Beauty and the Bully Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  DUTTON BOOKS

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s

  imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,

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  Copyright © 2008 by Alloy Entertainment and Andy Behrens

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by

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  Published in the United States by Dutton Books,

  a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc.

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  Produced by Alloy Entertainment

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  eISBN : 978-0-525-47898-0

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  For my dad, Leo.

  Thank you.

  1

  Duncan Boone plugged his custom-airbrushed Fuego-Hammer AX50 electric guitar into an amplifier, twisted the volume knobs to their max, then flipped off the garage lights. He nodded, pleased with himself. Earlier, he had secured a dual-beam flashlight to a rafter with duct tape, angling it so it shone like a spotlight onto the garage floor. Now he stood in the light alone, listening to the amp hum. As his eyes swept over his dad’s tarp-covered ’65 Skylark, he imagined a rippling sea of fans in a vast arena. He triumphantly raised his arms.“Thank you!” he said in an affected English accent. “Thank yooooou!”

  Duncan bent a note high up the fretboard. He eased a pair of mirrored sunglasses onto his face and patted the ruffles of his oversized tuxedo shirt, letting the guitar slide low against his hip. He placed an enormous feathered hat atop his head, then tilted it forward. He cleared his throat and began to count off:

  “One, two . . . a-one, two, three, four . . .”

  He leapt, the plume of his hat scraping the motor of the garage door opener. Duncan began to lash at his guitar, his face contorted as though he were in unholy pain. Waves of distortion erupted from the amp. Tools rattled against the garage walls. Duncan fell to his knees. His fingers slid down the neck of the guitar, then up again. He arched backwards until the hat fell off. He jiggled the guitar lightly, as if a few notes were stuck and he needed to shake them out. More blurts of distortion. With his eyes closed tight behind the sunglasses and a haze of noise gathering around him, Duncan didn’t notice the garage door beginning to rise and sunlight sweeping across the floor.

  His friends Jessie Panger and Stew Varney stood in the driveway, smirking. Jessie twirled a single drumstick in her left hand. Stew bobbed his head. They watched Duncan writhe, the guitar held aloft in his outstretched arms. A small crowd of passersby began to gather, attracted (or awed, or horrified) by the crushing sounds emanating from the two-car garage on the leafy—and normally quiet—suburban Illinois street. Duncan, still using the contrived accent, began to half sing/ half scream:

  Oh, Caa-aar-lee-eee-eey

  I’d eat a pound of cheese

  Get attacked by killer bees

  Hold it for an hour when I have to pee-eee

  Expose myself to hepatitis C

  And pay more attention in Spanish III

  If I could just get you to talk to m—

  Jessie jerked the guitar cord from the amplifier.

  “Sweet jam, rocker,” she said flatly.

  She stood above Duncan, her arms folded across a black Hüsker Dü T-shirt. Although she was a diminutive, pink-haired girl, Jessie could actually appear quite menacing. Duncan froze, lying on his back on the oil-stained garage floor with the guitar on his chest.

  “Hey, Jess,” he said meekly. “Just, um . . . warming up a little.”

  “Masterful rhymes,” she said. “Really. Cheese, bees, pee . . . wow. That’s powerful stuff. I think we’re all smelling Grammy.”

  “They can’t all be gems,” he said. “Just freestyling a bit.”

  Duncan stood and removed his sunglasses. He immediately took notice of the six adults, four infants, and two Labradors gawking at him from the sidewalk.

  “Hello, Mrs. Ludgin, Mrs. Marchetti. Hey there, everyone.”

  The kids waved frantically. The dogs wagged. The adults scarcely moved. Duncan smoothed the billowed front of his ruffly shirt and hiked up his turquoise velvet pants.

  “Dude,” said Stew, “you look like some sort of conquistador. But you’re, like, nineteen percent more gay than other conquistadors. Not that I’m judging the lifestyles of Spanish explorers—at all. Because I’m not. That’s totally not me. I mean, conquistadors can be gay, that’s cool. I have total respect for gay conqui—”

  “Shut up, asselope,” said Jessie, smiling. “Unpack your stuff.”

  She placed a small box of percussion instruments—a triangle, maracas, wood blocks, a cowbell—on the garage floor, then turned toward Duncan. “Were you trying to sound British just then? And what is with the new look? It’s kind of piratey, I think. And it’s a little Brokeback, too. Please tell me you don’t have pirate suits for the rest of the band. Peg legs and parrots, that sort of thing.”

  Duncan self-consciously ran his hands down the ill-fitting pants, eyed the feathered hat on the garage floor, and, without much subtlety, kicked it underneath the car.

&nbs
p; “No parrots or wooden limbs,” he said.

