XGeneration 1: You Don't Know Me (27 page)

“On the bright side, this is the end of it,” Janis said. “That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway.”

It was our world in there, wasn’t it? Back then?

“Yeah,” was all Scott could think to mutter.

Janis blinked and turned toward him. “You know, I’ve been meaning to ask you. Why this?” She reached for the front of his suspenders. “Why Gamma? I mean, what made you decide to pledge?”

“I, ah…” He watched the fingers of her hand trace the length of his suspender. “I just thought I needed to, um… branch out… you know, meet new people. Not too many from our middle school came to Thirteenth Street High.”

Janis snorted as her hand fell away. “That depends on how you look at it.”

Scott followed her narrowed gaze to where the three girls from their English class were chatting excitedly with some older Gamma members. The one dressed as a Playboy bunny, Amy, turned around for the guys to feel her puffy tail. “It’s real rabbit’s fur, I swear!” she exclaimed. The guys grinned at one another. Janis made a noise of disgust and turned back to Scott. He watched the soft green rings around her pupils grow as she inched nearer.

“Um, there’s something else I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

Scott’s collar constricted around his throat. Her voice had a special quality: quiet and guarded, almost intimate. He felt the sudden need to swallow but feared it would sound like an off-putting gulp.

“This might sound weird…” Janis started to say.

A trio of shrill voices burst inside their space, older Alpha members.

“Oh my
gawd
!” the one with feathered hair exclaimed, lifting Janis’s pigtails. “Like, you look just
like
her!”

“How
adorable
!”

“For sure!” This one emitted a lengthy giggle.

“Yeah, well, you can thank Margaret,” Janis muttered.

The one with huge, dark hair looked around. “Where
is
she?”

“Covering the evening shift at Penney’s,” Janis said. “She’s coming by later.”

“What a total, like,
bummer
.”

Bummed or not, Scott hoped they would blow off just as quickly as they’d blown in. He needed to know what Janis was about to ask him—especially while Blake was still occupied with the pledges behind them. Because for a moment, it had felt like just the two of them again, back in the woods.

“TESTING. TESTING.”

Scott turned with Janis to where Grant was holding the microphone to his chin. The older members were settling into the rows of lawn chairs that now semi-circled the stage. Margaret’s three friends squealed and fled from Janis’s side, but Blake was there to fill the void, stepping up and taking her hand. Scott hardly noticed this time. The uneasy feeling was stealing back into the pit of his stomach.

A final hum of feedback sounded, followed by Grant Sidwell’s resonant voice. “Yes, everyone take a seat, please. Not the pledges. I need you around here beside me. Right there is good. And in a line, please.”

Scott followed the pack and took his place at the rear of a line that stretched along the back of the house, nearly to the trees. Outside the lights, he could more clearly see the faces in the audience, flushed and excited. His mother’s words jabbed through his jittery thoughts.

They’re going to humiliate you.

Grant lifted the microphone and turned back to the audience. “All right, all of you know how this works. When your little brother or sister takes the stage, you’ll give them a scenario to act out. As always, you can team up and do a couples or group scenario. Our panel over here”—Grant indicated the four members in the front row—“will be awarding the points. Remember, humor and creativity score highest. And the winner or winners will have their spring dues waived.”

“Wow, a whole fifteen bucks!” someone shouted.

“Right, because Andy here,” Grant said, signaling toward the heckler, “has volunteered to pay them for you.”

Amid the laughter, Grant turned to the first pledge. There had been some jostling and rearranging in the line while Grant had been speaking, and Sweet Pea, by virtue of his pudginess and indifference, had been shoved to the front. He took the stage to a smattering of applause. Soon, his older Gamma brother was beside him, microphone in hand.

“Change his diaper!” someone yelled.

“Yeah, then make him eat it!”

Scott felt too nauseated to laugh. He had held his place at the back of the line by slipping farther into the darkness and then slipping back when the line had returned to order. For an instant, he had considered slipping away entirely, stealing off into the night and walking home. Oakwood wasn’t too far away. But no, he needed to stay, needed to finish what he’d started. He stood on tiptoes, looking for Blake and Janice. He found them in the middle of the line.

