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  “Except you’re you, which makes it the lamest role-playing game ever,” Oz said with a snort. He noticed the look on Bryan’s face. “Sorry. I’ll shut up now.” He added another layer to his corn chip tower.

  “So like any role-playing game, you go on quests, right?” Myra said, earning a nod from Bryan. “Well. Let’s see, you’ve already uncovered some treasure.”

  “A cake of gold,” Bryan added.

  “A Twinkie,” Oz clarified, forgetting that he’d promised to shut up.

  “And you battled some monsters in the gym,” Myra said.

  “They were jocks.”

  “Potato, potahto,” Oz said.

  “And we lost,” Bryan added.

  “Let’s not focus on the details,” Myra told him. “But you’re right. You lost. So maybe there’s something more important you’re supposed to do. Something major. Like, life-changing. Something you’ve been wanting to do for a while now.”

  “Like slaying the dragon,” Oz suggested.

  “Last I checked there were no dragons in Mount Comfort,” Bryan said. Of course, last time he checked there weren’t dragons in Romeo and Juliet, either. He needed to keep an open mind.

  “How about your crazy neighbor who smokes too much?”

  “Mrs. Fernsworth?” Bryan thought about it. That old bat did have rough, scaly skin, and the little kids did call her the Dragon Lady with her shrewd yellow eyes. But no. “I don’t think I’m supposed to kill my neighbor.”

  “Then maybe you are supposed to take over the school. Lead a rebellion—students against teachers. Topple the evil empire.” Oz’s eyes grew wide with the possibility.

  Myra shook her head. “You’re such a doofus,” she said, flinging one of her chicken nuggets at Oz’s tower of pork-topped chips, missing it by inches. He stuck out his tongue at her. “This isn’t about us, Oz. This is about Bryan. It’s his life. There’s something he’s got to face. Some deep-seated issue he’s got to grapple with.” She turned back to Bryan. “You weren’t locked in the basement as a child, were you?”

  Bryan shook his head.

  “Who knows,” Oz said, “maybe you are supposed to save the world or something.”

  Myra snorted this time. “Let’s not get carried away. This is Bryan we are talking about.” She turned and frowned. “Sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” Bryan said.

  Oz gave Myra another dirty look as a second chicken nugget nearly missed his sculpture. Then he shrugged. “Maybe it’s not that big of a deal at all. Maybe you just have to get through the day.”

  Just get through the day. Bryan looked up at the clock hanging over the cafeteria entrance. There were still three more hours. Plenty of time for plenty of terrible things to happen. He had already used four continues. He’d forgotten how many hit points he’d lost. Still, getting through the day seemed like a reachable goal. Much easier than saving the world.

  There was a sudden groan from Oz as his corn chip tower collapsed, the last of Myra’s chicken nuggets having soared through the air in a perfect parabola and smashed into its middle, causing the whole thing to spill over the table and onto the floor.

  “Woohoo,” she said. “Chicken one. Chips zero.”

  “You sank my battle-chip,” Oz joked. The two of them locked eyes for a moment, Myra probably sending subtle messages, Oz probably missing them entirely. Bryan ignored them both. He was chewing over everything they had just said. About repairing the schism. About beating the game. Facing the demon. Dealing with reality.

  And getting through the day.

  “This can’t be happening,” he said out loud.

  “It will be all right,” Myra assured him. “You just have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.”

  “Is that, like, a quote or something?” Oz ventured. “Tiger Woods or Tom Brady?”

  “It was Einstein, genius,” Myra said, punching Oz on the shoulder. Then she motioned toward the clock. Lunch was almost over and Bryan hadn’t eaten a thing. They all stood and walked to the conveyor. “Whatever’s going on, we will help you. Right, Oz?”

  “Absolutely,” Oz said. They put their trays up on the belt and turned to leave.

  And ran right into Tank.

  “Oh yeah,” Oz mumbled from behind Bryan. “There is something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

  Chris Wattly was dressed in his football jersey and boots like normal. It looked like he was wearing pads, too, though Bryan figured that might just be how big the kid’s shoulders actually were, like you could land helicopters on them. Bryan looked down at Tank’s size-twelve feet. He imagined his head being crushed beneath them.

