Brass Knoxton K-9 School

Ravi wakes up from the quick nap she slipped into on the bus. As she looks out at the schoolyard, she thinks back to her first day. Everyone was less than ecstatic to meet her, she recalls. A very tight-knit group, both students and teachers alike, all having been at this school for years if not their whole educated lives. As she leaves the bus, someone spits on her shoe. She looks down at Kroeger, her younger cousin, now in Grade Seven. Despite Ravi's Grade Nine status, Kroeger is unafraid.

Kroeger
You're not a girl.

Ravi
Then I'm a boy, I'm guessing?

Kroeger
No, you're just a freak.

Ravi
I heard that dog fart story from Krainer, my friends laughed at it yesterday.

Kroeger
You got your friends to laugh about me?

Ravi
No, they were laughing at Perry, I think. And about Bark-

Kroeger
He's still mad. Perry, I mean. Now that he's staying with his parents, he was supposed to calm down. But he comes over and yells at me for nothing, and they make me clean the whole stupid house. Alone.

Ravi
I thought he got an apartment.

Kroeger
No, he changed his mind when he saw how much rent was.

Ravi
You're telling me. If it wasn't for that inflation reset-

Kroeger
(Spitting.) I'm not being your buddy right now. It's your fault I have to look after a massive house all by myself!

Ravi
(Disgusted.) Yeah, but with six bedrooms, half of them being in the basement suite with its own kitchen, you can at least have fun once it's all clean. If you can keep it that way.

Kroeger
It takes hours. Then I have to mow the giant lawn. And pick up dog shit. And all my friends are in Starleaf. If you and your idiot mom weren't too good to live with us, even though it's costing you money you barely have, we could share chores. Then I'd have time to do my homework or relax for once. I bet if I told mom on you, she'd make you come over and do it for me. We didn't even know you HAD a different mom until two years ago... you should still be with us.

A draft carries Kroeger's piercing stink downwind, and Ravi winces with disgust. It's like body odor and sharp cheddar, but with the smell of rotted dry grass from a field, like a sickly gopher. Not only is he a disgusting, baby-fatted boy with a head and beard shaved like hastily cut brush on a discarded doll, but when he isn't whining about how much he "does" all day (aside from cranking to hentai and eating junk food), he's being an utterly shameless snitch. The amorphous bastard really thinks he's being cute, or helpful, or maybe just powerful for but a single moment that day. Ravi wonders if Kroeger is jealous of her for having a figure that can be described as an actual shape, but in her defense, she was never the vain type – she just doesn't like junk food anymore. Besides, there's more to a person than how they look – like how they smell.

Ravi
(Ticked off.) Yeah, well, I don't have the same dad, either. So what the fuck would be the point of that? And it's not my fault your parents decided to buy a mansion. Maybe you guys should sell and move, since you have three times as many rooms as you actually need.

Kroeger
They only bought it so you, Krainer, and Bratwurst would have a place to sleep. And maybe your sexy hobo of a mother, if she ever got her act together. They're not as evil as you tell everyone they are. I can't believe you can live with us for a decade and then just treat us like we're disposable the second you leave. Don't you even care? At all?

Ravi starts to fume with anger, and wafts the stink of Kroeger away from her face.

Ravi
(Upset.) You mean after you and Krainer spent those ten years beating me up, and then running to your mom the second I hit you back? So I'd catch all the shit? Or the way everyone was always yelling, and breaking stuff; how Perry would always make mean jokes about us to our face and Polina would just say and say "That's Perry!"

Kroeger
(Grinning.) Yeah, I mean-

Ravi
(Angry.) Or how about when he started throwing my vegan substitutes in the trash without asking me because they were "rotten"? Because you guys were afraid I might start to make you look bad? I couldn't wait to leave, and that was BEFORE I knew we weren't siblings. And I thank fucking God every damn day for that.

Kroeger flips his hood up and turns away.

Kroeger
(Prideful.) We all went through the same shit, but you're the one who had to cut us out with a knife. It's not what you go through, it's what you do about it.

Ravi
(Glaring.) You ARE what I went through.

