Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2014 22:12:14 -0700
From: Douglas DD DD <thehakaanen@hotmail.com>
Subject: The Puget Posse  Chapter 25

Welcome back. Neville had been butting heads with his fellow Posse
members since they all met, and now it all comes to a head. The
question is, will Neville's transgression help or hinder the boys of The
Puget Posse?

All disclaimers continue as they were.

Please donate to the Nifty Archive.

Send comments to me, Douglas. thehakannen@hotmail.com

Thanks for being a reader.

CHAPTER 25
A TRIVIAL PROBLEM

Wednesday did not start out well for Mark and Matthew. The main
reason was that the date was October 10, which happened to be the
birthday of their sisters. The twin girls were turning twelve and were
spending the morning strutting around the house like they owned it.
The problem with this attitude is that Mark and Matthew already knew
they owned the place, which made Michelle and Megan usurpers.
Hence, the boys saw the girls as extremely annoying.

"They made me mad just by being noisy when they woke up,"
Matthew said as he and Mark shared their shower.

"They're noisy all the time," Mark said as Matthew washed his back.

"This morning they were noisier."

After finishing their shower and drying off, they each pulled on t-shirts
and briefs before heading downstairs for breakfast.

"Mom, it's our birthdays. They could at least wear sweat pants or
something," Michelle complained when she saw her brothers wearing
nothing but their underwear. The girls had their school clothes on;
while North Lake had a dress code, uniforms were not required.

"Boys, you could wear more than your underwear every morning,"
Kristy said.

"Happy Birthday," Mark said.

"Yeah, and good morning to you, too. And good morning, mom,"
Matthew added.

"Nice greeting everybody," Mark said. "You make us feel real good."

"You might have got a better greeting if you were wearing clothes like
normal boys," Megan said.

"What's for breakfast?" Mark asked as he watched his mom dish out
two bowls of oatmeal.

"Eggs, sausage, bacon, toast, muffins, ham, pancakes, and French
toast," Kristy replied.

"At least the toast part is true," Mark said as he stuffed four slices of
bread into the toaster.

"Toast plus oatmeal sounds like the real truth," Matthew said.

Matthew had come down with one hand behind his back. He turned
to his sisters and revealed that he had been carrying four cards. He
placed two in front of each sister, making sure the right card went to
the right sister.  He knew there would be hell to pay if he mixed them
up. He didn't blame his sisters on that account because he and Mark
would be equally upset if they had their identities jumbled. For
reasons known only to themselves, it was extremely rare for the
siblings to mix each other up.

"Happy Birthday, dear sisters," Matthew said.

"Yeah, Happy Birthday again," Mark said. "The yellow cards are from
me." The family had a rule that the siblings could not buy birthday
presents for each other, but cards were okay. Christmas presents
were different. They could each buy one per sibling as long as it was
on an approved list.

Michelle and Megan got down off their high horses long enough to
open the cards and thank their brothers. The pairs of cards they
received were identical. They were humorous birthday cards aimed at
older sisters. Michelle and Megan gave obligatory laughs and
returned to their breakfast.

As Kristy placed oatmeal in front of the boys, Mark waited patiently
for the toast, butter knife in hand. "Just to make sure—I know you
boys don't have Lake Monster practice, and, you have no soccer
practice or game after school, correct?" She had all of this information
on a calendar, but she wanted to make sure the boys were paying
attention to their lives.

Matthew rolled his eyes and said, "We went over all that last night."
Kristy had heard all about tween eye rolls from her friends. This was
the first one she'd experienced from the boys. It was bad enough her
now twelve-year-old daughters had become proficient eye rollers; she
was not prepared to see it from her ten-year-olds. She thought about
making a comment, but decided that for now that she'd let it ride.

"Just make sure you don't miss your bus after school. We're going
out to birthday dinner tonight."

This time Mark rolled his eyes as he pulled the toast out of the
toaster. "You told us that yesterday, too," he said as he buttered the
toast. He and Matthew liked their toast done the same way, so he
took care of his brother's slices as well.

"I just wanted to make sure," Kristy said. "You two have a way of
conveniently forgetting things." That remark earned her double eye
rolls.

