The sun began its descent from its peak in sky to make way for the eventual blanket of night that would cover their part of the world in a few more hours. And it was their part of the world now, in that little corner of the school night would be day and day would be night if they so decreed. There was no one to say otherwise, while the world remained outside what they decided between themselves would become God’s own truth.

They all sat in a circle on the floor in a dimly lit part of the library where only a few shafts of sunlight from the high windows on the second story created bright stripes across their backs.

Andrew sat with his back against a table contemplating a question just posed to him by Alison, “What would I do for a million bucks?” he mused. “Well I guess I’d do as little as I had to.”

Claire shook her head, “That’s boring.”

Andrew shrugged, “Well how am I supposed to answer?”

Claire thought for a moment, “The idea is to like search your mind for the absolute limit. Like, uh, would you drive to school naked?”

Andrew chuckled and answered with a smirk, “Would I have to get out of the car?”

Claire responded like it was obvious, “Of course.”

“In the spring or the winter?” countered Andrew.

“It doesn’t matter…” Claire then realised that it would matter more to Andrew then to her, “…spring.”

“In the front of the school or the back of the school?”

Claire shrugged, “Either one.”

Andrew smiled, “Yes…”

Allison chirped in, “I’d do that!” they all turned their eyes on her, surprised that the strange girl that had remained silent throughout most of the day had suddenly become so eager for attention. “I’ll do anything sexual,” she said quietly, relishing the spotlight, “I don’t need a million dollars to do it either…”

Claire sneered contemptuously, “You’re lying…”

Allison continued regardless of Claire’s disdain, or perhaps because of it, “I already have…I’ve done just about everything there is except a few things that are illegal…” she drank in the looks of shock on the faces as if it were fine wine. “I’m a nymphomaniac!”

Claire rolled her eyes, “Lie…” she muttered.

Brain’s eyebrows had been crawling off the top of his head throughout Allison’s speech, “Are your parents aware of this?” he spluttered, leaning away from the self-proclaimed nymphomaniac as though he had suddenly been made aware that she was prone to burst out in random acts of violence.

“The only person I told was my shrink,” answered Alison as she leaned into the group, enveloping herself in their gaze.

“And what did he do when you told him?” asked Andrew.

Allison smiled wickedly and with calculated softness she answered, “He nailed me.”

Claire’s faced distorted with disgust, “Very nice...”

Allison put on an air of mock contemplation, “I don’t think what he did can be construed as rape since I paid him.”

Claire shook her head in repugnance, “He’s an adult!”

Allison nodded enthusiastically, happy that she was eliciting such a reaction, “He’s married too!”

“Do you have any idea how completely gross that is?” Claire almost gagged.

Alison licked her lips, “Well, the first few times…”

“First few times?!” Claire shouted incredulously, sitting up. “You mean he did it more than once?”

“Sure,” Alison purred.

“Are you crazy?” asked Claire in disbelief.

“Obviously she’s crazy if she’s screwing her shrink…” stated Brain, shuffling in discomfort.

Allison looked at Claire and smirked, “Have you ever done it?”

Claire raised her eyebrows, “I don’t even have a psychiatrist…”

Allison cut her off, “Have you ever done it with a normal person?”

Claire sighed in irritation, “Now didn’t we already cover this?”

Bender gave Claire and hard stare, “You never answered the question…”

“Look, I’m not gonna discuss my private life with total strangers,” Claire answered following a dangerous hiss though her teeth.

Alison tucked her knees under her chin and hugged her legs, and said almost sympathetically, “It’s kind of a double edged sword isn’t it?”

“A what?” Claire answered.

As she answered their was the slightest note of irritation in Alison’s voice, one that wasn’t easy to for her companions to hear, it was the kind of irritation you directed at the world at large, hopefully just obvious enough for any all powerful being to notice and adjust the universe to your preferences, “Well if you say you haven’t you’re a prude. If you have…you’re a slut! It’s a trap. You want to but you can’t but when you do you wish you didn’t, right?”

Claire was having none of this, “Wrong.”

Alison’s lips curled upwards and her voice softened, “Or…are you a tease?”

Andrew nodded, “She’s a tease.” He stated.

“Why don’t you just forget it?” Claire growled, cradling her head in her hands.

Andrew spoke as though he was saying something he’d been waiting to say for quite a while, “You’re a tease and you know it, all girls are teases!” his voice was almost accusatory.

Bender eyed Andrew from under strands of dark, greasy hair, “She’s only a tease if what she does gets you hot.” There was an edge of jealously in his tone.

Claire shook her head in disbelief, “I don’t do anything!”

