Matt Denzer
In second period, Sky Malone was doing anything but paying attention. This was a simple class – philosophy – and after listening to some opinions on life in outer space that Sky found herself strongly objecting to, she’d simply zoned out, in hopes that if the teacher called on her, the topic would still be on whether or not aliens were likely smarter than humans. Instead, Sky gazed out of the window, brown eyes rapt and focused, ignoring the occasional whispers that she knew were about her, coming from her fellow classmates, with a look as though she were waiting for something to happen.
And something did happen. Quite suddenly, a large door next to the parking lot of the school burst open, disturbing the peace in the lot, and a young man with long, dark hair ran out, a stained spiral notebook clutched in his hands. Sky sat up, eyes trained on him. Matt Denzer, she thought, almost hissing to herself. 'Right on time'. Matt ran towards the fence surrounding the school, clutching the notebook tightly to his chest, then planted his hands on the top of the railing with a quick leap and rapidly scaled the metal links, flipping his body over in one fluid motion. A large burly woman in green, the security guard for the parking lot of the school, came running after him, walkie-talkie in hand. Matt flipped her off, made a face, then turned, crossed the street, and disappeared behind the bushes of a house on the other side, and appeared several seconds later, peeling out in a rather beautiful, blue Miata.
He never let go of the worn-out notebook in his hand.
A small, twitching grin had appeared on Sky’s face as she watched the smooth get-away unfold, and she leaned back in her seat, seemingly pleased with herself. “Sky?” Her head snapped up, Ms. Hemmerle looming over her, with a mildly annoyed expression on her face, staring expectantly at her. “What do you think?”
Shit – has the topic changed? Praying that it didn’t, Sky coolly replied, “I think that besides the fact that most of us are twisting the definition of intelligent to be how humans think, alien intelligence can’t be measured unless we know how long their civilization, or even species, has lasted.” Quick, off the top of her head, and generally understandable. Plus, it sounded smart. Ms. Hemmerle stared at her for several seconds – Sky felt her chest clamp up in momentary panic – then nodded. She breathed a sigh of relief. The topic hadn’t changed, thankfully. And she’d gained another important piece of information that she’d been missing. No chance of nabbing the notebook in school. None at all. Sky turned back to the window, running her hands through brown bangs in frustration, following the tread marks left behind by the Miata with her eyes over and over until she was sure she’d memorized them.
*****
The rest of the school day went by uneventfully. She went to third period, and sat in her corner of the room, not talking unless she had an answer, always correct. In lunch, she sat at a small, round table, her usual hangout that was capable of holding five or six but today, only held one – like every other day. Kids pointed at her, whispered, as though waiting for her to crack. Occasionally, her sister – a carbon copy of her in every way except personality – would come by and strike up a conversation. After several glares from Sky, and one incident where she had shoved her BlackBerry down René’s shirt, her sister abandoned the attempt and returned to her friends, and Sky finished her lunch in solitude and went to the library.
Fourth period, she plowed through the homework from her first three periods, which mostly didn’t require books. Fifth period was spent in silence, as was sixth.
Throughout the whole day, she talked to three people.
Throughout Matt’s whole day – or the parts she got to see, at least – he talked to fourteen.
*****
As soon as Sky got home, she climbed up a newly-polished marble staircase and, taking her shoes off at the top, scrambled to her room, shutting the door loudly behind her to announce her desire for privacy. She dropped her backpack onto the floor next to the door, pulling out a small binder. Striding the room in seven quick steps, Sky plopped the binder onto a smooth, wooden desk, and pulled up a chair, sitting down and opening the binder.
She flipped through the pages, looking for one in particular. There it is. Sky pulled out several sheets of papers, laying them out side by side, and, grabbing a pen from her cup holder and clicking it, scribbled down a short line on the last paper: ‘keeps notebook AT ALL TIMES’.
