Adam Levin - The Instructions

“Junie, please,” Miss Gleem said.

“Smack it!” June said.

I smacked it. The horse hopped, then rocked.

Other detentioners had come to the cafeteria. They filled up the tables in back by the bathrooms and they laughed. Miss Gleem revolved to face them and shook her head left-to-right = “Not funny.”

“Just last night,” June said to Miss Gleem, “Gurion’s friend called me up to tell me how Gurion was all tough, and I believed him, but now — don’t you think he hits like a little sister?”

Who called you? I said.

“Benji. Don’t worry — he said nice things. Anyway,” she said to Miss Gleem, “I need the horse to be smacked the way I smacked it, not the way Gurion smacked it — you saw the difference, right?”

“I think so,” Miss Gleem said.

“Of course you saw the difference,” June said, “but Gurion didn’t.”

“Some people aren’t visual thinkers,” Miss Gleem said. The voice of Miss Gleem sounded flat like a zombie’s — she was so surprised by what June had been saying and by how happy the sight of the busted-up stage made the detentioners, who were shouting new words out like, “Knocking-horse!” and “Deady-bear!” that she was distracted from what she, herself, was saying. The surge had worked.

June kept it working.

“It’s true,” she said. “A lot of people aren’t visual thinkers — especially the ones who designed this ugly set — but do you think, Miss Gleem, that since you can see how I want it to rock, that you could maybe smack it for me while I watch from the table?”

“I want you to get off that stage and sit down and I want you to think about what it would be like if some vandal destroyed your art,” Miss Gleem said.

“You mean if my art wasn’t actually art but set-design and my set-design was suck ?” June said. “Because I don’t think I can imagine what it would feel like if someone destroyed my set-design that was suck and I called art , because set-design is not art and my art is not suck .”

Miss Gleem said, “Well, you try to imagine it, June. You try until you figure out how.” She wasn’t distracted from herself anymore, just really angry. “Get off that stage,” she said.

While I followed June down the steps to the table where our stuff was, Nakamook was trailing Vincie and Leevon into the cafeteria. All of them showed us victory fists, and I showed them mine back. June kept her head down, her hands in her pockets.

Once we were sitting, she went at her sketchbook like I wasn’t even there, and I thought: It’s important to let her draw, don’t bother her. But then, when Miss Gleem handed us our detention assignments, June started working on hers without saying anything to me, or even signalling anything, and I whispered to her, You are the mother of the hyper blinker action.

She still didn’t say anything, or give any sign that she’d heard me, and I thought she was being stealth: I thought she didn’t want Miss Gleem to hear us talking. But we had just kissed perfectly and I felt less alive not talking to her. Plus, the worst that could happen would be if we got another detention, and that didn’t seem so bad at all. Still, I waited awhile to say anything else. I waited til Miss Gleem went to the opposite side of the cafeteria to quiet down some kid who’d started whistling.

You really tricked Miss Gleem, I whispered to June.

Again: nothing. Like she hadn’t heard me.

I whispered a little louder: You really tricked Miss Gleem.

“I know that,” June said. “You don’t have to tell me that,” she said. Then she kicked my shin, hard, and my knee banged the table-bottom.

From the other side of the cafeteria, Miss Gleem said “Hey!” but she didn’t know to who.

“Did that hurt?” June said to me.

I said, Hurt?

I thought she was flirting.

“Hurt,” she said, full-voiced.

She didn’t sound like she was flirting.

“ Hurt ,” she said.

“June!” Miss Gleem snapped.

June was showing me her teeth, but it wasn’t a smile. Her jaw was shut and her lower eyelids were trembling. “Did it hurt ?” she said, kicking at my shin again.

I grabbed her ankle before the impact. I was totally confused.

June kicked my grabbing hand with her free foot. I dropped the first foot.

It hurt, I said, it hurt.

June made the noise “Tch” ≠ “I love you.”

“June and Gurion,” Miss Gleem said.

“Sitting in a tree!” sang someone I didn’t spin to look at.

“K-I–L-L—” sang Vincie, who then yelled, “Fuck!” because Nakamook had punched him.

I said, Why are you mad at me?

June said, “Stop talking to me.”

I said, But why?

Miss Gleem said, “You’ve both got detention tomorrow.”

“Tell me what I did,” I said to June.

“Eliza June Watermark,” said Miss Gleem, “you pick your things up and get over here. Now.”

June got away from me so fast, she forgot her sketchbook.

Nakamook disagreed. He said, “She left it for you.”

We were gathered on the curb of the bus circle by then — me, Benji, Vincie, and Leevon. June had cut out of the cafeteria as soon as Miss Gleem dismissed detention. I had run into Main Hall with the sketchbook but wasn’t able to find her, so I went to the front entrance and looked out the window. Just buses in the circle.

I asked the Deaf Sentinel if he’d seen her.

“Show me your pass,” he said.

Detention’s over, I told him. I said, No one needs a pass anymore.

He said, “I guess I’m off-duty, then.”

Robot, I told him.

He chewed his pencil.

I ran outside to the circle to look in the windows of the buses. No one was in the buses.

I dropped my backpack and tore my coat off. I swung the coat over my head and let go, but it only made me angrier, and cold. Puddles were slushy. Molecules were slow. I slammed my fist into the flank of bus 2. Blood went to my knuckles and my fingers got warm. I switched which hand held the sketchbook and hit the bus with the second fist.

The driver, who I’d assumed was gossiping like usual with the other drivers on the grassy island in the middle of the bus circle, came down the chunky steps saying “Hey.” I’d never seen him before.

Hey? I said.

“Stop doing that,” he said. “Don’t hit my bus.”

I said, You’re not Marnie.

“Marnie’s got the flu. Don’t hit her bus.”

I said, As long as you don’t tell me not to hit it again, I’ll only hit it once more.

I hit the bus. This time with my head.

“Jeez,” said the driver. He got back inside.

My friends showed up.

“Your head’s all red,” said Vincie.

Leevon banged his head on Vincie’s backpack, which was huge with textbooks. Vincie met the pavement on his knees and Leevon stumbled backward til he sat on the curb. When they got their bearings they wrestled.

Did you see June? I asked Benji.

“No,” he said, “but calm down.”

I said, I kissed her and I thought she loved it, but then she kicked me and forgot her sketchbook.

“She left it for you,” he said, “so you could bring it to her.”

I said, How would you know that? And why did you call her? She said you called her last night.

“I know because I called her, and I called her because, I don’t know, man — you’re in love with her and you’re my friend and being in love with her’s making you act a little, I don’t know… out of character? Uncharacteristically insecure?”

Insecure how? What do you mean insecure?