  “We need to talk, hobbit.”

  Bryan took a step back, afraid Wattly might somehow spear his heart on that beefy finger he was jabbing him with.

  “Listen, Tank, today is not the best day, all right? I’m going through this . . . thing . . . and I really can’t deal with you right now.” Bryan winced as soon as he said it. It didn’t come off nearly as sniveling and apologetic as it needed to.

  “Maybe you should have thought about that before you said what you said,” Wattly shot back. Bryan swallowed hard, then chanced a look up. Tank’s face was bright red. Bryan had obviously done something to tick him off. For real this time. Something besides just existing, though he couldn’t begin to think of what.

  “Why don’t you back off?” Myra said, stepping up beside Bryan, standing as straight as her purple bristles of hair.

  “Why don’t you butt out, you raccoon-eyed freak?”

  “Hey, don’t talk to her that . . . ,” Oz started to say, taking a ginger step forward, but a glare from Wattly froze him in place. Tank turned back to Bryan.

  “I would just take care of it right now. Except I can’t risk another suspension. So instead you”—finger in Bryan’s chest again—“are going to meet me by the Dumpsters behind the diamond today after school. Four o’clock.”

  Bryan’s insides twisted. “Tank, really, whatever this is—” he started to say.

  “You show up and we settle this. But if you don’t, I will make the rest of your year a total nightmare. Understand?” Wattly smiled, then patted Bryan on the cheek. As he walked away, he held up four fingers as a reminder, not only of the time, but probably also of how many of Bryan’s limbs he intended to break. When he was out of earshot, Oz called him a few choice names. Myra rolled her eyes.

  “What was that all about?” she asked. Bryan turned toward Oz. He had that look he sometimes got: puppy with a torn tennis shoe in its mouth.

  “Oz?”

  Oz stared up at the ceiling. “Yeah. So. Remember yesterday in gym when you said that Wattly was a fat, stupid, knuckle-dragging troll who smelled like old farts and would someday end up changing the oil in your car?”

  Bryan groaned. “I remember saying that to you.” It had been a small part of their gym-time conversation, in between Oz’s request that Bryan reconsider going to Missy’s party and his begging Bryan to go to Missy’s party. “What did you do, Oz?”

  “Nothing. I swear. I mean, I might have told Sheffly. But he promised not to say anything.”

  “Dave Sheffly? Loudmouth Sheffly?”

  “We were talking about some of the kids on the football team, and he told me how once he got wedgied so hard that his underwear elastic ripped, and I told him about what happened between you and Tank by the lockers and what you said at gym, and then, I don’t know, somehow it got all the way to Kirsten Flowers and then to most of the eighth-grade volleyball team, and by then the message had, you know . . . gotten a little mixed up.”

  Bryan groaned. “Mixed up? How, mixed up? What does he think I said, Oz?”

  Oz shuffled his feet. “Maybe something about him being an oily, farting gorilla who eats farts and whose mother . . .” Oz’s voice trailed off. “Never mind, you don’t want to know.”

  “No. Please. What did I say about his mother?” Bryan had said plenty of things
about Chris behind his back, but he’d never said anything about Mrs. Wattly. He wasn’t that stupid.

  “You might have said that she was so dumb she couldn’t put M&M’S in alphabetical order.” Oz winced.

  Myra snorted. Then she tried to make her face serious again. “Sorry.”

  “What?” Bryan shouted, then noticed just how many other kids in the cafeteria were watching and lowered his voice. “I didn’t say anything like that!”

  “I’m sorry, Bryan. I tried to warn you this morning, but then you came in telling me how you almost died falling off your bike and something about a coin and the game and . . . I guess I just forgot.”

  “I am so dead,” Bryan said, leaning up against the conveyer packed with lunch trays full of untouched lasagna and unnaturally pliable corn chips.

  “You’re not dead,” Myra tried to reassure him.

  “You’re maybe a little dead,” Oz amended.

