The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl Read online

  I'm not going to beg her. I've got Cal to hang out with, and that'll be more fun anyway. We read most of the same comics, after all. And besides, once I meet Bendis, I don't know how things are going to go. I might have to ditch Cal to talk with Bendis.

  "You still planning on going?" she asks, almost a little too casually.

  "Yeah. I have to show Bendis—" And I stop, horrified with myself because I almost said it.

  "Show Bendis?" In my mind's eye, I can see her suddenly leaning forward, wherever she is. Maybe in her bedroom, sitting on the floor with her back against her bed. She's got low lighting and posters of Morpheus and Death on her walls. Everything's black and gray. "Show Bendis what?"

  "Nothing," I mumble, glancing guiltily at my desk and the pages of Schemata there. The computer screen shows page 24, where Courteney walks through a forest of screaming children.

  "Show him what? Come on, tell me. What are you gonna show him? Come on."

  "Nothing, OK? Jeez."

  "You're lying. I can tell. I can tell when you're lying. Come on, what's the big deal? Just tell me. Did you draw something? I didn't know you were an artist. What did you draw? Spider-Man? Please tell me it's not Spider-Man."

  "I didn't draw anything." Another lie, the evidence all around me in my room.

  "Yes, you did. I knew it. I knew you wanted to be a comic book artist. I could just tell. You want to draw Spider-Man, right? Or Daredevil. Or Batman."

  "Bendis doesn't write Batman." Change the subject.

  "Whatever. You're Mr. Superhero, aren't you? You want to draw—"

  "It's not about superheroes!" I yell into the phone, then freeze, wondering if anyone heard me, if the step-fascist heard from just beyond the door.

  "Calm down, fanboy. Don't blow a gasket, OK?"

  "He doesn't just do superheroes," I tell her. "He did crime comics and Eliot Ness stuff and a comic book about Hollywood and—"

  "So what's yours, then? Come on, you can tell me. I swear to God I won't laugh. I promise."

  I sit down on the bed and reach out for the bullet, still tucked under my pillow. I didn't need it before with Kyra, but now she's got me all worked up.

  But I'm going to do it. I think I'm going to tell her. I don't think I can stop myself.

  The bullet's a cool point in my fist, fading to body temperature.

  Schemata. It's the most important thing—

  "I haven't even told Cal," I tell her.

  She says nothing. I hear her exhale more smoke.

  "OK," I tell her. "OK. I'll tell you some of it. But I can't stay on the phone too long—"

  She squeals on the other end. "I'm coming over!"

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  MOM'S "NO ONE IN THE HOUSE" paranoia/psychosis is still intact and in full force, so we decide to head to the mall—talk and eat lunch and kill two birds with one stone. She picks me up in yet another car—a dinged-up little import.

  "Do you have your own parking lot somewhere?" Look at me, tossing out one-liners! I feel giddy and ridiculous.

  "Rein in the brain, fanboy. It's just a rental. The other one's in the shop."

  I hop in. Mom's watching from the door. I make myself wave and smile, while saying to Kyra, "Get us out of here."

  I assured Mom that I'll be home by six at the latest, giving myself plenty of time to eat and bum around and do nothing all day before I have to be home. Mom pretended to buy it—again, nothing else on the shelves, right?—and then gave me a handful of change that clangs embarrassingly in my pocket. I'm supposed to call her by five no matter what.

  Once out of sight of the house, she's Danger Kyra again. Not quite flooring it, but definitely starting to revert back to the lunatic who first drove me. "Why do you live with your mom and not your dad? Sounds like your mom bugs the shit out of you."

  If anyone else asked me, I would either tell them to shut up, or I would shut up myself and just not answer. I always wanted to live with Dad. He's less strict, for one thing. And there's no step-fascist there, either. Plus, he's the good guy. Mom cheated on him.

  "She got custody," I tell her. Which sounds so lame. Sounds like I'm an object that can be passed around. It's pathetic, really.

