The Taming of the Drew (14 page)

Helena looked at me, like she was afraid to put the obvious into words, but that someone had to. “Go ahead,” I said to Helena, “say it.”

“The only reason Celia would do something that crazy is to — a) keep an eye on the Dog, and possibly Bianca, while they’re in Academy, or b) look for the camera herself.”

“Which means,” I said, “c) the camera’s still out there, waiting for
someone
to find those photos.” I flopped back onto the stump.

As we picked up our bags and collected apple cores, I noticed Tio was standing, staring at the top of the trees with a panicky look in his eyes. Poor guy. I would
never
forgive myself if he got expelled because of me. I walked to where he stood and said, under my breath so no one else could hear, “Tio, I swear I’ll find that camera. It’ll be okay.”

He turned, confused, “What?”

I felt suddenly awkward, “The camera? Isn’t that what’s bugging you?” I didn’t want to say
making you look like you’re going to pee your pants
. It just didn’t seem respectful.
 

He blew out a gust of air, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe what a fool I was. “Get a grip, Kate. You want to know what’s bugging me? Do you?”

The others were turning to look, their attention drawn by the hysteria in Tio’s voice.

“Seventh period,” he said.

I must have looked as confused as I felt.
 

“Only
you
could forget something like
this
. Seventh period! I’m supposed to tutor the hottest, most over-protected girl in all of University! Me! Ha!”

It was like my mother momentarily took over my body. “Tio,” I said, before I could stop myself, “you’ll be
fine
. Just be yourself.”

“Have you taken a look at me lately? Have you?”

With that, he stomped off towards the school buildings, leaving us all behind.

The only thing that could make me feel worse happened moments later, when I went to pick up a piece of trash at the other side of the fairy circle. I found a tall metal stake in the ground. It was hidden behind a tree in the shade, and way taller than me — at least ten feet tall. It stood straight as an arrow buried in a target. There were red lines painted on the stake at regular places, and small black numbers along the edge.

Something about my stillness must have attracted the others. “It’s a freakin’ surveyor’s stake,” Phoebe said.

Gonzo said, “A what?”

Helena said, in a hushed tone, like she was reading an obituary, “It’s what they do when they start a construction project. It’s so they can measure out the area.”

Finding it there, in the layer of needle-fall and drifting shade, was like going to brush your teeth at bedtime and finding a pair of used dentist’s pliers lying on the edge of your bathroom sink.

It was buried pretty deep and it had edges that were sharp in my hands. My shoulders felt like they creaked, muscles strained, my hands stinging. I puffed with the effort of getting it out of the tree roots.
 

I heard Helena say behind me, “It won’t help to pull it up, Kate. They’ll just get another.”

My eyes stung too and my voice creaked as I said, “Every minute I delay them is another minute the trees are alive.” There was a clang of silence as I threw the pole to the ground.
 

We stood there, looking at it on the ground.

“Really? That’s the best you’ve got?” said Phoebe. “You
so
need to get in touch with your inner rage."

“Good point,” I said, and picked up the pole. I headed across the circle, back toward the school.
 

“Where are you taking it?” Phoebe said, trotting along. “I was kind of teasing. I mean, I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

I turned, walking backwards, the long metal pole tilted over my shoulder, and yelled back at Phoebe where she stood at the edge of the fairy circle, looking worried, “It’s expensive. So I’m returning it.”

“What?” Helena shouted at me, confused.

I shouted, “I'm returning it to the University track equipment room. Can’t leave a dangerous javelin lying around, can we?”

I guess I didn’t expect the Dog to be looking for us. I assumed he’d blown us off for the rest of the day — if not the rest of the year. If I had thought about it, I sure wouldn’t have gone looking for him — we’re not that hard to spot as a group (eight of us dragging along), and I didn’t think, even if Dean Verona
had
assigned me to show him around, that I owed him any help at this point.
 

