Michael Laser - Cheater

In a movie, Karl’s first bite of pizza would get caught in his throat, and he would writhe and choke on the floor, looking grotesque and idiotic in front of Blaine and Cara. In the world he really inhabits, though, he only burns the roof of his mouth.

“You okay, Karl?”

“Good pizza, huh?” says Cara, amused.

He breathes in and out through O-shaped lips, delivering cool air to his palate while waiting for them to say, Had you scared there for a minute, didn’t we?

“We’ve wanted to ask you for a long time. I just didn’t want to take a chance on you turning us in. But, now that you know… how about it?”

Over the cash register, the cartoon tower of pizza leans humorously to the left. An anchovy hangs on to the edge, trying not to fall off. How long can Karl go without answering Blaine’s question? Let’s see-twenty seconds. Thirty seconds.

Forty seconds. Fifty.

“What do you think, Karl?” Blaine prods.

“WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?”

“I know what’s going on in your mind,” Blaine says. “ You’re thinking, Why should I help them? What’s in it for me?”

“That’s not what I was thinking.”

“It’s a valid question. Why in the world would you help us cheat, when you yourself don’t need help-when you would only be helping others?”

“I’ll tell you one reason, Karl,” Cara says. She sips through her straw. “We would both be extremely grateful.”

“And so would a lot of other people. Everyone would stop thinking you’re just a geek, a brain on two feet who only looks out for Number One. They would see the good guy behind the goofy exterior. A generous person, willing to help the rest of us poor slobs.”

“You would be unique,” Cara says. “The Genius Who Cares.”

Her lips are thin, her smile crooked and sort of mocking, as if all of this is just teasing and only a fool would take it seriously. On the other hand, she keeps gazing into his eyes like a snake charmer.

Behind the counter, the pizza guys are watching a soccer game with the commentary in Spanish. The cute kid pounds the table and studies his fist curiously. Ordinary though his surroundings may seem, Karl has the feeling he has fallen down a rabbit hole. Tumbling dizzily, end over end, he hears people say things they would never say in real life-Blaine inviting him cheerfully to cheat, Cara Nzada almost flirting with him. Any minute now, men made of playing cards may start swinging axes at his neck.

“I’ll tell you what I like about you, Karl,” Cara says. “You don’t pretend to be cooler than you are. You’re just you. That’s a good thing-but you need to break out of your little world. Don’t be so afraid! You have the potential to be more than a brilliant nerd and a social disaster.”

Obviously, she’s manipulating him-shamelessly, outrageously. If he could make a wish, though, it would be for her to keep going.

She reaches over and puts her hand on top of his. It’s cold from the soda can. “Is your life so wonderful the way it is that you don’t want it to ever change?”

He sits very still and waits for these hallucinations to end.

“It’s kind of fun to break the rules,” she says.

She strokes the backs of his fingers with one of hers, and he looks up again. In her eyes, he sees the strangest sight of all: a small person flying through the air.

“Bye bye bye!” the little boy calls happily as his mother carries him, over her head, out of the pizzeria.

Karl, too, is flying. If only he could get back to solid ground.

Okay. What do you want me to do? Are these the words you’re expecting poor bedazzled Karl to mumble? Don’t hold your breath. Even in the face of Cara’s flirtation and Blaine’s confusing logic-even though part of him longs to keep sitting here with this gorgeous pair, as if they were all friends-Karl is still Karl, and he has more common sense than your stereotypical math genius or absentminded professor.

“So, are you with us?” Blaine asks optimistically.

“Are you crazy?” Karl sputters. “ NO , I’m not with you!”

The only question in his mind, really, is whether or not to walk straight out the door. He chooses not to, mostly because it would seem hostile, but also because he would have to jog the mile and a half back to school.

Blaine takes the rejection amiably. “You never know unless you ask.”

Cara gives Karl a mischievous grin. “I hope you don’t look down on us, Karl-just because we weren’t born with your advantages.”

“I’m not looking down on you.”

“That’s good. Because, if you change your mind, the door’s always open.”

An awkward patch follows. Karl watches the Ecuadorian team score a goal on the TV, and is grateful to the announcer for filling the silence with his crazed howl, “GOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!”

At the last minute, Blaine and Cara decide to skip the last three periods, leaving Karl in a minor panic-even at a sprint, he’ll get to German late-but Blaine generously offers to drop him off a block from school. His last words, as Karl climbs out of the car: “Don’t worry, amigo. Be happy.”

Cara’s hair whips behind her as she waves good-bye, arm straight up, looking forward, not back.

Of all the mind-bending words spoken that lunch period, these are the ones that haunt Karl: Is your life so wonderful the way it is that you don’t want it to ever change?

His friends are coming out of the cafeteria with aluminum foil antennae sticking up out of their hair (or, in Lizette’s case, her baseball cap). So soon after gazing into Cara’s green eyes, the three of them are not a pretty sight. Jonah has enough steel on his gigantic teeth to open a small hardware store, and his hair stands up like stiff straw. Tiny Matt can’t keep all of his body parts still at the same time. (No, it’s not a neurological disorder, just a case of hyperactivity he should have outgrown by now.) And Lizette-well, actually, Karl found her so appealing when she first moved here from Florida that he almost got up the nerve to ask her for a date (she’s a tall beanpole just like him, with shaggy, shortish, chestnut hair, a long nose, and a southern accent, and the whole package just tugged at his heart, in part because she seemed to actually like him), but Jonah fortunately pointed out that she was obviously gay before Karl embarrassed himself. With her Devil Rays cap pulled down to her eyebrows and her loose gray sweat suit, she could easily pass for a guy-to be honest, her nonhetero orientation is what took the pressure off and let him relax around her and become friends-but right now, Karl wishes she would dress just a little more attractively, no matter which gender she prefers.

Yes, he knows it’s disloyal, superficial, and basically odious to judge his friends by their exteriors, but the radiance of Blaine and Cara has blinded him temporarily, and he’s still waiting for his eyes to adjust.

“Where’d you disappear to?” Jonah asks. “What did Sweater Boy want with you?”

“We saw you drive away with him,” Lizette says accusingly. “Very strange, Karl.”

“He just wanted me to explain something. From the chem test.”

“Like what?” Matt demands, arched eyebrows leaping, as if to say, Now we’ve got you. “Ionic bonds? Savings bonds? Barry Bonds?”

The school bell sounds-not a bell, really, but the fivenote beginning of reveille, played on tinkly chimes. Karl never noticed before how obnoxious this recording is.