“Or maybe the spell’s not all the way broken yet. It might just take awhile to wear off, and tomorrow they’ll all wake up feeling like normal people, with no memory of all this,” Ganke suggested.
“Hmm. Maybe.” Miles pondered for a moment before tacking on, “It’s just crazy, man.”
“Yeah it is,” Ganke agreed, grimacing at Miles’s wounds. “Yo, by the way,” he continued, now moving the chair out of the way—video game controller dangling from it—so he could get to his desk. “While you were out doing…all of that”—Ganke pointed at the wounds—“I was in here playing video games to keep my mind off the fact that you might get yourself killed. And I was enjoying myself, just breaking bricks and going down sewer pipes—Wow…We’re, like, in sync, man! Anyway, I was doing my thing until I got a bang on the door. Scared me to death, man. I literally almost dove out the window, that, by the way, you left open.”
“Who was it?” Miles pressed his face lightly, feeling for any sore spots.
“Alicia.”
His hand dropped. Miles turned toward Ganke, his eyes suddenly lively. “She told me to give this to you,” Ganke said, holding up a folded piece of paper.
Miles almost killed himself trying to get across the room, tripping over the controller cord. Everything painful, none of it mattering. He snatched the paper and unfolded it, the smell of sandalwood ghosting up into his nose.
YES, IT’S SANDALWOOD. AND…
You don’t think I see you, hiding in the window looking at me, looking at you, looking for some sense in poetry; But don’t you know, poetry isn’t the prize, it’s the prelude.
Miles played video games with Ganke for the rest of the day, something he hadn’t done all week. And between the gaming binge, Miles reread the poem, sniffed the paper like a weirdo. And once he climbed into bed that night and fell asleep, he stayed there, and woke up the next day rested. No bad dreams. No sweats. No crawling the walls. No haunting relatives. Just sleep.
Ganke was already up. He was staring at the ceiling, his phone on his chest, as Miles rolled over.
“Yo,” Miles called. “You aight?”
Ganke slowly rolled his head to the side, nodded slightly. “Just texted my parents.”
“Yeah?” Miles wiped crust from the side of his mouth. Drool was always a great sign of a good night’s rest.
“Yeah. At the same time. Group text.”
Uh-oh, Miles thought. Knowing Ganke, it could have been a crazy, off-the-cuff joke, or a text explosion of the emotions Miles had been watching him hold in.
“Uh-oh,” Miles decided to say out loud. “What did you say?”
Ganke smirked, rolled his head back and returned his eyes to the ceiling.
“I told them I loved them.”
“That’s all?” Miles asked.
“Yeah.” Ganke nodded. “And they both texted back, I love you, too.” Ganke’s eyes shone with water. He blinked, wiped the tears away before they fell.
Miles sat up, his body still stiff. He felt an itch on his thigh, reached down to scratch it, and realized it was Alicia’s letter stuck to his leg. Miles unfolded it for what was probably the twentieth time and held it up to his face. He knew Ganke needed a laugh. Ganke always knew how to take the sting out of everything. Now Miles was going to try to return the favor.
“And I love you, Alicia,” Miles said, in a high-toned squeal. “So, so much.” He started kissing the paper, kiss, kiss, kiss, before shouting, “I spilled the salsa! Ganke, I spilled it! I spilled the salsa! Wepa!”
Ganke cracked a smile, and for Miles, that was enough.
As Miles headed to Blaufuss’s class, he saw Alicia standing in a crowd outside the room with Winnie, Dawn, and…Ganke. Ganke glanced up and saw him, that signature smile wiped across his face as usual. Ganke mischievously waved him over, and Miles tried his best to send some sort of telepathic middle finger to his best friend. As he approached the group, Miles tried to take deep breaths to calm himself down.
Wassup? he said to himself.
No. Hi. Hey, he tried, but didn’t like it. He was quickly approaching.
What’s good? No. Too much. But she from Harlem. So…maybe.
And then he was standing in front of them. In front of her.
“Hey,” Miles muttered.
“Wassup, Miles.” Winnie spoke first. Then headed into the classroom, along with Dawn.
“Hello, Miles,” Ganke said. Eyebrow bounce. Pinched laughter. Noticing the look on Miles’s face, Ganke stuck his thumb up and moonwalked away.
“What’s good?” Alicia asked, her lips twisted.
“I…um…I got your letter. Your poem.” His stomach rumbled like he’d swallowed a car engine.
“And I got yours,” she replied. Her voice was warm, confident, though Miles thought he could hear a slight tremor in it. “It was sweet.”
“So was yours. I mean, it was—”
“How did you know it was sandalwood?” She cut to the chase, smiling.
Before Miles could answer, Ms. Blaufuss poked her head out of the classroom. “The bell’s about to ring. Y’all coming in?”
“Do we have a choice?” Alicia asked, snarky.
“You always have a choice.” Ms. Blaufuss winked.
After Mrs. Blaufuss’s class, when Miles was heading down to the cafeteria for lunch, he saw Mr. Chamberlain in the hallway. Miles knew there was a good chance Mr. Chamberlain would be at school. Why wouldn’t he be? But what Miles didn’t know was if Chamberlain would be different now that the Warden was dead. Stop treating him unfairly. You chop off the head to stop the feet. Just made sense to Miles, especially since he had experienced the Warden’s mind games firsthand. Miles figured the best way to gauge this was to first see if Chamberlain’s presence would trigger his spidey-sense. He walked up behind Mr. Chamberlain. Felt nothing. No buzz. So he decided to test him in a different way—by speaking.
“Um, excuse me, Mr. Chamberlain?” Miles said. He was even brave enough to tap Mr. Chamberlain on the shoulder. He turned around. His face no different than it usually was. Tight, weird-looking, not the most pleasant mug Miles had seen, that’s for sure. Miles stepped back, braced himself.
“Yes, Miles?”
Miles? Mr. Chamberlain hadn’t called Miles anything other than Morales all year. Miles looked in Chamberlain’s eyes, searching for the discomfort he always felt. But it wasn’t there. Just a strange-looking, mean-faced man waiting on Miles to say something. “Can I help you?”
“Oh…um…you know what, never mind. I’ll just ask when we get to class.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Yes. Yes, sir,” Miles said, turning around and continuing toward the cafeteria, a rush of satisfaction coming over him.
He told Ganke about it at lunch.
“Nothing happened?”
“Nothing. Even his tone of voice was different,” Miles explained.
“Well, that makes sense, because I just got out of his class and he definitely seemed…I don’t know, less weird.” Ganke dipped a fry in ketchup. “Thank God for Spider-Man, huh?” He chomped down on the fry. “Speaking of, let me ask you, does, uh, Spider-Man get the girl?”