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  UNLOCKED

  Ryan G. Van Cleave

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  The Beginning

  Sue

  Nicholas

  Me

  Honesty

  Blake

  Rumors

  Real

  Aaron

  Truth

  Becky Ann

  The Other Kids

  What I Saw

  World Of Warcraft

  Grandma

  Wheeze

  Promise

  Belief

  The Keys

  Pete

  Blake

  Me

  Math Class

  Lunch

  Mr. Green

  Going after the Gun

  Health Class

  Sick

  That Night

  Locker

  Unlocked

  Because

  Caught

  Why

  Nicholas

  Dr. Zigler

  Anger

  Dr. Zigler

  Confrontation

  Trust

  Lunch

  Early October

  Confession

  Blake’s Family

  Blake’s Mom

  Tutor

  Revelation

  Visit

  Mistakes

  Blake

  Mcdonald’s

  Snake

  Another Lie

  Blake

  Halloween

  Confession #2

  Asking

  The other Janitor, Pete

  Fring It

  The Gun

  Nothing

  Father Issues

  Mom

  March 5

  Home

  Midterms

  Christmas

  New Year’S Eve

  Spring Term

  Mom

  At Baskin-Robbins with my Father

  Bad Monday

  Texts

  Valentine’s Day

  What we Did

  Michael Jordan

  Card

  Hate

  Why

  March 1

  March 2

  March 3

  March 4

  1 Tried

  Usually

  Finally

  March 5

  I Wasn’t There

  Aftermath

  Hero

  Absence

  And Then

  After

  Acknowledgements

  Imprint

  THE BEGINNING

  * * *

  August arrived

  with 90° heat

  and high school

  began at last,

  meaning five hundred

  were funneled

  in from four

  different junior highs,

  meaning

  no one really arrived

  having anything

  except a sweaty

  eagerness

  to belong,

  meaning we all

  felt equally

  displaced.

  A few dragged

  old cliques along,

  but like magnetism,

  the rest found others.

  The beautiful

  found beautiful friends.

  Jocks found jocks.

  Nerds found nerds.

  Band geeks found band geeks.

  Drama queens found drama queens.

  Cheerleaders found cheerleaders.

  When it all settled into

  the Monday/Friday grind,

  that agonizing slowness

  of a school year,

  I found myself

  alone,

  excluded,

  along with three

  others I couldn’t

  bring myself

  to befriend—

  Sue, Nicholas,

  and Blake.

  At least they

  didn’t have

  their dad working

  at the school

  like I did.

  That’s who I

  became:

  the janitor’s son.

  SUE

  * * *

  Some days,

  her hair was

  lizard-belly green,

  but more often,

  it was pink like

  it’d suffered a sunburn.

  Sometimes navy blue,

  sometimes violet.

  Come November,

  she’d shave it clean

  to the white smoothness

  of her skull.

  She didn’t hate me

  any more

  than she hated

  everyone else.

  She was equal

  opportunity

  angry.

  NICHOLAS

  * * *

  The fourth

  in a family

  of seven boys,

  he just got

  forgotten

  regularly

  and managed

  to stay

  that way.

  Like he could

  turn sideways

  and disappear.

  Like he had alien

  blood that turned

  him transparent.

  Wasn’t as if people

  disliked him—

  Nicholas simply got

  overlooked.

  No one asked him

  to share their table

  in the cafeteria.

  No one asked him

  to let them copy

  his biology notes.

  No one even Bless you’d

  him when he sneezed,

  like they didn’t even

  hear his enormous ACHOO!

  How bad was it

  to be simply ignored?

  For a bookworm,

  it probably wasn’t

  all that awful.

  If only he liked

  video games more

  than reading at the library,

  maybe we’d have

  been friends.

  ME

  * * *

  I didn’t make fun

  of anyone.

  People who

  eat cheese sandwiches

  alone

  on second base

  of the softball field

  during lunchtime

  didn’t crack jokes

  to anyone

  but themselves.

  I hated my dad’s

  blue uniform,

  his name

  in mocking red

  cursive:

  Hector.

  I had to wait

  an hour for him

  after everyone

  else had flown home.

  Sometimes I helped,

  but mostly

  I just pretended

  to push a broom

  and listened to my iPod

  when he wasn’t watching.

  Some days,

  he let me have

  a Coke

  from the machine

  in the teachers’ lounge—

  they replaced the ones

  in the lunchroom machine

  with fruit drinks

  and bottled water.

  The kids called him

  Mr. Clean.

  They called me

  Clean Junior,

  or CJ

  when they were

  feeling

  particularly

  cruel

  (often).

  HONESTY

  * * *

  I try to be

  someone

  who believes

  in honesty,

  but the truth

  is that I can’t

  tell when


  the world’s really

  out to flatten me,

  or if it’s just me

  somehow

  self-sabotaging

  my own damn life.

  Two years

  of anger therapy

  (thanks for nothing,

  Dr. Zigler)

  and that’s all

  I can say about

  why my life’s

  a twisted knot

  the size of a fist.

  My name is Andy.

  I’m fourteen.

  I hate my life.

  Some days I feel

  so alone

  that I might be

  living inside

  a shoe box

  on the moon.

  Some days

  I don’t feel

  anything

  at all.

  BLAKE

  * * *

  He was popular

  once,

  the kids from

  his middle school say.

