//

"I can't believe you, you're so weird. You don't say anything all day and then when you open your mouth, you unload all these tremendous lies all over me!" Claire snapped at Ally.

"You're just pissed off because she got you to admit something you didn't want to admit to," Andy told her.

"Okay, fine, but that doesn't make it any less bizarre."

"What's bizarre? I mean we're all pretty bizarre! Some of us are just better at hiding it, that's all."

I nod. "Andy's right. We all have some kind of bizarre in us."

"How are you guys bizarre?"

"He can't think for himself," Ally spoke up for Andy.

"She's right," Andy said. "Do you guys know what, uh, what I did to get in here? I taped Larry Lester's buns together."

My eyes widen as Claire laughs.

"What?" I ask.

"That was you?" Brian questioned.

"Yeah, you know him?"

"Yeah, I know him."

"Well, then you know how hairy he is, right? Well, when they pulled the tape off, most of his hair came off and some, some skin too."

"Oh my God," Claire said.

"And the bizarre thing is, is that I did it for my old man. I tortured this poor kid because I wanted him to think that I was cool. He's always going off about, you know, when he was in school, all the wild things he used to do. And I got the feeling that he was disappointed that I never cut loose on anyone, right...So, I'm...I'm sitting in the locker room, and I'm taping up my knee. And Larry's undressing a couple lockers down from me. Yeah, he's kinda-he's kinda skinny, weak. And I started thinking about my father, and his attitude about weakness. And the next thing I knew, I uh, I jumped on top of him and started wailing on him...And my friends, they just laughed and cheered me on. And afterwards, when I was sittin' in Vernon's office, all I could think about was Larry's father. And Larry havin' to go home and-and explain what happened to him. And the humiliation. Fucking humiliation he mustuv felt. It mustuv been unreal. I mean." Andy started to cry. "I mean, how do you apologize for something like that? There's no way. It's all because of me and my old man. Oh God, I fucking hate him! He's like this-he's like this mindless machine that I can't even relate to anymore. 'Andrew, you've got to be number one! I won't tolerate any losers in this family...Your intensity is for shit! Win. Win! WIN!!!' You son of a bitch! You know, sometimes, I wish my knee would give...and I wouldn't be able to wrestle anymore. And he could forget all about me."

"I think your old man and my old man should get together and go bowling," John spoke up. Getting Andy to laugh briefly.

"Oh, yeah. Definitely with my dad. They'd all get along perfectly," I say.

"How are you bizarre?" Claire asked again.

I lean back into John. "Well, let's see, uh..." I purse my lips. "I'm this over-protective sister who always tries to bring their baby sister, Nancy away from their psychotic parents."

"Nancy's your sister?" Andy asked.

"Yeah, she was the one Carl was talking about. Brian met her once when he came here to school. Anyways, I, did something really stupid yesterday to stay away from home and because I was mad." I look at Andy. "Truth be told, Andy was my boyfriend."

"I knew something was going on between you guys," Brain said.

"Yeah, I hated his guts up until now. We dated in secret. He dumped me on Thursday and I didn't really get an explanation only saying he had to which...I think now it goes back to Andy's bizarre thing which is his dad. When Friday came, I had brought 3 cans of spray paint and a baseball bat. I-I trashed Andy's car. Everyone pretty much knew it was me since I put my signature M on it. When I got detention, my mom said 'Your father will deal with you, you little brat!' I ran off with Nancy to a friend's house and hung there until My mom's husband caught me there and dragged me back home." I took a deep breath, running my hand through my hair. "Before we left, I made sure Nancy was with a friend. Andy was my rough patch, so I guess you can you say I have daddy issues. My mom is never around, but she expects so much from me. Like to keep my grades up and stick around after high school, but hell no. I'm leaving that hellhole once I'm done with school. Getting custody of Nancy and we're leaving."

Once I finish, everyone said nothing. I honestly forgot they were here.

"It's like me, you know, with my grades, like, when I, when I step outside myself kinda, and when I, when I look in at myself you know? And I see me and I don't like what I see, I really don't," Brain spoke up.

"What's wrong with you? Why don't you like yourself?" Claire asked.

