Seeing Double

Rebound - Part 4

When Danny got to school the next morning, everyone was drinking soda before first period.

"Dash broke into the vending machine," Mikey told him excitedly. "He's giving free soda out to everyone. Even I got one!"

Mikey was an overly freckled redhead who, uh, was in band or something. His locker was right next to Danny's, but they'd never really talked much.

That Danny could remember.

"Oh," Danny said. "Uh, cool."

"He said he digs my hair!" Mikey continued. "And I don't think he was being sarcastic. Do you think he was being sarcastic?"

Danny could only blink at the kid stupidly.

Then Tucker came to the rescue, walking up to them and ruffling Mikey's hair. "Who cares what Dash thinks?" He said. "Statistically, you've got the rarest natural hair color on the planet. You won the lottery."

Mikey beamed at him. "Thanks Tucker. Want my soda? I didn't open it."

Tucker rolled his eyes. "It could be poisoned, dude."

"Dash said-"

"Who cares what Dash said?" His items retrieved, Danny slammed his locker door shut. "He's an ass."

"He wants to turn over a new leaf," Mikey said. But he eyed his free soda uncertainly. "Even gave this whole speech to the football team-"

Tucker guffed. "Did you film it?"

"N-no, but-"

Tucker put a hand on Mikey's shoulder, slowly shaking his head.

Mikey sighed. "Next time I'll record it."

He walked off and Danny wondered if Tucker and that dude were friends or not. It was hard to tell with Tucker sometimes.

"Uh, do I know Mikey well?" Danny said, scratching his cheek.

Tucker blinked at him. Then his eyes widened. "Oh. You didn't..."

There was an awkward pause. Danny pretended to look for something in his backpack.

"I know him better than you," Tucker finally said. "Film club and other overlaps like that. You just knew- know him through me."

He didn't know Tucker was in the film club. Casper High had a film club?

"You've got English with him," Tucker added.

"I know that," Danny said, pulling out a pen, he finally closed the backpack.

It was one of those clicker pens, with a button where an eraser would be for a pencil. He clicked it a few times and had to mentally kick himself into stopping once they'd reached the classroom.

Tucker followed him in.

He suddenly wished that they didn't have any classes in common.

Especially since-

"Hey-o, daddy-o!"

Fucking Dash.

"Daddy what?" Tucker said.

He was about to sit down next to Danny, as usual, but Dash held an arm out to block him. "Nah, I've got dibs!"

Dibs? What a childish thing to say, Danny thought.

Tucker could only stand and stare as Dash sat down.

Technically there wasn't assigned seating. Only Lancer gave a shit about stuff like that.