I brought a book to read. Firestarter. I tucked my hair behind my ear and read. I'd seen all the trailers for the movie coming out, and was very excited. Even prior to my Science Fiction Club sit-ins (or sit-outs, more accurately), I loved Stephen King. I read Carrie in sixth grade, and then I bought every other King book I could find. I'd already read Firestarter twice, but it was still one of my favorites. I was only on the very familiar third page when a gloved hand closed my book with a loud thud.

"Hello, fair Cousin Fallon," Bender greeted me. "Flipping through your little black book?"

I felt my face flush. What could I do? Fighting obviously wasn't the answer, since he could kill me if he wanted to.

"Leave me alone," I muttered.

"Leave me alone," he mimicked in a sissy voice. He was hovering over my shoulder, holding my book away from both of us and resting his other hand on the table. "So," he went on, "you're a triple slummer, ay?"

I shook my head.

"Come on," he went patronizingly. "You sleep around my neighborhood so often that eventually your family moves in, and now, here you are in my home away from home. Detention."

I felt my face flush. "Shut up," I said more firmly.

Bender ignored me as he continued with his tirade. "Gosh, Fallon, if you have the hots for me, you could just say so. There's no reason you shouldn't. I mean, I'm not interested, but if your sex pool is running dry, I can turn my head at a little incest. We have plenty of cousins who'd leap at the opportunity."

These words were so familiar to me, that I had to ask him. "Did you start that rumor," I hissed.

"What rumor," Bender asked innocuously.

"The rumor that we made out at the Seven Eleven," I snapped, rising from my chair.

"Ewww," I heard Claire murmur.

Bender raised his eyebrows. "...No."

"Oh, sure," I snapped. "Like I believe you!"

"Well, you should," Bender snapped. "As far as I can tell, the liars aren't on my aunt's side of the family. Hell, you probably inherited the lying gene from your dad and the whore gene from mommy dearest."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "You wouldn't know," I pointed out. "It's not like there was ever some family reunion."

"And whose fault is that?"

He had me there. My mother barely even told me we were related until we started school together. That was the only time we interacted pleasantly. And even that was more perfunctory than anything. When I started kindergarten, a six year old Bender took the time out of his busy schedule to show me where to line up for lunch and recess and where my class was. We never played together or even waved in the halls after that. I met Claire, Brenda, and Angela, he had his own friends; therefore, neither of us was particularly missed by the other. But in that case, my mother never encouraged me to get to know him like she did with other family members. In fact, it seemed like Mom didn't want anyone to acknowledge that she had once been poor. Even now, after we had become as poor as she had been before, it was still supposed to be a secret. I slunk back into my seat, defeated. Satisfied with how much he had shamed me, Bender moved on. He sat down next to Brian and started flicking a piece of paper around as Vernon walked in. We were briefly lectured, Bender picked a fight, etc. As far as I could tell, this wouldn't be profoundly different from an essay test, other than having an allotted eight hours instead of forty five minutes. As soon as Vernon left, Bender started posturing as usual, so I focused my attention on Brian. He was playing around with a pen and murmuring to himself. Then he shoved the pen between his lips, and suddenly said, loud enough for me to hear anyway, "I am a walrus..."

I snickered a little and he turned toward me. My face flushed and I looked back down at my book. I figured I would read it until after lunch, and then I would start my essay. I started to try to read again but it was hard to do with Bender screwing around and humming loud enough for everybody to hear. I sighed and tried to concentrate, but then he stood up and started unzipping his jeans.

"If you gotta go..." He said.

I shook my head to myself. There was no way he would do it. We had to have some kind of DNA in common, and I hope it might have shame. Maybe not in large doses, but certainly enough not to take a piss on the ground in a public library. Both Andy and Claire basically had a hissy, with Claire squealing in disgust and Andy threatening to murder Bender. Sure enough, they had set the scene for Bender's one-man play, and added a cast to it at that.

Bender suddenly turned to Brian, which caught my attention. After all, the walrus probably had plenty to add to this insanity. "Hey, homeboy," he said. "Why don't we lock the doors and impregnate the prom queen?"

My mouth dropped open in disgust. "That's disgusting," I said.

"Oh, don't play innocent, Fallon," Bender said. "You've been pregnant your fair share of times."

I glared at him, and surprisingly, so did Claire. "You're really pissing me off," Andy noted.

Soon enough, the attention was back on Andrew and Claire, as if I had never been involved. I looked at Allison, who seemed pretty removed from it all. She was tearing off her nails one by one, using her own hands. That was pretty disgusting; maybe the stuff people said about her was true. I tuned out the conversation until Andy said something of note. "....You may as well not even exist at this school."

He had said it to Bender, but it could have applied to me. While I was used as a topic of conversation, I was otherwise a nonentity. No one sat with me at lunch. No one ever called. Over the past three years, my days have consisted of go to school, come home, do homework, watch TV, read, eat, and sleep. The change in routine on the weekends involved solo trips to the movies and shops downtown. I only had five signatures in my yearbook from last year, and they all said "Have a nice summer!" Oh, and one guy wrote, "Call me for a good time. Heard you'd do anything. 555-2812."

I looked over at Andy. "That means me, too, right," I asked.

