The Xander Years, Vol.2 Page 3

  “Oh, great,” she said. “It’s the winged monkeys.”

  They walked through the Bronze, making a beeline for the table where Xander stood between Willow and Buffy. Xander couldn’t look away, couldn’t blink, and was only somewhat aware of that fact. His eyes had locked with Kyle’s the moment he came through the door, and they stayed locked. Xander and Kyle had never been friends, but now they shared something.

  Xander wasn’t sure what it was.

  But something, definitely.

  They reached Buffy and Willow’s table, each of them looking only at Xander. He acknowledged them wordlessly as they went by, and turned to keep them in sight as they passed.

  They stopped at a nearby table — one that was already occupied by a couple of kids. One was a stocky guy in a plaid shirt, the other thinner and familiar-looking, though Xander couldn’t place him. Kyle and Rhonda leaned on the big guy’s shoulders, and his tablemate silently scooted his chair back and left.

  “You know,” Kyle said. “I don’t understand why you’re sitting at our table.”

  “Yeah,” Rhonda added. “Shouldn’t you be hovering over the football stadium with ‘Goodyear’ written on you?”

  They all laughed at that, Xander included. He was still laughing when he turned back to the table, and came face-to-face with Buffy’s expression, which said she definitely didn’t get the joke.

  “Kid’s fat,” he said. What more does she need?

  He looked at Willow and saw an expression of dismay.

  She didn’t get it either.

  The next day, Buffy met Rupert Giles for their scheduled sparring session.

  Giles wore body armor and heavy, padded boxing gloves. Buffy wore gloves, no armor. But then, she was the one doing the punching and kicking. She was the Slayer. Giles was a librarian and a Watcher, not a warrior. His responsibility was to train the Slayer, guide her, direct her. Watch her. Getting the stuffing knocked out of him by her wasn’t in the job description, hence the chest protector.

  And His Tweedness was one of those very British types, she reflected, in whom there was a lot of stuffing.

  She threw a right, a left, spun and came out of the spin with another right, spun again into a kick, then leapt into the air, kicking out with both feet at once into his gloves. Hitting hard, not holding back. Breathing hard, too.

  She advanced on him again. He waved his gloves.

  “Right,” Giles said. “That’s enough training for one day.”

  “Well, that last roundhouse was kind of sloppy. Sure you don’t want to do it again?” Buffy asked.

  “No, that’s fine.” He was breathing hard too. She’d seen Giles in action and knew he was pretty tough, for an old guy. But still, he was over forty, so what could one expect? “You run along to class,” he panted, “while I wait for the feeling to return to my arms.”

  Class. That was the hard part about being the Slayer. Or, one of many. She had to be the Slayer; it wasn’t like she’d auditioned for it, like cheerleader tryouts or anything. It demanded a lot from a girl. She could never just be one of the gang, never just hang out. The responsibility weighed heavily on her.

  If the other kids in school were out all night, it was because they were having fun, or getting into mischief of some kind. In her case, it was just another night on the job, keeping the world safe from the bloodsucking undead. And then I still have to go to class the next day.

  As Buffy neared a corner of the hallway, she heard a commotion from the other side. Students shrieked. And over it all, sounding somewhat strained, the unmistakable voice of Principal Flutie.

  “Look out!” he cried. “It’s gotten loose!”

  There were more shrieks. They didn’t sound terrified — and it was broad daylight — so her Slayer hackles didn’t rise, but she was curious. She hurried toward the corner.

  “Stop the beast!” Mr. Flutie called.

  Then she rounded the corner and saw it, darting straight for her. A tiny pink piglet, running like pork chops were on the school lunch menu. Probably it was trying to get away from the ridiculous outfit someone had dressed it in. Vandals, maybe.

  Buffy bent over and snagged the piglet, lifting it into her arms. The poor thing was wearing a tiny Sunnydale High football helmet with papier-mâché tusks attached at the sides of his snout and had a row of green foam triangles stuck to its back, like a cartoon dinosaur’s fins.

  Mr. Flutie caught up to them. “Naughty Herbert,” he said. “Gave Mr. Flutie quite a scare, didn’t he?”

