Chapter Thirty-Five

Girls' bathroom. Marla comes in, and overhears two girls talking in a stall. "I read it on a website. Now put this inside." "It feels weird." "Wanna try another one?" "Okay." Because she respects her students' privacy, Marla goes into the neighboring stall and climbs up onto the toilet seat, peering over the wall. She sees the two girls, one of who has a hand in her own pants. "What's going on here?" They girls look up, but it cannot be said that they do so with alarm, or even mild surprise. I guess Marla's always peeking over bathroom stalls. Anyway, Marla tries to determine what was going on, and doesn't buy the tampon defense. "What are you hiding? Cigarettes? Drugs?" She threatens to call the cops, or the girl's parents, and so they relent. A couple of rolls of pennies fall out of the girl's pants and onto the floor. Cha-ching! I mean, "ew."

The Dungeon. Harry is walking around with a video camera while the students perform various Max-related greetings: A bunch of girls dance around chanting, "Hey, Max! Yo, Max!" Others hold up signs bearing the many letters in his name. One kid tries to tell a dirty joke, but Harry sweeps the camera away. A cheerleader does a cheer for him. Jamaal shows the centerfold of a girly magazine, which Harry confiscates.

Delineation Alley. Scott and Jeremy stride along. "For someone who respects my privacy, you certainly have a habit of intruding on it." I don't think Scott has ever done that intentionally, and he points that out: "I walk. I walk behind a curtain, you're kissing Brandon. I walk into a classroom, you're kissing Brooke. Believe me, I'm scared to open a door now." Jeremy laughs sarcastically. Because in this scene, he's Bratty Jeremy. Seriously, has there been a less consistent character in the history of television who wasn't actually schizophrenic? Hey, maybe Jeremy's schizophrenic. Anyway, Scott gets a little nosy about Brooke, and Meredith appears in time to overhear that Scott thinks Jeremy is involved with a girl. Her clue is when Jeremy says, "Scott thinks I'm involved with a girl." Jeremy leaves, and Meredith and Scott duck into the teacher's lounge together, to "have some coffee."

In the teachers' lounge, they simply stand there, talking by the door, never even approaching the coffee. Meanwhile, Marla and Marilyn are seated at a nearby table, listening. Why they don't go somewhere else to have this conversation privately is beyond me, but the conversation they have is as follows: "He was embracing Brooke." "Brooke Harper? Mywellthis is awkward." "How so?" "Brooke iswell, you know, she's" Scott steals a glance at Marla and Marilyn, who are looking at him. Then he says, "Black?" "No! No. The principal's daughter." Then she says hi to Marla and Marilyn, who say hi back, and then she leaves. Scott says hi to them, too, and follows her out. No one gets any coffee. We, however, have the misfortune of staying with Marilyn and Marla, who are discussing the pennies-in-the-pants incident. Marilyn asks incredulously, "She actually had a roll of pennies in her pants?" This question comes, of course, after a few minutes of silence during which they were just listening to Scott's conversation, so I guess now we know what happens prior to those incredulous questions that start scenes: silence. Anyway, apparently the girl claimed that she used the pennies to stimulate herself, an idea she got from the internet: "When she walked: Cha-ching!" Marilyn's all, "Wouldn't quarters work better?" Lauren sits down with them, 'cause she likes to elbow her way into lunch at the cool table. Hey, Sars? I know we just changed the name of the site, but can we change it again to "The Cool Table"? ["I'll take it under advisement." -- Sars] Lauren asks what's up, and they tell her the penny story, and Lauren gets all stern and asks who the girl is. They tell her, and ask why she wants to know, and she says no reason, so you know it's, like, a really important reason. People lie constantly before the first commercial break.

Delineation Alley. "You're asking me to the prom?" The incredulous one here is Ronnie. The one who has caused her incredulity is Zack. He's all, "Is there a rule that teachers and students can't go to the prom together?" Ronnie asks if he wouldn't have more fun with a girl his own age, and he's all, "I don't want a girl. I want a woman." I think it would be funny if she gave him the same "recent break-up" speech she gave to Harvey last week. She makes Zack a little deal: If he doesn't have a date closer to prom time, then they'll talk, but in the meantime, if anyone else asks her, she'll say, "Zack got to me first." Heh. Then he says, "You know, strictly as a lover, I'm better off the Ritalin." BWA HA HA! Oh, and now that I'm in a nice giggly mood

we go back to the stupid hospital. Harry runs into Max's parents outside his room, and they look pretty upset. Max is tired and weak, so nauseous he can't keep down anything except ice chips, and, in fact, they've stopped looking for a bone marrow match. "We're taking Max home this weekend." He has a blood infection, his kidneys are failingHarry tries to what-if about finding a marrow match, putting Max's parents in the rather odd position of persuading Harry to let them let their own damn son die with some dignity. "We just want Maxto spend his last days at home." They leave. Harry stays in the hospital hallway alone, sulking. Also, his new haircut is the dumbest thing ever. Ever.

