Jim Shepard - Project X

“Good morning,” my mom says when I come downstairs.

“Good morning,” I go.

“What do you want for breakfast?” she asks.

“The usual,” I go. She laughs.

She spends time trying to get me to eat something. I end up with a buttered English muffin on a dish in front of me. I ask for some orange juice, which cheers her up.

“Where’s Dad?” I go.

“Office,” she goes. “He’s got a big lecture he’s nervous about. Faculty lecture.”

I ask her what a faculty lecture is. It’s a lecture for the whole faculty, not just people in economics.

I pick up the English muffin, put it back down again, and drink some orange juice instead. “When is it?” I go.

“Friday,” she goes. She pours some beans into the coffee grinder. “I don’t know why, but I haven’t been feeling like coffee lately.”

“Where’s Gus?” I go.

“Being a sleepyhead,” she goes.

She drops into a seat across the kitchen table and nudges my dish closer to me. “Why do you always pick at your hand like that?” she goes.

“I don’t know,” I go. I stop doing it.

“So you want to hear my plan?” she asks.

She imitates me, with my mouth open.

“What’s your plan?” I ask.

“We go to the beach this weekend,” she says. “It’s supposed to be in the seventies. The water should still be warm enough for you guys to swim.”

“That’s a good idea,” I tell her.

“You’re still sleepy, too,” she says.

“What beach?” I ask.

“That one you like,” she tells me.

“By Grandma’s old place?” I go.

“That’s the one,” she goes.

“It takes like four hours to get there,” I go.

She holds my hand and turns it over and looks at the palm. “This is part of the surprise,” she goes. “I say we pick your father up and we’re all ready to go right after his lecture. Let ’im throw his tweed jacket in the trunk.”

“When’s his lecture over?” I go.

“Ten or so,” she goes. “It’s reading period.”

Little areas of my head feel cold, then tingly. “ This Friday?” I go. “I got school.”

“We’ll take you out early,” she goes. “Get Out of Jail Free.”

“Unless you’re dying to stay in school,” she says when I don’t say anything.

Gus calls down the stairs, wanting to know where his sippy cup is.

“I don’t know, hon,” she calls back up to him. “What’d you do with it?”

I should say I have a test. Or some thing. My shoulders start bobbing like I’m using them to think.

“You’re gonna be late,” she goes. She tips her head at the clock. When Gus calls her again I get my pack and go.

When I see Flake I tell him that my mom wants to take me out of school on Friday to go to the beach. He nods. He’s excited because he had the idea of scratching You’re Next on the mirror in the boys’ bathroom. He did it with a roofing nail. He says it looks cool. “Check it out,” he goes. “It creeps you out. You look at your face and that’s what’s written over it.”

It would creep me out, I tell him.

“So you talk to Hermie?” he goes.

He doesn’t look fazed when I shake my head.

“I don’t think he’ll do anything before Friday,” he says. “If he does anything at all.”

The bell for homeroom rings but neither of us gets up off the step for a minute. The sky’s a nice blue and there’s a breeze. Off on the monkey bars a squirrel’s sitting on his hind legs and has his head up like he’s sunning his face.

Nobody seems like they’re in a hurry.

Weensie’s in our way on the stairs. “Hey,” he says to me, before going up ahead of us.

“What was that about?” Flake asks.

“You got me,” I tell him.

Before third period I go look at Flake’s You’re Next on the mirror. It does look cool. But while I’m washing my hands in front of it, a kid comes and goes without even noticing it.

When I come out of the bathroom, Tawanda waves me over. She’s with a group of black girls who think the whole thing’s funny. They stand there talking trash to each other while I walk over.

“Michelle talk to you?” she goes.

“About what?” I go.

“Ms. Arnold talk to you?” she goes.

“Nobody talks to me,” I tell her.

“You don’t have conversations,” one of the black girls says.

“I don’t have conversations,” I go.

“I’m talking to you,” Tawanda goes.

“She’s talking to you,” the black girl says.

I wish I could think of something funny to say back. “Uh,” I end up saying.

“So turns out Ms. Arnold loves our World of Color thing,” Tawanda says.

“Yeah, she said,” I go.

“So you did talk to her,” Tawanda goes.

“She said it a while ago,” I tell her.

“No, she really loves it,” Tawanda goes. “She’s entering it in the regional fair for the art prize.”

“The tree with the heads in it?” I ask. Some of the black girls laugh.

“She wants to call it The Fruit of Human Endeavor, ” Tawanda goes.

“I know,” she goes when she sees my expression. “They always do something queer at the last second so you can’t enjoy it.”

A small kid walks on his knees from one classroom across the hall to the other. We all watch.

“This is a weird fucking school,” one of the other black girls says.

“She said she especially liked the heads with the helmets and the Fish-Man head,” Tawanda tells me.

“ I did those heads,” I go.

“I know,” Tawanda goes. “That’s why I’m telling you. You’re a star.”

The other girls are talking to each other by this point.

“Thanks for telling me,” I go.

“No problem,” she goes.

“See you,” I go.

“So I don’t wanna hear about you working with other people,” she tells me. “On projects. Just remember who knew you when.”

“C’mon,” I go, and she turns back to the other girls. All through third period I’m surprised to find myself smiling about it.

Ms. Arnold catches me in the hall before lunch and says that if we win the regional prize, I get my name in the paper. “You ever wonder what it’d be like to see your name in the paper?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I go.

“Did you ever think it might happen?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I go.

She smiles, like she wasn’t expecting that. “Well, you tell your parents,” she goes. “It’s already a big honor, you know, just to get this far.”

“I know,” I tell her.

“It’s great that it was a cooperative project, too,” she goes.

“I guess,” I go.

She seems like she wants to say something else. If she does, she doesn’t say it. She runs her fingernail along the edge of her lipstick.

“Well, thanks again,” I tell her.

She puts her hand up to my cheek, just like I imagined Bethany doing it.

“Edwin Hanratty,” she says, like I was a place she used to love to visit. “What a strange little guy you are.”

“What happened to you?” Flake says when he sees me in the lunch line. “Why’re you holding your cheek?”

In social studies they’re doing the Anasazis. When the period’s over I have one sentence written in my notebook: “The Anasazis had their own religion, but it wasn’t that complex .”

After school I don’t take the bus and look for Flake instead. When I see him he’s already a block down the street. I call him and he stops and scratches his head so hard I can hear it from where I am.

“What’re you doing?” I ask when I catch up.

“I gotta lot of things to do to get ready,” he goes.

“ You gotta lot of things to do?” I go.