First Day Back

The rush of air smashed into John’s face as he balanced on the handlebars of the camp counselor’s bicycle, and with each bump on the hot asphalt, John’s bottom bounced into the air and lost contact with the thin handlebar that he clung to for dear life. Jim, the camp counselor, laughed. “Serves you right for not having a bike of your own—just one day of camp left—it isn’t too late to take a spill, weirdo.”

John was looking forward to his first day of middle school the next day. It would be his first day at a new school, and his first day in a new grade. Anything had to be better than summer camp in Medford Lakes. 

When they did front crawl swim drills between the docks, John dove deep and swam underwater. While the other kids traded Garbage Pail Kids cards and listened to “Parents Just Don’t Understand” by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, John was engrossed in Marvel Comics. The cover of the comics would burn all hot and sticky in the fierce August sun.  

The other kids were naturals at canoeing and archery (with real arrows), but John was scared to fall out of the canoe or shoot himself with the stupid arrow. To say that John didn’t fit in would be the understatement of the century. 

These kids grew up on a lake engaging in every possible variety of athletic competition like Spartan warriors reared on combat. John had grown up on a sleepy farm and had just moved to town at the beginning of the summer. Where John was from, the summers were full of driving around on tractors, running through the tomato fields, enjoying fresh salads and cookouts, and lounging around in the shade.

* * *

“Johnny, look what I’ve got for your first day of school!” It was a BMX Revolt freestyle bike in red and smoked chrome. It was a beauty. This was the bike he’d been looking at all summer. It would have really come in handy during summer camp.

“Thanks Mom! What is this for?” Johnny asked.

“You’re going to need a bike to ride yourself to school,” she said.

Arriving at Neeta Middle School, John left his new bike on the bike rack and ran into homeroom with Mr. Moore. 

“Welcome to 6th grade,” Jessica Pat said.

“It’s gonna be a blast,” John said. 

John had heard about how Jessica Pat didn’t have a father and how her mother and her used to live in a trailer park before coming to town. His parents had called her mother a “stoner.” But Jessica was one of the only kids that ever paid any attention to him.

“I guess the two of us are the new kids, huh,” Jessica Pat said.

“More like the outcasts,” John said. “If we were Garbage Pail Kids, I’d be Nat Nerd and you’d be Fran Fran.”

Jessica giggled and shook her head, “It’s going to be a great year. You’ll see.”

Mrs. Smith came to the front of the classroom and began explaining about “Spirit Week” and how the 6th graders would be divided up between Yearbook Committee, Cheer Group, and Sports Rally Team. She also put in a plug for cross-country, which was the sport she coached.

“What did you get?” Jessica Pat whispered.

“I got Yearbook Committee. What about you?” John asked.

“Cheer Group,” Jessica Pat said with a shrug. “I guess I’m going to have to play nice-nice with the cheerleaders, lucky me.”

Mrs. Smith said, “Before we start a new school year, I want all of us to go outside and have a moment of silence for Jennifer Young. For those of you who don’t know, Jennifer lost her life to a terrible fire on the lake over the summer. She will be deeply missed—our little school will never be the same, and no one can ever replace the special way she touched us all.”

The whole classroom walked out onto the playground, stood in a circle, hung their heads, and remembered Jennifer Young. John thought of how Jennifer had always given up her spot for him at the water fountain and how she had been the only kid with a summer birthday to invite him to her party. How she had gone out of her way to include him in all of the games and everything. She was really the only kid in the school who had been nice to John since he got there. Neeta Elementary School was a mean place. It was just John’s luck that the one nice kid who made the place bearable would be the one this happened to.

As they walked back inside, Mrs. Smith took John aside and said, “Hey, I want to give you a special assignment because I think it will help you get to know the other kids better. I’m going to put you in charge of writing a memorial section of the Yearbook for Jennifer Young, a section of memories, clippings, and anything you can come up with to honor Jen’s memory.”

“Woah. That’s a big assignment,” John said.

“I have a lot of faith in you,” she said, and winked, pinching his cheeks, below his raft of fuzzy hair like an Italian afro.

John’s mind went back to when his parents woke him up in the middle of the night, clearly upset.

“Johnny,” his mom said, “there was a fire at your friend Jen’s house, the one whose swim party you attended on the lake last week.”

“—And this is going to be hard to understand, son, but the smoke got to her and by the time the firefighters got to the house, she was gone,” his father said.

“Gone,” Johnny said, confused.

“She died—she passed on—but she went away peacefully in her sleep and didn’t feel any pain,” Johnny’s Mom said. It was very confusing. Even though John’s grandfather had died and he’d even been to funerals for his grandfather and great-grandmother, it was hard to understand someone his age dying.