So I was surprised to feel a twinge of guilt when we entered the atrium at the very end of lunch and found the Dog standing with his back to a wall, scanning the crowds until — bing — he saw me. God knows, he didn’t smile or anything, it’s just there was a look of relief that slid like a shadow over his face. Then his angry frown was back in place.

“Took you long enough,” the Dog said, picking up his messenger bag from the floor. The bell had already rung and the late bell was about to ring.

We split in all directions and the Dog and I went to his next class — Creative Writing/Public Speaking. Which was also
my
next class, as well as the next class for most of the other kids we’d seen in English, psych and band.

Mrs. Gleason was hard to take on a good day. Today I thought I’d never make it.
 

“Good morning, children,” she called as we entered. “I’m so excited for us all! We get to welcome a new student!” And she ran forward to pat him on the cheek.

The Dog stood framed in the doorway like the victim of a paralyzing blow-dart. It was so horrible that even though he was still furious, he flicked a quick, half-pleading sideways glance at me.
 

I shook my head as I took my seat. Nothing could stop Mrs. Gleason.

The Dog, probably sensing my hopelessness, bolted from the doorway to the chair next to mine. Romeo, who usually sat there, clearly felt so sorry for the Dog that he didn’t even say anything, just veered to the back of the room.
 

“In honor of the occasion, I got us all a treat, class! Here, pass around the kale chips, and — remember — take only one!”

The Dog said, a flat note of panic in his voice, “Is she always like this?”

“Pretend it’s kindergarten. Makes it easier.”

He folded his massive biceps, sat up straight, like he was going to assert himself. But then Mrs. Gleason said, “Now come up to the board, Andrew, and tell us about yourself. I’ll set the egg timer here for a few minutes — you can stop when you hear the ding. Don’t be shy! You’re in a
safe
place — we don’t believe there’s any such thing as over-sharing, now do we, kids?”

I put my head on my desk. Please God. The school day would all be over in 45 minutes.

“C’mon, c’mon — it’ll be
fun
!” Mrs. Gleason actually took Drew by the hand and tugged.

He stood up next to his desk, but didn’t budge further, yanking his hand back and flapping it against his thigh like he’d burned it. The silence stretched, taut and thin, until you could hear his snorted breathing. A vein bulged on his forehead as he stood, his gaze darting around the room at all the strange faces, looking for a way out. I started to seriously wonder if he was okay. Then his eyes darted to me, and stayed, suddenly deeper and darker under his frown.
 

There was a flicker in his eyes and I think he, well — I think he just snapped.
 

“
You
!” He pointed an accusing finger, like Sherlock Holmes in a drawing room. “You did this to me. I was doing okay. I had friends, I went out. I had money, I had fun. My biggest problems were keeping track of my silly little sister and keeping those pantywaist recruiters off my back. They think I don’t know how to hold my own. You let me on the field with the biggest and baddest tackles and I’ll show you how to win. That’s all that matters, isn’t it? The rest of it is none of their goddamn business. But then
you
,” he jabbed an index finger at me, and I couldn’t help it, I jumped, like I almost thought for a second he could stab me with it, “you ruined
everything
.”

My mind, pinned by his stare and the horrified gaze of the entire class, flapped around in panic.
 

He clenched his jaw and shook his head at me.

“I swear, the only thing that keeps me from actually blowing up at you,” (my mind shrieked,
if this isn’t blowing up, what is?!
) “is the fact that I know you only did it so you wouldn’t get expelled.”

I felt my lips part.
What
?

It was like the air went out of the Dog. “Hell,” he muttered, shoving both his fists in his front pockets, his gaze no longer focused on me, or the class, or on anything but some memory. “I guess I can understand that. I know what it’s like to be left holding the ball, backed into a corner, not knowing where to toss or how to make the next play.”

“But I
swear
,” he straightened, shoulders back, growing in size, “I don’t care if you’re a girl or not — if it wasn’t for the fact that you had to do it to save yourself — I’d smear you all over the field.”

He stood there, then shoved his right hand in his hairline like he wanted to pull it all out by the roots.

