“What?”
“They’re disappearing,” he said. “Scientists are stumped. I read it in the newspaper this morning.”
“Maybe it’s a hoax,” I said. “I mean, how can you prove something like that?”
“A bee census?” he suggested. “Anyhow, I’m going to buy stock in honey.”
Toby and I hadn’t really spoken in years. He was on the debate team, and our schedules rarely overlapped. He didn’t look much like the pudgy, bespectacled best friend I’d lost somewhere in the first few weeks of seventh grade. His dark hair still flopped all over the place, but he was a lanky six two. He straightened his bow tie, unbuttoned his blazer, and stretched his legs way out in front of him, as though the teacher bleacher was a choice seat.
“You should get a sword cane,” he said. “That would be badass. I know a guy, if you’re interested.”
“You know a sword-cane guy?”
“Don’t sound so surprised of my shadowy connections, Faulkner. Technically, he deals in concealed weaponry.”
The music started then, a deafening blast of speaker static that gave way to the opening bars of an overplayed Vampire Weekend single. SGA began clapping in that cheesy let’s-get-the-party-started way, and Jill squealed into the microphone how super psyched she was for the best school year ever.
Inexplicably, SGA launched into some sort of coordinated hula dance in their sunglasses and leis. I couldn’t get over how wrong it was, doing the hula to the African drumbeats of an East Coast prep rock band.
“Please tell me I’m hallucinating,” Toby muttered.
“SENIORS, WHERE’S YOUR SCHOOL SPIRIT?” Jill called.
The response was deafening.
“I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” Jill challenged, cocking her hip.
“Kill me now,” moaned Toby.
“I would, but I seem to be lacking a sword cane,” I told him.
Mrs. Levine, who was sitting next to Toby, glared at us.
“Behave or leave, gentlemen,” she snarled.
Toby snorted.
When the song finally ended, Jimmy Fuller took the microphone. He was wearing his tennis warm-ups, and I couldn’t help but notice that the team had gotten new uniforms.
“What’s up, Eastwood?” he boomed. “It’s time to meet your varsity sports teams!”
As if on cue, a side door to the gym opened and the football team poured out in their pads and jerseys. Behind them was the baseball team, then tennis, then water polo, but by that point, I’d stopped paying attention to the teams and their orders. My former life, in its entirety, was standing in the center of the basketball court while I sat on the teacher bleacher, and there was no way in hell that I was going to clap for them. Mostly, I just wanted to get out of that pep rally, and away from all of it.
“Hey, Ezra,” Toby whispered loudly. “Got a nicotine patch, buddy?”
“Get out!” Mrs. Levine demanded. “Both of you—now!”
Toby and I looked at each other, shrugged, and shouldered our bags.
It was bright outside, the sky cloudless and impossibly blue. I winced and hung back in the shade of the stucco overhang, fumbling for my sunglasses.
“A nicotine patch?” I asked.
“Well, it got us kicked out, didn’t it?” Toby said smugly.
“Yeah, I guess it did. Thanks.”
“For what? I wanted to get out of there. Mrs. Levine has awful breath.”
We wound up passing the time in the Annex, this study room that connected the debate and newspaper classrooms. Everyone else was at the rally, and we could hear muffled screams coming from the gym at regular intervals.
“It sounds like Disneyland or something,” Toby offered with a grin.
I was surprised he’d mention it. “Have you been back?” I asked.
“Are you kidding? I’m there every single day. They gave me a free lifetime pass. I’m like the mayor of Adventureland.”
“So no, then,” I said.
“Have you?”
I shook my head.
“You could get a handicapped pass,” Toby pressed. “Skip all of the lines.”
“Next time I ask a girl on a date, I’ll be sure to mention that.”
For some reason, I didn’t mind Toby giving me crap about the cane. And I was generally pretty sensitive about it. You would be too, if you’d spent most of your summer vacation trying to get your well-meaning but overbearing mother to stop hovering outside the bathroom door every time you took a shower. (She was paranoid that I’d slip and die, since I’d refused to let her install those metal handrails. I was paranoid that she’d come inside and catch me, uh, showering.) “What are you doing for Team Electives?” Toby asked. We had a four-year requirement.
“Speech and debate,” I admitted, suddenly realizing that Toby might be in my class.
“Dude, I’m team captain this year! You should compete.”
“I’m just taking it for the requirement,” I said. “Debate’s not really my thing.”
Back then, my impression of the debate team was that it was a bunch of guys who put on business suits during the weekend and thought they actually had something meaningful to say about foreign policy because they were enrolled in AP Government.
“Maybe not, but you owe me. I got us out of the pep rally,” Toby protested.
“We’re even. I told Tug Mason not to piss in your backpack in the eighth-grade locker room.”
“You still owe me. He pissed in my Gatorade instead.”
“Huh, I’d forgotten about that.”
The bell rang then.
“Hey, Faulkner, want to know something depressing?” Toby asked, picking up his bag.
“What?”
“First period hasn’t even started yet.”
4
THE ONE INTERESTING thing about being signed up for speech and debate was that I’d been given a Humanities Odd schedule. Eastwood High is on block scheduling, and ever since freshman year, my schedule had been Humanities Even, with the other athletes. But not anymore.
I had first period AP Euro, which was unfortunate because 1) Mr. Anthony, the tennis coach, was the AP Euro teacher, and 2) his classroom was on the second floor of the 400 building, which meant that 3) I had to get up a flight of stairs.
Over the summer, stairs had become my nemesis, and I often went out of my way to avoid a public confrontation with them. I was supposed to pick up an elevator key from the front office; it came in a matching set with that little blue parking tag for my car, the one I was never, ever going to display.
By the time I got to AP Euro via a rarely used stairwell near the staff parking lot, Mr. Anthony had already begun taking roll. He paused briefly to frown at me over the manila folder, and I cringed in silent apology as I slid into a seat in the back.
When he called my name, I mumbled “here,” without looking up. I was surprised he’d actually called me. Usually, teachers did this thing when they reached my name on the roll sheet: “Ezra Faulkner is here,” they’d say, putting a tick in the box before moving on down the list. It was as though they were pleased to have me, as though my presence meant the class would be better somehow.
But when Coach A paused after calling my name and I had to confirm for him that I was in the room even though he knew damn well that I’d walked in thirty seconds late, I wondered for a moment if I really was there. I glanced up, and Coach A was giving me that glare he used whenever we weren’t hustling fast enough during practice.
“Consider this your tardiness warning, Mr. Faulkner,” he said.
“So noted,” I muttered.