After they finished eating, Kristy herded them upstairs to dress, brush
their teeth, and comb their hair—not that combing their hair ever kept
it tamed for long.

"We need to ask them if they will do it," Mark said.

"Ask who if they will do what?" Matthew asked as he pulled on his
pants.

"Ask M&M." Even though the boys were also M&M, they were known
as T&T for being Thing 1 and Thing 2, which left the girls to be M&M.

"Okay. Now do I have to ask what we're going to ask them?" Matthew
asked.

"I think you just did," Mark said.

"You're making me mad. This time I won't be nice about it. You can
go taking a black eye to school for a few days."

"Okay, okay, I get it. We need to ask them if they will seriously kiss us
tonight as part of our scientific survey."

"You mean finding out if a tie, kissing your sister, or kissing your
goalie is best."

"Don't forget kissing your brother," Mark added.

"We do that a lot."

"I know, I was just saying we can't forget it."

"When should we ask them?" Matthew asked.

"I think after school since they're both in dorky moods this morning."

"Boys, hurry up," came Kristy's voice from downstairs. "We're starting
to run late."

The twins came dashing down the stairs, almost bowling over Megan.
"You two Things get yourself under control," Kristy admonished.

"You told us to hurry," Matthew said.

"Yeah," Mark chimed in, "and we're hurrying. It's not our fault Megan
was standing right in our way at the bottom of the stairs."

Kristy sighed, uttering her standard, "Why me?" under her breath and
watched her four children walk out the front door and head for the
garage.

The girls sat in the back seat and the boys sat in the middle. Kristy
dropped the girls off at a house where one of their friends lived. They
would be picked up by a car pool in which Kristy participated. She
then drove the boys to Patrick's house and dropped them off. As she
drove home, she realized she hadn't given the boys a morning hug,
something she would make up for that evening. Even though the
twins made it easy to forget routine things, she felt badly about the
oversight.

Grannana let the twins into the house. They had learned she enjoyed
a hug from them in the morning. They had no problem giving it to her
and took care of that ritual before bounding down the hall to Patrick's
room.

Patrick had just finished putting on his pants when Mark barged into
the room and tackled the little nine-year-old on to the bed. "Hey,
Patrick," he said as he started tickling his bare belly.

"Hey to you, too, but you're squishing me," Patrick said between
squeals of laughter.

Mark rose off the bed, laughing almost as hard as Patrick. Matthew
then high-fived his still supine friend. Patrick finally got up and
finished dressing. Since he kept his hair fairly short, he didn't need to
comb it again.

"Tomorrow, if we can convince mom to get us here early, we're going
to give you another kiss," Mark said.

"Why? What was wrong with the first one?" Patrick asked.

"It wasn't really one of our best," Matthew said. "You know we've
been learning in science about keeping everything...um..."

"...consistent," Patrick said. "That your results are based on the same
data."

"See, I told you Patrick was mega-smart," Matthew told his brother,
causing Patrick to blush a bright red.

"Why can't we do it now?" Patrick asked.

"Because we need more time to do it right," Mark said.

"The bus should be here in five minutes," Matthew said, "so you
better move it."

"You mean he should move his ass," Mark said.

"Yeah, that's what I meant. Move your ass."

Patrick was dressed by the time the twins finished talking. He
grabbed his backpack and the three boys hustled to the living room.
They each gave Grannana a hug. Brian and Ted had already left for
work, so the boys ran out the door just as the bus pulled up in front of
the house.

Nobody was disappointed when neither Jeremiah nor Tony boarded
the bus at their stop. "Jeremiah isn't that bad," Will said, "but, he does
creep me out a little."

"Oh, he really is that bad," Mark said.

"Yeah, trust us, he's more than that bad," Matthew said. While
nobody could define how bad "that bad" was, they all agreed it was
pretty bad.

Another thing they discussed was the upcoming social studies
project. Each team had to pick a state and do a detailed report on it.
Part of the project would be the work of individual students, and some
would be the work of a group. All three classes would be working on
the same project and there was to be no duplication of states. In all
there were fifteen teams, meaning fifteen states would be reported
on. The Posse's state was Colorado.

"From what I hear, you guys are slow in getting your project started,"
Will said to Patrick and the twins.