Alison smirked, “That’s why you’re a tease…”

“Okay, lemme ask you a few questions!” yelled Claire, sick of taking a defensive stance.

Alison was taken aback by the sudden shift of power, “I already told you everything!”

“No! Doesn’t it bother you to sleep around without being in love? I mean, don’t you want any respect?” questioned Claire with vehemence.

“I don’t screw to get respect,” Alison gave Claire a disdainful look, “that’s the difference between you and me…”

“Not the only difference I hope,” Claire replied sourly.

“Face it, you’re a tease,” said Bender matter-of-factly.

“I’m not a tease!” Claire was almost shrieking.

“Sure you are! You said yourself sex is a weapon, you use it to get respect,” Bender responded evenly.
“No! I never said that! She twisted my words around!” Claire wailed, motioning to Allison.

“Ok then, what do you use it for?” Bender retorted without mercy.

“I don’t use it period!” Claire really was shrieking now, her hands balled as though her fingers were attempting to hide themselves in her palms.

“Oh, are you medically frigid or is it psychological?” Bender said sharply.

Claire’s cheeks were wet with tears of frustration and anger, “I didn’t mean it that way! You guys are putting words into my mouth!”

Bender wouldn’t give up, “Well if you’d just answer the question…”

“Be honest,” chimed Andrew.

“No big deal,” Bender added.

Not wanting to be left out Brain cried, “Yeah, answer it!”

“Answer the question Claire!” Andrew persisted.

“Talk to us,” Bender growled, but there was something akin to desperation in his voice.

“Come on, answer the question!” Brian and Andrew somehow managed to call out in unison.

The desperation more apparent now Bender screeched, “It’s easy, it’s only one question!”

Claire was clutching her head in her hands, hoping to block out the bombardment of persistent voices egging her on, not unlike the girls at school, her friends, the ones that would dictate the way she would act, well these people didn’t have that power over her, she wouldn’t give them what they wanted. But then Bender’s sharp angry voice snapped her will, her fist bunched and she let out a scream, “NO! I never did it!”

There was silence; Claire sat rigidly, anticipating taunts and self satisfied remarks.

Alison’s voice broke the hush as she quietly said, “I never did it either, I’m not a nymphomaniac…” her voice suddenly regained the strange confidence it had just lacked, “I’m a compulsive liar…”

“You are such a bitch! You did that on purpose just to fuck me over!” Claire snarled.

Alison shrank back slightly, and with her voice losing the confidence or sassiness or perhaps even shielding she had used when claiming to be a nymphomaniac she said earnestly, “I would do it though…if you love someone, it’s ok.”

“I can’t believe you, you’re so weird,” Claire stated in exasperation. “You don’t say anything all day and then when you open your mouth…you unload these tremendous lies all over me!”

“You’re just pissed off because she got you to admit something you didn’t want to admit to,” said Andrew in Alison’s defence.

“Ok, but it doesn’t make it any less bizarre,” Claire’s voice was cooling, but it still carried a note of hostility.

“What’s bizarre?” Andrew asked. “I mean, we’re all pretty bizarre! Some of us are just better at hiding it, that’s all.”

Claire looked at Andrew, “How are you so bizarre?”

Alison answered for him, “He can’t think for himself…”

“She’s right,” Andrew admitted. “Do you guys know what, uh, I did to get in here?”

The others looked at each other for a moment, affirming their mutual ignorance before shaking their heads.

“I taped Larry Lester’s buns together,” Andrew said, as he shifted uncomfortably.

Claire giggled lightly.

“That was you?” Brian sounded surprised.

“Yeah,” Andrew’s voice was awkward, “you know him?”

“Yeah,” answered Brian darkly, “I know him.”

Andrew sighed nervously before continuing, “Well, you know how hairy he is, right? Well, when they pulled the tape off, most of his hair came off and some…some skin too.”

Claire had stopped giggling, “Oh my God,” she breathed.

Andrew continued, stumbling over his words slightly, “And the bizarre thing is…I –I did it for my old man…I tortured this poor kid, because I wanted him to think that I was cool. He’s always going off about, you know; when he was in school…all the wild things he used to do. I got the feeling that he was disappointed because I never cut loose on anyone, right…So…so I’m sitting in the locker room, and I’m tapping up my knee. And Larry’s undressing a couple lockers down from me. Yeah…he’s kinda skinny, weak. And I started thinking about my father’s attitude to weakness. And next thing I knew, I uh, I jumped on top of him and started wailing on him…And my friends, they just laughed and cheered me on.

