Permanent Adhesives (24 page)

I responded with, “Uh, hi.”

“Now Molly, I hear you are starting some sort of revolution?”

“What?” I said, while cursing Kate in my head. She must have said something to somebody with all her revolution talk.

“Is all of this vandalism around school supposed to be sending a message, or are you just taking advantage of kids and trying to make money? Would you call it guerrilla marketing?”

“Hey, I’m merely a creator of a comic here,” I said, defensively holding up my hands.

“So you’re not sending a message?”

“Maybe my comic is, but a message is different than a revolution.”

“All this vandalism is related to your comic, so you are sending a message through vandalism?”

“Okay, I’m not vandalizing anything.”

“What would you call it then?”

I responded by crossing my arms and huffing.

“Street art then, is that what you want to call it?”

“What?” Because I thought we were mainly talking about the stickers and quotes that were all over the surfaces of our school. I just looked at her and then around. We seemed to have had an audience. Pretty much everybody who was at our meeting was turned in our direction.

“I saw that large Sasha.” She pulled out her phone and showed a picture of the Sasha. “I’m pretty sure that you did not have permission for that.”

“Why are we talking about permission all of a sudden? I thought we were talking about what’s going on in school?”

“What’s going on extends beyond the walls of our school, like this large piece here,” Rachel said, wiggling the phone in my face. “So did you have permission for this or not?”

“Just cuz one doesn’t have permission doesn’t make it vandalism.”

“According to the dictionary, vandalism is defined as willful and/or malicious destruction and/or defacement of public or private property.”

“Okay, but it says nothing about permission does it?”

She pursued her lip together at me.

“I’d say that definitely qualifies as street art.”

“But you didn’t have permission. It’s not art. Its vandalism,” Rachel said.

“First off, I didn’t do that and second, since permission might not have been had that somehow disqualifies that paste up as art? It would be the same exact piece of art if it was hanging in the student art gallery up on the school’s fourth floor.”

She huffed. “Okay, let me ask you this, the—”

“No, I’m good,” I said and walked away.

Kate squealed and gave me a high-five. “So frickin awesome.”

Rachel went over to Elias next. He saw her coming and pulled up his hood and focused on his computer screen. He was finishing up a paper for somebody.

“So I hear you’re one of the master minds behind the recent school and city vandalism movement?” Rachel asked, making it sound like we were the ones responsible for any and all vandalism in the city.

Elias looked up at her with his eyebrows drawn in, most obviously annoyed with what she said. He opened his mouth, pointed his finger, but he said nothing and put his hand down and looked back at his laptop. Rachel didn’t even attempt to pursue further questioning with him. I walked over to Elias, put my arms over his shoulders, and gave him a kiss on the top of his head. When I looked up, the owner of Quirk’s was waving me over. Uh-oh, I thought. I was sure I was in trouble for something: overcrowding the place, sticker sticking, loitering. Elias gave my arm a squeeze, and I walked over to Roger.

“Hey,” he said.

“What’s up Roger?” Roger was in his mid-forties, had thick salt-and-pepper hair and was boney, but somehow he still had this weird deflated gut that hung over the edge of his slacks. He wore some sort of super hero tee-shirt that was a little too tight and accentuated his odd stomach situation.

“Do you have your comic in print?”

“Not yet, but that was one of Elias’ suggestions,” I said, pointing out Elias.

“Well, when you get some let me know. I’d like to sell them here.”

“Really?”

“Yeah and maybe we could have some kinda release party and signing thing go on,” Roger suggested, rubbing one of his overly dry elbows.

“No way!”

“Way.”

“You’re the best,” I said, throwing my arms around him with a hug full of so much happy appreciation.

“Let me know, okay?”

“You’ll get the first print version.”

“Cool.”

I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. I went back to where Elias sat and plopped into the chair next to him.

“What?” he asked.

I told him what Roger had told me.

“That’s great,” Elias said, smiling, his dimple making an appearance. We finished out the meeting, and Elias and I went and spent the rest of the day at his place. I stayed there as late as I could and then went back across the street, diving right into my bed, so I didn’t have to deal with anybody in my house. I did not want to face my dad, or talk to my mom, nor did I want to see Janie. I was trying my best not to cross her path because she was one-half of the reason our dad was making himself comfortable in our apartment. Usually with my dad around I went to bed feeling so anxious, if I could get to sleep at all, but that night, I really didn’t have a problem. I had better things to think about that kept my mind and heart calm as I drifted off to sleep.

Monday morning rolled around and Channel One aired mine and Rachel’s interview and then Mr. Gardenia made his speech about respect, vandalism, and turning people in. The whole time everybody in my division was either glancing or staring at me, or whispering about my involvement with it all. I tried to scoot down in my seat and cover my face with a text book, but it didn’t help much, and to make matters worse, the desk I was sitting in had a Sasha Santiago sticker on it.

Well, the amount of high-fives I normally received during the day went up exponentially. Everybody claimed they were joining the movement. I so had no intention what-so-ever to start any kind of movement, but it seemed somehow that was exactly what was happening. I didn’t even like the word movement, it reminded me of something gross, and you can only guess, so I started telling everybody it was a campaign for superbness because that’s what we were calling it all along, a campaign. I was hoping my phrasing would catch on by the end of the day, but everybody still kept saying
the movement
. Needless to say, the classroom was packed when it came to club meeting time after school. Elias came in with a crate full of merchandise. We sold it all to fellow classmates wanting to join the movement for superbness.

*************************

“Are you coming out for the secret mission tonight?” I asked Elias before he pedaled off to work.

