Desdemona by Tag Cavello (love books to read txt) 📕

minutes he would be sneaking into the girls’ changing area to plant cigarettes in Maris Dubois’ bag.

And even if you’re able to pull that off, Wonder Boy, how are you going to make sure she gets caught with the stupid things?

“Dante?” Sunny said. Homeroom was over. They were off to first period—study hall for her, math for him. “Everything okay?” The familiar sneer was back on her face, twisted as snakes that once turned foolish heroes to stone. “It’s going to be today, right?” she went on, before he could answer the first question.

“Today,” he said.

The sneer writhed. “You don’t sound too sure of yourself.”

“Today,” he repeated, locking on with her eyes.

“Good boy.” She patted his back. “Go to it.”

The long division assignment she had already groaned about was due today. Rather than collect it though, Mr. Krieger decided to have his class grade it out loud. It killed time and gave him an excuse not to work. Dante scored a 26 out of 30, good for 87%. He wondered what Sunny would score later that day. By then, of course, he would either be her champion, or locked in detention hall with the usual band of delinquent gorillas who spent time there. Dangerous kids like Casey Didion and Lamar Taylor, who wouldn’t just beat you up if they decided not to like you, they would put you in the hospital.

After Krieger’s class he went directly to science, where that teacher, a tufty-haired man named Mr. Sitz, gave a lecture on the eruption of Mount Saint Helens.

“On May 18, 1980,” he intoned, “all hell broke loose in Washington State. It did not happen without warning. Two months earlier, volcanologists speculated that magma had begun to move beneath the mountain. A magnitude 4.2 earthquake indicated as much. Somewhere deep under all that rock, pressure was building. One hundred and twenty-five years of dormancy had come to a close.” Mr. Sitz raised his eyebrows. “What does that tell us about nature? Anyone?”

A few tentative hands went up. Mr. Sitz called on a tall, thin girl named Jennifer.

“It’s unpredictable,” she said. Then: “At least until…you know, certain indicators appear. And by then it’s almost always too late.”

“Almost,” the science teacher agreed. “But it does leave us time—usually—to get out of the way. If we so choose. Not all of us do. Not all of us have a choice, for love typically fails to provide one. Love of the land, or of the work.” He paused. “Or of the very thing that threatens to destroy you. In the case of one Harry Randall Truman, that thing was the mountain, at the foot of which he lived for fifty-two years. He loved Saint Helens and refused to leave her, even after it became clear she was by no means stable. She was beautiful and he loved her. And in the end that love killed him.”

The end of period bell sounded off. Everyone jumped from their seats. Or nearly so.

Dante did not jump. He rose to his feet like a sick elephant. His science book fell to the floor—flop! He stooped, grabbed it, rose again. In the process of doing so the package of cigarettes fell out of his jacket. They were now next to his boot.

“Dante!” called Mr. Sitz, approaching his desk. “Your essay on the Challenger disaster was pretty good. Of course you know that already. I put a B plus on it.”

“Yes sir.”

Mr. Sitz took a step closer. Dante swallowed hard and, surreptitiously as he knew how, placed his boot over top of the cigarettes.

“Now you’ve got me looking forward to your oral report next spring,” Sitz said.

“Thank you, sir.”

The science teacher’s nostrils twitched. “Say, what’s that smell? Something burning?”

“I hope not, sir,” Dante replied, pretending to look around the room.

“I hope not either. My word, the last thing we need in a school building is…” Sitz’s words trailed off. His eyes had dropped to the floor. “What…on earth…are those?”

Now Dante had to look down, too. Not that he wished to do so. His mind began to flicker with a million different pictures. Him sitting in the principal’s office, him sitting in detention hall, him sitting alone at home. In all he was shame-faced. Humiliated. Laid low.

Slowly, Mr. Sitz bent down. “Move your foot, please,” he said.

Dante moved his foot—the other foot. Nothing happened for a few seconds. Then the science teacher was standing again. In his hand he held, of all things, three dead black beetles.

“Gross,” he said, grinning. “Left over from somebody’s biology assignment. Sorry you had to sit next to them today. You should have spoken up.”

“I…didn’t notice them, sir.”

“I’m surprised none of the girls screamed,” the other moaned. “Oh well.” He shrugged and walked to the trash can, where he pitched the bugs away. While his back was turned, Dante quickly knelt, grabbed the cigarettes, and pocketed them. “Better get on to your next class,” Sitz said with a wink. “Can’t keep dear old Mr. Hogan waiting with his badminton racquets.”

Shaky and sweaty, Dante left the science room. A large number of kids were still in the hall, snatching books from their lockers, talking about basketball, talking about cheerleading. Jokes were swapped, bubble-gum popped. The girls giggled and the boys haw-hawed. Dante walked past his own locker, not needing any books for gym. He was getting close to the foyer ramp when a hand fell on his shoulder.

“Boo!”

He spun around so fast his jacket fanned like a skirt. Two girls—Sunny and Stacey—were smiling up at him. Sunny’s smile, however, weakened at the sight of his skittishness.

“What are you so jumpy about?” she demanded to know.

Summoning all of his strength, Dante said: “Oh, you just caught me in a daydream. Where are you ladies headed?”

“Back to Mr. Wolfe’s room for English.” Sunny’s green eyes began to glitter shrewdly. “And you’re going to see Mr. Hogan. Right?”

“That’s right. Badminton day.”

“Let me know how it turns out,” Sunny told him. The shrewdness had found its way to her smile, and into her voice. “I’ll be waiting, Dante.”

