Summertime and the living is...EPIC

Hello hello! So, I'm certain you're all wondering why the freakin' hell I haven't blogged in--what is it now--eleven days? Shame on me...or not, when I recap what's been going down since July 13th.

For starters: Harry Potter. Yes. I won't bore everyone with my analysis on what they could've done better or where the special effects felt unrealistic or how I would've cast someone with BLUE EYES THANKYOUVERYMUCH as the younger Lily Potter--but what I will say is that I cried. Hard.

~SPOILERS~

I cried at all the usual parts, of course--Fred Weasley, Snape, Tonks and Lupin, Harry's walk into the forest--but somehow it was so much different from reading the seventh book, because none of the deaths--no, not even Snape's--made me cry when I read it. Somehow, I think, there's just something about seeing it. Seeing Fred and George take one last moment before the battle, saying "I'm all right, are you all right?" and ready to die defending their school and their friends. Seeing Tonks and Lupin stretching their hands towards one another, going in for the kill together, ready to protect each other. Seeing Voldemort's total lack of regret for killing who he thinks to be his best servant, unaware that he is killing a man who spent most of his life working against him.

I remember reading Deathly Hallows and crying when Harry walks into the forest, ready to face Voldemort alone. In the movie--forget it. I was drying my eyes on my cloak the entire damn time. (Yes, of course I dressed up...I'll explain that later.) Seeing it--seeing his determination, his willingness--seeing that he will do absolutely anything to protect those he loves--made me love Harry Potter more than ever. Remember what I said in the last blog post, about how these people seem real to me? In the movie this is so much more pronounced; everyone doesn't just seem real, they are real.

You can't possibly understand the intense fervor surrounding the release of this movie unless you are a Harry Potter fan. I don't care how many fans you know--you will only understand this if you are a fan; just knowing one simply will not cut it.

Rewind the clock about nine and a half years, back to December 2001.

Picture a shrimp of a girl (or perhaps "leprechaun" would be more appropriate in describing her size) with the wildest, curliest dark-blonde hair you've ever seen, clinging to her parents for all she's worth. She has never seen the inside of a movie theater. She has only just finished reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. In one hand she clutches a Hermione Granger action figure; her father is holding her other hand. She has never been this excited in her whole life. Not when she had her first dance recital. Not when she went to an ice show for the first time. Not even when she unwrapped that Hermione Granger action figure on the morning of her ninth birthday. Never, ever, ever.

She loves Hermione Granger more than she loves the Harry Potter series itself. She sees herself in this frizzy-haired bookworm, the girl who covers up her insecurities by being smart, the girl who has isolated herself (for different reasons, of course; while Hermione has chosen not to "run with the crowd," her real-life counterpart has been kept out of the loop by others, protected from the dangers of a conventional school). Now she is going to see her new heroine on-screen for the first time--and she can't wait.

She covers her eyes during the scariest parts--the troll on Halloween, the first appearance of Fluffy, the moment with the dead unicorn in the Forbidden Forest--and even has to briefly leave the theater when Voldemort shows himself for the first time. But when the movie is over she is still so, so excited, absolutely ecstatic, because of her new favorite movie characters--Harry, Ron, and most of all, Hermione.

(And I think it goes without saying that she is, at this point, part of the small, naive group who really thought that Hermione and Harry would make a good couple.)

Fast-forward to July 14th, 2011.

That same girl is now eighteen years old and has sat through movies much, much more frightening than Harry Potter. But she still holds her father's hand as they get in line at ten-thirty PM, waiting for the midnight showing of the very last film.

She has dressed up, too--one of the few who bothered--as, who else, Hermione Granger, wearing her Interlochen uniform, a wizard's cape, and her father's red-and-gold tie. The Hermione action figure is long gone, but the enthusiasm is still there.

