“I live next door to her. I’ll take her home,” said Josiah. “But call her absentee mother, do.” Freddy’s hand snuck into her pocket and wrapped itself around her key. She had absolutely no idea why.
There was another short lecture in which Josiah was informed, “You’re treading on thin ice, Mr. Lachance,” and Freddy was given a glass of water and another painkiller. Josiah had to steer her out of the office. She kept needing to squinch her eyes shut against the light, which got into her head and made the throbbing into stabbing.
It was some time before three. Even so, Rochelle and a few of her friends were out at the side of the school. The friends were smoking; Rochelle wasn’t. Freddy knew, as she emerged from the side door and nearly walked right into them, that this was where the Murphy’s day had been headed all along. Rochelle had been working up to this moment for weeks.
“Freddy,” she said. “I never thought you would turn out to be such a freak.”
Freddy shrugged. If this had happened on the first day of school, she would have been clutching her key and wishing she were dead, but she had now known for ages that Rochelle was getting ready to blow her off publicly.
And if Josiah had left it alone, that would likely have been that. Josiah was no more capable of leaving it alone than Cuerva Lachance was of paying attention to anything for more than five seconds at once. “In ten years,” he said, “you’re going to be working at Tim Hortons to support your three illegitimate children.”
“You idiot,” said Freddy out of the corner of her mouth.
Josiah glanced around, possibly noticing for the first time that Rochelle’s friends were quietly surrounding them. “I’ll distract them with my obvious difference,” said Josiah, “and you jog gently away.”
“I don’t think so,” said Rochelle. “Did you know people are still going around calling you my friend, Freddy? Don’t you think they should stop that?”
“Sure,” said Freddy. “Anything you say.” Rochelle hadn’t been like this in elementary school. Okay, maybe she’d liked to get her own way. It was possible she’d become sort of angry when she hadn’t. But … We used to play dress-up, for crying out loud. She always made up the best stories. I think she’s smarter than I am. Why does she have to act so … mean?
Rochelle backed her up against the school. Freddy felt the lump on her head touch concrete. Her vision went strange. She could see Josiah off behind Rochelle’s shoulder, but he seemed to be standing inside a rainbow. “Don’t ever talk to me,” said Rochelle. “Stay away from Cathy. You’re not our friend any more. We’ll be making sure everyone knows what a freak you are.”
“What,” said Freddy, “because I sometimes talk to someone you don’t like?”
She didn’t understand what she had done to make Rochelle hate her so much. Yes, you do. You know you do. She’s afraid people will think she’s friends with you. And you’re friends with him. She hadn’t realised she was friends with Josiah. It had crept up on her, like Keith in PE. She didn’t think she was fading into the background any more.
“You know why,” said Rochelle. She slammed Freddy’s head back against the wall.
*
“Are you properly conscious yet?” asked Josiah.
He was sitting on her couch. So, it seemed, was she. She had no memory of walking home. “What?”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” He propped his chin on his hand. “I think your good friend Rochelle is off hiding in her house, waiting for the cops to arrive.”
She tried to focus on him. “You called the cops?”
“No, but they ran as if I had. Passing out was the smartest thing you could have done back there, by the way.”
“I still say we should call an ambulance,” said Mel, coming in with a glass of water and handing it to Freddy.
It had to be at least ten after three, then. Where had the last hour gone? “Why didn’t you?” asked Freddy.
“I just got here,” said Mel. “He said you were okay.”
“She will be,” said Josiah.
The headache wasn’t any better, but it wasn’t any worse, either. Freddy drank the water. “I don’t think I’m having a very good day,” she said when she was done.
“I would tell you to go to bed,” said Mel, “but I don’t think you should. The nurse may have been wrong when she said you didn’t have a concussion.”
“We could play a board game,” said Josiah, who may just have been the last person in the world Freddy would ever have imagined calmly playing Monopoly.
Mel and Josiah were still arguing over who got the blue pieces in Settlers of Catan when the front door slammed open and Roland ran into the living room.
He took in the situation at a glance. “I told you guys to stay away from him!”
“But you never said why,” Mel pointed out in her most reasonable voice and doubtless her most reasonable gestures as well.
“I didn’t have to say why. He needs to leave,” said Roland.
It was too much. The anger surged once more, threatening to choke her. But for once, and finally, something gave way.
Freddy said, “What’s your problem, anyway? He’s the only person in the whole school who doesn’t hate me. He helped me get home after Rochelle almost bashed my head in. You didn’t.”
Roland blinked at her, clearly startled. She thought she knew why. She did snipe at him sometimes, but she mostly just backed down and simmered rather than confronting him directly. “I’m not psychic,” said Roland. “Rochelle what?”
“You know, why don’t you just leave it? You can play the red settler if you join in now,” said Mel, waggling a handful of game pieces invitingly.
Mel wasn’t very good at defusing situations. “I’m not playing, and neither are you,” said Roland, and he turned to Josiah. “Get out.”
“Okay,” said Josiah, “you can play the blue settler.”
Freddy said, “I never thought you were a bully.”
She saw Roland’s eyes widen. “A bully?”
“What else is it when you order people around and don’t say why?” said Freddy.
“You could trust me,” said Roland.
She stood up. The room spun around her, then steadied. “Why? Because you like me so much?”
“You’re my stepsister,” said Roland. “I don’t have to like you.”
“Oh dear,” said Mel in her best old lady voice, and began to clear up Settlers.
“Thanks,” said Freddy. “Everybody else hates me now; you wouldn’t want to be different.”
Roland took two slow, heavy steps into the room. “When have you ever given me any reason not to hate you? You’ve never wanted me here. You haven’t even bothered to learn to sign the stupid alphabet. Babies can sign the alphabet. I speak your language; why can’t you speak mine? And you’re horrified if I even just look at you at school.”
“That’s school,” said Freddy. “Don’t you even understand how that works?”
“What … you mean the way you slink around after your brainless friends and pretend everyone they don’t like has some kind of disease?”
“Well, they don’t like me now, so you should be happy. Now you can look at me at school.”
“I wouldn’t want to. You’re not even interesting. You’re the most boring person I’ve ever met.”