Andrew Smith: Winger

I had been having such an all-around crappy day, and seeing JP and Seanie didn’t make me feel too much better. I felt isolated, even though we were right there together. I felt like I couldn’t tell them how frustrated I was about this whole Annie thing. Even though we were all juniors and going through reasonably the same kinds of crap, Seanie and JP both had two years of extra confidence on me. So I always struggled with pretending that maybe my friends could overlook that I was only fourteen, even if I couldn’t.

“Hey. I made it,” I said.

“It’s about time, Winger,” JP said. “I don’t think I’m liking this new living arrangement. Seanie and I were just talking about leaving after dessert.”

I sat down across from them with my tray of tacos and salad. I scanned the hall for Annie. She wasn’t there. Among the hundred or so students who were having dinner, I saw Chas sitting with Megan, over where all the seniors hung out. I didn’t get the Megan thing. She was so smart; she was going to be in the Advanced Calculus class with me, and Chas could barely count.

Megan Renshaw played Chas Becker like he was a pair of pocket aces. She knew what his alpha status was worth in social settings, but all the kids in the smart classes saw the obvious softness Megan Renshaw had for intelligent and sensitive boys who would never have breeding rights in the wolf packs run by the Chas Beckers of the world.

That was just another reason why I thought Megan Renshaw was so untouchably hot. She gave hope to losers like me.

JP was wearing his ever-present striped beanie, pulled down over his ears so that just the last inch or two of his wavy light hair curled out over his eyes. He was so popular and smart, and seemed to just go from girl to girl without ever taking it the slightest bit seriously.

“I’m going back for more, anyway,” Seanie said. “So don’t worry about being late, Ryan Dean.”

“Dudes,” I said, “I do honestly believe Betch was just about to kill me before dinner.”

I told them about my run up to Buzzard’s Roost, but I also told them Annie and I ran the whole way together. They listened quietly to my story about our walk in the circle at Stonehenge. I knew they were kind of jealous, too. Not one of us had a girlfriend, and we all recognized how unattainable—and hot—Annie Altman was. Then, of course, I ended the story with my return to O-Hall and a very pissed off Chas Becker.

“You’re not going to make it to the end of the semester alive,” JP concluded.

“You ever seen Betch’s MySite?” Seanie said.

We both looked at him. Seanie was such a video-game-Internet geek with a strong stalker flavor to his personality. I guess he could see what we were both thinking, because Seanie said, in a surprised kind of tone, “What? Well, haven’t you seen Betch’s MySite?”

“I haven’t,” I said.

“Me neither,” JP added.

“Well, it’s creepy, that’s all,” Seanie said. “It’s nothing but pictures of Betch. Almost every one is Betch without a shirt on. Betch wallpaper. Betch in front of a bathroom mirror. A downloadable Betch calendar, which, by the way, I downloaded and printed out and have right now in our room . . . just in case a perfect opportunity should ever arise. And then there’s all these comments about what a stud Betch is. I made up a fake account with a picture of a hot girl just so I could get him to friend me.”

“You’re really kind of sick, Seanie,” I said.

“I know.” Seanie smiled, like he was letting us in on a dark secret.

Then JP said, “Sometimes I lie awake at night thinking about how horrible my life could be if you hated me,” and he added, “stalker.”

I took a bite of taco. “Maybe that should be his new nickname.”

Seanie just stared at us both with his unblinking stalker eyes. He had one of the strangest senses of humor of anyone I ever knew, because it was always so hard to tell whether he was joking around or if you should really be afraid of him. Either way, I guess it was a good thing Seanie was our friend.

“And, dude, anyway, you gotta tell us what happens at the poker game,” JP said.

“Hey,” Seanie said, “I could loan you my deck of Betch playing cards.”

And he said it so straight-faced, but he had to be joking.

Seanie, expressionless, with his unblinking dead eyes, exhaled and stood, saying, “I’m going for more ice cream.”

I watched Seanie get up and walk across the mess hall, stopping for a moment to say something undoubtedly creepy and demented to a group of freshmen, and JP just smiled and shook his head. That’s when I saw Annie come in. She was with her roommate, Isabel Reyes, who was also kind of hot in a faintly mustached kind of way. Annie smiled and waved at me, and I waved back as JP just sat there, watching me watch her.

LIGHTS-OUT CAME AT TEN O’CLOCK every night, except for Fridays and Saturdays, when they’d let us stay up until midnight. Usually, guys would hang out in the common areas, where we didn’t have to wear uniforms—we could just wear T-shirts if we wanted to—watching television until bedtime. In the regular dorms, there was a common area for every two or three bedrooms, but in O-Hall, there was only one TV room for the entire floor, and we currently had twelve guys living here, along with Mr. Farrow and Mrs. Singer, who got the first-floor living room all to herself since there were currently no girls in O-Hall.

So when the TV went off at ten, we all went back to our rooms. As I closed our door behind us, I saw that Chas had already set out a deck of cards (regular, not “Betch” cards, which I highly doubt ever existed unless Seanie made them himself, which is something Seanie would actually take the time to do) and a case of thirteen-gram poker chips on top of one of the desks.

I’ll admit I was kind of scared about Chas’s poker game. I really didn’t want to get into trouble on day negative-one of my junior year at Pine Mountain.

I pointed at the empty desk, nervously trying to make conversation.

“Is that one going to be my desk?” I asked.

“Yeah, sure,” Chas said, obvious in his lack of enthusiasm at engaging his new roomie in conversation. “Whatever. Turn off the lights and get in bed.”

“Oh. Okay.”

I turned off the light and began taking off my pants.

“What are you doing, you idiot?” Chas whispered. “Keep your clothes on. We’re going to play poker, asswipe.”

I honestly thought we were going to bed.

I pulled my pants up.

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry.”

I really didn’t get it, but I knew if Chas said keep my clothes on, I was keeping them on. I climbed up onto the top bunk and instantly fell asleep.

I woke up to a burning flashlight beam stabbing my eyes as Joey Cosentino thumbed one of my eyelids up and whispered, “Nah, he’s alive.”

It took me a minute to register where I was and what was going on. I looked at the red numbers on the digital alarm clock. It was midnight. Actually, 12:04.

They start their games at midnight when there is going to be school in the morning?

“Wake up, kid. I thought you wanted to play,” Chas said.

I sat up.

There were four of us: me, Chas, Joey, and Kevin Cantrell. The three guys I was playing with were all seniors. There was something especially scary about that. I swung my feet over the edge of the bed, and, rubber-legged, hopped down onto the floor.

Chas collected twenty dollars from everyone and put the money in the chip box. He handed out stacks of chips and explained the blinds. The game was Hold ’Em. I rubbed my eyes. The other guys looked perfectly awake, like it was lunchtime or something. I tried to straighten my hair, but it always did whatever it wanted to do, anyway.