Looking for Alaska

progress reports on school stationery? Because I'm sure that will fly withthe Eagle!\" \"Relax, dude,\" Takumi said. \"Firstoff, we're not gonna get caught. Secondoff, if we do, I'll take the fall withAlaska. You've got more to lose than anyof us.\" The Colonel just nodded. It wasan undeniable fact: The Colonel wouldhave no chance at a scholarship to agood school if he got expelled from theCreek. Knowing that nothing cheered up theColonel like acknowledging hisbrilliance, I asked, \"So how'd you hackthe network?\" \"I climbed in the window of Dr.Hyde's office, booted up his computer,

and I typed in his password,\" he said,smiling. \"You guessed it?\" \"No. On Tuesday I went into hisoffice and asked him to print me a copyof the recommended reading list. Andthen I watched him type the password:J3ckylnhyd3.\" \"Well, shit,\" Takumi said. \"I couldhave done that.\" \"Sure, but then you wouldn't havegotten to wear that sexy hat,\" the Colonelsaid, laughing. Takumi took theheadband off and put it in his bag. \"Kevin is going to be pissed abouthis hair,\" I said. \"Yeah, well, I'm really pissed aboutmy waterlogged library. Kevin is a

blowup doll,\" Alaska said. \"Prick us,we bleed. Prick him, he pops.\" \"It's true,\" said Takumi. \"The guy isa dick. He kind of tried to kill you, afterall.\" \"Yeah, I guess,\" I acknowledged. \"There are a lot of people here likethat,\" Alaska went on, still fuming. \"Youknow? Fucking blowup-doll rich kids.\" But even though Kevin had sort oftried to kill me and all, he really didn'tseem worth hating. Hating the cool kidstakes an awful lot of energy, and I'dgiven up on it a long time ago. For me,the prank was just a response to aprevious prank, just a golden opportunityto, as the Colonel said, wreak a littlehavoc. But to Alaska, it seemed to be

something else, something more. I wanted to ask her about it, but shelay back down behind the piles of hay,invisible again. Alaska was donetalking, and when she was done talking,that was it. We didn't coax her out fortwo hours, until the Colonel unscrewed abottle of wine. We passed around thebottle till I could feel it in my stomach,sour and warm. I wanted to like booze more than Iactually did (which is more or less theprecise opposite of how I felt aboutAlaska). But that night, the booze feltgreat, as the warmth of the wine in mystomach spread through my body. I didn'tlike feeling stupid or out of control, but Iliked the way it made everything

(laughing, crying, peeing in front of yourfriends) easier. Why did we drink? Forme, it was just fun, particularly since wewere risking expulsion. The nice thing about the constantthreat of expulsion at Culver Creek isthat it lends excitement to every momentof illicit pleasure. The bad thing, ofcourse, is that there is always thepossibility of actual expulsion.

two days before I woke up early the next morning, mylips dry and my breath visible in thecrisp air. Takumi had brought a campstove in his backpack, and the Colonelwas huddled over it, heating instantcoffee. The sun shone bright but couldnot combat the cold, and I sat with theColonel and sipped the coffee (\"Thething about instant coffee is that it smellspretty good but tastes like stomach bile,\"the Colonel said), and then one by one,Takumi and Lara and Alaska woke up,and we spent the day hiding out, butloudly. Hiding out loud. At the barn that afternoon, Takumidecided we needed to have a freestyle

contest. \"You start, Pudge,\" Takumi said.\"Colonel Catastrophe, you're our beatbox.\" \"Dude, I can't rap,\" I pled. \"That's okay. The Colonel can't dropbeats, either. Just try and rhyme a littleand then send it over to me.\" With his hand cupped over hismouth, the Colonel started to makeabsurd noises that sounded more likefarting than bass beats, and I, uh, rapped. \"Um, we're sittin' in the barn and thesun's goin' down / when I was a kid atBurger King I wore a crown / dude, Ican't rhyme for shit / so I'll let my boyTakumi rip it.\" Takumi took over without pausing.\"Damn, Pudge, I'm not sure I'm quiteready / but like Nightmare on Elm

