But there was no mistaking the sudden slamming of a fist into his upper arm. Adrenaline surging, he turned and saw Trevor Nordstrom.
“I’m talking to you, Reese!” Trevor said. Another quick estimate: Trevor outmassed him by twenty kilos, and all of it was muscle.
Matt looked left and right, but he could hardly outrun Trevor, who had apparently just come from hockey practice—he’d dropped a stick and a gym bag on the sidewalk. That it wasn’t a planned ambush was small consolation.
“Yes?” Matt said—and, damn it, damn it, damn it, his voice cracked.
“Think you’re the shit, getting everyone to sign that card for Caitlin?”
Matt’s heart was pounding again, and not in a good way. “It just seemed a nice thing to do,” he said. Something you wouldn’t know anything about.
“She’s outta your league, Reese.”
He didn’t actually dispute that, but he didn’t want to give Trevor the satisfaction of agreeing, and so he said nothing.
But apparently silence was not an option. Trevor punched him again, this time on his chest just below his shoulder.
And Matt thought about all the things movies and TV shows said about situations like this. You’re supposed to stand up to the bully, you’re supposed to hit him in the face, and then he’ll run away scared, or he’ll respect you, or something. You were supposed to become him to defeat him.
But Matt couldn’t do that. First, because if Trevor didn’t run off, he’d pound the living shit out of him; there was simply no way Matt could win. And, second, because, damn it, the TV shows and movies were wrong. Responding to violence with violence didn’t defuse things; it caused them to escalate.
“Stay away from her,” Trevor said.
Matt had been tormented by Trevor for three years now; he’d endured the horrors of gym class with Trevor, and the utter indifference to his agony demonstrated by the Phys.Ed. teachers. Matt knew the joke that those who can, do; those who can’t, teach—and those who can’t teach, teach Phys.Ed. God, why was it considered pedagogically sound to ask someone to shoot ten baskets and give them a score based on how many they got while others were calling them a spaz? He wondered how Trevor would fare if he were asked to solve ten quadratic equations while people were shouting that he was a moron?
“She’s going to be home-schooled,” Matt said. “You’ll never see her again, and—”
And then it hit him—and so did Trevor, pounding him once more on the opposite side of his chest. Trevor wasn’t afraid that he wouldn’t ever see Caitlin again; rather, he was afraid of exactly the opposite. Miller had dances the last Friday of every month; the next one was only two weeks away. And if Caitlin Doreen Decter—if the girl he had brought to the dance last month—showed up in the company of someone like Matt, that would be humiliating for Trevor.
“Just stay the fuck away from her,” Trevor said. “You hear me?”
Matt kept his voice low—not out of fear, although he was mightily afraid, but because that helped keep it from cracking. “You don’t have to be this way, Trevor,” he said.
Trevor slammed the flat of his hand into Matt’s solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him and knocking him to the cement sidewalk.
“Just remember what I said,” Trevor snarled, and stormed off.
An hour later, Nick’s mother sent him an email message that said:
Hey, Nick.
Did you send me an email earlier? I thought I saw one in my inbox but I must have accidentally deleted it—sorry. You doing OK?
Forty-four minutes later, I finally detected activity from Nick’s computer, and soon he replied to his mother:
Mom,
All’s well. Thanx.
And eleven minutes after that he resumed the IM session with me, sending that same word: Thanx.
I replied, You’re welcome. If you ever need someone to talk to, I’m here.
I’d hoped he’d write something more, but he didn’t. Still, he continued to do things on his computer, reading email, checking blogs, following people on Twitter, downloading songs from iTunes, looking at MySpace and Facebook pages.
Life went on.
As she was getting ready for bed, I told Caitlin what I had done, sending text to her post-retinal implant.
“That’s wonderful!” she said. “You saved a life!”
It is gratifying.
“But, um, Webmind?”
Yes?
“You shouldn’t have revealed what that girl—what was her name?”
Ashley Ann Jones.
“Her. You shouldn’t have revealed what she said.”
I could think of no other way to accomplish my goal.
“I know, but, see, if she finds out and starts telling people you invaded her privacy, well, the public might turn against you.”
But you had me tell you what Matt had said about you in his instant messages.
“Yes, but…”
I waited five seconds, then: But?
“Damn, you’re right.”
I have not asserted a position.
“I mean, I shouldn’t have done that.”
Why not?
“Because it’s one thing for people to be aware that something not human is reading their email. It’s quite another to know—forgive me!—that that thing is releasing the contents of those emails to other people. If this Nick person tells Ashley what you did, and she goes public—we’re screwed.”
Oh. What should I do?
“My mom always says let sleeping dogs lie.”
You mean, I should do nothing?
“Yes, just leave it be.”
Thank you for the advice. I shall do that.
The view of Caitlin’s room jostled up and down as she nodded. “But the important thing right now is what you did for that boy. You’ve become a force for good in the world, Webmind! How does it feel?”
I contemplated this. Malcolm Decter had told me he didn’t think I had real feelings although he hoped I could learn to ape them.
But he was wrong.
How does it feel? I repeated. It feels wonderful.
thirty-eight
LiveJournaclass="underline" The Calculass Zone
Title: 1+1=2 (in all numeral systems except binary)
Date: Thursday 11 October, 11:55 EST
Mood: Happy happy joy joy
Location: Waterloo
Music: Colbie Caillat, “Bubbly”
So, could things get any better? I ask you, friends: could they?
I think NOT. Just look at the life-goals to-do list:
1. Memorize 1,000 digits of pi: check.
2. Be able to see: check.
3. Make it to sixteen without doing anything really stupid: check.
4. Watch the Stars win the Stanley Cup: not so much up to me.
5. Get a boyfriend: check.
6. Take a trip into space: still working on that.
Pretty good progress, eh? (Yes, I’m in Canada, and I say “eh” now—sue me!) I mean, four out of six ain’t bad, and—