lost city of Atlantis—but my lungs burned with longing for air so I burst up to the surface.
Patrick and Dez and Winter had climbed in. Dez used his phone to line up the shot of the three of us, while Patrick took two heaping handfuls of bubbles and propped them on his head to make a big white bubble-fro.
Dez said, “Smile!” like it was two syllables and took the picture.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Patrick climbed out—wet, with blobs of bubbles sliding down his bare back to his SpongeBob boxers—and we all followed, grabbing our clothes and heading for the car. I was almost disappointed that no one was chasing us away from the Shalimar because I felt like running.
Very far and very fast.
Away from Patrick and all this awkwardness.
Away from Winter and her secret and my own jealousy about it.
And from high school and Barbone and everything else.
“Two hundred freaking points,” Dez said, and he high-fived me and I met eyes with Patrick and he seemed somehow more disgusted with me than ever before.
A few other teams had arrived as we started putting our clothes back on to wet skin. Tom Reilly’s car just kept on going; no point in stopping once the points were already claimed. A few teams we didn’t know cruised by shouting out curses and insults. Only Carson’s team stopped.
“Are you guys going to hit twelve-fifty?” Carson asked, and it was Winter who said, “Of course we are.”
“Awesome,” Jill said. “Us, too.”
Back in the car, Dez was adding up points and said, “We’ve got eleven ninety-four.” Then, “Guys, if we rearrange the hay in the park for sixty points, we’re in the next round.”
“Really?” I said. The park was just a few minutes away. “Hay bales and we’re done?”
“With time to spare,” he said, then he nodded and high-fived me again and I didn’t care what Patrick thought. He was the one who was going to have to
deal with it
.
7
WE OYSTER POINTERS HAD MIXED FEELINGS about the “art installation” in the park overlooking the waterfront on Stomp Hill, which was basically a bunch of hay bales that the artist expected us common folk to rearrange for our own amusement. Some, including my father, argued that bales of hay can’t be art and dubbed the artist “some earthy crunchy nut job with too much time on her hands.” Others claimed the nut job was a visionary. Still others argued that just getting people to talk about what art
was
was sort of the whole point. When I’d decided to actually read what the artist had intended when her statement appeared in
The Oyster Pointer
—“The project is intended as a translation of the geometrical geography that was, and is, still necessary for productive agricultural labors and will depict the overlap between this original morphology of the cultivated land and an idealized and abstract pattern of the Cartesian knowledge”—I couldn’t help but side with my dad.
In the last few weeks, the hay bales had—according to
The Oyster Pointer
, at least—been arranged into the shape of a peace sign, some unfortunately square snowmen, a penis, and more.
“What about building a stairway-to-heaven-type thing?” Patrick offered as we stood in front of the hay bales, which were arranged in the shape of a phallus again. So some of our classmates had clearly already been there; probably Barbone.
“Too hard,” Winter said.
“That’s what she said,” Dez said.
If you only knew,
I thought, careful to not make eye contact with Patrick.
I
knew
guys got erections.
I was
perfectly prepared
to deal with it. When the right guy and the right erection came along.
“Think easy,” Winter said then. “Think outlines. Think the sort of crap a four-year-old draws. Butterflies and flowers.”
“But we could get extra points for being clever,” I said, remembering for the first time the Special Points. “We haven’t even been thinking about special points and how to get some.”
“Well, I don’t
Patrick and Dez and Winter had climbed in. Dez used his phone to line up the shot of the three of us, while Patrick took two heaping handfuls of bubbles and propped them on his head to make a big white bubble-fro.
Dez said, “Smile!” like it was two syllables and took the picture.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Patrick climbed out—wet, with blobs of bubbles sliding down his bare back to his SpongeBob boxers—and we all followed, grabbing our clothes and heading for the car. I was almost disappointed that no one was chasing us away from the Shalimar because I felt like running.
Very far and very fast.
Away from Patrick and all this awkwardness.
Away from Winter and her secret and my own jealousy about it.
And from high school and Barbone and everything else.
“Two hundred freaking points,” Dez said, and he high-fived me and I met eyes with Patrick and he seemed somehow more disgusted with me than ever before.
A few other teams had arrived as we started putting our clothes back on to wet skin. Tom Reilly’s car just kept on going; no point in stopping once the points were already claimed. A few teams we didn’t know cruised by shouting out curses and insults. Only Carson’s team stopped.
“Are you guys going to hit twelve-fifty?” Carson asked, and it was Winter who said, “Of course we are.”
“Awesome,” Jill said. “Us, too.”
Back in the car, Dez was adding up points and said, “We’ve got eleven ninety-four.” Then, “Guys, if we rearrange the hay in the park for sixty points, we’re in the next round.”
“Really?” I said. The park was just a few minutes away. “Hay bales and we’re done?”
“With time to spare,” he said, then he nodded and high-fived me again and I didn’t care what Patrick thought. He was the one who was going to have to
deal with it
.
7
WE OYSTER POINTERS HAD MIXED FEELINGS about the “art installation” in the park overlooking the waterfront on Stomp Hill, which was basically a bunch of hay bales that the artist expected us common folk to rearrange for our own amusement. Some, including my father, argued that bales of hay can’t be art and dubbed the artist “some earthy crunchy nut job with too much time on her hands.” Others claimed the nut job was a visionary. Still others argued that just getting people to talk about what art
was
was sort of the whole point. When I’d decided to actually read what the artist had intended when her statement appeared in
The Oyster Pointer
—“The project is intended as a translation of the geometrical geography that was, and is, still necessary for productive agricultural labors and will depict the overlap between this original morphology of the cultivated land and an idealized and abstract pattern of the Cartesian knowledge”—I couldn’t help but side with my dad.
In the last few weeks, the hay bales had—according to
The Oyster Pointer
, at least—been arranged into the shape of a peace sign, some unfortunately square snowmen, a penis, and more.
“What about building a stairway-to-heaven-type thing?” Patrick offered as we stood in front of the hay bales, which were arranged in the shape of a phallus again. So some of our classmates had clearly already been there; probably Barbone.
“Too hard,” Winter said.
“That’s what she said,” Dez said.
If you only knew,
I thought, careful to not make eye contact with Patrick.
I
knew
guys got erections.
I was
perfectly prepared
to deal with it. When the right guy and the right erection came along.
“Think easy,” Winter said then. “Think outlines. Think the sort of crap a four-year-old draws. Butterflies and flowers.”
“But we could get extra points for being clever,” I said, remembering for the first time the Special Points. “We haven’t even been thinking about special points and how to get some.”
“Well, I don’t
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