  He drew himself up, addressing the students crowding the hallway. “Students, I’d like you all to meet Herbert, our new mascot for the Sunnydale High Razorbacks!” This was met with a smattering of applause.

  “He’s so cute!” Buffy said.

  “He’s not cute,” Mr. Flutie insisted. “No, he’s a fierce Razorback.” He pumped his fists into the air, and there was some halfhearted clapping.

  Buffy studied the poor, overaccessorized pig. “He doesn’t look mean, Mr. Flutie.”

  “He’s mean, he’s ready for action.” Mr. Flutie indicated Herbert’s add-ons. “See, here are the tusks, and . . . a scary . . . razorback.” The green fins. Now she got it.

  “You’re right,” Buffy agreed. Sometimes a principal had to be humored. “He is a fine mascot and will engender school spirit.”

  “Well, he’d better — costs a fortune to feed him.” He bent down, spoke directly to Herbert. “Let’s get you back in your cage.” He reached for the pig, and Herbert let out a squeal. Mr. Flutie backed off, gestured for Buffy to carry the new mascot.

  “This way,” he said. Buffy led the way, the piglet oinking contentedly in her arms.

  Willow and Xander sat on one of the stone benches scattered around the campus, his geometry textbook open on her lap. He had a notebook and a pencil and was jotting numbers and lines down, but not really catching on. They were a study in contrast — red-haired Willow wearing a bright orange sweater over a patterned skirt, and Xander, dark-haired and eyed, all in shades of black and gray.

  “I’m not getting this,” Xander said.

  “It’s simple, really,” Willow explained. She didn’t understand why his patience seemed to be so short — as in, nonexistent — today. But she was willing to be extra patient with him to make up for it. “See, the bisector of a vertex is the line that divides the angle at that vertex into two equal parts.”

  “It’s like a big blur, all these numbers and angles,” he said, not really even listening to her. There’s enough going on in my head without filling it up with lame mathematical theory, Xander thought. I know the math I need. How fast, how strong, how mean? Calculations that matter.

  “It’s the same stuff from last week. You had it down then.”

  “Why do I need to learn this?” he demanded.

  “’Cause otherwise you’ll flunk math.”

  “Explain the part where that’s bad.”

  They’d had this conversation before. “You remember,” she said. “You fail math, you flunk out of school, you end up being the guy at the pizza place that sweeps the floor and says, ‘Hey, kids, where’s the cool parties this weekend?’ We’ve been through this.”

  As she spoke, Xander rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Do you have a headache?” she asked, concerned. She touched his temple, gently, and he shook her hand away.

  “Yeah,” he said. “And I think I know what’s causing it.” He snatched the book off her lap and tossed it into a nearby garbage can. Smiling at his direct hit, he went on. “That’s better. It goes right to the source of the pain.”

  “Xander —”

  But he cut her off. Enough is enough, he thought. Even just a little bit of this, that’s still enough. No more. “Look, forget it, okay? I don’t get it. I won’t ever. I don’t care.” He stood suddenly, throwing his spiral notebook into Willow’s lap, and stormed away.

  Willow had been friends with Xander a long time, and, frankly, had the hots for him almost as long. She was wil
ling to overlook a lot of less-than-polite behavior from him. Even this will pass, she thought. “We can finish this another time,” she suggested, but he was gone, beyond even hearing her.

  Mr. Flutie showed Buffy to a classroom in which a cage was set up for Herbert.

  “See, the problem is,” he said as they walked, “you kids today have no school spirit. Hold on, let me get his outfit off.” He removed Herbert’s helmet and foam razorback. “Today it’s all gangs and drugs and those movies on Showtime with the nudity.” Looking at Buffy, he quickly added, “I don’t have cable. I only heard.”

  More passionately, he went on. “When I was your age, we cared about the school’s reputation, the team’s record, all that stuff.” Then, as if he realized what he was saying, he amended himself. “Of course, when I was your age I was surrounded by old guys telling me how much better things were when they were my age.” He gave up then, and went in to prepare the cage for Herbert’s arrival.

  Buffy gave a small laugh. “Yeah,” she said, more to Herbert than to Mr. Flutie. For a principal, he isn’t always as clueless as he seems, she thought.