“Then afterwards, when I was sittin’ in Vernon’s office, all I could think about was Larry’s father, and Larry havin’ to go home and…and explain what happened to him. And the humiliation…the fuckin’ humiliation he must of felt. It…it must have been unreal…I mean.”

Andrew shook with devastation but continued talking, “I mean, how do you apologize for something like that? There’s no way…it’s all because of me and my old man. Oh God, I fucking HATE him! He’s like this…he’s like this mindless machine that I can’t even relate to anymore…” Andrew’s eyes became dark and cold. “‘Andrew, you’ve got to be number one! I won’t tolerate any losers in this family…Your intensity is for SHIT! Win! Win! WIN!!’” Andrew let lose a sob. “You son of a bitch! You know, sometimes I wish my knee would give…and I wouldn’t be able to wrestle anymore. He could forget all about me…”

With the most genuine sympathy he had used in years Bender said, “I think your old man and my old man should get together and go bowling.”

Andrew laughed softly as he wiped the tears from his face with the back of his hand.

A silence fell over the group as they took a moment to process what had just been said. Brian was the first to speak, “It’s like me, you know, with my grades…like, when I, when I step outside myself kinda, and when I look at myself you know? I don’t see me and I don’t like what I see, I really don’t.”

“What’s wrong with you?” said Claire gently. “Why don’t you like yourself?”

“‘Cause I’m stupid…” Brain stared at the floor. “Cause I’m failing shop. See we had this assignment, to make this ceramic elephant, and um…we had eight weeks to do it and we’re s’posed ta, and it was like a lamp, and when you pull the trunk the light was supposed to go on…my light didn’t go on, I got an F on it. Never got an F in my life…When, I signed up, you know, for the course I mean. I thought I was playing it real smart, you know. ‘Cause I thought, I’ll take shop, it’ll be such an easy way to maintain my grade point average…”

“Why’d you think it’d be easy?” Bender asked.

“Have you seen some of the dopes that take shop?” answered Brian simply.

“I take shop!” Bender retorted aggressively. “You must be a fuckin’ idiot!”

“I’m a fuckin’ idiot because I can’t make a lamp?”

“No, you’re a fuckin’ genius because you can’t make a lamp,” Bender’s voice rippled with sarcasm.

Brian took a moment to reel from Bender’s mock praise, “What do you know about trigonometry?” he asked Bender sharply.

“I couldn’t care less about trigonometry…” Bender answered, saying “trigonometry” as though it was an unpleasant, disfiguring ailment.

“Bender, did you know without trigonometry there’d be no engineering?” Brian said in an even diplomatic voice.

Bender smiled smugly, “Without lamps there’d be no light.”

Claire decided it was time to step in, “Okay, so neither one of you is any better than the other one…”

Alison chose this moment to show she was just as useful as either one of them, “I can write with my toes!” she said enthusiastically. “I can also eat, brush my teeth…”

“With your feet?” Claire sounded quite surprised.

“…play Heart and Soul on the piano.” Alison finished.

“I can make spaghetti!” Brian joined in.

“What can you do?” Claire asked, nodding to Andrew.

“I can…uh,” he chuckled softly, “…tape all your buns together…”

“I want to see what Claire can do!” Bender cried suddenly.

A light red flush coloured Claire’s cheeks, “Oh…I can’t do anything.”

“Now, everyone can do something…” Bender answered, making sure she couldn’t back out.

Claire flushed a little deeper, “Well, there’s one thing I can do…no forget it, it’s way too embarrassing.”

“You ever seen Wild Kingdom? I mean that guy’s been doing that show for thirty years…” Bender replied.

“Okay, but you have to swear to God you won’t laugh…” she giggled slightly as she pulled her lipstick out of her makeup bag. “I can’t belief I’m actually doing this…”

Her face now as red as a St Nick’s long-johns, Claire slipped the lipstick between her breasts and bent towards it, her hair concealing what she was doing. When she looked up her lips were bright crimson, and the area around her mouth was completely clean.

Andrew smiled encouragingly, “All right, great! Where’d you learn to do that?”

“Camp, seventh grade,” Claire answered shyly.

A cynical voice cut through the friendly atmosphere, “That was great Claire…” Bender’s sarcastic tone extinguished Claire’s improving mood, “my image of you is totally blown.”

“You’re a shit!” Alison growled, incensed that Bender would betray Claire’s trust. “Don’t do that to her after you swore to God you wouldn’t laugh!”

“Am I laughing?” Bender answered coldly.

“You fucking prick!” Andrew snarled.

Bender turned to Andrew, his eyes cold with resentment and his voice filled with bitterness, “What do you care what I think anyway?” he rasped. “I don’t even count right? I could disappear forever and it wouldn’t make any difference…I may as well not even exist at this school, remember?”

