Californium Read online

  Before the bell rings, the teacher says real loud without yelling, “I’m Mr. Krueger, and that clock is seven seconds slow.” He’s looking at his watch and pointing to the clock on the wall. As soon as everyone is quiet and looking, the bell rings and Mr. Krueger gets this grin on his face. He taps his watch and says, “This is set to the atomic clock in Colorado—the most accurate clock in the world. Your watch may not be, so you’d better get to class early every day because we start at the real time, not the bell.”

  Behind Mr. Krueger, in the right corner above his desk, hangs a gigantic chart of the periodic table. “Everything that matters starts right here.” He reaches back and pats the thing like it’s a dog. “That’s why it’s behind my desk, the only place where I can never stand in front of it.” Everyone’s staring at him, and I’m thinking, Yeah? What about when you stand up to walk over to the podium? But then Mr. Krueger shoots out from behind the desk sideways, the metal wheels of his chair humming along the tile floor like a train on its tracks. He pops up at the podium, grinning again. “You learn this”—he points back at the periodic table—“and life here will go smoother than you ever thought possible.”

  Mr. Krueger lets us go seven seconds before the bell rings, and Keith stops me by the door. “We’ve got to get on it,” he says, pointing at a poster taped to the wall. “The Howdy Dance is Saturday.”

  The bell rings and by the time we’re to the stairs, people are everywhere, headed in every direction. Conversations are buzzing by, people laughing, people yelling to other people going the other way, some people already talking about Friday night and Are you gonna go? Then the lockers start opening. They’re outside lockers, all along the classroom buildings and crammed into the breezeways, that click, click, pop, over and over again like a scratched record.

  Keith’s not looking at me when he says, “You’ve got Algebra next and Spanish before lunch, right?” He doesn’t even wait for me to answer. “Remember, when they call roll, write down all the names of people who aren’t freshmen. No freshmen, no matter what.”

  Keith’s going to go over my list after school and tell me who to take fashion notes on the rest of the week. “And if you see van Doren,” he says, “write down everything, even if the guy picks his nose.”

  .

  The Wednesday after I met Keith, my dad dragged me out of bed early. “It’s trash day,” he said. “Remember? That’s your chore now.”

  I had hot summer sleep all over me, and as I got to the side of the house, my hair was standing up on its own. On the other side of the fence, our neighbor was pulling his cans out too, the plastic grinding across the driveway like a plane taking off. Halfway to the curb with my first trash can, I heard, “Hey, trash buddy,” and it wasn’t the voice of somebody’s dad. It was Astrid. The Astrid Thompson. Skinny, muscly, tan legs stretching out forever from her Dolphin shorts to her sneakers. Blond hair feathered into perfect wings, very Charlie’s Angels. She also had a tank top on under a gigantic sweatshirt that had no collar. You might think that would look more like a potato sack than something cool, except the sweatshirt was hanging off to one side so one tanned shoulder stuck out like it was saying, You should see what else is in here. I couldn’t dream a girl that beautiful, you know? “I’m Astrid,” she said.

  “Reece,” I said, wiping my hands on my pants and holding one out.

  She took my hand for this little shake, and it was like dipping it into a sink full of warm water, each finger getting its own dose of soft and nice. She said my dad told her dad that I’d be starting at Esperanza. “I’ll be looking for you at the football games,” she said, real serious. “You better have school spirit.”

  “I will. I’m very spiritual.”

  She laughed and went into her house.

  Now I’m up a little early every Wednesday to make sure I’m not wearing something stupid, and then half the time I don’t see her anyway. When I do see her, I have no idea what to say. I mean, what do you say to the most perfect-looking girl ever when you’re taking out the trash, Nice cans? Actually, I almost did say that one morning because the Thompsons really do have these shiny silver cans with matching lids and no dents, but thank God I realized what I was saying as I was saying it and changed it midsentence to “Nice, uh, day.” And even though it was pretty gray outside, Astrid said, “Yeah. It’s gonna be,” which just confirms how nice she is and what an idiot I am.