  "So some judge just tells you where you have to live?" She lights up a cigarette and drags on it aggressively, like she's sucking in anger and courage. "Man, that blows. Some judge ..." She lets loose with a cloud of smoke that substitutes for words.

  I don't remember a judge, though. It was eight or nine years ago, so I was still in elementary school. I don't know if they ever went to court. Did they just work it out between the two of them? I never thought about it. One day they just said I would be living with Mom and...

  God, did my dad even fight for me? Did he even ask for me?

  "You OK over there?" she asks, and I realize I've been staring out the window with my fists clenched.

  "Yeah." I clear my throat. "Yeah, I just ... You know, she does drive me crazy, but I see my dad once a month and on vacations, and..."

  "That must be cool." She's not just saying it. She sounds like she means it, or at least hopes it's true.

  "Yeah, he's ... he's got an Xbox." Ugh. That's so..."He's pretty busy, so even when I'm over there ... He goes on a lot of dates. He's out a lot." Which is Mom's fault. Because she left him. So that's why I spend so much time playing Xbox.

  Right?

  "Why did we stop?" I ask her. "Because we're here."

  We're in a parking lot. Somehow we got to the mall and I wasn't even paying attention. Thank God.

  It's a weird experience, walking through the mall with Kyra. I see other couples holding hands, but we're not. Because we're not a couple. Did I say "other" couples? What am I thinking? That's stupid.

  I see kids from school and I ignore them, which is fine because they ignore me, too. Kyra moves through the crowds like she's a pissed-off movie star. She's so small and thin that it would be funny, but I can somehow see her throwing one of those sharp, bony shoulders into someone and knocking them down on pure adrenaline and attitude alone.

  In the food court, I use Mom's change to buy a soda to go with my bad Chinese food. I'm trying to hold back some cash—I'm not sure if this is a date or not. Do I pay for Kyra's lunch, too?

  Turns out to be a nonissue. She heads off to a pizza place on her own and comes back with a slice of mushroom pizza.

  I take a deep breath. I can't believe I'm going to tell her about Schemata.

  We sit down at a table in the middle of the food court. Part of me is terrified by the openness and sheer public-ness (is that a word?) of it all. But no one can hear me over the noise. Kyra chomps on her pizza. "Well? Come on! Tell me!" She's practically vibrating.

  "OK, so..." I pause. I need a second. I eat some General Tso's and sip my soda.

  "Come on, come on!" she says.

  "All right already!" I'm going to do it. I really am.

  Just then, a girl—a woman—comes into my field of view on my left side, walking past our table. I just catch a glimpse at first, but it's enough to tell me that she's gorgeous. (It's my guy-dar at work, sensing beautiful women in 360 degrees.) Out of the corner of my eye, I make my first assessment: thigh, leg, breast (it's like a chicken—how weird), all in profile.

  I'm at a table with Kyra, so I have to be subtle. I pretend to be looking at something else, but I track the woman with my eyes as she passes the table, goes behind Kyra, and walks off. God! She's gorgeous! She has to be in her twenties at least. College girl. Reddish blond hair, capri pants that are so tight that she has to be wearing a thong or maybe nothing at all ... God, I love and hate this world all at once.

  I sip at my soda. Kyra chuckles. "What's so funny?" I ask.

  She purses her lips, then swivels in her chair to watch the college girl walking off. Oh. Busted.

  "Hey, not bad," she says, nodding as if appraising a used car. "Not bad at all." She turns back to me and leans over, conspiring. "You like that? Hmm?"

  So, do I
apologize here? It's not like I'm dating Kyra. It's not like she's my girlfriend or anything. Right? I mean, how can she be pissed at me? She has no right.

  "Do you like that? I think you do."

  "Stop it," I mumble, looking down at my food. She's pissed.

  Or not. "Go ahead," she says, and I realize she's not pissed at all. She's amused. "Go ahead—try to get it. Go for it. I won't stop you." She leans back in her chair, hands laced behind her head. "I'll wait here for you. You go give it your best shot."

  Big sigh on my end. Yeah, this is working out really well. "No, that's OK. Thanks anyway."