After his parents left the room, John had called Stephanie and said, “Did you hear about Jen?” And he called Nicole next. Stephanie and Nicole were the cheerleaders and the cool girls at school. They would talk to John on the telephone after school but ignored him completely at school and at parties. But they both said they had dreamt of Jen coming to them in their dreams and telling them that everything was going to be ok—which was weird—that they both dreamt that the night she died. John didn’t know Jen that well and couldn’t remember what he had been dreaming, but he told them he dreamt it too, not wanting to be left out.

* * *

After the vigil for Jen, was science class with Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson had a diagram of a cell on the blackboard with the nucleus, cell membrane, ribosomes, mitochondria, and all of the other parts of the cell. Mr. Wilson pointed to the periodic table hanging on the wall and said that the focus for the semester was Life Science, but life and everything on earth is made up of elements, and these elements combine to form compounds. It was just the same, he explained, as how people work together in groups. While learning about life, the laboratory component of the class would deal with the elements that make up life.

Mr. Wilson then divided the class into groups, and just John’s luck, he was teamed up with Jason Perry, his own personal nemesis. Mr. Wilson put seven mason jars on the laboratory table and handed out Bunsen burners, plastic fire-retardant gloves, and safety goggles. Mr. Wilson demonstrated how calcium chloride burned bright red under the blue flame of the Bunsen burner. Then he demonstrated how copper chloride made a blue-green flame, just like the green smoke in the Witches of Eastwick that turned all the diners into mice. All the kids gasped at this one. Mr. Wilson directed the students to test out potassium chloride as their first lab assignment.

While John was dipping the wire loop in the potassium chloride solution, Jason leaned in and said, “Make sure you lean in real close so you can get a good look.”

John leaned in and flicked on the Bunsen burner, holding the wire loop just above the flame. A pink flame shot up.

“Go ahead, get a little closer,” Jason said.

When John was close enough to feel the warmth of the flame on his forehead, Jason grabbed his head so he couldn’t pull away—laughing. 

“Stop, stop,” John said. “I’m gonna get burnt.” But Jason held his head even harder.

“What’s the matter wimp, you afraid of a little fire?” Jason said.

The flame caught a tiny bit of John’s curly hair. A smell like wet sulfur caught in John’s nose. He felt the flame on his hair. John started frantically smacking his forehead to put it out.

All the kids were laughing as Mr. Wilson yelled, “That’s enough, enough!”

While Mr. Wilson was yelling at Jason in the hallway, John overheard Jason say, “I just meant to scare him… I didn’t mean for his hair to catch fire,” and Mr. Wilson said in response, “I don’t want to have to bring your father down here—he’s tough on you as it is, and I know about your problems at home—but I’m not going to put up with you terrorizing the other students either.”

John walked down the hall. He sat elbows-to-knees outside the boy’s bathroom and cried into his sweatshirt. Jessica Pat sat next to him and put her arm on his shoulder.

“It’s ok, buddy boy. He’s always doing things like this—picking on everyone—” 

“—I don’t understand why he picked me out of everyone to always pick on.”

“He thinks just because he’s some big shot BMX Bike Champ that he’s special or something,” Jessica shrugged.

“Specially gifted at tormenting me,” John said.

“Marissa told me that his father—who everyone in town knows is a drunk—beats him. I heard it is really bad. I heard he shows up to practice with bruises. He says its from falling on the bike. But I think he gets the bruises at home,” Jessica said.

“I just feel like such an idiot—no one will ever forget this or stop making fun of me,” John said.

“Come with me after school today, I want you to do cross-country with me.”

“Cross country, really?”

“It’s the easiest sport. All we do is run a mile after school and then get snacks. It’s the easiest thing in the world. And your parents have to buy you cool sneaks for doing it, it’s a rule” Jessica said, pointing at her new Asics sneakers.

“You know that I came in last in running and pull-ups in gym class—I really don’t think I’d be any good at it,” John said.

“Silly boy. It isn’t about being good. You get a uniform. You go to meets on the bus. We have pizza parties. That’s what it is about. The running isn’t the point at all,” Jessica Pat said.

“Haha, I never thought of that. Ok, that doesn’t sound so bad. So I just meet you at Mrs. Smith’s room after class,” John asked.

“Yup. Be there or be square,” Jessica Pat said, skipping away down the hall.

* * *

After the 5th period was recess. John was out on the football field playing catch with Rod, Joey, and Ernie.