Along with Hermione, there is Severus Snape, a handful of generic Gryffindors, multiple Harry Potters, one brave Dobby doppelganger, quite a few generic "wizards" or "Hogwarts teachers" and a few hipster Slytherins...and, for some strange reason, Transformers. Well over a hundred people are in line for the midnight premiere. These people are for real, and you don't want to mess with them--and yes, that does include saying, "You know Harry Potter isn't a REAL PERSON, right?" These fans are impatient--they can't wait to see if the movie is true to their beloved books--but at the same time they relish the experience of waiting in line. It is, after all, the very last time they will get to see a midnight premiere of a Harry Potter movie.

But when it's time to go in, and everyone--costumed, uncostumed, or just wearing their Harry Potter t-shirt--finally takes their seats, the girl dressed as Hermione almost begins to cry. Not yet, she tells herself; there is, after all, still two hours of movie that she has to get through. But it's a little like the feeling she had on her graduation day--that sense that she is moving on, that she is about to leave childhood behind forever.

And she watches her favorite scenes as intensely as she watches those she hates, cheering when Molly Weasley makes toast out of Bellatrix Lestrange, whistling when Ron FINALLY kisses Hermione (needless to say, she has switched to the legions of fans supporting Ron and Hermione as a couple now), roaring in approval when Neville beheads Nagini, crying her eyes out when Snape dies. These people are not just actors. They are her heroes. They are not just characters. They are her friends.

And when the final shot rolls around, and the score from the very first movie is playing, she cannot help but cry one final time. Again she begins to feel the way she did on graduation day--bittersweet but satisfied, sad but so proud, so happy that everything is wrapped up, knowing that while she and her (oh, all right, fictional) friends are finally grown up, they will never leave each other behind.

--------

Yes, that insane girl is me. And I mean it, too--once an obsessed Harry Potter fan, always an obsessed Harry Potter fan. You are talking to a girl who still has her photo of a thirteen-year-old Dan Radcliffe dressed as Harry Potter tacked to her bedroom wall. I still talk about the HP characters as if they're real people. You know how some people talk to themselves? I talk to Hermione, Ron, Harry, Hagrid, or Snape. (Yes, I really do.) I don't care how old I get--when I am fifty years old, I will still have my imaginary talks with my favorite Harry Potter characters, and I dream of the day that I will be able to read these books to my kids, show them the pictures and videos of Potter fans lining up outside bookstores, libraries, or movie theaters, and say to them, "Guess what? Your crazy mommy did that."

This song is my favorite at the moment, because it pretty much expresses everything I feel about Harry Potter, without the sappiness that I've invariably drenched my latest Potter rants in.

So long, Hermione. Maybe we'll hang out sometime, yeah? Keep Ron in line, would you? And keep an eye on Harry for me. Tell him I'll miss him. Tell him to hug Ginny for me. And no matter what, please, please, PLEASE keep inspiring silly, optimistic nine-year-old girls around the world--it's what you do best.

~Cue new section of blog~

So I've been writing a lot this summer. (Cue massive "DUH!" here.) I've also been doing a lot of editing and a lot of college shopping, but for the most part I've been holed up in my room, the car, or a hotel room writing my pants off. (Please do not picture that.) So, since my best friend has responded so positively to one of my stories, I thought that maybe I would post a bit of it on here, just for fun:

~~~

"Loving Cooper Finnegan" (excerpt)

December

Snow covers the ground. It’s as cold here during the winter as it is hot in D.C. during the summer. Sam and Maggie and I grab each other’s hands and run and slide, run and slide, until we collapse in a heap on the thin layer of ice that has formed on the ground.

We find Cooper near the auditorium and bring him in with us. We run around the auditorium and shout lines from our favorite movies, and sing songs from RENT and Hairspray and Sweeney Todd that we only know half the words to, and we skip and play and dance until a security guard kicks us out.

On the way back, Maggie comes up with the idea of naming our favorite constellations. The night is clear, and we look up and see every star through the tops of the trees. “Mine is Seven Sisters,” Maggie tells us, reaching up to point out the shape in the sky.

Sam thinks about it for awhile. “I think Orion is mine.”

I stop and look up, staring around until I find my favorite—the Big Dipper. “Such a cliché,” Sam teases me when I voice this opinion.

But Cooper takes my hand, and points up to the very same constellation I just named. His breath makes a perfect little cloud in the crisp night air as he says, “My favorite is the Big Dipper, too.”

