He turns to look at me, brown eyes sparkling with hope for just a moment before his caterpillar eyebrows drop and crush the twinkle. “Nah, you’ll just get bored.”
“I won’t,” I protest, feeling suddenly like a three-year-old. “I’ll be your own Jenna Matheson. You know, that girl who wears her cheerleading uniform around school like she’s in Glee?”
He laughs, deep and perfect. “Well, all right then. Let’s go.”
I’ve always pictured Grayson’s archery club as full of boisterous Robin Hoods, but the place is empty and painfully quiet. Aside from the targets on the far wall, it just looks like a boring old community hall, with beige walls and beige floor and beige ceiling. While Grayson fetches his bow from the probably-beige locker room, I study the posters on the bulletin board. There are ads tacked onto ads tacked onto ads, like those layers of rock my teacher was rambling on about in geography. They should come here to date dinosaur remains. Peel back the layers until an advertisement announces, “Dinosaur in need of new home. Rarely bites.” Then rip off one of those slips, call the number, and ask how long ago it was posted.
I tear off one of the slips at random—it’s satisfying, like popping Bubble Wrap—just as Grayson walks up, bow dangling casually from his left hand as if to say, “Yeah, I’m über strong. Deal with it.” He leans over to look at the board. “You’re looking for a . . . ‘tidy, middle-aged male roommate’?”
“You never know.” I shrug and tuck the number into my pocket.
There are no chairs in the range area—I know people shoot standing up, but what if someone wants to watch?—so I grab one from the table at the entrance and drag it across the hall. I lean, standing, against the back of it while Grayson prepares his first shot. His arm muscles bulge as he pulls his hand back to his ear, pauses, then releases.
Kat can hit a speeding wingling between the eyes from miles away, but I’m sure real-life archery is way harder, so I throw up my hands and cheer. My foot hits the chair and sends it skittering forward.
Grayson whips around and glares at me.
“What?” I drop my hands to my sides. “I thought I was here to be your cheerleader.”
“Yeah . . . just . . . maybe save the cheers for the bull’s-eyes.”
“As you wish,” I say, waving my hand with a flourish and bending at the waist in a dramatic bow. I pull back my runaway chair with a scrape as Grayson turns to stare down his stationary enemy.
It would be wicked if the targets moved, darting about like winglings in LotS. Maybe four at once. They could flash with alternating lights, and if you hit the lit-up one, you’d get bonus points.
“Did you see that?” Grayson is beaming at me. I glance at the bull’s-eye. Two long stalks poke out from the outer rings, one from the padding behind the target, and, at last, one smack-dab in the red center.
“Wooooo!” I throw my hands up. “Good job, bae!”
Grayson’s smile melts off his face. “I knew you’d get bored,” he mumbles.
“I’m not! You look badass,” I tell him, but he’s already turned his back on me again.
I wonder if something like that rotating light show of an archery contest actually exists. That would be epic. I pull out my phone to look it up. As always, the browser opens on LumberLegs’s YouTube channel. There’s a new video I haven’t seen yet, so I mark it to watch later.
I glance up just in time to see an arrow slam into the middle red, just at its edge.
“Wooooo!” I cheer again, and this time, Grayson grins at me, running his hand through his wavy hair before reaching for another arrow.
LumberLegs has an email address on his info tab. I’m sure that wasn’t there before. I click on it, wait for my email to open, swipe my finger across the tiny keyboard.
Dear LumberLegs,
I am your biggest fan. You probably think it’s that girl who calls herself Mrs. LumberLegs, but it’s not, it’s me.
Just thought you might enjoy a hello from your biggest fan.
HELLO!
Ta-ta for now
With love from your biggest fan,
Meg
P.S. By biggest I mean #1, not fattest. I’m not fat. But also not anorexic or a stick or anything. Just regular size, with curves and stuff. Like someone who exercises lots but still eats cookies. Because cookies are an important food group. obvs.
I tap send, then open my messages to text Kat.
Guess what! Legs has—
I stop and delete the text. Right. Kat and I aren’t talking, and I don’t know how to stop not talking. Last time, Kat showed up with video games. Maybe she’ll do that again this time.
Another arrow plunges into the red with a thunk. I whoop, and Grayson grins at me for like the umpteenth time. At least I’ve got this girlfriend thing down. I put my phone to sleep and wedge it back into my pocket.
KAT
“I GOT YOUR EMAIL,” SUNIL SAYS TO ME AS SOON AS OUR ANCIENT CIV teacher releases us to finish our group essay, which is due next class. “Your section looks great. I loved the joke about the plow.”
Heat rises up my neck and into my cheeks. Maybe getting assigned to this group wasn’t such a bad thing. “You don’t think it was too corny?”
He chuckles and shakes his head. “No, it was funny. Did you get a chance to look over mine?”
I nod. “It was good,” I say, relieved that I don’t have to lie. Actually, it was beautiful. I couldn’t even find a typo to complain about. Eric’s, on the other hand—good substance, but awful execution. So many misuses of its and it’s that I gave up on cringing. I’m not sure how to broach the subject, though. Eric keeps nodding his head so optimistically along with us, eyes wide as a basset hound’s. How do I tell him his writing’s crap?
“Okay,” Sunil says, “so I’ll just do a good edit of Eric’s section tonight, then combine them all together.”
“Oh, I did that.” I grab the paper—complete with my fully revised version of Eric’s section—out of my binder and set it down in front of Sunil.
He flips quickly through the first few pages—his section and mine—then slows to read Eric’s, nodding as he goes. “Good. Good. This is great.” When he gets to the end, he holds it out to Eric. “Want to see?”
My chest constricts. Eric’s section is barely recognizable as his, though all his research is still there. I just . . . gave it a makeover. A really intensive makeover.
But Eric just flips through the thing once, too quickly to actually read anything, then hands it back to Sunil. “Looks good.”
“Let’s hand it in now, then,” Sunil says, then gets to his feet and strides over to the teacher’s desk and back again, empty-handed, before I can even stop him. I was going to give it one more edit.
If I don’t, though, that gives me one more hour to spend on our science project. One more hour to figure out how not to flunk out of grade ten science. How not to flunk out of life.
“Do you guys—” At my words, Sunil and Eric break off their gesticulating about some game—hockey, probably—and turn to look at me, expectantly. Not exactly killer stares, but still, my mouth becomes a desert, arid and hot and empty.