"'Cause I'm stupid, 'cause I'm failing shop. See we had this assignment, to make this ceramic elephant, and um...and we had eight weeks to do it and we're s'posed ta, and it was like a lamp, and when you pull the trunk the light was s'posed to go on my light didn't go on, I got an F on it. Never got an F in my life. When I signed up, you know, for the course I mean. I thought I was playing it real smart, you know. 'Cause I thought, I'll take shop, it'll be such an easy way to maintain my grade point average."

"Why'd you think it'd be easy?" John questioned.

"Have you seen some of the dopes that take shop?"

"I take shop. You must be a fucking idiot."

"I'm a fuckin' idiot because I can't make a lamp?"

"No, you're a genius because you can't make a lamp."

"What do you know about Trigonometry?

"I could care less about Trigonometry."

"Bender, did you know without Trigonometry there'd be no engineering?"

"Without lamps, there'd be no light!"

"Okay so neither one of you is any better than the other one," Claire commented.

"I can write with my toes!" Ally piped in. "I can also eat, brush my teeth..."

"With your feet?"

"...play Heart & Soul on the piano."

"I can make spaghetti," Brian said.

"What can you do?"

"I can, uh, tape all your buns together," Andy answered.

"I can spray paint the hell out of a building. If you go to any parks nearby, you'll see my handy work," I say.

"I have," John said before turning to Claire. "I wanna see what Claire can do!"

"I can't do anything," she tried.

That's a lie, I know what she can do.

"Now, everybody can do something."

"There's one thing I can do, no forget it, it's way too embarrassing."

"You ever seen Wild Kingdom? I mean that guy's been doing that show for thirty years."

"Yeah, c'mon, Claire. It's been so long since I've seen you do the trick. I wanna see it again," I beg.

"Okay, but you have to swear to God you won't laugh," Claire gave in. "I can't believe I'm actually doing this."

Claire takes her lipstick out and opens it. She places it between her breasts and applies it from her cleavage. When she lifts her head, her lipstick is perfect.

I cheer as everyone claps, but John's clap was sarcastic and slow.

"All right, great! Where'd you learn to do that?" Andy asked.

"Camp, seventh grade," Claire and I say. I learned how to draw and she learned how to put on make-up.

"That was great, Claire. My image of you is totally blown," John said.

"You're a shit!" Ally snapped. "Don't do that to her. You swore to God you wouldn't laugh!"

"Am I laughing?"

"You fucking prick!" Andy yelled.

John turned to Andy. "What do you care what I think, anyway? I don't even count, right? I could disappear forever and it wouldn't make any difference. I may as well not even exist at this school, remember?"

He turned back to Claire. "And you, don't like me anyway!"

"You know, I have just as many feelings as you do and it hurts just as much when somebody steps all over them!" Claire whimpered.

"God, you're so pathetic! Don't you ever, ever compare yourself to me! Okay? You got everything, and I got shit! Fuckin' Rapunzel, right? The school would probably fucking shut down if you didn't show up! 'Queenie isn't here!' I like those earrings, Claire."

"Shut up," Claire whispered.

"Are those real diamonds, Claire?"

"Shut up!"

"I bet they are. Did you work, for the money for those earrings?"

"Shut...Your mouth!"

"Or did your daddy buy those?"

"Shut up!" Claire started tearing up.

"I bet he bought those for you! I bet those are a Christmas gift! Right? You know what I got for Christmas this year? It was a banner fuckin' year at the old Bender family! I got a carton of cigarettes. The old man grabbed me and said 'Hey! Smoke up Johnny!' Okay, so go home'n cry to your daddy, don't cry here, okay?"

Silence filled the air.

"My God, are we gonna be like our parents?" Andy asked.

"Not me...ever..." Claire said.

"Fuck no," I say.

"It's unavoidable, it just happens," Ally said.

"What happens?" Claire asked.

"When you grow up, your heart dies."

"Who cares?" John questioned.

Ally was on the verge of tears. "I care," she whispered.

"Um, I was just thinking, I mean. I know it's kind of a weird time, but I was just wondering, um, what is gonna happen to us on Monday? When we're all together again? I mean I consider you guys my friends, I'm not wrong, am I?" Brian asked us.

"No," Andy and I answered.

"So, so on Monday, what happens?"

"Are we still friends, you mean? If we're friends now, that is?" Claire made sure.

"Yeah."

"Do you want the truth?"

"Yeah, I want the truth."

"I don't think so."

I roll my eyes. God, now I can't stand Claire now.

"Well, do you mean all of us or just John?" Ally asked.

"With all of you."