“Swee’Pea, Swee’Pea, Swee’Pea…” his older brother said, massaging his neck. “You are going to prove your loyalty to our esteemed club by singing the Gamma fight song three times. Do you remember the words?”

“Yeah, of course.”

By Sweet Pea’s surprised smile, Scott could practically read his thoughts.
That’s it? That’s all I have to do?

His older brother raised a finger. “But you have to sing it in
goo-goo
s and
ga-ga
s. With your thumb in your mouth. Crawling around on your hands and knees.” His grin looked positively devilish. “Got it?”

Sweet Pea’s smile vanished beneath a wave of laughter. He looked at his older Gamma brother another moment to make sure he was serious. He was. Shoulders slumped, Sweet Pea fixed his thumb in the corner of his mouth, sank to his knees, and started into a limping crawl.

“Goo-goo, ga-ga-goo, ga-ga, goo-goo…”

“Faster, baby!”

Scott cringed when Sweet Pea’s older brother kicked him in the rear. That brought down fresh laughter.

“Ga-ga, goo-goo, ga-ga-goo …”

“I said, faster!” Another kick, this one harder. The laughter became riotous. “And aim your bonnet toward the audience when you sing!”

Scott’s stomach roiled, and he placed his hands on his knees. He could see Janis saying something to Blake. Scott looked back to where Sweet Pea was receiving another kick, his older brother screaming above his ear now.

After two minutes that felt like two years, it was over.

Sweet Pea stood to a round of applause. His older brother hoisted one of his arms like a prize fighter just gone the distance. Sweet Pea looked appropriately dazed. They stood, waiting for the judge’s decision. Two 7s and two 8s.

“Bitchin’!” Sweet Pea’s older brother said. “A 7.5!” He clapped Sweet Pea’s back, then hustled him into the audience where they would enjoy the rest of the show as spectators.

See, it’s all in fun
, Scott told himself through his shallow breaths.

The other scenarios went similarly though not all of them were as physically abusive as Sweet Pea’s, Scott was glad to see. Amy, the Playboy bunny, was forced to give an impromptu speech on the importance of sex education, using a list of words she had been given—all of them crude, naturally. And every time she paused, said “um,” or laughed, she had to hop in a circle like a bunny, which was often.

Before long, Blake and Janis’s turn came. Scott lowered his head, not wanting to see her embarrassed. Since Margaret still wasn’t there, Grant came up with a scenario for both of them. Blake was to get on one knee and propose to Janis, who was then to run around squealing like she was “the happiest girl in the world.” It was among the lamer scenarios, but Scott still found he couldn’t watch. He stared at the tips of his father’s derby shoes, the outdoor lighting branding the back of his neck.

“Janis,” Blake said. “These last two months have been amazing. I mean that. And you would make me the happiest man in the world if you would only accept this ring and say, ‘I do.’”

Pretend or not, the sincerity of his words crushed Scott.

“Yeah, yeah, I do,” Janis said flatly. She gave a half-hearted squeal, then said, “All right, we’re done here.”

The audience protested, but when Scott raised his face, Janis was already leading Blake around to the back row to sit. The judging was unanimous: all 1s. Grant shrugged and turned to the next pledge, Peter Pan.

Jeffrey’s dancing and prancing scored an 8.5, the highest so far.

Scott shuffled forward with a line that was becoming frighteningly shorter while the audience, with its retired acts, was growing larger and larger, spilling beyond the lawn chairs. Though the night was cool, the deck lighting that shone ever brighter over Scott made his body pour sweat.

It’s all in fun
, he repeated.
All in good fun.

Don’t be stupid
, his mother’s voice shot back.

By the time Scott’s turn came, he felt as if he’d been cored out and strung through with frayed wires. His shirt stuck to his back, and he could feel a muscle at the corner of his mouth beginning to twitch.

“Last but not least,” Grant announced, opening his arm toward Scott. “Britt, I believe this one’s yours?”

Laughter burst from the audience, and when Scott turned, he saw Britt emerging from a sliding glass door beneath the deck. He was wearing a priest’s robe and a white clerical collar. In one hand, he carried an ottoman, in the other, what looked like a large scroll. As Britt entered the light, the solemnity of his face evoked more laughter. He glanced over, the shine in his eyes speaking not to holy compassion but to punishment, the fire and brimstone variety.

