Adam Levin - The Instructions

In the middle of the laughter, Brodsky’s door opened, and then out came Miss Pinge, and Acer said her name. He showed her the scarf.

“Dashing,” she said, and sat down at her desk.

“Says it’s dashing,” said Acer to Fatso.

To me, Pinge said, “Your ears must be burning.” = “Brodsky’s been talking about you.” = “Brodsky’s got you made for the scoreboard.”

It took me a second to figure that out, though. My A was a little bit D’d.

Are the lobes very red? I said to Miss Pinge.

I disliked Berman, but that wasn’t it. Or that was partly it, but not all of it; the wangtalk and meanness to Jelly’s sister, the being June’s ex, the maybe having kissed her and the dickshaking imagery — it got me pissed, but none of that was what D’d my A. It was Cory, Berman’s friend. I’d disliked him on sight, as I had all the others, and that didn’t bother me — because he was a Shover, it didn’t bother me — but when Acer said his name and I found out it was Goldman, I liked him even less. That was what bothered me. I never liked, to start with, when I didn’t like an Israelite. Whenever I met one I didn’t like, instead of trying to find reasons why I might come to like him, I’d try to find reasons for why it was okay not to like him. I’d try to find a way to like not liking him, and I didn’t like that about me — it seemed weak.

“The lobes?” said Miss Pinge.

And suddenly I understood what she’d meant about burning ears, but Brodsky’s door was open and he might have been listening, so I kept up like I didn’t know what she’d meant. I approached her desk, asking, You got my record?

“I do,” she said, leaning forward a little.

Behind me, in his office, Brodsky coughed — fakely?

Can I have it? I said.

“I don’t know,” Miss Pinge said.

The Shovers packed up, went out to to the bus circle, Ruth taking down their statements on a stenopad.

You don’t know? I said.

“Maybe,” Miss Pinge said.

Brodsky coughed again, a string of — yes — of fakes, and a ball of muscle heated up between my shoulders, right where he aimed the beams of anger that shot from his eyes. He was definitely coughing to get my attention. It was not a good sign. I’d assumed that if he was going to question me about the scoreboard that day, then the note Eliyahu’d brought would’ve said for me to come down to the Office immediately, not when school let out. Except Brodsky probably knew I’d think that, and that’s probably why he did it the way he did it. It was a solid tactic and it was stupid of me to expect that showing up for my record would game him out.

Is this a can I/may I thing? I said to Miss Pinge. Or a magic word thing? I said.

“Yes,” she said.

May I please have my record?

“Yes,” she said. She reached under her desk and came up with two thick manila envelopes, the kind with the bobbin and the red twine fastener. The red twine fastener gets wound around the bobbin.

I said, Two copies?

“Just one,” she said.

I said, How many envelopes does Nakamook have?

She said, “That would be confidential.”

I said, I bet mine are thicker.

Miss Pinge said, “I bet so, too.”

I said, Lots of people have written about me.

“That’s a very positive way to see it,” she said. “I think Mr. Brodsky wants to talk to you, kiddo.”

In his doorway, I told Brodsky: Miss Pinge said you want to talk.

And then I stepped over his threshold and saw that the wingnut I’d given him was gone from his blotter. It wasn’t anywhere on his desk.

He said, “I’ve been doing some math.”

I unwound the twine from the bobbin of the top envelope and started pulling out the contents — vaccinations, prescriptions for drugs I wouldn’t take, copies of birth certificate, Social Security card, admissions records—

Brodsky stood up fast behind his desk. He said, “The average number of students in Tuesday detention is twenty. Do you know how many students are in detention today?”

I shoved the contents back down in the envelope.

He said, “There are forty-one students in detention today. That’s over one fifteenth of the school. There are so many students in detention today, Gurion, that we had to assign a second detention monitor.”

The top item in the second envelope was my first Step 4 CASS from Botha. The offenses listed were “Destruction of School Property” and “Incitement to Destroy School Property” = I’d bent paper-clips into grasshoppers and taught Main Man and this slow boy, Winthrop, how to sculpt and trigger them.

Brodsky slammed his fist down onto the desk, wishing it was my nose. He said, “You, Ronrico and Mikey Bregman account for three of the students in detention. And Eliyahu, who, this morning, was every bit the tragic posterboy for sweetness and piety, put his fist through some glass some sixty minutes after meeting you. He’s a fourth.”

I said to Brodsky, I like Eliyahu. I said, He’s a scholar.

Brodsky said, “That’s just what he said when I asked him about you. No few people have said that about you, Gurion, but I am beginning to believe that the praise is hollow. You are failing to live up to expectations— Don’t smile!” he said.

I couldn’t help it — I’d found a copy of this letter from the social worker at Northside Hebrew Day that asked my parents for permission to meet with me regularly. I’d seen the letter before, right when my mom received it in the mail, but I hadn’t seen my mom’s response, which was stapled to the copy. The response was in her usual all-caps handwriting, in marker, sideways, on top of the text of the social worker’s original letter: “YOU WERE ALREADY TOLD ‘NO, THANK YOU’ ON THE TELEPHONE. THIS TIME IT IS ‘NO.’ I WOULD RATHER NOT HEAR MYSELF SAY WHAT I WILL SAY IF THERE IS A THIRD POLITE REQUEST. SINCERELY, TAMAR MACCABEE.” I covered my mouth with my hand.

Brodsky said, “Listen to me!” = “Look at me!”

But first I looked to see what the next document was — something by Sandy called “Assessment of a Client: Gurion Maccabee,” and the one under that was a letter to Brodsky from Rabbi Salt; I put both on top — and then, when I looked up, I saw the clock on Brodsky’s desk. It said 3:41. Four minutes til June.

I shoved all the contents back in the envelope.

Brodsky said, “After Eliyahu was sent here? Six other students in the lab advanced from step 1 to step 4 in under thirty minutes.”

Maybe it was because Brodsky’s “I’ve been doing some math” bit, which was about a thousand beats too long to be intimidating, was actually starting to intimidate me a little anyway; maybe it was how Sabra my mom was; maybe it was because I was thinking I’d see June in less time than it takes a beginning-of-class tone to follow an end-of-class tone; maybe it was because that made me nervous; maybe it made me nervous just because I was in love with her or maybe because I was in love with her and had seen her ex-boyfriend who she might have kissed; or maybe I was just nervous… whatever it was, I laughed a little. Something made me laugh a little.

Brodsky hit the desk again and leaned forward and his head was pinker than ever. He said, “Leevon Ray and Vincent Portite are in detention for taking wingnuts off the vents in A-Hall yesterday. They said they were having a contest.” He said, “Don’t interrupt me.”

I hadn’t interrupted him.

He said, “Not including you, eleven of the forty students in today’s detention are there as a result of your influence, whether directly or indirectly. What do you have to say about that?”