I kept hoping Carla's baton would take out a ceiling light.
We were outside the band room. It was the first Friday in October, about five-a-clock in the evening. That night was a home game. It didn't make any sense that Lang still required us to arrive at school hours before kickoff. We're good little sausages though, so we showed up for attendance, then walked down the street to the Hard Wok Café to get takeout. Now we sat on the hallway floor, our boxes of fried rice and lo mein resting on napkins and Stevie's chemistry textbook (she wanted a 'thicker germ barrier' than a napkin could provide, the absolute loon).
Steve and Jesse were working on our anatomy homework. I was supposed to be doing the same, but I didn't feel like it. I've already got all the major bones memorized (I have extensive medical experience, remember?), and I have enough approximate knowledge of the minor bones that a quick review of them before our test Tuesday will suffice for my purposes. It's high school anatomy, not organic chemistry at John Hopkins. I am not gonna do homework on a Friday for it. So instead, I watched Carla practice her steps for that night's half time show. Jenny Phan, head-majorette and also the most neurotic person I know (she beats Stevie, can you believe it?), broke her ankle yesterday while on a date with nose-picking, mouth breather Darren Philips (that is all I know, I don't know anything else. Your guess is as good as mine). She's been benched for the recovery period, and Lang assigned Carla as her replacement. Carla was both very excited about this opportunity and terrified. She told me so as she practiced. Each time she tossed her baton in the air, it got closer and closer to the overhead light. I pretended to listen to her long list of performance anxieties, but really I was trying to will the baton through the glass by telekinesis.
"Did you get that, Val?" Jesse tapped me on the shoulder.
"Sure," I lied. I didn't get anything. Jesse raised a skeptical eyebrow at me. He could tell I was bullshitting. He had really come into his own a group member. It hadn't even been a week since the 75th Annual Pennsylvania Beekeepers Associations Gala, but it seemed like we had been friends for months.
"It's the scapula," Stevie snapped off the lid of her orange-scented highlighter, "I remember Mr. Webb pointing it out on Grim Bones."
Jesse opened up his textbook and paged to the chapter on the skeletal system.
"Oh yeah, I confused it with the sacrum," he clapped the book closed, and cocked his head to the side. "I kind of hate Grim Bones."
"Meee toooooo," Stevie marked up something on her worksheet, "and Mr. Webb in general. Why does he think it's cool to say 'yass'? It's never cool to say 'yass.' 'Yass' is the linguistic opposite of cool."
I loved listening to them talk. They weren't even 'romantic' yet, but Stevie seemed so happy. In fact, in the past week, I'd catch her smiling off into space more than she ever made that 'Irish face' she hates so much. It gave me hope that things would turn out okay for her. She'll still be probably be forty and working at a Target Pharmacy (DEAR LORD), but at least she'll have had a fulfilling personal life. I won't have to be there to bail her out of her midlife crisis. Not that I wouldn't be willing to, if the time should come. But who knows how or where I'll be then? Life is weird.
"I was thinking about this when Webb was playing with Grim Bones today," Stevie added. "I wish somebody would just get rid of him."
"Like, murder?" Carla missed her baton. It landed inches from my feet.
"Noooo," Stevie looked up from her binder. "Grim Bones. I wish somebody would get rid of Grim Bones."
"Like steal him?" Carla bent down, but kept her eyes on Stevie. She fumbled her blind hands over a spot on the floor about five inches left of where her baton lay.
"Like misplace him," Stevie clarified, "like for a prank."
"It wouldn't be that hard to do," Jesse theorized, "Webb's classroom is right by the science building's parking lot exit. There's just a security camera in the stairwell, but otherwise?" He balled his fingers up into a fist, then spread them out and downward, "A straight shot down the stairs."
I watched Carla's left hand locate the baton by my feet.
"You could definitely dislodge that camera," I was confident of that. It was only hanging onto its half-broken wall stand because of duct tape. Our school has limited federal funding, remember?
"Hey, Val," Stevie smiled all coy at me. "How about that pact of ours? 'Feat of courage' number four?"
I considered the likelihood that this dare would end me up in jail.
"Let's do it," I said.
***
We had forty minutes before we'd absolutely need to be back in the band room and in uniform. Plenty of time, but Carla needed some convincing.
If she threw her baton from the correct angle- just along the wall, right in the doorway-the camera wouldn't be able to pick her up, only the empty stairwell. And if she hit the target (she only had one chance), the camera wouldn't be able to pick up the stairwell at all, only the white and blue ceramic tiles of the wall.
"A suspension is not part of my five year plan," Carla yelped at me, as I pulled open the door of the science building's parking lot exit. Behind us, Jesse had backed up Gus. He was the de facto get-away-driver, because he knew his way around a shift-stick, hehe double entendre (And come to think of it, neither Stevie nor Carla could drive in any form, manual or automatic). We chose Gus, and not Jesse's blue Ford Focus, because Gus has enough space for a human skeleton. Gus also has curtains, with which to conceal said human skeleton. Stevie was in Gus's back-most row, ready to open the trunk. I was armed with my student ID, debit card, and driver's license, all tied together with a blue rubber band, and nestled in my back pocket. Before we could roll, though, we had to take care of the matter of the security camera. Dammit, Carla.