  This is how I know Keith knows what he’s talking about with clothes and everything. There’s something like three junior highs funneling into Esperanza, so it doesn’t matter who you used to be. If you make a good impression right away, two-thirds of the freshmen and pretty much everybody else will think you’ve always been cool.

  “If you get it wrong, though,” Keith said, “you’re screwed for the next four years—no cool friends, no cool parties, no girls.” No Astrid Thompson.

  .

  Almost no one is sitting in Mr. Tomita’s Algebra class second period. There are letters and numbers along two of the walls. On the chalkboard, everyone’s last name is listed with a letter and number next to it. A few people start walking down the rows and sitting down. I’m B-4, so I go two rows in and four seats back, which I think is right.

  To be safe, I ask the girl behind me what she is and she says, “I’m an American of Japanese descent, just like Mr. Tomita.”

  The embarrassment rushes up my neck and spreads out across my face until she grins, like, Gotcha. “If your last name is Houghton,” she says, “you’re in the right place.”

  It takes me a minute to find B-5 on the chalkboard, then I say, “Are you Okuda?”

  “Yeah.” She smiles. “Me and my whole family.”

  Mr. Tomita starts taking roll and it goes quick since he knows exactly who to look at when he calls a name. I’m guessing which people aren’t freshmen and writing names as fast as I can. When Mr. Tomita calls out, “Edith Okuda,” she says, “Here,” then leans forward and whispers, “Make sure you put me on your list as Edie, okay?”

  At the end of roll, Mr. Tomita stands up from his desk and he isn’t that much taller than he was sitting down. He has a wooden yardstick in his hand and says, “If you want to be successful, remember, when it is time to play”—and he swings the yardstick like he’s hitting a golf ball—“play. Have fun.” He’s smiling and kind of goofy with his shiny bald head and glasses; then he snaps the yardstick to his shoulder like a rifle. Even though he’s only about five feet tall, he’s about that wide too, and solid. The smile slips away and his forehead wrinkles up serious. “And when it is time to work, work. Be serious.” His face eases up and the yardstick drops down like he’s putting a golf ball. “So when it is time to play, don’t work. And when it is time to work, don’t play.” We’re all nodding and this big old grin takes over his whole face. He shuffles over to the far left of the chalkboard, places the yardstick flat against it, and in three quick strokes has a perfect triangle. “So now, it is time to work!”

  .

  Third-period English is all freshmen, which is good since the guy behind me sneezes all through roll and gets me to answer to “Denise” because it sort of sounded like “Reece.” Everybody laughs until the teacher tells us it won’t hurt to be nice to each other.

  After class, California starts feeling like California, so I’m at my locker dropping off my jacket. It’s a bottom locker, which means I’m squatting, twisting around legs, and getting nudged and bumped, the lockers around me slamming shut and rattling like a chain-link fence. With my books, folders, lunch, and backpack in there, my jacket is a tight squeeze and it’s hard to see which folder is which. They only give you five minutes between classes, and after getting here and then getting my combination wrong twice, then having to dig out the little card with the right combination, it feels like at least three minutes have burned by. Every folder is here and of course Spanish is the last one I get my hands on. My heart’s kno
cking at my chest, and the whole world’s gone quiet, like that instant of silence right before something hits you. Then, fwap, something really does hit me. A folder bounces off my head, light and not so bad. I’ve never been drunk, but this must be the feeling: How did my own folder hit me in the head? How did it get on the ground in front of me when it’s still right here in my hand?

  The sound of lockers and voices comes rushing in like the start of a record, and there’s a guy standing over me saying, “Sorry about that, little man.” He’s skinny and tall, and he’s got one of those crop cuts where your hair is flat and straight like the Beatles before they became hippies, but there’s also this spot in the back of your head where it’s chopped short and sticks up kind of random. It looks like a mistake. He’s wearing a button-up gas station shirt with the name Gus sewn on it.

  He asks me to hand the folder up and I’ve got no choice. It really may have been an accident, and besides, he’s got a couple friends waiting around. So I hand it back up to him and he says, “Thanks, bud,” and slams his locker shut.

