He is two minutes late, sneaking in just as Mr Grayson trips over his laptop cable and sends his Mac crashing to the floor. There is a chorus of guffaws from the class. I use the distraction to cast a quick look over my shoulder. I’m not sure what to do when Joshua catches my eye as he folds his long body into his seat. The hair shielding his face makes it even harder for me to tell what he is thinking, but he holds my gaze with a fleeting smile before dropping his eyes to his books. I do notice that he shuffles his chair over, as far away as he can get from Damien, who has just discovered the diagram of a naked woman in our textbook and is protesting loudly about the apparently disappointing size of her breasts.
Elsie gives me a look as I turn back. ‘You’re in a weird mood,’ she says without preamble.
‘What? Why? I’m in a normal mood, Elsie. A normal, third-period Bio mood, just hoping I can make it through class without catching a glimpse of Lucas Kelly’s willy.’ I gesture behind me, where, due to the unfortunate height of our lab benches, Lucas Kelly’s open fly is once again on display.
Elsie peeks behind us. ‘Jesus. That kid needs a bathroom buddy. Doesn’t he feel a breeze down there?’ Her brow is still furrowed when she looks back at me. I smile widely, flashing some teeth. I hold the smile in place for what I hope is a reasonable length of time, but judging by the look Elsie gives me, it’s as unconvincing as it feels.
‘Yeah. Okay, Sophia. You’re in a perfectly normal mood,’ she says with a snort.
I decide to keep my head in my work, despite the fact that I finished this unit’s exercises over last semester’s holidays. When I do look around, with eight minutes of class to go, Margo Cantor and Jonathan Tran are swinging their joined ankles beneath their bench like they’re holding hands with their feet, and Lucas’s fly remains persistently open. Joshua has his head buried in his pocket-sized notebook, seemingly ignoring whatever Damien is babbling in his ear. He uses the end of his pencil to push a strand of dark hair behind his ears, exposing one side of his face. I wonder if it’s a conscious gesture or a habitual tic.
My normal and perfectly reasonable behaviour continues until lunchtime. When the bell goes, I purposefully pack my bag without looking anywhere else before walking calmly to my locker. I don’t even descend into an irritated fugue when some guy with a football under his armpit grabs me briefly by the shoulders and moves me out of his way.
A tingling on the back of my neck makes me turn and scan the space behind me, but I see nothing of interest.
I open my locker. My books are just as I left them, my Feynman wedged beside my Physics notebook, my chicken-on-whole-wheat sandwich and pear in front. I slot my Bio folder and school diary inside, then grab my sandwich.
I’m juggling my lunch and books when a crisply folded piece of paper slips from between the pages of my diary. It flutters to my feet.
I look around quickly, but no-one seems to be paying me any attention. I unfold the paper, heart hammering. In the centre of the page, in small, familiar handwriting, is a basic parametric equation:
I grab a scrap of blank paper. With my head inside my locker and the paper balanced on my diary, I scribble out a quick Cartesian plane. It takes me about a minute to plot out the answer, and another thirty seconds or so with my graphics calculator to double check what I am seeing.
‘Oh, you have got to be kidding,’ I mutter. Ava Dawson, the hockey captain, who has the locker above mine, glances at me suspiciously. She hasn’t uttered a word to me all year; then again, I don’t think I’ve seen her pay attention to anything that doesn’t have a puck or stick in hand.
Ava strides off, muttering something about strange birds under her breath. I’m left staring at my hand-drawn parametric solution, a curve plotted across an x and y axis, which looks like this:
It is the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever been given. It’s the sort of thing the boys at primary school Maths camp hand to girls, all sweaty hands and eager smiles, crinkly notepaper encased within Valentine’s Day cards featuring kissing swans and too much glitter. It’s absurd, and super cheesy.
I turn the paper over. There is a tiny inscription on the other side, the same familiar neat calligraphy, that reads:
You’ll probably find this super cheesy. But I remembered this quote, and I thought of you.
And beneath that are the words:
In Mathematics, the art of proposing a question must be held of higher value than solving it.
There is no signature.
I fold the Cantor quote and the scribbled answer within the page that holds the equation, and slip them blindly into my pocket. My expression is reflected in the shiny metal as I slam my locker shut. I see confusion coupled with a hint of panic, which I’m guessing is customary when I’m confronted with the unfamiliar. My first thought is that I need to put a stop to this – only, I have no idea what exactly ‘this’ is.
I walk numbly down the corridor and out into the chilly air. I briefly acknowledge then quickly discard the something else I thought I saw in the background of my mystified expression.
It was faint, but I think it might have been the shadow of a smile.
The rest of the day passes without incident or further … encounters of any kind. Elsie and I eat lunch between the lichen-covered concrete lions that bookend the old library steps, huddled together as the wind whips wet leaves around us. There are probably more sensible spots to hang out. But it’s quiet and isolated here, and that, to my mind, makes it the best spot at St Augustine’s. I think I manage to behave somewhat normally, or at least, no stranger than usual – nothing that draws comment from Elsie. Every now and again I think about the parametrical heart in my pocket, and blush behind my school scarf. It’s on the tip of my tongue to blurt out everything to Elsie, except she’s in the middle of a diatribe about the road trip to Nashville she’s planning for her first ‘college vacation’, so I let her steer the conversation to her hypothetical future, and remain quiet.
I arrive home in the evening desperate for a shower and pyjamas. The walk from the bus is so cold that my skin feels prickly, tiny icicles jabbing beneath my blazer. I may not be looking forward to my future as an eccentric shut-in, but living permanently in fluffy pyjamas could be kind of a bonus.
The kitchen is quiet. A half-finished puzzle sits on the table, scattered pieces of tulips and a windmill that Mum and Dad abandoned last night.
I drop my bag, ears straining. From somewhere beyond the kitchen I register the sound of rhythmic thumping. Then there is a thud, and what sounds like a grunt of exertion.
I pause, my brain cycling through a series of alarming visions, courtesy of Elsie – the image of Viljami wearing a bikini and a Spiderman mask flashes behind my eyes.
Sometimes, I really wish my best friend was less evocative with her theories.