"We keep having problems agreeing on things," Patrick said.

"You need to elect a leader. We have one and we're doing pretty
good," Will told them. The Fantastic Five was doing their project on
Minnesota.

"He must be a slave driver if you're getting so much done already,"
Mark said.

"Well, the leader is me," Will said. "All I do is tell who is doing what
parts of the report. I don't think that's being a slave driver. We're all
going to meet at Mike's house on Saturday and really get some
things done."

"Did you get elected?" Matthew asked.

"Kind of. I said I'd be the leader and nobody argued."

I think he's being a dictator and not a slave driver, Patrick thought to
himself, but I'm not going to say anything. On the other hand, the
Posse didn't seem to be living up to their name. They certainly
weren't united for a common cause when it came to the report, or
regarding much of anything else either.

Will thought for a moment and then said, "Too bad you guys aren't
doing Minnesota because they have the Twin Cities." That had the
four rocking with laughter, which netted them a quick glance back
from Mrs. Deaver.

"Speaking of Jeremiah," Matthew said, even though nobody had,
"somebody keeps telling him things about our Posse. Not that it
matters much since he's not even in our class, but it's making me
mad."

"It's not me," Mark said.

"Good thing, because if it was I'd have to kick your ass."

"Like you could."

"I know how you guys feel," Will said. "I'd be unhappy if one of the F-
Five was blabbing all our stuff to that creep Jeremiah or to anybody
else."

"F-Five?" Mark asked. "Does that stand for," he lowered his voice,
"Fucking-Five?"

"Mark Kirkwood, watch your language on this bus if you want to keep
riding it!" Mrs. Deaver shouted from the front.

"How did she hear that on this noisy bus?" Mark asked.

"I dunno," his brother answered, "but it creeps me out the way she
can do stuff like that."

"Speaking of creeping out," Mark said. "I am gonna say that if
Jeremiah and Tony aren't on the bus going home, we're gonna pay
off our bet if Patrick is riding the regular bus home."

"For real?" Patrick asked.

"For real"

"I'll be on the bus."

"Me, too," Will said.

After arriving at school, Patrick and the twins went to their lockers and
to class together. "How are you going to hide what you're doing from
Mrs. Deaver?" Patrick asked the twins at the lockers. "She knows
everything that happens on the bus."

"Not everything, even if it seems that way," Mark said. "We need to
get a seat more to the middle than our usual front seat. We should be
okay then."

"I hope you're right."

"Wombat, you worry too much."

"I can't help it. I like you guys riding on the bus with me and don't
want to see you get kicked off.

"Won't happen," Mark said.

"Nope," Matthew agreed. "Nobody messes with the Bobcats."

The other two Posse members shared their own thoughts as they
rode Bus 3 to school. Neville and Misha usually sat together on the
bus, although they normally didn't say much to each other. While
Misha was the only boy in the Posse Neville felt was normal (other
than himself, of course), he didn't want to get too friendly with him.
Neville was determined not to like any of the Posse members to
make his asking for a transfer to another team even easier. But, this
time the two had a lot to talk about.

"We are not doing very well on getting our state project started,"
Neville said. "We keep wasting time arguing during our team
meetings and don't get much done." The specifics of the project had
been assigned at the start of the month with a due date of December
16. The Puget Posse had yet to put a single word on paper or into a
computer.

"We have a lot of time, still," Misha said. "We have over two months
to do it."

"The Fantastic Five has already started on their project. They have a
leader who has them doing things. All we have is five of us arguing
about what to do."

Neville put his finger to his nose and pushed up his glasses. Misha
thought the gesture somehow made Neville seem poised and in
control, at the same time his unkempt hair gave him a bit of a wild
look. While he didn't like Neville in the way he was finding himself
liking Patrick, he found himself wishing he and Neville could be
friends.

"Maybe we need to elect a leader, perhaps?" Misha said.

"They did not elect one," Neville said. "Will took over and now they
are getting things done. I wish I was on that team. They know what
they are doing."

"What of the other three teams in our class? Are they ahead of us as
well?"

"I don't know, Misha. I don't pay attention to them like I do the
Fantastic Five."

