“I think I’d prefer insane, if you’re going for technical terms,” Cheater said. “But flipped out has a nice ring to it. And let’s not forget all those wonderful phrases that can be used to indicate a mind that is somewhat less than perfect: one card short of a full deck, one sandwich short of a picnic, off your rocker, out in left field—the list goes on and on. Hey, do you know where the word bedlam comes from? It was a crazy house in England.”
“Listen,” Lucky told him, his voice dropping so low I had to lean forward to catch the rest of it. “If enough people call you crazy, maybe you begin to believe it, even if you aren’t.”
All three of them started arguing about putting labels on people and about stuff like self-esteem. Everyone was talking at once. They sounded like a bunch of miniature psychiatrists. I guess they’d gotten a lot of that in class here. Personally, I thought they were all a bit crazy. Or wacko. Or bonkers. But I kept my mouth shut. I couldn’t do much about kids like Bloodbath who’d hate me because that was how they treated everyone, but I didn’t want to turn the whole place against me. I didn’t want to end up eating dinner all by myself every day, like that pathetic loser they called Trash.
So I stayed quiet and let them go at it. Eventually, the argument faded out and everyone went back to eating.
“Well,” Cheater said as we finished our meal, “welcome to Edgeview.”
I was about to say, Thanks, when a crash from across the room made me jump. Nobody else seemed surprised. I realized Trash had thrown his plate down. It sounded like it had hit hard. I expected to see shattered pieces all over the floor, but the plate hadn’t broken.
“He does that a lot,” Torchie said. “They give him a plastic plate, so at least it doesn’t break.”
I watched Trash to see what he would do next. I wondered if he’d throw his fork, or maybe even his chair. Even though he was off on the other side of the room, I got ready to duck. But he just sat there. I couldn’t see his face really well—he was hunched over and his hair hung down kind of long on the sides—but he didn’t seem angry. He didn’t seem happy, either. He actually appeared kind of sad.
“Wacko,” Cheater said.
Lucky glared at him.
“What do you guys do after dinner?” I asked as we got up from the table.
“There’s a TV in the lounge,” Torchie said. “But Bloodbath and his gang hang out there.”
“The library’s not bad,” Cheater added. “And on Friday nights, we all—”
“Play checkers,” Lucky said.
He cut off Cheater so quickly I was sure they were hiding something. That was okay. I couldn’t get angry over a secret or two. They didn’t know me yet and they had no way to tell whether they could trust me. Just like I didn’t really know yet if I could trust them.
“Yeah,” Cheater said. “That’s what I was going to say. We play checkers. Yup. Every Friday. That’s what we do.”
A bell rang, signaling the end of dinner. “Oh crap,” I said as it hit me.
“What?” Torchie asked.
“Nothing.” It wasn’t a thought I felt like sharing, but I’d just realized my whole life was going to be measured by bells.
When we got back to the room, I borrowed a magazine from Torchie. He had a great selection—monster stuff, sports, comics, cars—though some of them looked like they’d been snatched from a fire. I read for a while, then decided to go to sleep. We had to turn out our lights at ten, anyhow, so it wasn’t like I was missing anything.
Right about now, back home, I’d be saying good night to my sister.
Good night, you spoiled brat.
And she’d be saying good night to me.
Good night, you creepy little twerp.
It was sort of a ritual with us. Funny how, in one day, home had turned into back home. Somewhere else. Somewhere I wasn’t.
I could hear Torchie across the room breathing. Out in the hall, it sounded like someone was wrestling. The walls shook with the thud of a body hitting hard. Maybe it was a fight. I didn’t care. It had nothing to do with me.
Tomorrow was Monday. I’d get to find out firsthand what classes were like. Maybe these teachers would be better. Maybe I could get along with them.
I closed my eyes and thought about the places I’d been before Edgeview. All of a sudden, the other schools didn’t seem that bad. Sure, there’d been a lot of jerks to deal with, but I guess there were jerks everywhere. Maybe I was a jerk myself for getting kicked out so often.
But this was it. Edgeview was the last place that would take me. This was the place for kids who had been thrown out of all the regular schools where they lived. Six counties in the northern part of the state had gotten together to make this dump. There was nowhere to go from here. Edgeview was my dead end.