“Ow!”
His head hits my chin. The books slide out from underneath him. Our hands flail in the air, grabbing at each other, and we smash into the bookshelves. We’re still untangling ourselves when Grey comes bellowing in, chasing us downstairs to the front door, hands flapping like big hairy butterflies.
“It’s raining,” I pretend to whine. It’s the seaside; I don’t mind getting wet, but I want to hear what he’ll say—
“You’re a twelve-year-old girl, not the Wicked Witch of the West,” Grey booms, slamming the door behind us as I giggle.
Outside, Thomas and I teeter on the porch, the air soggy. He looks at me, his glasses smeared, his hair curly with humidity. His hand forms a fist. Little finger pointed straight out at me.
A salute, a signal, a promise.
“Your house?” he asks. I don’t know whether he means for a kiss or the blood pact. Or both.
“I don’t know how to be, without you,” I say.
“Me either,” he says.
I lift up my hand, and curl my finger into his. Then we jump off the step. Into the rain.
*
A paint-stained finger taps on the fuzz in front of me, and instantly, it’s a notebook again. I blink, looking around me, dazed.
“What are you doing?” Sof is standing in front of the desk. Silhouetted against the windows, she’s just an outline—pointy hair, triangle dress, stalk legs, light blazing all around her. An avenging angel, come to rescue me from detention!
I’m confused, sleepy. Sof and I have barely been on corridor nodding terms all year, yet here she is, throwing her portfolio on the ground and her body into the chair next to mine.
After blinking the sun out of my eyes, I blink again when I see her curly hair done up like fro-yo, red lipstick, rhinestone glasses. Sometime between now and whenever I stopped noticing, my erstwhile best friend has remade herself into a fifties musical.
“Uh, hi,” I whisper, unsure whether we’re allowed to talk. Not because it’s detention, but because we don’t hang out the way we did at our old school.
She leans over to peer at my notebook.
“Huh,” she says, tapping my doodles, where I’ve scribbled out both Jason’s and Thomas’s names so they’re illegible. I suppose this explains my dream. “Is this your artistic comeback?”
It’s a pointed remark. Back in ninth grade, Sof opted for art, geography, German. I went with her choices to save making my own, which sums up our entire friendship. I never told her I had different plans, once we switched schools right before junior year—it was easier to wait for her to notice I wasn’t at the next easel.
“Physics quiz,” I explain.
“Whatcha do to get thrown in the gulag?” she croaks. For a white-witch-tiger-balm-super-hippie, she sounds like she gargles cigarettes for breakfast.
“Daydreaming.” I fiddle with my pen. “What about you?”
“Nothing,” she says. “It’s time to spring you.”
When I look up at the clock, she’s right. The teacher’s gone. The room’s empty. Detention ended an hour ago. Huh. It doesn’t feel like I’ve slept for that long.
“They lock the bike sheds at five.” She stands up, fiddling with the strap on her portfolio. “Do you want to catch the bus with me?”
“Okay…” I say, only half paying attention. I stare at the notebook: it’s only paper, but I shove it right to the bottom of my book bag like it’s to blame for what just happened.
Was I really asleep? Is that where the last hour went? I think back to Saturday, a whole afternoon lost before I found myself under the apple tree.
Perhaps I am insane. I take that thought, and shove it as far down as it will go too.
Sof’s waiting for me at the door. The silence that rides between us all the way home is so heavy, it deserves its own bus ticket.
Monday 5 July (Evening)
[Minus three hundred and seven]
Schere. Stein. Papier.
It’s after dinner, and we’ve been standing outside Grey’s bedroom door playing rock-paper-scissors for twenty minutes. Food was eaten in silent disbelief after Papa suggested Ned and I might want to clear out Grey’s room.
“Dare you,” says Ned. Stein beats Schere.
“You first,” I say. Papier beats Stein.
“Best out of, uh, fifty?”