The Taming of the Drew (16 page)

“You can both learn!” Okay, now I was flat-out begging. “Think of it as an assignment, like for school, only even more important. It’s something you’ve got to learn, sooner or later. When you’re head of a company or something, you’ve got to be able to talk sports, right? Isn’t that how guys relate?”

Alex and Robin gave each other a smile and Robin said, “Yep. Sports is the ultimate guy language. In fact, that’s why the Dog doesn’t say much — top dog’s always quiet, the guys lower in the pack do the yapping, asking approval.”

We stared.
 

Alex gave a shrug and said, “We like gender anthropology.”

Understatement of the Century.

Throat clearing erupted around the circle. “Okay,” I said, “so we’ve got a plan? Tio and Gonzo are going to be on Charm-the-Dog duty, with Alex and Robin as behavioral consultants.” Tio had his arms crossed. A shaft of light from the trees blinked over Tio, and he looked, for just a second, weirdly like the Dog. Tio was frustrated and furious, but it was more than that. It was like Tio’s forehead had grown before the rest of his face — that Cro-Magnon look that guys in middle school get. Gonzo, in contrast, looked all fluttery, like he was having trouble sitting still. Alex and Robin gave each other a fist bump.

I felt a subterranean rumble of fear, deep inside me — maybe this was a bad idea. I squelched it. I had no other ideas right now, and doing nothing while everything slid toward disaster was unacceptable. I plowed ahead. “So that leaves us with the camera problem. Any news?”

Gonzo and Tio had both disassembled the entire storage space and replaced everything. During and after school. Twice.
 

Helena said, “Kate, you’ve just got to give it up. It’s not in the cabinet.”

I took a deep breath. “Then that leaves the Dean’s office.”

“Nooo!” shouts erupted around the clearing and even a gull squawked overhead. “You wouldn’t dare!”

I waited for the protests to die down. By now, everyone in the group had their arms folded, wearing a Dog-like stubborn frown.
 

“Hear me out. That’s all I ask.”

Silence. No one would look at me. God, I’d messed things up so badly, they weren’t even going to let me speak. For a minute, white-water rapids of fear coursed through me, and I felt my eyes go wet and my face prickle, but I hung on to my determination like it was an inner tube.
 

But then Viola said, “Tio, isn’t this where you say, ‘To be or not to be — that is the question?’”

Tio jerked a look at Viola, startled and a bit hurt. No one joked about his Shakespeare tic. Not out loud, in front of everyone. Viola said, putting a hand on Tio’s shoulder, “I
like
your ‘Spears. You always know the right thing to say.”
 

Something inside Tio seemed to unknot and he leaned back further against a tree. “Go ahead, Kate,” he said, a grudging tone in his voice, “I know you’re going to say it no matter what.”

I took a deep breath, my stomach wobbling like it does after a scary ride. “I thought Gonzo could volunteer to do a photo-shoot of the Dean in her office for the yearbook — stock pictures. That’s all.”

Surprised glances darted around the clearing. Phoebe said, “No breaking and entering? No grand larceny? No pornography? My God, this isn’t like you at all, Kate.”

There was a too-loud explosion of laughter. It sounded like relief.

“Well, I do have my standards,” I said, forcing down the last of my fear, “you know what I always say — “

Everyone chimed in, shouting in a ragged unison — “Kate doesn’t do naked!”

In the exhausted pause after the laughter died down, Helena said, “That’s not a bad idea, Kate. Gonzo can end up in the Dean’s office without breaking any rules. And maybe he can look around the office, or chat up the Dean to find out if someone there knows where the missing camera is — after all, it’s kind of a natural question to ask under the circumstances, right?”

Gonzo said, his lip curled like he’d bit into something surprisingly rotten. “You guys forgot one thing.”

“What?”

“Celia.”

For the last two days, Gonzo said Celia had hovered around the journalism class. Apparently she must have discovered Gonzo’s connection to the Greenbacks and me, because she’d parked herself in a seat next to him.
 

“It’s creepy,” Gonzo said, “It’s like she’s stalking me, or she thinks I’ve got the camera hidden up my sleeve. Every time I get out of my chair, even to sharpen a pencil or something, I turn around and almost knock her down. No way can I get an assignment to the Dean’s office for a photo-shoot without her pushing her way in too.”

