it was here , up in the viet cong lookout , that the boys had tried one of debbie ross 's cigarettes the year before and found it awful , here that they had looked through their first copy of penthouse ( brian had seen it lying on top of the dumpster behind the e-z stop 24 down the hill from his house ) , here that they had hung their feet down and had their long conversations and dreamed their dreams ... mostly about how they were going to be the kings of west wentworth middle school when they were ninth-graders .