  She was still standing there holding the pig when Xander entered the hallway through the double doors to outside. He didn’t say anything, just gave her the slightest glance and gave Herbert a prolonged stare as he passed by. Which Buffy thought was odd, though not necessarily any more so than the rest of his behavior had been lately.

  No, what really creeped her was that Xander gave the pig the wiggins. Herbert squealed, terrified, and wriggled in her arms like he wanted to beat his own personal best at the hundred-yard dash. It was all she could do just to hang on to him. He kept squealing and writhing until Xander was long out of sight.

  Why would he be so afraid of Xander? she wondered. He wasn’t that way with the rest of the kids in the hall — had kind of liked being the center of attention, it seemed. So what was it now that was so different? Something about Xander?

  Harmless old Xander Harris? A pig-wigger? Couldn’t be . . .

  A sudden storm had rolled over Sunnydale during the day, unleashing driving rain and booming thunder. Rain had its pluses and minuses, but one of the big minuses was that P.E. had to be held indoors, in the big old gym. And Coach Herrold, not huge on imagination to begin with, had a limited repertoire of activities that he could think up for indoor workouts, especially once basketball season was over.

  Coach Herrold was a big man with silver hair and a military bearing. Buffy had heard rumors that he’d served as a drill sergeant for years, finally getting out and becoming a high school coach because it was the only other place where he could command blind obedience.

  “All right, it’s raining,” he said, marching up and back between the two assembled ranks of P.E. students, resplendent in Sunnydale burgundy and gold. He carried a red rubber ball under his arm; others had already been handed out. “All regular gym classes have been postponed. So you know what that means . . . dodgeball.” He held his ball up in one big fist, as if to demonstrate to anyone who hadn’t caught on yet what a dodgeball looked like. “Now, for those of you who may have forgotten, the rules are as follows: you dodge.”

  He tossed his ball to Buffy, stepped out of the center, and blew his everpresent whistle. The two sides backed away from each other, toward opposite walls, students already eyeing their intended targets.

  Coach Herrold blew the whistle again and rubber flew.

  “One down,” someone said as the first kid was tagged by one of the red balls. More went down quickly, stepping aside to the bench. To survive in dodgeball, you had to be light on your feet, with the reflexes to avoid the flying balls, yet still fast enough to grab any that came your way so you could knock out members of the opposing team. Buffy and Willow had both started with balls, but that only gave the most momentary of advantages.

  Buffy had the distinct sense that she was being particularly targeted by Rhonda Kelley, but that was hard to know for sure in a game where everyone was, by definition, a target. Some people threw the ball harder than others, though, and Buffy dodged a couple of well-aimed burners that came uncomfortably close. Then she caught a glimpse of Xander winding up for a powerful throw. Before she even had a chance to wonder who he was targeting, she saw — Willow had just thrown a good one, followed through on her throw, and her back was mostly to Xander. His ball slammed into her shoulder, hard.

  The look Willow tossed his way as she slunk toward the bench almost broke Buffy’s heart. What is up with him? she wondered again.

  But Buffy didn’t have time to dwell on it. Her last teammate was knocked out, and she realized it was just she facing down six opponents.

  And not just any six.

  Xander, Kyle, Rhonda, Tor, Heidi, and Lance. Buffy flashed back on the Bronze, last night, and the zoo trip before that. This is too weird, she thought. She faced them for a moment, but then, almost as one, they turned away from her. Looked at Lance Lincoln. Held the look.

  Lance returned it, very nervous.

  Kyle threw the first ball. Hard, at close range. Lance went down on the wooden gym floor. Kyle scooped up another ball, slammed Lance again. Then they were all throwing balls, pounding Lance into the floor like they wanted to nail him to it.

  Buffy ran, across no-man’s land and into the middle of it all. She took Lance’s hand, hoisted him to his feet and away from the punishing balls. A couple of balls bounced harmlessly now, but no one was throwing any more. They were just looking at Buffy silently. She caught Xander’s gaze, stared into his eyes as if hoping to see something there. Some glimmer of the Xander she had known.

  But there was nothing. He was a stranger. He turned away, and his new friends followed.