In the absolute, stunned silence of the classroom, the timer went
ding!

Mrs. Gleason said, after an audible swallow, “That was…very nice, Andrew!”
 

***

“Where do you think you’re going?”
 

I jerked to a halt, the Dog’s hard hand gripping my elbow. Okay, first, my guts had been churning ever since his outburst in class. I sure didn’t want to think about what rumors would be burning around the school tomorrow. But more than that, I knew someone had misled him — sure, I didn’t want to be expelled, but the real reason I was doing this …and it felt kind of shameful — somehow — now, to admit it… was money. I knew in my heart it was really for the trees, but I didn’t think, if he ever found out, that he’d see it that way.
 

Right now I wanted to get away. I never wanted to talk to him again. “Excuse me?” I said, raising an eyebrow and looking down at his hand. He slowly, one finger at a time, like he wanted to piss me off, released my elbow. “You have study hall until football starts, which you can do anywhere — including the weight room. I don’t
have
seventh period.”

“Now you do. With me.”

He was right about me having something to do seventh period, but not with him. I was planning to swing past journalism and see if I could get inside and volunteer for something — maybe be an aide to Mr. Rowley for the next couple of weeks, anything to get in the door. I had to do
something
to try to find that camera, and, without anyone to help him, Celia would eat Gonzo alive and use his rubbery arm as a toothpick. I only had the next few minutes to get inside the journalism door before the bell rang. There was no way Mr. Rowley would let me help if I interrupted his class. I didn’t have time to stand and debate my right to have a life.

I turned to walk off and the Dog grabbed my arm again.

This time he didn’t let go. He looked kind of pinched around the mouth and eyes, but you know what, I’d had a hard day too.
 

I yanked my arm up and back, toward his thumb, the way they taught us in a sophomore self-defense assembly. He let go.
 

“If you don’t come with me— “ he called to my retreating back, “I’ll have no choice but to
kill
that little squirt.”

That’s when I understood. I stopped in the hallway, my bag banging against my hip, right as the bell rang.

I walked back to the Dog. “You’re going to spy on your sister.”

Tio and Bianca were right now in tutoring hall. Ordinary study hall was an empty classroom and a cranky aide. Tutoring was a vast room full of cubicles with computers, lab materials, and small side-rooms soundproofed for music practice or discussion — basically everything any student could need. The only way to get in was to have a tutor-partner, and the Dog needed me to be his tutor-partner to get in the door.

He folded his arms, not the least embarrassed. “And you’re going to help me do it. You set this up, you’re going to make it right.”

“Earth to Neanderthal. You don’t own Bianca. She’s in a supervised tutoring area, for God’s sake.”

“Unless I’m okay with it, she’s not doing it. End of story.”

“Because you think all guys are like
you
.”

His nostrils flared and I could see some redness at the base of his neck. He leaned toward me, “No. Because I know all girls are the same.”

I flashed on a mental video-clip of the University girl last weekend at the dance, rubbing against his arm and stumbling in her heels.
 

“Given your opinion of girls, if I was your sister, I’d be pretty offended.”

“You’re
nothing
like my sister.”

“So, actually, we’re not all the same — now are we?”

With that, I did a hair-flipping turn and walked toward the atrium and the tutor-room beyond. He could stand and sputter if he wanted, but my game plan had changed.
 

Because really, there was no choice about what I should do. I knew for a fact that Tio would rather be expelled than be made to look like a fool in front of Bianca. If there was anything, anything at all that I could do to help Tio —
especially
if I could stop him before his nerves had him spouting cringe-worthy ‘Spears at Bianca — I owed him that at least.
 

Today, Gonzo was on his own. Tomorrow, we’d have to try to coach Gonzo on how to deal with Celia. Tomorrow, I would resume my hunt for the missing camera.

Today, I was helping Tio.

“Could you give me some room here?”

Each of the tutoring cubes was supposed to be wide enough for two folding chairs to sit side-by-side in front of one computer terminal.

Needless to say, one cube only had room for the Dog’s shoulders.