∞

“Okayyyyy,” Mr. Hogan told the boys. His voice oozed through the locker room like cold pancake syrup. He wore a blue tracksuit every day, though Dante was quite certain he was too old (most kids put him in the late fifties) to do any running. A whistle hung around his neck. “Okayyyy. Todayyyy we’ll be playyyyying badminton. Please be careful with the equipment. And go easy on the girls.”

With that, he left the room so the boys could get changed. Dante hung his jacket in a locker whose number identified with the ancient Christian belief of leisure for witches. He put on his track pants. Then, when no one was looking, he slipped the cigarettes into the pocket of the pants and hung back, waiting to be the last one out.

One by one the boys went upstairs. Dante pretended to tie his shoes. He adjusted the string on his track pants. The locker room grew quieter, quieter. Soon he was all alone.

Knowing he had at best two minutes to plant the evidence before Mr. Hogan noticed him missing, Dante moved quickly. He left the boys’ locker room, checked the stairs to make sure no one was watching, then slipped across to the arch-way marked GIRLS. Here he found a hard left that dumped him into an alien room the male body had absolutely no right to trespass. Like the boys’ room, it was dark, though far brighter clothing hung in the lockers. A flowery scent of perfume beckoned. Odysseus to its Siren call, Dante followed. With every step he felt more and more strange, as well as more certain he was about to be caught. His eyes fluttered across the lockers. The blouse Maris had on earlier did not seem present. He took six more steps into the room. Basement shadows loomed closer. A torn poster on one wall read: WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING? Beneath was a picture of a girl, deep in thought, staring a package of cigarettes. SMOKING IS A DIRTY HABIT! the poster went on to inform.

There’s somebody in here, Dante’s mind gibbered, somebody can see you, you’re going to get caught!

He was about to run when he saw it. Maris’ blouse. It hung in locker 33, gold as the peaceful flame of the goddess by that name. By this time, however, he would be missed upstairs. Doubtless Mr. Hogan was already taking roll call. Had he come to Dante’s name yet on his little white sheet of notepaper? Deciding to risk it, Dante walked quickly to the blouse. Beneath it was a pink book-bag. Again, Maris’. All he needed to do now was unzip it and stuff the cigarettes inside. He reached into his pocket; his hand closed around the box. Three seconds was all would take. One…two…three. Then he could get out of here.

“Okayyyyy!” came Mr. Hogan’s voice from upstairs. “Where’s Dantayyyyy? Can someone go downstairs and check on him please?”

With trembling hands Dante pulled the cigarettes free and dropped them onto Maris’ bag. No good. She would be caught with them, certainly, but no one would believe they were actually hers. At best he could later brag to Sunny that he’d messed up five minutes of the perfect princess’ day. Not good enough—not nearly good enough.

“Okayyyyy!” Mr. Hogan croaked again.

“Shut up already!” Dante hissed.

He picked up the cigarettes and ran. His foot caught on a bench. He flew through the air like a shot bird, hitting the floor hard enough to cut his elbow open on a chipped tile. Blood splattered the bench, the other lockers. Some of the girls’ clothes were stained.

Oh no! Oh no, oh no, oh no!

He sat up slowly, assessing the damage. The cigarettes were gone. At some point they had escaped his fingers and disappeared. Meanwhile his blood continued to drip. The cut was sizeable—maybe an inch long. A red mess pooled on the floor, growing larger every second.

“What the HELL are you doing in the girls’ locker room?”

Wide-eyed, Dante looked up to see an incredulous Mr. Hogan gaping with utter disgust. Clearly his eyes could not believe what they were seeing, because they couldn’t open any wider, lest they fall out as marbles would from an old saddle bag.

“It was a rat,” Dante gibbered, desperate to grasp any branch available from this humiliating quicksand.

“Get up, boy.”

“A rat!”

“I said get up.” As he spoke Mr. Hogan seized Dante’s arm and pulled. The wound opened wider, spilling more blood. “You are despicable, young man. Despicable. Shame on you.”

The gym teacher’s hateful face looked ready to spit fire. Blood dripped onto his tracksuit but he didn’t seem to care, or even notice. His grip tightened on Dante’s arm.

“The only rat in here,” he said, “is the one going to the principal’s office. From there you’ll probably be expelled. You need discipline, boy. Hard, heavy discipline.”

Mr. Hogan might gone on with this litany, except that in the very next moment he was bitten by a rat. Dante had no idea at first. The gym teacher’s mouth fell open again. He let go Dante’s arm and began to scream like a woman.

“EEEEEE! EEEEEE! EEEEEE!”

“Mr. Hogan? What’s wrong?”

“EEEEEE!”

He started hopping on one foot. That was when Dante looked down to see a large, gray rat scuttling under the bench. He gasped. He looked again at Mr. Hogan’s foot. Disbelief flooded his senses. It couldn’t be real, it just couldn’t be. No way.

It was real all right. Mr. Hogan took a seat on the bench. Breathing heavily, he looked at Dante, and then at the rat. It was half the length of a man’s arm. It stopped, turned, grinned at both of them for a moment. Then it ran to the wall and disappeared.

“How in the world,” Mr. Hogan heaved, “did a rat get in here? Phew! We need traps. Lots of traps.”

“Mr. Hogan—“

“And I need a doctor. I guess you do, too. Let’s tell the class what happened and get to the clinic.”

***

Minutes later, while waiting