  “Did you raid the theater-arts wardrobe closet again?” asked Jessie.

  “Yeah,” he said. “No way they’ll miss this stuff. It’s from Twelfth Night, freshman year. Awesome, eh?”

  “Not so much, no,” said Jessie. “I’m not wearing a pirate hat, Duncan.”

  “You think they’re a little overwrought? I just thought we needed a stage presence that was more flamboyant. Nonconformist. I’d like us to stand out. I’m trying to cultivate a look that’s consistent with the band’s core principles.”

  Jessie glared. Duncan shrank slightly.

  “The costumes can be optional,” he said. “And I can return the hats. But they’re not piratey. They’re retro. Big diff—”

  “Principles?” Jessie asked. “We have ‘core principles’? Really? We’ve never even had a gig. Not one gig. We always stand out when we play, dude, because we’re the only living things in the room.” She gestured at the small dispersing group of people and pets. “That is officially the largest crowd that has ever seen us perform.” She paused. “But please, tell me more about the Blowholes’ principles.”

  The Blowholes were a trio of Elm Forest Township High School students—Duncan on guitar, Jessie on drums, and Stew on bass—that had formed (as a thrash-metal band called Feely Dan) in Stew’s attic five months earlier. Soon after they began playing together, they moved their practices to Jessie’s basement (and briefly changed their style to ska, and their name to Toby Spliff) following a series of strongly worded complaints from a nearby senior center. But weeks of basement turf battles with Jessie’s eleven-year-old brother ended with a small fire and the permanent expulsion of the band (which had shifted its style to hardcore punk and its name to Velveeting Disorder) not just from Jessie’s house, but—by virtue of a one-sided vote of the Glenn Oaks Estates homeowners’ association—from her entire subdivision. The band next moved to the relative isolation of Duncan’s garage (changing their style again to bluesy rock and their name to the Blowholes). The band, much to every member ’s dismay, had yet to perform in front of an audience. Getting a gig had become a critical Blowhole priority.

  “Our principles,” Duncan said. “Ahem. Right. Well, I’ve really been giving this a lot of consideration, and I’m thinking now that we’re more of a concept-album band. Like Pink Floyd, maybe. But more accessible. We’re like the double-album /rock opera type. We’re definitely not a band that tries to churn out Top 40 singles. In fact, we reject the single.”

  “That’s a new principle for the Blowholes, isn’t it?” asked Jessie.

  “No,” Duncan said. “No, no. We just needed time to get in touch with this particular principle.”

  “But now you’re touching it.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “You’re changing the band’s name again, aren’t you?” she asked flatly.

  “’Fraid so,” said Duncan, plugging his guitar back into the amplifier.

  “But I was going to get a little spouting whale logo on the drum.”

  “Sorry, Jess. The Blowholes have passed into history. We are now . . .” Duncan paused for effect. “Fat Barbie.”

  Jessie and Stew nodded.

  “It came to me during sixth period,” Duncan added.

  “Mandy Lubanski is in your sixth period, right?” asked Jessie.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “She wore the unfortunate denim skirt today, yeah?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Right,” said Jessie. “So Fat Barbie.”

  “Oh, let’s not attribute this to Mandy. She’s a nice girl. A bit of an awkward dresser.”

  “Fair enough,” said Stew. “So you think this name, Fat Barbie, is somehow more consistent with the—what were they again?—the ‘core principles’ of the band?”

  “Totally,” said Duncan. “It says everything we need it to. First of all, Fat Barbie is big. Obviously. Big sound, big ideas. Just big. And Fat Barbie is completely antimaterialism. Proletarian rock for the people, that’s us. And Fat Barbie demands attention. We’re a wake-the-neighborhood sort of band. This is our identity. These are our essential principles.” He fluffed his shirt ruffles.

  “The only principle we’ve ever really had,” said Stew, “is your steady commitment to someday nailing Carly Garfield.” Jessie snorted. Duncan grew immediately red-faced. “In fact,” continued Stew, “we should just call ourselves ‘Do Me, Car—’ ”

  “Oh, shut up,” snapped Duncan.

  Carly Garfield had been—aside from Led Zeppelin, a short-lived flirtation with the Smashing Pumpkins, and a newfound adoration of Wolfmother—Duncan’s singular obsession since the seventh grade. She was tall, smart, idealistic, unnaturally pretty, and, Duncan believed, the girl for whom he was obviously destined. He had never wavered in his devotion to her, despite the fact that she had never wavered in her apparent indifference to him.

  “Don’t try to cheapen what Carly and I have,” he said.

  “You have something?” asked Stew, looping the strap of his bass over his head.

  “Whatever. Don’t cheapen what we don’t have, then. Carly is my songwriting muse. And as such, she’s as important to this band as anyone.”

