The Quick Fix (25 page)

“PEE-PEE PANTS! PEE-PEE PANTS!” they yelled.

“Matt?” Cynthia whispered.

“It's okay … I'm right here …” I cradled her head in my lap.

“I didn't do too hot.”

“You did great,” I said.

“Katie put me up to it. She … she knew you wouldn't let her help you—”

“So she sent you.”

“You saved her sister. She was in your debt. She respected you, Matt … more than you know.”

“PEE-PEE PANTS! PEE-PEE PANTS!” The chants from the crowd were getting louder as more kids streamed into the school.

She smiled weakly. “She told me I would fall for you … Melanie said the same thing … They were right …” She started to cry.

“PEE-PEE PANTS! PEE-PEE PANTS!”

“Shut up!” I yelled. I stood up and pushed the kid closest to me.

“PEE-PEE PANTS! PEE-PEE PANTS!”

Two big kids grabbed me by the front of my shirt and pulled me into the crowd. “No!” I yelled. “Cynthia!” A punch hit me in the stomach. Another hit me in the jaw. I tried to hit back, but it was like trying to punch the ocean.

“Leave me alone!” Cynthia screamed. She stood up, then ran down the hallway, pushing her way through the pack of chanting kids.

Jimmy Mac ran after her. Some other kids started following her, too, but after a little while they gave up. Then the bell rang, and kids filtered into their classrooms, as if nothing had happened.

I sat down on the floor, trying my hardest to get my head together, but it wasn't happening. I felt like I had
just been in a flash blizzard that left twenty inches, then disappeared without a trace. I was dizzy. Everyone I cared about was either gone or trying to destroy me. And to top it all off, I was late for homeroom.

I thought about standing up but didn't. I just sat there in the middle of the hall, trying to think of my next move, and wondering when I should make it.

saw her leave school around 12:30, right after her lunch period. I knew she was going to skip out. After everything that happened, I was surprised she waited as long as she did. Fifteen minutes later, I managed to do the same.

The weather had changed since the morning. The temperature had dropped 20 degrees and the sky was blanketed with gray clouds. It looked like a kindergartner had made the sky for an art project, using the cotton stuffing from an old quilt. I zipped up my jacket, shoved my hands in my pockets, and walked.

The rest of the morning had been a perfect example of revenge-fueled chaos. Word had spread quickly about Will, then spread even wider once Jimmy Mac got his paper out. After his pants got soaked, Will had escaped the Outs by hiding in the locker room, but the kids in school weren't going to let him off that easily. Outs or no Outs, Will's popularity had taken a direct nuclear blast. Kids had trusted him. He had been their symbol of hope. And he turned out to be a sham … The kids felt like suckers, and they wanted to make Will pay.

The coach made an official announcement before lunch: Will's basketball career was over, at least at the Frank. Who knows if the high school coaches would feel differently. Will still had talent. Sometimes that was enough to get you a second chance. But here's the funny thing: Being the tallest kid in middle school doesn't mean squat over there. High school is a much bigger pond, and not only are some of the fish bigger, some of them can actually dunk.

I thought about Cynthia, about how the kids attacked her in the hall. They put her in the Outs without a second thought, even though she hadn't done a damn thing to any of them. Cynthia … beautiful Cynthia. Her mom had to come and pick her up. I snuck out of second period to
watch her go. She leaned on her mother for support, her toughness gone. Another amazing person snuffed out by the Outs.

I shivered a little and zipped up my coat even farther. I picked up the pace.

I walked past the downtown area, over to the boardwalk that ran along the river. Liz was standing with her back to me, facing the water. I knew she would be. It was her favorite place in town, the place she went when she was trying to figure out a problem. I walked up alongside her. She didn't react, as if she had known all along that I'd be coming.

“Liz,” I said.

“Matt.”

“Or should we call each other … well, what's short for ‘cousin'? ‘Coz'?”

She didn't answer.

“Interesting morning, huh, coz?” I asked.

She sniffled. I couldn't tell if it was from the cold or from something else. “Did you walk all this way to ask me that?” she asked.

“I came for the view. Consider my observation about the morning a bonus.”

“What do you want, Matt?”

“Don't you think you're directing your anger at the wrong person?” I said.

She turned and looked at me. Her eyes were bloodshot; her mouth was pulled into a sharp little frown that meant she was really angry or had been crying. “This is your fault.”

“My fault,” I repeated, calmly.

“You're the one who let this happen. You're the reason it's gone this far. You're why I can't—” She started crying. “Your fault,” she repeated.

Even though I was angry at her, I wanted to forget this whole stupid system we had to live by … just forget everything that came before this moment … and pull her into my arms. Hug her. Tell her everything was going to be okay. But I didn't … I couldn't. Maybe if we were still in ellie, where life was simpler, and the problems black and white. But this was middle school, and there were no easy answers.

“My fault,” I said again. “Amazing. My memory must be really messed up, because I was pretty sure it was
you,
coz, pulling the trigger on that soaker this morning. You do remember putting a girl in the Outs, don't you?”

Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I remember,” she said, barely above a whisper.