  Her eyes dance. "Why? Because I'm here?"

  Nah, because I don't have a shot. Let's be real. But I'll be polite: "Yeah, I guess so."

  She sits up straight again and goes for the pizza. "That's very nice of you." I shrug, which I figure is the safest thing to do right now. "Hey, wait."

  "What?"

  She leans forward, scrutinizing me. "Are you falling in love with me?"

  I almost spit out a chunk of spicy chicken. "Don't be ridiculous!"

  "Are you sure?"

  "Well, yeah! I think I'd know!" Jeez! When did this get so out of hand?

  "Because you better not. I'm warning you."

  No chance of that happening, Goth Girl. "Trust me, I won't."

  She eyes me warily, like I'm a wounded ferret that can't be trusted not to make one last lunge. "Good."

  That goes double for me. I change the subject: "You want to hear about this or not?" Can't believe I'm eager to talk about Schemata now! Better than further embarrassing myself.

  She smiles at me in a way that says that she knows I'm doing this to change the subject ... and that she's decided to let me get away with it. Bites into her pizza. "Yeah. Go."

  Schemata

  It's a word for systems used to define and organize information and experiences.

  I don't even know how to explain it. Not entirely. Which I guess is why I had to make it into a graphic novel. If I could sum it up in a couple of sentences, I wouldn't need to spend so much time writing and drawing it.

  Yes, writing and drawing it. Like Bendis used to. He was an artist and a writer when he started out, before he got so popular for his writing that he stopped drawing.

  I wanted to do something big and important. Something enduring and meaningful, like the stuff they make us read in school. People don't always like that stuff, but they read it because it's deep and it matters. All my life I've read comic books, and they break down into two categories: the ones people take seriously as literature, and the ones that are about superheroes. And you can count the ones that cross into both groups on the fingers of both hands.

  But Bendis, you see, Bendis makes even his superhero comics important. He makes Spider-Man seem like a real person with real problems. And he makes the cops in Powers so interesting and so authentic that you forget that they live in a world where superheroes exist. It's like these stories matter, but no one takes them as seriously as they should because they have people who can fly or shoot lasers out of their eyes or whatever.

  I want to bridge that gap. Yeah, for a long time I wanted to draw comics and I'm a decent artist, I guess, but then I started to think about how to do something big. Like I said, something enduring.

  So there's Schemata. I don't know how long it'll be when it's finished. Craig Thompson's Blankets (Kyra read it and loved it) was 600 pages when it was published. From Hell was even longer. Jeff Smith did 1,300 pages of Bone and Dave Sim spent 30 years of his life on Cerebus, but my dad says that Sim lost his mind halfway through, so it wasn't worth it.

  I don't know if Schemata will get into any of that territory. It's more than a hundred pages right now, and I'm still going. I'll keep going until it's done.

  It's not about a superhero. It's about a woman who has a super-power, but she doesn't wear a costume or fight crime or anything like that. Because this is a serious story and I want people to take it seriously.

  The main character's name is Courteney Abbott Pierce DelVecchio. She's a teacher in an inner-city school. I did all kinds of research. I even called the city school board and emailed the guy who does the education reporting on the Channel 5 news. I asked my dad to drive me downtown once and I took pictures of everything for reference.

  So Courteney has a husband and a daughter and a class of really messed-up kids. She also has a super-power: She can take people's fears, dreams, thoughts, and desires, and turn them into three-dimensional images that she can see. So she can literally grab your nightmares and walk through them. She can walk in your shoes. Feel your fears. Live your dreams.

  But like I said, she doesn't put on a costume and become Dream Lass or anything. The story is titled Schemata, right? And if you could do what Courteney can, you wouldn't go out and beat up muggers, would you?

  But how would it affect your life? What would you do?

  So Courteney starts using her powers to look into the minds of her students. To try to help them. It's a nightmarish quest, in a way, a journey through the very worst of a child's terrors.

  And it only gets worse when she starts to turn her powers on her husband. Because what is he thinking?

  And it...

  It...

  It just gets bigger. And deeper. It's about spirit and fear and emotion and love and everything. Everything that matters.

