I one hundred and fifty-five percent forgot that Mom was here, too, until she brings out a tub of ice cream and two spoons and puts it on the rug in front of me and Ben Y and winks and says, Who’s ready for second breakfast?
Mom squeezes Ben Y’s shoulder when she walks past us to go back to the kitchen to find some paper towels because I already accidentally dripped ice cream on the rug and Spartacus isn’t here to lick it up. That makes it hard to swallow the ice cream that made it to my mouth because now my throat has a Spartacus-sized planet stuck in it and Ben Y sees my throat planet maybe, or maybe just has a brother-sized planet stuck in her own throat because she squeezes my shoulder like my mom squeezed hers, and it’s like she squeezed out a smidge of sadness and replaced it with the warm feeling of I got you, just like D’Andre says I got you to Theresa when she leaps into his arms and he catches her tight and safe and spins her over his head while her smile goes from scared to relieved and you can see her body relax just a little and that’s probably why Veronica Verve gave them ten out of ten, outstanding.
I give Ben Y ten out of ten outstanding for that shoulder squeeze and for the way she can eat ice cream because dang there is already none left, get it girl. Then I ask her if she thinks pre-planet dust in a box can also be a little bit like being in your own Sandbox and maybe her brother is in his own Sandbox and would he think that was cool or no and she gives a tiny little cough as she swallows her ice cream and then she cries like really super hard and all I can do is cry a little bit with her because I always cry when other people cry and I point her face at my shoulder and pat her head like Mom patted my head last night until I fell asleep.
JAVIER
<jajajavier:)>
BEN B
<BenBee>
Javier puts his hoodie back on,
we grab our stuff,
and we are running.
I don’t love running.
It’s hot.
It’s sweaty.
And yet
here we are.
Javier’s long legs
cut through the tall grass
and I chase after him,
a panting puppy
running after a deer
or a gazelle
or what’s that animal
with the twirly horns?
Kudu!
Javier is a kudu.
I am . . .
a corgi?
We run,
bursting through the school doors,
flying down the hallway,
stopping,
hands on our knees,
gasping,
sweat dripping,
so late,
trying to catch our breath
before we go through the last door,
into the stairwell,
to face the day.
Her dress is golden today,
with black on its edges.
There are sun shapes,
shimmering on the fabric,
the same color,
but somehow they shine
even in the buzzing
ugly light
under the stairs.
Her dark eyes greet us.
Her mouth pressed in a line,
but not in a line I know.
It’s thinner, tenser,
like maybe she’s biting her lips
from the inside.
How kind of you boys,
she says,
to deign to come to class today.
Her voice is weird, too,
higher-pitched,
like it’s almost joking,
but her face says
no way
no jokes
not now
sit down.
We sit down.
Ben B.
Can I have you at your desk today?
The computer in front of me
pings to life.
Turn that off,
and take your seat, please.
But . . .
I don’t understand.
Is this because we were late?
Is she mad?
I thought I was the best typist in the world?
I thought this was our new plan?
My path to the 504?
For right now.
Please.
Your seat.
She points at my old desk.
And it’s only now I realize two things.
One: Javier and I are the only kids here.
Two: There’s a man I didn’t see when we came in,
a man who could make better choices about where to put his chair,
a man staring at us
like we are putting on a very interesting show
and no way is he moving his chair
in the house.
I don’t suppose you two know
where everyone else is?
She tries to laugh,
a hairball noise,
a dry-throat noise,
a . . .
scared noise?
Javier and I shake our heads.
Ms. J blinks
and it takes so long
for her eyes to open,
I wonder if she’s fallen asleep
standing up.
When her eyes open,
she breathes:
Wonderful.
A whisper so quiet,
under her breath,
I can barely hear it
even from my desk
right in front of her.
I can tell
she doesn’t think anything
is wonderful
right now.
Well, let’s go ahead
and get started.
The assessment retake
will be here before we know it.
Javier, can you remove your hoodie, please?
Dress code.
Not once
in all of the ten million days
we have been in summer school
has Ms. J ever
ever
asked Javier
to take off his hoodie.
He looks at me
instead of her.
I shrug.
He frowns.
And then—
A lot of things happen at once.
Jordan J and Ben Y
come smashing
through the door
running a hundred miles an hour.
The door crashes open
with such force
it slams into the man in the chair,
bouncing off him,
and then hitting him again
when it swings back.
He yelps,
grabs his nose,
his glasses skittering across the floor,
his notebook sliding off his lap,
a slap as it lands at his feet.
Oh, shiiiiiiiiiiitake mushrooms!
Who’s that guy?
Jordan J’s voice bounces through the stairwell.
Ben Y starts to laugh,
a giggle at first,
then loud whoops,
then the whoops turn into gasps,
and then
she’s crying
hard,
falling to her knees
right where she stands,
and
Ms. J crashes into her
on her way
to the man
whose nose is freely bleeding
down his chin
and onto his white
short-sleeved
button-up
shirt.
Uh.
Javier and I stay in our seats,
watching everything.
Tangles of arms and legs,
flashes of gold,
gushing nose blood,
and now Jordan J is crying, too,
hugging Ben Y
rocking back and forth
and
what
is
even
happening.
Everyone is stunned quiet
except for the crying people.
Ms. J is back on her feet.
The man
holds his bloody face with one hand,
his notebook with the other,
his glasses retrieved, and propped on his head
as if they were fancy sunglasses
and he was a superstar
who just got smashed in the face
with a basketball.
Or an elbow.
Or, you know,
a door.
Mr. Maillot.
Her voice is a shattered whisper.