  “I like to think the drummer is a bigger deal than the muse,” said Jessie, flipping a drumstick into the musty garage air. “But whatever.”

  “Anyway,” continued Duncan, “Carly is clearly important to me.” He paused, considering the merits of having yet another Carly discussion, before reflexively saying, “And I’m not just out to nail her, either. What Carly and I have—or what we will have—is on a much higher plane than nailing. It’s a kind of metapsychic connection.”

  Blank stares.

  “She’s aware of this connection, then?” Jessie asked.

  “It’s a little more subconscious on her end,” said Duncan.

  “So she’s sort of invisibly, spiritually connected to you,” said Jessie. “But doesn’t know it yet.” She sat down at the drum kit and lightly tapped a cymbal. “Well, that’s clearly a problem, isn’t it?”

  “Not an insurmountable one,” said Duncan.

  “You need to take radical action,” she said.

  “I have a game plan.”

  “Really? What do you call it? The loser stalker-boy plan?” He winced. “The chick barely knows you, Duncan. Your locker is next to hers, you’ve weaseled your way into three of her classes—which is kinda stalky right there—and you’ve written, like, fifty guitar ballads about her. But she still doesn’t know you exist.”

  “Oh, c’mon, don’t be ridiculous. She knows I exist. And I’ve only written, like, eight ballads. That’s not even a full album.”

  “Are you counting the Spanish songs? Like ‘Mi Corazón Es Su Perro, Carly.’ Or ‘Carretilla del Amor para Carly.’ Or ‘Nado en Su—’ ”

  “Okay, no. Those were extra-credit projects. But fine. So there are fifteen songs.”

  “What about the Christmas carols?” asked Stew. “Like ‘Heavy Metal Drummer Boy.’ And ‘I Saw Carly Kiss—’ ”

  “Okay, whatever. Nineteen songs. But they aren’t all ballads. Some of them kinda rock.”

  Jessie stared at him for an uncomfortable moment. “My point stands, Duncan. She barely knows you.”

  “She so knows me!” he protested.

  “She calls you ’Dalton.’ ”

  He winced again.

  “Okay, so that’s an issue to eventually address. But still, I have a game plan. It’s just more of a long-term plan.”

  “We’re juniors now, dude,” Jessie said coldly. “Game’s almost over.”

  This Duncan didn’t need to be told. It was the chilling fact that kept him awake in the night. He often imagined a big digital countdown clock—the kind they use at NASA and telethons—floating above his head, noisily keeping track of days, hours, minutes, and seconds until graduation:

  629:07:53:19

  Tick . . . tick . . . tick. 18 . . . 17 . . . 16 . . .

&
nbsp; When the clock finally hit zeros, as it inevitably would, Carly could go anywhere. There’d be no more sitting at lunch tables adjacent to hers, no more parking his heavily used Plymouth Reliant near her Prius in the student lot at school. If Duncan was ever going to get Carly to learn his name, which seemed like an important precursor to wooing her, he was going to have to get her to take notice of him, and soon.

  “I’ll admit,” he said, “time does not seem to be on my side here.”

  Jessie shook her head. “No kidding, Duncan. That’s why I’m telling you it’s time for radical action. Operative word: ‘action.’ You need to either one, make your move, or two, forget about this chick and move on. She’s just a girl, dude.”

  “Forget her!?” he said, incredulous. “Move on? Look, I’m willing to try almost anything, but I can’t just forget Carly like she’s some random crush. It’s not possible. She’s not just a girl. She’s the girl. I mean, did John just forget about Yoko? Did Sid just forget about Nancy? Did Kurt just forget about Courtney? No, they didn’t forget.”

  “No, you’re right,” said Jessie. “Sid killed Nancy. And Kurt shot himself in the face. So I guess those could be options C and D. You want me to start writing these down?”

  “That won’t be necessary. But thanks. I don’t think I’ll be killing anyone.”

  “So that leaves some lesser sort of radical action. Or you could forget—”

  “I am not just forgetting about Carly!” he snapped.

  Jessie and Stew recoiled.

  “Okay, so it’s kind of pathetic how infatuated I am,” said Duncan. “I realize that.” He looked down at his feet, played a pair of random notes, then continued. “I’m way past infatuation, in fact. And I can’t just turn it off. Hell, I wouldn’t want to. Carly is just so . . . so . . .”

  “Devastatingly hot?” asked Stew.

  “Batpoop crazy?” asked Jessie.

  “. . . perfect. Carly is just definitely not the standard-issue teenage girl. She has all these amazing activist causes that she’s into—”

  “Creepy fringe cults,” muttered Jessie.

  “—she’s got like a four-point-two-something GPA, so she’s completely brilliant—”