She always forgot. She never truly wanted to go back to school in September, but the summer tended to mute the horror. The first day of school even seemed kind of exciting, a change of pace from the parade of Mel’s and Roland’s larger-than-life friends and the anger that was forever making her want to lock herself in her room and pull the covers over her head. But school was … well, it was school. There were black holes that caused, on a daily basis, less terror. This was only the first day, and already, Freddy could tell she was going to be groping for her key so often this year that the metal was going to start wearing away.
It hadn’t been the useless welcome assembly, during which she had sat alone in the midst of a squirming, jostling mass of fourteen-year-olds who were all the best friends ever. It hadn’t been the equally useless second welcome assembly, during which the kids from the School for the Deaf had been herded into the gymnasium and had sat there looking awkward and vaguely offended with the whole world as the two principals had droned on about Feelings. It hadn’t been the short homeroom period, during which Mme. Gauthier had twittered at them and tried what was apparently her best to make the entire concept of homeroom seem anything other than pointless. Freddy had handled all that simply by turning off her brain. The real horror of school happened in the in-between bits, of which lunchtime was the worst.
She had managed to stay unobtrusive and harmless so far, but now she was sitting with Rochelle and Cathy, and danger was everywhere. She wasn’t sure why she was eating with them; she thought it was just out of habit. Freddy had known it the second she had spotted the two of them whispering together in the hall: they weren’t friends with her any more. She looked at them and saw two girls with perfect hair and skin, breasts threatening to escape the confines of their shirts, tight jeans hugging their hips. Rochelle had been wearing makeup for more than a year, but now Cathy was, too. Beside them, Freddy felt small and grubby. She had grown a bit last year, finally, but so had everyone else in her class. She was still the shortest kid in grade nine. More worryingly, despite the fact that she’d had her first period a couple of months before, she had hardly developed at all in what Mel called “girl ways.” She wore a bra more out of hope than need.
Rochelle was being very … nice. At least, she was smiling a lot, and she had loudly mentioned how pretty Freddy’s shirt was. Since Freddy was wearing an oversized green T-shirt with a breast pocket, she was suspecting sarcasm. Rochelle’s sarcasm wasn’t like Mel’s. It was less friendly, and it was harder to tell whether or not it was there.
Now Rochelle said, “Who’s your boyfriend?”
Freddy stared at her. She wanted not to be sitting at this table, and she had no idea why anyone would think she had a boyfriend. “What?”
Rochelle nodded at a point behind Freddy. “He keeps looking at you.”
“He’s not cute,” said Cathy with a harsh giggle that set Freddy’s teeth on edge.
For a moment, she considered not looking. Her lack of interest in boys sometimes worried her, but not all that often. Rochelle would punish her if she didn’t look. Freddy turned around.
It took a few seconds before she found the boy and a few seconds more before she recognised him. When she did, she thought several bad words in a row. She should have known Josiah would be coming to school here. She should have known this might be a problem. At the house on Grosvenor Street, Josiah had seemed … well, not normal, exactly, but … sort of in context. He had fit the situation. Here, it was obvious that he wasn’t anything like a single other kid in this building. She could see the others starting to realise. He was the only person at his table, though the cafeteria was crowded. She wondered how long it had taken him to drive everybody else away.
Josiah was glowering at her through his bangs, which fell into his eyes and hid the cut that had bled all over him the day before. When he saw her looking, he pointed at her dramatically, punched himself in the forehead a couple of times, swung his legs out from under the table, and slipped off behind three tall boys who were trying to out-obnoxious one another.
“Weird,” said Rochelle. Freddy cringed. Rochelle thought weird people attracted other weird people. She was probably only a few seconds away from calling Freddy weird, too.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” said Freddy. “He’s just my neighbour.”
“Well,” said Rochelle, “you’re not mature enough to have a boyfriend.” She gave a quick little smile that didn’t mean anything.
Freddy poked at her sandwich, but her throat was so tight that swallowing was going to be pretty well impossible. She had known for most of the summer that Rochelle and Cathy were ignoring her. They hadn’t told her why, but she thought she knew. They looked like teenagers. She looked like a kid.
She had known them both since kindergarten. They had spent hours playing together. She had thought they would be friends forever.
“You will be,” said Cathy, not as earnestly as she seemed to think. “You’re just a late bloomer.”
“Yeah,” said Freddy. The thought of “blooming” as these two had “bloomed” made her face feel hot. She looked at her watch, purely for something to do. There was far too much time left in the lunch period.
“A watch?” said Rochelle. “Are you seriously wearing a watch? Who does that any more? Where’s your phone?”
Rochelle knew Freddy didn’t have a phone. She asked her mother for one at regular intervals because the kids laughed at her for not having one, and her mother always said, “Of course, dear,” and forgot all about it. It was more or less the way her mother dealt with everything she asked for. She knew she could have brought it up yet again, but the truth was that she didn’t really want to carry a phone around all the time. It would have felt like always being, well, reachable. Besides, she liked her watch, which was waterproof and wound itself when she moved and told her the date as well as the time and had six distinct settings, not all of them entirely comprehensible to her.
Freddy shrugged, her eyes down. She knew how Rochelle would be looking at her right now.
“I’ve got social studies after lunch,” said Cathy. “Oh my God, it’s going to be so boring. Mr. James is cute, though.”
“No,” said Rochelle.
“That’s what I meant,” said Cathy.