And then suddenly Dad's yelling, "Kevin! Kevin!"

It takes me a second to realize that he's walked over to the apartment's only window, looking right out into the driveway.

"What's that?" His voice has gone sharp, like that time I tried to set a frog on fire back in sixth grade. (Long story.) "That's my car, Dad." I've got a can of ravioli half opened and I almost cut my thumb off when he yelled.

"Don't be smart. That ribbon."

"Oh. The ribbons."

"Plural?" he says, as if someone just dipped his big toe in battery acid. "There's more than one?" He cranes his neck, looking for the other one.

"Yeah. The mayor put 'em there before I-"

"Get rid of them."

"Why?"

And he starts to do that whole brain-moving-too-fast, fl.u.s.tered thing: "Because ... Because ... Don't you get it? It's just a-"

"OK, OK." I cut him off before he can go into total spaz mode. "I'll get 'em after I eat."

"Do it now." He says it with such venom that it takes me a second to figure out that he's still just talking about the freaking ribbons.

"OK," I tell him, and go back to opening the can.

"I'm serious!"

You've got to be kidding me. But he's not. So I slam down the can, go peel off the magnets, and toss them in the trash can.

"Happy now?" I say once I'm back inside.

But Dad's nowhere near happy. If happy was the earth, Dad would be out there orbiting Pluto.

"How could you drive around with those things on?"

"Chill out, Dad. Everyone has them."

"That's exactly my point," he says. "People think ... Do you know what people think?" And here he goes again: "People, they, you know..."

"Yeah, Dad."

"Let me tell you something: When I was in the army, those things didn't mean anything at all. You think they helped me over there? You think they helped any of us?"

It's the most he's talked about the army in, like, forever. I just stand there, stunned. He glares at me and then he shakes his head. He looks like he's about to say something else, but he just goes off to his bedroom and closes the door and I'm able to eat my dinner in peace.

In the morning, I drive to school for the first time, which is great. Tell the truth, I'm starting to get used to this "hero" thing. People treating me well in school, Leah inviting me to parties, the mayor bending over backwards to get me some wheels ... There are worse ways to live a life.

And at school, I experience one of them.

I don't get it. All of a sudden, no one's talking to me. or high-fiving me. As I walk through the halls to my locker, I just get stares and glares. What the h.e.l.l?

Oh, G.o.d, wait. Did someone find out? Did someone find out the truth, about what really happened at the library that day?

No. No, that's impossible...

And then I get to my locker.

Someone has taped a sheet of paper to the front of it. It's a printout from the school newspaper's Web page. There's a picture of me taking one of the ribbons off the car and then another picture right next to it of me tossing both ribbons in the trash can.

And a headline: LOCAL "HERO" TO TROOPS: DROP DEAD!.

Oh, boy.

Zero

Chapter 13.

Unintended Consequences

The reporter. That pain-in-the-b.u.t.t school reporter. He hadn't left yet. From the angle and the size of the shots, he must have been just across the street, getting back into his car when he saw me and ...

c.r.a.p.

I keep my head down in homeroom, moving only to rise and then sit for the Pledge of Allegience. I try to imagine there's a bubble around me and no one can see through it, but I don't have that great an imagination.

Like a junkie looking for a needle, I look for Leah in the halls between homeroom and first period. Which is stupid because I know her schedule by heart and she's never in my path this time of day.

I do catch Fam, though. Actually, she catches me, grabbing my backpack and pulling me off against the wall before I even realize it's her.

"Hail, Fool," I tell her.

"Kross, please be careful," she says, skipping the "Hail, Fool" nonsense. "People are p.i.s.sed."

"Yeah, I know."

She pats my hand sympathetically and gives me a look like I'm a dog going to the vet for the last time. I get this weird vibe that, if we weren't both carrying armloads of books, she would give me a hug. Which, like, I totally don't want.

All day, I get the stink-eye from everyone around me. It's like I chopped up a baby and deep-fried it for lunch.

That whole hero thing was annoying, but it was better than the villain thing, let me tell you.

I finally spot Leah in the hall between cla.s.ses-she's on her way to trig and I'm headed to bio, just like every Wednesday. She's not giving me the Death Glare for unpatriots like everyone else, but she's not giving me the hero-worship look, either.

I guess at this point most guys would just go ahead and tell everyone "My dad made me do it!" and that would be that, but come on! Is there anything in the world more pathetic than blaming your parents for your problems? That's so whiny. And it would just make me look like even more of a wuss. So, no.

I decide I can't handle a lunchtime of everyone watching, so I ditch lunch and head to the janitor's office. My hand actually shakes as I try to unlock the door with my copied key. I guess I'm more worked up than I thought.