  On Saturday, I'm going to show Bendis what I've got so far. I'm going to tell him the story and how he inspired it. And he'll put me in touch with the right people at Marvel. They might want me to publish it as a series of comics first, but I want to do it all at once, as a graphic novel. So I might have to convince them, but that's OK. I'm willing to do that. I'm willing to fight for it.

  Online

  Promethea387: Can you get one of your stepfather's guns?

  Xian Walker76: Why?

  Promethea387: Just wondering.

  Xian Walker76: You planning on shooting someone?:)

  Promethea387: I didn't ask for bullets, fanboy.

  Xian Walker76: Bullets are easy to get.

  Promethea387: I would only need one anyway.

  Xian Walker76: What?

  Promethea387: I've been thinking about your comic book, the one you told me about at lunch. It sounds pretty heavy.

  Xian Walker76: You said you wouldn't make fun of me.

  Promethea387: I'm not making fun of you. I mean it. It's deep. I wouldn't still be online with you if I thought it was a joke.

  Xian Walker76: You didn't say anything this afternoon. You just took me home.

  Promethea387: I was thinking. You gave me a lot to think about. And besides, I figured you'd appreciate the time to relive that skanky college chick who walked past us.

  Xian Walker76: Will you let that go?

  Promethea387: Just explaining things for you, that's all. Can I see it?

  Xian Walker76: See what?

  Promethea387: The comic book, you dope!

  Xian Walker76: I don't know. I haven't shown it to anyone. And it's a graphic novel, not a comic book.

  Promethea387: Yeah, I know. You also hadn't told anyone about it until me. Let me see it. You're going to show it to Bendis this weekend, right?

  Xian Walker76: Yes.

  Promethea387: So, don't you want someone else to look at it first?

  Xian Walker76: I guess that's a good idea.

  Promethea387: So bring it to school tomorrow. I'll look at it.

  Xian Walker76: I don't want anyone else to see it.

  Promethea387: Don't be so paranoid. We can look at it in the car after school and I'll drive you home again.

  Xian Walker76: But I need to live to Saturday.:)

  Promethea387: I hope this thing isn't a comedy.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  MONDAY MORNING AT THE BUS STOP, I wait, standing a little bit aside, wondering if maybe Dina will end up on the bus again today, wondering about the comics in my backpack, wondering about the scene on page 10 of Schemata, w
ondering a bunch of things, because I do that, I think of them all at once.

  You'd think after so many years at the same bus stop with the same kids that I would have made some friends in the neighborhood. But you'd be wrong. When your mother won't let you invite anyone over to the house, it's tough to make friends. And when people rarely visit your house, when your mother never gets involved with anyone else in the neighborhood, your house—and, by extension, everyone in it—starts to pick up that almost odiferous air of weirdness and otherness that marks you for isolation on good days, terrorizing on bad days.

  Today's a good day. They leave me alone.

  Dina's not on the bus (of course not—long shot, but it happened once, so it could happen again). I keep my backpack clutched tight to me. It has pages from Schemata in it, and I don't want anyone to see them.

  At school, I shuffle things in my backpack, concealing the Schemata pages between two folders for classes that I don't have on Monday. They'll be hidden there until later. I almost jump out of my skin when someone taps me on the shoulder from behind.

  I spin around, my backpack held up like a shield. But it's Cal, watching me with concern in his eyes.

  "Were you at your dad's this weekend?"

  "No."

  "Because I tried to e-mail you and IM you, but you never got back to me. I figured you must have been out of town."

  Safe assumption. In the history of our friendship, I can't imagine a single time when I would have let a communication from Cal go unanswered. Let's face it—it's not like I typically have anything else to do.

  But I was out all weekend, and even when I was in I didn't want to interrupt my e-mails and IMs with Kyra. Cal's windows kept popping up, threatening to crash my ancient system. Just the appearance of the windows themselves slowed my IM program down. That one session of dueling IMs on Friday was enough for me. I need that new computer. I need that PowerMac. I really do.