Jason rode up to the side of the field on John’s new bike, and said, “Nice bike runt. You don’t mind if I take it for a ride, do you?”

“Hey, give that back,” John said. He tried to grab the handlebars.

But Jason popped up in a wheelie and lurched the bike forward like he was going to slam the front wheel into John’s head. John stepped back and fell down flat on his back. All the kids on the football field were laughing.

Jason said, “Get up fatso—before you get me in trouble again.”

Then he brought the bike down, dismounted, and helped John up. But John had had enough and pushed Jason so that the bike fell to the ground.

“You want a piece of me,” Jason said.

“You are always picking on me,” John said.

“So, what are you gonna do about it?”

“After school, today, we settle this at Wilson’s Field. If I win, you never pick on me again. If you win, you can keep the bike,” John said. 

All the other kids were in shock. Jessica Pat ran up and grabbed John’s arm, saying, “What are you doing?”

“I have no idea,” he said.

* * *

After the closing bell, all the kids ran outside, grabbed their bikes, and rode off in pairs. All of them were headed to Wilson’s Field to see the fight—the whole school would be there, practically. 

Jason rode his big, fancy 10-speed BMX racing bike up beside John and said, “Let’s go runt.” 

The two of them rode off together in silence.

“You get past Bald Bull in Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out yet?” Jason asked.

“What?” John said, confused.

“Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out. Did you beat Bald Bull or not?” Jason asked.

“No, I’m stuck on King Hippo,” John said.

“Up-Up, Down-Down, Left-Right, Left-Right, B A Start—or input 007-373-5963. The first code gives you extra life and the second code skips you straight to Mike Tyson,” Jason said.

“Why are you telling me this?” John asked.

“I don’t know. Just making conversation. You seem pretty dead set on beating my ass and all, so I thought I’d try to take your mind off it,” Jason said.

“You are the one that’s always picking on me,” John said.

“It’s not personal, I’m just taking out my frustrations on life. I like you, that’s all.”

“You like me?”

“Yeah runt, you’re fun to fool around with,” Jason said.

“It isn’t fun for me, dude! I was crying earlier. It’s hard enough as it is without your crap.”

“What do you say we go to my house and have some cookies and milk,” Jason said.

“What? Everyone is waiting at Wilson’s Field for us to pommel each other.”

“Let ‘em wait. We’ll make up some story later,” Jason said.

“You don’t want to fight me,” John said.

“Don’t tell anybody ok, you’ll screw up my rep,” Jason said. It made sense in a weird way. John had been fighting all his life, so maybe Jason didn’t like his chances.

The two laughed and rode to Jason’s house. When they went inside there were linoleum floors and a little wooden table in the kitchen. Jason ran and grabbed some Oreos and a half gallon of milk and a bowl and came over to the table.

“Here you go dweeb,” he said.

The two of them dipped the cookies and then started playing Punch-Out, and Jason showed John the codes. 

By the time they’d polished off an entire sleeve of Oreo cookies and run through all the enemies in Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out except Big Mike, Jason was getting antsy.

“Let’s go punk,” and Jason pulled out a Black and White Marble Composition Notebook. “Let’s get working on that assignment to memorialize Jen.”

“What should we do?” John asked.

“You are good with words. Let’s write a poem—you can call it ‘The One Who Went Ahead.’” he said.

They talked as they worked on the poem, and John talked about how all he wanted was to fit in and get along and be a part of the cliques all the kids were a part of.

“Are you loco?” Jason said. “I’ve been a part of the in-group since we were all kids. Let me tell you something. You don’t want to be a part of that group.”

“What do you mean?” John said.

“Look at me, my father is a drunk. He beats the shit out of me for sport. Pick any one of them. None of their lives are so great,” Jason said.

“But they all are friends and I’m always the odd man out,” John said.

“You aren’t odd man anything. They are all jealous of you. You're smart. Your family is probably messed up too, but not as bad as some of them,” Jason said.

“So, you think I should be happy being friendless,” John said.

“Come off it, you have friends. You just need to be yourself. Stop trying to be like everyone else. There’s a reason you are doing this memorial project. Jen really took a liking to you—everyone hated that she took such a shine to you. But it made sense.”

“Made sense how?” John asked.

“Because jerk face. You are different. That’s your superpower. Jen was like the glue right, she bound everyone together. No one fits in. It’s not a real thing. Everyone feels weird. But Jen was the glue, see. And now she’s passed that baton on to you.”

“Passed it to me?” John said.

“It’s gonna take you a while to figure it all out, and I’m still going to ride you hard at school. But you’ll get it,” Jason said. “You’ll really get it eventually.”