Fam opens the door from the inside. I want to kiss her for it and then I'm grossed out by the idea.

"Hey, make up your mind, Kross." It's Flip, lounging at the desk. G.o.d, when did he learn to read my mind?

"What do you mean?" I ask, all fake innocent.

He holds up a copy of the Web printout. "Hero or villain? Which is it?"

Fam goes ahead and hugs me quickly, then moves to Flip's side. "Leave him alone, Joey. He's having a bad day. Can't you tell?"

Flip grimaces at the use of his real name. "He should have thought of that before he decided to p.i.s.s all over the troops." But then he shrugs. "Not that I care. There might be something to this..." And he leans back on the desk and goes off into Flip-s.p.a.ce, where he can think about such things.

I shake my head. Fam gives me that dog-to-the-vet pity look again, and I can't handle it. But I guess it's better to be here and getting the pity look from her than to be in the lunchroom and getting pelted by flying utensils, right?

t.i.t shows up and that's it-Speedo and Jedi must not have been able to slip away. "You're having an interesting day," t.i.t says, because t.i.t has a black belt in understatement.

"Tell me about it. What the h.e.l.l, man? Why are people so p.i.s.sed? It's not like I did anything."

"Beats me. What are you gonna do about it?"

I throw my hands up in the air. "How can I do something about it when I don't know what the big deal is in the first place?" My voice goes all high and cracky, which I hate, but I can't help it. "I can't believe people actually care about this!"

Fam pipes up. "Maybe you could-"

"Hey!" Flip sits up. "Some quiet, please! Genius at work. Heavy thinking going on here!"

"Sorry."

I enjoy my respite from the halls of South Brook as long as I can, but eventually I have to leave.

The rest of the day is just h.e.l.lish. No one confronts me directly, but I hear mumblings and mutterings everywhere I go. And no one is giving me the worshipful hero look anymore. I don't get it. I can't believe people are so worked up!

The burnouts and the band geeks and the goth kids are the only ones not ganging up on me, which doesn't help at all because I don't fit in with any of those people.

This doesn't make sense. None of it makes any sense. They're magnets, for G.o.d's sake!

"Not everyone hates you, Kross," Speedo tells me at one point during the day. "It's just that the people who do hate you are really loud and the people who don't hate you just don't give a c.r.a.p at all, so they're not gonna rush to defend you."

"Thanks for the good news."

Speedo doesn't catch the sarcasm. "No problem, buddy." He punches my shoulder. "See ya."

I try reading the story from the school paper, but it's just a mishmash of stupid. Stuff about how everyone thought I was a hero, but can one good deed wipe out what is clearly a deep character flaw and stuff like that and let me tell you: I know I've got deep character flaws. I mean, I've got character flaws like the Grand Canyon, but what's the big deal about tossing those magnets?

It's funny, because if they knew the truth about me ... I guess if they knew the truth, they'd hate me for the right reason, not the wrong one.

At the end of the day, when I get to the parking lot, there are about a million freakin' magnetic ribbons on my car. Poetic justice or general cluelessness? Who knows?

When I get home, voice mail is jam-packed with reporters. Real reporters, not idiots from school. There's a guy from the Lowe County Times-the same guy who interviewed me after the thing with the Surgeon-and he's all freaky on the message. And then there's the Baltimore Sun, and I start to think, What the h.e.l.l? Did nothing else happen in the world today?

Everyone wants a piece of me again. They want to "discuss your political beliefs" and "get inside your head" and find out "why you've chosen now to expound on your leftist ideology" and stuff like that.

I didn't know I had a leftist ideology. All of this over some strips of magnetic ... stuff. Whatever those ribbons are made of.

"Is this some kind of joke?" Dad asks. He's looking out the window at my car, which is still brown, but not that you can tell with that swarm of yellow, red, white, and blue all over it. "Didn't I tell you to get rid of those things?"

"Dad, do you even listen to voice mail?"

"Don't change the topic."

"I'm not! Everyone in the whole world thinks I hate America!"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Dad, they want to interview me about it."

Dad blinks at me, like it's a totally alien concept. "You're in high school, Kevin. Trust me-nothing terrible is going to happen."

"Dad!"

"Did you do anything wrong?"

"No."

"Is anyone shooting at you? Trying to blow you up?"

Jeez! When you put it that way..."No, Dad, but-"

"Then don't worry. It'll pa.s.s. Just deal with it."

I can't believe it! I can't believe he's that clueless! I mean, yeah, I understand that when he was a little bit older than me, he had people shooting at him and trying to blow him up, but still.

"Compared to that," he goes on, "you're just-"

The phone interrupts him and Dad picks it up. "h.e.l.lo? What? No. He has no comment. I don't care. Uh-huh. Lose this number." And hangs up.