“Well, let her,” I said, giddy that they’d agreed with my idea. “That’s a bridge we can cross when we get to it.”

“We?” asked Phoebe, and there was still, to my dismay, a faint wariness in her voice.

“Yes,
we
— we’re in this together, right? What do you guys say to all of us having lunch at a table with the Dog tomorrow? My treat. I’ll buy tickets for everyone, including Drew. That way he’ll eat without some public battle over money, and Tio and Gonzo don’t have to take on the Dog alone.”

We left the clearing, everyone talking and joking except Viola, who seemed to be pondering something. Halfway across the field, Viola stopped and said, “I know! — I’ll ask the Dog about his pass-interception ratio.”

We stopped and stared.

“What?” said Viola. “Everyone knows it’s a major factor in QB ratings.”

“So Viola’s into fantasy football,” Robin nodded approval, “Now that, friends, is truly twisted.”

***

“How could you forget today is Hunger Luncheon Day? Didn’t you notice when you bought the tickets?”

Phoebe hissed it at me the next day, but everyone was thinking it. Accusing stares surrounded me. We stood in the lunchroom line. I’d taken a scary-big wad of cash out of my dwindling bank account with my ATM card and then bought nine tickets before school started so we could avoid the purchase lines at noon. I had figured it was going to be hard enough to herd the Dog through the always-packed Academy lunch-crowds as it was.
 

“I didn’t know!” I said back. “I’m not the only one who forgot.”
 

Helena said, “Hey, it’s not over. We haven’t got our food assignments yet. The Dog could still get a First World meal.”

No one said it, but we all thought it — the odds were way against it. Oh please, oh please, I thought, probably for the first (and last) time ever — please let the Dog be one of the privileged.

A Hunger Luncheon is a classic Academy event. It’s designed to increase awareness of world conditions, and the impact of poverty. See, the way it works is, you buy the usual lunch-ticket. But when you get to the checkout line, a random-number-generator decides if you’re First World, Second World, or Third World. First World people get this whopping turkey dinner — turkey, gravy, stuffing, perfectly cooked green beans drizzled in butter, sweet potatoes and your choice of pumpkin or apple pie. We’re talking total Thanksgiving splurge. If you’re Second World, you get beans, rice and a glass of milk. If you’re Third World (gulp) you’ve got to make it until after school with just a tiny wad of white rice (no second helpings) and a paper cup of tap-water (they make a point of telling you you’re supposed to be grateful the water’s clean).

Here’s the kicker: so you get an immediate understanding of how the world’s resources are distributed, only 1% of ticket-holders get the turkey meal. That’s one out of 100, folks. Seeing that in real life, when you’re starving for a lunch, is kind of eye-opening. Nineteen out of 100 get the beans. Everyone else (eighty out of 100) gets the tap-water/rice combo. Hunger Luncheon happens once a year at Academy, and all the money goes to support a local food bank.

I had this bad feeling University never did this kind of event. Which was confirmed when the Dog, happily holding his ticket (after three straight days of no lunch), nudged Alex at the back of our group and said, “Man, look at all those people with a spoonful of rice. Is there, like, some epidemic of anorexia going around?”

No one answered. We kept our faces turned toward the server ahead of us. If it was possible to combine brainpower to telekinetically alter reality, I swear, in that moment, the Greenbacks would have done it. We were all, I know for a fact, desperately projecting onto the server a laser beam of mental pleading:
give the Dog a First World, give the Dog a First World
.
 

The closer we got to the server, the closer I shifted toward the back of our group. If I got us into this, I ought to be the last in our group, behind the Dog, to take the flak in case the Dog got Third World.

There was a run of Second Worlds, defying the odds — Tio, Helena, Alex.
 

The Greenbacks who’d already been served hovered at the checkout — not able to leave.

Rice and beans, I thought, that might not be too bad. Maybe the Dog’ll get that.

Then Viola got a First World and we all gasped. The Dog, in front of me, said, his voice bouncier than I’d ever heard it, “That’s what I’m ordering. I’m
starved
.” A hideous, strained silence descended. I thought, maybe I should explain how this works, before it’s too late.
 

