One for Three

Three things had roared through my mind on that wonderful day last spring when I got my acceptance letter from Branford Academy. When Penny greeted me scarcely twenty minutes after Dad dropped me off, I was down to one for three for the time being. But at least that one was under my own control.

I was still smarting from the first illusion to fall when Penny invited herself into my new room and handed me the second. I was sitting on my new, as-yet sheetless bed, looking out the window at the steel-and-glass view of New Campus when I heard the knock at the door. I didn’t want the view to be unwelcome, but right then it was. Apparently that showed on my face when I turned to see who’d been knocking.

“Welcome, junior. Oh, you look sad. Missing your mom, are you?”

It was a tall, slightly chubby girl, standing in the doorway in a Branford t-shirt and shorts. Not the beautiful plaid skirt and blue blazer all the girls in the viewbook were wearing. Still smarting from the reminder that I wouldn’t be living on Old Campus for two years, I found myself disabused of another wonderful moment I’d thought was upon me at last. Oh well, I reminded myself, I wasn’t wearing my uniform yet either. I didn’t even have it yet.

“Junior?” I asked. “My name’s Tom.”

“You’ll be Tom once you get through freshman initiation,” she said. “Until then, us tenth graders can call you whatever we want, or nothing at all.”

“We tenth graders.” I couldn’t resist.

“Smartass, are you, junior?” She stepped into the room, hands on her hips. “Go ahead with that attitude if you want. You’re only making things worse for yourself.”

“Do your worst!” My melancholy turned to bemusement, and I could feel my lips curling into a smile. “It won’t be anything compared with what I’m coming from.”

“Oh, you’re the resident tough kid, are you?” She was standing close enough for me to smell her perfume now. “I’ll tell you right now, that’ll never sell in this place. Everyone else is just like you, the class golden child from the suburbs.”

“I’m not from the suburbs,” I said, looking back out at the too-modern courtyard. “I’m from Grantchester.”

“Oh!” At least I’d caught her a little off guard. “A scholarship kid, then, are you, junior?”

“Full ride.” I tried not to sound too proud as I said it. I tried, but didn’t quite succeed.

“I’ll let you in on a secret, then,” she said, and she helped herself to a seat on my not-yet-arrived roommate’s bed. “Me too.”

“You’re from Grantchester?” I asked. She didn’t have the accent.

“I’m from a town a lot like it, out in Indiana,” she said. “I remember being scared when I first got here, too, and I won’t lie to you, sometimes it is just like you’re thinking.”

“Like I’m thinking?” I asked. “No offense, but how do you know what I’m thinking?”

“It can be intimidating for people like us,” she said. “And you miss your friends from home, even if you are a lot closer to home than I was. That’s okay! I mean, that is why you were looking sad just now, isn’t it?”

“No.” I turned to face her, feeling a little bit more comfortable anyway. “I mean…well, no! I’m…yeah, I miss my friends,” I lied. “But that’s not why I was looking sad.”

“You miss your mom and dad, then,” she said.

“A little. But my mom’s a mess, a real ball of rage, and I’ve been looking forward to moving out.”

“Okay, that makes sense,” she said. “I don’t get along real well with my mom either. Then what is it?”

“It’s…Old Campus,” I admitted.

“Old Campus? What about it?”

“I spent all last year looking forward to getting there, that’s what,” I said. “I kept the Branford viewbook by my bed all last year. Every time I got beat up at school, or spit on, or yelled at by a teacher for something I didn’t do, anytime I didn’t feel up to doing my homework when I finally got home, I took a good look at the Old Campus dorms and reminded myself, this is your escape, this is what you get to move on to if you make decent grades this year. And I did it! Straight A’s except in math, and I got in with a scholarship and everything. But I forgot all about how only the juniors and seniors get to live on Old Campus.”

“Wow, I guess that would be a shock,” she said. “But it’s fun living here. You’ll see. Sounds like your junior high was a real chamber of horrors, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“I don’t mind,” I said. “Just don’t ever assume I’m a kid from a cushy suburb again, okay?”

“Deal,” she said. “By the way, my name’s Penny.”

“Tom,” I said as we shook hands. “Not junior.”

“Of course not,” she agreed. “I’ve got to say, I’m impressed with you for surviving all that stuff you described. They spit on you?”

“Gleeking,” I acknowledged. “You know, spitting through your teeth? It was a big thing with the boys. I was used to the other boys looking down on me because I’m the smart kid who wasn’t good at sports and who, you know, liked girls’ books and that sort of thing.

Penny laughed. “You ought to do just fine here. Speaking of girls’ books, though, the way you described the viewbook, keeping it by your bed – you know what I’d expect most boys to keep by their beds?”

“Not me,” I said.

“Oh, come on! You’re a nice boy, but you’re still a boy!”

