Teasing Fate |The Outsiders|

11. The Scapegoat

"EVEN THE HOLY BOOK ITSELF HAS A FEW SCAPEGOATS."

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"Miss Curtis!"

Her head snaps away from the window automatically, the hand she was using to support her chin drops to the yellowed pages of her notebook. She's three desks to my left, Patrick is one over and one down on my right. There aren't that many greasers in our history class -- none that I recognize, anyway. I bite back the urge to laugh at her like the other kids were doing -- Socs, mostly. I don't think any greasers who knew Dally was in her gang would wanna make fun of her. Mrs. Graham shakes her head and takes off her glasses, probably trying not to call us all the worst names she could think of. Considering she was probably older than our textbooks, I doubted she could remember much, anyway. She clucks her tongue disapprovingly and turns her back, Marley's quiet "sorry ma'am," falling on deaf ears.

I wrote down a few notes in my scribbler as Mrs. Graham drags her hand across the chalkboard, smearing the letters as she goes. I'm two rows away from the door and the clock ticking by above it. I end up having to crane my neck to make sense of the numbers -- thanks to the glare from the windows -- and fall back into my seat. The clock reads ten minutes to three. I have forty minutes left of listening to some old bat drone on about the revolution and its significance. I mean, how significant was it really, if none of us remember anything the second the bell goes?

It doesn't matter though. Mrs. Graham turns away from the board, the front of her dress stained with dust and orders us to read a couple pages in our textbooks. I know for a fact I'm not gonna read them, but I flip past the front cover anyway. From the other side of the room, looks like Marley's doing the same thing. Patrick, on the other hand, is at least trying to push through the "stupid hood" stereotype and actually beings to read the pages our teacher scrawled on the board, Even better, I can just get my answers from him at the end of the day.

Which is still thirty-eight minutes away.

"-Yeah, I heard it from Sarah."

The kid in front of me -- Pete Bradley -- is gossiping worse than Angela with his buddy to his right. I'm not paying attention, I don't really care. I just sit there and watch the seconds tick by, over and over. "Her daddy's been selling drugs, that's why he took off last night!"

Yup, the rumour mill was fully operational and waiting for the stories to come trickling in. Today it was someone's dead-beat daddy, tomorrow it would be some two-timing girlfriend. But I'd be lying if I said my interest wasn't the smallest bit piqued. Dad went out yesterday for "business", and you didn't have to be a genius to know what that meant. I figured me and Andy coming back empty-handed wasn't what he wanted to hear, so he went searching himself. Anyone tryna work against Frank Shepard wouldn't remain anonymous for long. Maybe I could figure it out right now, sitting in my fucking classroom. I'd prove my dad and Andy wrong, and I wouldn't have to lift a finger.

"I'm telling you! I heard it from Sarah, and she heard it from Jack. Jack heard it right from Darrel! Yeah, Darry-"

"Marlene Curtis and Tim Shepard to the office. Marlene Curtis and Tim Shepard to the office."

The room falls silent as Miss. Gardner's voice dies and I feel twenty-five pairs of eyes dart between me and the girl across the room. Pete looks at me from over his shoulder --doesn't even try to hide the smug grin crossing his lips, probably thinking his daddy will be the one to arrest me next. Marley was the first to move from her chair, dragging the legs across the floor as she pushed back from the desk and gathered her things. The kids around her are buzzing like bees, raking over her, letting the assumptions fly past their lips before they can even string their pathetic little lies together. I shoot Pat a glare as I move to my feet. He doesn't bother shaking the smug look from his face -- like he knows I won't deck him in the middle of class. I take the high road instead and flip him the bird as discreetly as I can. I may be a stupid hood, but I know when to pick my battles.