“Ah, sh*t! I slept in!” Zach hastily pulled on a new pair of pants and shirt, cursing himself for likely turning the alarm off unconsciously in his sleep.
No time for breakfast, he strapped the ointment box onto his bike and raced down the road. Sure enough, by the time the school came into view, the sidewalks were pretty much devoid of students; he’d have to wait until after classes before he tried selling anything. It didn’t phase him much, though, because he could mull over the pricing and sales pitches all day. Maybe Lacy could give him some tips, as she sometimes was hit with bright ideas that outshone anything he could come up with. Ointments could very well be something she has far more experience with than himself, especially since he was still confused about how to sell things called names like Carnival Sensations or A Slip in Evolution.
He chained his bike and peered into the hallway. Staff often didn’t like students coming with large boxes and would often check them for drugs. If they saw jars and jars of oddly named ointments, they might just call for the drug dogs anyway!
Luckily, the coast was clear and he made a mad dash for his locker. The box had to sit at an awkward angle to fit inside, and it would be difficult for him to swap out different books throughout his classes, but it would do. It was, after all, his own fault for being so late.
“Mr. Martin, I see you’re tardy again,” retorted the science teacher, Mrs. Blakesfield. Luckily, she’d decided to make her morning checks just a little late and missed seeing the box.
“Yeah, I know.”
“How do you expect to get ahead in life with that attitude?”
Zach shrugged. Having already gotten himself a criminal record, he could be the top of the class and still fail at leading any kind of a successful life, but it’s not like he could tell Mrs. Blakesfield that something like punctuality in school was something that could turn his life around. It was a wonderful myth that his teachers and peers all subscribed to: the idea that America was a land of second chances, or that virtually any country on this forsaken planet would even allow him into their borders to try for a second shot at life. Between the cruel hand the Fates had dealt him and the way he’d messed up playing that hand, he was totally reliant on his own cleverness, not on his academic achievements or whatever accolades the Superintendent could shower him with. No, whatever academic ambitions he had were now laid to rest; school was just another form of prison time he had to complete.
“You want to be successful, and success starts with a good impression,” the teacher lectured, flicking her auburn hair haughtily from her plump face before continuing her march down the hallway.
With a heavy sigh, Zach trudged through one class after another, his stomach yearning for the lunch break and his mind puzzling over how he could sell his stash. The pleasant or exotic-sounding ointments would be a no-brainer, and he trusted his own amateur salesmanship well enough to make up a good tag line on the spot for them. But what about the strange ones?
“Greek Pastures, folks, because the grass is always greener on the far side of the hill!” he thought, writing down whatever bizarre pitches would float in and out of his brain. Some he crossed out immediately, fearing that they sounded too corny, cringe-worthy, or just like he was trying too hard. Puns would often fall into those categories, although Screevie, his best friend, could sometimes make them work.
He glanced over at Screevie, sitting diligently at his desk, probably mentally undressing Ms. Sanders as she recited A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the most hyperbolic way possible at the front of the class, having already drawn a makeshift scenery on the white board behind her. He’d gotten the nickname in elementary school, as he’d shout “SCREEE!” every time he got excited. Always a short (until he hit puberty), stick-framed kid, Screevie would make his familiar sound while bouncing up and down, his curly hair flopping against his head as he did. Poor guy, having such a nickname as that follow him around. Although he never complained, Zach wondered sometimes if he secretly hoped that he could leave all of that behind in college and just be known as Josh again.
The English teacher’s performance went painfully on, every student who wasn’t Screevie, and maybe Andrew, wishing vainly that she would realize her acting talents were nonexistent and just decide to play the movie next time. At last, Zach’s stomach gave a cry for joy as the bell rang, heralding lunch!
The burger on his tray was tiny and unappetizing, the cup of chopped fruit and another cup of carrot sticks looking far more appetizing. Still, he felt grateful to have something to eat.
“Hey, ladies, can I get a second hamburger?” shouted Chris from the end of the line. “How do you expect our team to win homecoming if you starve us?”
The head lunch lady furrowed her brow. “No, you can’t have a second. If you want to complain, send it off to Michelle Obama - she’s the one who put these idiotic rules in place!”
Jokingly, Zach raised his carton of milk above the lunch line. “A toast to the unelected official who ruled the school lunch with an iron fist!”
The lunch ladies all erupted into laughter, but a smattering of chuckles was all he got from his peers. Perhaps it was too much to crack a political joke in front of a group of die-hard liberals whose political aspirations basically amounted to nothing more than joining anti-fa and policing the thoughts of others. To Zach, it was all just a joke.
As he finished his meager meal, he spotted Lacy turning towards the hallway. He’d meant to catch her at lunch, but the bag of chips in her hand told him that the vending machine was serving as her cafeteria today. Tossing the remnants of his meal into the trash and gulping down the last vestiges of milk, he pursued her to her locker.
“Hi, babe!” he greeted.
She rolled her eyes at him and grinned. “What do you want, stud-wannabe?”
“What if I said I needed your help desperately? What if I needed your sexy, feminine intuition to solve a pressing problem?”
“Let me guess, you waltzed into someplace you shouldn’t have been and stole something you have no idea what to make of?” She folded her arms and leaned against the lockers. Zach could only nod sheepishly. “And, let me guess, this will be the thing that secures us a future. One in which we get married and I don’t support you or you don’t spend the rest of your life cruising the streets and hanging out of the dark web, dodging cops and trying not to get yourself killed?”