Kroeger
Anyway, at least I have parents. All you have is an unemployed older clone of yourself that can't tell fantasy from reality. Some role model for you, huh? No wonder you're turning into such a jerk.

Sometimes it's the ones you grow up with who know best your weaknesses.

Noon...

After a brutal first and second class, it's lunch-time. Ravi heads to the designated area for eight and ninth-graders to eat: the floor of the gymnasium. All around her, along the perimeter of the room, kids are eating melon slices of orange, green, and yellow; trading slices of meat from their sandwiches; and accidentally crushing a pudding cup all over themselves in fantastic golden splatter. The pudding kid cries, and tries to get the sticky rice goop off his shirt with a napkin he must have brought from home – cause the only thing here for amenities is a garbage can in the center of the room. A larger woman, Miss Parfait, drags a kid in by the arm.

Miss Parfait
You know you're not allowed out of this room until lunch recess.

Kid
But I was on school grounds!

Miss Parfait
Yeah, THIS time.

Kid
This is so stupid.

Miss Parfait
It's the Principal's rules, there's nothing I can do about it.

The kid is let go, shakes his arm (Miss P. had a strong grip), and takes his place along the wall. Ravi can sympathize with his dejected expression, she doesn't really like eating here either. Miss Parfait catches her standing idly, and approaches.

Miss Parfait
What are you doing just standing there? You HAVE to sit down.

Ravi looks down at the dirty floor, covered in dust.

Ravi
For how long?

Miss Parfait
Half an hour. Then it's outside for another half hour, then back inside.

Ravi
At my old school, we could go wherever we wanted for the whole hour, even to convenience stores in the neighborhood.

Miss Parfait
Is that so?

Ravi
Yeah. We'd eat for a few minutes and then run out and play hide and seek in the woods out back. And we had tables.

Miss Parfait
Great! Go sit down, and let me know when you figure out where you are.

Miss Parfait walks back to her station, and Ravi stares ahead, dumbfounded. She takes an empty spot on the wall and slides down by her back until she's sitting. Eating with her stomach crunched, her back on stone and her ass on hardwood, it hurts.

She notices that Garland, Thor, and Aurion aren't there. Amira sits with Yuna across the room. On either side of Ravi is what she recognizes as a sad loser, identified by their trademark inability to meet eye-contact and lack of presence. There are no other qualifiers, she thought to herself. She'd been a loser all her life for those exact reasons, no matter how many friends she gained. And lost.

On her left, a chubby First Nations boy with glasses and a ponytail, wearing a grey hoodie and joggers. On her right, the tallest ninth grader she's ever seen. Dark skin, Jamaican features, curly black hair, thick glasses, and no muscles whatsoever. Both of them are nerdy enough to give Kroeger a run for his money. Neither one looks like they run much.

Resigned to her situation, she picks the curry rice out of her lunch-kit and starts eating. But the nerds don't, not really. They're just casually snacking on a bag of trail mix, passing it back and forth in front of Ravi's face.

Ravi
What are you doing?

The boys shush Ravi, and keep passing the bag, eating only a peanut or a dried berry at a time. The scrawny one speaks.

Lawke
I'm Lawke, he's Murphy. We're Aurion's bros.

Murphy
He said he knew you'd sit at the most obvious, quiet-looking gap. So he told us to make one.

Ravi
You don't look related.

Lawke and Murphy share an incredulous look.

Murphy
That's racist.

Ravi shuts her mouth. Then, the boys laugh.

Murphy
We're 'bros', not brothers. We stick together, no matter what.

Lawke
And we pretend to eat now so we can do it later in a secret place.

Murphy
So put away your rice, stop talking, and help us with this trail mix.

She looks down at the transparent plastic zipper-bag, clouded by oil and salt.

Ravi
The bag's empty-

Lawke and Murphy each pull out a new bag of trail mix.

Ravi
I'm allergic to peanuts-

They pull out another: all pumpkin seeds, gently salted. Dried cranberries and dehydrated banana shards.

Ravi
(Impressed.) Whoah.