the trust-math locker room

The Gertrude liaison becomes an instrument of power in the school's underground. The reason Pemulis and Hal escaped on-the-spot urinalysis is that Pemulis "implied to Mrs. Incandenza that he'd tell the Incster about Avril having some sort of major-sport interlude with John Wayne" — the mother's affair with the surrogate-son held over her as leverage, drug-test amnesty extorted with the one secret that would wound Hal. And the portrait of Avril it discloses is not the gracious Moms but "a coldly-biding-her-time-not-to-be-fucked-with administrative figure" who, with the ridiculous "Gretel the Cross-Sectioned Cow" Tavis, quietly runs the place and forgets no slight. The court intrigue made literal: the queen's hidden adultery is currency, and the boy who holds it can buy his way out of trouble — while she waits, cold and patient, to collect on everyone who knows.