Andrew drew back, not expecting his earlier words to be used against him, not realising how cutting they had been.

Bender looked back at Claire, “You don’t even like me anyway!” he spat.

Claire’s eyes began to redden, “You know, I have just as many feelings as you and it hurts just as much when somebody steps all over them!”

Bender’s voice was dark and dangerous, “God, you’re so pathetic,” he whispered. “Don’t you ever…EVER compare yourself to me! Okay? You’ve got everything, and I got shit! Fuckin’ Rapunzel, right? School would probably fuckin’ close down if you didn’t show up! ‘Queenie isn’t here!’” he shrieked imitating the shrill voice of a panicked teenage girl. “I like those earrings Claire.”

Claire was stewing in her own dark and growing resentment towards the boy sitting across from her, “Shut up,” she whispered.

Bender’s voice was teasing, patronising, and to Claire, the most painful thing in the world, “Are those real diamonds, Claire?”

“Shut up,” impossible volumes of distress and anger were packed into those two syllables.

Bender laughed a quiet, hurtful laugh, “I bet they are…did you work, for the money for those earrings?”

“Shut. Your. Mouth.”

“Or…” Bender spoke in sickly sweet, demeaning tones, “did your daddy buy those?”

“SHUT UP!” Claire screamed furiously before a choking sob led her to hide her face in her hands.

“I bet he bought those for you! I bet those are a Christmas gift! Right? Am I right Claire? You know what I got for Christmas this year? It was a banner fuckin’ year at the old Bender family!” Bender’s voice was approaching a crazed fury. “I got a carton of cigarettes! The old man grabbed me and said ‘Hey! Smoke up Johnny!’ Okay, so go home and cry to your daddy, don’t cry here, okay?”

Claire looked up from her hands and into Bender’s eyes, he stared back, and a tense hush fell over the group.

Andrew’s hoarse whisper broke the silence, “My God, are we gonna be like our parents?”

Claire didn’t stop staring at Bender as she said firmly, “Not me, not ever.”

“It’s unavoidable, it just happens,” Alison’s voice sounded distant and lost, the hopelessness in it made Claire turn to face her.

“What happens?” Claire asked.

Claire looked into Allison’s eyes; they were despondent and teary, “When you grow up, your heart dies.”

“Who cares?” said Bender apathetically.

A tear freed itself from Alison’s eye and made a lonely journey down her cheek, “I care.” She whispered.

Brian suddenly spoke, “I was just thinking…uh, this is sort of a weird time but…I mean, what’s going to happen on Monday? I was just wondering, when we’re all together again, I consider you guys my friends. I’m not wrong, am I?”

“No,” said Andrew gently.

“So, so on Monday…what happens?”

“Are we still friends, you mean?” Claire asked softly. “If we're friends now, that is?”

“Yeah…” Brian answered.

Claire looked at her shoes in order to avoid Brian’s face, “Do you want the truth?”

“Yeah,” said Brain firmly, “I want the truth.”

She looked up at him; her tone was earnest yet distressed, “I don't think so...”

“Well, do you mean all of us or just John,” Alison looked over at the dark-haired boy who was crouched tensely a few metres away from her, staring at Claire with a mixture of emotions twisting his features.

“With all of you…” Claire answered sadly.

“That’s a real nice attitude Claire!” Andrew growled heatedly.

“Oh, be honest Andy…” Claire looked distressed, like every word she said was a needle under her skin, “if Brian came walking up to you in the hall on Monday, what would you do? I mean, picture this; you’re there with all the sports. I know exactly what you’d do, you’d say hi to him and when he left you’d cut him all up so your friends wouldn’t think you really liked him!

“No way!” Andrew cried, but there was a hint of disturbed uncertainty in his voice.

Allison looked Claire in the eye, “‘Kay, what if I came up to you?”

Claire took a shaky breath before answering, “Same exact thing.”

“You are a BITCH!” Bender screamed at her, his limbs flying out of their crouched arrangement as though hit by the shock of their owner’s sudden outburst of fury.

Claire gave him a cold, hollow look, “Why?” she asked hoarsely. “‘Cause I’m telling the truth, that makes me a bitch?”

“No! ‘Cause you know how shitty that is to do to someone! And you haven’t got the balls to stand up to your friends and tell ‘em that you’re gonna like who you wanna like!” Bender responded furiously, bunching his fists in anger.

“Ok, what about you, you hypocrite!” Claire seethed. “Why don’t you take Alison to one of your heavy metal vomit parties? Or take Brian out to the parking lot at lunch to get high?  What about Andy for that matter; what about me? What would your friends say if we were walking down the hall together? They'd laugh their asses off and you'd probably tell them you were doing it with me so they'd forgive you for being seen with me!”