"Relax," I held up my palm. "You'll still get to be President." Forget Stevie, I thought, maybe I should have chosen to remove the baton from Carla's butt.
"If this affects my chances at Georgetown-"
This coming from the girl who has trespassed all over South Linden doing parkour. I got no idea what would make this act any more illegal than that. Criminal mischief is criminal mischief.
"I'll take the heat, okay," I said, and I meant it. "I took your baton and threw it, you were helpless."
Carla opened her mouth.
"You weren't even here." I corrected myself.
Carla closed her mouth. She focused her eyes on the camera, lifted her throwing arm, pointed that baton, and BAM. Great success.
I started up the stairs.
"My baton," Carla hissed, "get my baton."
It wasn't like she'd show up on camera if she went to pick it up herself. But she has a five year plan, and I don't even know if I'll be alive in five years. I get it. I ran back down the stairs. Once the baton was secure in Carla's hands, she bolted out of the science building.
Like I said:
Majorettes are wimps.
***
I jimmied open Mr. Webb's door with my debit card. Old Grim Bones stood just feet from me. Rolling him out of the room was like running a knife through butter. Once I got him to the classroom threshold, I noticed that, across the hallway, the door to the stairs (and the parking lot exit below) was shut. I also noticed that it was a pull door. How was I supposed to get Grim Bones through that by myself? I started to think that I didn't think this through well enough. Stevie would have caught this one of those details I overlook, and would have chastised me for poor impulse control. But she was in love. Her brain was all foggy on dopamine. She wasn't going to be on the top of her usual, cynical game. I considered rolling Old Grim Bones back into the classroom, so I could come up with a plan. Prop open the door with a stopper? I scanned the room behind me for a piece of wood or a textbook or anything. The sound of footsteps on the stairs stopped me dead. I watched the pull door across the hallway swing open. Time to dial up the DiPaolo charm. I smiled my best, dimple-making smile at the pair of hazel eyes I saw in front of me.
"You forgot the door!" Stevie whisper-shouted, and bounced her left hand off of her temple, "Poor impulse control!" And with that, she waved her arms backward, toward the stairwell, "Don't just stand there!"
Old Grim Bones was ours.
***
"Alright, so here's my question," Stevie said, as Jesse pulled Gus back into his spot in the alley behind the stadium. "Now that we have him, what do we do with him?"
"He becomes our mascot," I said. I had pulled Grim Bones off of his stand and sat him in the middle seat of Gus's second row. Now I could understand why Mr. Webb liked playing with him so much. His bones were connected by a pliable wire. He could be arranged into any position possibly performed by a human body. And, better yet, once in said position, he would stay put.
"He's not going to be our mascot," Stevie said, "We just stole him, we're not going to parade him around."
"Why not?" I teased, "the Vikings did that with pillaged English loot."
"The Vikings didn't have to worry about getting into college," Stevie snipped, "or juvie. I'm too delicate for juvie."
"You'd be fiiiine," I said. I know some kids who've been to juvie. I met them last year in gym class. They wore ankle monitors. Sure they were criminals, but they weren't face-tattoo bad. "Juvie's all about rehabilitation, you'll probably get to do watercolors."
"I don't want to do prison watercolors, Val," Stevie stuck out her tongue.
I lifted up the middle finger of Grim Bones' right hand.
***
We did come up with some good things to do with Old Grim Bones.
On the way home after our football game, Stevie and I stopped at the McDonald's drive-thru and ordered a small fry and two M&M McFlurrys. Just because we're assholes, we put Grim Bones in the driver's seat right after I pulled up at the second window. The girl behind the counter dropped our ice cream onto the curb.
It was totally worth it.
***
Here's a fun thing to do on a Saturday evening, in boring, Linden Valley:
Drive down Main Street, in a '96 Dodge Ram Conversion: your best friend in the front passenger seat, her biggest crush and a plastic human skeleton in the middle row, and your majorette friend and her comedian of a boyfriend in the very back. Roll all the windows down, turn the speakers way, way, way, way up (so that your ears will be ringing tomorrow). Play your dad's Celine Dion cassette you found dusty at the very bottom of the center console storage unit. Do not play any song other than track number four, the 1997 hit single "My Heart Will Go On." When the song ends, replay it. Watch as your friends stick their heads and arms out of their windows, and dramatically lip sync at the twenty-and-thirty-something normie yuppies sipping artisanal beer on the patio of the local brewery. When you get to the end of Main Street, turn your van around, and repeat, until you wish Celine Dion's damn heart would quit going on, or until you see a cop car. Whichever happens first.
***
A/N: Busy week, kiddos, so I'm a bit scatter-brained. The important thing is that I've posted the new part and it's still a Friday :) Thank you for voting, commenting, and reading!