, it was just me, Colin, and Donovan. A few years ago, we might have been just hanging out together. But now there was this ridiculous Book in charge of everyone.

I hate The Bully Book and I hate the Grunt.

“Stop making fun of Colin. It makes you sound like an idiot. And stop calling people gay. I don't even know why that's an insult. There are real gay people in the world, you know, and there's nothing wrong with them. Calling someone gay, like it's a bad thing, is like calling someone a dentist—it doesn't make any freaking sense!”

It felt good to chew Donovan out. He's been playing a part all year. He's not an evil mastermind, he's just Donovan White: the kid who ate markers in art class.

But obviously, Donovan hadn't thought about this stuff like I had. He's more of an action man. And pretty quickly, I was on the ground.

All I saw was a fuzzy peach color coming at my face. But it was no peach, I'll tell you that. Donovan's head slammed right into my nose and knocked me to the ground.

He had me pinned with his elbows against my shoulders. I could hear the cavalry, Jason and Adrian, making their way over. In the second before they got there, Donovan leaned real low down and he whispered raspy in my ear.

“Eric. We were friends. But you're the Grunt now. I'm cool and you're not. You can't talk to me, and you can't touch me.”

Then Jason and Adrian showed up. Jason, of course, started screaming swear words at me, calling me every name he could think of. He said if I told on Donovan to Principal Clark, he and Adrian would say that Donovan acted in self-defense—that I attacked him. And since I was the one with the record of getting in fights—he looked at Colin—no one would believe anything I said.

That's the thing about Jason. He's no idiot. And when Melody's not around, he does whatever he wants.

“You better be watching your back, Grunt,” he said, leading The Evil Three away with the rest of the kids. “'Cause if you keep stepping like this, we're gonna get ya. I'm serious.” He karate-kicked the air, and for once I was truly scared by it. I'd always thought Jason's moves were just lame showing off, but after actually getting hit by someone, I could imagine what that foot could do to my face.

Once they'd all left, Colin picked me up. “You think they'll really come get you?” he said, not even thanking me.

“I don't know.”

Things were changing all right, but not for the better. I reached up to my nose and felt the wetness. Blood. Not a big deal, I thought, I can suck it up.

I left Colin in the field and snuck into the school. I didn't want any hall monitors or whatever to see my bloody face. I'd just get in more trouble. I assessed the damage in the bathroom.

My nose and lips were all covered with blood, but my shirt was thankfully clean. I took paper towels and wiped away what I could, but it kept dripping down. I ran the faucet and tried to wash it off. And that worked a little better. I put pressure on it to try and stop the bleeding.

I checked the mirror to see if anything showed. There were no traces of the fight. But I was shaking.

Like a leaf.

You're going to be messing with the Grunt pretty bad. And I'm telling you, one day it will all blow up in your face. Unless you're careful.

Make the Grunt look bad to your teachers, to the recess monitor, to the principal. Take the time when things are calm and make little complaints about the Grunt. Don't wait until the Grunt's gotten you in trouble. Mention that he was swearing at recess, playing too rough at football, asking to copy other kids' assignments.

Nothing that will get the Grunt called to the office. Just make it so teachers don't really trust him.

And then, one day, when the Grunt tries to get you in trouble and you have to tell a story to get yourself out of it, it will be much easier because nobody will trust him over you.

You've only been accused once, and you have friends to back you up. The Grunt has a million little black marks on his record.

That's being prepared.

What they never show in the movies is that a punch in the nose means picking out bloody boogers for a week.

It's disgusting, I know. But you've got to get them or they clog up and turn you into a mouth breather.

Blood boogers every twenty minutes is not helping my sanity. It's like a reminder of what Jason said. “We're gonna get you.”

I feel watched. When I'm dropped off at school in the morning to when I'm walking home from the bus stop. I feel eyes on me.

Yesterday, I was leaving school kind of late. It's warmer now and I've been riding my bike home; I thought I heard someone behind me. I turned around, but the parking lot was deserted.

There was a big crash as I rounded the corner of the school. I caught a glimpse of someone running away from the bike racks. My bike was tipped over and tangled with a few others.

I didn't see who did it.

Melody came up to me in school today. I feel like we've been avoiding each other the last couple months. I'm definitely avoiding her. I wonder if she knows her boyfriend is making threats on my life, or that I got head butted in the nose last week.

“What's up, Eric?” she said. She talks to me in this real bright voice, like how you talk to a little kid or a dog. We're reading about nonverbal communication in science class. One kind of nonverbal communication is tone of voice. But I can't figure out what she's trying to say.

It makes me nervous to talk to anyone nowadays. I don't like thinking that they can know what I'm feeling from the tone of my voice, or my body language. That stuff's too hard to control.