Ghostboy Chameleon & the Duke of Graffiti Read online

  “You don’t even like politics.”

  “I might not like them, but until I can move out of Connecticut, I’ll be mixed up in them.”

  “Unless you emancipate yourself, you’ll always be tied up in them,” I added, tying my sneaker laces.

  “Dude, your feet are huge,” he said, changing the subject.

  “You know what big feet mean?” I said, giving him a sly grin.

  He cracked a smile. “Get over yourself.”

  As we walked back out into the deserted school hallways lined with steel-blue lockers, I asked him, “When’s my second chance?”

  Gabe’s eyes widened. “Keep your voice down.”

  “When is it?”

  “In a month.”

  “What will I have to do?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Can you find out for me?”

  “I’ll try once I’m inducted.”

  His initiation ceremony would be held soon. He would receive the gold-and-ruby cuff links and the burgundy velvet blazer. I’d never coveted clothing and jewels until I heard of the Alphas. Now, I dreamed of the day they would be bestowed upon me.

  “Ugh. It’s time. Gotta go,” he said, checking his bulky chrome-and-rubber wristwatch—his parents’ present for his sixteenth birthday.

  My parents’ birthday present to me had been autographed first editions of my favorite fantasy series, The Pursuit of Kings. I wouldn’t have minded a nice watch, but the books were cool.

  “See you tomorrow,” he said, sauntering up the large wooden staircase.

  I collected my tools from Mr. Darcy’s closet and headed out to the field. There was no game, but it wasn’t deserted. Weird Goth Girl was there, perched on the top bleacher like a vulture searching for its next victim. Well, I wouldn’t be Cora Matthews’s victim. Yes, Matthews, as in Principal Matthews, as in his daughter. That was her ticket into our private establishment. The board, composed of former students and a bunch of parents, would never have welcomed a girl like her, a girl who painted her face white and black, and sported piercings all over her eyebrows. Rumor was she’d sliced her tongue lengthwise to resemble a viper. I didn’t know if that was true, but even without the forked tongue, Cora was one odd girl.

  As I climbed up the bleachers, I tried to picture her without makeup and facial jewelry, but it was like attempting to decipher a car’s paint job from a black-and-white picture. The only thing remotely attractive about her was her long, shiny black hair. As I swept the back row, I glanced at her. She was reading a book, so I thought it was safe to study her. Dumb assumption.

  She caught me staring and her mouth moved. I frowned. Surely, she wasn’t addressing me. Still, I popped out one of my earphones.

  “What are you looking at?” she snapped.

  I plugged my earphone back in and lumbered down to the next row and then the next, pretending she hadn’t just spoken to me and I hadn’t just stopped to listen like an idiot. I could feel her dark gaze still on me.

  This time, I took out my earphones and asked, “You see something you like?”

  Those large, haunting eyes of hers turned back to her yellowed copy of Wuthering Heights. “I’m not into pretty boys.”

  Good. I wasn’t into weird girls.

  Chapter Four

  It had been raining all morning, so no one hung outside for lunch. The whole student body was packed inside the black marble cafeteria, which had been a ballroom when our school had been a private home in the early eighteen hundreds. To this day, it remained one of the only spaces not decorated with linoleum and eggshell paint, which made the plywood tables and steel chairs stick out like eyesores.

  “Maybe you’re off for the day,” Gabe said, slurping down a carton of chocolate milk.

  My heart thumped at the thought, even though I was convinced Mr. Darcy would find me something to clean indoors. Maybe I would be on mopping duty, or maybe I would have to rearrange his closet of novelties. I wrinkled my nose. At least when I cleared the quad of garbage, I got fresh air. The air inside the school was stale.

  “You’re awfully quiet,” he said.

  Was I? “What if he has me clean the urinals?”

  He placed both forearms on the table. “Shagdar wouldn’t. You’ll probably have to wash the windows or something.”

  “I haven’t done that since I was eleven,” I said.

  “You cleaned a window at eleven?”

  “Remember that day we stuck chewing gum against the one in my room?”