“Silence!” Britt commanded.

He set down the ottoman at the front of the stage. “Sit down,” he told Scott.

Scott stepped forward, and all of Bud’s training left him. His knees began to fold like a lawn chair before muscles jerked into action, throwing him upright. Pinwheeling his arms, he managed to steady himself. Laughter spouted from the audience.
Make them think it’s part of an act.
Scott led with his hips now, chest sunk back, arms stiff at his sides. But the laughter that accompanied him was not the companionable kind; it wielded a cruel edge.

The muscle at the corner of his mouth began to jump again. Scott bit the inside of his lip to contain it.

“My faithful parishioners,” Britt boomed into the microphone, “my flock, my herd…”

“I ain’t your sheep!” someone shouted.

Britt didn’t break stride. “It pains me deeply to inform you that there is a deceitful presence in our midst. Yes, a deceitful presence who came unto us like a thief in the night this past August, pretending to be someone he is not.”

Scott’s body stiffened.

“But he has been outed. Yes, he has been outed, my flock. Behold!”

When Scott turned, he found Britt holding open the scroll that was not a scroll at all, but a poster. Scott’s first instinct was to leap up and tear it from his hands. Instead, he remained rigid, his face becoming so hot that he could feel the color leaching from it. He was staring at himself, or rather a ghost of himself past, one who had thick glasses, a disheveled head of hair, a smile as awkward and crooked as the collar of his shirt, and volcanic eruptions of acne across his brow. It was his yearbook photo from Creekside Middle School, from the year before. Copied, blown up, and pasted to the unfurled poster in Britt’s hands.

“Ner-errrd!” a voice jeered.

Scott’s breaths wheezed through a pinhole.

Some others took up the call—a few of them girls—but Britt raised his hand for their silence. “That’s right, the nerd has been outed. But he is not lost. No, no, no, no! He is
not
lost. Not on my watch. Can you give me a hallelujah?”

“HALLELUJAH!”

“Can you give me an amen?”

“AMEN!”

Each shout felt like the report from a firing squad. Britt set the poster aside and stood beside Scott, pressing a hand over Scott’s soaked brow.

Scott stopped groping over his pockets for the inhaler he no longer carried.

“Because, my flock, I sense that this nerd
can
be saved. I feel the Gamma spirit stirring deep inside him. But only if he is willing.
Only
if he is willing! Are you willing, son?” He moved the microphone to Scott’s mouth.

Scott ran a furry tongue across his lips. “Y-yes,” he gasped, his lungs allowing him that much.

“I said,
are you willing
?”

“Yes.”

Britt threw his arms skyward. “Praise the lord!”

“PRAISE THE LORD!”

The crowd broke into applause, and when Scott glanced around, he found them all leaned forward, a keen hunger across their faces, sensing that whatever scenario Britt had cooked up for this last act—for him—was going to blow away all the others. Though he couldn’t see her, Scott knew Janis was out there watching as well. His vision blurred with tears.

“All right, son,” Britt said. Sweat shone through his crew cut as he stooped toward Scott’s ear. He hadn’t broken character once, and Scott interpreted that as bad. Really bad. “We are gonna exorcise that nerd out of you. Do you hear me? Right out of your blessed soul! But you have to do what we say. Do you understand me?”

Scott nodded.

“I said,
do you understand me
?”

“Y-yes, I understand.”

Scott watched someone hand Britt a large wooden paddle. Two lines of holes cored the varnished blade. Britt gripped the end of the paddle, propping the blade over his shoulder.

“Did you see
Revenge of the Nerds
?” Britt asked him. “Did you see that movie? Do you remember how those nerds laughed?”

Scott nodded, not moving his eyes from the paddle. Wayne’s father had taken them that summer on the condition they not tell Wayne’s mother. Scott remembered the laugh well. The three of them—Scott, Wayne, and Wayne’s father—had brayed it most of the way home.

“Well, let’s hear it,” Britt said.

Scott learned nearer the microphone and emitted two soft honks.

“Now,” Britt said, taking the microphone away, “you are going to bend over this here footstool, and every time I strike, you are going to give me one of those laughs. But it has to be loud, son. It has to be passionate. You have to convince me that my healing strikes are indeed driving the nerd out of you. Do you understand me?”