“So tell me how this is
my
fault.”

“Because you could stop this … this whole Outs crap. You could end it.”

“Me.”

“Yes. You.”

“Really? What other powers do I have?” I asked. “Oooh! Can I fly? Can I cure the common cold?”

“And that's why you won't,” she said. “Because whenever someone challenges you to actually
do
something, you create a fortress of sarcasm and bullcrap, and then go hide in it.”

“You're totally right,” I said. “This entire week I did absolutely nothing! Oh, and
your
way is MUCH better. Look how well it worked out! Your plan put three kids in the Outs and started a war between two power-hungry bullies … a war that could drag the whole school down.”

“No … no, that's not what I was doing.”

“You're kidding, right? I don't know what you
thought
you were doing, but you'd better check in with your brother, because I think he's working with a different game plan.”

“It doesn't matter,” she said. “
He
doesn't matter.”

“It sure looked like he mattered this morning.”

“Forget it,” she said. “I thought, of all people,
you
might understand, but … forget it.”

“Yeah, I understand all right. Little chess queen thinks that the whole school is her game board, and she's going to win.”

“No! It's not—”

“What are you trying to win, chess queen? Huh? Money? Power?”

“Stop it, Matt! Stop!”

I turned toward her. “Look at me.”

“No, Matt … I—”

“Look at me!” I yelled. She turned and looked at me, squinting as if my face were a bright light, hurting her eyes. “How did it make you feel to pull that trigger?” I yelled. “Huh? How did it make you feel? Powerful?”

“Stop, Matt …,” she said, sobbing. “Please …”

“Did it make you feel powerful to ruin that girl's life?”

“NO!” she screamed. “No! It made me feel horrible! I can't stop seeing the look on her face … I … I can't stop crying … I …” Her words dissolved into incoherent crying sounds. But then she closed her eyes and took a
deep breath. She let it out slowly, then opened her eyes. “I've chosen my path,” she said calmly. “I'm taking it all the way to the end.”

“And what's the end for you?”

“You'll find out.”

“I already know,” I said. My anger faded. I looked at her and smiled.

She looked at me with a mixture of confusion, suspicion, and disbelief. “No, you don't.”

I turned away from her and stared out over the water. “Strong current,” I said.

She wasn't sure what I was getting at, but she stopped and listened.

“Even a strong swimmer would have a problem keeping his head above water in a current that powerful,” I continued. “Don't you think?”

I saw her nod out of the corner of my eye.

“And even if you were a strong swimmer, you'd have to be really foolish to jump in without a really good reason,” I said. “But if there
was
a good reason for you to jump in—say, a bag full of mostly innocent kittens that needed saving—you'd want to make sure you were swimming in the right direction, right?”

She nodded again.

“Because if you didn't, then you
and
the kittens would drown, right?”

“I won't let you drown,” she said. “I knew you'd figure it out.”

“The Katie hit gave it away,” I said. “At first I thought it was personal. Your brother did, too … still does, I bet. But it wasn't … was it?”

“No.”

“Katie Kondo, Nikki Fingers, Cynthia Shea … plus a bunch of big kids who used to be bullies. That's a formidable force. And that's not even counting the soon-to-be casualties from this war you engineered. Hit kids from both sides are going to get popped. The Outs are going to start growing exponentially. Pretty soon, both sides are going to start running out of soldiers. And as their armies shrink—”

“The Outs' army grows.”

“Quite a plan, coz,” I said.

“And you knew this the whole time?” she asked.

“The whole time I was here talking to you? Yeah.”

“So … what? You just wanted to see me cry?”

“Kind of,” I said. “These aren't game pieces you're
dealing with. These are kids … real kids … and wiping them off the game board, even though it's for ‘the greater good,' is going to hurt them. And that hurt is going to change them, some for the better, some for the worse. I wanted to make sure you knew it.”

“You're thinking about her,” Liz said. “About Cynthia.”

“Yeah.” No sense in lying.

“You liked her?”

“Sure,” I said, “but not in the way you think.”

“How do you know what I think?”

“Lucky guess, or wishful thinking … you decide. Anyway, Cynthia was interesting, surprising …”

“Gorgeous.”

I shrugged. “That was the least interesting thing about her,” I said.

Liz was quiet for a second. “So I guess I made the right call … you know, ending things between us.”

“I guess. Plus, you and I are cousins, right? Kinda weird …”

“Right … weird …”

“So, what's the next step in your master plan, O Grand Chess Master?” I asked.

“They need a leader,” she said. “Katie's close.”

“But not close enough.”

Liz shook her head. “She wants to bulldoze right through the Outs, but the others won't follow her. They fear and respect her, but they don't trust her.”

“Yeah. She busted some of those kids. They're probably not sure she'll have their back when it all goes down.”

“It's more than that,” she said. “She doesn't inspire them. And if she can't inspire them … ALL of them …”

“Then the revolution is over before it even gets started.”

“The kids in the Frank will bury her, and no one will want to try it ever again.”

“So?” I asked.

“So, whoever's going to pull it off would have one shot. They'd have to be crazy, smart, charismatic, savvy—”