The Misfits (7 page)

DuShawn rolls his eyes. I get the feeling he's as serious about this whole political party thing as I am. Which is to say: not. I know that I'm involved because Addie is my friend and I don't know how to say no. I have not yet figured DuShawn's angle.

All of a sudden, Addie gets all excited. “Look around the room,” she says. “What do you see? More to the point, what
don't you
see?”

We look around the room.

“I do not see any fish,” DuShawn gives.

“And,” I put in, “I note a discernible absence of lawn ornaments.”

DuShawn cracks up and flashes his palm for a high five, which I give him—or almost, anyway; I'm off-center so it's more like a high three—and I'm well on my way to totally betraying my lifelong friendship with Addie for the buzz I'm feeling from having actually made a certifiable popular person laugh
with
me
and not
at
me when Ms. Wyman marches into the room with so much authority I pop up out of my seat ready to sing “God Save the Queen.”

“Yes, Mr. Goodspeed?” Ms. Wyman asks, noting that I am the only one standing.

“May I be excused?” I ask. I cannot think what else to say.

Addie looks at me as if I have completely lost my mind, which I venture to say I have. When Ms. Wyman gives me permission to leave, I shrug at Addie and mouth, “I'll be right back.” She mouths back, “You are made of gorgonzola.”

That probably isn't what she says, but that's what it looks like.

Anyway, while counting to a hundred outside Ms. Wyman's room, I suddenly spot Skeezie Tookis lurking down the hall. I would like to think there is another word to describe his behavior, but “lurking” is a perfect fit. Ordinarily, Skeezie is not a lurker. Even those of an adult persuasion who have called him a young hooligan have never combined the accusation with the word “lurk” or any of its derivatives. Yet, there he is. Lurking.

“Skeeze!” I call out in a hushed sort of way, not wanting Ms. Wyman to hear me and suddenly appear in the hall to ask why I needed to be excused in order to count to a hundred.

The Skeeze looks over his shoulder, but not like he has heard me and not so far that he sees me. He's got this whole furtive way about him, which makes sense, considering that he is lurking and all. I wonder what he is up to, but I do not call out to him again. Instead, I pull myself back behind a fire extinguisher, so that if he happens to look down the hall in my direction he will not see me. Although he
will
see a fire extinguisher with legs. I pop my head out just in time to catch him in the act of shoving something through the slots of a locker. I make out which locker it is and wait for Skeezie to cease his lurking and scurry away. Actually, he does not scurry. He cops an attitude and moves down the hall bobbing his head and snapping his fingers, like he's John Travolta in that movie
Grease.
It's a relief seeing him act like himself, and the thought occurs to me that in the space of a couple of hours all my friends have been acting strange. The
theme to
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
starts playing inside my head. I have
got
to stop watching all these old movies.

Why in the world,
I am thinking,
would Skeezie be putting something in Colin Briggs's locker?

“Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred,” I say. I turn around and bump smack into Addie.

“Is your mental health break over?” she asks. “Because if it is, you are desperately needed inside. Ms. Wyman is threatening to disallow the Freedom Party. You've got to help us convince her that we serve a purpose not served by the other parties.”

“
Do
we have a purpose?” I ask.

“Of course,” Addie says. “DuShawn and I worked it all out. We are the party who speaks on behalf of the minority students of Paintbrush Falls Middle School.”

“Who am
I
supposed to speak on behalf of?” I give back. “The overweight and undervocal?”

Addie does not find this funny or even seem to hear me. She is staring at something past my right shoulder. I turn and look but nothing is there.

“Let's go,” she says. And we do.

SO HERE I am at the Candy Kitchen, in the back booth with the torn red leatherette upholstery, squeezed in a little tighter than usual on account of DuShawn being added into the picture, and while the others are exercising their jaws, with me throwing in my own two cents from time to time, I am blissfully unaware that the events that will unfold in the days to follow will change the course of my life. I mean, how
could
I know that? How could anybody?

When you're living through them, events are nothing more than stuff that happens. You're not thinking about significance. Significance only comes when you look back at your life. At the moment, what you're thinking is whether you've got enough money in your pocket for hot fudge or you should just order a
single scoop. And when one of your best friends is all hopped up about an election you don't care a Fig Newton about, what's agitating
your
brain is whether you should ask this cute, artistic, and terminally shy girl who kind of smiled at you one time for a nanosecond (you think) (maybe) if she wants to come over to your friend Joe's house on Sunday night to help make posters. And before you can work up the nerve to ask her, you will catch yourself sniffing your armpits, slapping yourself on the forehead like your head and your hand are two of the Three Stooges, and calling yourself an incurable geek.

I take no pride in mentioning these things. Would that I could say I am caught up in Addie's passion for social justice and the electoral process. Would that I could tell you, “Sniff my own armpits? Never!” But if I am going to all the bother of writing stuff down, it may as well be the truth. And the truth is that I am not a particularly high-minded character in my formative years. I hardly ever speak up in class and I never question what the teacher says. I am just a get-along kind of guy. Like my dad. I am certain I will be the face in
the yearbook everybody will look at and say, “Bobby Goodspeed? I don't remember anybody named Bobby Goodspeed.”