Frank Portman - King Dork

If the walkway had been concrete, or even asphalt, the blow to the head would have injured him seriously, maybe even killed him. Then I would have been in trouble. But I doubted it was that serious. The gravel would have absorbed and distributed the impact evenly. As I knew quite well from years of experience, head and scalp injuries bleed a lot and hurt like hell, but they always look worse than they are. The worst you usually have is a concussion, some messy clothes, and a lot of explaining to do. They are easily attributed to accidents. In fact, I have a solid, largely inaccurate, reputation as an absentminded, accident-prone klutz at the Henderson-Tucci HQ , owing to all the times I’ve said I’ve fallen off ledges or walked into walls or run into poles.

And I was pretty sure that that was what Paul Krebs would do, as well. I will always think of him as the guy I ac-142

cidentally beat up, but he would be rather eager to prevent the world at large from knowing him that way. It would hardly have been the first time he had come home from school all bloody, though the fact that this time it was his own blood would have been something of a novelty. But he would keep that part to himself. And he would hate me more than he ever had before, even if neither he nor I had believed such a thing to be possible. I knew I had to brace myself for some kind of retaliation from him and potentially from the other Matt Lynch minions as well, but I was sure it wouldn’t become a legal matter. That’s what I’m saying.

Anyway, despite that, word did get out around school a bit, somehow. No one said anything to me, but people were looking at me from a distance with a kind of awe. I mean, I was in shock about it myself. These things don’t happen, not usually. I imagine most people discounted it as a grossly implausible rumor. Sam Hellerman didn’t doubt me, but he said, and I knew he was right, that I would have to watch my back from now on. I was totally used to watching that, though.

It was a measure of just how sick Hillmont High School society is that smashing someone’s head to pulp in the gravel by the baseball diamond was such an unequivocal reputation enhancer. But so it was. It had worked for years for Matt Lynch and Paul Krebs and the other normals in their demi-human goon squad. Now, weirdly and in a way that wasn’t entirely welcome, it was temporarily working for me. (I had no illusions: the vital element of surprise was only destined to work the one time. But it had worked.)

So maybe that’s why no one tried to glue me to anything in Humanities while we were working on the Peace Collage.

Someone did, however, glue some stuff from a gay porn magazine on Bobby Duboyce’s helmet while he slept peacefully in his seat. Peace indeed.

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As for Paul Krebs, I figured he still had a few concussions coming to him. I have heard, though, that if you fall asleep with a concussion you can die, so I was relieved when I learned that he was back in school a couple of days later. And not to be all Bad Seed and everything, but just to be on the safe side I got some new Converse All Stars from the Shoe Mart and threw the old, blood-spattered ones in the shop in-cinerator on my way back to school. Because you never know.

The day after I attended the lunchtime gathering around the Hillmont Knight, I noticed for the first time that Yasmynne Schmick was in my Advanced French class. She smiled and nodded a greeting as I walked in, which was definitely a new experience for me. I guess my failure to say “guitar” properly had formed a kind of loose bond between us.

Which was alarming, in a way. I mean, I wasn’t sure I wanted another friend: Sam Hellerman was about all I could handle.

She was wearing a tight-fitting purple velvety bodysuit and a lot of silver jewelry. She looked like an enormous Christmas ornament. She was actually pretty nice, though, for a drama goth pod-hippie; maybe the drama hippies weren’t all bad after all.

Now, I had started taking French in seventh grade, so this was my fourth year, and even I found it shocking to think how little French I actually knew after three-plus years. True, I knew quite a lot about Jean and Claude and how they go to the movies and eat beefsteak and fruit, and I could tell you all about their other fabulous adventures, though only in the present tense. I was a master of the present tense in French. I guess that is pretty advanced, when you think about it.

I felt a little sorry for the French teacher, Madame Jimenez-Macanally, not only because students would often 144

mispronounce her name so it sounded kind of nasty, but also because it must have been hard knowing deep down that whatever activities may have been going on in that class, the teaching and learning of the French language was not among them. Someone had hit on the idea of asking her to explain the complicated twenty-four-hour French system of telling time at the beginning of each class, just to see how long she would go along with it before cracking. She was determined not to crack, though: she explained the twenty-four-hour system every single day. Whether that was giving in or fighting back is hard to say: you could look at it either way.

The last fifteen minutes of Advanced French is called Advanced Conversation, where the students pair up for advanced, stimulating dialogue. Yasmynne Schmick approached me and said, as near as I could make out: “Le nez est bête.” The nose is a beast? A little puzzling. Then she switched to English:

“Renée is stupid,” she said. “You’re actually a pretty nice guy.”

Pause. “Really?” I had to assume she was talking about Née-Née Tagliafero. What the hell had they been saying about me?

Madame J.-M. frowned at us. We weren’t supposed to speak English in Advanced Conversation. So we continued in French:

“What time is it?” I asked.

“It is 11:05,” she replied.

“Thank you very much,” I said. “What a shame. If it pleases you, what do you call yourself?”

“I am sorry,” said Yasmynne Schmick. “I am hungry. The young girls wear a very pretty dress. They eat and play soc-cer with the mother and the fathers. My name is Yasmynne.

I am four years old.”

“Ah, yes,” I said. “The young people love to buy discs of 145

pop music for dancing and for holiday making.” I chose my words carefully. “They . . . they . . . my God: they eat bever-ages. It is true. My two friends Jean and Claude go to the cin-ema yesterday to view films. What a surprise. They eat. They are flowers.”

Yasmynne Schmick nodded. “Thank you very much. I am sorry.” Her face clouded over. “There is a match between two opposing teams at the stadium. It is true, is that not correct?

Therefore, my little friend,” she said quietly and with a sad smile, “all the world very much loves the automobile who calls himself a cat.”

“You are correct,” I said hopelessly. “I am enchanted. Our little green hat is orange on the head of this very interesting horse.”

“Would you like to sleep with me this evening?”

“Thank you, Mr. Roboto.”

It was kind of fun. That Yasmynne Schmick was all right.

Later that day, I was on my way to Band, running a little late, when something grabbed the back of my army coat, stopped me short, and almost pulled me to the ground. It turned out to be one of Mr. Teone’s large, rubbery hands. He was scratching his butt with the other one. Ugh.

“Henderson,” he said. “Henderson.”

There was something about the way he said my name that made it sound like a particularly nasty swear word. Wait a minute, I thought: you can’t call me that. It’s rude.

He told me that he was writing a book on gifted and talented young men and women, and that he’d like to give me an IQ test and interview me with a group of other kids after school on Friday. At his fucking house. I don’t think so.