Sean Cullen: The Prince of Neither Here Nor There

“Whatevs.” Chester shrugged and wound up his massive arm. The inflated rubber sphere was clutched in Chester’s banana-like fingers, the surface dimpling as he reared back to launch a massive throw at Brendan as he squatted, cornered.

Suddenly, Brendan felt a surge of anger. He was tired of being sneered at. He was tired of having a giant pimple on his forehead. He was tired of being afraid. How dare this big guy humiliate him in front of his friends and, more importantly, in front of the girl of his dreams? He shouted in his mind, NO! He gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. Gathering himself like a panther, he let loose with a feral cry.

“Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” Brendan launched himself across the floor at Chester, driven by all the pent-up frustration of being a nerd. Chester’s eyes opened wide in surprise. At first, the lunge was quite impressive. The onlookers held their collective breath as Brendan surged forward. Unfortunately, Brendan was unaware that his shoelace was untied. He stepped on the offending lace and tripped himself spectacularly. He face-planted on the hardwood and slid with a skin-erasing squeak on the waxed surface, ending up spread-eagled at Chester’s feet.

Brendan rolled over onto his back, blinking up at his adversary. Chester grinned evilly and cocked the ball back for the coup de grace.

“Nice one, dorkmaster!” Chester said with relish. He slam-dunked the rubber orb squarely into Brendan’s upturned face.

Fifteen minutes later, Brendan was assuring the nurse, Mrs. Barsoomian, that he was fine. His nose had stopped bleeding and the ringing in his ears had subsided. His face, normally somewhat pale and spotty, was an angry red welt from ear to ear. He looked like the recipient of an intense and localized facial sunburn. His glasses hadn’t broken but they had been mashed into his skull, leaving a welt around his eyes. He held up his hand to ward off another cold compress. “I’m fine, really, Mrs. Barsoomian.”

“Are you sure? You can lie down and rest a while longer if you wish.” The thin dark face of the nurse was full of concern. “I can put some lotion on your face. Or a bag of ice, maybe.” Mrs. Barsoomian was a sweet little woman with dark hair and kind brown eyes. Brendan felt embarrassed by the attention.

“No thanks.” Brendan smiled and winced at the sudden pain. “Really, I’ll be fine.”

“I get more patients from Murderball than from any other source.” Mrs. Barsoomian shook her head in irritation. “It should be outlawed.”

“Yes, ma’am. In a perfect world, I’d never play again but Mr. Davenport wants to make a man out of me.”

“Someone should make a man out of Mr. Davenport,” Mrs. Barsoomian said darkly.

Brendan pushed himself off the examining table and stood, woozily. “Can I go now?”

Mrs. Barsoomian eyed him critically, then nodded. “All right. Come back if you feel any dizziness.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Released from the nurse’s office, Brendan walked out into the hall to find Kim, Harold, and Dmitri waiting for him.

“Holy tomato face!” Harold said in awe. “That is, I don’t mean to say your face is juicy and a great source of lycopene. 24 I mean that your face is the exact shade of a ripe tomato!” Harold fumbled in his bookbag and fished out a crimson crayon. He held it up to Brendan’s face. “See? I was right! Tomato Red!”

“Thanks for your sympathy, Harold,” Brendan growled, batting the crayon away from his face. He tried to arrange his glasses so that they didn’t irritate his sore face.

“Nice technique.” Kim shook her head. “You jumped right into that ball. You got a death wish?”

Brendan shrugged and started walking down the hall toward their next class, chemistry with Mr. Bowley. “I dunno. Just got tired of waiting for him to cream me, so…”

“You decided to attack him with your face?” Kim scoffed. She hitched her green kilt up even higher on her hips, accentuating the long coltishness of her legs. She tended to roll her waistband over to inch the kilt into miniskirt territory, technically against school policy. Not even the teachers had the courage to call her on it. Kim didn’t take kindly to rule-quoting. “Super-dumb.”

Brendan had given up wondering why Kim hung around his little group of losers. She was sporty, confident, and cool. He’d overheard lots of boys who’d called her cute but only when they were sure she couldn’t hear them. Her fierce brown eyes would burn holes in anyone who tried to chat her up. Kim tolerated Brendan, Harold, and Dmitri for some unknown reason. Maybe they were just so hapless that she didn’t have to worry about them asking her out or behaving like normal high school boys. She could be quite abrasive even if she did count you among her circle of friends. “What possessed you?”

“I don’t know,” Brendan said, “I just felt tired of being scared of guys like Chester. I just…” He trailed off. Marina Kaprillian stepped out of the cafeteria doorway flanked by two of her girlfriends. Brendan stopped short with his mouth slightly open. “I uh

… uh…”

Kim followed his gaze and stopped at his side. “Oh brother.” Kim frowned and tugged at his sleeve. “Come on, Brendan. Marina Kaprillian is not for you.”

Marina and her friends saw Brendan standing in the middle of the hall as students passed on either side and they immediately erupted in fits of giggles and went off down the hallway still giggling about something one of them had said with a glance in his direction. Brendan felt himself blush, but he doubted it would be visible over the redness of his face.

“Can you hear me, Brendan?” Kim said, rapping him on the head with her knuckles. “Anybody in there?”

“Ow,” Brendan yelped. “That hurt.”

“I’m telling you,” Kim insisted, jerking her thumb toward the retreating gaggle of girls. “You and that girl. not gonna happen.”

Brendan was suddenly angry. He turned on Kim. “Why not? Am I such a loser that she could never like me? Huh? Is that it?”

Kim was taken by surprise by the outburst. She opened her mouth to say something but caught herself.

“What? What were you going to say?” Brendan saw that she was sorry, but he didn’t feel like stopping. He had to vent at someone. “You think I’m not good enough for her?” Brendan demanded. “She’s out of my league. Is that it? I’m a pimply, goggle-eyed, tinsel-toothed loser. Is that it?”

“No. I wasn’t going to say that.” Kim looked at him. For an instant, Brendan saw something other than disdain in her eyes: a glimmer of…what? Sympathy? Then it was gone. “Forget it!” She snorted in disgust and set off down the hall toward the chemistry class. The knapsack on her back swung back and forth to match her strides, her field hockey stick poking up out of the top like the arm of a metronome. 25

“What’s with her?” Dmitri asked.

“I should apologize,” Brendan said, starting after her. He stopped. “But I’m not going to. She was kind of mean, too.”

“I’ll talk to her,” Harold offered. He was her lab partner and they shared a desk in the next class. “I’ll soften her up.” Harold shook his head and lumbered after her.

Brendan and Dmitri started walking. “Why was she so down on me liking Marina? I mean, sure, I haven’t got a chance but a guy can dream, can’t he?”

Dmitri shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe Kim has a crash on you. Have you ever thought of that?”

“The word is crush, not crash.” Brendan often had to correct Dmitri’s English. Brendan frowned. “And no, I don’t think that’s it. It’s something else…” He felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see Dmitri looking up at him. Dmitri had a gentleness about him that came from always being too small to rely on brute force. His family had immigrated from Poland and they were not very well off. He was an outsider in more ways than one. Brendan had gravitated to the smaller boy for that reason. Dmitri’d had to learn English on his arrival and so had had a hard time making friends. He and Brendan had hit it off almost immediately when they had been assigned seats beside each other in homeroom. Nerd magnetism, Brendan called it. Dmitri was a whiz at math and science, which was a good thing since Brendan was practically useless at both. Brendan helped him with the language, concentrating on the slang words that the other kids used in the halls.