The Insiders by J. Minter Page B

parents’ building, waiting for somebody to let them in.
    â€œNot since I can remember,” David said. “I keep meaning to call, but I’m too upset to find him.”
    â€œI guess that means you haven’t seen Amanda?”
    â€œNot since I broke up with her,” David said slowly. He still couldn’t believe he’d done it, and he still had no idea who she’d cheated on him with—but that was okay, he knew he couldn’t have dealt with it if he had known.
    â€œOh, right,” Jonathan said.
    â€œAnd I started crying again yesterday, during basketball practice. I may have to quit the team out of complete humiliation.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œIt was awful. Now everybody is calling me the Most Sensitive Guy in the World. And if it hadn’t been for that Adam kid, I might’ve taken a swing at my coach.”
    â€œOh yeah, that kid’s lame,” Jonathan said.
    â€œHe’s okay with me,” David said. “Anyway, I don’t know what I’m going to do, because the team is my whole identity besides Amanda. I walk by mirrors now and I can’t see my own reflection.”
    â€œYou’re like a Lifetime movie,” Jonathan said. “You know that?”
    â€œI’m depressed.”
    â€œWe’ll work on you this weekend. I got some ideas.”
    The door opened and they looked at Ricardo Pardo’s head assistant, Caselli. He wore a white jumpsuit and had a shaved head. Tattoos were visible on his neck and wrists. David could never figure out why all of Ricardo Pardo’s assistants were so tough.
    Caselli said, “You guys can’t come in. Mickey’s in big trouble.”
    â€œWhat’d he do?” Jonathan asked, and sighed.
    â€œApparently he tried to eat a kid at school.”
    â€œDid he break the skin?” Jonathan asked. “He’s done this before and he won’t get expelled if he didn’t break the skin.”
    â€œCan we just see him for five minutes?” David asked. “We need to check in with him about homework.”
    â€œExcept you don’t go to his school,” Caselli said. “But whatever. Don’t let his dad see you.”
    Jonathan and David crept quietly inside. The house was cavernous, with twenty-foot-high ceilings and enormous doors leading from room to room. Opera,
L’Elisir D’Amore
, blasted through all the speakers on the first floor. As they passed the studio, they could see Ricardo Pardo and about five helpers making huge art out of mangled car parts.
    They found Mickey in his room, lying on the cold concrete floor where his bed should have been.
    â€œWhere’s your bed?” Jonathan asked.
    â€œI don’t know,” Mickey said. “What does it matter? Now I’m in trouble and I can’t see Philippa again.”
    â€œYou should’ve never gotten off the phone with me.”
    â€œYeah, Jonathan. That’s what it was.” Mickey sat up and looked at his friends. “Jonathan, I didn’t know you had to wear a blazer to school.”
    â€œWe don’t,” Jonathan said. He tugged at the sleeves of his brown tweed blazer.
    â€œThen why are you wearing one now?”
    â€œI felt kind of serious today,” Jonathan said. “Unlike you.”
    â€œYou felt serious, so you dressed up like a science teacher,” Mickey said. David and Mickey shook their heads.
    â€œYeah,” Jonathan said. “And you think you’re a spaceman, so you always wear a jumpsuit.”
    â€œYou tried to eat a kid?” David asked. He sat down in a windowsill, next to a pile of schoolbooks and a Macintosh notebook that was unplugged and covered in dust. The roomed smelled faintly of paint.
    â€œI thought he had a BLT in his hand.”
    â€œDid he?” David asked.
    â€œNo, it was a copy of
The Sun Also Rises
. But it looked and smelled like a BLT.”
    â€œIf it was the paperback, I can