The Glaring Middle of Chapter 3

 When we last left our heroes they were in the cafeteria, and Sam was wondering if Chris and Becca would ever really get along.  Becca seemed to be encroaching on Chris's lane...

So anyway, we were at lunch on the last Friday in September.  The last Friday of every month was Hamburger Friday, and it was the only day I ever bought lunch.  The school cafeteria serves surprisingly good crinkle fries.  Friday lunches have a uniquely crazy energy.  Without fail, the boys start throwing stuff, and I swear, one of these days it’s going to erupt into a legitimate food fight like on TV.  

Honestly, I wouldn’t hate that.  

Our cafeteria has an old-school jukebox left over from when my dad was in middle school.  That day the band kids played “Hollaback Girl” on repeat until I almost didn’t hear it, but still, the rhythm was kind of pounding in my tummy, and I kept noticing my knee jiggling to the beat.

Ellen was full on dancing in her chair like Gwen Stefani riding the shopping cart in the video.  I wouldn’t have minded if Ellen toned it down a hair.  Even amid the cafeteria chaos, I saw the Osties shake their heads and giggle.  Ellen talks a lot about how fat she is, and her mom is constantly putting her on crazy diets.  She wears leggings and giant, belted tee shirts she calls tunics, and kind of hides beneath a lot of reddish blonde hair.  I think she feels so invisible most of the time that she forgets she’s not.  

This month’s diet consisted entirely of protein bars.  Ellen sang into one like it was a microphone and flopped against Becca. “Don’t you love this song?”

Becca nodded, cheeks pooched with burger, and dabbed the corner of her mouth with a napkin. 

“I loved it the first thousand times, but now?” Chris speared a cucumber.  “Not so much.”

Andi tossed Becca two extra ketchups.  “What did your mom decide to do about the mural in the dining room?” she asked.

“She’s restoring it.”  Becca tore open the packets and added to the ketchup stalagmite at the edge of her plate.  

“Figures.”  Chris swigged from her water bottle and shook her head like she was forty and knew everything. “The new owners will just paint over it.  Who wants to look at bugs while they eat?”

Tucking her chin, Andi blinked over the top of her glasses.  “Have you met me?”

Becca’s crinkle fry took a swim in ketchup and came up looking like something from a horror movie.  “Yeah, Mama’s at the library right now trying to learn more about the artist.”

“Oh cool,” I said.  “My mom works today.  She’ll go ape when she hears about the mural.  She lives for research.”

Ellen leaned over the table, eying Becca’s fries longingly. “My mom volunteers at the library sometimes. Maybe she can help.”

A peal of knife-edged laughter came from the Osties’ table.  I snuck a glance over one shoulder.  “Oh no, you guys.”

Becca swiveled and looked too.  “Who’s that?”

Andi groaned. “Daniel Bertinet.”  

Daniel Bertinet has been in our grade since kindergarten.  He’s on the spectrum, and everybody knows.  He’s also a genius trumpet player, insanely good at math, and unbelievably annoying.  He talks incessantly, and his hair is greasy, and he smells like a hotdog with onions.  Everyone knows it’s not his fault.  We’ve had anti-bullying workshops since we were six.  It kind of blows my mind that people could be taught so young to accept kids who are different and still be total jerks.  

In all fairness, Daniel doesn’t make it easy.  I sort of avoid him.  When he gets going on one of his conspiracy theory rants, you know you’re going to be trapped there all day.

Giggling, Tracey came up on her knees and spun in her chair.  “Shut up and listen.  Daniel has a ‘formal invitation’ for us.”  Red-tipped fingers gilded with little rhinestones scratched air quotes around “formal invitation.”  

Kayleigh and Michelle made wide eyed “I’m totally listening” faces.

Daniel dragged his wrist across his nose and sniffed wetly.  “Okay, I don’t know what’s so funny, but yes.  October first is not just International Raccoon Appreciation Day, CD Player Day, and International Day of Older Persons, okay?  It’s also the first day in the official countdown to the most excellent holiday of the year: Halloween or All Hallows Eve or Samhain as the ancient Celts called it.” 

“Wooooooooow.”  Tracey stretched out the word like she was in love with it and with Daniel Bertinet.

“Yeah, so to commemorate the start of the spooky season…”  For some unknown reason, Daniel did a little shuffling dance step when he said, “spooky season.”  Did he wake up with a plan to be mercilessly mocked by the most popular girls in school?  “I’m playing ‘This is Halloween’ from The Nightmare Before Christmas at exactly 6:22 pm on the western side of the Thibodeau mausoleum in Evergreen Cemetery.”

Tracey nodded so hard her ponytail looked like it would fly off.  “That movie is.  The.  Best.”  The girl was no dummy.  At face value, nothing she ever said or did would score her a trip to the principal’s office.  Tracey’s particular brand of evil was all in the subtext.