Street's Freddy / I've always got thegoods to rip shit up / last night I drankwine it was like hiccup hiccup / theColonel's beats are sick like malaria /when I rock the mike the ladies sufferhysteria / I represent Japan as well asBirmingham / when I was a kid theycalled me yellow man / but I ain'tashamed a' my skin color / and neitherare the countless bitches that call melover.\" Alaska jumped in. \"Oh shit did you just diss thefeminine gender / I'll pummel your assthen stick you in a blender / you think Ilike Tori and Ani so I can't rhyme / but Igot flow like Ghostbusters got slime /objectify women and it's fuckin' on /

you'll be dead and gone like ancientBabylon.\" Takumi picked it up again. \"If my eye offends me I will pluck itout / I got props for girls like old mengot gout / oh shit now my rhyming got allwhack / Lara help me out and pick up theslack.\" Lara rhymed quietly and nervously— and with even more flagrantdisregard for the beat than me. \"Myname's Lara and I'm from Romania /thees is pretty hard, um, I once visitedAlbania / I love riding in Alaska's Geo /My two best vowels in English are EO II'm not so good weeth the leetle i's / butthey make me sound cosmopoleeteen,right? / Oh, Takumi, I think I'm done /

end thees game weeth some fun.\" \"I drop bombs like Hiroshima, orbetter yet Nagasaki / when girls hear meflow they think that I'm Rocky / torepresent my homeland I still drink sake/ the kids don't get my rhymin' sosometimes they mock me / my build ain'tsmall but I wouldn't call it stocky / thenagain, unlike Pudge, I'm not super gawky/ I'm the fuckin' fox and this is my crew /our freestyle's infused with funk like mygym shoes. And we're out.\" The Colonel rapped it up withfreestyle beat-boxing, and we gaveourselves a round of applause. \"You ripped it up, Alaska,\" Takumisays, laughing. \"I do what I can to represent the

ladies. Lara had my back.\" \"Yeah, I deed.\" And then Alaska decided thatalthough it wasn't nearly dark yet, it wastime for us to get shitfaced. \"Two nights in a row is maybepushing our luck,\" Takumi said asAlaska opened the wine. \"Luck is for suckers.\" She smiledand put the bottle to her lips. We hadsaltines and a hunk of Cheddar cheeseprovided by the Colonel for dinner, andsipping the warm pink wine out of thebottle with our cheese and saltines madefor a fine dinner. And when we ran outof cheese, well, all the more room forStrawberry Hill.

\"We have to slow down or I'llpuke,\" I remarked after we finished thefirst bottle. \"I'm sorry, Pudge. I wasn't awarethat someone was holding open yourthroat and pouring wine down it,\" theColonel responded, tossing me a bottleof Mountain Dew. \"It's a little charitable to call this shitwine,\" Takumi cracked. And then, as if out of nowhere,Alaska announced, \"Best Day/WorstDay!\" \"Huh?\" I asked. \"We are all going to puke if we justdrink. So we'll slow it down with adrinking game. Best Day/Worst Day.\" \"Never heard of it,\" the Colonel

said. \"'Cause I just made it up.\" Shesmiled. She lay on her side across twobales of hay, the afternoon lightbrightening the green in her eyes, her tanskin the last memory of fall. With hermouth half open, it occurred to me thatshe must already be drunk as I noticedthe far-off look in her eyes. Thethousand-yard stare of intoxication, Ithought, and as I watched her with anidle fascination, it occurred to me that,yeah, I was a little drunk, too. \"Fun! What are the rules?\" Laraasked. \"Everybody tells the story of theirbest day. The best storyteller doesn'thave to drink. Then everybody tells the

story of their worst day, and the beststoryteller doesn't have to drink. Thenwe keep going, second best day, secondworst day, until one of y'all quits.\" \"How do you know it'll be one ofus?\" Takumi asked. \"'Cause I'm the best drinker and thebest storyteller,\" she answered. Hard todisagree with that logic. \"You start,Pudge. Best day of your life.\" \"Urn. Can I take a minute to think ofone?\" \"Couldn'ta been that good if youhave to think about it,\" the Colonel said. \"Fuck you, dude.\" \"Touchy.\" \"Best day of my life was today,\" Isaid. \"And the story is that I woke up

next to a very pretty Hungarian girl andit was cold but not too cold and I had acup of lukewarm instant coffee and ateCheerios without milk and then walkedthrough the woods with Alaska andTakumi. We skipped stones across thecreek, which sounds dumb but it wasn't.I don't know. Like the way the sun isright now, with the long shadows andthat kind of bright, soft light you getwhen the sun isn't quite setting? That'sthe light that makes everything better,everything prettier, and today, everythingjust seemed to be in that light. I mean, Ididn't do anything. But just sitting here,even if I'm watching the Colonel whittle,or whatever. Whatever. Great day.Today. Best day of my life.\"

