I spent the next week at home. I saw a doctor for cramps, and though he couldn't find an exact reason, he figured I'd gotten nauseous from shellfish. I told him I was, among other things including Christian, Jewish. I believed in Christ, and in skipping the oyster platter. Either way, I got a note which said I belonged in bed. I was clammy, anxious, and I needed to go for a run. An awful mix of lethargy and energy. Oh, and I missed Lana, terribly. My mind drifted to her more often than it came back. Then, it went places that made me thankful I was home alone. In a state of desperation, I wound up drawing some 'scenes' between her and I, crudely cartooned, that I had to dispose of when I was done. Then I drew them again, with slightly better anatomy. I decided to hide my sketches in a spare binder, and put it in a box in my closet. Nobody went through my things; they'd learned soon enough I was a budding teen, with a need for privacy. Given my somewhat gothic tastes, they didn't wanna see any of my secrets, anyway. It felt like I was braving new emotional territory, and learning what more I could be, if I wanted. What the two of us could be, maybe, together. But it also felt sweaty, smelly, and kind of raw. That, and I'd be embarrassed as hell for anyone to quote me on that.
Imagine your dad knocking on your door, and asking you, "Are you braving emotional territory in there, son?"
You wouldn't be able to answer. You'd be dead silent. I couldn't wait for the whole ordeal to be over.

When it was, I went back to school. My guts had cooled off again, and calmed the heck down in there. My fever passed, and I felt once more like I had my mind back to myself. A good thing, because school was, as usual, a stodgy environment full of jerks and geezers. Two things had changed: one, old Sabbath Steinburg from primary school had become the new junior high science teacher. Y'know, the old guy with the white frizzy mane and mustache, who was always repeating the phrase, 'If you take a look and see'. Two, Tank and Lana were going out. At least, that was how Tank saw it.
Privately, she found me, and apologized. "Look, I'm just waiting for my dad to screw his head back on. Give me a week. I swear, I don't even like the big lug."
"Move it, woman," Tank interrupted. He marched over, and pushed her a step to the side. Then he leaned over, and gave her a kiss on the cheek. I was just as disgusted as I was confused.
She flinched. "Stop."
He sneered at her, then at me. "Is this ladyboy bothering you?"
I sneered back. "You want me to ask him?"
It took him a second. "HEY! You can't talk to me like that. I'm her BOYFRIEND now, and her DAD told me to make sure YOU stay the hell away from her!"
Lana turned red. "I never said that I... you can't just..."
I got angry. "Why would her dad set her up with YOU? Your head might be twice as big as mine, but your brain is twice as small."
He shrugged, with a facetious grin. "Guess he just likes me better – I'm more of a man."
"So prove it," I shot back. "I kicked your little friend's ass, I can kick yours."
Tank spat air at me. It smelled like rotting fish, from a trash can. "Anyone can kick that football, he's a squirt. But like you said, I'm twice as big as you."
"Right, I replied, "and you'll fall twice... as..."
He stood over me, and let the shadows of his snarling face darken mine, frozen.
"...hard," I choked. I was afraid of him, for more than one reason: he was big; he was imposing; he was endorsed by Lana's dad; and one more thing that had never before occurred to me. He could do to me the same things he could do to her, if he had only the mind for it. I'd just turned fourteen, but he was six feet tall and massive. Combed sandy hair straight back, blue eyes. Thick skull. Shoulders as wide as a doorway. He looked like he should be coaching sports. Or getting caught rigging them. Lana's dad didn't choose him for his brains, he was drafting him for quarterback of the rest of his daughter's life. From the outside alone, he was a top pick.
He hurred, "What the fuck are you looking at, ya queer?"
A wave of uncertainty washed over me. Before I could so much as self-assess what the hell was going through my head, he snapped. Grabbed me right up by the zipper of my grey hoodie, and slammed me into the wall. In street rumbles, this was when a crowd would form, to cheer on the fight. An authority figure would step in, to break it up. But neither crowd nor interceptor arrived. Tank punched for my face, and I blocked the first three. I didn't block the next two, nor the one to my stomach. I slid to sit on the floor as he let me go, the back of my head raging with fire and surging with pain. It was cement brick, painted rubbery white. I half-expected my skull to be cracked. My body was still in shock from the weight of ache in my abdomen, too. I saw blood, dripping down onto my pants from my chin, as my head hung over my lap. Tank spat on my shoes, and walked away without another word. That's what pissed me off the most, I think. There was nothing to quip back at. Lana looked at me, and I looked at her. Then she walked away, and started to cry. I might've done the same myself, but my bloody nose was all the liquid I could stand to lose.

I knew better than to see Mr. Fly. He'd just lecture me for picking fights, and commend Tank for his 'fisticuffs', or something. So I tissued my red leak in the bathroom, and slinked off to science class. Tank passed me by one more time, and called me a 'pussy'. I flipped him the bird, but all he did was laugh.
In class, Mr. Steinburg was giving a speech about 'Bernoulli's principle', which I'd already taken to heart in the fifth grade. I hated to say it, but the old man bored me. I was still too angry from my defeat at Tank's hands, and the knowledge that however absurd, he was Lana's boyfriend now. Even if I was the one she wanted. For all his strength, I was just as helpless as she was. At least he hadn't laid a finger on her... yet. It burned me up even more to think about what he could do, with no-one else around. Until one day, they'd be married, with kids. Or he'd be in prison, for killing her. My mind looked fast for trajectories, and this one was spinning wildly out of control. I put my head down into my arms, on my desk. To try and steam off some rage, in peace and quiet.
