CHAPTER 1
Park
XTC was no good for drowning out the morons
at the back of the bus.
Park pressed his headphones into his ears.
Tomorrow he was going to bring Skinny
Puppy or the Misfits. Or maybe he'd make a special bus tape with as much screaming and wailing
on it as possible.
He could get back to New Wave in November, after he got his driver's license. His parents
had already said Park could have his mom's Impala, and he'd been saving up for a new tape
deck. Once he started driving to school, he could
listen to whatever he wanted or nothing at all,
and he'd get to sleep in an extra twenty minutes.'That doesn't exist,' somebody shouted behind him.
'It so fucking does,' Steve shouted back.
'Drunken-monkey style, man, it's a real fucking
thing. You can kill somebody with it …'
'You're full of shit.'
'You're full of shit,' Steve said. 'Park! Hey,
Park.'
Park heard him, but didn't answer. Sometimes, if you ignored Steve for a minute, he
moved onto someone else. Knowing that was 80
percent of surviving with Steve as your neighbor.
The other 20 percent was just keeping your head
down …
Which Park had momentarily forgotten. A
ball of paper hit him in the back of the head.
'Those were my Human Growth and Development notes, dicklick,' Tina said.
'I'm sorry, baby,' Steve said. 'I'll teach you
all about human growth and development. What
do you need to know?'Teach her drunken-monkey style,' somebody said.
'PARK!' Steve shouted.
Park pulled down his headphones and turned
to the back of the bus. Steve was holding court in
the last seat. Even sitting, his head practically
touched the roof. Steve always looked like he
was surrounded by doll furniture. He'd looked
like a grown man since the seventh grade, and
that was before he grew a full beard. Slightly
before.
Sometimes Park wondered if Steve was with
Tina because she made him look even more like
a monster. Most of the girls from the Flats were
small, but Tina couldn't be five feet. Massive
hair, included.
Once, back in middle school, some guy had
tried to give Steve shit about how he better not
get Tina pregnant because if he did, his giant babies would kill her. 'They'll bust out of her stomach like in Aliens,' the guy said. Steve broke his
little finger on the guy's face.When Park's dad heard, he said, 'Somebody
needs to teach that Murphy kid how to make a
fist.' But Park hoped nobody would. The guy
Steve hit couldn't open his eyes for a week.
Park tossed Tina her balled-up homework.
She caught it.
'Park,' Steve said, 'tell Mikey about drunkenmonkey karate.'
'I don't know anything about it.' Park
shrugged.
'But it exists, right?'
'I guess I've heard of it.'
'There,' Steve said. He looked for something
to throw at Mikey, but couldn't find anything. He
pointed instead. 'I fucking told you.'
'What the fuck does Sheridan know about
kung fu?' Mikey said.
'Are you retarded?' Steve said. 'His mom's
Chinese.'
Mikey looked at Park carefully. Park smiled
and narrowed his eyes. 'Yeah, I guess I see it,Mikey said. 'I always thought you were
Mexican.'
'Shit, Mikey,' Steve said, 'you're such a
fucking racist.'
'She's not Chinese,' Tina said. 'She's
Korean.'
'Who is?' Steve asked.
'Park's mom.'
Park's mom had been cutting Tina's hair
since grade school. They both had the exact same
hairstyle, long spiral perms with tall, feathered
bangs.
'She's fucking hot is what she is,' Steve said,
cracking himself up. 'No offense, Park.'
Park managed another smile and slunk back
into his seat, putting his headphones back on and
cranking up the volume. He could still hear Steve
and Mikey, four seats behind him.
'But what's the fucking point?' Mikey asked.
'Dude, would you want to fight a drunk monkey? They're fucking huge. Like Every WhichWay But Loose, man. Imagine that bastard losing
his shit on you.'
Park noticed the new girl at about the same
time everybody else did. She was standing at the
front of the bus, next to the first available seat.
There was a kid sitting there by himself, a
freshman. He put his bag down on the seat beside
him, then looked the other way. All down the
aisle, anybody who was sitting alone moved to
the edge of their seat. Park heard Tina snicker;
she lived for this stuff.
The new girl took a deep breath and stepped
farther down the aisle. Nobody would look at her.
Park tried not to, but it was kind of a train wreck/
eclipse situation.
The girl just looked like exactly the sort of
person this would happen to.
Not just new – but big and awkward. With
crazy hair, bright red on top of curly. And she
was dressed like … like she wanted people to
look at her. Or maybe like she didn't get what a
mess she was. She had on a plaid shirt, a man'sshirt, with half a dozen weird necklaces hanging
around her neck and scarves wrapped around her
wrists. She reminded Park of a scarecrow or one
of the trouble dolls his mom kept on her dresser.
Like something that wouldn't survive in the wild.
The bus stopped again, and a bunch more
kids got on. They pushed past the girl, knocking
into her, and dropped into their own seats.
That was the thing – everybody on the bus
already had a seat. They'd all claimed one on the
first day of school. People like Park who were
lucky enough to have a whole seat to themselves
weren't going to give that up now. Especially not
for someone like this.
Park looked back up at the girl. She was just
standing there.
'Hey, you,' the bus driver yelled, 'sit down.'
The girl started moving toward the back of
the bus. Right into the belly of the beast. God,
Park thought, stop. Turn around. He could feel
Steve and Mikey licking their chops as she got
closer. He tried again to look away.