  As soon as “You’re welcome, Gus” is out of my mouth, his buddies laugh and all three of them walk away.

  .

  I write down a few names in my Spanish class and me and Keith go over the list at lunch. He circles the names of people he thinks he’s heard of. He tells me the whole thing at my locker is no accident; upperclassmen love getting top lockers because the things they drop can pick up more speed before they hit you. “You’re lucky it wasn’t a history book.”

  After lunch, we’ve got PE together with Coach Scheffler. All freshmen. When class is about over, we’re hanging out in the locker room, waiting for the bell to ring, and all these guys in jeans and letterman jackets start walking in. Who knows how they got out of fifth period before everyone else, and who’d stop them? They don’t look like high school kids. They’re tall and wide, thick necks and massive thighs. Half of them have five o’clock shadows and it’s only one thirty.

  Most of them go straight into the varsity room, but as the bell rings to end fifth period, one of the biggest guys steps into the hallway. Everybody goes around him like he’s a boulder in a river. Then he puts out his arm, the leather from his jacket crinkling, and wraps it around Keith’s neck. “Here’s our guy,” he yells back into the varsity room. He wraps his arm around Keith’s shoulder. “You want to help out the team?” Only, he’s not asking. He’s telling.

  “You wait right here,” he says to me. When he turns and walks Keith into the varsity room, I catch the name stitched on the back of his jacket: Petrakis.

  A few minutes later, guys start coming out of the varsity room, one by one, carrying their helmets and wearing shorts and practice jerseys with just their shoulder pads. Petrakis is one of the last guys out the door and he slaps his hand down on my shoulder, telling me it was smart I stayed. He gives me the combination to his locker, which is where he’s left Keith, and says if anything gets messed with he’ll shove my head up Keith’s ass and tie us to the flagpole.

  The bell rings for the start of sixth period, but Keith doesn’t say anything until we’re outside walking. “If you get in trouble for being late,” he says without looking at me, “just say you went to the wrong classroom.”

  I’m nodding and smirking, and because Keith looks more mad than scared, I say, “What’s it like being ‘the guy’?”

  Keith, it turns out, is the guy small enough to fit into a varsity locker and still move around. Petrakis locked him in there and made him rub his shirt all over the back and sides to dust. “This is exactly what I’m talking about,” Keith says. “First impressions.”

  “Was it roomy in there?”

  He stops. “It’s not funny, Reece. Tomorrow, you might be ‘the guy.’”

  I hadn’t thought of that. “Maybe we shouldn’t wear anything nice.”

  Keith rolls his eyes, and his head follows them up to the sky. “That’s what I’m saying. If we’d been dressed cool, and not nice, this never would have happened.”

  .

  On Tuesday, I take notes on all the people Keith circled—what they wear, how they wear it, and if other people say anything about it. Gus drops a pen and a ruler on me, except he’s wearing a bowling shirt that says Gary. After PE, Petrakis grabs Keith again.

  Wednesday, Gus/Gary drops an orange on my head and says he can’t believe it rolled out like that. It’s so stupid and I wonder why he isn’t the one getting picked on with his weird name shirts and gray worker pants like my dad wears. I can’t believe I’m going to have to take it from this guy for a whole year just because he’s a senior and probably knows everybody and all I’ve got is Keith.

  After PE, Keith steps into the varsity room as soon as he sees Petrakis. Petrakis smiles and says, “You’re a team player, little dude. But you should know better than to come into the varsity room without being invited.” Then a bunch of guys drag Keith to the showers, tell him they’re sorry but this is bigger than all of them, and hold Keith still so they can wet him right on his crotch like he’s pissed himself. I’m so scared watching it’s like I’m Saint Peter, knowing it’s too late to save the guy and scared they’ll get me next: That guy? I’m not with that guy. I have no idea who he is. Never seen him before.

  Keith won’t even talk after that. He just heads to class, and who can blame him? I mean, if this is what they’re doing to us the first week, how are we supposed to still be alive by Halloween?

