Authors: Doug Wilhelm

The Revealers (16 page)

BOOK: The Revealers

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We each got two weeks' detention. And we had to write a letter to the Parkland Middle School student body. We had to sign and print out a copy for every homeroom and deliver every one in person, so each teacher could copy it and give one to every single student the next morning. The letter had to say exactly what Mrs. Capelli wanted it to say. I said the best way would be to post it on the networkâbut there were not going to be any more postings on the network. Not by us. We were off KidNet, as of the end of the school day.

We went to the computer lab in activities block to write our letters. First we checked Elliot's e-mail. There were more messages waiting for us than ever before.

One miserable rainy day we got our grades. There was this kid Donnie (not his real name) who usually got pretty poor grades, but this time he got A's and B's. He went up to this guy Matt who always picked on him and he said, “Hey, lookâI got better grades than you! I'm smarter than you!”

Well, that was stupid. Matt said, “You're a stupid loserâthose are someone else's grades.” Donnie said, “They are notâthey're mine,” but Matt said, “I think you're lying. Let me see.”

Donnie held the report card away but it was too lateâMatt grabbed it. He said, “I knew it. These aren't your grades. It's just a stupid mistake.” And he went outside and threw the report card where the kindergarten kids were walking after school and they walked all over it. They
tromped on it. They were laughing. When Donnie tried to get it back Matt dragged him behind the school and beat him up bad.

That's a true story.

One time when I was in elementary school at recess I really wanted to play kickball. But on the playground these two guys started calling me names and saying I was so spastic I couldn't play. I tried to ignore them and just start playing but they started saying it to all the other people. They said, “He can't playâhe's too spastic, he can't kick or catch and when he runs he just falls down â¦ Which I only did once. Now all the kids were saying, “Yeah, they're right, go away.” I didn't want to tell on anybody and have everybody hate me even more, so I just went and sat on a swing till that recess was over.

I like pounding on kids for fun. Hey, try it sometime if you think it isn't fun. One time after school I felt like having some fun, so I got in the way of this other kid. I told her to get off the sidewalk, and I shoved her into a tree. She kicked me hard in the shins and ran, that little creep. It hurt! I went home MAD!

Some eighth graders were playing dodgeball in gym. They missed the ball and I went to get it for them. But one of the kids chased the ball and said to me I would be stabbed with a switchblade if I touched the ball. He used swears, too, like he really meant it. I did not touch anything.

There was this kid, a real mean-minded misfit, who was picking on me all year. He would call me weenie-boy and dick-face. One time he took my new basketball cards and ripped them up, and then he threw my whole binder of
cards into the storm sewer. I had hundreds of them, all in plastic sleeves, all arranged. I tried and tried to reach it with sticks but that was hopeless, it was ruined anyway. And I never did get it.

I used to feel so all alone because of this guy, like I could never be okay or have any friends again. Then when I started reading
The Revealer
I realized this stuff happened to a lot of kids in my grade (sixth). We had a discussion in English about it, and I made friends with two other kids. Now we stick together, and because we are together the troublemakers do not give us so much trouble anymore.

PS. You can use my story.

TATER TOTS

At lunchtime we were still in shock. We sat there sort of poking at our food.

Elliot and I had the grilled cheese and Tater Tots. Catalina had a turkey sandwich from home. Finally, Elliot said, “So â¦ does your dad make your lunch?”

She nodded sadly. “Yes. I mean, he does all right. But it's pretty all-American.” She lifted up a corner of the bread, peered at the flap of turkey.

“No
merienda
,” Elliot said.

She smiled. “You remembered.”

“Sure.”

We sat. We chewed.

“Who do you think did this?” Elliot said. “I mean, there must be a lot of people who don't like Bethany DeMere. But who really
hates
her? And who would be nasty enough to try something like this?”

“I hadn't thought about that,” Catalina said.

“Well, obviously somebody really wanted to get her in trouble. That's why they gave us an anonymous diskâthat's why the story didn't come in on KidNet, like all the others.
This way we couldn't find out who it came from. Even if we'd tried we couldn't have found out.” He looked at me. “Right?”

I stared at the table.

“But now we
have
to figure it outâsomehow,” Elliot said. “I mean, if we can find out who really did this, maybe it won't be so totally bad for us.” He looked at me again. “Right?”

“I did it,” I said.

His eyes bugged.
“What?”

“I mean, it's my fault. It's totally my fault. It's my stupid, stupid fault.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She knew I would believe it, because she knew I'd read that essay. She knew I wanted to get her. And she knew I'm a stupid moron who has to screw
every
thing up.”

With my fork I speared a Tater Tot. I lifted it, and looked at it. “This,” I said, “is smarter than me.”

“Wait a minute,” Elliot said. “You think Bethany did this? To herself?”

“She didn't do it to herself. She did it to us.”

Elliot squinched up his face and stared at his tray. Then he shook his head.

“I don't get it,” he said.

“Well, I do. It was perfect. She makes it up, okay? She writes it and puts it on a disk, which she tapes to Catalina's locker. We know she knows about anonymous notes, and we know she knows which is Catalina's locker. We know she's evil, and she's not stupid. Her dad said she's always on the honor roll.”

Elliot leaned forward on his elbows. “And she knows you'll believe the story, because it mentions the exact words of an essay that she knows you saw. Huh. Yeah. She knows we'll use the story, because â¦”

“Because she knows we hate her.
And
because she knows I'm stupid. I'm a loser. And I'm a moron.”

“Uh â¦ well.”

“I don't hate her,” Catalina said.

“No, no, you're both wonderful. It's me.”

Elliot looked at Catalina. She peered sideways at me.

“So when the story does come out,” Elliot says, “she goes to her dad.”

“Who she knows is a lawyer.”