  “Listen,” Myra said, putting her hands on Bryan’s shoulders. “It’s only twelve thirty-five. We still have a few hours before we have to worry about Wattly. Let’s just get through the rest of this day, and we will deal with this other situation when we get to it. What do you have next period?”

  “Social studies,” Oz said. It was one of the classes he and Bryan shared.

  “Right. Okay. What could possibly go wrong in social studies?” Myra said, then instantly frowned.

  Behind him Bryan heard a scream. He turned to see one of the eighth-grade boys slouching toward a table full of girls, arms stretched out, head half twisted, tongue lolling, obviously pretending to be a zombie, like something straight out of Romeo and Juliet. The boy licked his lips and moaned, dragging one leg behind him. The girls shrieked and giggled, then they began throwing food at him, pelting him with a barrage of peas until he pretended to fall down.

  “So immature,” Oz said just as the bell for fifth period rang.

  12:37 p.m.

  The End of the World

  When they parted in the hall, Myra gave Bryan a hug, then went to hug Oz, but their trajectories crossed and he ended up nearly punching her in the face. “I’ll see you both in band,” Myra offered, the only class all three had together. The last period of the day.

  Right before I’m destroyed, Bryan thought. Provided I even make it that long.

  “I’m sorry,” Oz said as they walked to fifth period. He smiled at Bryan, fishing for a smile in return, but he wasn’t going to get it. Bryan knew he couldn’t stay mad at Oz forever, but he figured a few years was easily justified.

  “I just don’t see why you have to go around telling everybody everything.” Not that anything ever stayed a secret for long there anyway. Middle school was pretty much the exact opposite of the CIA when it came to confidential information.

  “I don’t tell everybody everything. I never told anyone about that time you stuck your foot in the toilet in the boys’ bathroom trying to hide from Carl Vanderschlot,” Oz offered in his defense.

  “That was you, dinglebutt.”

  “Oh . . . yeah,” Oz mused. “Well. I never told anyone how you once ate so much spaghetti at Maglioni’s that you vomited down the back of the man at the table behind you.”

  “You again.” Bryan sighed.

  “Oh . . . right. Well, don’t worry about it. Because I’m here now. I will protect you.”

  Bryan looked at Oz’s nose, already starting to turn purple from their battle in the gym, like an eggplant ripening between his eyes. “Why would I worry?” he said.

  The bell rang as they ducked into social studies. Mr. Jenkins, the social studies teacher, got up from his desk and closed the door behind them. He was wearing one of his custom-made jerseys again. Mr. Jenkins operated under the delusion that historical figures should be just as popular as professional athletes, so he custom-printed baseball jerseys with the names of famous people in history—presidents, generals, dictators—and wore them to class over his button-downs. Today he was Winston Churchill, who was, apparently, number seventy-four and played for the Dodgers.

  “ ‘Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm,’ ” Mr. Jenkins said, pointing to the same quote on the board. “Can anyone guess who said that?”

  Everybody knew. The name was written on the man’s shirt. Still, nobody guessed, refusing to give Jenkins the satisfaction. It was the same routine every day.

  “Winston Churchill, prime minister of Great Britain during World War Two and one of the finest leaders of the twentieth century,” the social studies teacher answered for them.

  What followed was a seven-minute lecture on how fantastic Winston Churchill was, how he ushered his country through the most turbulent time in its history, and how he could have beaten the snot out of LeBron James in a one-on-one brawl. No one bothered to argue. No one ever bothered arguing. Bryan tried to picture Sir Winston and King James duking it out, but the image kept reverting back to scenes of Tank Wattly smashing Bryan’s face into the ground. He flashed Oz a dirty look, just to let him know that he was still angry.

  “. . . which is why he and General Patton could have trounced the entire Cleveland Cavaliers starting lineup,” the social studies teacher concluded. Old Man Jenkins waited for someone to disagree, then produced a butterscotch candy from his pocket and popped it into his mouth. “As much as I’d love to continue extolling the virtues of the British Bulldog,” number seventy-four intoned, “it’s Friday, so we have to finish our topography projects.”

