“Hey. That was just a joke.”
“Me not having a bike anymore is a joke to you?”
“What are you talking about? Your tires were right in the bushes.”
I glared at him.
How was I supposed to know that?
“You never found them?”
“Leave me alone, Chip.”
The warning bell rang: One minute to make it to class.
“Come on, man. Let me help.”
“Go away.” There was no way I was going to trust Cyprian Cusumano to help me.
He shrugged and stood. “Okay. I’ll tell Coach Fortes you’ll be late.”
I got all my papers into a mostly straight pile and sandwiched them between my econ and geometry books.
My backpack was totally unsalvageable: With the seam blown out, the straps had failed as well. The only usable part was the pouch in front holding my pencils.
The tardy bell rang. I knotted the two loose straps together so I could sling the derelict hulk of my backpack over my shoulder like a satchel, gathered my stuff up, and hurried to gym.
Coach Fortes shook his head when he saw my pile of books and the remains of my backpack. “Cusumano told me,” he said.
Why do gym teachers always call guys by their last names?
“Sorry, Coach.”
Why do guys always call their gym teachers Coach and leave off their name?
“It’s fine. Go get dressed.”
We were doing our Net Sports Unit, which meant two weeks of Badminton, two weeks of Ping-Pong/Table Tennis, and the grande finale: two weeks of Volleyball.
I was terrible at Net Sports. I wasn’t that good at any form of sportsball, really, although I used to play soccer when I was a kid. I did better at the ones where I could at least run around, because I was not bad at running. I had a lot of stamina and I was pretty fast, which surprised people since I was kind of overweight.
Well. Not kind of. I was overweight, period, which is why Stephen Kellner was always handing me the salad bowl.
As if salad would counteract the weight gain from my meds.
As if lack of discipline was the root of all my problems.
As if all the worry about my weight didn’t make me feel worse than I already did.
I pulled on my gym clothes—black swishy shorts and a red Chapel Hill Chargers T-shirt—and ran out to join warm-ups. I caught the tail end of sit-ups, and then we had to run laps for five minutes.
Chip Cusumano caught up with me on our third lap. “Hey, D,” he said.
Now that he was at Chapel Hill High School, with an enforced Zero Tolerance Policy toward bullying, he couldn’t add the-Bag.
I ran faster, and Chip kept pace with me, but at least he wasn’t smiling anymore. “I was just gonna tell you your zipper was open. I didn’t mean to split your backpack.”
“Whatever. At least you can’t hide truck nuts in it.”