  Game over. A satisfactory class session, at least to one person. “God, this game is brutal,” Coach Herrold said as they filed out. “I love it.”

  * * *

  Willow waited outside the gym for Xander. She leaned against a bank of lockers, and when he came out he was accompanied by Kyle, Tor, Heidi, and Rhonda. They were all dressed in dark, blacks and browns, almost like a uniform.

  “Xander,” she said, stepping toward him. “What’s wrong with you?”

  With a glance back toward his friends, he moved away from them. He took Willow’s elbow and drew her to one side. “I guess you’ve noticed that I’ve been different around you, lately,” he said, his voice low and intimate.

  “Yes.”

  “I think, um . . .” he paused, as if searching for the right words. “I think it’s because my feelings for you have been changing.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. Depending on how he meant that . . .

  “Well, we’ve been friends for such a long time,” he went on, “that I feel like I need to tell you something.” Willow’s heart soared. Is this going to be what I’ve always wanted to hear from Xander? I want you to go out with me on Friday night, he might say. I want you to marry me. Do you like big families? She waited, expectant, hope swelling in her.

  Xander continued, his tone serious. “I’ve . . . I’ve decided to drop geometry. So . . . I won’t be needing your math help anymore.”

  Willow could feel her hope collapsing, her face falling. She struggled to hold it together. “Which means,” Xander said, raising his voice so his friends could hear, “I won’t have to look at your pasty face again.”

  He started to laugh then, and the others joined in. The group of them sounded sick to her, laughing so hard at such a mean joke. Willow’s heart sank. Her eyes filling with tears, she turned and walked away, barely registering the sight of her best friend Buffy standing at her locker. As she hurried down the corridor the sound of their laughter rang in her ears, like church bells summoning mourners for a funeral.

  Buffy slammed her locker. I’m willing to excuse Xander a lot, she thought, for Will’s sake. But this is too much. She stormed up to him, looked him in the eye.

  “You gonna say something to me?” she asked.

  He just started laughing again, the h
igh-pitched, manic laugh that he and his newfound chums seemed to share. They all cracked up, and Xander joined them. They disappeared down the hall, only their wicked laughter lingering behind them.

  It was a new sensation, strolling the campus like you owned it. Like you were the big dogs, and all the puppies got out of your way. Xander liked the way it felt. He felt powerful. He couldn’t remember ever having been quite so alive. Senses sharp, muscles honed, mind alert. And his friends had his back; Kyle and Rhonda, Tor, Heidi. He’d started thinking of them as a pack, animals on the hunt.

  I’m not sure what we’re hunting, he thought. But I’ll know it when I find it. He was confident of that.

  He stopped, and they stopped with him. As one. Each responsive to the others’ slightest signals.

  Xander sniffed the air. Picked up a scent.

  “Dogs,” he said.

  “Where?” Kyle asked. Xander nodded his head, and then led the way again, toward the campus picnic tables.

  At one table, three guys were eating hot dogs and talking music. Xander knew one of them, Adam somebody. He wasn’t important enough to have a last name. He wasn’t one of the pack.

  “You’re out of your mind,” Adam was saying as they approached. “That’s no way to play lead guitar. That’s just hunt ’n’ peck.”

  Xander stopped next to the table, and his friends fanned out around it. Adam saw them. “Hey, Xander,” he said. “You’ve seen Wretched Refuse. What do you think of the guy who plays lead?”

  The question was too inane to deserve an answer. Xander ignored him, and watched as Heidi and Tor leaned over the table, snatching hot dogs — no bun, just the meat — from two of the guys’ plates.

  “Hey,” Adam protested. “Hey, what are you guys — ” Rhonda cut him off. “Shut up.”

  “You’re sharing,” Kyle said, voice like ice.

  “Friends like to share,” Xander added.

  Heidi and Tor took big bites of their “shared” dogs.

  “Good?” Xander asked.

  “It’s too well done,” Tor said, tossing his dog back onto Adam’s tray. Heidi threw hers down as well.

  “Hey,” Adam said. He sounded offended, as if there was some reason for his existence other than to provide for Xander and his friends. “That is not cool.”