~~~

There's more, but the story is still in the "revise like crazy" stage, so I don't think I'll post the rest of it just yet. But trust me. If Mishka is to be believed (and all past experience tells me that she is), this is a good story. So consider this a teaser.

On to the insanity that was the North Carolina trip! I tell you what, you have not lived until you've seen a southern small town. It is picturesque in its awkwardness. You know the stereotype of a small town? It is motherfluffing TRUE. Tiny secondhand treasure shops, neat little brick houses with tidy lawns, everything five minutes away from everything else...the works. You see, my mother now works in a hospital down there. So last week, I got to take a road trip with her and my dad, stay in a semi-unclean hotel with dodgy internet (hence, no blog post), drive twelve hours in one day, and eat Froot Loops for breakfast every single morning.

(Yes...I do consider this exciting. How pathetic is that?)

Here's the thing about road trips: they are templates. There is a Road Trip Template for each family. For some families, like Jake Johannsen's (go to 2:10), you MUST get up before the sun and drive to as many states as humanly possible and see the lamest roadside attractions known to mankind. For our family, here are the Rules of the Road Trip:

1. We MUST leave at least half an hour later than we originally planned to.

2. We MUST forget something/forget to do something and have to either go back or buy whatever we left at home once we get there.

3. While it's not required to use a rental car, we MUST drive the most uncomfortable car available. (The winner of this award would have to go to the Subaru Outback we drove last year--it was UNBEARABLE.)

4. One of us MUST need to use the bathroom every hour.

5. We MUST stop at McDonald's and/or Bob Evans at least twice per trip, despite the fact that we have a cooler full of food in the backseat.

6. We MUST take at least twice the amount of luggage we need. Bonus points if this happens in a car half the size of the one we'd usually drive.

7. We MUST have at least one argument over the following: a) what radio station we listen to, b) what restaurant we eat dinner at on the way there or on the way home, c) where we stop to use the bathroom, d) which hotel we'll stay at once we get there, or e) whether we should stop on the way home or "just drive straight through."

8. There MUST be at least one instance of uncooperative weather on the way there or back, whether it be rain, blinding sunlight, excessive wind, rain that turns to snow, snow that turns to sleet, or excessive cloud coverage that renders it impossibly dark once the sun goes down.

9. We MUST drive on a turnpike. Bonus points if it's the impossibly-f***ed-up Pennsylvania Turnpike.

10. We MUST stay in the hotel with the least-comfortable beds imaginable. (Worst Award for this one: hotel that I can't remember the name of in Ohio, 2006. SO. FREAKING. BAD. It was like sleeping on a rock.)

Yes. These things invariably happen on the Beatnik Belle Family Road Trips. (If that hasn't been copyrighted yet, it should--I might just make a movie about this someday.)

Speaking of movies, I have a new master plan: Instead of waiting until I graduate from college, I will write an adaptation of Twisted in the remaining weeks of summer, send this screenplay to Laurie Halse Anderson along with my portfolio of shorts, and beg her to let me make her book into a movie. Sound like a plan?

ANYWAY. Back to the road trip. So we get there--FINALLY--and check into our hotel, only to discover that while it may not have bedbugs (and that's debatable), there is always the classic problem of the sheets not staying on the freaking beds, no matter what you do. (Unless you use duct tape, which we didn't happen to have on hand--see Road Trip Rule #2.) Then we found out that while they had a (reasonably) clean pool, the carpet was about as grungy as you can imagine. Think the carpet in the Runaways' first dressing room. And on top of all this, we had a mini-fridge the size of a baby bathtub--and enough groceries to fit a regular-sized fridge.