“Don’t you EVER talk about my friends!” Bender screeched, slamming his fist on the floor. “You don’t know any of my friends, you don't look at any of my friends and you certainly wouldn't condescend to speak to any of my friends so you just stick to the things you know; shopping, nail polish, your father's BMW and your poor--rich--drunk mother in the Caribbean!”

“Shut up!” Claire screamed back, her body shaking with emotional stress.

Bender continued, “And as far as being concerned about what's gonna happen when you and I walk down the hallways at school, you can forget it! 'Cause it's never gonna happen! Just bury your head in the sand...and wait for your fuckin' prom!”

“I hate you,” Claire whispered with cold conviction, clutching her body weakly.

“Yeah?” Bender growled. “Good.”

Brian spoke gently with an air of contemplation, “Then I assume Allison and I are better people than you guys, huh? Us weirdos…” he looked at Alison. “Would you do that to me?”

“I don’t have any friends,” she answered softly.

“Well…if you did.”

She smiled at Brian, “No…I don’t think any of the kind of friends I would have would mind…”

Brian smiled back before addressing the group, “I just wanna tell each of you that I wouldn't do that...I wouldn't and I will not!  'Cause I think that's real shitty...”

Claire’s eyes fell to her feet and she spoke with a sad and certain tone, “Your friends wouldn’t mind ‘cause they look up to us.”

Upon hearing this Brian laughed softly and bitterly, “You're so conceited, Claire.  You're so conceited.  You're so, so, full of yourself, why are you like that?”

Claire wiped straying tears away from her red eyes, “I'm not saying that to be conceited!” she cried desperately. “I hate it!  I hate having to go along with everything my friends say!”

“Well then why do you do it?” Brian asked, genuinely wanting to understand.

Claire continued to cry, “I don't know, I don't...you don't understand…you don't,” she was almost babbling in her distress. “You're not friends with the same kind of people that Andy and I are friends with! You know, you just don't understand the pressure that they can put on you!”

Brian had to stop himself from laughing again, “I don’t understand? You think I don’t understand pressure Claire? Well fuck you! Fuck you!”

Brian buried his hands in his face as if to buffer his frustration, anger and shame from the others, before looking up and continuing, “Know why I'm here today?  Do you?”

Claire shook her head solemnly.

“I’m here because Mr. Ryan found a gun in my locker…”

Andrew’s forehead creased in concerned puzzlement, “Why'd you have a gun in your locker?”

Brian’s speech was degrading into inverted mutterings, “I tried.  You pull the fuckin' trunk on it and the light's s'posed to go on...and it didn't go on, I mean, I…”

Andrew became increasingly concerned, “What was the gun for Brian?”

“Just forget it…” Brian whispered, returning his face to his hands.

“You brought it up man!” Andrew pressed.

“I can't have an F,” Brian said quietly shaking his head, “I can’t have it and I know my parents can't have it. Even if I aced the rest of the semester I'm still only a B.  And everything's ruined for me.”

Claire’s tone changed from being disconnected, angry and cynical to soft and compassionate, “Oh Brian…”

Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” flew to the floor as Brian hit the book shelf behind him with the back of his fist. Collecting himself he spoke again, “So I considered my options, you know?”

“No! Killing yourself is not an option!” Claire cried intently.

“Well I didn’t do it did I?” Brian muttered, glowering. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Was it a hand gun?” Alison probed tentatively.

“No.” Brian admitted. “It was a flare gun; it went off in my locker.”

Andrew couldn’t stop himself from smirking, “Really?” he couldn’t help it; he started to laugh.

Brian’s demeanour went from sullen to irked, “It’s not funny…”

Although it was getting darker outside, somehow the library seemed to grow lighter, and the light was soon accompanied by laughter from everybody, even Brian.

“Yeah it is,” he chuckled, “fuckin’ elephant was destroyed!”

The laughter from everyone became increasingly uproarious, and in those moments it seemed like the tears of the past hour had unearthed the things that had been slowly eating away at them for years, and now the laughter was the rain that was washing those things away.  

“You know what I did to get in here?” Alison asked, feeling she should provide her own explanation. “Nothing...I didn't have anything better to do.”

Everyone but Alison began to laugh outrageously.

“You’re laughing at me,” muttered Alison, sounding hurt.

“No!” Andrew managed to say with what breath he was able to get between chortling.

Alison face suddenly erupted in a huge grin, “Yeah you are!”

Then she laughed too.