Andy blinked, confused. "Come on, Andy," I said. "What use am I to anyone other than being able to say you lost your virginity?"

"Maybe if you didn't whore yourself out indiscriminately, you wouldn't have this problem," Bender put in.

I turned and glared at him. "Stay out of this," I said, pointing a finger at him. "'You don't know me. No one here does. So why don't you all take what you think you know about me, and shove it up your asses."

"Oh, come on," Bender said. "Andy knows you. In the biblical sense."

Before I could even think about it, I slapped Bender across the face so hard, he physically recoiled at my touch.

Claire actually looked up at me then. "God," she gasped. "You're one of them."

"One of what," I asked.

"A burnout," she said, with authority. "You have sex with all the guys, you'll pick fights on a whim, and now you're poor. And you know why people like you and Bender don't join clubs and act out? Because you're afraid."

Bender snorted. "Of course," he said. "It's not like it's because you activities people are assholes, right?"

In a way, I guess I could have sided with Bender. I wasn't in any clubs, activities, or sports teams. But unlike Bender, I had wanted to be, at one time.

1981

Cheerleader tryout sign-ups

I grabbed the pen, and shakily began to write my name. Fall-. I was swiftly cut off by Caroline Mulford, a junior, who snatched my pen away. "Not going to happen, Fallon," she hissed. "We don't want Fallon Whore-is on our squad." She crossed off my name and glared at me. "Move along. Skank." I rushed away, once again humiliated.

Even though cheerleading wasn't my end all, be all, it did set a precedent in my mind. I pictured every club president or captain rejecting me before I even opened my mouth. I didn't try signing up for anything else.

Brian spoke up suddenly. "I'm in the math club. And Latin. And Physics Club."

"And Science Fiction," I added. "You're in the Sci Fi club too, right, Brian?"

He nodded, looking sort of surprised. "That's different," Claire said. "Those are academic clubs. They aren't the same as other clubs."

"To you, maybe," Bender said. "But to dorks like him, they're the same."

He turned around to face Brian. "What do you do in the Physics Club?"

"We, uh, talk about the properties of physics...and physics," he stammered.

"So it's sort of social," Bender put in. "Demented and sad, but social, right?"

"Well, I guess it's a social situation," Brian said, looking down at the table in front of him. "I mean, there are, uh, other children in my club, and we have this, uh, you know, big banquet at the Hilton....and stuff."

"You load up, you party," Bender interrupted.

"No, uh, I mean we get dressed up, but we don't get high or anything," Brian said.

"Duh," I added with an eye roll. "It's a school-sanctioned event, not a parking lot tailgate party before the big drag race."

"Wow," Bender asked. "Isn't that mocking your own roots?"

I flipped him off and he responded in kind before I finally turned around to avoid getting in a staring contest, making eye contact with Allison in the process. She was peering up from under her coat's hood at me.

"Hi," I mouthed at her.

She smiled wryly. "Hello, Fallon the Slut," she said, barely above a whisper. "I'm Allison the Basket Case."

I smiled back. "Allison the Basket Case, huh," I said, almost appreciative. It was sort of like the reasoning behind why gay guys call each other "faggots" and some black guys call each other "n-word." She was using the terms against themselves.

"So," she asked. "What's with you and Bender the Criminal? I mean, I heard you two were related, but I don't remember how."

"Cousins," I told her. "And now, next door neighbors."

She raised her eyebrows. "Wow. That's a doozy."

I nodded. "I barely thought about him before and now I see him every day."

"I see my cousins everyday," Allison said. "Then again, they're younger than me, so I have to babysit. I leave school at four, and then I pick up Buzz and Megan from the grade school, and Kevin from daycare. Some days, I get a break, but we usually eat dinner with the older kids and our parents, while someone else sits for Kevin."

"Kevin McCallister? Three years old?"

Allison nodded.

"I'm the regular sitter. I'm surprised we haven't seen each other."

She shrugged. "My parents and I usually get home before them."

"He's a cute kid, huh," I said. "He makes me these little drawings and stuff all the time."

"Yeah," Allison said, "kids are great. They don't have any problems. I mean, right now, the worst thing that could happen to Kevin is losing his blankie. And Megan and Buzz only have to worry about how many valentines to buy, or who gets the last cookie."

"Junior high wasn't that bad, either," I reminisced.

"Yeah, other than bra snapping and stink bombs, things were pretty harmonious," Allison noted.

I furrowed my brow. "Why haven't we talked before," I asked.

Allison shrugged. "We travel in different crowds. I sit alone in the cafeteria, and you hide in here."

I felt myself blush. "How'd you know that?"

Allison shrugged again. "Lucky guess."

"No, really," I pushed. "Have you seen me?"

Allison shook her head. "You isolate yourself in defense. A logical tactic. Not my chosen path, but a fair one nonetheless."

I looked away briefly. I couldn't tell if she was calling me out for being a coward. I don't think she was, but I still felt it all the same. And that was when I began to question myself. Could I have been something if I wasn't so afraid to even try? It was a question that ate at me. It was the only question I could really ask myself about Shermer, though. Why had I been so easily defeated? Because I was a coward. A brainwashed coward.