Welcome to summer vacation.

On my first night of the vacation I saw something on TV that I found appalling and somewhat intriguing. I was watching a show called Bridezillas, a reality show that exposes the rude behavior of some brides-to-be. There was one woman who was a victim of the worst kind: Nothing was her fault, everyone was out to get her, the best man was an asshole, her bridesmaids were unreliable, her mother was a freak, the whole thing was going to pieces and it was all someone else’s fault. There was another who had such an attitude that I wondered why her friends and family were putting up with it. And then there was a girl, nineteen years old, who was about to get married to a twenty-one-year-old man who seemed to have no self-respect. How else to explain the fact that he was marrying a girl who, quite literally, had him by the balls?

This girl had no business getting married. She was a year older than me, with about one-third of my maturity level. To people who read this and know me personally: You think I’m sarcastic? You ought to see this girl in action. She was bratty, arrogant, immature, aggressive, lazy, and obnoxious. She made the Kardashian girls look like good-will ambassadors.

During the course of the show, she slapped her fiancé, called him a dick, threatened him, whined at him, called him stupid, called him retarded, told him she was much better than him and he was lucky she liked him, said she was hotter than him, demanded money from him, and when all else failed, grabbed him between the legs when she didn’t get her way.

I looked up the episode online and was disappointed with what I read in the comments. The worst insult that anyone had for her was “waste of skin.” In my opinion that was not nearly good enough to describe her. There was one point when she was in the car with her best friend and fiancé, and when beating up on her fiancé didn’t get her anywhere she started in on her best friend—now, if I were in that car with her, I can assure you I would not have put up with her crap. In fact, I can’t imagine for the life of me why anyone would want to marry her or be her best friend in the first place.

If this girl had been a guy, and the show had depicted a guy smacking his fiancée in the back of the head while she was driving, grabbing her by the breasts so he could get her to hold still, and backing over the cake topper she bought because it wasn’t exactly the one he wanted, you can bet that every comment box in the interwebs would be flooded with “What a bastard!” and “OMG he’s such a jerk!” and “Why the [censored] is she marrying that [censored]?!”—all of it well-deserved. Where was the criticism and judgment for this girl? Where was all the “That girl is a bitch!” and “What does he see in her?” and “If I were her mother I’d smack her!” Even my mom remarked, “If I were her mother, I wouldn’t let her go on TV—I wouldn’t want the world to see what a selfish, violent daughter I raised.”

And what did her fiancé do? Nothing. He let her control him. He made one or two half-hearted attempts to stand up to her, and after that, he gave in. He didn’t fight back when she hit him or grabbed him. He didn’t say a word when she backed over the cake topper. If he’d hit her back, he probably would have been attacked again, not just by her, but by her friends and anyone else who was shocked that he’d “hit a girl,” even if it was in self-defense.

I'm not exactly sure where I'm going with this. I just know that I found this little incident extremely interesting. It made me think: why is it, in our culture, that everything has to be taken to epic extremes? Why is it that either a man is a total wimp or an abusive pig? Why is it that people seem to think if a woman stands up for herself she is "badass" and "feminist," but if a man dares to stand up for himself he is labelled "controlling" or, heaven forbid it, "abusive?" I'm telling you, she was abusing him--had he firmly taken her hand and pulled it away from his private parts, I would not have labelled him "abusive." I would have labelled him "reasonable."

Now I know this stereotype had to start somewhere, and believe me, I am not trying to belittle all women or minimize domestic violence. It's just that this episode of Bridezillas made me think--and I'm hoping that it will make you guys think too.