  He smiled. “Yeah, I remember.”

  “Well, after you two bozos left, Mom saw the gum and made me scrub it off.”

  “Fun times.”

  “Yeah,” I grunted. “A real blast. Took me over an hour.”

  “Seriously? At that speed, Shagdar will ask Principal Matthews to double your sentence.”

  “Don’t give him any ideas,” I said, looking around the packed cafeteria. “Where’s Owen?”

  “Talking to the coach about scheduling more training before the championship. You’ll make some games, right?”

  “I have to.” I needed to find a way to sneak basketball in without my parents noticing. I tried to come up with one but became distracted when a freshman girl tripped over some junior’s outstretched feet and sent a slice of pizza flying straight into Liane’s chest. “Classic,” I said, chuckling.

  Face as red as her fresh tomato stain, Liane jumped out of her seat and cursed out the poor girl.

  Gabe was grinning. “Maybe I should tell her to run.”

  Just as he said that, the girl fled the cafeteria, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  “She figured it out,” I said.

  “Yo, Liane. You want me to lick your top clean?” someone yelled.

  Liane glowered and trotted out of the cafeteria, flanked by her friends.

  “Most entertaining lunch I’ve had in a while,” I said, gathering up my stuff.

  By the time I made it out, the girls were filing into the bathroom. All of them. I always wondered if they had couches and magazines in there. Otherwise, it had to be boring as hell.

  I made my way to the teachers’ lounge, where I found our janitor having lunch with Miss Brown. They seemed odd together. Miss Brown was pretty—in a chaotic way; Mr. Darcy looked greasy and undernourished. I stayed in the doorway and knocked on the open door. The custodian glanced up.

  “Um, do I have to clean this afternoon?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “And you’ll even have a partner.”

  “Who?”

  “Just be here at three thirty.”

  “Okay,” I said, and left, wondering who landed in the principal’s bad books.

  I thought it was Owen, but he said no. I asked the other usual suspects, but none of them were in trouble.

  When I walked up to the teachers’ lounge that afternoon, I froze and gaped at my partner. Cora was leaning next to the entrance, one black boot planted on the wall, red shoelaces undone.

  “You got detention?” I asked.

  She glared at me.

  “Doesn’t being the principal’s daughter afford some privileges?”

  “You obviously don’t know my father.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I had a disagreement in the locker room.”

  I smirked. “I’m sorry I missed it. What about?”

  One of Cora’s eyes closed a little. “Oh, you know, girl stuff.” She smiled sweetly at me, but it was one of those phony smiles. I could tell because my dad was a pro at them. He usually addressed his widest grins to the people he liked the least.

  “Did someone suggest makeup remover?” I asked.

  The smile snapped right off her face. “Screw you, Meyer,” she said just as Shagdar arrived.

  He fixed the two of us with a narrowed gaze. His eyes were already freakishly close together. If he tapered them anymore, they would collide against the bridge of his thin nose. “Cora, is Duke giving you trouble?”

  “I’m fine,” s
he muttered.

  “You sure?”

  “Yes!” she said.

  Shagdar didn’t ask her a third time. Instead, he gave us our assignment, which was…drumroll…window washing. Gabe was psychic.

  “I call the second floor,” she said. “I’ll grab the supplies from the closet up there.” She ripped past me and dashed up the stairs.

  The air wobbled with her scent. It reminded me of the roses my mother grew on the trellises nailed to our house’s brick walls—wild and flowery. I frowned. I’d expected her to smell cold and sterile, like antiseptic or metal.

  “Cora!” Shagdar called out, but she was already gone. He watched the stairs for a second before turning back to me, a stricken expression suspended on his face. He was probably sad she was so messed up. “What are you still doing here? First floor. Now. The supply closet’s at the end of the hallway.”

  As I trod up the stairs, I wondered if I would run into her again. I kind of wanted to, if just to solve her. When I got to the first floor landing though, I thought better of pursuing my macabre fascination and jogged to the supply closet.