Sky started poring over the notes. Every page contained her messy scrawl. ‘skips second period every few days’, ‘lives near the beach’, ‘drives a miata’, ‘doesn’t talk to teachers’, ‘drives himself home’. They were notes – notes on Matt Denzer, notes that she’d been compiling for some time now. The first page was dated 8/23/08, several months ago. On the first line of that page, in large, bold letters, and underlined several times, Sky had written ‘DENZER IS DIFFERENT. WHY DO KIDS LIKE HIM???’
And since then, she’d begun following him – in a sense. She didn’t consider it stalking, really. And it was just for research, besides – find out how Matt Denzer managed to keep that careful balance between individuality and popularity. In school, Matt was constantly surrounded by blond girls with tight shirts, by guys with American Eagle polos and gelled hair – the in-crowd.
And he stood out among them – long, greasy brown hair, shirts with phrases so obscure that she’d had to google to understand, and a worn-out, blue, thick notebook. This he always kept with him, always scribbled in between and during classes.
It was with this that Sky wanted to find Matt’s secret. The way he scribbled in that notebook, it could bleeding well contain the secret to life – but Sky didn’t want the secret to life. She wanted to know about Matt. Love wasn’t the word for it, nor desire. It was obsession – what did he think, why did he write, and why does his personality, seemingly so rebellious, bucking the system of Abercrombie and Fitch and Hollister, of blond hair or Hot Topic and black hair – why did that work for him?
Sky slammed her notebook shut. In truth, they weren’t entirely necessary – she’d had a plan formulating in her head, and she hadn’t trusted herself enough to write it down, sure that on paper, it would look more wrong than it did in her mind.
She looked out the window. A bird sat on the tree just outside. It chirped at her. She hissed back.
*****
That night, Sky strode down the marble steps and through a hallway towards the dining room. Her mother was serving dinner. The maid, a young girl, was hovering around, setting plates just before Ms. Malone came behind her with a pot of spaghetti. Mr. Malone was already sitting at a table, pouring over a newspaper with sharp eyes. Sky took her usual place at the wide table. A few minutes later, René came, sat next to Sky, and turned to her.
“Hey, sis, had a good day at school?”
Sky’s response was a very stern glare. René frowned, and turned back to Ms. Malone, who was just taking her seat next to her husband and waving the maid off. “Hi, mom, how was your day?”
Sky looked down at her plate, feeling frustrated. The only time he puts that damned notebook down is when his mother comes home. That gives me so little time to grab it, but that’s the only time I’ve got, he fucking sleeps on that thing! Sky breathed a sigh, running a hand through her hair. Her mother glanced at her, and Sky looked at her, quelling her. When Ms. Malone looked away, Sky resumed her review. 3:35 his mother – no, he comes home. He writes. His mother’s home at 4:30 or so. How long does he greet her? A couple minutes, at most. Maybe five if I’m lucky. And he can’t hear me. Shit, she thought, picking up her fork and mashing the spaghetti with fervor – how am I going to do that? He needs to be fucking deaf – but he leaves it on his desk, Sky remembered, feeling a little dawning hope. If I can just open the window, I can just lean in and grab it. And he’s not gonna tell his parents, they don’t even know he’s got it. Sky felt the plan formulating in her mind, the beginnings of a very solid plan that could work, that could give her the damned notebook.
'And what if you get caught?'
Quite suddenly, her confidence shattered. The window would still be the obstacle to get through. If she could figure out a really quick way to open it and close it without it breaking – no evidence of a break in for the parents, who wouldn’t notice the lack of a notebook if they don’t know of its’ existence.
“Sky? You look so moody, did something happen?” Sky looked up, alarmed.
“What – no, I’m fine, nothing happened.”
Ms. Malone gave her a questioning look, and opened her mouth as though to contradict that, but quite suddenly, Mr. Malone, who had been scanning the newspapers for the past fifteen minutes, suddenly stood up, and roared loudly.
“Look at this! In the business section – front page – listen to this: ‘Mr. Adam Malone has taken a business from the grounds and sent it soaring through the skies in his highly successful company, Sense/Sensibility, the clothing line that has teens lining up to buy from…’” Ms. Malone turned to her husband, praising him ecstatically, and Sky drifted off, silent and unbothered, for the rest of the meal.