One more thing before I sign off...I am not going to make fun of Amy Winehouse, however tempting it might be. (Keep in mind, I never really listened to her music, but the little bit of it that I heard I didn't really like. It's not that I don't think she had talent, because she obviously did--her stuff just wasn't my cup of tea.) What I am going to say, though, is that I find it kind of absurd that, what with everything that happened over the weekend, particularly the tragedies in Norway, all everyone can talk about is her death. Not saying that she isn't news; she clearly is. But I think it says something about our culture that we freak out when a celebrity dies, but when a true tragedy happens, few people--at least from my generation--take notice.

On that note, a shout-out to my former roommate, the wild and wonderful Elizabeth V., for making this very point on Facebook the day of Winehouse's death. YOU GO GIRL.

And now...I think you all know what comes next...

STOLEN DIALOGUE

Person one: We should go get some of "da dip."

Person two: If we do that we'll get "da s**ts."

"Harry, your panties are showing."

Person one: This is one of those places where you get everything on a paper plate with a piece of white bread.

Person two: So in other words, it's real southern cooking.

"This guy is a big d**k...but his penis is really small."

"Hey, buddy, if you don't get off my ass, I'm staying right here! I know you're in a hurry to get to Waffle House, but back off!"

"He's an old man from New Mexico, therefore he MUST have to pee."

"This guy must have Alzheimer's...he can't remember which lane he's supposed to be in."

"'Speed limit enforced by aircraft'..so, what do I do, leave my sunroof open so they can just drop the speeding ticket right into my car?"

"What's the difference between a long-ass and a short-ass? I must be a short-ass--I'm only 5'4."

"Your phone can't take one more 'f**k you,' okay, honey?"

"Hey! That bird is making fun of the Big Man!"

Person one: Hey, can we go to the China Super Buffet?

Person two: Not unless you want China Super Diarrhea.

Person one: There's Cafe Acropolis.

Person two: Cafe WHAT?

"There's a wide gulf of difference between Taco Bell and Waffle House. With Waffle House, there's only a 50-50 chance that you MIGHT throw up."

Any Resemblance Is Completely Coincidental (MORE serious [S-word])

This is a piece of short fiction that I wrote for my final project in Writing About War.

*clears throat*

This is a piece of fiction. Any resemblance to events or to persons living or dead is completely coincidental.

(I just realized that with the amount of "draw from what you know" that I do, I really need to start putting that at the beginning of my stories and movies...)

~Like A Snowflake~

(short story)

I stare at the locker in disbelief. In the back of my mind I know that I shouldn’t feel shock, I should have known this was coming. After all, they’ve said these very words aloud to me at least a few times a week all year—why wouldn’t they just give up and put it on my locker for the world to see?

Die, fag.

The square of white notebook paper is as light and innocuous as a snowflake against the dark-blue metal of my newly-scratched locker. I’ve seen the skull and crossbones a thousand times, from the time I was in kindergarten playing pirates with my friends—come to think of it, that was probably the last time I had friends, back in kindergarten—and now here it is, an actual threat. Who would ever have guessed that I’d see it in this context?

Slowly I reach out and rip the note from my locker. I want to burn it, but I don’t have the means to do so right now, and I need to get rid of this before anyone sees. Besides, I see the writer of the note—and he’ll pretend he didn’t write it later, but I know he wrote it—peeking from around the corner. He wants to see what I’ll do. Fine, let him watch me; I’ll give him something to watch…

Very deliberately, I roll the note into a ball and drop the ball onto the carpeted floor. While Scott is watching, I crush the note beneath my heel. Let him see my tiny display of defiance. It’s the only method of fighting back that I have. The administration has proven multiple times that they don’t care, so I have no help there, and my only friend is a skinny sophomore girl who’s about as much good in a fight as a Care Bear. I’m virtually alone; I have no way to fight against Scott, except to do this. He and I both know it’s meaningless, we both know he still has power over me, but for a moment I enjoy pretending that I can actually fight back.

I wince when I hear the voice ring through the halls—“You’ll regret that, faggot!”—but I pretend not to hear. Instead, I open my locker and fish out my binder, and then hurry back to class, having finally achieved my mission and obtained my homework.