  I thought about the enigma that was Cora Matthews all day on Friday. I didn’t see her around school, and she was no longer grounded that afternoon. It was just me and my pick.

  During Shabbat dinner that night, I asked my parents if I could swing by Gabe’s house the next evening. In truth, I was planning on stopping by Liane’s party. At the beginning of the week, I’d been okay with the whole no social-life-for-a-month situation, but that was Tuesday. If I didn’t leave my house soon, I would die of boredom.

  “No,” my mother said, between bites of salad.

  She wiped the dressing off her plumped lips. I wasn’t sure why she used Botox or why Dad let her. Mom was pretty. She’d been a model back in the day.

  “I need to study for a political science exam, and I was thinking I could ask Mr. Turner—”

  “I thought Gabe’s father was in New York this weekend for a fundraiser. Isn’t that what Myra told you at the club, honey?” Dad asked Mom.

  I tried to appear stunned at the news. Granted, it was the first I’d heard of it, but still, I’d lied and would be caught if I didn’t at least feign innocence.

  My mother nodded, fixing me with her green eyes as though trying to see through me—she usually managed.

  “Why don’t you have him come over here? Especially if he’s alone all weekend,” Dad said in his deep, booming voice.

  “But, Michael,” Mom exclaimed, “that defeats the purpose of Duke’s punishment.”

  “Oh, right,” he said.

  “Give Duke a break,” Grandma said, placing her hand on top of mine. Her skin felt like parchment, soft and paper thin. “He’s a good kid.”

  “Thanks, Grams,” I murmured.

  She smiled, her creased face contorting. Unlike my mother, she was staunchly opposed to plastic surgery.

  “He drew a…a…” My mother’s cheeks flamed, which would have made me chuckle had I not suspected I would be grounded for life. “He vandalized private property.”

  “Did you happen to snap a picture?” Grandma asked me.

  “Mother!”

  “What? I thought it was funny,” she said.

  “Then maybe you should’ve paid for the car’s paint job. Five hundred dollars!” Dad’s voice crackled like a gramophone.

  I’d read somewhere that deep voices inspired respect and confidence, and conferred leadership. When mine broke at thirteen, I’d hoped to develop the same baritone as my dad, but it never happened. My voice wasn’t high-pitched, but it wasn’t deep. Even Cora’s was deeper, raspier.

  “He said he was sorry,” Grandma said. “And should I remind you both that you did some pretty naughty things in your time. Remember when I caught you—”

  “Mom, please.” My mother cupped her wineglass and took a long gulp. “This conversation is about Duke, not about Michael and me.” After another sip, she set down her wine glass and sighed. “How about you ask Gabe to come over h—”

  Dad placed his elbows on the white tablecloth and said, “No.”

  The point was to go to a party, not hang out with Gabe at my house anyway. I toyed with my napkin ring—a coiled gold branch.

  “I’m sorry, Duke, but what you did was horrendous,” Dad said.

  I didn’t think drawing a cartoonish-looking wang qualified as horrendous. Pointing this out wouldn’t help my case though.

  “I don’t want you to run with the wrong crowd,” Mom added. “This is why we pay a fortune to put you in this school. So you can meet good people. So you can become a good person.”

  I wondered if I should tell her that money didn’t make people good; it made people rich. I shoved some brisket inside my mouth and swallowed, propelling my frustration down along with the meat.

  “He’s not some hooligan, sweetie. He’s a kid,” Grams said.

  Dad sighed. It resonated in his sizable ribcage. “Rules are rules, and you broke one. End of story.”

  He was wrong.

  Not about the rule-part; about the end part. This story was just beginning. The plot: Duke Meyer aka Cool Kid is on his way to becoming Duke Who? Maybe I’d even become friends with Goth Girl.

  Yuck. I wobbled my head to get rid of that dismal thought.

  Chapter Five

  “I swear, if you mention Liane’s name and the word ‘tits’ in the same sentence again, I’m going to cut off your ball sack,” I told Owen on Monday during lunch.

