1 Chapter 1

After everyone else had left the cafeteria, Sid sat down at the teacher’s table and finished off the principal’s piece of pumpkin pie. Not the part he’d barely touched with his fork, but everything else. The principal—on principle, ha ha, always took some of everything and then only briefly, if at all, tasted it. In short, he wasted it. Sid was aghast at how much he, and the other teachers, left on their plates. The kids were just as bad, but that was to be expected. You could tell which kids had the free lunch and who bought because they could by how much wasted food was left on the plate, or the table, or the floor. He himself should have gotten the free lunch, but his step-father wouldn’t stoop to ‘charity.’

Thus he and his siblings always brought their own. His bag lunch that he made himself usually was a peanut butter sandwich. Frankly, after his younger siblings got through making their lunches, unless he made them for them the night before, there wasn’t much left for him at all. Sid, however, was determined that they would not go hungry. This morning he’d slipped his own sandwich into his brother Pete’s bag, because he’d noticed Pete was growing again.

Being the oldest sucked. Maybe he could learn to be a selfish prick, like his step-father, Ben. He curled his lip at the idea.

This punishment was sure making up for his problem though. If he’d known he’d be sentenced to clean up the cafeteria for a month, he’d have smashed Dave Grove’s nose in for him a long time ago. This brought his fingers to his own face, his cheek and eyebrow, where the bruising was still changing color, and the stitch tape that was holding his eyebrow together was still barely holding on against the swelling. The school had refused to pay for an ER visit for him because all of Dave’s friends said he, Sid, had started it, had thrown the first punch, as by God he had. Right after Dave’s size thirteen Godzilla boot found its mark in the new kid, Royal’s, crotch, sending him to the floor in agony. This had only been a couple of hours ago, after first hour English.

Royal was new this year. He’d only been here a few weeks. Dave had spotted him right away and begun his vicious but fun, for him, filled verbal torture almost immediately. That was in early November. Now it was the first of December, their senior year, and the only good thing so far was this ‘punishment’ in the cafeteria. The food, oh my God, the food. What was it Scarlet said, I shall never be hungry again, or something? It was a late Thanksgiving and early Christmas present, all rolled into one. The fact that he had to miss study hall to do this was not an issue at all.

Sitting in the principal’s office after the fight, watching Dave’s father—the mayor—come for him and take him off to the hospital, was rather emotional. Mostly Sid was shocked at his own violence. It made him feel amused, horrified, and proud, all at the same time. His biggest fear in life was turning into his step-father and he abhorred violence. But still…

The first time he’d seen Royal, Sid had wondered about him. Here was this new kid, standing in the locker room, taking off his clothes to change, as they all were. However; from the far side of the room Sid had seen this golden boy, his arms stretched up over his head, just his hip in view below the waist, and Sid’s heart had stopped, dropped the beat, dropped his whole stomach right onto the floor. It took his breath away. This first look wasn’t sexual at all, but the sheer beauty and vulnerability of Royal in that unguarded moment would never leave him. All the other looks after that, however, had defined for Sid who and what he was.

Dave Grove, 6’2” tall and head of everything sports wise, was the serpent in the locker room paradise, if you call the addition of one boy paradise. He had been picking on Royal ever since he started school here, but before that he had picked on Sid. Sid didn’t understand why he couldn’t punch Dave on his own behalf, but turned all noble and stupid for some stranger. Well, he thought, licking pie off his fingers and looking at an untouched hot dog with hunger, it might have something to do with wanting…no, he wouldn’t think of what Royal’s crotch might look like all black and blue and swollen. He’d seen it in the locker room anyhow, as he had many others. And, um, where was he? Oh yeah, uh huh…better eat that hotdog. Blushing, he stuck the end of the hotdog into his mouth and sucked the juices out of it, not noticing the door to the hallway open. Not until he had half the hotdog sucked into his mouth and his eyes closed, still thinking blissfully of what he’d tried not to think of.