Slob - Ellen Potter [51]
“Mr. Birnbaum! Mr. Ragg! Front and center!”
My guts twisted up and my mouth instantly went dry. I looked over at Mason. He looked terrified.
“I’ve got to get out of here!” he said to me in a panicked voice. “Now!” Then he started for the exit marked Boys’, which led down to the boys’ locker room.
“What are you talking about?” I grabbed him by his upper arm. Me. Owen Birnbaum grabbed Mason Ragg.
“Get off of me!” he shrieked, and pulled away, then hightailed it through the crowds, running toward the boys’ exit door, nearly knocking down Justin Esposito in the process. I was so stunned that it took me a minute to realize what was happening. He had chickened out! All that talk was a load of nonsense. He was a coward, just like me! More of a coward, because I wasn’t running away. I was scared, but I wouldn’t run. At least I could be proud of that.
Nima says that when you start to feel like you are better than someone else, you should probably stick your head in a toilet because at that moment your thoughts are crap.
“Ragg! Get back here!” Mr. Wooly had caught sight of Mason trying to escape and started rushing toward him. The obstacle course slowed him down. He stumbled over the edge of a mat and crashed against a hurdle.
Suddenly, all the bravery that I had been able to muster evaporated. All the confidence that I had in Mason’s plan crumbled.
You know what? I thought. I am just as much a coward as Mason.
That was when I started to run too.
“Birnbaum!” Wooly bellowed. “Don’t you take another step!”
Mason reached the boys’ exit door a minute before I did. He flung it open, and before it could completely swing back shut, we went through. There was a short set of stairs, then a hallway, and then another door that opened into the boys’ lockers and showers. Mason was almost at the second door when I called out, “Why the hell did you show up, Mason, if you were only going to run away? Now you’ve just made everything worse! Wooly is madder than before—at both of us!”
Mason turned around. The expression on his face was the same one I had seen in the school hallway the other day. The look of wild panic.
“Don’t let them see,” he said before disappearing behind the locker room door.
“See what?” I cried.
Jeremy arrived then, her legs pounding down the stairs, and right after her Wooly stormed through. His face was a really alarming color, sort of a lavender, and a little speck of spit flew out of his mouth as he said, “Birnbaum, you are going to haul your carcass back in the gym right this second.” He said it sort of quietly, which was scarier than his bellowing. “And where is Ragg?”
The door opened behind Wooly, and some of my classmates followed him cautiously, not wanting to get in the line of fire of Wooly’s fury but also not wanting to miss out on any of the good stuff.
“Where’s Ragg?!” Wooly repeated, this time in his usual bellow. “Is he in there?”
I didn’t answer, so Wooly stepped forward to go through the locker room door. I stepped back and stood in front of it. From inside the locker room came the sound of a loud crash.
“What was that?” Jeremy whispered.
“I don’t know,” I whispered back. Before I could stop her, she opened the locker room door and slipped inside.
Instantly a cheer sounded from the top of the stairs. I looked up to see the members of GWAB hooting and punching their arms in the air. It took me a minute to realize why.
A GWAB member had infiltrated the boys’ locker room. This moment would live forever in GWAB history, particularly since Sybil Tushman was filming it all at the top of the stairs.
“All right, Birnbaum, out of the way.” Wooly made a movement toward the door, but I stayed put, spreading my arms wide so that I blocked the entire door.
Wooly let loose with a string of threats, ranging from calling in the principal to calling my mom to immediate suspension to making my life a living hell. I had no doubt he would do all those things. But in my mind, I could still see Mason’s frightened, wild-looking eyes and hear his frantic words, “Don’t let them see.”
I