Misha decided to ask Neville a question that had been bothering him.
He knew it was very possible that Neville would never want to be his
friend if he asked it. "Neville, why do you wish to be on that team? To
be on that team somebody would need to change teams. All of the
other teams have four members and if you got on it nobody would
need to trade."

"I want to be on that team because they are the best team. Except for
Ellis, they are all very smart. They don't have any scholarship
students and nobody who likes to say they are Irish."

"All of the teams are good," Misha said, ignoring Neville's putdown of
Patrick. "You have to be smart to be in this school."

Neville ignored him. "If Ellis traded with me, the Fantastic Five would
be perfect."

"What about the Posse?" Misha asked.

"Ellis will be as strange as everybody else on the Posse. That would
make the Posse perfect too—perfectly weird. That is why you must
change teams as well, Misha. You are too good for that team."

Misha turned and looked out the window, wondering how he could
keep Neville from being so full of himself. He thought Neville was very
nice overall and could make a wonderful friend if he quit thinking he
was better than everybody. He would also make an excellent
teammate on the Puget Posse. But Misha didn't know how to reach
him. At least everybody at the orphanage was straight forward. Here,
it seemed many boys were sneaky and underhanded and had no
problem working behind the backs of their friends and teammates.
Misha and Neville went their own ways after they arrived at school.

++++++++++++

One of the ways credits could be earned was by solving the morning
trivia question. The same question was given to all three classes.
Each member of the team with the most correct answers in each
class each week earned 25 credits. The members of the daily
winners each received five credits. There was a tie breaker system in
place if it was necessary. Bonus points were given for the first correct
answer placed in the class's box.

This was the second week of the competition. The Jumping
Kangaroos had been the winner in Mr. Jackson's class the first week,
while Ms. McCann's class was the winning classroom.

Teams were given five minutes after roll was taken to discuss the
question. The answers were due before a team left the room for
morning break. Electronic devices could not be used, but print
resources available in the room were acceptable. If a team was
caught using an electronic device, it would lose all of its points for the
week and forfeit a week's allowance as well. The X-Brains found out
the hard way in the first week that Mr. Jackson wasn't kidding and
that he had ways of finding things out.

Neville looked at the question and grinned. He knew the answer and
was certain nobody else did. This might be an opportunity to
ingratiate himself with the Fantastic Five. He saw Ellis come into the
room and stopped him.

"Tell your team not to put their answer into the box until they talk to
me," Neville told Ellis. Once an answer sheet went into the answer
box it could not be taken back out.

"Why?" Ellis asked. He didn't like Neville much and didn't trust him.

"Just tell them. They'll find out why before we go to break."

The morning bell rang and everyone took their seats. Vic, the
attendance monitor, took roll and then Mr. Jackson told the class that
the teams could discuss the question.

"That one is an easy one for us," Mark said. "Neville should have this
down pat."

Matthew read the question out loud. "Rennie's London Bridge spans
what body of water? Well, London is in England. Neville lived in
England, so he must know the answer."

"It spans the Thames River," Neville said with an air of authority.
Patrick looked over to Neville and then turned away. He knew that
was the wrong answer and he was sure that Neville knew it was the
wrong answer. But, with uncommon patience for a young boy, he
decided not to say anything—for now. Patrick had the feeling that the
Posse was being tested, but he wasn't sure how.

"See, I told you this would be a piece of cake," Mark said. Three of
the five teams in Mr. Jackson's class had turned in the correct answer
on Monday and Tuesday. The Posse and the Fantastic Five were two
of them and the twins were ready to stay perfect.

Mark wrote the answer on the provided answer sheet. "Let's see. T-
A-M-M-S, right?"

"No," Neville said. "More like T-H-A-M-E-S."

"What kind of spelling is that?" Matthew protested. "T-H should sound
like thing, not like a Tee."

"That is the correct spelling," Neville said.

"You English dudes not only have weird accents, you have weird
spellings, too."

"Go put it in the answer box," Mark said. "Then we can show
everybody how smart we are."

"We can't take it out once we put it in," Patrick pointed out.

"Yeah, but we would be first and get the most bonus points. I mean,
Neville's lived there. I bet he's even gone across the Thames (he
pronounced the TH diphthong just to get a dig in at Neville) on that
bridge."

