Knockout Games (4 page)

A pair of hands suddenly reached down and grabbed us both by the shoulder and pulled us up like we were dolls. Both hands belonged to Mr. Jamison.

Shit.

“You were warned,” he said.

5

Destiny sat there glaring at me. I kept my eyes on Mr. Jamison, who was checking out my camera. “Erica, didn't we just talk about filming at school?” Destiny made a little satisfied sound.

“I . . .” I didn't want to see my camera taken away. “My dad gave that to me after we moved away. Then
she
took it from me.” I didn't go into details, but I gave him a look that said it was my last memory of home.

He saw the inscription on the bottom and I saw a flicker of recognition in his eyes. Maybe he was a dad too. He turned his attention to Destiny. “I believe I was quite clear with you the last time you were here. You are now at level six. You know what that means?”

My eyes glanced up at the Matrix on the wall. LEVEL 6:
EXPULSION
.

Her face kind of dropped. I could see she hadn't thought it through. “But—”

Mr. Jamison was having none of it. “You had plenty of warnings. You had a copy of the discipline matrix. I had discussed it with you and your mother. What part of that wasn't clear?”

She was speechless. Her toughness vanished. I could see she didn't want to go.

“But—” she had no words.

“I'll be calling your mother to pick you up. You are to report to Grant Remedial after a six-day suspension. I'm going to have one of the secretaries clean out your locker and you'll wait here until you're picked up.”

Destiny looked helpless as she fought back her tears. She was all talk and bluff before. Now she just seemed lost.

“It was my fault, Mr. Jamison,” I found myself saying. I don't know why. I should have been happy to see her crash and burn, but there was something about her . . .

“
What?
” asked Jamison. He smelled a rat and turned to Destiny. “Is that true?”

Destiny looked at me and her eyes softened. “Yeah. What she said.”

Jamison leaned back in his chair, staring at us both at the same time, one eye on each of us. “Do tell.”

I swallowed. “Well, I guess I was filming her and—”

“No,” Jamison interrupted. “I want to
her
tell it.”

A fraction of a second of panic flashed in Destiny's eyes before I could see the actor in her take over. There's was a little shrug that said
sorry, this was your idea
before she launched into her story.

“Yeah . . . she was filming me and making all kinds of cracks about us, trying to get me all riled up on camera. She got in my face and I asked her to stop, but she wouldn't. I been trying to be nice to her with her being new and all, but she didn't want to be hanging with us none.”

Mr. Jamison seemed amused by this. “And why do you think that was?”

She glared at me for a split second. “Maybe ‘cause I'm black?” I rolled my eyes. “What?”

“She may of called me the N-word, I'm not sure—”

I jumped up. “That's a lie!”

Destiny kind of cowered. “See? She's trying to hit me again—”

“Alright, alright, that's enough! Sit down, Erica,” he said.

“But—”

His eye drilled into my head. “Sit.
Down
.”

I sat.

He shook his head. “I don't even want to deal with you two right now. I'm calling both of your mothers—”

“What?” I protested. “It wasn't my fault!”

He cocked his head. “I thought you said it
was
?”

I stared at Destiny and shot her a message:
You owe me
. “I guess,” I said.

“Detention, after school, for the next two days. The janitors are going to take a break. I hope you two like mopping.”

“Is that even . . . legal?” I asked.

He rose up; he'd had enough. “Maybe you'd like to call your
lawyer
.”

I backed off. “No, mopping sounds good.”

Jamison was going to hold on to my camera for three days. Me and Destiny sat on the benches in the hallway waiting for our moms to pick us up. Mine would be pissed being woken up halfway through her sleep. I was trying to think of what to say when I saw Destiny staring at me.

“Why you do that for me?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Felt sorry for you, I guess.”

She kind of laughed. “
You
? Felt sorry for
me
?”

Did I really have to say it? “You were about to cry—”

“I was not,” she said, defiantly.

I rolled my eyes. Maybe I should've let her take the fall and have one less person making fun of me. But she quickly changed her tune.

“Thanks,” she said quietly, surprising me for a second time.

I glanced up at her and her defiance was gone.

“I guess I owe you,” she said.

“You think?”

Now she smiled. “I will try not to take your camera anymore.”

“Wow. Thanks,” I said, trying not to be too sarcastic. Then I thought some more about the session we just came out of. “Really? The N-word?”

She shrugged. “I figured it'd get a rise out of you. That was the only way to make it real. Sorry.”

I didn't like being accused of being racist, but she was right. It had been my idea, and she sold it.

“Maybe we should take our act on the road,” I said. She kind of smirked, but that was it. We sat there in silence till our moms came to get us. When my mom saw me in my ripped shirt and then saw Destiny with her defenses up again, I think she felt more sorry for me than mad.

The next day after school, we were mopping. It sucked. A lot. Destiny seemed to know what she was doing, and she gave me a few tips like I should wring all the water out first then it wouldn't be so damn heavy. I asked her how she knew that and she said her mom did custodial work, and she helped out on weekends.

