To my delight, Papa agrees, and I generously offer to work out the schedule for everyone.
“Phone me when you need the lift home,” he says when he drops me off. It’s only as he’s driving away that I remember: my cell phone is broken.
After my math lesson, I collect the two books I reserved and spend lunch in the library, printing diagrams from the Internet and googling theorems to research. When my computer slot is up, I tuck the pages and myself away in a corner. Then I take Grey’s diary out of my book bag, and look up the entry for Midsummer’s Eve again.
I’m going to read about last summer. I’m going to blow my heart away. My sandwich leaves crumbs on the page—I wish I were eating Kartoffelsalat, not Cheddar on stale white sliced—and I brush them off, flipping ahead a day, a week, a fortnight later, to:
*R.
DRUNK ON PEONIES. CLOUDS OF THEM EXPLODING ALL OVER THE GARDEN.
GOTTIE IS IN LOVE.
I choke on my sandwich. Grey knew?
This time, I feel the wormhole before I see it, a tingling in the air. The sound of the universe expanding. Hauling myself up, I hold on to the shelves as I limp along the aisle, searching the spines. Latimer, Lee, L’Engle. When I pull A Wrinkle in Time from the shelf, I catch a glimpse of television fuzz and smell salt before I—
*
Jason is waiting when I come out of the sea.
It’s sunny, and his eyes are the same blue as the sky. This bit of the beach is empty. Only locals come this far down the sands, and anyway, it’s Monday.
“Yo, Margot,” he says when I sit down next to him. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
“Huh?” I put my head on one side and try to shake the water from my ears.
“I watched your stuff for you,” he clarifies with a sweeping gesture. “I mean, you might not worry about thieves, but…”
My “stuff” is a biography of Margaret Hamilton (the scientist, not the witch). A towel. A pile of clothes. The key to my bike lock. It’s sweet, though.
“It’s Holksea,” I point out. “I’m the most dangerous person here.”
He laughs and says, “You are dangerous. That bikini is criminal.”
I don’t know how to reply to that. It’s the same one I’ve always worn, but the boobs in it are brand-new, arriving by overnight express a couple of months ago. Sof’s been trying to educate me about the difference between a B cup and a balconette ever since.
The easiest response is to kiss him … The sun hot on my skin and the sea a distant sparkle as I close my eyes and we lean into each other. My lips are salty, my face wet and cold, our mouths warm. It makes me want to crawl all over him. But after a second, Jason pulls away.
“Listen,” he whispers, smoothing my wet hair back up into its topknot. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this here … Someone might see.”
“Like who? Holksea’s notorious criminal underworld?”
Jason smiles, then sighs, then stretches flat out on the sand. I’m never sure if I’ve done something wrong; his moods come and go like the tide.
“Hey.” I lean over him, put my face close to his, try to kiss him again.
“Ned would get all chaperoney,” he murmurs. “You’re younger than me. He’d keep an eye on us at every party, make sure we’re never alone.”
I’m pretty sure Sof would disapprove if I told her about me and Jason: he’s two years older. He’s in a band. I’ve never had a boyfriend, and Jason isn’t exactly training wheels. She’d definitely disapprove if I told her about this conversation. Which is why I’m not going to.
Even though school’s finished and our choices are narrowing—we’ve already had letters about college—strangely, oppositely, I can feel myself expanding. Changing. I want to stretch out like a tree towards the sun, the world at my fingertips. And Sof’s friendship is beginning to feel like a cage. She wants me to stay exactly the same.
Jason curls his fingers under my bikini strap, his hand brushing against my skin just where my tan fades to pale. He’s right about Ned. My brother’s seventies fashion sense also translates to his gender politics, when it comes to me. And I like this bubble we’re in. This club.
“Let’s keep us a secret,” I say, and it sounds like my idea. “For a bit.”
I float home on the promise of us.
*
—then I’m not sitting on the library floor anymore or floating home from Jason and the beach. I’m walking across the school car park, directly towards Sof. Aargh.
My hand is raised in a wave as I stagger in surprise, then try to incorporate it into my limp. Time has passed in real life, exactly like detention and the wormhole in Grey’s bedroom. The opposite of how things worked in Narnia.