Losers by Matthue Roth Page B

hustle,” he said simply. “You don’t have to play the game. Just enjoy sitting at the top of the board.”
    And that was that.
    From where I stood, my newfound popularity was definitely tasting better than my old lack of it, but, oddly enough, I wasn’t feeling at all satisfied. By the end of the week, it had started to feel as though everyone on the attendance list of North Shore High had said hi to me, but I still hadn’t managed to have one decent conversation—with the exception of Devin Murray, who it seemed like I now had to avoid. The less she found out about me, where I came from and where I currently resided, the better.
    The last period bell rang. Mr. Denisof talked straight through its blanketing shrill, but we gathered up our books and jammed them into our backpacks. “Read chapters three and four, answer all the odd-numbered questions, and, Jupiter Glazer, don’t think I’ve forgotten you,” he announced, seemingly oblivious to the tide of students running past him and through the door.
    â€œSir?” I was still stuck in my seat.
    â€œYou might think you’re smart, waltzing right back in like nothing happened. But I’ve got my eye on you,” he told me. “I would advise you not to forget that.”
    I gave a summary nod, zipped my backpack shut, and ranout. I didn’t know what sort of veiled threats he was intimating, but I knew I couldn’t think about it anymore. From the time first period started at 8:16, I’d gone through six hours and forty-five minutes of consecutive thinking. I needed to give my brain a break.
    So that’s what I did. Outside, there was a stream of kids making their way from the front doors to the bus stop, a single huge wave that seemed to grow into a pool that mobbed each passing bus, flowing into its doors. The crowd going toward the Yards seemed surprisingly crowded, given both that it had a reputation for being the dumbest neighborhood in the city and that Devin couldn’t seem to find anyone at our school who actually lived there.
    I’d been dealing with crowds all day. Another pack of hungry and horny teenagers was not what I felt like experiencing right now.
    I turned around, thinking I’d climb back up the hill and back into school, see if anyone was doing anything remotely interesting, since now I didn’t have a job to get back to. Maybe I would try to track down Vadim.
    All those thoughts vanished in the moment I set my eyes on the door.
    Standing there, a bit like a lion trying to decide which herd to hunt down first, chest puffed out, long hair blowing in the wind, was Bates, twirling his pointed staff over his head.
    I retreated. One foot behind the other, slowly. If you didn’t move fast or act afraid, lions wouldn’t pounce on you, right? No, that was snakes. Lions weren’t blind. Lions could see fear, smell fear, watch fear eat at your nerves and your vitalorgans until you were a cowering, blubbering mass trying to act cool and back away. Then, like a lazy Sunday afternoon decision, they would leap on you and rip you to pieces with their pinkie claw.
    That was how Bates was looking at me right now.
    I glanced behind me, looking for the huge crowd that would swallow me up. It was twenty or thirty feet away. Bates’s staff had stopped orbiting above his head. Now he held it like a spear, pointing at me.
    His mouth drew open with a piercing, throaty, guttural yell.
    Really? I thought.
    Which was when he started to run straight at me.
    I ran, too. My backpack bouncing off my back, the curls of my hair whacking in my eyes, pavement, turf, and unmowed grass fell beneath my feet. I tasted wind. Bates had managed to chase me on a diagonal, away from the after-school mass, and my sudden gratitude at not being publicly shamed was now holding a distant second to my desperate, agonizing wish for a crowd to hide in. He chased me through the empty sports field, past the