  On Thursday, a little English book crashes down on my knee. Not too bad. Keith waits at the varsity room door with sweatpants on under his PE shorts. Petrakis makes him dust another locker, but he puts Keith on the honor system and doesn’t lock him in. When Mrs. Wirth gives me detention for being late to World History, I tell her what’s been happening after PE. She says she can’t imagine Coach Scheffler would ever allow that in his locker room. “But it did happen,” I say, and she doubles my detention for smarting off.

  On the way to school Friday, Keith says if I stop being his friend now I can probably save myself. When I tell him we’re in this together he says, “Okay. Then we’re buying clothes tomorrow no matter what.”

  Almost everyone is wearing school colors. Even Mr. Krueger has on a maroon T-shirt with gold letters that reads Class of Bismuth. He’s grinning and looking pretty proud of it, but nobody gets it until he says that we have two people in here that are in the Class of Bismuth. “Is that eighty-three?” I say.

  “Well done, Mr. Houghton.” He takes two steps down the aisle of my row so he can look right at me. “What will your class be?”

  It’s eighty-six, but I know not to say, “Eighty-six.” I look up at the flourescent lights for a second like maybe it will come to me; then I shrug and say, “I should know, but I don’t.”

  “Radon,” Mr. Krueger says and points to the chart at the front of the room. “It’s quite dense,” he adds with this tiny grin.

  By lunch, we still haven’t seen van Doren, but it’s like he’s everywhere. We’ve heard he’s getting invited to run the Misfit Mile at indoor track meets in LA. Over the summer, his band Filibuster played a pool party that was so big they had an opening act. The pool had giant blocks of ice and so many cans of beer floating around that van Doren started the show off by walking across it without getting wet. The guy who threw the party, Ted Fischel, got kicked out of his house when his parents got home. Now everyone’s calling the party Ted One because when a party is that great, there has to be a sequel. And as long as van Doren’s around, Ted Two could happen at any time. Some people say van Doren’s getting scouted by record companies. Some say he’s getting scouted by UCLA. We look for his name on letterman jackets, listen for it in crowds, but we still haven’t found him.

  We have pretty good notes, though, and when Petrakis gives us Friday off for good behavior, I say it’s a good sign.

  “The only good sign,” Keith says, “is when the people who ma
tter are talking about us the way they talk about van Doren. That’s when we matter.”

  Native Customs

  This time last year my dad would always get home from work in time for dinner. Colleen would show him some Popsicle-stick doll she made in preschool and he’d act like he never knew someone could do such amazing things. Brendan would explain how even though it’s not his fault Chad Beckerman caught the football with his face, he’s sorry anyway. Dad would tell him to try and do better tomorrow, then ask me how the Yanks were looking for their next series in Boston or if those IRA guys were still on that hunger strike in Northern Ireland.

  That’s not how it is now. Friday night, hours after dinner, I’m on the bed in my room, filing baseball cards into shoe boxes—one for the American League, one for the National, and one that’s all Yankees.

  My dad knocks on my door and walks in, his work clothes still on. “Got anyone good there?”

  I shuffle through them and hold up a Willie Wilson card.

  “He’s not too bad.” My dad reaches out to grab it. His hand is scrubbed clean but it smells oily. There’s still dark stains around the edges of his nails and fingers, the way a cartoon hand is outlined.

  “Maybe I should hold it.”

  As he sits down in my desk chair, I flip the card around to show him the statistics side. Willie Wilson is a .300 hitter. He’s been leading the league almost the whole year. “Look,” I say, “he’s better than ‘not bad,’ even if he isn’t a Yankee.”

  “You’re right,” he says, only he doesn’t laugh or even look at the card. His eyes are down at his hands and they stay there for a few seconds. I’m studying the card like there’s going to be a Willie Wilson test or something; then my dad asks if I have time to grab the tweezers and a needle. Sometimes the lathe gives him these little metal splinters in his fingers and it stings pretty good. My mom can get them out, unless she’s running an errand or busy with Colleen. When she can’t do it, it’s up to me.