Breakout

Mr. Darren says it’s all about timing.

And lately it seems like my timing’s always wrong.

Like when I am standing at my locker with Keenan right after language arts and he says, “So, did you see
Teen Supernova
?” He’s talking about a reality show where teens compete to be the next version of this pop star called Avatron. The winner is usually lame, but some of the contestants are pretty great.

“Nah,” I say, cramming my books away and getting out my lunch. “I recorded it. I was practicing and then playing
Liberation Force
.”

“Nice,” says Keenan. “I meant to get online too, but Skye says we have to watch
Supernova
live now that it’s the semifinals.”

“Well, don’t tell me what happens,” I say.

Then Skye shows up and does her usual thing, huffing and slouching against the locker beside Keenan’s like she has
no skeleton. “That. Was. A. Travesty,” she says in that way she does when she disagrees with something, which is most things. And then before Keenan or I can even stop her, she goes off: “There is no way that Starleena Fox should have been purchase-voted off before Cassidy McClane!”

“Whoa!” I shout, and I hear Keenan sigh because he knows what I’m about to say and that I’m right. “Duh, no spoilers! I just said I didn’t watch it yet!”

Skye narrows her eyes at me like she does, where one eyebrow rises up like a hissing cat and her mouth falls open in that annoying way where you can see the white gum that she is always chewing.

“Oh, excuse
me
, Anthony,” she says. “It’s not my job to keep track of your schedule every second of the day.”

“You could use your brain for once!” I say back.

And when I say that, I know that Keenan is going to have to say something to defend Skye. The two of them have been dating for like three and a half weeks now, which is pretty much a record for our class. They’re one more week away from going to their
second
dance together, and that’s basically as boring as marriage. Pretty soon they’ll be just like one of those couples down at Pacific Place with the matching black jackets who walk together all quiet—because what’s left to say at that point in your life?—the same ones who always get annoyed when we talk during a movie and it’s like,
duh
, if you want to see a movie in silence, rent it! But anyway, I get that I just insulted Keenan’s girl and so he’s obligated to step in.

“Hey!” he says, puffing out his chest. “Back off, Fat Class!”

Whoa. I can’t believe those words just came out of his mouth. Keenan and I have been friends since forever and he’s got all kinds of dirt on me and anything else would have been fine right then—but bringing up Fat Class? That’s the one thing that should be off-limits. I notice a couple of our classmates’ heads turning too, and all of it just makes me snap.

“Shut up!” I shout, and slam him into the lockers.

And right as Keenan’s girly shoulders clang against the blue metal and everybody within ten feet goes “Ohhh!” who just so happens to be walking by?

Mr. Scher.

“Anthony!”
he barks like an attack dog, and actually he looks like one too, with that stupid bald head and white beard and those too-white teeth, like he sits at home in his secret evil basement and polishes them before he heads out for his second job as a child-abducting vampire. “Office! Let’s go. No, now.”

“What? I didn’t do anything!” I say. And it’s so annoying because if it was any other teacher, especially a young one like Mr. Travis or Ms. Rosaz, it would be no big deal. They are both kind of scared of us eighth graders, especially kids like me and Keenan who look older. I am fourteen and Keenan will be too in January, and it’s, like, come on! Most fourteen-year-olds are in high school already. A little friendly shoving between two friends shouldn’t matter.

“I don’t want to hear it,” says Scher, motioning for me to follow him. “Come on.”

“This is so unfair!” I say, but I fall in line behind him as he struts toward the office, because no matter what happens, I cannot get in big trouble these next two weeks.

Fall Arts Night is in twelve days. And that’s one of only two chances all year that me and Keenan get to rock out onstage in our band, the Rusty Soles. We’re in Rock Band Club after school, and we’re working on a song for the concert, and if I get in trouble and miss it, the next chance to play anything other than our friends’ basements isn’t until spring.

And that is forever from now.

“We were just messing around!” I add as I trail behind Mr. Scher. “It was no big deal.”

Well, except what Keenan said was kind of a big deal.

But Mr. Scher is never going to listen. He seems to take our size and age like personal challenges, like it’s his mission to prove to us that we still belong here, that
he
’s still in charge. “Life isn’t fair,” he says over his shoulder.

And even though I don’t want to get in trouble, I can’t
help muttering a string of curse words under my breath. I don’t say it loud enough for Mr. Scher to hear the words, but he can tell I’m saying something and he whirls back around.

“Excuse me?” He glares at me. “Do you also need the automatic detention for not using school-appropriate language?”

I glare right back at him. “No.”

School-Appropriate
is one of like twenty terms and phrases that teachers are always reciting at us, like they were all brainwashed during their enemy training. Things like
Compassion Is Courageous, Excellence Takes Effort, Student Accountability
. But
School-Appropriate
is maybe the worst, and I get it all the time:

“Anthony, that language is not …”

“I know that’s what someone might say if his arm was being eaten by a zombie, but your story needs to be …”

“The slogan on that T-shirt is not …”

It’s so ridiculous. We hear swears in everything we watch and listen to: movies, video games, TV shows, music. And we have for years. Also, news flash: we
children
have been swearing among ourselves since we were like six.

Plus, these teachers are hypocrites. Have I heard them swear tons of times when they’re talking to each other? Of course.

But whatever, it’s just more of the same in this stupid stalag of a school.

If I lived in another part of town and went to one of the real middle schools that is only sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, I bet things like this incident with Mr. Scher would
never even happen. But Catharine Daly is a K–8 school. I mean, sixth and seventh graders might as well be puppies with how dumb and babyish they are, but at least they’ve learned the basics, like how to avoid an eighth grader and how to put on deodorant. Have you smelled fifth graders? Heard fourth graders? Have you been slimed by anything under the age of nine? There are all these little kids everywhere all the time, and they’re always sneezing or licking something or crapping their pants.

And because of them, we eighth graders are expected to
Lead by Example
at all times, and that’s nearly impossible. Eighth graders are not made to set a good example. We are made to battle in the trenches between being a kid and being a teen. Setting a good example is also a good way to get your leg blown off by a land mine.

Ms. Rosaz is always nagging us to use figurative language. So here you go, Ms. Rosaz, here is a simile to describe eighth grade:

Being in eighth grade here is basically like being stuck under the ice in a frozen pond, and you can see up through the glassy surface but you can’t break out. There’s a level like this in
Liberation Force 4.5: Axis Payback
, the multiplayer game that Keenan and I have been playing nonstop. It takes
place during World War II, and you are crossing the ruined European countryside taking on the Nazis, which is so much cooler than trying to steal some stupid blue dragon’s magic crystals or whatever.

In Level 18, you are by the Ourthe River at the start of the Battle of the Bulge, Germany’s last big offensive in December 1944, and during a fire fight you fall through the ice. You die there a few times trying to break through to the surface. Finally, you figure out that the ice is too thick, and that instead you can swim down and find a sewer tunnel. It leads you right into a Nazi bunker, where you die a few more times, but at least from there you can fight your way out.

There is no secret tunnel out of eighth grade.

I mean, I am sixteen months from driving a motor vehicle! On a road! With other lives in my hands! I can
see
high school up there above the ice. I would already
be
in high school if some stupid hippie preschool teacher named Birch didn’t convince my parents that because I was behind in my motor skills and self-control, and because boys aren’t as ready as girls or whatever, I would benefit from an extra year in preschool. So I was just sort of a big floppy spaz when I was four—who isn’t?