Misha shook his head. He'd gotten to know Neville as well as
anybody while riding the bus with him. He knew about Neville's
irrational animosity toward the Posse. As far as Misha was
concerned, Neville had given them the correct answer almost too
quickly. From the way Neville had been talking that morning, Misha
expected him not to give the team the right answer at all. Misha
smelled a Fox being a bit too sly.

"I think we should wait on putting the answer in. It would not hurt to
check if it is correct," Misha cautioned.

Patrick quickly agreed with Misha. While Patrick had no intention of
allowing the team to turn in the wrong answer, he was thankful that
Misha put things on hold; he now knew he had an ally. Patrick didn't
know if Misha knew the correct answer, but it was obvious he didn't
trust Neville's response.

Mark kept the answer sheet. Reading was the first subject of the day.
The students worked on their individual reading assignment, which
was to write an analysis of the ending of "The Giver" by Lois Lowry.
Neville found himself unable to concentrate on his task. He was
certain that Patrick knew he had intentionally given the Posse the
wrong answer. He also felt that Misha suspected him of duplicity.
Since Neville looked at the twins as a couple of pillocks, he was
confident he could get anything past them.

None of the five boys in the group was aware at the time that this
particular day would be a significant one in the history of the Puget
Posse, but looking back at it later they could see how the events
influenced the group.

Neville knew he had to get the right answer into the hands of the
Fantastic Five by the time morning break started. He hadn't seen Will
drop the answer into the box on Mr. Jackson's desk and he was
positive nobody else on the team had dropped it in either. He had
also seen each of the other groups place their answer into the box.

He scribbled the correct answer on a piece of note paper he had
beneath his schoolwork. He decided that now was the time to see
that the other group received the correct answer. Getting up to go to
the restroom would be his excuse to pass the desks of the Fantastic
Five since it was right in the path to where the bathroom pass was
hanging.

He had the note paper in his hand and was about to drop it on one of
the desks when he sensed somebody behind him. He turned his
head and saw that it was Matthew. What is he doing out of his desk?
Neville thought as he palmed the note and walked past the group. He
took the wooden hall pass off of the wall and watched Matthew head
for the room's reference shelf. Satisfied that Matthew had a legitimate
reason for being out of his desk and wasn't following him, Neville
started out of the classroom.

"Neville, do you have a cell phone on you?" Mr. Jackson asked. He
knew that The Posse had not yet handed in their answer to the trivia
question. He stopped Neville not because he was suspicious but to
help keep something from happening "by accident". Of course a
student might have a phone stashed in a locker, but the lockers were
directly outside of the room and it would be difficult to open and close
one without being heard.

"No, sir," Neville said. "I don't bring it to school."

"Smart boy." Mr. Jackson believed his students until they proved to
him that he couldn't.

As he walked to the restroom, he was surprised to find himself
sweating. He entered the restroom and instead of walking to a urinal
for a quick pee he went into a stall. He pulled down his pants and sat
on a toilet. His hands felt clammy and sweat was dripping off his face.
His torso felt damp under his uniform shirt.

Neville wasn't a bad kid. He could be arrogant, like his father, but he
had never been one to create trouble. However, he was suffering
from a bad case of "the grass is greener" syndrome. In other words,
the grass was greener on the other side of the fence.

In this case, the Fantastic Five was on the other side of the fence.
They had a decisive leader in Will. They were maybe the most
efficient of the five teams in the class. Except for Ellis, the other boys
on the team were conservative, upstanding students. There were no
dingy twins, no little kid who said he was Irish, and, as much as he
liked Misha, no Russian. Since his plan was for him and Ellis to
switch places, he would end up on a hard-working team of normal
boys.

That wasn't what was making Neville sweat. It was his conscience
that was making him sweat. While his father was very class
conscious and passed much of his attitude of superiority to his son,
he was also a man of integrity. Reginald St. Aubin-Jones was of the
opinion that a responsible man should be one with a solid sense of
ethics. This was also something he passed on to his son.

Neville knew that what he was doing was wrong. He knew he was
betraying four boys who trusted him. He knew that he probably wasn't
going to get away with his disloyalty to his teammates. And he also
knew that even if he was allowed to change teams it wouldn't be until
after Christmas Break and he would still have to work with his current
team until then. A huge part of his social studies grade would be
based on the Posse's group project.

