Carver Pike - Scalp

This was the opportunity of a lifetime. Only one male student and one female were chosen from random counties throughout the nation. Her school, in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, was the only one in all of Broward County to be a part of it.

How Robbie had been chosen as the male student to represent their school was a complete mystery to her. Sure, he was a jock, one of the best players on the baseball team, and he was a popular guy, but surely his essay hadn’t been anything worthy of winning this trip. Dennis Dean deserved to be here if anyone did. He was sure to be the valedictorian next year. Even Anthony Puzzo, who was the leader of their branch of Future Business Leaders of America, could have been by her side on this trip. It was a leadership conference. Yet, Robbie had been chosen.

You’re being judgmental. You don’t like it when people do that to you.

Nitsy worked hard to get good grades. She’d practiced putting together the typical five-paragraph essay until she thought she’d go mad. She’d even devised a game to help her classmates learn the procedure. Musical plates. Like musical chairs, but paper plates were placed on the floor with an essay prompt written on one side. Students danced around in a circle until the music stopped. The student without a plate would have to give three supporting topics from the prompt on the last plate removed from the circle. It was fun. Her classmates had a blast, and they even seemed to understand essays more after playing it.

Even Robbie seemed to like it. He’d drawn the prompt: Batman faced only three villains who stood a chance at beating him.

“Oh shit!” he’d blurted out in class.

Mr. Myers didn’t appreciate it but didn’t scold him either. That had become the case with most of the teachers in their school. Some even took the “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” approach to profanity and would tell the students to, “Sit the hell down!” The word fuck was still a bit taboo.

“Easy,” Robbie had continued. “The Joker, hands down. Bane. And… uh… Deathstroke!”

“Great,” Mr. Myers replied, “Now, if this were an actual essay topic, you’d need to provide reasons these three stood a chance at defeating Batman. You’re arguing a point, so get that point across and nail it down so well nobody else can possibly challenge it.”

The game definitely earned Nitsy points in her English class. She needed as many as she could get since she’d missed so much school lately. Most of her junior year had been spent going in and out of clinics. She was on the mend now and felt great. Her mom didn’t like the idea of this trip, but she was a growing woman – as she explained to her mother – and she deserved the chance to get out and experience something most teenagers never would.

The Stonewall Forge Leadership Conference.

It was her chance to meet some of the future leaders from around the country. There would be kids here from as far west as Hawaii and as far north as Alaska.

Back at school, people treated her like the poor, unfortunate weakling who had to be handled like a fragile glass sculpture. There was a time she’d considered trying out for the volleyball team. She’d been tough and had even practiced ballet and tai chi. Then she got sick.

Nitsy hadn’t realized she’d sunk into a daydream until the girl seated one seat closer to the front of the bus than she was nudged her with an elbow and said, “Hey, your turn again. I said Turkey. You’ve got “U.”

“U,” Nitsy repeated. “Um…”

“Uruguay,” Robbie whispered from the next seat.

Please, you’re only choosing that country because Veronica is from Uruguay and you’ve been trying to get in her pants all year.

“No, Uzbekistan,” Nitsy said proudly.

“Whatever,” Robbie said. “Vietnam.”

Or Vanuatu.

She realized she was being mean now. Vietnam was a pretty good answer and she should have been proud of her teammate. Was that what they were? Were they on the same team? Or would they be split up and placed on teams with other attendees? Nitsy realized she had no idea how this was going to work, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. As much as she hated the idea of being teammates with Robbie, she feared the unknown.

What if you don’t like your teammate? But you don’t like Robbie, so who cares?

Robbie was… safe. She hadn’t considered that before, but yes, she felt comfortable knowing she’d be on a team with someone she was at least familiar with.

Typical Natasha.

Everyone at school called her Nitsy, but he never understood why. To Robbie, Natasha was a much more beautiful name. It fit her perfectly. With her long, auburn hair and cold, grey eyes, he thought she could easily be a model. Not the traditional kind for clothing companies in Paris. She’d never grace the billboards for mixed drinks on exotic islands. But she was something else.

She was pretty. That was the best word to describe her. It was a lame thought, he knew that, but that’s what he thought of Natasha. She could easily be the pretty mom in a mac & cheese commercial. She was that soccer mom type.

And, as usual, she had an attitude problem. Robbie knew his reputation often caused girls to think down on him, but it seemed like Natasha, or he supposed he ought to think of her as Nitsy like everyone else, despised him more than most. He watched her as her cool grey eyes moved around the bus. He imagined she was some sort of android and her eyes would show her that digital display of stats for each kid on the bus.

With her eyes fixed on a boy seated about halfway down the bus aisle, Robbie imagined it would say something along the lines of: Timothy, age 16, allergic to pollen, loves pizza and video games.

“Next,” she would think. No way would she be into a kid who played video games.

What IS she into? I bet she sits and writes out song lyrics on notebook paper that she keeps in a giant binder. But not just any song lyrics. They’d be deep, sad songs usually performed in coffee houses. She probably has a shelf full of those old Precious Moments dolls that she’s enhanced to make them edgier… with a paint set her parents bought her for her thirteenth birthday.

He remembered she’d spent a considerable amount of time in the hospital. At one point, it seemed like she wasn’t at school at all. Not that he was keeping tabs. She had blonde hair back then. Now, she had long red hair, kind of wavy, and he liked this look better.

That’s it. She likes to sit and fill out Sudoku books or force her way through one of those giant brain games kind of puzzle books. That’s the kind of stuff you do in the hospital.

None of these thoughts came with any disrespect. It was the opposite really. Yes, Robbie liked to play sports. He enjoyed the action and the competition. And, sure, he dated a lot of girls. Most of the ones attracted to him weren’t very deep though. Conversations always turned to the sexual side of things or to talk of clothes or other kids at school.

Truth was, Robbie was a bit of a nerd at heart. He enjoyed watching horror movies, playing video games, and reading mystery books. Sex was great. No kid his age would deny that. Yet, it wasn’t the only thing he wanted in a relationship. He wondered if any of the girls here would be something special. Nitsy would never give him the time of day, so he decided to turn his attention away from her.

The bus hissed to a halt and in the seat ahead of him, Nitsy looked out the window. Robbie’s eyes followed until they settled on a wooden sign with red letters carved into it. It read: Stonewall Forge: A Legendary Battlefield where Leaders are Forged.