“My friend Mike had a few girlie mags he let me see once. I didn’t like ‘em. Those women don’t look…like real women, you know?”

“How’s a boy your age know what real women look like?”

“Art books,” I said with the flair of one who knew he’d won the debate. Since I’d let her in on the first disappointment, I figured I might as well open up about the second one. “Besides, the viewbook was good for that purpose, too.”

“What?!” Penny looked at me like I was from the moon. “I’m pretty sure if I’d remember any naked ladies in the viewbook.”

“No, it’s the way all the girls were dressed,” I said. “Such a beautiful uniform.”

“So says someone who’ll never have to wear a plaid skirt in this lifetime,” Penny chuckled. “But…Tom, you seem like a really sweet kid, so I’ll let you in on a secret. Can you keep a secret?”

“Of course,” I said.

She leaned across the gap between the two beds and whispered in my ear. “I used my viewbook for the same reason, with all the guys in their nice coats and ties.” She pulled back with a girlish laugh.

“No kidding!” I was as delighted as I was shocked. “So in a few years I could be some girl’s reason to…you know?”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Tom.” Penny touched my knee and squeezed it affectionately. “You could be that this year. Kids like us, we’re popular here because we’re a little different. I don’t know why, but we are. Oh, and that reminds me, I’m supposed to tell you uniform fittings are at two o’clock in the lounge. But you won’t need to wear it until classes start on Monday.” Seeing me grin at that thought, she added, “Let me guess, you were imagining being surrounded by girls in their uniforms right from the start?”

I laughed and stood up, feeling much more at peace now about everything. “Ever since the day I got my acceptance letter,” I admitted, looking out the window with a new appreciation for New Campus. “Three things went roaring through my mind at that moment, and stayed there right up until Dad and I got here this morning.”

“Just you and Dad?” Penny stood up and joined me at the window. “Not your mom?”

“She didn’t want to join us any more than I wanted her to,” I said. “I think she’s just as happy to have me out of the house as I am to be out. Anyway. Three things, and one’s gone for two years and at least the other’ll be here Monday. But it’s true, ever since I got in, I had this image of having a nice deep conversation with a girl in that uniform on a bench outside my dorm on Old Campus!” Even hearing myself say it now felt deliciously trite, and I laughed. So did Penny, and I decided I liked her laugh. “I mean, compared to the girls I went to junior high with…”

“I can imagine,” Penny said. “But you said three things. What was number three?”

“Can’t tell you,” I said. “It’s something I don’t want anyone here to know about me, and so far, they don’t.”

“Here to reinvent yourself, are you Tom? It’s a good place for that.”

She looked like she wanted to give me a hug, and that would have been fine with me. But then came another knock on the still-open door, and we turned to see another casually-dressed girl in the doorway. “Consorting with the frosh, Penny?” she asked.

“I was not!” All at once Penny had her defiant look back on, and she stepped back from me like I smelled funny. “Just getting to know what we’re in for with initiation, Laura, and why aren’t you doing the same?”

“Who’s to say I’m not?” Laura asked. “You learn anything?”

“I learned junior here has mommy issues and a plaid fetish,” Penny said as she stepped back to the doorway to join her friend. “And he has some secret he doesn’t want anyone here to know about.”

“We’ll see how long you can keep that secret, plaid boy!” Laura chortled, and she put an arm around Penny’s shoulders. “Good detective work there. Now let’s get back to the grown-ups’ end of the hall, shall we?”

I shook my head in disgust and looked back out the window. I could still have that room on Old Campus in two years, I reminded myself, and now the courtyard outside was crawling with students who’d be dressed to the nines come Monday.

And I was still one for three. My eyes were dry.

No one at Branford needed to know how easily I used to cry. Not like everyone at Parkdale Junior High had, even though most of them had never seen me cry. They’d heard all the stories about elementary school and how “You just say ‘hi’ to him and he cries” – not true, of course, but it didn’t matter. No one ever heard just what the other boys did and said to me day after day after day through sixth grade, because why would they want to share that part of the story? They just told the part where I cried.

It’s true, I did cry easily. But I’d only ever cried from joy once in my life, and that was on the day I got that letter from Branford. No one needed to know that. Not even Mom knew; she’d been downstairs while I savored the wonderful news alone in my room. Just like I don’t think she ever knew about all the bullying back in sixth grade, and to a lesser extent all through Parkdale. She was already pissed off enough most of the time without hearing about my problems, after all.

From that lovely day through the final two months of eighth grade and the lonely summer that had followed, they were never off my mind. Old Campus, plaid skirts as far as the eye could see, and no one knowing about my past.

I was still one for three. So I was smiling and feeling confident again when my roommate and his mother appeared in the doorway just as I was starting to unpack.