If his teammates rejected him before they even started, his grade
would be in the crapper. He could probably convince his father that
his teammates had been at fault because they were boys of lower
standing. In the meantime, they would make his life miserable and
deservedly so.

The final factor determining his position was the words of his father.
His father had told him more than once how it took a long time and a
lot of conscious effort to build a good reputation, but that same
reputation could be torn to shreds almost instantaneously. Once
people ceased to trust you, it was close to impossible to win that trust
back. He could end up going to this school for four years. If he
betrayed the Posse, everybody would know it and nobody would ever
trust him. He'd be a creature even lower than the twins—he'd be a
chav like Jeremiah.

Neville stood up and flushed the toilet even though he hadn't used it.
He pulled up his pants and hurried to leave the bathroom. He was
surprised to almost bump into Will, who was entering as Neville was
leaving.

"What are you doing here?" Neville asked. "There is only one pass."

"I told Mr. Jackson it was an emergency. I wanted to see you before
the deadline for the trivia answer. Ellis made it sound like you knew
the answer and were going to tell it to us."

Neville wanted to say that Ellis was lying, or that he had
misunderstood what he'd been told, but since he was now acting on
his own sense of integrity he did neither, although he did tell a bit of a
lie. "I thought I knew the answer, but now I know I didn't." Neville
knew that sounded lame as soon as he said it.

"How could you not know it? You lived there, didn't you?"

"Sorry. I guess my brain isn't working."

"Okay. Well, we know the answer, so I'll drop it in the box when I get
back." Will gave Neville a long stare, and then said, "You were going
to tell us you didn't know the answer, right? You weren't going to
leave us hanging, right?"

"I was going to tell you I didn't know as soon as I got back to the
classroom," Neville lied.

"Well, next time remember that you are on the Posse and not on the
Fantastic Five. We wouldn't have used your answer anyway because
nobody likes a traitor."

Neville slinked out of the restroom, realizing he had probably sunk his
chances of getting traded to Will's team. It was apparent they
wouldn't want him because he had come so close to betraying his
own team. On the other hand, everything would have been worse if
he'd actually given Will the answer.

When Neville sat at his desk, he tapped Matthew on his shoulder.
"Give me the answer sheet," he whispered. Matthew complied and
Neville scratched out "Thames River" and wrote, "Bridgewater
Channel Canal, Lake Havasu, Arizona," and handed it back.

Matthew passed the answer sheet to Mark who simply grinned and
passed it over to Patrick. Matthew had researched the bridge while
Neville was out of the room, but he couldn't find any information on it.
Patrick looked at Neville and nodded. He knew the bridge was in
Arizona, but he didn't know the specifics. Patrick passed the sheet to
Misha, who nodded knowingly. Misha took the answer to Mr.
Jackson's desk and dropped it in the box.

When the bell finally rang for morning break, Mark held the Posse
back.

"Neville, did you cheat?" he asked.

"I did not cheat. Why do you ask that?" Neville looked hurt.

"You gave us the wrong answer, then went to the bathroom, and
came back with the right answer."

Neville started to fight back tears. Patrick stepped in and said, "Let's
all go talk about this outside. We need a Posse meeting." The boys
found a quiet spot at the edge of the playfield near the cliff. The area
offered an awe-inspiring view of Puget Sound, the Olympic Peninsula
across the sound, as well as the Olympic Mountains on a clear day.
Even the tween boys of the Academy could sometimes find a
moment to take in the view. The cliff was fenced off from the field.

Misha and Patrick unconsciously stood where they could get a view
of the tracks down below hoping maybe to see a train passing by.
They might be about to deal with a serious issue, but they were still
preteen boys.

"So, what is going on with Neville giving us the wrong answer?"
Matthew asked.

"Yeah, something isn't right, like it's all fucked up," Mark said.

Neville had never seen the normally flaky twins become so serious.
He wasn't sure he liked what he was seeing of their serious side. On
the way to the playfield, he had run a few stories through his head to
explain what was going on. Each one of them sounded totally lame to
him once he gave it some serious thought. As they walked across the
grass field, avoiding a couple of soccer balls on the way, he finally
came up with the perfect thing to say.