Ol' Sab didn't like that, and he snapped his fingers at me. "HEY," he yelped sharp, "no sleeping in my class."
"I'm not-" I grunted, then let out a sigh of frustration. "Whatever."
He walked closer. "What is that – is that a BRUISED EYE? Already, the blood is starting to pool. Are you getting into FIGHTS, kid? Don'tcha know better than that? This is a place of LEARNING-"
"I KNOW," I shouted, "ALRIGHT? It wasn't my fault, so just get off my fu-" I stopped myself.
"Your WHAT?" he taunted.
I gritted my teeth. "Just... fuaaaaugh. FRICK. Freaking... please. I need a bit of space, arright? I just lost a fight I shouldn't have picked, and I feel pretty stupid about the whole thing."
"HE WANTS SPACE!!" Sab laughed. "Well, you've got as much of it as you want, don't you? Lightyears of it, in all directions. All you need is a VESSEL, yes? A means of TRANSPORT?"
I looked around the room – I was being made an example of. Next to me by a desk or two was my buddy, Russ. Grinning.
"(Not a word)," I whispered.
He cracked right up.
Sab pointed around the room. "Now, show of hands. How many of your parents own a car? Who here has a family that DRIVES?"
Some hands went up. A lot of kids took the bus.
"Good! That brings us to today's lesson: the laws of thermodynamics, and the laws of conservation. First: what is conservation?"
A boy answered, "The conservative government. They raised tariffs against the British, to make and conserve more money."
Sab stood still. "Uh-huh. Your parents tell you that? I suppose, in Alberta, that sounds reasonable. But where did that money GO, really? Anyone?"
No answers.
Then, a meek one. "Roads?"
"HAHAHA!!" he laughed, boastfully. "ROADS, he says! As IF! How many of you still have gravel roads in front of your HOUSE?"
A lot of hands went up.
"Indeed," he nodded. "That money was most likely wasted, on something frivolous. Blackjack and hookers. The conservatives of today don't 'conserve' a damn thing, not like they used to. They don't even conserve the land, except for themselves. Buying up all our foreclosures, and forcing us to rent from them through paint-board holdings. Companies that belong to the very politicians meant to be regulating the industry. They promise us housing, and lower prices, so we vote for them. Then they give us crummy apartments, full of bedbugs. And unemployment, and jacked rates. That's why they were voted out, four years ago. Well, at least, it should have been."
I wasn't sure how much of what he was saying was... accurate. But he was passionate, and that made us want to listen.
"But think – that makes the 'conservative' party quite the misnomer, doesn't it? They're incredibly liberal towards themselves, with our tax dollars. All they really conserve is their own cowardice. Now this might seem unrelated, to the concepts of scientific law. However, it does tie in, somewhat – unlike money, matter and energy cannot be created, nor destroyed. Only transferred. Now, when we print more money, why does inflation go up?"
Russell answers, "Because the amount of resources we have, on average, stays relatively the same. More money is worth less to a stable economy. Only an unstable one, with frequent recessions and booms, can toss the worth of a dollar around so much that it stops mattering, while pretending it's still exactly the same. Which hurts us, because inflation rises, yet again. And we foot the bill that's left over, every time."
"EXACTLY!" Sab replied, with glee. "I couldn't have put it better myself, young lad. Your parents should be very proud of you, you've got quite the brain there."
Russell smiled at me, to gloat.
I shook my head with a chuckle. "Yeah, alright. Go erect yourself a statue, why don't you."
He laughed back.
Sab went on. "Money is an infinite idea, printed on finite paper. It's ludicrous to think that just because you have more money, that there can ever be more matter or energy in the universe... no more than there already is. Or ever was. It would defy all logic, and pipe-dreams like that are pipe-bombs waiting to happen."
The lesson continued like that, and I calmed myself down enough to follow along. Like always, Steinburg's rants didn't always connect – he never actually came back to the topic of transportation. But it got me thinking. I flipped open my textbook, and found the chapter on it. It was a new print, only two years old: all black text on white, coil-spined like a manual. Right after 'engine components' was a section called 'Theoretical Alternative Fuel & Energy Sources'. One of them was fuel made from old harvests, and stabilizing additives. A type of energy the farmers could supply for themselves, with just a little scraping-by. BioDiesel. The engine for it had been invented in 1890. The book said the climate could one day suffer 'some gradual or abrupt changes', and that 'alternative fuel sources could pave the future and mitigate environmental damage'. I had the recent change in government to thank, for that tidbit; conservatives, contrary to their own name, don't care one lick for conserving the environment, nor materials from harvest, which could be re-used. Nor for anyone else's damage. They were even talking about burning seeds between planting seasons, and one day 'engineering' them to self-destruct through genetics. They said it was a safety concern, or for pests, but it sounded more like they just wanted to sell more seeds each year. Luckily, the farmers were too broke to part with their stockpiles. Necessity was sometimes the mother of intention, too. Maybe it and invention were brothers, or something. I got to wondering. Why were we still using fossil fuels, all the way in 1939? That engine idea was forty years old, it had to be in better shape now, somewhere. But, augh. An engine isn't gonna help me beat Tank in a fight. Not as far as I know. Still. Something about that idea... grabbed me. In spite of all my pain, I was feeling... inspired. Maybe I don't need to outmuscle Tank... maybe I need to outsmart him. They do say, 'knowledge is power'.