\"You think I'm pretty?\" Lara said,and laughed, bashful. I thought, It'd begood to make eye contact with her now,but I couldn't. \"And I'm Romaneean!\" \"That story ended up being a hell ofa lot better than I thought it would be,\"Alaska said, \"but I've still got you beat.\" \"Bring it on, baby,\" I said. A breezepicked up, the tall grass outside the barntilting away from it, and I pulled mysleeping bag over my shoulders to staywarm. \"Best day of my life was January 9,1997. I was eight years old, and my momand I went to the zoo on a class trip. I liked the bears. She liked themonkeys. Best day ever. End of story.\"

\"That's it?!\" the Colonel said. \"That'sthe best day of your whole life?!\" \"Yup.\" \"I liked eet,\" Lara said. \"I like themonkeys, too.\" \"Lame,\" said the Colonel. I didn'tthink it was lame so much as more ofAlaska's intentional vagueness, anotherexample of her furthering her ownmysteriousness. But still, even though Iknew it was intentional, I couldn't helpbut wonder: What's so fucking greatabout the zoo? But before I could ask,Lara spoke. \"'Kay, my turn,\" said Lara. \"Eet'seasy. The day I came here. I knewEngleesh and my parents deedn't, and wecame off the airplane and my relatives

were here, aunts and uncles I had notever seen, in the airport, and my parentswere so happy. I was twelve, and I hadalways been the leetle baby, but that wasthe first day that my parents needed meand treated me like a grown-up. Becausethey did not know the language, right?They need me to order food and totranslate tax and immigration forms andeverytheeng else, and that was the daythey stopped treating me like a keed.Also, in Romania, we were poor. Andhere, we're kinda reech.\" She laughed. \"All right.\" Takumi smiled, grabbingthe bottle of wine. \"I lose. Because thebest day of my life was the day I lost myvirginity. And if you think I'm going totell you that story, you're gonna have to

get me drunker than this.\" \"Not bad,\" the Colonel said. \"That'snot bad. Want to know my best day?\" \"That's the game, Chip,\" Alaska said,clearly annoyed. \"Best day of my life hasn't happenedyet. But I know it. I see it every day. Thebest day of my life is the day I buy mymom a huge fucking house. And not justlike out in the woods, but in the middleof Mountain Brook, with all theWeekday Warriors' parents. With ally'all's parents. And I'm not buying it witha mortgage either. I'm buying it with cashmoney, and I am driving my mom there,and I'm going to open her side of the cardoor and she'll get out and look at thishouse — this house is like picket fence

and two stories and everything, youknow — and I'm going to hand her thekeys to her house and I'll say, 'Thanks.'Man, she helped fill out my applicationto this place. And she let me come here, and that'sno easy thing when you come fromwhere we do, to let your son go away toschool. So that's the best day of my life.\" Takumi tilted the bottle up andswallowed a few times, then handed it tome. I drank, and so did Lara, and thenAlaska put her head back and turned thebottle upside down, quickly downing thelast quarter of the bottle. As she unscrewed the next bottle,Alaska smiled at the Colonel. \"You wonthat round. Now what's your worst day?\"

\"Worst day was when my dad left.He's old — he's like seventy now — andhe was old when he married my mom,and he still cheated on her. And shecaught him, and she got pissed, so he hither. And then she kicked him out, and heleft. I was here, and my mom called, andshe didn't tell me the whole story withthe cheating and everything and thehitting until later. She just said that hewas gone and not coming back. And Ihaven't seen him since. All that day, Ikept waiting for him to call me andexplain it, but he never did. He nevercalled at all. I at least thought he wouldsay good-bye or something. That was theworst day.\" \"Shit, you got me beat again,\" I said.