*****
Sky sat in the library at school the next day, pouring over web pages at the library – horrendously boring websites, they were, but they contained all the information she’d ever want for opening any type of window from the outside. The windows she was looking for were the slide kind that slid from the inside, but if Matt left his window open for air or something, that wouldn’t be too much of a problem – all that was required, it seemed, was for her to take the screen off and put it back on when she was done.
Sky pushed her chair back, and the sound of wood scraping against linoleum made the librarian, a tall, beady woman, turn and give her a sharp glare. Sky avoided her gaze, clicked the print button, and strided over to the large, bulky printer, waiting for a few seconds as the machine whirred, then grabbed the sheets as they were pumped out. She read them over quickly, checking for the presence of all the information, then turned around. Matt was staring at her from across the library, sitting in front of one of the computers. 'Shit, when did he get in here?'Sky thought, alarmed – then a more disturbing thought hit her. 'Did he see my screen?' Sky cursed silently, dropping her computer I.D. into the tray and quickly hurrying out of the room.
'Fuck fuck fuck – shit.' Sky stopped in the middle of the hallway, ignoring the whispers of recognization from kids who immediately gave her a wide berth. 'Think logically, Sky – he didn’t see me, the entrance is across the room. I would have noticed. I was absorbed, but not that absorbed. No danger. You’re going through with your plan.' Sucking the inside of her cheek, Sky continued down the hallway, this time growling at each kid that pointed at her.
*****
Sky decided to take a momentary caution. That night, she stayed home. She ate dinner, shooed René away, completed homework, took a shower, changed into her pajamas, browsed a few forums on the internet, and went to bed around 11. She found it horrendously difficult, tossing and turning fitfully.
The moon was exceptionally full that night, and at 12:15 in the morning, Sky was sitting at her desk, looking out the window at the bright orb in the sky. She stared hard, focused, brow furrowed, sucking on the inside of her cheek. After a few minutes, she got up, and slipped under the covers of her bed, telling herself she’d go to sleep.
A few hours later, the clock struck 2’ o clock. Sky was sitting at her desk, chewing on the inside of her lip, and staring at the full moon.
*****
The next day at school, Sky did her best to act normal – when René approached her at lunch, she hissed her away, and ignored the kids who pointed and laughed, miming fangs at her. During class, the few answers she gave her terse and correct. In the hallways, she stood outside of her classroom, avoiding going in until the bell rang, when she’d scramble inside along with some of the lackey kids, including Matt and his blond friends, and quickly slip into her seat, always in the back of the class, before the bell finished ringing.
*****
She needed to get to Matt’s house after school. In sixth period, Sky completely ignored her teacher’s lectures on pH levels and titration, focusing instead on how she was going to get there. Her mother thought she would be at the Starbucks café downtown, with her laptop, studying the history of Queen Elizabeth I.
She wouldn’t be, of course, but she did need to drop by there to leave her car in the parking lot and catch the bus closer to Matt’s home – while rich cars were common in his neighborhood, her convertible would stand out as a new and unfamiliar car there. He was very close to a bus stop, an extreme convenience for her as it was exceptionally hot that day, but she didn’t want her mother to drop by Starbucks to check on her and find her car there without her.
Sky massaged her cheek, deciding that she’d simply ask her mother to buy something far away from the Starbucks – very far away, that would give her time to get to Matt’s house and come back.
The bell rang, startling her. She grabbed her bag and dashed to the door quickly, glancing at the homework board only for a moment to memorize the homework before heading off to Starbucks.
Sky maneuvered her way among a hoard of students, though this wasn’t insanely difficult – as much berth as possible as it was to achieve among a crowd of teens wanting to go home was given to her.
Sky burst out into the parking lot, and out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Matt’s Miata peeling, and a mild smile hit her lips. A tap on her shoulder made her whirl around. René stood behind her, waving. “Earth to clone, plan on coming home soon – ”
“I’m running away and never coming back,” she growled, heading towards her car.
René followed her. “Wait, Sky!”
Sky turned around. “What?”
René stared at her. She stared back. After a long moment, her sister smiled warmly. “Good luck with the notebook.”
