“What are you doing?” Michelle says.
“Inka inka inka inka,” he goes.
“Yeah. Well,” Tawanda says, “you want time to think about it? Want to tell us in class?”
“That’d be good,” I tell them.
“He’s not that funny,” Michelle says.
“Inka inka inka inka,” Flake tells her.
They both get up, holding their trays. “Don’t forget,” Michelle says.
“We want you,” Tawanda says, pointing at me. “For our trio.”
“We want you,” Flake says after they’ve gone to sit at a table full of girls. All of them are talking and looking over at us. Michelle gives the back of her pants a tug.
“You da man,” Flake says. “Tawanda wants to touch your art.”
The whole table’s still looking and laughing and Flake points at his crotch and then at them and then at his mouth. One of the girls nods and waves him over.
“Wouldja draw me a picture?” Flake asks me. Then he grits his teeth and acts sleepy. “Inka inka inka inka.”
“So I was thinking,” my mother says after school, standing in my room, on my clothes, waiting for me and Flake to stop what we’re doing. She just walks in whether I’ve got the door shut or not. The lock doesn’t work because I Jackie Chan-ed the knob a month ago when I was pissed and my dad said he wasn’t going to fix it.
“Get off my clothes,” I go.
“You don’t want people walking on your clothes, get them off the floor,” she tells me.
“Ouch,” Flake goes. “Zinger, Dude.”
“I don’t need smart comments from you either, Roddy,” she tells him, and Flake makes like he’s zipping his lip.
She rubs her eyes with her fingertips. She takes her time doing it. Flake and I line up the fat girl in the plaid jumper and miss her but tip the frame, and the whole thing falls off the windowsill. Lately we’ve been aiming at my little brother’s preschool class pictures and seeing who we could hit from across the room with our potato guns. You dig the barrel into the potato before you shoot. We’re always arguing about who hit what, but what’s good is that the potato plug leaves a wet spot. So you can check.
“You’re going to have little bits of potato everywhere,” my mom says.
“This is really an outside kind of toy,” Flake agrees. It’s cracks like that that nearly get him thrown out of the house. One time my dad did throw him out.
“So you want to know what I was thinking?” my mom goes.
“The skinny kid with the glasses,” Flake says. He digs his barrel into the potato and points.
“The one with the nose?” I go.
“No, the one with the—whaddaya mean?” Flake goes. “They all got noses.”
“So go ahead,” I tell him.
“Mr. Hanratty,” my mom goes.
“You missed,” I tell him.
“I know that,” Flake says.
“I’m going to count to three,” my mom goes.
“What?” I go. “What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking you guys might like to go out for that martial arts team or whatever that they’re putting together,” she goes. “Who’s doing it, the soccer coach? It sounds right up your guys’ alley.”
“We don’t have an alley,” Flake goes.
“You guys could really use some extracurriculars,” she goes.
“I know. We should be on the debate team,” Flake goes.
“You’d be great,” I tell him. “Whatever anybody said, you’d be like, ‘Yeah? Your mother.’ ”
“What about you?” Flake goes. “Anytime anybody made a good point you’d be like—” He scrinches up his face like he’s gonna cry.
“Shut up,” I go.
My mom rubs her eyes again. When she stops, she looks sad. “Well, the thing they sent home is on the kitchen table,” she finally says. “If you ever do decide you want to get out of this room.”
She shuts the door and goes downstairs. I load up another round of potato and throw the gun into the closet.
“College,” I finally go. “Anybody who goes to college . . .” I can’t even finish the sentence.
“I wanna be president someday,” Flake goes. “Or maybe Wizard Death Lord.”
We got no Interests. We got no extracurriculars.
“I’m goin’ to Fuck U,” I tell him.
“We’re goin’ to Uzi State,” he tells me back.
As opposed to our classmates. Our classmates achieve every minute of the day. They Strive Higher and Reach Farther. They put together model UN’s while we sit around in study halls with our mouths open. They’re captains of the mah-jongg JV or Vermont Junior Business Achievement or Hot Pants for Social Change. They think this shithole is something to be proud of. The ceilings are falling in and nobody’s had new textbooks in a hundred years, but they’re all School Spirit. They’re dirps: Dicks in Responsible Positions. When one of them gives us grief for being such lazy shits, Flake’ll lower his chin and go Dirp, like he’s burping.
“Let’s go throw rocks,” Flake goes.
“Let’s not and say we did,” I tell him.
“So what do you want to do?” he goes. We don’t watch TV. We hate TV. TV’s a fucking blight.
We climb out the window onto the porch roof, jump over the breezeway to the garage, then hang off the gutter and drop down. Sometimes my mother thinks we’re still up there in my room.
At the practice fields the JV boys’ and girls’ soccer teams are kicking balls around. They’re almost all ninth-graders.
“What’re we doing here?” I want to know.
“How about you stop complaining till you have an idea?” Flake says.
We decide to go to the fort we made under an off-ramp. You can only see in from one direction, and it’s bigger than it looks. We found it one day playing a game where you ride through the gap in the guardrail at top speed. The gap’s about two feet wide, and you have to bomb through without hooking a handlebar or elbow.
Somebody calls “Heads up!” and we duck and a soccer ball whonks Flake right on the head. The ball ends up in some wicked-looking prickers around a Dumpster.
I’m laughing. The kid who kicked the ball is laughing. He’s still in his follow-through. Some of the girls’ team is laughing.
“Ball?” the kid calls. He comes over to the chain-link fence and hangs on it, making faces at his friends.
Flake goes over to the Dumpster like he doesn’t see the prickers and wades right in. “Ow,” he says, and everybody laughs even more. He tears the ball out of the bush and looks at his hand.
“Who puts prickers around a fucking Dumpster?” he says. “What’s wrong with this fucking town?”
“Hey ace, send it back,” the kid goes.
Flake holds it out in front of him.
“Give it all you got, ace,” another kid goes.
“I’ll give it all I got,” Flake says. I can see he’s planning on kicking it to Peru, but he shanks it sideways down the street.
“Fuck,” he shouts. I know better than to say anything.
“Nice leg,” one of the kids says and starts to head around to the gate. The girls from the girls’ team have turned away and gotten in a circle to do some kind of trapping exercise. Everyone’s peppy and there’s lots of shouted encouragement. It looks like the Dance of the Tards.
Flake and the kid reach the ball at the same time. Flake picks it up and turns and booms the thing it has to be fifty yards down the street. It bounces ten feet in the air and keeps going out into the intersection. Cars honk.
By the time I get there the kid’s got Flake on his back and he’s choking him with the collar of his own T-shirt. I grab the kid by the hair. Somebody punches me on the side of the head. We get piled on. The kid I grabbed hits me two or three times in the chest and shoulders as fast as he can and then grinds his hip on my face and someone kicks me in the back. Somebody else kicks me in the tailbone. Flake’s screaming and swearing.