And for the time being I forget about Scott, and that is where I make my critical mistake.

At ten-thirty the bell rings and I go to my third-period lunch. I hate this, I really do, it’s too early to eat, but if I don’t I’ll regret it for the rest of the day. I spot Katy at the edge of the cafeteria and wave to her, before heading off to get my food. I never bring lunch from home. Believe it or not, the food here is actually better than what I eat at home, causing me to wonder exactly why the kids all complain about what we’re fed at school.

I get my lunch and begin looking for a place to sit. This is when I notice Scott glowering at me from a corner of the cafeteria that I always avoid. Surrounded by his hulking, chain-adorned friends, he cuts an imposing figure, and I involuntarily shiver as I start to cross back to where Katy and a few of her friends are sitting.

And that is when I realize that the cafeteria is so tense that it’s actually scary. The level of noise is about ten percent of what it normally is. Moreover, half of the students located here are staring at me. I have no idea why, and honestly, I’m not sure I want to know. Probably has something to do with what Scott and his gang did this morning. It’s probably been blown way out of proportion, too. By this time, they probably think my locker was wired with explosives or they put a live snake in it or something. And of course I deserved what I got, for the heinous crime of not wanting to date girls.

I look down at my tray as I edge through the cafeteria. I don’t want to be stared at. I just want to eat my freaking lunch. But, since this is the worst public high school in the history of public high schools, that’s just not going to happen. The last time everyone in the cafeteria stared at me, I got attacked with a Jell-O catapult, courtesy of Scott and his right-hand goon, Justin.

A pair of black combat boots plants themselves in my path. I swallow hard and look up. Scott, of course. Well who else would it be, the tooth fairy? What did you expect, that he’d leave you alone? I ask myself sarcastically. Scott leers at me, and my stomach twists. I just wish he’d insult me or pour milk on me or whatever he’s going to do, and have done with it.

A circle of students, some of them his friends, some of them bystanders, has formed around us. The seconds slides by. Scott continues to sneer at me, and I protectively clutch my lunch tray against me, preparing to get food thrown at me or hear the now-familiar curse words. Come on, Scott…just get it over with.

The fist seems to come out of nowhere, hitting the side of my cheek with stunning force, causing me to drop my lunch tray in shock. For a split second it feels like I’m staring into a strobe light as the fluorescent lighting blackens in my eyes and then hits me full-force, and it’s only through sheer force of will that I manage to stay conscious. All the while, the only coherent thought going through my mind is, What the hell just happened?

I hear Scott laughing triumphantly, and I freeze in place—I’m not letting him do this, I am not letting him humiliate me like this, I know I haven’t got a prayer, but I don’t care anymore, I have to push back.

With a strangled-sounding war cry, I launch myself at him. Innocent of any knowledge of how to fight, the best I can do is sort of body-check him, but it’s enough to throw him off-balance. He stares at me in total shock for a three-count, and then he hurls himself right back at me, knocking me to the ground and causing me to hit my head—hard—against the tiled floor.

What follows is five minutes of sheer hell on earth. I don’t even know how it happens. All I know is that one minute, I’m trying to make sense of the dull, throbbing pain at the back of my head, and the next I’m spitting out a mouthful of my own blood. While Scott pins me to the floor and proceeds to beat the living crap out of me, chaos reigns around us. I hear screams and punches and curses, and I have to briefly wonder why they’re fighting. This is between me and Scott, not them, which is why it never occurs to me to wonder why they don’t help me. After all, they’ve never done that before; why start now?

It doesn’t take long—two or three punches, maybe, if that—before I give up trying to fight back and simply try to defend myself as best as I can from the blows. But it seems like forever before Mr. Wendell, the student dean, pulls Scott off of me, by which time I’m so badly injured that I couldn’t even tell you what’s hurting. My entire body feels as if I’ve just climbed out of a food processor set on “pulse.” Speaking of pulses, I’m amazed that I even still have one. I’m surprised Scott hasn’t killed me by now—God knows he’d be proud of himself if he did.