Mr. Maillot,
as you can imagine, this—
He interrupts her
with a shaking,
rumbling
volcanic
voice:
I’ll see you in the hallway,
Jordan.
Now.
Jordan looks up,
his face shining with tears.
I’m sorry. We didn’t see you. We—
He means me.
Ms. J puts her hand on Jordan J’s shoulder,
for just a second,
before she follows the man,
Mr. Maillot,
out the door.
She turns,
looks at us.
My name is Jordan, too.
BEN Y
<0BenwhY>
One year ago today.
Summer school.
At my desk.
Daydreaming.
Thinking about the potion.
Thinking I’d be a Ghostkiller now.
Wondering why Benicio taught me.
Wondering so many other
unimportant things
when
a man came in the classroom,
a man in a short-sleeved,
button-up
shirt,
a man named Mr. Maillot,
the vice principal,
a man who went to my teacher,
whispered in her ear,
and then kneeled by my desk,
asked me to please follow him
to the front office
which I did
and there was my mom
and Esme
faces blank
with shock
at school to pick me up,
take me to the hospital.
There had been an accident—
Benicio’s car—
the rain—
a curve—
and Mr. Maillot held my hand,
walked us to Mom’s car,
then
wished
us
luck.
Mr. Maillot.
An angel of death.
Holding my hand
as I took my first steps,
my baby steps,
into a new world,
a foreign place,
a universe that somehow existed
without
my brother in it.
And it was like he really was some kind of angel,
because I never saw him again.
Maillot.
I didn’t go back to summer school,
and he wasn’t at school during the school year.
Gone, poof, like he’d been made of smoke.
But now he’s here?
Bleeding in my classroom?
I can’t . . .
I don’t . . .
Who is he here for?
Who else has died?
Whose hand is he about to hold?
Please,
please,
please,
don’t have it be mine again.
Please don’t have it be anyone’s.
JORDAN J
<JORDANJMAGEDDON!!!!>
Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait.
Ms. J is also Jordan J? There are two Jordan Js in this class?? How will anyone tell us apart???
Is her middle name also nothing because she doesn’t have one like I don’t have one????????? Is this why she also does fart noises sometimes????? Is this why we both get so many chat infractions??? Because those are all things Jordan Js do??????
A lot of questions about a lot of things are flying around inside my head right now and also a lot of feelings are still inside me because of Spartacus and now this dude who is a stranger is bleeding all down his face in a super yucky way and that’s because I hit him with the door, which was by accident. Except, wait, even though it was kind of a photo finish, I’m pretty sure Ben Y beat me in the race so technically she hit him with the door and now she’s sitting on the floor crying and crying and crying and uh-oh, you know what that means.
It was Ben Y who said maybe we should stop eating ice cream and go to school, that maybe school would somehow make us feel better and maybe she needed to say she was sorry for yelling at Ms. J even though Ms. J totally deserved it and maybe it would be nice to see our friends and since Ms. J is learning how to farm pigs in Sandbox that will probably be funny to watch, all the pigs running around, so I said, okay sure, let’s go, and Mom said, are you two sure? And we said yes and she said, okay, let’s get in the car, and we said maybe we can walk? And she said, it’s really far, are you sure, and we said sure and started walking.
It was really far, though, and also really hot so we decided to take the bus but the bus broke down which, what, that has never happened before and we had to wait for a new bus and so by the time we got to school we weren’t just late we were really really really late and I was like, maybe we should run and Ben Y was like I’ll beat you there and I was like, no way, and then! It! Was! A! Race!
And now we’re here and maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to come. Ben Y is still crying and crying and we all know what’s going to happen when I see someone crying and crying, just like when I see someone throwing up. So now we’re both crying and crying (but at least not throwing up) and I know she’s crying because of her brother and I’m crying because of Spartacus and we’re hugging each other and crying but not in a weird way just in a sad way and I just heard that bleeding guy ask me to come out into the hallway but Ms. J said no, Jordan, he means me, and I really feel like this day has spiraled out of control.
JAVIER
<jajajavier:)>
BEN B
<BenBee>
We wait.
We wait.
We wait.
We wait.
Ms. J,
Mr. Maillot,
they don’t come back.
We wait.
We wait.
We wait.
We wait.
The bell rings.
Should we stay?
Should we go?
No one says anything.
We keep sitting
until Javier stands,
and one by one
shows us all
what he just drew.
Oh
shiiiiiiiitake mushrooms.
BEN Y
<0BenwhY>
He’s right.
Javier is totally right.
This was Ms. J’s assessment.
She told us it was coming.
This was her teacher FART.
Son of a bench.
JORDAN J
<JORDANJMAGEDDON!!!!>
If Javier is right and he is very much probably right, then hopefully Ms. J will get to retake her teacher assessment FART like we all get to retake the regular FART, and hopefully she will pass like hopefully we all will pass and hopefully everything will be fine for everyone just like how in Fierce Across America they sometimes have a Save Your Bootie Dance when the judges give someone a low score but the audience thinks the dancer just had a bad day or whatever so the dancer dances really, really hard to save their bootie and to try to add points to their score. Ms. J has been working all summer to help us save our booties, so we can definitely make
sure to help her save her own.
JAVIER
<jajajavier:)>
CHAT
Divergent Dingleberries
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JORDANJMAGEDDON!!!!: 0BenwhY, you okay?
0BenwhY: nah.
0BenwhY: you okay?
JORDANJMAGEDDON!!!!: nah
JORDANJMAGEDDON!!!!: but maybe we both will be okay some day
BenBee ENTERS GAME
BenBee: You y’alls okay?
BenBee: What happened in class today? all the crying stuff