“Of course.”

“You don’t have to ya know.”

“And why would I not?”

“Maybe you have something you want to work on for yourself?”

“Nope,” Elias said, giving me a quick kiss. “But I gotta go, see ya tonight.”

“Okay, tonight then.”

Once Elias took off I headed to the bus stop. Kate was going somewhere with Brian. I think she was secretly hoping she’d see him naked again, but she was picking me up at my place a bit later so we could hang out at her house and watch some telenovelas before our mission. Once on the bus, I accidentally fell asleep and woke up a good few blocks past my house. Realizing my blunder, I jumped up and pulled the dingy cord. The bus stopped at the next stop, and I jumped off. The bus stop I got off at was kitty-corner from an unoccupied used car lot and for some reason it beckoned for me to come over. I crossed the street and walked across the cracked blacktop of the lot that had tufts of grass and weeds growing through. I went around to the back of the building where there was a most fantastical empty brick wall. It was the perfect canvas.

Nearing Midnight

It was secret mission time. Kate, Roberto, and I picked Elias up in front of his place. I opened the car door for him, and he leaned in and gave me a kiss before he climbed in next to me.

“Hey, I made some new stickers.” He flipped open his bag, dug around, and pulled out a stack. “See,” he said showing me them. “Oh, I also have the cutouts of the society members. I don’t know if I told you I was going to make more, but I did, and I also have the stencils that say
The Society of Prodigious Superbness
.” He held up a couple of pieces of poster board taped together that he got in the car with. I was supposing the stencils were between the two.

“Did you sleep at all last night?” I asked.

“A tad.”

“What’s a tad?”

“Enough.”

“Elias you—” I started, but Kate cut me off. I was going to tell him to stop being so concerned with my stuff, and that he needed to think of himself too.

“How cute,” Kate said. “You guys are already sounding like an old married couple.

*************************

We met at our rendezvous point, ala the front of Brian’s house, and Brian followed us in his mom’s minivan, which was packed with, well, Brian of course, Reynaldo, Dean, Dave, Carly, Anna, Clark, and Eric—the tag-a-long neighborhood kid. I was pretty surprised by how such a good-sized group of teenagers were able to sneak out so close to midnight. I’m sure lots of lies and manipulation had to have happened between my cohorts to have such a turnout for a late-night mission. By the time our caravan reached our destination, Elias was asleep on my shoulder. I wasn’t sure if I should wake him or not. I gave him a shake as I was getting out, and he responded with a light snore.

I stood outside of Kate’s car and watched everybody pour out of the minivan. It looked like they were all on their way to a costume party. The whole not looking suspicious thing seemed to have been officially over. Dave, Carly, and Brian were all dressed in camo. Reynaldo and Dean were dressed like Ninjas. Anna and Clark were Cecile and Emile again (maybe they wanted to get the most out of the money they spent on their getups they got for LARPing). And neighborhood kid Eric was dressed like an elf for some reason. I just shook my head. They walked towards Kate’s car in a misshapen v formation.

Kate, who was dressed like herself—knit pink hat, braids, and a wool coat that looked like it belonged to an English school girl from the late 1800’s—asked, “Are you guys all in disguise?”

“Uh, yeah,” Carly said. “We don’t want people to know it’s us.”

“The thing is,” I said, covering my mouth with my hand to hide my laughter. “When Elias and I go, we try our best not to stand out too much.”

“Well, it looks like you’re about to rob a gas station,” Brian snipped.

“It does?”

Dean nodded his head with a smile.

“Okay, just remember, even though some of us might be dressed like it, we are not actual members of
The Society of Prodigious Superbness
.”

A couple of their faces fell like they actually thought they were. “Okay, how about this. We are our own
Society
, but remember we have no actual special powers.”

“I like that,” Reynaldo said. “Oh, you can start chapters all over the country, and people can like join their local society.”

“That is a good idea, but we have to get down to business cuz I’m sure a band of costumed teens in the middle of the night looks pretty suspicious.”

“Um, Molly, what about Elias? Do we wake him up? Wouldn’t he want to partake?” Kate asked.

I went to the car, opened up the back door, and climbed in so I could try to wake him. “Elias,” I said, shaking his arm. Nothing. “Elias,” I shouted. Nothing. I shook him some more, tried to tickle him, and yelled his name again. Nothing. I climbed over him and gave him a long hard kiss. His eyes blinked open.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey, right back at ya. Are you going to join us?”

“Sleeping,” he responded. His eyes shut again, and his head fell backwards.

I didn’t want to leave him there by himself sleeping, so when I climbed out of the car I asked if there were any volunteers willing to stay behind.

Neighborhood Eric raised his elven arm. While I didn’t really know Eric, he somehow looked infallible with his crown of fluffy curled hair, pointy ears, and large buckled belt that was wrapped around what I could only describe as a frock. He was however, a little too young. I think he was like only thirteen.

“We need somebody who can drive, just in case a cop comes by or something.”

Roberto walked up and elbowed me with a smile.

“Sure?” I asked.

He pulled a paperback out of his back pocket, slapping it against his palm.

“Okay,” I said, giving him a nod.

We were all gathered at the trunk, handing out supplies, about to separate into our two groups we had organized when Roberto
pssttted
at us. I ran over, and he handed me a large Sasha cutout. I almost forgot the most important one of all. We broke up into our groups. My group was doing the wheat pasting and Kate’s group was doing the spray painting. She really wanted to be a group leader, so we let her. “Okay,” she said to me. “So all together we’re an army of nerds.”