  We were sitting on the bleachers, showered by the blindingly hot April sun, talking about the pool party I didn’t get to go to.

  “What crawled up your ass?” he asked me.

  “He’s just pissed he didn’t see them,” Gabe said, picking at his lasagna.

  Was I? Was that why I was being a dick? “Are you guys officially hooking up?”

  “Officially hooking up? Where do you come up with that shit?” Owen gave me his largemouth bass smile. “You bet your pretty ass we’re dating.”

  “Dating?” Gabe mused. “Is that what you call groping and slobbering all over each other?”

  Owen smacked him.

  “What about you, Gabe?” I asked.

  There was a gleam in his light brown eyes. “I’m a politician’s son. I have to act respectably.” He winked. “I looked but I didn’t touch.”

  “Who was the object of your respectable attention?” I asked him.

  His gaze locked on the cheerleaders who were lounging on a bench a few rows below us. Of course.

  “Which one?” I asked.

  Liane stood up and headed our way.

  “Cassie,” he said just before Liane made it to us. “Hi, L.”

  “Hi, boys.” She swooped down onto Owen’s lap and rubbed her face against his.

  I had to look away before my lunch made a second appearance.

  I’d hooked up many times at parties, drunk on beer and music, but that was the extent of my experience. Kind of lame. Maybe I should date. Maybe if I had a girlfriend, she would stick with me during my community service. I thought about that, mostly to avoid listening to my buddy strategizing about how to bang Liane during their next date.

  It had started to rain sometime after lunch. By the end of my classes, the school grounds were soaked with mud, so I was on indoor duty again. Shagdar had me buff the cafeteria’s marble floor. Gabe stuck around. He even helped stack the chairs on the tables while I moved around the room. He seemed preoccupied. Every time I would ask him about it, he would shrug. At some point, I stopped asking. He would tell me what was bothering him eventually.

  On Tuesday, the weather was decent, downcast but not raining. Gray skies were depressing, but at least I would be outdoors. As I changed into my work clothes, Owen barreled into the locker room.

  “It’s happening!” he said.

  “What? The zombie apocalypse?” I asked.

  “No, asswipe.” He dropped his voice to a loud whisper. “It’s Gabe’s initiation this af
ternoon.”

  Jealousy reared its petty little head as I stuffed my feet into my sneakers. “What’s the plan?”

  “Can’t tell you.”

  “Oh, come on. Give me something to think about while I’m out there picking up your trash,” I said.

  Owen shook his head. “No can do, buddy.”

  My heart thumped a few times. “Are you going to New York again?”

  For his initiation, they’d flown all the members of the Alphas to the city by helicopter for a private rooftop party with a bunch of swimsuit models.

  Owen mimed zipping his lips. “You’ll get all the gory deats tomorrow. I gotta head out. Don’t pull a muscle with your nifty nabber.”

  I flipped him the finger. With music blasting in my eardrums, I set out toward the football field. When I spotted Cora up in the bleachers, I doubled back toward the crowded front quad.

  A girl from my art class—I think her name was Annabelle or Anna Beth—came up to me with an armful of empty juice bottles. I pointed to the trash bag. She threw everything inside.

  “Hey, Duke,” she said.

  I took out my earphones. “Hi?” I hadn’t meant it to come out as a question.

  Her long blond hair swung around her shoulders. The tips were bright pink, as though they’d fallen into one of the paint buckets. “It’s really humid today,” she said and ran her fingers across her collarbone.

  My gaze followed her hand, which hovered over her bouncy cleavage and the ginormous cross dangling right above it. I suddenly remembered Gabe saying he’d taken Anna-whatever out for ice cream and all she’d talked about was Jesus.

  “Do you need help?” she asked.

  “I’ve got things covered,” I said, looking at her face again.

  The way her brow furrowed made me think she was disappointed. Maybe she wasn’t that religious. Maybe she just hadn’t had anything else to discuss with him.

  “You’re welcome to stick around though,” I said. And she did. “So Gabe tells me you’re very involved in the church.”