These Children That You Spit On

The Breakfast Club: Periods 1-3

I brought a book to read. Firestarter. I tucked my hair behind my ear and read. I'd seen all the trailers for the movie coming out, and was very excited. Even prior to my Science Fiction Club sit-ins (or sit-outs, more accurately), I loved Stephen King. I read Carrie in sixth grade, and then I bought every other King book I could find. I'd already read Firestarter twice, but it was still one of my favorites. I was only on the very familiar third page when a gloved hand closed my book with a loud thud.

"Hello, fair Cousin Fallon," Bender greeted me. "Flipping through your little black book?"

I felt my face flush. What could I do? Fighting obviously wasn't the answer, since he could kill me if he wanted to.

"Leave me alone," I muttered.

"Leave me alone," he mimicked in a sissy voice. He was hovering over my shoulder, holding my book away from both of us and resting his other hand on the table. "So," he went on, "you're a triple slummer, ay?"

I shook my head.

"Come on," he went patronizingly. "You sleep around my neighborhood so often that eventually your family moves in, and now, here you are in my home away from home. Detention."

I felt my face flush. "Shut up," I said more firmly.

Bender ignored me as he continued with his tirade. "Gosh, Fallon, if you have the hots for me, you could just say so. There's no reason you shouldn't. I mean, I'm not interested, but if your sex pool is running dry, I can turn my head at a little incest. We have plenty of cousins who'd leap at the opportunity."

These words were so familiar to me, that I had to ask him. "Did you start that rumor," I hissed.

"What rumor," Bender asked innocuously.

"The rumor that we made out at the Seven Eleven," I snapped, rising from my chair.

"Ewww," I heard Claire murmur.

Bender raised his eyebrows. "...No."

"Oh, sure," I snapped. "Like I believe you!"

"Well, you should," Bender snapped. "As far as I can tell, the liars aren't on my aunt's side of the family. Hell, you probably inherited the lying gene from your dad and the whore gene from mommy dearest."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "You wouldn't know," I pointed out. "It's not like there was ever some family reunion."

"And whose fault is that?"

He had me there. My mother barely even told me we were related until we started school together. That was the only time we interacted pleasantly. And even that was more perfunctory than anything. When I started kindergarten, a six year old Bender took the time out of his busy schedule to show me where to line up for lunch and recess and where my class was. We never played together or even waved in the halls after that. I met Claire, Brenda, and Angela, he had his own friends; therefore, neither of us was particularly missed by the other. But in that case, my mother never encouraged me to get to know him like she did with other family members. In fact, it seemed like Mom didn't want anyone to acknowledge that she had once been poor. Even now, after we had become as poor as she had been before, it was still supposed to be a secret. I slunk back into my seat, defeated. Satisfied with how much he had shamed me, Bender moved on. He sat down next to Brian and started flicking a piece of paper around as Vernon walked in. We were briefly lectured, Bender picked a fight, etc. As far as I could tell, this wouldn't be profoundly different from an essay test, other than having an allotted eight hours instead of forty five minutes. As soon as Vernon left, Bender started posturing as usual, so I focused my attention on Brian. He was playing around with a pen and murmuring to himself. Then he shoved the pen between his lips, and suddenly said, loud enough for me to hear anyway, "I am a walrus..."