The Most Dangerous Place on Earth(48)
On a foggy Monday morning, Molly greeted her class and handed out the paperbacks, then sat atop an empty desk, resting her feet on a chair and her book on her knees. The kids settled back in their seats. On the couch at the back of the room, Ryan Harbinger sprawled with his head thrown back on the cushion, Samantha Aster tucked under his arm. Jonas Everett sat wide-kneed on the other end, and Steph Malcolm-Swann and Amelia Frye spooned on the center cushion; Steph was French-braiding Amelia’s hair. Molly began to read aloud. As soon as she started, five or six kids rested their heads on their desks, a few closed their eyes. She didn’t mind. She knew that they were listening, like little children. She believed that, despite all the optimistic theory she’d been taught, in the end this was the best she could do for them: to let them hear the language.
After several minutes she was interrupted by the squeaking open of the classroom door. Katie Norton peered into the room. Her eyes traveled with evident concern over the circles of desks, the couch crammed with kids in the back, the collage of posters, and the mess of the teacher’s desk, and landed on Molly.
“Good morning, Miss Nicoll. Sorry to interrupt. I have someone here who’s very eager to join you.” The principal turned and whispered urgently to a figure in the hall, then turned back and pulled the person in. In the principal’s grip, bare-headed and flush-faced, was Damon Flintov.
On seeing him, the class erupted in hoots and cheers. Ryan Harbinger jumped up from the couch to pump his fist and shout, “Yo, yo, yo! Flint in the motherfuckin’ building!”
“Free at last!” yelled Nick Brickston.
“Fuck yeah, bitches!” Damon hollered back.
“Hey!” Katie Norton snapped. “Is that the kind of language we use in here?”
“Of course not,” Molly said. “Come on, guys. We’re all just excited to see Damon.” Damon was grinning with his ruddy, chubby cheeks, the silver stud glinting over each eyebrow. But his blue eyes were luminous and clear, and a little uncertain. He was only a kid, after all. One of hers. Why had she been so afraid of him?
“We’re glad to have you back, Damon,” she said now. “We missed you.” As she said it, she realized she meant it. In a rush of good feeling, she stepped forward and embraced him. He smelled powerfully of boy: cigarettes and menthol deodorant and undertones of sour laundry. His chest was broad and fleshy and shielded by a T-shirt and she felt the queasy sensation of her breasts pressed against him, a fact of a hug that she remembered too late. His arms hung at his sides as she squeezed him. She heard him breathing. She felt him hesitate. She patted his shoulder blades and let him go.
Pulling away, Molly realized Katie Norton was watching them, arms crossed over her chest, on her face a contemplative frown. Months ago Molly might have rushed to Doug Ellison to debate what this meant. Now she knew better. She was trusting her instincts. She was doing her job.
THE DIME
Elisabeth Avarine ate lunch alone, on a low stone bench among orange trees, in a sun-baked courtyard. Her companion, in that little-populated corner of the school, was the small stone statue of a girl who sat atop the fountain in the center, gazing mutely with her head inclined. Perhaps it was the statue that drew Elisabeth here, day after day, or perhaps it was the faint citrus fragrance in the air, or the clock tower above, its arched windows revealing occasional flickers of light and ghosts. Perhaps it was that she simply found it easier to spend her lunches here, away from the groups on the front lawn and the smoking circles in the back parking lot and the crowds at the shopping center across the street. She had no obvious place in this complex social matrix nor the drive to insert herself within it. She preferred to be here—to tuck herself into this secluded, sunny courtyard, communing with a sixty-year-old statue, her small, contemplative face of stone, safely out of sight.
Nick Brickston, a person to whom she had never really spoken, stood before her, extending a wad of twenty-dollar bills and telling her he owed her. Telling her to take the money and spend it on, of all things, a party.
Elisabeth took a moment to process this. Squinting up at him, she saw a boy who was tall and thin with a sharp, narrow face, a boy who associated with slackers and tried to pass as one himself but whose eyes betrayed him, quick, intelligent, and dark. In response to these eyes Elisabeth’s mind went blank, as often happened when she was given the imperative to speak, converse, parlay, be normal—in short, she was afraid.
Finally she said, “I can’t take this.”
“Sure you can. You did your part. Our secret, right?”
Our secret. The phrase sent a rare thrill through her body: she felt as if a gate were cracking open, she was being led inside. At the SAT, the registrar had asked her about Nick and she’d denied knowing him, not out of any sense of loyalty but because it was her nature to say nothing, to remain safely uninvolved. Now she saw that her decision to keep quiet meant, potentially, much more. She told Nick, “With or without the money. I wouldn’t tell.”
He sat down next to her. Casual, close. He smelled like cigarettes. He sat the way boys did, legs spread wide so his knee nudged her thigh. Warm, assured, he pressed the wad of bills into her palm. “Look,” he said, “it’s cool. I want you to have it.”
“I can’t have a party,” she said.
“Of course you can.”
“What I mean is, I don’t—” she began, then stopped herself. Dipped her gaze to her lap, where her hands were clenched and knuckles white. How could she explain to someone like Nick Brickston, a boy who felt entitled to be everywhere, with anyone, I don’t have any friends? To know this fact was one thing; to say it, impossible.