“Can you sit up for me?” Mr. Wendell asks, not ungently, as one of the security officers deals with Scott. Just seeing this makes me feel slightly better. I don’t have a hope of getting rid of him; the worst he’ll get is maybe a suspension, but at least he’s not getting off completely free. I let the dean peel me off the floor, spitting out another mouthful of my own blood as I slowly pull into an upright position.

“What happened?” the dean asks me.

Oh, now there’s a fine question to ask the one lying on the ground covered in bruises and blood and God knows what else. All I want is for an ambulance to come and knock me out with pain meds, is that really too much to ask? But I force out an answer anyway, and tell Mr. Wendell, through gasps of pain, that Scott punched me unprovoked in the middle of the cafeteria.

Mr. Wendell sympathetically pats my shoulder and tells me that he’s going to take me to the nurse’s office to “get cleaned up,” and then, and I quote, I should “Go back to class and let us take care of this.” Who, I wonder, is “us?” Is this the same “us” that has repeatedly ignored my reports of being cursed, insulted, spat on, and assaulted with food and spitballs and paper missiles in the hallways? Is this the same “us” that let Scott tape a death threat to my locker? Is this the same “us” that took forever to intervene when he started beating the hell out of me? Oh yes, I have a lot of faith in this unnamed “us.”

I should be in the hospital. Instead, I’m taken to the school nurse, where my many wounds are cleaned with disinfectant and I’m given a Tylenol before being sent to Principal Deven’s office to be interrogated. I tell him the truth: Scott taped a threatening note to my locker and then attacked me in the middle of the cafeteria. I know that it won’t be enough to get the asshole expelled, but I know I have to at least try.

Principal Deven listens to my story and then tells me what Scott told him, and it’s enough to make me want to quit life: The reason that I was attacked today, according to Scott, is because I made unwanted advances.

Dear God, if You exist, I silently pray as Principal Deven explains that under the circumstances, others have to be questioned before a decision can be made, is it too much to ask that for once, just for once, they’ll believe me?

I already know the answer.

“It’s unbelievable, that’s what it is,” Katy says later that afternoon, as she bandages one of the multiple open wounds that the school nurse neglected to cover with a band-aid. “I just can’t believe it…so they actually said they have to investigate it? They didn’t believe you right away?”

I snort and shake my head. “Come on, Katy. Since when do they ever believe me right away?”

“Well, seeing as you’re the one who’s so scarred up that Freddy Krueger would be afraid of you, and Scott didn’t get so much as a scratch, I thought for once they might actually see that you’re telling the truth.” Katy tapes the gauze shut and squeezes my hand. “There, is that any better?”

Of course it isn’t; when your arm is grabbed and slammed off a tiled floor by a kid wearing fake brass knuckles, it’s not going to be made better by gauze and Bactine. But she means well, better than any of the idiots running our school, so I say, “Yeah, it’s a bit better.”

“Good.” Katy continues to hold my hand, even after she’s done playing doctor, and I’m grateful for that—it’s not actual medicine, but I actually feel better just knowing that she gives a damn about me, enough to want to comfort me, to protect me. And I know she was the one who ran to get the authorities. I know that out of the five hundred-plus spectators in the cafeteria today, she was the only one who actually went for help.

“So what exactly happened?” I ask her. “I mean, all I know is that Scott kicked my ass and there was some kind of riot…what actually happened? Did you see?”

“Well…” She sighs. “So after you started to fight back, basically everything just went to hell in a handbasket. Someone tried to break up the fight, I don’t know who, and one of Scott’s drones jumped him. Then everyone just lost it and started pounding on each other.”

Translation: Someone was worried about getting in trouble and tried to calm things down, only to get mixed up in the chaos. Nobody except Katy would care that I was getting beat up, only that they might be guilty by association. “Then what?”

