Free Slob by Ellen Potter

class.
    On the way down there, we passed Jeremy and Arthur and six other girls standing outside their classroom, looking angry and holding signs saying things like WE WILL NOT BE BULLIED! and GWAB RULES! and the ill-advised MR. SHACKLY SUCKS! All the girls had extremely short hair, except for Jeremy, and were dressed like boys. You wouldn’t think that there is that much of a difference in boys’ and girls’ clothes these days, but when you see a girl dressed in boys’ clothes, the difference is very clear. Boys’ clothes are a lot less interesting than girls’, for one. And also, they fit girls funny—baggy in some places and tight in others. Except for Arthur. Her red polo shirt and chinos fit her just fine. Also, the GWABs held themselves differently than other girls. They slumped more, I think.
    Unfortunately, there were no network news cameras or famous anchorpeople, but Sybil Tushman was there with her camcorder. She has a daily video blog on her website called The Universe According to Sybil. It’s usually just Sybil talking about her older sister and how much she hates her but she also does some news segments about our school. Lots of kids in our school watch it, believe it or not.
    “Lesby-girls,” hissed someone from my class.
    The GWABs didn’t even bat an eye over that one. It wasn’t anything they hadn’t heard before, and anyway, they clearly had more important things on their minds.
    I caught Jeremy’s eye as I passed, and she looked back at me, her face full of utter defiance. If I didn’t know that she was just a new member of GWAB, I would have guessed that she was the president. She has this leadership aura. She may not be supersmart, but if you stick her in a crowd of people, she just pops, like a zebra-striped jeep in a shoppingmall parking lot.
    In gym class, Mr. Wooly had set up a balance beam and a trampoline in the front of the gym, and now he was laying down a line of mats in the back of the gym. Not good.
    “So are you going to take my advice, Flapjack?” Andre asked me as I took my place on my spot.
    “The fat excuse or the lawsuit?” I asked.
    “Both.”
    “Nope.”
    “Neither?”
    “That’s right.” I was in a fairly cocky mood this morning.
    Mr. Wooly had finished with the mats and was on his way back up front when he actually came up to me and patted me on the shoulder in a friendly sort of way.
    “Morning, Birnbaum,” Wooly said.
    “He’s scared you’re going to make trouble for him about the dog harness thing,” Andre whispered when Wooly had passed.
    Andre was probably right about that.
    “Well, I won’t,” I said.
    Andre shook his head. He interlaced his fingers, flipped them upside down, and flexed his wrists. “You know what your problem is, Flapjack?”
    I growled. Quietly.
    “You think life has to be hard.” He smiled at me, one of his windsurfing-in-Malibu smiles. I wanted to punch him right then and there, but suddenly his smile crumpled and he looked uneasy. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look like that before. He was looking at something behind me, so I turned my head to follow his gaze. Mason had come in the side door of the gym, accompanied by a teacher’s aide. Up to now, I had mercifully been spared Mason’s presence in gym class. Andre had told me that Mason had a “psycho exemption,” although I assumed there was a more official word for it.
    The teacher’s aide went up to Mr. Wooly and began to talk to him with her back turned to the class in order to be discreet, but Mr. Wooly’s face was clearly visible to all of us. And he was not happy. In fact, he made no effort to keep his voice down when he said, “Well, just so’s we understand each other, I won’t be held responsible when all hell breaks loose in here.” The gym was dead quiet and his voice echoed so we all heard his words quite clearly. It was the first time all the rumors about Mason had been confirmed by an adult in the school.
    The teacher’s aide was now angry