“This is unacceptable!” raved Casey, the words stretching his face into a wide-eyed grimace. Mikey took a deep breath and glanced at Felix, who wondered whether stepping on the posters was ok, since the wind had scattered them to the point where this was unavoidable.
When Casey caught his breath, he sputtered with bulging eyes, “This is a hate crime.”
“I’m not shocked,” Mikey stated evenly, “They do this every year.”
“They do?” Zach finally choked out, “Then--- why’d you have me set them up? Why so many?”
“Because we can’t stop hanging them just because they tear them down.”
“Won’t this mean more work for the janitor?” asked Felix, who lowered his head in shame the moment the others glared at him.
“The Senior Swim team has a history of going behind our back.” Mikey explained, “Carly used to destroy our lockers, too.”
“Doesn’t the office do anything?”
“That last time we did Ms.Nasty said she would look into it. She said it would be handled confidentially, but nothing happened.”
“We can’t keep doing the same thing.” Mikey reasoned, “This is ridiculous.”
“You’re right.” Mused Casey, furrowing his brow, “Let’s discuss this later. I have office duty, I’ll tell them what happened. You go to class, we’ll think it out during lunch.”
When the group dispersed, Casey instantly tailed after Zach. After a few minutes of briskly walking beside him, he hitched his breath and said,
“You should rig their diving board and teach them a lesson.”
“I can’t do that. I’m part of the team.”
“What team are you on?”
Zach sighed, pulling back a deep breath and halting to a stop.
“I can’t do that, Casey.”
“Zach, listen to me. People tear down our posters every year, and going to the office doesn’t help… what did the swim team ever do for you?”
“They didn’t do shit, but I did a lot to get on there. I don’t like them, but I don’t want to leave in disgrace either. Look, Casey, yesterday me and Sydney got into a fight about the posters. Gentry was trying to break it up, but he lost it when Mikey told him he was gay. I know that doesn’t excuse anything, but rigging their board isn’t right either. Let me handle Gentry; I’ve dealt with him before.”
“Yeah, and I could smell him on your clothes.” Casey sneered, keeping up with Zach’s pace, “Listen to me. Desperate times call for desperate means.”
“Well,” Zach sucked on his lower lip, “aren’t you his friend? Didn’t he write your papers for you? Can’t you just tell him to stop ripping down our posters---”
“No.” snapped Casey, “We’re not friends anymore because ever he’s gotten too cocky for his own good. And now he’s gone too far.”
“But rigging the diving board is indirect and cowardly. That’s what they did to the freshman swim team when I was on it. And if we do that now, we’re not any better than they are.”
“We have to fight fire with fire.”
Zach sighed.
“Come on, Zach. Some people only learn things one way.”
“But there has to be another way. I’m not gonna be a part of this, Casey.”
“But you ARE part of the GSA. And we are a team."
No comments:
Post a Comment