Homeschool

Chapter 1: "The Offer"

My dad always taught me that the best way to deal with stress is to just wash it away. There was nothing that a little soap and water couldn't cure. Or, in my case, a lot of soap and water.

If washing your hands once is good, then washing them four or five times must be better, right? And technique must surely count, too. Palms, backs, fingers, in between them, under the nails, then thumbs and wrists.

I think my dad was right, that washing was a good thing, but sometimes, when I was particularly stressed, I would get stuck, washing and washing until my hands were red and cracked, but I couldn't stop. I had to touch the cold faucet exactly twelve times, then the hot for six and the cold again for eight. If I didn't touch them at exactly the right time, at exactly the right interval, then it didn't count and I'd have to start over again.

Or maybe I thought I had done it right, but I had to do it over again, just to be sure. Did I touch the cold twelve times? Or eleven? Starting over again was the safest thing. Of course, the faucets had to be perfectly clean, or I would contaminate and have to begin again.

I was standing at the sink, having exactly this problem, my fingers scrubbed raw, when Chazz came in and shut the water off. I tried to tap the faucet twelve times, but he dragged me out of the bathroom.

"What's up, O.P.P.?"

"It's O.C.D., and nothing is up, I'm just getting ready for bed."

Chazz raised an eyebrow. "Really? It looked more like you were scrubbing up for brain surgery."

"Well excuse me for practicing personal hygiene." I tried to storm away, but he grabbed my wrist and brought my red, chapped hand up to my face.

"I'm not trying to slag you, Little Dude, I just don't like to see you hurt yourself."

I wrenched my hand away and quickly sat on my bunk, hands hidden beneath me. I mustered my best scoff and shrugged. "Hey, it's not like I'm cutting myself or something stupid like that." No, because that would be cool, and I have to suffer from a nerdy psychosis like chronic hand washing, instead of something manly like … meth addiction, or …murder/suicide.

Chazz sat down beside me and leaned back, hands laced behind his head. "So, what's bugging you?"

"Nothing!" I hissed, in a way that sounded unbelievably prissy, even to me. My hands twitched, begging for the sting of hot water, and I was thankful that I was still sitting on them.

"Fine," he drawled, bringing his legs up so he all but pushed me off the bed, "I guess I'll just have to lay here until you spill your guts."

"Fine with me," I said, even though it really wasn't. I wanted to take a shower now, but I couldn't while he was still there.

Chazz's features screwed up, as if deep in thought, then the thin, rumbling sound of a fart ripped through the silence between us.

"Oh gross!"

"Oh yeah," he grinned, "Behold my manly essence."

"I cannot believe how disgusting you are."

His grin broadened as he let another one loose. "As if you don't fart, Princess."

"Of course I do," I said, thinking about the state of my bed spread, "just not on purpose." Chazz shrugged noncommittally as I fought to keep the bile from backing up in my throat. "What the crap did you eat? Skunk?"

"Beef jerky Red Hots. The breakfast of champions."

I didn't bother to remind him that it was night time, or that Red Hots weren't technically beef jerky. I pulled my now numb hands out from under my ass and looked at them in the dim light. They really did look like hell. Maybe I'd put some cream on them after my shower.

"How's Katie?"

"Fine," I said, a little too quickly. "I'm gonna get ready for bed." I jumped up and hightailed it to the bathroom, my heart pounding. Was I really that easy to read? Was he just asking, or could he tell? I turned on the water and when he didn't appear at the door to chastise me, I dropped my clothes and slipped beneath its warm embrace.

When I came out an hour later, he was snoring softly in the top bunk. Grateful for the reprieve, I lay down in my own, but had trouble falling asleep.

~* ~*

If I was going to design a cabin, the first thing I would do would be to give it a big water heater. Maybe two. The measly one at Coach's cabin was woefully lacking. If I didn't get up before everyone else, or stay up AFTER everyone else, then there was never enough warm water. Coach had a hot tub, but the thought of all those germs just marinating in hot bacteria stew made me want to puke, so I always avoided it like the plague. Literally. The same goes for baths. Aside from the fact that you could never get the tub clean enough to warrant sitting in it with my bare ass, why would anyone want to soak in their own dirt and dead skin cells?

Nope, it was just showers for me. Especially on a night like tonight. I couldn't get home fast enough, the thought of that invigorating steamy spray making me ache. I unwrapped a brand new soap and retrieved a fresh towel from the laundry while I waited for the water to warm up. Except it didn't.

Crap.

I turned off the cold faucet and cranked the hot on full, but the water remained tepid.

Double crap.

Stupid Chazz had probably wasted it all polishing his trophies, or washing his prized Verticoli. Oh well, there was nothing to be done. I braced myself and stepped into the cool spray. I would just have to make due. I lathered up and began to count. I was somewhere near two thousand when the shower curtain was thrown back and Chazz hauled me out of the tub.

"Jimmy, what the hell are you doing?"

"C-c-c-c-c-cle-cleaning," I replied through numb lips.

"I'm supposed to be the idiot here," he said, wrapping a towel around my shoulders, "but even I have enough sense to not freeze to death. Look at yourself! You're blue!"

I wrapped the towel more tightly around my shaking self and peered down at my legs. They were, indeed, blue. One more thing to add to my ever growing list of what I hated about myself. Scrawny, undersized, girly, and now I wasn't even a normal human colour. I was blue. A freakin' Smurf!

I looked up at Chazz's flushed pink face and tried not to hate him. I did not succeed. HE was supposed to be the stupid one. HE was the screwed up one. So how come I was so unhappy? To be honest, I hated him from the first moment I saw him. That swagger, that cocky grin, his devil-may-care attitude. He was so gosh darn full of himself that it made me want to puke. Actually it DID make me puke.