“Well, I went for help, and when I got back everyone was still fighting. Mr. Wendell called for security, and the security people got the fighters to calm down pretty damn fast. But you know Scott, he just wouldn’t quit until someone actually pulled him off you…I mean, if anything, he just got worse.”

Of course. If you sense an end coming, try to get as many punches in as you can before someone stops you. “I hate life right now,” I announce, and Katy sympathetically pats my hand.

“Just tell them the truth if they call you into the office again.” She pauses, and then adds, “They questioned me too, by the way. Principal Deven and Mr. Wendell, I mean. They called me into the office not long after the fight ended and asked me a bunch of stuff about you, and about the fight, and whether or not I knew how it got started.”

“What did you tell them?” I ask.

“What do you think? I told them that Scott is an arrogant bastard of a bully who’s been tormenting you for months, and he started this whole thing by sucker-punching you in front of half the damn school.”

I smile. This time it’s the truth, but I know full well that Katy would tell them a pack of complete lies if it would protect me. “So what did they say? Anything?”

She shakes her head. “No…but I think they’ll have to do something this time. I’m praying for expulsion, but you know how they are, they don’t want to do anything that might get them in trouble with the board of education or with the parents.”

Story of my life. “They can’t do anything because…” It’s always about protecting themselves. Can’t defend me because Scott’s cronies might beat them up. Can’t tell on Scott because he’ll target them next. Can’t expel Scott because his parents will freak out. Can’t do this, can’t do that. Protect yourself, and if one lonely gay kid gets punched to death in the process, well, that’s just one way of solving the problem.

Katy sees the look on my face and knows what it means. “They’ll do something this time,” she says softly. “They have to. I mean…look at you, and then look at Scott. Anyone with half a brain could see—”

“There’s your problem, right there,” I cut her off. “They don’t have half a brain among the whole group of them. They all think in terms of fight-or-flight.”

Katy doesn’t say anything else, but she squeezes my hand again and I know she knows I’m right.

The next day, the entire school is called to an assembly in the auditorium at the beginning of the day. Hope rises in me once again. For a few brief moments I let myself fantasize about Principal Deven outlining a new policy against bullying, telling us that Scott has been expelled and sent to juvie, commending me for bravely putting up with his bullshit for so long.

But those fantasies are crushed the minute Mr. Wendell gets up to the podium and opens his mouth. He talks about the fight, and how it “reflects badly on our school,” and how we should all be ashamed of ourselves for behaving like this. I should want to kill him right now, but I can’t muster up the energy to be decently mad. Mostly, I’m just in shock. Katy doesn’t say anything the entire time, just stares ahead like me, her hand slowly tightening around mine as the assembly goes on.

Finally comes the icing on the cake: Mr. Wendell looks at us all gravely and says, “There’s no need to tell your parents what happened yesterday, so if you haven’t told them, don’t. Most of them have been e-mailed about the situation, it has been well-explained as an issue that the school is working to resolve. If anyone from the press asks to speak with you concerning this fight, please decline. There is no reason why what happened yesterday should bring down our school’s morale or image. We can remain unified, as we have always been.”

He goes on and on about how our school spirit shouldn’t be diminished, how we can still finish out the year and be proud of ourselves. I don’t care. I just stare straight ahead, wondering how in the hell I managed to get into this place, and how in the hell I’m going to escape when no one except Katy even knows I exist.

One sentence of Mr. Wendell’s sticks out in my brain. It’s the only time he gives us the truth in the entire assembly, actually—it’s the final statistics of yesterday’s fight: Eighteen bloody noses, four broken bones, thirty miscellaneous injuries, seven expelled—Scott not among them—nineteen suspended, eleven hospitalized, five withdrawn from school.

And all I can think is, Last week, when Marilyn Evans cheated at the Quiz Bowl, it made the papers. And this won’t.