Whenever she put it like that, it made Zach’s heart sink. He loved Lacy, though he knew he didn’t deserve her, and he knew that her sardonic jabs masked a real concern about their future relationship.
“Hey, my plan is for us to live comfortably one day. Maybe if I get enough money from selling crap like this, I can start a respectable online business and become a self-made man. You can be my self-made woman.”
Lacy shook her head, but Zach continued on. “This isn’t a major thing, I don’t think. Actually, I don’t know what to think of it at all! A little shop in Chinatown opened up, selling rare and exotic ointments.”
“And this is somehow difficult to sell?”
“No, it’s just that they’re super bizarre. I mean, some of them sound great, but others sound like they’re more of a novelty than something made for rich people.”
He led her over to his locker and carefully opened the box, bracing the opening with his shoulder to keep the bottles from rolling onto the floor. Lacy took a couple of them out and examined them. One, Aquatic Paradise, sounded like something just about anyone would buy. The other, Deer Musk, sounded like something you’d only wear if you were a suicidal deer hunter.
“I just don’t know about some of these,” she replied, her eyes drifting over the various labels beneath her squinted brow. “It looks like you won’t have a problem with a lot of them, but I can only think of just selling these ones at a discount. Like you said, it seems more like they’re a novelty. Did you happen to catch the actual price tags they were being sold for in Chinatown?”
“No, they were in a storeroom in back, which was pretty well isolated from the rest of the store.”
Before she had a chance to respond, a hand clasped Zach’s shoulder hard. As if on instinct, he slammed the locker shut, is mind already racing to find an excuse for the ointments. Looking up, he saw the piercing eyes of Melody staring down hard at him.
Melody had just transferred this year. She had no friends and no plans on making any if her demeanor was anything to go by. Her slight frame was always hidden beneath a mass of baggy, often layered clothing. Her broad Nordic features were on the masculine side and she did nothing to change that. The only feature of note was her brilliant emerald eyes beneath a rather heavy brow. She had a pleasant smile, and in the rare moments when she spoke her personality seemed quite friendly, but she was never flirtatious.
She walked with one leg stiff as a board, not even bending it when she sat, giving her footsteps a distinct sound that Zach cursed himself for somehow missing. He couldn’t totally blame himself, though. After all, Melody usually kept exclusively to herself and just ignored everyone else’s business.
“If that’s what I think it is, I need to talk to you.”
Zach and Lacy looked at each other, puzzled. Nodding, Zach rose to his feet, so unprepared for any kind of a conversation with Melody that his mind couldn’t even come up with a potential plan. Beckoning him to follow her, she shuffled down the hall, her foot dragging and Zach walking slowly at her side. Lacy watched the unlikely pair form the locker, keeping her eyes steadfastly on the loner girl and her troublemaker boyfriend.
Stepping into an abandoned classroom, Melody closed the door and took a deep breath, her hands kneading the pocket of her hoodie nervously. “I have to talk to you,” she said cautiously, “but I admit that I’m afraid to.”
“Whatever, just say what you want to say. I can get you a deal if you want, just because you never ask for anything. Just don’t make it habit.”
The girl drew another deep breath, her fingers cinched tightly around her shirt. “Listen, you’ll never believe me, but I need to know: where did you get those?”
Zach tried to read the girl’s face before answering. Was she a relative of his who recognized the ointments? She was the palest person he’d ever met, clearly of Scandinavian descent; how could she be related to that old Chinese guy? “I got them from an uncle of mine,” he lied. “He deals in overstocked stuff and I said I’d take these.”
“I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t believe that for one second.” Melody looked at him sternly, yet her anxiety was plain as day. “I believe you got those ointments from a little shop. They match the profile of a guy who travels around, always under an assumed name, and sells ointments with strange names. I normally wouldn’t call anyone out for their juvenile delinquency - it isn’t any of my concern - but what you have here could harm a lot of people. Trust me, I know!”
Zach was intrigued. Was Melody trying to prank him? If so, she was the best actress he’d ever seen, and he thought for a moment that she should really take over reciting Shakespeare from Ms. Sanders.
“What could possibly be dangerous about them?” he asked, curiously wanting to know where this was going. “Are they some sort of toxin for an underground terrorist sect?”
“This isn’t funny! The police have been trying to track this guy down for a while now. Those ointments, I don’t know how he does it or how they work, but they curse people. When you rub it on your skin, they change you. That’s why they have such strange names! Don’t make that face, I know it’s hard to believe, but I have proof. Only if you swear not to tell a soul, though.”
Zach nodded smugly and Melody bent low. Grasping the end of her pant leg with her slender fingers, she tentatively lifted it, revealing the furry end of what looked like a wolf’s tail. No wonder her leg was so stiff if she was trying to pretend to have a hidden appendage! She held her breath, Zach tried to stifle his laughter from erupting.
“That’s cute,” he said, patronizing the poor girl. “But I don’t believe in fairy tales. Are you meant to be the Big Bad Wolf or something to my Little Red Riding Hood?”
Melody let her pant leg drop. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me,” she said through a cracked voice, “but if you use those ointments, or sell them to students who will use them, I’m not responsible for your recklessness. The only thing I can do is beg you to hold off selling them for one more day. Meet me at the park at sundown tonight, and I will give you all the proof you need and tell you everything I know about the ointments. If you decide to be stupid after that, I hope you at least tell the cops everything you know when you’ve managed to send a plague upon the school!”