Every time that we were slated to skate against each other, I would spend the precious moments before my routine ralphing my guts out. Time that I should have been using centering myself, focusing on my moves, mentally going through my routine, was spent bent over a (dirty, disgusting PUBLIC) toilet, blowing chunks and cursing his name.


I have no doubt that Chazz never vomited before a competition. Well, not from nerves, anyway. And I've certainly never heard him tossing and turning at night, stressing over a missed landing or a screwed up toeless lutz. All too often, I would lie there in the dark, listening to him snore, my hands aching for the burn of soap and my heart aching because of Katie.

"K-K-kk-Katie."

"Katie? Is that what this is about?" he asked, his eyes dark with concern, "What the hell did she do to you? Am I gonna have to smack a bitch?"

"N-n-no," I managed, making my way over to the bed and pulling the comforter around my shaking shoulders. "It's nothing like that. Nothing at all, actually."

"Did she dump you?" He was getting indignant, chest puffed out and shoulders back. If I hadn't been marinating in my own misery, I might have been flattered.

"No. Not yet. But the way it's going, it's just a matter of time."

"You're kidding, right? You're Jimmy MacElroy! Mr. Quadruple Gold! Mr. Jimmy Curl! God, look at you! She's probably just jealous because she's not as pretty as you are."

"No, Chazz, it's not like that. She's wonderful, it's me that has the problem."

Chazz surveyed me and gave an approving nod. "Ah, yes, have no fear, it's nothing that a little penicillin can't cure."

"Huh?"

"So what is it? Burn when ya pee? Getting a little drippage? Or is it more of the crotch critters variety? Because penicillin won't help at all for that. Trust me, Bro, I've been there."

"What? No!" The thought of pubic lice practically threw me into a convulsion, and I willed the image away. "No, we haven't gotten that far yet. In fact.." I stopped, afraid that he would laugh. "..we can't seem to get a handle on kissing." I cringed, waiting for a hearty snort and derisive comment, but none came. I looked up, and he was regarding me like I had just landed my spaceship out back.

"When you say 'handle' do you mean, like, her tits? Or her ass?"

"Neither!" I shot back. Obviously, I was getting nowhere here, and it was stupid of me to even have brought it up.

His head was cocked to the side like a curious puppy, and his brows knitted and unknitted as he worked out what I was saying, so while I waited for his cogs to turn I counted to sixteen.

Thirteen times.

"What are you saying? Why can't you kiss?" he finally asked. "Like… is she missing her tongue or something?" He gasped, his eyes growing wide, " Oh my God! Was it cut off in that car accident?"

"No," I sighed, reaching beneath my pillow for my pajamas, "it's nothing like that. We both have … the right equipment, I think. It just doesn't gel." I shrugged my towel off and pulled the warm, fleece Hello Kitty top over my head. Chazz was still staring at me like a new and exotic bug.

"So, what's the problem? She's got an 'innie'," he made a circle with his thumb and index finger, "and you've got an 'outie'," he made his other index finger rigid and slipped it in the ring he'd made. And out. And in again. "It's simple mathematics really, and you're really good at math."

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes as I worked my feet free from the blanket and slid them into my Hello Kitty bottoms. "This has nothing to do with math, Chazz. It has to do with the fact that I've never done long division." I waggled my eyebrows at him and sent up a prayer that I wouldn't have to spell it out more clearly.

"What do you mean? You did your own taxes last year, and you're great at long division."

I sighed and wiggled my pajama bottoms up under the blanket. Unlike certain other people in the room I had a modicum of modesty, and did not walk around in the buff all the time. Of course, if I had a huge schlong like him, I might be more inclined to.

It was evident that Chazz was still stuck on my math metaphor, so I pulled my pajamas up over my hips, took a deep breath and let it spill as graphically as I knew how. "Intercourse, Chazz. I've never had … relations with a girl."

The cocked head was back and I suddenly became filled with a desire to club him over his Neanderthal skull.

"I'm a VIRGIN! Do I need to draw you a picture?"

His eyes grew wide and he snorted loudly. "Fuck off, Jimmy! No fucking way!"

"Yes Chazz. Yes effing way. I am."

His mouth worked, but no sounds came out. He finally sputtered at breathy; "Wha? How?"

"I dunno. My dad never let me date. I was always busy practicing skating and he said that dating would just distract me. He said that gold medalists didn't have sex."

Chazz choked and burst into laughter. This was not going well.

"Just forget about it, Chazz, okay? Pretend we didn't have this conversation, God knows I'm going to."

"So, just so I have this straight, are you telling me that you, Jimmy MacElroy have not nailed that fine filly that you're dating? You haven't slipped her the Foaming Meat Probe? Saddled up the Baloney Pony?"

"Oh my God! No! Do you have to be so crass?"

"Do YOU have to be such a fuckin' … goody two shoes?"

"I am NOT a goody two shoes!"

"Then say it. Say you've never fucked a woman."

I threw up my hands in exasperation. " I DID just say that. Are you being deliberately dense?"

"No, say you never FUCKED a woman."

"Chazz!"

"Say it."

I opened my mouth, but the words refused to form. "I'm … gonna go brush my teeth." I stomped off to the bathroom while he giggled to himself. Jerk.

Ten minutes later he poked his head into the bathroom and I quickly shut off the water. We stood in silence for a minute, both sulking. I was about to touch the faucet again when he spoke.

"I can help you."

I looked up at his reflection in the mirror. Chazz Micheal Micheals is many things, but a good liar he is not. He seemed genuinely concerned.

"How?" I asked.

"You are having problems with the ladies, and chicks are my speciality."

"Speciality is not a word."

"Then it's a deal. I'll help you with the ladies, and you can help me with my languaging."

He extended his hand, and holding my breath, I shook it.