“Ee-sof-uh-gus.”
11:36 AM
“Sure,” you say, rubbing grass from your cheek. “No problem.” Your face burning with humiliation, you walk back to your table. There is no laughter from the lunch crowd as you expected, or any further taunts from your bully, but if you could just keep walking, could just keep going, around the corner of these classrooms, past the gym, past the principal’s office, out the front gate, and never come back, you would.
“I’m sorry, man,” says Rudy quietly to you from across the table. “But what else could you do?”
Eric just looks at you, his jaw tight. “Fuck,” he says, and looks away.
Gus says, “That dude would have destroyed you.”
You take a breath and exhale slowly through your nose. “Yeah, whatever.”
For a while, no one says anything. You glance at Eric, but his eyes are on the table top. Finally, Gus says, “Oh, hey,” as he reaches for his backpack from the bench next to him. “Have you heard of these guys? REM?” He takes out his Walkman and passes the earphones to you. “Here, check it out.”
He pushes play as you put them on and the rhythm surrounds you, a gravely, melodic voice is singing something about rock and roll and her two sons and being lighted in a room.
“Don’t ask me what he’s saying though,” Gus says, looking at you expectantly.
“I like it,” you say. “Turn it up.”
You continue to listen. After a while the others start talking, about what you don’t know or care. You are content to stay hidden within the sound.
When lunch ends you return the earphones. “Thanks, man.”
“Sure.” Gus zips his bag shut. “So, you didn’t tell us. How’d it go? What’d she say?”
You stand up, trying not to look over in her direction. “Fine, I guess.” You sling your backpack onto your shoulder. “But I’m pretty sure she changed her mind.”
“Oh, dude. You don’t know that.”
“What?” asks Rudy. “So, no dance?”
“Ah, those things are stupid anyway. It wasn’t even my idea.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Eric says. “You’re fucking going.” He still looks angry, but at least he’s looking at you again.
Finally, you get to biology, the last class of the day. Mr. Douglas is drawing the human digestive system on the chalk board, which seems redundant because the exact same picture is in your text book, but with better detail and in full color. He’s talking at the same time though, which is the way he likes to work.
“A bite of pizza is chewed in the mouth by action of the teeth and salivary enzymes,” he says, pausing to write the words, Salivary Glands, next to what looks like a bushy sideburn on the head portion of his drawing. Sometimes he’ll go for the entire period like this, writing, talking, hardly even turning around. As long as no one interrupts, he just keeps going.
“It then passes through the esophagus to the stomach.” He stops to label these as well, repeating the syllables, “Ee-sof-uh-gus,” as he writes. “Where the complex matter is turned simple by enzymes from the pancreas, liver and stomach itself.”
You stop watching the board in order to focus on the details of your own drawing. Using the illustration in the book as reference, you carefully shade the bends and bulges of your small intestine to achieve a more realistic look. Quite proud of yourself, you turn to compare your drawing to your table partner’s, and then immediately regret it. Not because hers is better than yours, it’s not, but because now she keeps looking over at you and you know she’s just burning to say something about your would-be ass-whooping at lunch.
Her name is Nancy Jankowski. Last year, Nancy’s friends made it known that she liked you and it was assumed you would pursue the matter, but you never did. In fact, you ran the other way. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with her. She’s cute enough, with light hazel eyes and pale-blonde hair, but you have your type and it’s just not her.
Your type is Speed Racer’s girlfriend Trixie, race car driver, miracle mechanic, and helicopter pilot. It’s Agent 99 from Get Smart with her mod haircut and little red pistol, always saving Max’s ass. It’s Batgirl in her spike-heeled purple boots and signature high kicks to the jaw — KAPOW! It’s the girl that played Juliet in the film version of Romeo and Juliet that Mrs. Evans showed your English class last year who made your chest feel tight every time she appeared on the screen. It’s “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” Pat Benatar, and the Go-Go’s guitarist Jane Wiedlin, and the girl from Flashdance, even though the movie was stupid.
“So,” she says quietly, “I hear you’re going to the dance with Claudia Ortega.”
“Who told you that?” you ask without turning.
“Claudia.”
“Oh.” Now you turn to find Nancy facing forward, eyes on Mr. Douglas, smiling to herself. “I didn’t know you were friends,” you say, as if you actually know one thing about Claudia Ortega.
Nancy gives you a sideways look. “We sit next to each other in fifth period,” she says. “We talk.”
“Oh.”
Mr. Douglas abruptly turns to face the class as if just remembering he isn’t alone, strokes the palm of his hand down over his thick mustache once, and then turns back to the board. “Now,” he continues, chalk scratching away, “The particles of this bite of pizza, this now, simple matter, are then passed to the intestine.”
You feel Nancy’s hand on your wrist and you turn to find her frowning at you, a look of deep concern. “I’d stay away from Sal and Rigo if I were you,” she says.
Uh, no shit, Sherlock, you think. “Yeah,” you say instead. “That sounds like good advice.”
But her hand is still on your wrist and she continues to frown. “You don’t know, do you?” she says. “Rigo and Claudia used to go out.”
“What? When?”
“She broke up with him last month,” she says, finally taking her hand away.
“Does he know it?” you ask.
“Of course, but he’s one of those over possessive guys who want to control everything.”
“Is that why she broke up with him?”
“Yeah,” she sighs, “and he was cheating on her.”
“And from there,” Mr. Douglas is saying, “the leftover proteins, fats, and amino acids are absorbed.”
“So, Nancy…” you start to say, leaning a couple of inches in her direction. “What is she like, Claudia?”
“What do you mean, her personality?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s cool,” Nancy says. “But she is kind of shy though.”
“Finally,” says Mr. Douglas. “The pizza waste is passed on to the large intestine and from there it is moved to the rectum and then out of the body.”
Shit, you think.
When the bell rings, you head for your bus … you don’t really have a choice.
CHOOSE:
(B) Choose B for Bus
THE MISADVENTURES OF MATTHEW VAN DER BOOT is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental … no matter how many times you ask.