“Bendly?” coach repeated.

Ben sighed, knowing that if he corrected the man it would only make him a future target. “Here,” he droned.

“I see Steyer managed to graduate from summer school,” the coach bantered, sending a pug dog’s smile Leon’s way.

“Hey, Coach!” Leon answered happily. “They wanted to send me back to junior high but I told them I’d miss you too much.”

Coach smiled and continued the roll call. How did Leon do it? If Ben had tried that line he would have been called a queer and told to go run a few laps.

The rest of the period crawled by. Forms for the gym clothes were passed out for them to fill in and bring back the next day. To Ben’s despair, the mint green uniforms that always smelled of body odor no matter how many times they were laundered were passed out too, but thankfully there wasn’t enough time for them to get changed and play anything. Instead he spent the period listening to Leon talk about the Star Wars movies that he took so seriously. When stoned, he treated the events of the movies as if they were happening in the present along with the rest of the world’s events.

“Yoda has to know that Luke isn’t going to be able to best Vader. He’s totally just playing the emotional card and hoping to make Vader break down and cry or something, right?”

Ben didn’t have time to respond before the bell rang. He practically dived off the bleachers in a single leap in his eagerness to reach the hallways and look for Allison. Or Tim. Another new period meant another chance for them to be in the same class. Neither of his targets were spotted in the hallway, nor were they in his English class. The next period was his first elective, Spanish, which also failed to contain either of the people he was looking for. There was at least an amusing conflict between the teacher and a kid from Mexico who was looking to earn an easy A.

Lunch period brought relief in the form of Allison. He found her at their usual meeting spot, next to the vending machines in the large cafeteria that linked both wings of the school. They had their choice of seats since they both brought their lunches, while most of the other kids were lining up to buy hot food. As much as Ben was tired of white bread sandwiches, they were better than any of the food choices that the school offered. There were legends of neighboring school districts that allowed the fast food giants to cater for their students, but this district wasn’t one of them. This “healthier” food was soggy and flavorless. Even the soft drink machines were filled only with sugar-free lemonade and some sort of chocolate drinks that didn’t contain one grain of cocoa powder.

“Ronnie Adams!” Allison sang out as they sat down at their table.

“Who?” Ben started unpacking his lunch from the brown paper bag, wondering why the name sounded familiar.

“The fine black brother from driver’s ed?” Allison prompted. “He’s in my home ec class.”

Ben snorted and spit the juice box straw from his mouth. “Are you telling me because you think he might be gay?”

“No!” Allison protested. “There’s always straight guys on the prowl in home ec. Lord knows that’s the only reason I’m taking it. Anyway, the nutty old teacher has us sitting alphabetically, and by some miracle he’s the only ‘A’ and I’m the only ‘C’ with no ‘B’s’ in the middle.”

“See? It’s good that I refused to take that class.”

“You are forgiven,” Allison said gracefully. “So how goes it with your ‘T?’”

“Technically, it would be ‘W’ if we are going by last names,” Ben corrected. He had long ago scoped out Tim’s mailbox and discovered that his family name was Wyman, although thus far he had resisted scrawling Ben Wyman on any of his notebooks. “Unfortunately it isn’t going anywhere. I was hoping you had seen him.”

“Nope,” Allison said, swapping her Cheetos for Ben’s sour cream Pringles without having to ask. “Maybe he goes to a private school or something.”

“Maybe,” Ben said, glancing around the cafeteria. There were three different lunch breaks, so there was a fair chance Tim wouldn’t share one with them anyway. Ben was glad that he and Allison still shared a lunch period for the third year in a row. He decided to turn his full attention to her and put the whole matter out of his mind as much as he could. Like so many other things in life, maybe what he wanted wouldn’t come to pass if he thought too much about it.

* * * * *

Fourth-period was math and started out promising. There was an attractive guy in class named Craig, who looked vaguely like Zack Morris if Ben squinched his eyes up just right. Ben hadn’t talked to Craig since junior high, after spending the night at his house.

What had come between them was a fairly common story in Ben’s sordid history. It all began in the seventh grade, when a routine sleepover at a friend’s house was transformed by a pilfered porno. Watching the video together led to trading hand jobs. This act was repeated during more sleepovers until the time his friend claimed to be too tired to mess around and insisted that they go to sleep instead. This confused Ben until, after some less-than-casual tossing and turning, it became obvious that something was expected from him. Ben happily went down on his friend that night, for the first of many times, although the favor was never returned.

Eventually, word of Ben’s noble deed began to spread around the school, and guys he barely knew were inviting him to stay over. The same routine was played out over and over again, with his hosts usually pretending to be asleep. On their backs. With their pants down. It was, needless to say, a very exciting time in his life. The demand for his services came to a screeching halt when he decided to come out of the closet halfway through the school year. Suddenly none of the boys, including the friend he first started experimenting with, wanted anything to do with him. Craig was one of the last guys he had messed around with before going public, and they hadn’t spoken since.

Until today that is. Instead of refusing to make contact, Craig greeted him warmly and even chose a seat next to his. Hope began to burn in Ben’s chest that Craig had come to terms with his own sexuality, which turned out to be true but not in the way he expected. Craig soon began ranting about the girlfriend he found over the summer. Obviously their relationship had confirmed his heterosexuality and made it possible to deal with the experimental phase that was now behind him. No doubt getting laid regularly helped with this. Ben was mildly disappointed, but happy to have a friend to make an otherwise boring class more entertaining.

Fifth-period choir meant not only being with Allison again, but being surrounded by people he had known for years. Choir was made up of either weird artistic types or religious sorts who also sang in church. Despite the two different backgrounds, everyone got along and the atmosphere was always relaxed.

Their teacher, Mrs. Hammond, had enjoyed minor success on stage earlier in her life and also taught drama. She took singing and acting very seriously, but was also a very disorganized person who rarely bothered to direct the class. Today she seemed as reluctant to start the school year as her students and was fine with letting the hour pass without her interference. Ben and Allison spent this time catching up with everyone they hadn’t seen since spring and exchanging juicy bits of gossip that had occurred over the summer.

The final class of the day was science. Ben walked to it slowly, feeling like Charlie from the Willy Wonka movie. This was the last possible chance to have a class with Tim, his last shot at a golden ticket and the amazing behind-the-scenes factory tour that came with it. In his mind he was pulling back that candy bar wrapper as slowly and carefully as he would like to undress Tim. He stepped into the door just as the bell rang and stood there, waiting for his dreams to become reality.