“Science,” said Josiah. “It turns out that Ms. Treadwell wasn’t just being sarcastic. I have to do a presentation about rolling marbles down an inclined plane tomorrow.”
She regarded him thoughtfully. Josiah’s appearance had changed in the past five days. Freddy wasn’t sure what had made the most difference: the ambush behind the school on Wednesday afternoon, the encounter with Keith in the hallway on Thursday, or the incident in PE on Friday. She wasn’t even sure he had got both black eyes at the same time. She hadn’t really had much to do with him at school so far, though sometimes she found herself wondering why. It wasn’t as if she had anyone else to talk to. She hadn’t even eaten with Rochelle and Cathy since Tuesday. Rochelle had been giving her these looks every once in a while, but that was all. Hanging around with an obnoxious new kid who had no social skills was beginning to seem attractive to her.
“I think there are some in the rec room,” said Freddy at last.
“I’m breathless with anticipation,” said Josiah.
He followed her through to the basement stairs, though she hadn’t really invited him in. He acts as if he’s known me for years, she thought, and she blinked. It was something about him that had been gnawing at her since she’d met him, but she hadn’t realised until just now what the problem was. She’d first seen him less than a week ago, but he’d treated her all along as if they were old friends, or … well, maybe not friends. Old acquaintances? She tried to remember if he’d been like that with anybody else, but she couldn’t, possibly because most of the times she’d witnessed him interacting with other people, he’d been insulting somebody or getting beaten up.
There was a trunk in the rec room that held all the toys Freddy and Mel pretended they didn’t use any more. Freddy had thought Jordan might be downstairs watching TV, but he wasn’t. She vaguely remembered hearing the car pull out of the driveway earlier. Surprise, surprise. She opened the trunk and started tossing around the contents, turning up dolls with missing limbs, half-constructed Lego spaceships, and a baseball bat with what looked like a bite out of it.
“You have two black eyes,” remarked Freddy, primarily for something to say.
“If you hadn’t told me, I never would have guessed,” said Josiah.
Holding up half a plastic train set and shaking it in the hopes that a marble or two might fall out, Freddy said, “Why don’t you just keep your stupid mouth shut?”
“I can’t.” Josiah’s words were heavy with an aura of gloom that had to have been almost entirely put on. “Your classmates are mindless automatons, and they infuriate me.”
Freddy didn’t know what an automaton was, but she could guess. “Okay, but you cause chaos everywhere you go.”
Josiah let out a yelp that made her ears buzz. “What?”
“Well,” said Freddy, “you do.”
“I never,” said Josiah. “That’s heinous slander. Find the damn marbles.”
The damn marbles were, as it turned out, all together in a small net bag, which was inside a larger bag containing a random assortment of rubber balls. Freddy tossed the marbles to Josiah, who evidently couldn’t see out of his eyes well enough to catch them. They slipped through his fingers and landed on his foot. “And now you’re physically assaulting me,” said Josiah. “All I really needed was yet another bruise.”
Freddy said, “Stop complaining. You’ve got your marbles.”
“Right,” said Josiah. “I need to borrow an inclined plane.”
They stared at each other for what was probably quite a long time.
“I think you’re supposed to make one yourself,” said Freddy when it became clear that Josiah was not going to give in first.
“Then I need to borrow a small saw, a hammer, some nails, and several pieces of timber,” said Josiah.
“Isn’t your mum supposed to buy you stuff for science projects?”
“If you call her my mum again, I’ll bite out both your eyes,” said Josiah. “All I need is something to roll marbles down. It’s not as if I plan on putting any effort into this. Don’t you have any particularly angular dolls in there?”
Freddy bit her tongue—hard—and rooted through the box until she’d pulled out a sloping plastic piece that belonged to the train set, a wedge of blue Styrofoam she didn’t remember ever seeing before, and the roof of a broken doll’s house.
“Perfect,” said Josiah. “All three scream ‘I don’t give a rat’s ass about this project, but I’m certainly going to pretend I’m trying.’”
He picked up everything and dropped the roof on the same foot Freddy had hit with the marbles. “I can carry that one,” said Freddy. The noise from upstairs was becoming unbearable again. An excuse to go next door was not a bad thing.
“Quack,” said Josiah, but he let her carry the roof.
They ducked into the living room on the way out. The game was in its usual state of incomprehensibility. As Freddy and Josiah entered the room, Marcus was screaming, “Ooh. Ooh! Twenty! I kill all the monsters forever!” Unlike his friends, Marcus had some hearing. He signed, too, but in Freddy’s experience, he shouted a lot and never listened to or looked at what anybody else was saying. Mel was signing hugely and unsuccessfully at him while Roland was saying, “No, Marcus, a twenty is not a magic bullet in this situation. There are fourteen tentacles,” though he was almost drowned out by Todd’s indignant yell of, “That’s my die! You rolled that twenty with my die! You’ve stolen one of my twenties!” which was very unusual for the normally nonverbal Todd and may have led to the usual midgame fistfight if Roland hadn’t tried to sign something to Mel while simultaneously talking loudly to Marcus, in the process knocking the coffee table over so violently that it narrowly missed taking Mel’s head off. Marcus dissolved into screaming laughter while Mel muttered something about tentacles and boys and how she wished she were revolutionising physics with her friend Clara. Roland tripped over the upended coffee table and sat down hard, scattering dice and scraps of paper. “Weave a circle round him thrice,” Mel intoned, pointing solemnly at Roland. Freddy clenched her teeth. None of this was unusual for a weekend afternoon at her house.
Eventually, both Mel and Roland turned to look at Freddy, then let their eyes slide to Josiah. The expression on Roland’s face almost brought her up short. He was … what was he? Baffled? Wary? Angry? Well, he was often angry when Freddy was around. But she wasn’t sure he was watching her specifically.
“Going out.” Freddy turned away from the game so no one but Mel would be able to understand her. “Back eventually.”
They were halfway across the yard when Mel caught up, puffing like a small locomotive. Freddy said, “What?”
“We’re on a break.” Mel was making her eyes big and round. “I’m coming along because there are boys everywhere. Oh, those terrible, terrible boys.”
“She wants to snoop inside our house,” said Josiah without turn ing around. “I wish there were a pond out back so you two could have a swim while you were over.”