And then she scampered off, running quickly to her own car before driving off with the rest of the students. Feeling very unsure and slightly wobbly, Sky continued her way to the convertible, climbing in, turning it on, and following her sister’s path outside of the school.
*****
At Starbucks, Sky left her car in the parking lot and walked out quickly, cell phone in hand as she gave her mother a quick order to pick up art supplies for a project Sky was supposedly really desperate to complete colorfully. She sat at the bus stop, but didn’t put her cellphone away – now she was waiting for a reply from René, who, though normally a texting addict, appeared to be oblivious to her phone. 'Shit, how long has she known?' Sky noticed the large, blue vehicle pulling into the stop, and pulled out the two-dollar bus fare. She paid and clambered inside along with four or five other people who had been waiting along with her, including a woman in a business suit and a rather sweaty man with a tennis outfit. Sky took a seat quickly, keeping her hands and feet very close and not looking at anyone.
After a long minute, the bus began moving again, and Sky began rubbing her hands against her thighs and brushing at her bangs nervously, trying to breathe slowly.
'God, I’m gonna crack before I get there.'
*****
But she didn’t. Miraculously, Sky made it to the bus stop a couple of blocks away from Matt’s house without panicking – then she looked at her watch. 4:07. 'Not too bad', she thought to herself, hurrying quickly down the sidewalk, 'but I don’t want his mum to see my at all'. Sky hefted her bag onto her shoulder for the walk, and several minutes and a pint of sweat later, she saw his house come into view, recognizable from one mildly shameful incident where she followed him home and watched him from outside his window for a week – but it was paying off now, wasn’t it? Sky carefully slipped into the bushes next to their wooden fence, bushes made of large, leafy plants that would give her enough cover to hide in without murdering her painfully. Sky sat down in them, and looked up. Matt’s window was a few feet away, and she could see him hunched over, a phone pressed to his ear, his shoulder keeping it up as he scribbled in his little blue notebook. A wave of excitement rushed over her. That notebook would be hers in a minute. Just a little longer.
A few minutes later, a white car peeled into the driveway, and Matt put the notebook down quickly, exiting the room. A very blonde woman stepped out of the car, chattering on a cellphone before hanging up and going inside the house.
'Time.'
Sky scrambled to the window, and carefully began tugging at the thin wire mesh of the screen. 'Shit, this is harder than I thought.' Sky yanked impatiently, fingers scrambling for the white area holding the screen in. A second later, she felt it give, and a perfect view of Matt’s room hit her. <i<Window’s open, great, lean in lean in lean in
– the notebook. Right there. Sky jumped quickly, listening to her heart thud quickly, wondering why the whole neighborhood didn’t come out and stare, given how loud it was. Sky scrabbled for the notebook, but it was just far enough away that she couldn’t reach, and she heard Matt’s conversation with his mother slowly ending.
“….good day, yeah. No, I didn’t get in trouble, mom.”
“What about that Eric boy, did you finish the project with him?”
“Almost, we’re meeting tomorrow.”
“Should I arrange something or will you drive yourself, or will he drive…”
“I’m driving to his, don’t bother – don’t you have that project anyway?”
“Yes, I suppose…”
She pushed herself in a little deeper, stretched her fingers out, and – 'just there… '- she grabbed it, pulling it by the rings towards her, jumped down the window, and hastily fit the screen into its place.
The sound was ridiculously loud. 'Crapcrapcrap' – Sky bent down directly under the window, ran quickly to the bushes, and closed her eyes, praying fervently.
After a minute, she opened one eye. In the room, Matt had returned, and was looking around, panicked, overturning pillow and opening drawers. He froze, then looked out the window. Sky held her breath, feeling the world close to shattering. Matt opening his mouth, and called over his shoulder, “Mom?”
Sky began trembling. Had she been wrong, would he report a break-in to his mother? He could easily say something else was missing instead of the notebook – oh, she’d never even considered that.
“Yes, Matt?”
Sky huddled closer to the fence.
“…nevermind.” Matt gave one long stare out the window, then cursed silently, and turned away from it. 'Now.'
