All Good Children (4 page)

We drop her off first. Her schoolyard is a fenced field of concrete and sand writhing with a thousand children in grades one to four. Girls squeal around the play structures. Boys chase each other down the pavement. Loners hang by the fence and wait for the bell. Ally surveys them hopefully, searching for her friend, then walks away alone.

“Melissa must be sick,” Mom says.

“No.” I point to the entrance doors. They won't open for another eight minutes, but hundreds of uniformed children wait there with id badges in hand. “Isn't that Melissa near the door? With the yellow pack?”

Mom nods. “Her whole class is lined up. I wonder if Ally missed something important last week.”

“Oh yeah. Xavier said she missed a math assessment and a vaccination.”

“How would Xavier know what goes on in grade one?”

“He knows everything.”

“Was it a flu vaccine?”

“I don't know. Ask him.”

She rolls her eyes like I ought to be on top of my little sister's immunization record.

The high school is a five-minute drive down the road. It's larger and more stylish than the elementary and middle schools, with six black glass-and-concrete units—ambitious architecture for this part of town and so spacious it's unsettling. There's only one academic high school in each of New Middletown's quadrants. Three-quarters of the city's children go to trade schools. Academics cost more and they require a B average right from grade one. It's always competitive, but kindergarten is dog-eat-dog. Once you're recommended for trade school, there's no coming back.

I'm in Secondary Two, which means tenth grade. We're not allowed in the buildings reserved for grades eleven and twelve. The higher the grade, the fewer the students still maintaining a B standing, the more space and attention each student receives. And they need it because once they graduate they'll have to compete with foreign students and private-studies graduates. There's no point paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for twelve years of academic school if you fall behind when you finally get out. You might as well educate yourself online for free.

Tuition is bleeding us dry, but Mom never mentions it. She pulls up to the school gates and smiles like there's nowhere else she'd rather see me. “First day of grade ten,” she says proudly.

“And I'm already a week behind,” I add.

My principal, Mr. Graham, rushes outside to greet us. He must have seen the car and assumed we were premium people. Confusion spreads across his face when I step out from the passenger seat. Sweat rolls down his temples into his shirt collar. He's another fat bald white man who can't take the heat. The army should enlist them all, stick them in their own division somewhere temperate. They wouldn't need uniforms because they already look identical. An armed battalion of fat bald white men would scare the crap out of any enemy. Just one of them gives me the shivers.

I lean on the hood with my hands clasped, while my mother tells my principal what a good boy I am. “Max knows how fortunate he is to be in academic school. He assured me he won't skip class or get into any fights.”

“I'll try not to,” I say. “But if someone starts a fight, I'm going to protect myself.”

They stare at me like I'm a recall.

“My grades are premium,” I remind them.

Mom sighs. “He'll do his best to stay out of trouble.”

“Don't worry, Mrs. Connors,” Mr. Graham says.

“Everything will be fine once our support system gets up and running. What I'm more concerned about is that we didn't see you on the parent board last Friday. Did you watch from home?”

She shakes her head. “I completely forgot about it.”

“I hope you'll come out for the fundraiser at the end of the month,” he says.

She shrugs. Mom never quite lies. She just avoids answering.

Mr. Graham frowns. “I'm sure you're doing your best under the circumstances.” He looks down his nose at me and the car, memorizes the license plate so he'll never again mistake us for someone he cares about.

“Told you he was a beast,” I say after he leaves. “He pretends to be nice so he can use you, then he feeds you to the sharks.”

“There are no sharks anymore,” Mom says.

“He has his own private shark pond. He dangles me over it when I skip detention.”

She smiles and tells me she loves me. “Have a good day.”

I search for Dallas among five hundred uniformed ninth and tenth graders milling the grounds. They clump near the fence, gab in groups, take photos, message madly. Once we're inside, all RIG use is prohibited except for Blackboard, the school network, so everyone stays out until the final bell. I see my football team huddled around the picnic tables, reviewing plays I missed in last week's game. Brennan Emery, the coach's son, shouts, “Nice to see you back, Max! Sorry about your aunt.”

“Hey!” I reply. I can never think of anything fit to say to Brennan. He outclasses me in every way. He's tall, unselfish, a winning quarterback, an elected president of the Students of Color Association. He has what people call natural leadership ability—but since he's an ultimate, it's not entirely natural.

Dallas jumps up from the picnic bench and slams my shoulder. His jacket strains at the armpits and his pants hover above his shoes. We ordered our uniforms in August and he's already outgrown his. Life is not fair. “Did you hear about that poor Chinese kid who was beaten to death with a fencepost?” he asks. “Disgusting.”

“Yeah, I saw that. What a bunch of freaks.”

“What would you rather be beaten with? Fencepost or barbed wire?”

“Fencepost,” I say.

“Me too.”

Xavier stands alone across the grounds, waving. The sun shines off his hair like a halo, rippling as he makes his way over to us. He's three sentences into his speech before he's within earshot.

Tyler Wilkins rushes in and trips Xavier, who crumples into the pavement. The crowd parts to ensure him a painful landing. Tyler laughs and shouts, “Walk much, unit?”

Tyler is a funhouse mirror image of Xavier. He's six foot and blond, but skeletal and homely. He reeks of deli meats and cigarettes. One day he'll slash Xavier's face out of jealousy. We all know it, every one of us, but we'll be sure to act surprised.

Tyler's goons leap over Xavier's legs, giggling. Tyler puts a foot on his back to stop him from getting up.

It's like watching the planets align.

I strut over to Tyler and throw a right hook that staggers him. The crowd steps back to form an arena. Xavier commando-crawls to the edge of it.