  Really popular.

  TV-sitcom popular.

  The kids from

  my middle school

  didn’t care if it

  was true or not.

  But I was intrigued

  by the idea of such

  sudden, drastic change.

  A metamorphosis.

  They said he

  could blast

  a soccer ball

  straight over

  the south wing

  of the school.

  Could zing

  a spitball faster

  than you

  could see.

  Birthday parties

  with trampolines,

  BBQ pits, and

  live rock bands;

  he had friends.

  Now Blake roamed

  the yellow-tiled halls

  of Jefferson High

  by himself

  and wore

  a big green

  army belt

  looped twice

  around his waist.

  He didn’t talk

  to anyone,

  not even

  the teachers.

  His old friends

  avoided him.

  The other outcasts

  steered clear of him too.

  Sue was too busy texting

  to care.

  Nicholas read comics

  constantly,

  never looking up

  to see Blake

  sitting solo.

  Sometimes I

  watched Blake

  and I wondered

  what he was thinking,

  if he had dark dreams

  like the ones

  that shocked me

  out of sleep,

  but I didn’t ask.

  Still,

  even an outcast

  like me

  heard the rumors.

  Everyone said …

  everyone suspected …

  everyone thought …

  that in his locker

  he was hiding a gun.

  RUMORS

  * * *

  They spread like wildfire.

  They lurked in lockers,

  in the gymnasium,

  in the cafeteria, the library,

  the study cubicles,

  the dim corridors

  by the wood-shop room.

  Kelly’s pregnant.

  Clark sold beer bongs

  every Saturday at

  the Dunkin’ Donuts

  just south of the school.

  They ached for release.

  They yearned to be shared.

  Mrs. Trenton’s son

  is in jail for mail fraud.

  Zachary stares too long

  in the locker room.

  Richard has an STD.

  That new girl, Yvette,

  failed second grade.

  Twice.

  Blake has a gun.

  I liked the idea

  of wiggling my way

  into the lives of others.

  I liked to slip unnoticed

  into their world, like

  a burglar over a window ledge

  in the dead of night,

  falling softly onto carpet.

  When people don’t pay

  attention to you,

  it’s easy to hear more

  than anyone thinks.

  I liked the idea of a gun,

  its massive sense

  of potential.

  Blake has a gun?

  I listened.

  I watched.

  I wondered.

  REAL

  * * *

  The only one

  who ever said

  he actually saw

  Blake’s gun was

  Nicholas,

  who refused

  to talk about it

  anymore.

  Like a closed book,

  you couldn’t

  read anything

  from him.

  Nose deep

  in comics—

  Graphic novels!

  he corrected

  when accused

  of loving the Hulk

  and Superman—

  he didn’t care

  much about

  being popular,

  which he could’ve

  been if he dared

  spread his story.

  But he made

  the mistake of talking—

  and who wouldn’t,

  with a secret this huge—

  to Louis, who told Megan

  and her sister, Wendy,

  which meant that everyone

  knew by fourth period,

  and people were

  staring, pointing.

  That’s how Blake

  became of interest

  to us all, a freak show

  to be eyed from a distance.

  Like he was a bug-eyed monster

  who vomited on his lunch

  before slurping it all up.

  People stared.

  AARON

  * * *

  slammed the books

  out of Blake’s hands

  like he was dunking

  a basketball.

  “Butterfingers!”

  he laughed,

  and I seethed

  as everyone cracked up.

  Then he knocked past

  Blake and shouldered

  me into the lockers

  hard enough to make

  my ears ring.

  If it wasn’t Aaron,

  it was someone else

  going spaz on us “losers.”

  A bully. A jock.

  Some ass who needed

  to be knocked down

  a few dozen times.

  Someone who deserved

  to have teeth kicked in.

  Blake sighed, then picked up

  his books, straightened the spine

  of Algebra I: The Basics,

  and just walked away.

  When I realized my nose

  was bleeding, I just hid

  in the guys’ bathroom

  and stuffed towel wads

  up my nostril. Again.

  TRUTH

  * * *

  If it wasn’t me

  being knocked down,

  it was Nicholas or Blake

  or some other puny

  freshman with more

  acne than friends.

  I should’ve done something

  at some point to make it stop.

  But I’m too much like

  Shakespeare’s stupid hero Hamlet:

  a do-nothing whiner.

  Except he’s got a girl

  who loves him.

  I didn’t even have that.

  It’s an awful thing to confess—

  being a coward.

  BECKY ANN

  * * *

  Long-limbed

  and blond

&
nbsp; like an endless

  shower of starlight,

  she was the love

  of my life.

  Worse,

  everyone

  knew it.

  Especially her.

  I made the mistake

  of admitting

  I found her stunning

  to Joshua

  in PE

  three weeks

  into the year.

  I knew Joshua

  from our old school

  and thought

  I could trust him.

  He told

  everyone,

  CJ’s in looooove.

  You’d think

  a kid with

  cold sores

  and too many

  freckles

  wouldn’t rat

  anyone out.

  Joshua had friends

  now, so it’s hard

  to blame him.

  Still,

  Becky Ann

  didn’t talk to me.

  Her beautiful

  silvery lips

  never said

  my name.

  Until that Thursday.

  Andy,

  I want to see

  that gun,

  she whispered

  into my ear,

  daring me