The Fugitive Grandma Lives

Chapter 21 - The Loser Queen

Johnny was good at memorizing maps of spaces. It was something he practiced for the big crimes in his past: breaking out of his grandma's retirement home, robbing supermarkets, infiltrating the Great American supply warehouse.

Now he had the layout of Palm Valley Junior High in his head. There was the front entrance and the lockers. This was where you'd find the Killer Boys and the Burn Outs and the Homeboys clustered in in their circles, marking their territory in the hall. Then on the steps past the lockers you had the pretty, popular girls, the clique that everyone called the Hot Ones, the ones who ruled over their own little empire on the female side

In a dark corner behind the stairwell, Johnny knew he could always find Sally Styles, the one they called The Loser Queen, the girl who had been held back a year, whose mother who worked the clean-up aisle at Great American.

Johnny had been observing the Loser Queen with interest. She had pretty much given up on school in every way. She never paid attention in class and missed homework assignments so often the teachers stopped keeping track. She definitely didn't have any friends. She ate lunch alone and spent the recess time sitting at the perimeter, listening to music in earphones hidden in her pocket jacket, never trying to make eye contact or start up a conversation with fellow classmates. She dyed her hair in purple streaks and wore strange gloomy outfits.

Johnny knew that every grade of every class had to have a scapegoat, a target for all the other kids to despise and ridicule. He'd been in that position himself from time to time. But The Loser Queen seem to be the defending the title for Most Hated Kid at Palm Valley, with several years in the top position.

She was the type of person that totally fascinated Johnny. He suspected all the other kids had gotten it wrong as people so often do. Just as no one could see his inner nature, he suspected they were missing something great about the real Sally Styles. The fact that every student seemed to revile the Loser Queen just made her that much more interesting. He wanted to be her friend.

During Social Studies class, Johnny noticed a scene playing out in the seats in front of him: A note and some money changing hands between Tiffany, a member of the Hot Ones, and Brad, the cute, blonde leader of the Killer Boys.

Johnny knew this what about to happen. The Hot Ones were paying off Brad to play a trick a trick on some unfortunate girl. He would ask her to go steady and then dump her the next day, explaining it was just a joke.

After school, Johnny rode his skateboard home, following Sally as she walked alone to her apartment complex at the edge of the drainage ditch by the great sandy hills on the edge of Palm Valley. From a distance, Johnny saw Brad enter the apartment complex on his shiny mountain bike. Brad pedaled behind Sally, trailing her as she walked along the alley by the drainage ditch.

"I mean what I said back at school, Sally," Brad called out to her.

She didn't reply and kept walking straight ahead.

"Lot of girls in class would be happy if I asked them out."

She stopped in her tracks and spoke without looking up at him. "Can you leave me alone?"

"Come on, Sally don't try to pretend. Everyone knows you're easy," Brad said, his mouth curled in a mean smile.

She started running away, down the driveway that led to her apartment.

Brad laughed as she darted in the front door. "I don't give up that easy, Sally." Then he rode away on his skateboard.