Tyler swears at me and rubs his jaw. “You're dead, Connors.”

Somewhere in my brain I wonder if I should be nervous. Nah. I spent two hundred and twenty hours of summer preparing for this moment. I'm zesty.

I let Tyler take a shot. I block it easily with my left forearm and wallop him in the gut with my right fist. I knock the wind out of him and follow with an elbow to the cheek. A hoot of excitement escapes my lips. The crowd starts buzzing.

I bounce on my toes and laugh. Tyler is bleeding and shocked. He knows I'm going to win this fight. But he's a scrapper, nerve-deadened and self-important. Backing down is not an option for a kid like him. He wipes his cheek on his sleeve and comes at me, spitting.

I pummel him in the face—hook, jab, elbow strike.
Pow,
pow, pow.
When he returns the blow, I grab his arm and twist it behind his back. I force him to his knees and kick him into the ground, much harder than I intend to. I hear groans from the watching girls and giggles from the gay boys.

Tyler drags himself up and tries to hit me, but he's angry and embarrassed, and I can read his moves before he makes them. I dodge his blows, hopping away so he has to come at me; then I rush in and trip him. He slams into the pavement, just like Xavier did five minutes ago. The crowd gasps, laughs, narrates their recordings.

I'm ready to beat Tyler Wilkins to a pulp of sodden flesh, but Mr. Graham steps between us with his arms outstretched. Tyler shoves him aside to get at me. I laugh—shoving the principal won't go over well—and take him down hard with a wrist lock.

Two security guards pull us apart. Bystanders start yelling. “Tyler started it!” “Max started it!”

The principal is shaking, he's so mad. It turns his stomach to be in a crowd of teenagers. “You are both suspended for the week,” he says through gritted teeth. “Wait outside the front doors until your parents collect you.” He walks away, probably to wash his hands.

So I'm stuck at the front of the school with two security guards and the kid I hate most in the world, waiting to tell my grieving mother about my latest wreckage. My heart thumps. My hands throb. Yet I feel absolutely premium.

They say violence is wrong and such and such, but I have never felt as happy in my life as I do now. I've shaken off a future of swallowing Tyler Wilkins's waste. I have cleared my road with my fists and feet. I can walk wherever I want to now.

True, Tyler and his friends might take out my eyeballs with a spoon tomorrow, but right now he's bleeding and I can't get the smile off my face. It widens every time he glances at me, his nose swollen and his eyes miserable.

“When did
you
learn to fight?” he asks.

I snort and bare my teeth.

He shakes his head and wipes his bloody lip. “I must be out of practice.”

I hope he'll practice up on me. I could squeeze a beating into my Monday schedule: pack lunch, walk Ally to school, beat the crap out of Tyler Wilkins, get suspended.

My happiness plateaus when my mother trudges up the school driveway. “I just signed in the car when I got the call from your principal,” she says.

I hang my head and hope it looks repentant.

“Is someone coming for you?” she asks Tyler. He shrugs.

The tallest guard steps up to Mom and says, “He has to leave with his own guardian.”

She nods. She knows the guards will regret that rule after they pass the entire school day sitting on the front steps waiting for Tyler's parents to show. “Okay, Max, let's go. Goodbye, Tyler.”

“Bye.” It surprises me when he adds, “Bye, Max.” Like we're friends, like we got into trouble for skipping class together.

“I'll see you,” I say. I don't mean it to be menacing, but after I say it, I like the way it sounds.

Mom doesn't speak on the walk home.

“I can get my assignments off Blackboard,” I say. She doesn't glance at me. “I was defending Xavier,” I add. She just sighs.

When we get to our building, I want to race up the flights of stairs, but I slow myself down for Mom's sake. She yawns and says, “I haven't slept since Saturday night.”

“Technically, it was Sunday morning.”

She stares at me like I'm the biggest ass in the world. And maybe I am. But as I review the fight in my mind—I add an announcer in the background, cameras on the side—the crowd goes wild.

I thought I'd spend my suspension exercising and watching
Freakshow
, but Mom puts an end to that dream when she wakes up in the afternoon. Instead of making me a sandwich, she makes me a list of chores:
dishes, dusting, laundry, clean
Ally's room, supervise Ally's homework
. When I add
wipe Ally's
ass
to the list, she is not amused.

“Okay. I'll do chores,” I say. Then I continue watching
Freakshow
until she stares me down.

I work my way to the bottom of the list by six o'clock. I help Ally with her homework while Mom makes supper. I am not a premium teacher. It frustrates me when Ally doesn't understand her work. It makes me think she's a recall, and I hate that thought because I love her so much.

Her spelling words are strange but simple:
duty, job, joy,
love, power, help, hurt, good, bad, boy, girl
. That's a damaged mix of words, but they're phonetic—except
love
, which is irregular in every way.

“No!” I say for the fourth time. “It's h-u-r-t, not h-e-r-t!”

“I'll take over, Max. You set the table,” Mom says. She smiles at Ally. “Remember that
U
can get hurt. Not
E
.”

Ally laughs. “An
E
can't get hurt, can it?”

I arrange knives and forks and feel like a creep.

“There's something wrong with the kids at my school,” Ally says when she dissolves her screen. “I think they're sick.”

Terror fills Mom's eyes. Four million kids died in the Venezuelan flu epidemic. “Are they coughing?”

Ally shakes her head. “Not sick like that. Sick like their heads are cloudy.”

“Are they slurring their words? Losing their balance?”

“No. They're just not right. They're all slowed down.”

Mom looks at me as though I might be able to elucidate.

I shrug and say, “I'll look around when I take her to school tomorrow.”