The hospital. Harry, as some kind of an inspirational ploy, has given Max a college application. If by "inspirational ploy," one means "sick cruel joke." Max asks, with the customary modicum of incredulity, "A college application?" Max is reluctant; Harry plays it like this is totally normal, but Max sees what he's doing. We know this because Max says, "I know what you're trying to do, and I appreciate it. But I don't want to waste time answering questions for some school I'm never gonna go to." Harry's all, "So I guess reading about some big whale is a better use of your time?" Max points out that, if his goal is to finish reading the book, then yes, it is. It's hard to argue with that, on simply existential grounds. I mean, Harry tries, but it's tough to beat Max's logic. Max says, "You're trying to convince me that I'm not dying, but I am. And no amount of college applications is going to change that." Which is a funny way to say it, because it appeals to quantity as the key factor, and thus calls up the image of Harry dumping thousands of applications onto Max to somehow cure him. "If you stop fighting," says Harry, "you will begin to die." Max says he's tired of fighting. Harry calls him a quitter, throws the book at him, and says, "Read your damn book."

"Jeremy Peters? My daughter is dating Jeremy Peters?" We're in the Sanctum, where Scott has apparently just broken the news to Steven. Or, since we have now learned what actually precedes the incredulous questions, they have been standing in silence for the last several minutes. Anyway, Scott says he thinks it's wonderful, and says Meredith does too, and that Steven ought to be happy, since at least Jeremy is Brooke's age. Steven takes this in, looks a bit ill, and says, "The boy is a littleoff." Steven reminds Scott of the basement locking incident, and Scott says that that was last year, which is a legitimate comeback since Jeremy's entire personality really has changed, a half dozen times, since then. Steven's all, "Oh, come on. He's a psycho just like his mother. Awkward pause. I didn't mean that." Finally, Steven brings up the fact that, until this morning, Jeremy was gay. "He's bisexual." "Oh, terrific." "A school principal should practice more tolerance" "Oh, allow me a parental reaction, please."

Delineation Alley. Lauren tracks down the girl with the liking for rolls of pennies at her locker, and asks the girl -- let's call her "Pennywise" for the time being -- to open it. Pennywise is all, "I'm sorry, Ms. Davis. That locker is my sole vestige of privacy in this place." But Lauren insists until the girl complies. Inside, the locker is totally normal. If it belonged to a teenage boy, anyway: the inside is plastered with images of scantily clad skinny women. Hmmm. Maybe there's more going on here than coin-related self-gratification after all.

Lauren takes Pennywise into her classroom, and immediately starts in on her: "Who weighs you? Your parents or a nutritionist?" Pennywise plays dumb, so Lauren is like, "I guess your parents. And, they're, whateasier to fool?" Apparently, the penny roll is a classic trick, along with drinking lots of water, to disguise weight loss and/or fake weight gain, for anorexics who are trying to trick people. Lauren's all, "I looked at your file. You missed last semester because you were at a clinic for people with eating disorders." Um, doesn't "looking at her file" violate a number of privacy laws? If only there were a lawyer at the school, we could find out. Oh well. Anyway, Pennywise says, "I don't have that problem anymorebut if I lose any more weight I have to go back. I just don't want to go back." Pennywise? More like Skinnythighs.

Sanctum. "I thought you'd be happy. He's my age!" Steven's giving Brooke the business for dating Jeremy. Umare they actually dating? By my scorecard, they kissed once, this morning. Brooke asks if Steven will ever be happy with anyone she dates, and wonders if he thinks she should look for "a nice gang-banger." My God, China Jesusita Shavers is the most one-note actress in the world. Have I mentioned this before? I think so, but it's worth saying again: every single line is delivered in the same tone of self-righteous faux-confusion at the other person's idiocy. Wait, that's how I talk. Anyway, she's all, "You promised to stay out of my personal life." And he's all, "I promised to try." And I'm all, "When?" He's been up in her personal life ever since she came to the school! "Jeremy'ssweet. And he's sensitive." Then she says, "Butt out." The first time she said it, I thought she was saying, "But out." As in, "However, he's homosexual, so don't worry." But, no, I was wrong. Steven tries a few last-minute ploys, such as the sexuality issue, which she blows off, and "he smokes cigarettes." "Daddy, you're so lame. I love you too." Awwww. I mean, "Zzzzzz."

Teacher's lounge. Harry is telling Ronnie that he just feels like everyone is giving up on Max. "Harry, I know you don't want him to feel like he's dying, but do you really think it's wise to give him false hope?" Harry doesn't see it that way: "False hope? I don't think people who use that phrase fully grasp the concept of hope." That is, I must admit, a trenchant insight. What is hope, after all, if not faith in a positive outcome that is anything but certain? And how can it therefore be either "true" or "false"? Surely, it can be more or less likely to come to fruition, depending on circumstances, but there's no need to hope for something that's definitely going to happen, and so everything hoped for runs the risk of being hoped for "falsely." QED. Good point, Harry. Anyway, Dick Teachie chimes in that maybe Max doesn't want to feel like he's failing Harry, and Harry tells him that Max is, however, homosexual. No, wait, he tells him to butt out. Just then, Steven comes in and announces that they found a bone marrow match for Max. Harry darts out of the room, giddy: "False hope?"