And I pressed all my fingers against all my fingers and none of my fingers would break.
Benji was still grandstanding next to his chair. “No one else?” he said to all the Cage. “All this whispering about the side of this and the side of that and none of the rest of you wants to step up against the Monitor in solidarity? Not one of the rest of you has anything to say?”
The Side of Damage was more loyal to me than even I was — they’d been through with Benji since the moment they realized he wasn’t helping me on the high hill. And now they were all looking to me. It was just like the end of Group on Tuesday, except there were more of them. They were waiting for me to teach them something. They were waiting for me to show them what to do.
I revolved my chair and faced forward in my carrel.
All of us did.
Not a minute later, I heard a chair scoot, followed by Jelly yelling, “Don’t!”
Everyone turned again.
“Now give me a pass to the nurse lest this piddling wound grow fatal with infection,” said Benji to Botha. A black bic pen pinned his t-shirt to the flesh beneath his bottom right rib. The shirt was a light blue. When Jelly pulled the pen out, the stain the blood made was lavender. She fainted for a second, falling forward onto Benji, who caught her with a wince, and for a second, yes, I did wish I could hang out with them, but only for a second. Or maybe ten seconds.
Botha wrote passes and sent them to the nurse.
15 TACTICAL
Thursday, November 16, 2006
6th Period — End of Schoolday
Just before the end of sixth, Eliyahu returned to the Cage with a note. Small cuts were swelling below both his eyes, and some cotton plugged a nostril, but he’d quit the lean of the determined professor and acquired a menacing slouch. Head tipped to the left, he gave the note to Botha, then started toward my carrel, arms straight at his sides like holstered police batons, barely shifting and stiff.
“Sit down, Aye-lie,” Botha said, as he read the note.
Eliyahu got taller and taller.
“Note says you’re wanted in the owfice, Make-bee — I said sit down, Aye-lie.”
“I need to talk to you,” Eliyahu said to me. Up close I saw that his tzitzit were mud-caked, his fedora in tatters. Its felt was all matted and the crown bore a pattern of tiny dents that matched the tread on the Co-Captain’s Jordans. The hatband was gone. “Forgive me,” he whispered, “for yelling.”
“What dad I jes’ say,” said Botha.
Eliyahu shot a glance at Ben-Wa Wolf, who scooted his chair.
And half the Side of Damage began to hyperscoot.
Eliyahu urged the other half on. He raised an arm overhead and beckoned nonchalantly, almost lazily, as if this were the ten-thousandth hyperscoot he’d captained that week. A black ribbon tied around his elbow — the one that used to band his hat — flapped pennant-like.
Botha went to the nearest chair — Stevie Loop’s — and stilled it. The rest of the hyperscoot continued.
“I want you to know!” Eliyahu shouted into my ear, “that I was given an in-school suspension, but I told Brodsky nothing of your part in the fight!”
You would never do that! I shouted back.
Botha moved on to still Renne Feldbons’s chair, and Stevie Loop started scooting again. Lang and Wadrow were covering their ears. They were not amused this time.
“I am nonetheless verklempt!” Eliyahu shouted. “What I do not under-stand! Is why you protected those five boys who yelled ‘Death to the Jew’! Why you said to me ‘Don’t hurt them!’ It makes me very uncomfortable!”
The Five are Israelites! I shouted.
“Now I am especially verklempt!” shouted Eliyahu.
The teachers hated the noise so much, their eyes were closed.
I pulled Mr. Goldblum’s copy of Ulpan from my pocket and pressed it into Eliyahu’s hand.
Read it! I told him. I’ll explain more later!
He spun to face the Side of Damage and the hyperscoot stopped.
“None of you’s—” said Botha. The end-of-class tone sounded. “None of you’s going to the pap relly tomarra.”
“That’s a good one,” said Ronrico. “If by good you mean great,” said Ben-Wa Wolf, “and great means an ingenius way to punish us without all the paperwork.”
Making their way to the gate, Lang and Wadrow shook their heads at Botha = “You are a fuckup.” He let them out, keeping his eyes on the pass he was writing for me, pretending to ignore all of us. There was little else he could do. It was a passing-period and no one was hitting anyone. No one was even cursing.
“Forty’d be a lot of CASS’s to write,” said the Janitor. “A lotta testimony against us.” “A lotta hard evidence that you’ve lost control of your students and Brodsky should replace you.” “So let it be unwritten that it may remain undone.” “All that pep will be wasted on the already peppy while we sit in the Cage, lamenting our lack of pep.” “We need that pep.” “We need a rally to inspire it.”
“Make-bee,” said Botha, waving the pass at me. “Go. To. The. Owfice.”
Why? I said.
“I already told you.”
So tell me again.
“Note your frand brought,” Botha said to me, “says you’re wanted in the owfice.”
What’s a frand? I said.
Botha chewed his face.
“We don’t get to see enough serious high-fiving between basketballers, Mr. Botha.” “We don’t get to see enough Jennys stacked in pyramids.” “Or hear enough words get spelled out with clapping.” “The special way the words sometimes sound like swears but aren’t, even though they really are.” “Double-entendres.” “Homonyms.” “Spelled-out homonyms cleverly masking double-entendres.” “With clapping.”
“Make-bee!” said Botha. “Go to the owfice!”