"I know what happened, but I think Neville has to tell us," Patrick said.
He knew his father required him to explain himself when he did
something wrong. Making Neville explain himself was the only way he
knew how to deal with their wayward teammate.

Neville removed his glasses and wiped away his newest set of tears.
"I gave you the wrong answer," he said. "I gave it to you on purpose."

"Well, shit," Mark said. "What did you go and do that for?"

After taking a long, deep breath, Neville said, "Because I was going to
give the right one to somebody else."

"You mean you were going to be a traitor?" Matthew asked.

"Yes," Neville said in a voice that was barely audible.

"Why?" Mark asked.

"Because...because...I...I wanted the Fantastic Five to like me and
want me on their team."

"You mean you wanted them to like you instead of us liking you?"
Patrick asked.

"Yes."

"Why?" Mark asked again, even though he knew the answer.

"I want to be on their team."

"What's wrong with the Posse?" Mark asked. "We're all pretty cool."

"We think you do not like us," Misha said. "You call the twins dumb,
and you call Patrick an Irish. Do you not like me because I am from
Russia?"

"They just do things better," Neville said, knowing he was sounding
lame again.

"I bet they really want to have a traitor on their team," Matthew said.

"They don't want me," Neville said. He told them what Will had said in
the bathroom. "Now, you don't want me either."

"Did you give them the right answer?" Patrick asked.

"No."

"Why?" Mark asked, wishing he could think of something more
intelligent to say.

"Because it was the wrong thing to do," Neville whispered.

"Damn straight it was wrong," Matthew said.

"So what do we do now?" Mark asked.

"We could beat the crap out of him," Matthew said.

"Shut up," Mark said. "That's not even close to funny."

Neville breathed an inward sigh of relief. He thought Matthew was
being serious. What nobody but Mark knew was that Matthew was
being serious.

"We have a big problem with our team," Misha said. "We are not
being very succeeding...,"

"You mean successful," Patrick said.

"Yes, we are not being very successful. We have not started on our
project. We argue about who is doing what part and we change our
minds every day."

"Misha is right," Patrick said. "We don't know who is doing what
individual reports. We don't know what to do on the group reports.
That is after five days of meeting and talking about it."

"The other groups have all gotten started," Matthew said.

"Even the X-Brains and they're always screwing things up," Mark
said.

"Guess that means we're the fucktards of the class."

"No. that's still the X-Brains, so don't even think of calling us
fucktards. That's just stupid."

"This is why we never get anywhere," Neville said. "We keep talking
about other stuff. I do not care what the X-Brains are doing."

"Neville is right," Patrick said. "We have to get organized today."

"But what do we do about Neville?" Mark asked.

"I say we do nothing. He gave us the right answer and didn't give it to
the F-Five," Mark said, using the name Will had told them that
morning.

"Yeah, but now he has to prove he wants to be part of the Posse,"
Matthew said. "He has to help us make the Posse awesome instead
of fucking with us."

Neville was offended by Mark and Matthew's cursing, but bit his
tongue. Matthew, in his own way, was standing up for Neville. Maybe
if Neville stood up for the Posse, they would stand up for him. At least
until he could move to another team, even if it wasn't the F-Five.

Neville was uncomfortable with everybody talking about him like he
wasn't there. He was even more uncomfortable knowing that his
social studies grade was about to be voted on by a group of boys
whom he didn't even like and who certainly didn't like him.

The group decided unanimously to allow Neville to prove himself.
They then returned to the problems with getting the social studies
project started. "We got to find a way to do it right," Mark said.

"Great, but how do we get that started?" Matthew asked.

"Easy," Patrick said in his high-pitched, yet authoritative voice.  "We
start by electing us a leader."

The ringing of the bell ended the meeting at that moment. Neville and
the twins ran toward the building, but Misha and Patrick had heard
the rumble of engines just before the bell. They hesitated, standing
side-by-side, looking down the cliff at a BNSF double-stack freight
running south on the track along the shoreline.

They looked at each other and smiled, then turned and raced to the
building to avoid being late to class.

Next: The Project