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chapter twenty-four

And what a firestorm school was.

I transported myself behind a stand of trees and emerged on the sidewalk as if I’d walked to school.
 
I looked around me and saw what I knew I’d see.
 
Everyone was talking about Ginny Gibson and her naughty photo and video expose.
 

iPad’s were out and being handed around on the lawn in front of the school.
 
Some with laptops were leaning against each other in a semi-circle, howling at the mayhem I’d created for her.
 
As I passed the group, I heard somebody say, “She’s up to 700,000 hits.
 
Bitch is going down.
 
Hard.”

I decided to test the waters.
 
I stopped beside them and asked what they were looking at.
 
They all looked at me and then at each other, and then one of the guys, Scotty Anderson, said:
 
“You’ve got to check this out.
 
Ginny Gibson is all over Twitter and YouTube.
 
She’s being spanked by her step-father.”

I leaned forward to have a look.
 
Yep, that’s pretty much how I imagined it.
 
It was all very PG-13, but it was funny.
 
I looked up at the guys, who had never spoken to me before, and said, “Who wants to bet she doesn’t show for school?”

“Me,” Scotty said.
 
“We just saw her a few minutes ago.
 
She’s already inside with her parents.”

“No, shit.
 
Well, she ought to be careful what she puts on the Web.
 
Nice to see has a tight bond with her father, though.”

As I walked away, I heard them laugh at that and it occurred to me that this was perhaps the first time someone wasn’t laughing at me.
 
They had included me, even if they did pause before letting me in.
 
Were things changing?

I looked above the crowd and caught Joe Whitehill looking at me near the row of buses.
 
And then Rebecca Ward and Rob Maxwell joined him.
 
They looked furious.
 
I decided to walk over to them.

“What’s up, guys?”

“Fuck you, Moore.”
 
It was Maxwell, one of my former friends from grade school who was fortunate enough to have not grown up with a face full of acne and a body so skinny that it lent itself to being teased.
 
When he saw that I wasn’t turning out as attractive as he was, he dumped our friendship.
 
But now, it was different.
 
Now, I saw him looking at my body and face with something that looked a whole lot like envy.
 

“Rob,” I said.
 
“That’s no way to treat a former friend.”

“We were never friends, asshole.”

“Really?
 
Because I seem to remember a time when we were kids that you wanted to become blood brothers.
 
I got freaked out by the idea and refused to do it, which turned out to be a good thing.
 
With all the shit going around these days, you never know what you’re going to catch, even from a good Catholic like you.”

I turned to Rebecca, who obviously was addicted to tanning because her face looked like a leather bag dragged through the gutter.
 
“And how are you, Rebecca?
 
Sleep well?
 
I slept like a baby.”

“We’re telling Principal Roberts what you did, Moore.”

“I encourage you to.
 
I also encourage you to prove it.”

“There are ways,” Joe said.

“Really?” I whispered.
 
“How about letting me in on them?”

“Top secret,” Rebecca said.
 

“What are you, a fucking spy?
 
Who even says that?”

“Whatever.
 
And besides, for someone who somehow managed to delete our accounts, you’d think you’d already know.”

“Well, you keep me informed, Rebecca.
 
I’ll be eager to see how it plays out—
if
it plays out, which I doubt—just as I’m eager to take on each and every one of you.”
 
I leaned forward and they surprisingly leaned back.
 
“What you did to my parents?
 
You’re going to pay for it.
 
Trust me.
 
In ways that you can’t even imagine.”

“What kind of freak are you?”

It was Rebecca who said that.
 
So it was Rebecca who suddenly lost the ability to make any sense when she tried to communicate.
 

“What did you say?”

“She sucked dirt on me and on you when the tide was blue.”

I screwed up my face at her.
 
So did the others.
 
I hadn’t taken away her ability to hear herself and suddenly she blanched.
 

She tried again.
 
“Solar inept in my pointed bull on the shuttle where apples are monkeys farting doo-doo.”

“Rebecca,” Joe said.
 
“What the hell?”

Her eyes grew wide.
 
“Bark!
 
Bark, bark!
 
Bark, bark, bark!”

Maxwell and Whitehill stepped away from her.

“In the growth, hapless glances and saucers fly out to kick the motherfucking shit out of the doorbell with no name.”

“I think you might have Tourette’s, kiddo.”

And with that, she covered her mouth and ran toward the school, likely thinking she’d be able to tell the administration what I’d done to her.
 
But what she didn’t understand is that even if she was asked to put pen to paper, she also would write this way.
 

All communication was lost to her.
 
I’d stolen it from her.
 
She’d speak and write gibberish until I felt it was enough, which would be never.
 
This would be her prison.
 
No speech therapist in the world would be able to cure her of it.
 
She’d be caught in a world of her own random language, struggling to reach out to people who never would understand her or want anything to do with her.
 
Eventually, it would become too much for her.
 
Her mind would weaken.
 
And then who knows what would happen to her.
 
Suicide?

Joe and Rob eased away from me.
 

“What did you just do to her?” Joe asked.

“You think I did that?
 
You’ve been watching too many movies, Whitehill.
 
It’s either Tourette’s or she had a stroke.
 
And you know what?
 
She deserves each.
 
That girl’s a bitch.
 
I’m hoping she had a stroke.
 
I hope it’s irreversible.
 
I hope she never makes sense again.”
 
I turned away from them.
 
“I’ll catch up with you two later, probably when you least expect it.
 
So, you know, expect it.”