"That's a real nice attitude, Claire," Andy scoffed.

"Oh, be honest, Andy. If Brian came walking up to you in the hall on Monday, what would you do? I mean picture this, you're there with all the sports. I know exactly what you'd do, you'd say hi to him and when he left you'd cut him all up so your friends wouldn't think you really liked him!"

"No way!" Andy defended.

"'Kay, what if I came up to you?" Ally asked.

"Same exact thing."

I couldn't hold it back anymore.

"You are such a bitch!" I scream.

Claire turned to me. "Why? 'Cause I'm telling the truth, that makes me a bitch?"

"No! 'Cause you know how shitty that is to do to someone! And you don't have the balls to stand up to your friends and tell 'em that you want to friends with who you want to be friends with!" I yell.

"Okay, what about you, you hypocrite!" Claire snapped. "Why don't you take Allison to the park for one of your graffiti drawings? Or take Brian out to the parking lot at lunch to prank people? What about Andy for that matter, what about me? What would your friends say if we were walking down the hall together? They'd laugh their asses off and you'd probably tell them you were just being my 'friend' to mess with my head not being your friend since middle school."

I point at her. "Don't you ever talk about my friends! Okay?! You don't know any of my friends, you don't look at any of my friends and you certainly wouldn't want to speak to any of my friends so you just stick to the things you actually know, shopping, nail polish, make-up, your father's BMW and your rich, drunk mom in the Carribean!"

"Shut up!" Claire yelled, kicking my leg, but I ignore her.

"And as far as caring about what's gonna happen when you and I walk down the hallways at school, you can forget that! 'Cause it's never gonna happen! It hasn't happened since 8th grade! So, you might as well just bury your head in the sand and wait for your dumbass prom!"

"I hate you!" Claire sobbed.

"You do? Good! Because you acted like you didn't know me all through Hugh school until now!"

"I'm sorry!"

There was silence until Brian speaks up, "Then I assume Allison and I are better people than you guys, huh? Us weirdos." He turned to her. "Do you, would you do that to me?"

"I don't have any friends," Ally told him.

"Well if you did?"

"No. I don't think the kind of friends I'd have would mind."

"I just wanna tell, each of you, that I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't and I will not! 'Cause I think that's real shitty."

"Your friends wouldn't mind because they look up to us," Claire spoke up.

Brian chuckled at her. "You're so conceited, Claire. You're so conceited. You're so, like, full of yourself, why are you like that?"

"I'm not saying that to be conceited! I hate it! I hate having to go along with everything my friends say!"

"Well, then why do you do it?"

"I don't know, I don't-you don't understand-you don't. You're not friends with the same kind of people that Andy and I are friends with! You know, you just don't understand the pressure that they can put on you!"

Brian looked shocked. "I don't understand what? You think I don't understand pressure, Claire? Well, fuck you! Fuck you!" Brian hides his head in his arm because he is crying and I lean over to pat his leg for comfort. "Know why I'm here today? Do you? I'm here because Mr. Ryan found a gun in the locker."

"Why'd you have a gun in your locker?" Andy asked, concerned.

"I tried. You pull the fuckin' trunk on it and the light's s'posed to go on, and it didn't go on, I mean, I-"

"What's the gun for Brian?" I ask.

"Just forget it," he said.

"You brought it up, man!" Andy said.

"I can't have an F, I can't have it and I know my parents can't have it! Even if I aced the rest of the semester, I'm still only a B. And everything's ruined for me!"

"Oh, Brian..." Claire said with pity.

Brian hits a chair. "So I considered my options, you know?"

"No! Killing yourself is not an option!"

"Well I didn't do it, did I? No, I don't think so!"

"It was a handgun?" Ally asked.

"No, it was a flare gun, went off in my locker."

"Really?" Andy asked as we started laughing.

"It's not funny," Brian tried. I tried clearing my throat and biting my lip to contain my laughter, only to snicker and burst out laughing. The rest all start to laugh, including Brian. "Yes, it is. Fuckin' elephant was destroyed!"

"You wanna know what I did to get in here?" Ally asked. "Nothing. I didn't have anything better to do."

We all started laughing again and I was practically wheezing for air.

"You're laughing at me," Ally stated.

"No!" Andy said.

Ally started to laugh too. "Yeah, you are!"

I was laughing so hard, tears were coming out of my eyes and I fell back into John's side.