He nods. “And she's unbelievably upset. Traumatized.”

“Oh, totally.”

“And of course she wails that her future is destroyed, unless â¦”

“Unless we are destroyed,” Catalina said.

“And that's it,” I said, pointing with the fork. “That's it. Checkmate. Two moves and we're done.”

Catalina picked the Tater Tot off my fork. She bit off a tiny piece; her face pinched up. “Eew. You eat these things?”

Elliot speared two of his Tots, slid them with his teeth off his fork, and chewed. “They made me what I am today,” he said. “These and Milk Duds.”

I stood up. They looked up. Elliot said, “What?”

“I'm going back to Mrs. Capelli. I'm going to tell her it was all me.”

“No, you're not. Don't be an idiot.”

“I
am
an idiot, all right?” It came out loud, and they looked startled.

“You're not an idiot,” Elliot said softly. “It was our mistake. We were all there. We all decided to use that story.”

“You were off in the ozone,” I said to Elliot. I pointed at Catalina: “And you didn't want to do it. It was me. No one else could be so â¦
stupid.”

My eyes watered up. I was still standing there.

Catalina put her hand on my arm.

“Please don't,” she said. “Okay?”

I shook my head. “Do you realize how mad at us people are going to be? Do you realize what a disaster this is? I got KidNet taken away from the whole school. We're not just nobodies againâwhen people find out we're the reason this happened,
they are going to HATE us!”

I said that really loud, and suddenly the whole cafeteria fell silent and everyone turned toward our corner as I said, “And it's my fault because
I am a TOTAL MORON!”

Silence. Everyone was looking at me. Then everyone started to laugh.

I turned away. The rattling laughter swelled up behind me like a wave. I wouldn't look at anyone â¦ I stalked stiff-legged out of there as fast as I could.

I was rushing down the hall. I was rushing to get away, not knowing where I could go that no one could find me â¦ and I ran into Mr. Dallas. Oh, god. He came out the door of the System Server room, spotted me, and came rushing up. He was agitated.

“Hey, Russell,” he said. “Hey, you look about as upset as I feel. Listen, I'm glad to see you. I really am. I wanted to talk to one of you guys.”

I looked around. There wasn't any escape. He was a teacher.

“How about coming in here for just a second?” he said. “I'd like to talk to you. For just a second.”

In his tiny room, he dumped himself backward into a rolling chair. I stood there against the erector-set wall.

He shook his head. “I can't believe this,” he said. “This is supposed to be how you
learn
âby trying things, making mistakes and then dealing with them. Making things better. I mean, for god's sake.” He folded his arms.

“I wonder if there's some way that weâwell, I was thinking you guysâcould somehow show people how important this system really is.”

He shook his head again. “I know that sounds impossible. I mean, the system's shutting
down.
I know it is. When Janet Capelli makes a decision â¦ let's just say she's not into changing her mind. But if there were some way to really demonstrate what this has meant to all these kids.”

There was a heartbroken desperation in his eyes. I realized how much I had really done.

I just looked at him. I started to go.

“No,” he said. “I realize it's not a practical idea. It's not an idea at all. That's the problem: I don't
have
an idea.” He looked up. “Well, thanks, Russell. Thanks for talking this over with me.”

I went out. And coming up the hall were Elliot and Catalina. They saw me and started walking toward me quickly. Elliot held up his hands.

“Hey, listen,” he said, “we're sorry. We didn't laugh. We're sorry.”

Mr. Dallas came out. “Mr. D,” Elliot said, surprised.

“I was just talking with Russell about whether there was some way we could do something,” Mr. D said, “to show how important KidNet really is to these kids. I mean, maybe all three of you could think about it. Do you think?”

“Wellâ” Elliot started to say.

“Leave me alone,” I said.

Elliot said, “We just want toâ”

“Just leave me out of it,” I said. “Don't be stupid, all right? Try not to be so
stupid.”

I don't know what I meant. As usual, it was an idiotic, moronic, totally pointless thing to say.

I turned to walk away.

“Well, okay,” Elliot said behind me. “If that's what you want, if that's how you're going to act. Then okay.”

Nobody said anything more. I thought, That's it? Just like that? It's over?

I started walking fast.

I spent the rest of that day in a daze. I didn't think about anything, I just did what I had to do and didn't look at anybody, and I got out of there as soon as I could.

I walked up Chamber Street to the railroad tracks. I walked up onto the tracks and then out along them till I was way out of town. Finally I got off the tracks. I walked down a path, down a steep bank through ghostly white birch trees. I stumbled across a bumpy, tall-grass field to where the river was. I sat down by the water.

I just sat there. I was mad at everybody: at Bethany for being evil, her dad for being a tool, Mrs. Capelli for being authoritarian, Mr. Dallas for being a ditz, Elliot and Catalina for being hopeless, Burke and Blanchette for being mean, Richie for not seeing me today and beating the crap out of me, my mom for having to work all the time so she couldn't find me today and save me. My dad for dying, for god's sake. My dad for dying.

Finally, all that stuff drained away. It sort of washed down the river, I think. And I sat there knowing it all didn't matter, because it was really just me. It was just me. That's all. It was hopeless.
I
was hopeless.

I sat there for a long time. Then, it's funny, but I started hearing the river. The actual river. It has all these voices. They're interesting. There's a kind of whispering, and somebody else trying to say something, say something, and a louder voice talking over thatâand then you realize it's all kinds of voices, all these different voices talking. It's really
just a river â¦ but it was interesting, and kind of funny, too. It cooled me down.

It was getting dark. I was hungry. I decided to go home.

That night I told my mom about the tape recorder. “It was all broken,” I said. “Totally.”

“That's okay. It was old. I never used it. The important thing is that
you're
all right.”

I nodded. I didn't tell her anything else.

BOOK: The Revealers

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