HUMMINGBIRD IS HOVERING
HAMMERHEAD IS CRUISING
HANNIGANIMAL IS UP!
I’m in a better mood than the situation merits. It’s only Thursday, I have tons of homework due tomorrow, we’re buried in a long stretch of overcast days, but there’s an unexplainable bounce in my step. Well, it’s explainable, but I’ve learned to just enjoy it.
Holly swoops in beside me as everyone streams down the hall toward the exit. I get my usual impulse to touch her storm cloud of kinky black hair. I know she’d be fine with it—other white girls have asked. First she gives them a stern look and says, “How much cash you got?” Then she laughs at their stricken expressions and says, “Sure, whatever, but not for long or it gets weird.” I fight the urge anyway. I don’t want to be one of those girls.
“Hey, Mel,” Holly says. “Want a ride home?”
“Really?” I ask, lighting up. Then I droop. “Oh, darn … I rode my bike today … and I’m not going home now … same as every day of the entire year you’ve known me.”
“Year and four months, if you’re counting. I rescued you December of sophomore year.”
It’s no exaggeration to call it a rescue, how she befriended me when I got really sick last year and missed so much school—months, actually—and lost what few friends I had at the time.
She says, “One day you just might find your tires slashed. Then you’ll change your tune.”
“As if I’ve been turning down your rides for longer than … what, three days? You got your license Monday?”
“Those tires are so old, I bet I could pop them with a nail file.”
“It would make me sad,” I say.
“Can’t imagine why. That old bike’s a P.O.S.”
“But it’s my piece of shit. And a family heirloom. But I meant it’d make me sad if the cops catch you. They’ll put you in jail and I’ll miss you terribly. You’re not supposed to give any rides for another … three hundred and sixty-two days.”
“Speak for yourself,” Declan says, joining us. “Illegal isn’t the same as impossible. I’m tired of walking every day. That’s two hours a day wasted. Ten hours a week. Forty—”
I shoot him a look. “It takes you two hours to walk four miles?”
He grins. “I might have added wrong.”
“Doubt it. Probably didn’t subtract the time you duck behind the library. Though you’re right, that is part of those two hours a day you’re wasting … getting wasted …”
“Baked,” he says.
“Tell you what, I’ll look up those words in Urban Dictionary if you actually go inside the library today and look up the word hairsplitting.”
Declan snorts. “I’m grateful my girlfriend has a license, and a car, and a backseat—”
Holly stops his gratitude with an elbow to his ribs. She says to me, “Think of the time you’re wasting on that bike. I can get you home in no time. Or work, wherever.”
“I’m not in a hurry. It’s exercise. You should try it. When the apocalypse comes, I’ll be ready and you’ll be zombie kibble. Come to think of it, you two keep driving everywhere. I don’t want to be the slowest in our band of survivors.”
When we leave the building, Declan takes a crumpled bag from his pocket.
“Check it out,” he says when he sees me looking at it. “I forgot to leave it in the car for the ride home …”
He opens the wrinkled brown sack and shows me a baggie holding what looks like a chunk of sod cut out of someone’s lawn.
“Gross.” I push it away. “That was in your locker all day? Where’d you even get it?”
His grin gets sheepish. Holly frowns.
“Is that …” I say. “I mean, did your mom make it?”
He nods. “She can’t keep track of it all—”
“You’re stealing your grandma’s cancer brownies?”
“Shhh! Tell the world!” He jams the bag under his arm. “She never runs out. My mom always makes more when she runs low.”
“That’s messed up,” I say. “Although … hmmm … let me see it again—”
“No way, Mel. If you want any, you’ll have to steal from your own—”
“Declan!” Holly says through clenched teeth, glancing my way.
He stands frozen. My grandma Cece died of stomach cancer a year ago. His comment doesn’t upset me, though. Not today.
I tousle his wispy blond hair—there’s nothing wrong with touching his hair. He hates it but lets me after his blunder. He’s not fussy; it just emphasizes how I’m three inches taller than him.
“It’s okay, short stuff. I don’t need drugs to get high.”
Quite the opposite.
*
I say good-bye to Holly and Declan, pop the crossbeam off my U-lock, and stow the pieces in my backpack.
“Mel?”
This is unexpected.
“Hey, Connor.”
I’m not sure what else to say. Connor and I aren’t friends anymore, though he and I didn’t fight like I did with everyone else. We just never spoke again after I was out sick. I focus on strapping my backpack to the rear rack of my bike with a bungee.
“You know what’s up with Annie?”