I tapped my foot on the floor. “Because I need that money for a cell phone, remember? Again…” I shrugged. “Your idea.”
He rolled his eyes but fished his wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans and reluctantly forked over two twenties. I snatched the crisp bills and folded them in half. “Thanks. You know, sometimes I think I’m the only sane one here.” I headed to the front of the classroom, and just as my hand found the doorknob, a shrill voice came from behind me.
“Ms. Frankenstein?” it said. “Where do you think you’re going? Class isn’t over for five more minutes.”
I knew the “time is relative” joke wouldn’t fly on Ms. Dot, who taught chemistry, not physics, but that didn’t stop me from considering it. Instead, I turned slowly on the spot, composing my mouth into something I hoped resembled a smile. To put this in perspective, for the past seven years, every single photograph in a yearbook that appeared over the words, Frankenstein, Victoria depicted a girl with a haircut that no matter the grade always seemed to be recovering from some sort of salon calamity and absolutely no smile. So I wasn’t what one would call a traditional “charmer.”
“Owen and I finished our experiment, Ms. Dot.” Smile stayed pinned in place. “I’m sorry, did you have something else planned for today?” Keep smiling, keep smiling.
Ms. Dot was a woman of cheesy holiday sweaters and, just by looking at her, you could tell she knew how to knit. The corners of her glasses swooped into purple wings that mimicked the patches of frizz on either side of her head. “No, I suppose not. But there’s still—”
“Thanks, Ms. Dot.” I cut over her like but there’s still were a perfectly natural end to whatever it was she was trying to say, and I didn’t feel bad because, really, if teachers expected me to sit through an entire period, wasn’t it their job to keep me interested enough to stay there?
The later lunch slot was still in session, and the hallway smelled like cafeteria burritos. I heard the door open behind me, and I picked up my pace, expecting to hear Ms. Dot.
“What are you doing?” This was a Ms. Dot thing to say, but unless Ms. Dot had swallowed a teenage boy whose voice just cracked, it wasn’t her.
I turned to see Owen following after me in what had to be the least athletic run of all time. His skinny legs bowed inward, and his ankles seemed to be made of melted cheese.
“Setting up an experiment,” I said. “Keep up, Bloch.” I led him to a card table draped in orange and black streamers and a puff-painted sign. A girl glanced up from her phone screen. “Four Homecoming tickets.” That was a sentence I never thought I’d say.
Owen’s money disappeared into the girl’s lockbox, and Owen groaned. “Has anyone ever told you, you don’t have a lot of patience?”
I counted the four tickets and handed one to Owen. “No, I try not to talk to anyone besides you and Adam.”
The bell rang to mark the end of the period. I grabbed Owen’s hand and pulled him toward the school’s west wing, where Adam had History. Students began pouring out of classrooms, and it was like trying to walk up a waterfall.
I spotted Adam’s head over the crowd, the expression on his face as vacant as if he’d truly been dead. I waved my hand. His eyes brightened, and he returned an excited wave, knocking a passerby in the skull with his elbow. He didn’t notice, and the kid slunk away, rubbing his scalp.
I had to admit, it was a good feeling being someone else’s Christmas morning. Adam hugged me, and my feet lifted off the ground. “Adam.” I held him by the elbows so that he would focus. “Remember what we talked about this morning?”
His eyebrows squished together. “No more kissing?”
“Wait, what?” Owen butted into our brain trust.
“No more kissing me,” I corrected.
“Wait, huh?” Owen looked from me to Adam then back to me. “When did this happen?”
“I need you to do something, okay?” I asked Adam. “You like Cassidy, right? Well, I want you to take these two tickets and ask her if she wants to go to Homecoming with you. Say it nicely, though.”
“Ask her to come with us?”
“No, ask her to go with you. Only you.” I put my finger on his chest.
“Can we go back to this kissing thing?” Owen was asking. Another bell rang. “Because I feel like I missed something here.” He raised his hand. “Follow-up question: Was there tongue?”
I spotted Cassidy applying fresh lip gloss in her locker mirror. How many times a day did a girl need to apply goo to her mouth, I wondered, and for a second, I questioned my plan to send Adam gallivanting off into the arms of someone who probably spent upward of ten minutes a day maintaining the appropriate level of goo to a part of the body that was intended for eating. And kissing, I quickly added in my mind. At least for girls like Cassidy Hyde.