The Rule of Won by Stefan Petrucha

great that we’re doing all this good stuff, and how much the club is growing, but I don’t think we need a special salute in the hallways. —Anonymous
    â€¢ I really want people to stop thinking I’m gay. There’s nothing wrong with it, but I’m not, you know? Just because I like art and Broadway shows does
not
make me gay. That is such a stupid stereotype. —Andrew
    â€¢ I still have the dreams. I don’t think the meds are working, and the guy in the lunchroom saw me looking at him and now he keeps staring at me, like he knows I’m thinking he’s a killer. Now I’m worried that maybe the dream is trying to warn me about him, and that maybe I should carry a knife to school to protect myself. But I could never get it past the metal detectors. Could I? —Lauren

10
    It can be tough work being a slacker. Yeah, that sounds ridiculous, but really, there are times when it takes more effort not to do something than to do it. Like, over the next few days, I really had to fight with myself not to grab Vicky and demand that she tell me what was going on with her and Ethan. I also had to stop myself from demanding that Erica do some actual studying, because she was totally freaking me out.
    Doing either seemed like a bad idea, though. I pretty much knew what was going on with Vicky and Ethan. And Erica? Aside from the fact that it was ridiculous for someone like me to tell
anyone
to study, how could I even suggest
The Rule
might not always totally work? Wasn’t I just being a wussy doubter anyway? Hadn’t we all just seen it, big-time, twice?
    Anyone who hadn’t seen it sure heard about it. Ethan, Vicky, Grace, Landon, Dylan, and the others made sure of that—hanging posters all over the place, bragging about our successes. As a result, the Crave was getting so big it made menervous, especially since some of the posts on the board were getting creepier than Erica’s notebook.
    I mean, the funding was just kind of fun to think about, and the basketball game was, well, a
game
, but Erica was messing with her future, and the posts were getting serious and seriously weird. Like that twitchy girl Lauren, who was thinking of bringing a knife to school. I tried to talk to her about that, but every time I got near her, she just huddled up and walked away, like I was a serial killer waiting to happen.
    So there I was, Super-slacker, struggling not to act. At times the only thing stopping me was a firmly held belief that there was nothing I
could
do other than think of my spork and chant, “Everything’s gonna be just fine. Everything’s gonna be just fine.”
    Instead of easing my mind, the construction only added to my newfound spiritual anxiety. Everywhere I went, classroom to cafeteria, I heard popping nail guns and whining drills, the singsong of our fallen gym wing rising from the grave:
    Pht! Pht! Zzz! Zzz!
    Every day by midday, I had one freaking big headache.
    Did I mention Vicky won the election? Surprise, surprise. And ever since, Madame President didn’t have any free time—not for me, anyway. I noticed something else about her that just made me sad. I don’t know if it was because she was president now or because she was worried about what Ethan thought, but she clipped her nails and stopped painting little pictures on them.
    At least I didn’t vote for her.
    (To be honest, by the time I remembered there was a vote, it was over.)
    It was all getting to be too much. But like it or not, life goes on, or went on, or slouches on, until one day, as I walked toward bio, desperately trying to imanifest some aspirin for myself, a new sound wheedled its way above all the
pht!
and
zzz!
A sound that would change things, for me at least: the sound of paper being yanked off the wall.
    Rip, rip, rip.
    Mr. Eldridge, our “tough” math teacher, was tearing down Crave posters, one after the other.
    Frankly, it seemed . . .
unholy
.
    Kind of