Prologue: Keith
My hands jammed safely in my pockets, I kept my head down as I made my way across the quad on legs as spindly as sticks. I could feel the sea of unfamiliar faces sizing me up as I passed. Flinging my hair back, I relocated the unruly strands littering my forehead. Little good it did me, as the fringe tumbled back into my eyes seconds later.
In the combat zone that was middle school, appearances were everything and mine was just shy of embarrassing. At a time when other guys were making gains in both height and body mass, my little boy body was still hopelessly suspended in time.Be patient,my father would say.The later you go into puberty, the taller you’ll be.It was easy for him to say, when he was over six feet tall, but for a thirteen-year-old trapped in a nine-year-old’s body, patience was hard to come by.
And, as if the physique of an elf wasn’t already a huge strike against me, relocating to a new school nearly two months into the semester put the nail in my social coffin. Initially stoked when my parents announced we’d be moving out of our shoebox three-bedroom rental and into a fixer-upper five-bedroom home of our own, I quickly soured on the plan when I discovered the catch – school zoning. As in, we were now in a different one. The move only affected me because my mom worked at the elementary school my siblings all attended. With a few favors called in, the principal signed off on their transfer.
I hadn’t been as lucky, and here I was now slinking around the lunch tables at Barnum Middle School like a jittery rabbit. But now was not the time to waver. I could almost feel the starving wolves licking their chops. If they smelled weakness, I was done for.
Drawing deep gulps of oxygen into my lungs, I lifted my eyes to the challenge, determined to find the group I belonged in. Although not as defined as in high school, cliques were already forming in middle school. It made sense. Like-minded individuals naturally gravitated toward one another, and that was what I was banking on now.
The sporty crowd was the first to catch my eye. Cooler than snot, this pack had always been off-limits to me. On the top of the food chain, these guys would soar in high school and become the jocks we all knew and loved. They were the gravity that drew in the masses, but also the brick wall you ran into trying to get in. I wasn’t big enough, clean-cut enough, or coordinated enough to fit into that select group.
Nor was I going to sit with the Einsteins. Sure, the book jocks would welcome me in with open if undefined arms, but once you went down the nerdy path, there was no turning back. Equally unacceptable were the geeks. Some might lump them together with the nerds, but geeks were an entity all their own. Instead of challenging books, geeks played Pokémon at lunch and carried around pocket-sized light sabers because, you know, you never knew when a last-minute intergalactic duel might break out.
My eyes followed the line of succession until I directed my gaze at the ‘blue hairs.’ These kids would eventually become the artistic, theater-loving crowd in high school. They were talented and quirky enough that social norms didn’t necessarily apply to them. These were the kids who sang a Disney song at the top of their lungs as they spun in circles on the black top, or the thespians who randomly spewed lines of Shakespeare during a math final with no fear of retribution. But despite coming from a musical family, I hadn’t an ounce of talent in my skinny bones.
I moved down the rows with surprising efficiency. The budding hipsters. The blossoming preps. The inevitable goths. They were all represented. And let’s not forget my personal favorites: the outsiders who would someday wear black overcoats and assemble hit lists a mile long. I nervously chewed my fingernails as realization dawned on me: I didn’t fit anywhere. What was I going to do – spend the rest of seventh grade with the loners? No question spots would still be available at their sparse table.
Pushing the panic aside, I continued to wander through the lunch area, sizing up the segregated students until, as if answering a call from the wild, my eyes narrowed in on the prize – my tribe.
The skaters.
It surprised me that I hadn’t pinpointed them earlier, as this was the crowd who were not conventionally sitting on the bench eating their sack lunch. No, these guys were all over the table. Some sat on top of the interwoven metal lattice while others were suspended upside down, their heads resting where their butts should have been. I smiled, feeling even more certain that these eccentric rebels were my future.
Like my group back home, these were the guys who held some stature in the school. While not necessarily part of the popular crowd, skaters tended to have just enough looks, smarts, and athletic abilities to keep them relevant. I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding and allowed my tangled nerves to unravel.
Thank god for the skaters. I was saved.
Picking up the pace, I made a beeline for the group, confident in my ability to be accepted at face value. After all, I was a skilled skateboarder, and had been dealing with dudes like these my whole life.
“Hey.” I offered my greeting in the least unobtrusive manner possible. Skaters hate posers.
The guys barely acknowledged me. I stayed put – waiting for the invitation I was sure would come. Finally, their leader, a guy with long, shaggy hair, took me in from his upside down position. He looked older, like the guy who’d been held back by well-meaning parents who balked at starting their little precious in kindergarten too early, but the joke was on them when he was held back later in his educational journey for being too dumb for words. Now he was just an acne-pocked smartass with a gaggle of young, impressionable followers at his beck and call.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Keith. I just moved here.”
“New kid, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“You got any weed?”
Before I could stop myself, my eyes widened, undoubtedly giving away my position on the subject of pot. At my old school, the skaters and stoners hadn’t yet joined as one. Come to think of it, the only stoner I knew, Brett Valentine, had been suspended long ago.
“Wait a minute.” The dopey giggle came from my left. “I know you.”
Andthere he was.
“Hey, Valentine. I haven’t seen you for awhile.”
“Well, yeah, you know. I did that stint in juvie.”
No, I didn’t know. This was just great. The one person I knew in this entire shithole school had a record.
Valentine vouched for me. “He’s cool, guys.”
