The Impossible Fortress(59)
I found Ashley Applewhite standing in front of her locker. Ashley Applewhite, ninth-grade class representative, treasurer of the Key Club, deputy editor of the student newspaper, daughter of the school superintendent, and next-door neighbor of Mary Zelinsky. She was gabbing with three of her girlfriends but they all saw me coming and stopped talking.
“What do you want?” said Ashley.
I held up the Impossible Fortress disk. “I got your message.”
“It’s some kind of game,” she explained. “You’re supposed to put that inside a computer.” Then she turned back to her entourage, forcing me to interrupt their conversation.
“I know what it is,” I said. “I need to send a message back.”
I held out my letter, a single sheet of paper that I’d folded and taped shut. Ashley sprang back like it was radioactive.
“No way,” she said. “Mary wants nothing to do with you.”
Again she turned to her entourage, and again I interrupted them. “Please,” I said. “It’s important.”
The other girls huffed and sighed. They were the closest thing to royalty in our ninth grade, and I was testing their patience. Ashley snatched the letter from my fingers, then ripped it into halves, quarters, eighths, and sixteenths. She threw the pieces back in my face, a quick poof of confetti that clung to my head and shoulders. Suddenly we had the attention of everyone in the hallway.
“Stay away from her,” she said. “Mary doesn’t want to hear from you, ever. And if you try to give me another note, I’ll take it straight to the police.”
2800 REM *** START BONUS LEVEL ***
2810 PRINT "{CLR}{12 CSR DWN}"
2820 PRINT "{5 SPACES}YOU HAVE ENTERED"
2830 PRINT "{6 SPACES}THE BONUS ROUND."
2840 PRINT "{5 SPACES}FATE HAS GIVEN YOU"
2850 PRINT "{7 SPACES}ONE LAST CHANCE."
2860 PRINT "{2 CSR DWN}"
2870 PRINT "{5 SPACES}DON′T SCREW IT UP!"
2880 FOR DELAY = 1 TO 1000:NEXT DELAY
2890 RETURN
THAT NIGHT, I REASSEMBLED the scraps and copied the letter onto a clean sheet of paper. Then I carried it with me for days, trying to think of ways to get it to Mary.
“What’s the letter say?” Alf kept asking.
“None of your business,” I told him.
This was maybe a week after our arrest, and any notoriety we’d earned among our classmates was almost gone. Now everyone was buzzing about the tenth grader caught masturbating in the library to Volume K of the World Book Encyclopedia. (“Why Volume K?” Alf kept wondering aloud. “Where’s the good stuff in Volume K?”) Me and Alf and Clark were sitting at our little table in the back of the cafeteria, finishing our sloppy joes and french fries. No one else was sitting within twenty feet of us, as if our pervert-loser genes were contagious. I was staring at the envelope and turning it around in my hand, trying to brainstorm solutions to my dilemma.
“Can’t you CompuServe it to her?” Clark asked. “Do that electronic mail thing?”
“My mom sold the computer,” I reminded him.
“Then regular-mail it,” he said. “Leave off the return address and send it to the store.”
“Her dad will intercept it,” I said. “I need to make sure Mary gets it.”
“Why? What’s the letter say?” Alf asked again.
“None of your business,” I repeated.
A few moments later, I made the mistake of looking around the cafeteria, searching the tables for someone, anyone, who might be able to help me. While I had my back turned, Alf reached across my lunch tray and snatched the envelope. I nearly dove across the table to get it back. The only thing keeping me in check was the stern presence of Mr. Hibble, standing at the entrance of the cafeteria, proudly overseeing his domain.
“Give it back,” I warned Alf.
“Take it easy. I won’t open it, I promise. I’ll just use my psychic powers, all right?”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
He held the envelope to his forehead like Carnac the Magnificent, the fake mystic played by Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked.
He closed his eyes and feigned tremendous concentration. “I’m sensing the word sorry. It’s very strong. This is an apology?”
I decided the easiest way to get my letter back was to endure the stupid game. “Yes.”
Alf closed his eyes and resumed his mystic performance. He was a terrible actor; his attempts at concentration looked like constipation. “You feel bad about what happened?”
“Yes.”
“Because we trashed the store?”
“Yes.”
“We ruined everything?”
“Yes.”
“And now Mary hates you.”
“Yes.”
“And her father hates you.”
“Yes.”
“And you like this girl.”
“Shut up,” I told him.
“You like this girl,” Alf repeated, more confidently. “It’s cool, Billy. I see it all right here in the letter. You were never trying to get the alarm code. You were hanging around the store because you like Mary for real.”