Knuckleheads by Jeff Kass Page B

four-square court where the girls—Hilary, Tricia and the Karens—gathered to talk, not even to hold a ball, not even to play anything. Then he stomped one foot against the dirt and seemed to gather a sense of purpose in his chin.
    “It’s time,” he said, his words slow and determined. “Time for us to find out if that loser’s been lying to us.”
    We marched the thirty feet from monkey bars to balance beam in a three-pronged wedge, Adam at the lead. It was our first mission and we could feel our reserves of courage burning our chests. Even Benji seemed to perk up. After months of back-flipping and karate kicks, we were itching to be heroes. Itching for truth.
    That Eric, as he plodded along the balance beam with his eyes closed, failed to hear us approach, was further proof he’d never cut it as Daredevil. “Hey, Fuckbrain!” Adam shouted and then shoved him roughly, knocking him off the six-inch high beam.
    To Eric’s credit, he landed on his feet, though in an awkward half-crouch, hardly an effective fighting stance.
    “Where’s the script, Fuckbrain?” Adam asked him.
    “I told you,” Eric said, “I gave it to my uncle. He said he had to show it around to people. And it’s not a script anyway. It’s a treatment, a proposal for an idea to write a script about.”
    “Treatment” seemed to slow Adam down for a few seconds. It sounded like the kind of authentic term people in Hollywood might actually use, and it felt similar to the Marvel process. First, you had to sell the idea to the people in charge, then you had to write it.
    “You are so full of shit,” Adam finally said. “I should kick your ass right now.”
    “No,” Eric insisted, practically crying. “I’m not lying, I swear.”
    He shook his head then, forcefully, as if he too were trying to summon some inner store of heart and courage. The net effect though, canceling out his repeated pleas that he was telling the truth, was that a nugget of grease-glued dandruff about the size of a piece of popcorn dislodged itself from his hair and fell to the ground. A flurry of ants scrambled immediately to eat it.
    “My God,” Adam said. “That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.”
    It looked for a moment like Adam was about to kick Eric’s ass right there, like he’d punch his puss-filled face. Instead, he smiled. It was an overconfident villain smile, a leer. “You guys wait here,” he said to Benji and me. “Keep an eye on the loser. Don’t let him run.”
    Of course, Eric wasn’t going to run. He could barely stop his potato-sack body from shaking. Still, Benji and I had been charged with our first assignment. We were alert. We took our jobs seriously. “If you run, you’re dead,” I said, crossing my arms like a sentinel.
    Adam was gone less than a minute, the amount of time it took him to march back to the monkey bars and retrieve his Incredible Hulk lunchbox. He opened it and pulled out the plastic bag of carrots his mom had packed for him, then dumped the carrots on the ground, not far from Eric’s distressing dandruff clump. The ants failed to react to the appearance of the carrots. Apparently, to them, the dandruff clump wasn’t ugly at all. They would’ve ranked it highly.
    Adam turned the plastic bag inside out and shoved his hand inside it, then, in the manner dog-owners use to clean up after their pets, he bagged Eric’s chunk of popcorn-dandruff, sweeping up a huddle of ants with it and then pulling his hand out and sealing the zip-lock top. I wondered if the ants would be able to breathe.
    Do ants breathe?
    “All right, Fuckbrain, I’m not gonna kick your ass now,” Adam said to Eric. “You’ve got one week to prove you’re not lying about your uncle. One week. If you can’t prove it by then, not only will I kick your ass, but I will make you eat this disgusting shit too.”
    Adam put the baggie with Eric’s dandruff grease-ball into his Hulk lunchbox. I wondered if he’d keep it there for the