Sky quickly and carefully ducked out and behind the fence, then walked down the street, tucking the notebook into her bag and breathing rapidly.
She got back onto the bus with another two-dollar bus fare, rode it back to the Starbucks, clambered into her car, and drove home.
*****
“…I understand you wanted to make your poster perfect, but were these paints absolutely necessary?” Ms. Malone frowned, handing over her purchase to her daughter.
“Yes mom, very necessary, they’re the right quality. I want an A, not a B.” Her mother frowned.
“I’m not sure that would have given you a – ”
“Bye mom, work to do.”
Sky turned away before her mother could pursue the conversation, climbing up the marble staircase towards her room. At the head of the stairs, René was waiting, an amused look on her face. “Get outta my way,” Sky growled.
“Did you get the notebook?” Sky glanced at her. René held a smile of triumph. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell.” She stared at her sister for a long minute. René stared back.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Sky said finally, turning away towards her room.
“Riiiiighhtt,” René drawled behind her. Sky slammed the door of her room in response, shutting her sister out.
Behind the door, Sky slumped, pulling the notebook out of her bag before slinging it into a corner. She made her way to the center of the room and plopped down on the wooden floor, breathing slowly.
Sky opened the book, and began reading: Not like they’ll all be here anytime soon, the boy reasoned. Just wait patiently and smile. They’ll see.
*****
At 8:15, Sky was still sitting on the floor, but her own notebook had been added, along with several pencils and pens, and a pillow to sit on.
Sky closed Matt’s blue notebook, and picked up the notes she had taken, reading and rereading them.
After a long minute, Sky threw the notebook across the room, and watched it hit the wall.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Not one bit of Matt shone through, stories and stories each with such a different style that it seemed as though he was simply copying down stories from other people. None of them ringed a particular Matt-like tone.
And she had learned nothing about him. She’d tried to analyze the stories, testing several different possibilities, but it was completely hopeless. There was nothing there.
Slowly, Sky got up, suppressing a pain in her chest. Just then, the door opened slowly, and René walked in, looking amused. “Something wrong?”
“No.” René must have been able to read her expression, because she didn’t leave, didn’t look particularly threatened.
“Didn’t find anything?”
After a long moment, Sky looked at her crossly. “How’d you know I was looking for something?” René shrugged.
“You should keep your book as close to you as Matt does. I found it. And read it.” René grinned wickedly. Sky felt something akin to horror rise in her throat, and she took a step towards René, fist raised. “Wait! Don’t – don’t punch me.” Sky glowered at her. “Just – hey, wait. Sky.”
“What?”
“Sometimes you gotta think about the answer, all right? Sometimes it’s not quite as complicated as you make it out to be. I’ve noticed that about you, you think all of life’s problems have long and difficult answers. But the world doesn’t work that way.” When Sky stared at her incredulously, René gave a weird, half-bow, before darting out the door. “It’ll hit you, Sky,” she added, shutting the door quickly behind her.
*****
The next day, Sky came early and slipped the notebook between the vents of Matt’s locker, then slowly walked to class. She spent the period in silence.
In second period, Matt didn’t come out of the parking lot. Or at least, Sky didn’t see him – she didn’t bother watching, focusing instead on the ground. Third and fourth went by similarly.
It was only in lunch that Sky could force herself to look at him again. He was talking to the Aeropostale group, a unique standout among the blondes that managed to fit in. No secrets or tricks, he just did – wait.
An astonishing feeling of revelation came over her. 'Matt has no style? Matt has no style because he can adapt his style. Because he can adapt. What’s his personality?
That really depends on who he’s around, doesn’t it?'
Sky turned to look at René, who was just seating herself next to her sister for their usual round of ‘Hi-Sky-Die-René’. Sky said nothing, but simply stared at her. René grinned, popping open the tab of a coca-cola and guzzling.
“Something the matter?” her sister asked, in a cheery voice. “Did it hit you?”
Sky spent the rest of the lunch period in silence.
*
Moderator: Rating changed to R due to heavy swearing.