She showed me the best way to cover a long hallway, and we split up. Every time we passed each other, I gave her a look, expecting her to say something, but she never did.

The afternoon after the mop marathon, Destiny seemed kind of down in the dumps and still not saying much. We were vacuuming in the library where the computers were. Mr. Jamison was in his office and there hadn't been a librarian in this room for two years. Destiny was watching me moving furniture around.

“I don't like your name,” she said.

Did she want a fight? “What?”

She shrugged. “I mean, no offense, but Erica don't feel right for you.”

“Like Destiny's a real name.”

“Hey, mine fits my personality. Erica . . . don't match you,” she said, matter-of-factly. “You need a nickname.”

I warned her. “Don't even think about calling me Red.”

“Too obvious.” Something caught her eye behind me and she suddenly grinned. “Think I'm gonna call you
Fish
from now on.”

I turned around and saw a giant poster of
Nemo
staring out from a fish tank.

Gee, thanks.

“I been watching you ever since you came to Truman. All you do is sit there and look at people, filming them and what not. It's like that camera's your tank and you just watching everyone pass you by. And with that hair, you the same color as Nemo.
Fish
. Yeah, that's what you are.”

“Wow. That's . . . deep . . .” I looked behind her and saw Oprah in one of those READ posters. “. . . Oprah.”

She turned around and got the joke. “There's only one Oprah. And now, there's only one person called Fish.” She seemed pleased with herself.

It was not exactly a good name for a girl, but she was talking to me as if we were just hanging out together after school.

“Hey, you wanna see something?” I asked.

She looked at me kind of funny, wondering what I could possibly want to show her.

I took a DVD I burned out of my backpack and held it in my hands, unsure. “It's a little movie I made. From all the stuff I been shooting.”

She looked around. “Beats vacuuming, I guess.”

It was just a short video about how school was really just one big ant pile. I intercut all that footage I'd shot at Truman together with the ant stuff from earlier and even threw in Jamison's mug for effect, all to some Russian marching music I'd found online. I turned off all the treble, cranked the bass, and made it into something bizarre and underwater-like.

Then she said something I'll never forget: “Whoa.” And the look on her face told me she was kinda blown away by it. She thought it was strange and funny and . . . kinda beautiful.

She asked to see it a couple more times, then sat there staring at the blank screen.

“When you getting your camera back?” she asked.

“Tomorrow, I guess.”

She nodded like she had a plan. “Maybe I could show you something too.”

6

She didn't say anything more after that, only had a little grin on her face when I saw her in homeroom the next morning. I went to go talk to her before we sat down in our seats, but she turned back to her friends and I knew she had to pretend me and her were still enemies.

It kind of hurt, but I understood.

After school, I collected my camera and found Destiny waiting for me behind the cafeteria by the trash cans. I felt a little funny about what she might be showing me back there, but all she said was, “Follow me, Fish.”

So I did.

We walked through Tower Grove, heading toward Grand Avenue. She made me walk a few feet behind her just in case one of her friends saw us.

“Where we going?” I asked.

“You'll see,” she answered.

“Yeah, but—”

She stopped, squinting her eyes at me. “That thing, with you stepping on the ants, being all Godzilla and shit, I get it. It's like a, how you call it—a metaphor, right? You wanna be in control; that's what your video is about, yeah?”

I hadn't thought about it like that. “I guess so.”

“Well, then you'll fit right in.” She started walking again.

We had been walking for almost half an hour, through parks and streets, even cutting through some alleys. She was looking for somebody, but didn't say who. We came out into a drugstore parking lot, when she suddenly stopped like she'd just seen a rare bird or something.

She pointed. “There.”

I spotted a group of middle schoolers, still dressed in their school uniforms. Red shirts, tan pants, white shoes. “Tokers,” she said.

I didn't know what that meant, but she told me I should get my camera out. “You want me to record them?”

These boys looked big for their age—sweaty, husky thirteen-year-olds—full of energy and always pushing each other around like boys do. Most of them were black. But there were a couple of Hispanic wannabes too. They were all trying to act older, arguing and pointing at people from behind a blue Prius.

“Are they some kind of a gang?” I joked.

“
Please
, girl. Just do that thing you do with your camera. It'll be better than those ants of yours.”

She nudged me closer and I could hear them arguing:

“Him.”

“Who?”

“Dat guy over there. The white dude with the hat.”

“That old fool? I thought we didn't do old heads?”

I remember glancing at Destiny and then I whispered, “What are we doing?”

All she said was, “You'll see. Start filming.”

I shrugged. Recording a bunch of middle schoolers arguing? Yeah, it was kinda funny, I guess. But I expected more. I turned my camera on and zoomed in anyway.

“You're gonna make this look
good
, right?” she whispered back, like she didn't want to scare them off. “I mean, you should see the shit Prince tries to shoot with his dumb phone cam, all shaky and shit. Sometimes, he gets so caught up in it, he don't even see what he's shooting, and all you get is the street. You got one of them shaky cam things on there, the one that smoothes it all out if you have to run?”