Girls with Sharp Sticks (Girls with Sharp Sticks #1)

I’m no longer wearing the plastic rain slicker, and I appreciate the moisture on my skin, tickling my bare forearms. Soaking into me. At least, I do until I step into a puddle and splash muddy water on my delicate white socks. I glance down past my plaid uniform skirt and shake out my shoe.

As I start walking again, I look at the yellow car. There’s a young guy pumping gas, his face turned away as he leans against the back door, talking through the open passenger-side window to another boy still inside the car. I examine them, curious.

The boy in the passenger seat is wearing a crisp white T-shirt, a shiny watch glinting on his wrist as he rests his arm on the open window. He’s cute—dark skin, his hair shaved short. He must say something funny, because the other guy laughs and turns to press a button on the pump, his face coming into view.

I note immediately that he’s extremely good looking. This boy is thin with an angular jaw—sharp at the edges—thick black eyebrows, messy black hair. And when his gaze drifts past the pump and he notices me, he seems just as startled by my attention. He holds up his hand in a wave.

I smile in return, but then Sydney calls loudly for me to catch up. I jog to meet her at the glass door of the building, embarrassed at my lack of decorum. I didn’t mean to stare at those boys. It’s just . . . we don’t see many young men at the academy. Actually, we don’t see any at all.

Sydney looks over her shoulder at the boys as if she’s just spotting them. When she turns back around, she flashes me a quick grin and pulls open the door. A bell on the metal bar jingles.

I’m struck by the smell of baking bread. The gas station has a menu board posted over a small deli at a second counter. A woman in a hairnet stands behind there, her face deeply tanned and creased with wrinkles. She doesn’t even mutter a hello.

Sydney heads toward the bathrooms while I step into the candy aisle. I’m overwhelmed by the sheer volume of choices, the bright colors and assorted flavors.

The bell on the door jingles again as the two boys enter the store. They walk directly to the deli counter. The boy in the white T-shirt gives the woman his order while the guy who waved notices me standing in the aisle, watching him above the candy rack. His mouth widens with a smile.

“Hey,” he calls. “How’s it going?”

The other guy glances sideways at his friend—a bit of concern in his features that seems unwarranted. But the boy with the black hair waits for my response, the ghost of a smile still on his lips.

“Anything else?” the older woman asks the two boys, ripping the top page off her pad.

The boy with the black hair tells her that’ll be it, and his friend goes to pay at the register.

I return to perusing the aisle, trying to focus on my mission to collect bags of candy. I am, indeed, distracted. It doesn’t take long before the boy with black hair comes to stand at the end of the aisle near the pretzels.

“Sorry to bother you,” he says, his voice low-pitched and raspy. “But I was wondering if—” I turn to him and the words die on his lips. He smiles his recovery.

“You’re not bothering me,” I tell him. He looks relieved and shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

“I’m Jackson,” he says.

“Philomena,” I reply. And then, after a beat, “Mena.”

“Hello, Mena,” Jackson says casually. He takes a step farther into the aisle and picks out a bag of candy, seemingly at random. He draws his eyebrows together as he looks out the window toward the bus.

“Innovations Academy?” he asks. “The one that used to be Innovations Metal Works—the old factory near the mountain?”

“I’d like to tell you it’s not a factory anymore,” I say, “but I can still smell metal in my sheets sometimes.”

He laughs as if I’m joking.

Innovations Metal Works was a factory that’d been around since the town was founded. About a decade ago, they started making significant advances in technology: metal additives. Eventually, the Metal Works patent was bought out by a hospital system, and again later by a technology firm. The building itself was repurposed.

Now it’s an academy that teaches us about manners, modesty, and gardening, a change that can be credited to new ownership and generous donors. And yet, I pick up the scent of machinery every so often.

“A private school?” Jackson asks, glancing at my uniform.

“Yes. All girls.”

He nods like he finds this fascinating. “How long have you been there?”

“Eight months,” I say. “I graduate in the fall. What about you? Do you live near the mountain?”

“Oh, I . . . uh, I live not too far from here, actually,” he says. “It’s just . . . I saw your bus leaving the Federal Flower Garden. Was curious.”

“You’ve been following us since the Flower Garden?” I ask, surprised. He turns away and grabs another bag of candy.

“No,” he says, waving his hand. “Not on purpose.”

Suddenly, his friend appears next to him holding a brown paper bag with ends of subs poking out. “Jackie,” the boy says. “We should probably get going, right?” He motions toward the glass door.

Jackson shakes his head no, subtly, and then turns to me and smiles. “Philomena,” he says, “this is my friend Quentin.”

Quentin glances at him, annoyed, but then smiles at me and says hello. He turns back to Jackson.

“Five minutes, yeah?” Quentin asks him, widening his eyes.

“Yeah,” Jackson murmurs. He presses his lips together and looks at me, waiting for his friend to leave. Once Quentin is gone, Jackson shrugs, as if saying his friend is just being impatient.

I study the array of chocolates, and Jackson comes to stand next to me. He grabs a small bag of Hershey’s Kisses.

“These are my favorite,” he says. I look sideways at him, struck by his imperfections. The freckles dotting his cheeks and nose. The slight turn of his canine teeth that makes his smile boyish and charming. There’s even a tiny scar near his temple.

“I’ll try them,” I say, plucking the chocolates from his hand.

“Ahem,” Sydney says dramatically from the other end of the aisle. She runs her gaze quickly over Jackson before settling on me.

“Sydney, this is Jackson,” I tell her, fighting back my smile. Just as seeing someplace new is exciting, meeting someone new is absolutely thrilling. Sydney steps forward and introduces herself, politely, like we’re taught.

They exchange a quick handshake, and Jackson tells her it’s nice to meet her. When Sydney turns back to me she covertly mouths the word “cute.”

She smiles, pleasant and respectful, when she’s facing Jackson again.

“I’ll meet you on the bus?” I ask her, holding up my fistfuls of candy. She pauses a long moment before nodding. She has to bite her lower lip to keep from grinning.

“Right . . . ,” she says. “See you there.” Sydney tells Jackson it was nice to meet him and leaves the store, the bell on the handle jingling.

Quentin watches after her while hanging out near the ATM, the brown paper bag set on top of the machine. He chews his thumbnail, and when Sydney is gone, he returns his gaze to the door.

Jackson grabs a pack of Twizzlers while I pick up red hot candies with a flaming sun on the package. Together we head toward the register.

“Can I buy that for you?” Jackson asks when I lay my pile of candy on the counter. It would be rude to refuse his offer, so I say yes and thank him. The cashier begins to ring up our sweets together.

“I’m not allowed candy at school,” I confess to Jackson as he takes out his wallet. He looks at me as if he finds this unusual. “But whenever I get the chance,” I add, “it’s what I spend my allowance on. It’s not like there’s anything to buy at school.”

“I’m sure,” he says. “Your school’s out in the middle of fucking nowhere.”

I’m a bit shocked by his cursing; a bit exhilarated by the indecency of it. Jackson leans against the counter, studying me again.

“Would you want to grab a coffee with me sometime, Mena?” he asks. “I have a lot of questions about this private school–factory of yours.”