‘So I found something. Saturday,’ I blurt.
He startles, smacking his head on the locker as he straightens and spins around. Someone has drawn an elaborate sign with the words ‘depressed vampire support group’ above his door. An arrow points into his locker; just in case the depressed vampires find themselves lost, I suppose.
Joshua’s eyes widen. He straightens to his full height, school tie in one hand.
‘Good morning,’ he says eventually, his nimble fingers looping the tie carefully around his neck. ‘How was your weekend, Sophia?’
‘Huh? Fine. It was whatever,’ I say impatiently. I fish through my blazer pockets. I’ve been obsessing about this since Saturday, but now, staring at Joshua’s face, I’m starting to feel somewhat foolish.
He smooths down his tie and tucks his hair behind one ear, then reaches back into his locker, emerging with a dogeared novel and a Further Maths textbook, the spine smooth and uncracked. I can see that he’s attempted to cover some of the more pornographic graffiti inside his locker with printouts of old posters. A sepia-tinted Harry Houdini ad is stuck to one side. I frown at it.
‘So what did you find?’ he says.
I thrust out the two-headed Lincoln. ‘Do you know anything about this?’
He places his books at his feet and takes the coin. He runs a thumbnail over the surface, then flicks it into the air and catches it between long fingers.
‘Well, I know these aren’t actually minted this way. They’re made by hollowing out a coin and then shaving down a second one so it fits inside. But, see, you can’t even tell where they’re stuck together. It takes awesome metalwork skills to do that.’
‘Well that’s pointless.’ I grimace. ‘I mean – why would anyone do that?’
He shrugs. ‘Cheating at coin tosses? Annoying the Maths teacher when they’re demonstrating Bayes’ theorem?’ He glances at me. ‘Some people consider them lucky,’ he adds lightly. ‘A talisman or something.’
‘Like a rabbit’s foot or some other piece of nothing that’s supposed to have mysterious power? You know that’s nonsense, right?’
He shrugs. ‘But it’s not the thing itself, is it? I mean, I’ve worn the same pair of socks into every exam for the past two years, and they’ve served me pretty well. Well, okay, the socks aren’t doing all that well. But it hasn’t hurt, right? Isn’t it just about belief? Like, I dunno, psychological reinforcement when you need it, or a corporeal something to focus on?’
Some guy jostles past with a snort as the word corporeal floats between us. I’m busy fending off a too-thick feeling in my brain, like the time Elsie’s brother Ryan accidentally shot an eight ball off their pool table and gave me a mild concussion.
I cast another glance at Joshua. He is resting his hip against the edge of the locker bank; his posture indicates that he is relaxed. The top third of a palm-sized notebook peeks from his blazer pocket, the Moleskine cover scattered with scribbles in a tiny and strangely ornate script that seems far too flamboyant for this nondescript boy. I run an exploratory eye over him, all milk-pale skin and shoulder-length hair. I can’t put my finger on why, but something about his long-limbed frame in the Augustine’s uniform just seems, somehow … discordant. On closer inspection, he isn’t even all that pale; his skin has adopted a slightly uneven pinkish hue, which deepens the longer I stare at him, like he’s just been for a run.
‘Numismatists,’ he says quickly. ‘Numismatists would be totally into this coin. People who collect –’
‘Coins. Currency. Yes, I know that.’ I blink at him. ‘So, then … you’re into coins?’
He tilts his head, like he’s thinking extra hard. ‘Define “into”,’ he says with a faint grin. ‘Cos it sounds like you’re asking if I have some sort of coin fetish. Like I sleep with a fresh pile of twenty-cent pieces under my pillow or something.’
Balls. Why the hell am I having this conversation? And, more to the point, why am I not walking away?
‘You just seem to know a lot about coins,’ I say weakly.
He walks the bronze coin between his knuckles, right down to his pinkie and back again. ‘I know a bit. For instance, did you know that archaeologists have found ancient Greek statues with coins hidden in their hands? I mean, think about it – there were Greek dudes who were awesome enough to be immortalised, and in mid classic-palm no less –’
‘Mid classic what?’
‘– and yet,’ he continues, switching the coin from his right hand to his left, ‘guys like Aristotle and Archimedes get to be glorified and remembered, while the illusionists are mostly forgotten.’
He flicks his hand over, the coin now sitting snugly in his palm.
I meet his eyes again– well, as best I can, considering my eyeline is somewhere around the middle of his tie. Trying to decipher his too-fast words is only intensifying that woolly sensation in my brain; less mild concussion and more like what I imagine my Uncle Roshan experienced after he was kicked in the head by a horse.
I stare instead at the coin, inert in his waiting hand. ‘So it’s yours?’
His eyes flicker between mine. The first-period bell chimes. The tempo of footfalls around us swells.
‘No,’ he says, holding the coin out to me. ‘It’s yours.’
I think there was a time, once, when I was capable of acting without weighing up a thousand alternate scenarios of disaster and doom. I’d wave my hand in the flame of a Bunsen burner, and sneak a taste of phenylthiourea in Chem lab, just to know what it felt like on my tongue. When I think back, I can barely recognise the me who was so reckless.
I reach out and take the coin from his hand.
‘There’s a penis under your Houdini,’ I blurt.
He wrinkles his nose as he looks at his locker, where an oversized willy is peeking out from under the edge of the poster. ‘Yeah. Whoever’s locker this was had some pretty unhealthy fixations.’
We stare, silently, at a sketch of a willy with a top hat and a moustache, until the warning bell dings, and Joshua clears his throat. ‘Don’t you need to get to class?’
‘Yes. Class. I have Drama,’ I say. I also wave my monologue book, just in case he has forgotten the English language in the last thirty seconds.
He gathers his things. ‘That’s not going well?’ He seems to be examining me extra closely, like I’m a particularly puzzling bacillus under a microscope.