It was hard to tell who won. Call-Me-Sandy jumped in after I said chainik-hocker, which could mean that I won, but then Jelly got to say shleppy dolt mamzer after Call-Me-Sandy jumped in, which never happened before because it was always that once Call-Me-Sandy jumped in, we stopped calling each other names. And then, also, schleppy dolt mamzer was a combination of names that we already used, so in a way it was a repetition, but the combination might have made it count as a new name, and it was hard to tell if Jelly was cheating or just being very skillful when she called me a schleppy dolt mamzer. It could have been a tie.
Call-Me said, “Before we start today, has everyone heard Scott’s big news?”
“What?” Scott said.
“About what you’re doing on Friday?”
“It’s a secret,” Scott said.
“What’s said in Group stays in Group,” the Janitor said.
Scott stuck his lower lip out at me. He wanted to know if he should tell his secret. I didn’t know his secret, so I didn’t know if he should tell it, but what the Janitor said was true. As little as I liked him, especially when he recited the rules verbatim off the tear-away pad like a robot, the one thing everyone in Group — everyone in the Cage, really — was good at, was keeping their mouths shut. That a kid who tells on another kid is a dead kid went without saying among us.
To Main Man, I said: If you want to tell us, you should — no one’s gonna repeat what you say.
“Okay,” said Scott. “Okay. On Friday, I’m singing.”
“Who cares if you’re singing. You’re always singing,” Ronrico said.
“Shut the fuck up,” Vincie said to Ronrico. “You never listen. If you listened then sometimes you might say something that didn’t make you sound like such a fuckface.”
“What’s rule number one?” Sandy said to Vincie.
“Are you really asking me that?” Vincie said. “Because I think you know the answer.”
“I’m really asking, Vincenzo.”
Vincie turned around to read from the tear-away pad on the easel behind him. “‘Rule number one: Always be respectful,’” he said. “But that doesn’t matter, Sandy, because first of all, Asparagus wasn’t being respectful, and secondly, those are rules for Group. Group didn’t start yet.”
“If we’re all in the room,” Sandy said, “Group has started.”
“But you said ‘before we start,’ which means we didn’t start.”
“And we were all in the room when you said it, Sandy,” said Jelly.
“We should always be respectful,” Call-Me-Sandy said.
“That’s not true,” Vincie said. “You’re changing the rules. Am I wrong, Gurion?”
I said, I don’t know. It says ‘Rules for Group’ over rule number one. And Call-Me did say ‘before we start,’ and then she asked you what rule number one was, which sounds like she’s saying you broke it, but then even if you didn’t break it, maybe she’s saying you should be respectful anyway, even when it’s to a bancer like Asparagus who I kicked the ass of because he gave me a charleyhorse, but then I think it’s useless to have Rules for Group if they’re the same as rules for everywhere else. The main thing—
“A kid who tells is a dead kid,” Ronrico interrupted.
Telling stuff to Sandy doesn’t count, I said, because everything in Group is confidential, so don’t talk out of your depth, you shmendrick.
To Vincie, I said, The main thing is that it makes Sandy uncomfortable when we’re angry at each other. So she talks about rules.
“It doesn’t make me—” she started saying.
“See?” Vincie said to her. “The rule doesn’t matter. Even Gurion says. And I think it’s unfair fighting to start in on me about the rules before Group starts. I think it’s an abuse. It’s abusive. You said it because you can’t sit with our anger, Sandy.”
“That’s very disappointing to me,” said Jelly to Call-Me. “I feel dis-appointed in you.”
“I need you to be able to do that for me, Sandy. If you can’t sit with my anger, who will?” Jenny Mangey said. “I feel helpless now.”
Scott said, “I love you, Sandy. I’m not angry.”
Ronrico clapped his hand against his knee.
Vincie’s hand jumped to his eye.
Ronrico said “Flinch,” and laughed in Vincie’s face. He laughed so hard he started coughing. Then he chucked the Janitor on the shoulder with the fist he’d coughed on.
The Janitor wiped his shoulder with his hand and wiped his hand on the thigh of his pants and stared at the thigh of his pants, scared out of his mind.
Ronrico said “Flinch,” to Vincie again.
Leevon said nothing.
I said, I made Boystar get all cry-faced.
“Did you smash him?” Jelly said. “I hate him.”
“I think he’s a rapist,” Mangey said.
Scott said, “We’re gonna sing together at the Aptakisic Pep Rally on Friday! Me and the Boystar. He’s famous! I will stand in the spotlight with him and sing a duet from the new unit, Promotionalize. There’s stickers.”
No one knew what to say about that. The Janitor was still staring at his thigh. He said, “Sandy, can I have a tissue?”
“How do you feel right now?” Sandy said to the Janitor. “Do you feel threatened?”
“I feel infected,” the Janitor said. He was leaning back to get as far away from the germs on his thigh as possible.
Mangey said, “Boystar is like the guy in the date-rape movie who gives girls knockout drugs without them knowing. And then he takes their clothes off when they’re asleep and he date-rapes them.”
“Infected. Can you be more specific, Mikey?”
Ronrico said, “Flinch,” to Vincie again.
Vincie started crying, but just wet eyes and his face got red. If it was four weeks before, Vincie would have laid him out, no hesitation.
I said, No one’s gonna call him ‘Flinch,’ Ronrico, no matter how many times you say it.
“Gurion,” said Jelly, “how’d you make Boystar cry-faced? You smash him or what? You smash him in the gob?”
The gob? I said. What’s a gob?
“Can you please just hand me a tissue?” said the Janitor. He started crying with his throat.
Sandy said, “Scott, how do you think Mikey feels right now?”
“I don’t know,” said Main Man, “but everything is very scary.”
I said, We’ll be fine, Scott.
“Please!” shouted the Janitor, reaching in the air for a tissue that wasn’t there.
Vincie’s hand jumped to his eye.
Jelly said, “You’ve really lost control of the room, Sandy. I mean, even more than usual.”
Mangey said, “Boystar threatened to beat me up once, Gurion. He shoved into me in the hall and I said ‘Excuse you’ and he said he’d kick my ass.”
He’s all talk, I said. I said, I slapped his neck and he hid behind his dad.
“Flinch!” Ronrico said to Vincie.
Vincie’s hand jumped to his eye.
I stood up fast and Ronrico fell out of his chair.
“Gurion!” Call-Me-Sandy said.
Vincie’s hand jumped to his eye.
I said to Call-Me-Sandy, I’m not hurting anyone.
I stood over Ronrico. I said to him, Now who’s the flinch?
Ronrico was biting his lip.
I said, You’re just like Botha, but shorter and dumber.
Call-Me-Sandy said, “Please, Gurion.”
I said, I’m not hurting anyone.
“I am not like Botha,” Ronrico said.
I said, Why are you picking on Vincie, then? I said, You’re gonna be Botha in a few years. Ronrico Botha. That’s your new name. You’re Ronrico Botha.