playfulness in his voice was gone.
‘There’s no reason to think we’re going to stop loving each other,’
he said. ‘And there’s every reason to think that we won’t.’
I never said I loved you, Eleanor thought.
And even after he kissed her,
she kept her hands on his chest.
So. Anyway. Park wanted her to start checking her book covers.
Especially after gym class. So now Eleanor
waited
until
almost
everybody else had changed and left the locker room, and then she carefully examined her books for anything suspicious.
It was all very clinical.
DeNice and Beebi usually waited with her. It meant that they were late for lunch sometimes, but it also meant that they could all change in relative privacy, which they should have thought of months ago.
There didn’t seem to be anything
pervy
written
on
Eleanor’s books today. In fact, Tina had ignored her all through class. Even Tina’s sidekicks (even thuggy Annette) seemed bored with Eleanor.
‘I think they’ve run out of ways to make fun of my hair,’
Eleanor said to DeNice while she looked over her algebra book.
‘They could call you “Ronald McDonald,”’ DeNice said. ‘Have they called you that?’
‘Or “Wendy,”’ Beebi said, lowering her voice and wolfing, ‘Where’s the beef?’
‘ S h u t up,’
Eleanor
said,
looking around the locker room.
‘Little pitchers.’
‘They’re all gone,’ DeNice said. ‘Everybody’s gone. They’re all in the cafeteria, eating my Macho Nachos. Hurry up, girl.’
‘You go ahead,’ Eleanor said.
‘Get us a place in line. I still have to change.’
‘All right,’ DeNice said, ‘but stop looking at those books. You said it yourself, there’s nothing there. Come on, Beebi.’
Eleanor started packing up her books. She heard Beebi shout, ‘Where’s the beef?’ from the locker-room door. Dork. Eleanor opened up her locker.
It was empty.
Huh.
She tried the one above it.
Nothing. And nothing below. No …
Eleanor started over, opening all the lockers on the wall, then moving on to the next wall, trying not to panic. Maybe they’d just moved her clothes. Ha. Funny.
Super-good joke, Tina.
‘What are you doing?’ Mrs Burt asked.
‘Looking for my clothes,’
Eleanor said.
‘You should use the same locker every time, so it’s easy to remember.’
‘No, somebody … I mean, I think somebody took them.’
‘Those little bitches …’ Mrs Burt sighed. Like she couldn’t imagine a bigger hassle.
Mrs Burt started opening lockers at the other end of the room. Eleanor checked the trash and the showers. Then Mrs Burt called out from the bathroom.
‘Found them!’
Eleanor
walked
into
the
bathroom. The floor was wet, and Mrs Burt was standing in a stall.
‘I’ll get a bag,’ Mrs Burt said, pushing past Eleanor.
Eleanor looked down at the toilet. Even though she knew what she was going to see there, it still felt like a wet slap in the face. Her new jeans and her cowboy shirt were in a dark pile in the bowl, and her shoes were crammed under the lip. Somebody had flushed the toilet, and there was water still spilling over the edge.
Eleanor watched it run.
‘Here,’ Mrs Burt said, handing Eleanor a yellow Food 4 Less bag.
‘Fish ’em out.’
‘I don’t want them,’ Eleanor said, backing away. She couldn’t wear them anymore anyway.
Everybody would know those were her toilet clothes.
‘Well, you can’t leave them here,’ Mrs Burt said. ‘Fish them out.’ Eleanor stared at her clothes.
‘Come on,’ Mrs Burt said.
Eleanor reached into the toilet and felt tears slipping down her cheeks. Mrs Burt held the bag open. ‘You’ve got to stop letting them get to you, you know,’ she said. ‘You just encourage them.’
Yeah, thanks, Eleanor thought, wringing out her jeans over the toilet. She wanted to wipe her eyes, but her hands were wet.
Mrs Burt handed her the bag.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I’ll write you a pass.’
‘For where?’ Eleanor asked.
‘Your counselor’s office.’
Eleanor took a sharp breath. ‘I can’t walk down the hall like this.’
‘What do you want from me, Eleanor?’ That was obviously a rhetorical question; Mrs Burt wasn’t even looking at her.
Eleanor followed her to the coach’s office and waited for the pass.
As soon as she got out to the hallway, the tears came on hard.
She couldn’t walk through the school like this – in her gymsuit.
In front of boys … And everybody. In front of Tina. God, Tina was probably selling tickets outside the cafeteria. Eleanor couldn’t do it. Not like this.
It wasn’t just that her gymsuit was ugly. (Polyester. One-piece.
Red-and-white stripes with an extra-long white zipper.) It was also extremely tight.
The shorts just barely cleared her underwear, and the fabric was stretched so tight over her chest, the seams were starting to pop under her arms.