“Move, people,” said the hairnetted lunch lady, flapping her hand and frowning, “we got lots to serve.” The line pushed us forward from behind and then it was too late — paper plates were slapped down on the counter as we stumbled forward.

Phoebe got a Second World

Gonzo got a Second World.
 

Robin got a Second World. Each of them looked stricken, like it was their fault, like they were personally responsible for gobbling up Second World resources.

Oh please, oh
please
…

Time seemed to slow down, like an action sequence in a movie.
 

The Dog stepped forward, put his ticket on the counter and said, “I’d like a…” Simultaneously, the lunch-lady reached down, pulled a paper strip out from under the counter and flapped it next to Drew’s ticket, like she trumped him before he even got his bet out.

Her left hand reached up to the rows of plates and pulled one off the packed line. “Third World,” she said.

The Dog stared at the marble-sized wad of white rice sitting bereft in the middle of the plate. “What?”

She leaned forward and spoke like he was dense — “You’re
poor
. That’s what this whole lunch is about. So you rich kids can appreciate what you got.”

The Dog looked confused. “Can I?…”

“Move along,” she barked, “I got eight hundred more of these to serve.” As Drew shifted to the side, she muttered, “If he didn’t want to play, he shouldn’t have bought a ticket.”

For the first time, Drew seemed to notice the Hunger Luncheon banners overhead, packed with statistics about world poverty. I slid my ticket on the counter and saw, with a sinking heart, that, of course, I got First World. When she handed me my lunch, my tray dipped down under the weight.

We shuffled through the crowds to sit at a table at the far edge of the atrium.

Everyone stared at their plates. No one moved. I slid my tray out to the middle of the table and said, “Drew, I could
never
eat all this…”

He glared, “Listen, find another Uni student to mock. I
got
the message.”

He popped his sushi-sized rice ball in his mouth, and a “click” sounded beside me. Helena held her cell toward me and, by way of an apology for interrupting, said, “Mom -text,” which meant her mom must have had some emergency-level after-school change in plans, because Helena’s mom
never
texted her at school.
 

The Dog, still chewing and glaring at me, then gave me a screw-you, sardonic slow smile. “Tasty,” he said. “Well, I’m full.” He pushed back his chair so hard it almost toppled, and stomped off.

Everyone stared at me, stricken.

I told myself it was the hopelessness of the whole mess that got to me in the moment. But really, it was also the fact that someone could think I was that cruel. What was supposed to be a treat for everyone was worse than nothing and there was no way I could ever undo it.

I pushed my tray further away, put my cheek on the cold sticky table, and circled a sweater-thick arm over my face. I heard chairs move around me, but someone, even over the noise, must have heard me sniff, because a napkin appeared in the space between my arm and lap. I reached down with my other arm and took it.

A long time later, I sat up.
 

My plate sat congealed in the middle of the table, with most of the Second World food still sitting on the other trays. Everyone was gone except Viola, Helena, and Phoebe, who were all three pretending to not notice me.

“It’s okay,” I said, “hayfever.”

Phoebe said, “You know time’s passing.”

“I’ve got all my books with me, and next period isn’t far.”

“I didn’t mean lunch-time’s passing — I mean every day that passes is a good thing — right? For the trees?”

“I guess. Except time passing means tomorrow’s Friday, which is when the Dog can get into
serious
trouble. I’ve got no idea how to stop that. I’ve got no tricks left. I’ve gone from being an annoyance to someone he actively despises. And worse yet,” I stood and pushed my chair, “time passing means that in two hours I’m going to be stuck sitting next to him in tutoring. I should be trying to get in the Dean’s office, or trying to help Gonzo deal with Celia and look for the camera. Instead I have to sit there in tutoring, spying on Tio, hated by everyone.”
 

“Sometimes,” said Viola, standing and then lifting a foot and putting it down as carefully as if she was on a high-wire, then another step, arms out, wobbly, her eyes glued to her feet, “sometimes, to get somewhere, you have to put one foot in front of the other.”

I gave her a shove and she laughed and pinwheeled, and pretended to fall, but saved herself by throwing an arm across my neck. The four of us giggled all the way to the girls’ bathroom.