  Instinctively everyone in class turned to the tables lining the back wall, on which sat a dozen misshapen spheres of various sizes. They were all supposed to be the planet Earth, though it was hard to tell with most of them. The majority had been made out of papier-mâché slapped onto balloons or rubber balls. Others had been made of tinfoil or Styrofoam. One was made entirely out of duct tape. They were all in various stages of construction. The duct tape one looked a little like the half-completed Death Star.

  Bryan sighed in relief. Compared with math and gym, it looked like fifth period would be a cinch. Maybe he could get through it without seeing any mysterious messages at all. Oz tapped him from behind.

  “Still mad?”

  Bryan leaned back and whispered, “It’s only been five minutes.”

  Mr. Jenkins droned on at the front of the class. “Remember, these are topographical representations. I want to feel the bumps of the mountains. I want to see the crevice of the Grand Canyon. I should be able to tell the difference between Death Valley and Mount Fuji.”

  Another tap on the shoulder. “How ’bout now?”

  “Yes,” Bryan hissed. “Still mad.”

  “And if I catch anyone trying to sniff the rubber cement again, I’m sending you straight down to Mr. Petrowski’s office. All right. Find your groups and get started.”

  With a wave of his hands, the social studies teacher sent everyone to work. Oz stepped in front of Bryan, meeting him face-to-face, eyes droopy, lips in full pout. He looked ridiculous, especially with his purple nose—just how Rudolph might look, if he’d ever been caught peeing on Santa’s carpet. “I hate it when you’re angry,” he said.

  “You are the one who is going to have to notify my parents of my death,” Bryan said.

  “Wait a minute,” Oz said, looking surprised. “You’re not suggesting you’re actually going to show up this afternoon?”

  Bryan brushed past him, heading for the back table where Heather McDonald, the third member of their globe-making group, was gathering supplies.

  “I’m not sure I have a choice,” Bryan whispered behind him. “You heard Wattly. If I don’t show up, he will torture me for the rest of the year.”

  “He’s going to torture you anyway!” Oz said.

  “Not if I’m dead,” Bryan replied. “Come on, let’s just get to work.”

  They scooted a few desks together, and Bryan sat down and waved across them to Heather, who barely acknowledged him with a blink. Heather McDonald was so shy she ma
de Gina Ramirez look outgoing. Bryan had seen her hanging out with a couple of other girls outside of class, so he knew she had friends, but in school she was the equivalent of a dormouse, squeaking only when called on and hiding in corners or behind her books.

  “Hey, Heather,” Oz said, finding a seat.

  She made a barely audible sound. Bryan grabbed a box of toothpicks and some of the rubber cement. Their globe was one of the papier-mâché variety and nearly finished. They had all the geographical features mapped—ridges and rises for the mountains, and tiny craters for the volcanoes. Everything had been painted by Heather, who was nimble with a brush and had an eye for detail. All that was left was landmarks. It had been Bryan’s idea not simply to mark them with a Sharpie, the way the other groups had done, but actually to build them and attach them to the globe, giving it an added layer of dimensionality. Mount Rushmore, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Pyramids, the Great Wall, Sydney Opera House, the Colosseum—all finished. All that was left was the toothpick Eiffel Tower and the Stonehenge made of Pez. For a moment Bryan thought maybe they would just work quietly in peace, but Oz wouldn’t let up.

  “You could always try to explain,” he said, doing what best friends do: trying to solve a problem by offering solutions that they themselves won’t be responsible for carrying out.

  “What, like, write him a note?”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  Bryan tried to imagine what that might look like. Dear Tank: Please don’t murder me. I never called your mother stupid, and I only called you an ape because of your muscular build and your ferocious demeanor, not because of the abnormal carpet of back hair that is clearly visible underneath your T-shirts. Or maybe just, Dear Chris: Do you hate me? Or do you hate-me hate me? Please check one. Of course this assumed that Wattly could read. Perhaps Bryan could draw a picture instead. “Maybe I should just tell him it was your fault,” Bryan said thoughtfully.

  Oz’s face fell, but at least it shut him up.

  “You’re talking about Chris Wattly. You can just say it, you know.”