Kayleigh and Michelle pulled their shirt collars over their noses.  Their shoulders shook with silent laughter.

Daniel spluttered a chuckle.  “Uh… only the best movie ever made.  Heads up—if you’re expecting a traditional ‘This is Halloween,” think again.”  He raised his palms to either side of his head and wiggled his fingers in I guess what he thought was some kind of eerie jazz hands. “I’m seriously hoping to summon the dead.”

Convulsed in fits, the Osties collapsed onto each other.  Daniel looked confused and broke into the snort laugh that always sounds like he’s about to snot all over the floor.  He brought it on himself, but I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him.  

Tracey swiped under one eye with her fourth finger, wiping away tears.  “Yeah, um we have a…”

“Another October first concert in a different cemetery,” Michelle finished, tucking silky black hair behind one ear with a muffled laugh.  “Sorry.” 

Daniel didn’t get the hint.  He just stood there, tapping one toe as Gwen Stefani spelled out the word bananas for the fifty-thousandth time.  By now the band kids and the guys on the soccer team and the math team geeks were all watching.  

“Dang,” Becca breathed.  “Not cool.”

Andi slurped from her thermos and sighed.  “Somehow he never sees it coming.” 

Chris chuckled.  “You’d think a kid that good at math would realize that him plus those three girls is an equation that’s never gonna come out in his favor.”

I balled my chip baggie and crammed it in my lunch bag.   “You’d think those girls would get tired of torturing him.”  

“Why should they?” Chris said.  “They’re the center of attention.  Again.” 

Ellen giggled.  As a frequent target of bullying herself, she took less than subtle pleasure when someone else was the victim.  

Suddenly, Becca’s chair skidded across the floor in a series of screechy bumps. Tucking her hair behind one ear, she stood and thrust out a hip. “Hey, Daniel!”

Every head turned.  The cafeteria usually felt like a massive and diverse ecosystem, composed of a million separate sub-environments that had no communication with each other.  In a heartbeat, the world shrank until the entire eighth grade was just sitting together in one big, smelly room. Ellen went the color of congealed oatmeal, and Chris froze with a forkful of salad halfway to her mouth.  

Daniel swung around and blinked rapidly, his forehead wrinkling in confusion.  

“Over here!” Becca waved.  “I think your concert sounds dope.”

An eerie silence fell over the cafeteria.  Even the jukebox seemed to fade. Back in the kitchen, a lunch lady cackled. 

For just a second, Tracey looked stunned.  Then, amazingly, she smiled and beckoned Becca to their table.  “Um, I think you mean the concert we’re going to sounds dope, right?”  

Becca didn’t crack.   “Um, nope.  I mean his.”  She held up two fingers in a sideways peace sign and flicked them toward Daniel.  “Tim Burton is a genius.”

Plenty of kids made straight up, ordinary peace signs.  I’d never seen anyone do it sideways and sort of intentional like that.

When Daniel smiled, his whole face changed.  Suddenly, I noticed his eyes were big and chocolate brown, and he had a dimple in one cheek.  

The bell rang loud and jangly, and everyone in the cafeteria seemed to snap out of a trance.  The room was a seething, mass of bodies again, and our table felt like an island in the middle of it.  Becca whirled and piled all our trash onto her tray with shaky hands.  Kids filed past our table, sneaking glances at Becca with looks that ranged from admiration to scorn.  No one had ever stood up to the Osties like that.  Peanut butter and barbecue chips churned in my stomach.  My mouth was carpeted with the aftertaste of chocolate milk.  I didn’t know what to think.  

Becca grabbed her tray and pushed through the crowd to the dish deposit window.

Chris watched her go with a funny look on her face, slowly chewing the final bite of her salad.   

Andi screwed the cap onto her thermos and tucked it in her lunchbox.  “Also did not see that coming.”

By now most of the kids had left the cafeteria, but we hadn’t moved.  I hovered beside the table, not sure what to say or do.  

Returning, Becca slid her backpack off the back of the chair.  She shrugged and smiled.  “I mean, it does sound kind of cool, right?”

“That was…” Andi lifted two furry eyebrows and whistled.

I looked from Andi to Chris and back again.  

A slow smile stretched across Chris’s cheeks.  She stood and stuck out her hand.  “That was bold.”

Becca’s eyes flew wide.  Then she laughed and gave a hearty shake.

Chris laughed too, and in the weird stillness of the cafeteria, as we neared being late for class, and the jukebox blared in an endless cycle, something shifted between them.

Chris pulled out a pack of gum and offered Becca a stick.  “Hey, we’re having a sleepover at Andi’s tomorrow.  Want to come?  After we go to the cemetery of course.”