All Adults Here(32)
“Two to a seat,” the driver said, after she’d cranked the door shut. “Find another seat, miss.”
The girl on top rolled her eyes, and there was some whispered negotiation, and then the three all switched places, a game of human three-card monte, and one, the tallest of the three, got spit out into the aisle.
“That’s Sidney, at the window,” August said, “and those are her henchmen, Bailey and Liesel. Liesel’s the one who got the boot.” Booted Liesel had sulked back two rows, and now was sitting next to a girl with large headphones who had not acknowledged her existence.
Cecelia leaned back against the squeaky vinyl of the bus seat. They didn’t look like her friends at home, not really—compared to Brooklyn, Clapham was about as white as a snowstorm in Vermont—but seeing them all together, a posse, reminded her of what she didn’t have anymore. She felt simultaneously grateful to be on this weird murderous school bus and mad that she was the one who had been deemed least important and kicked to the proverbial aisle.
“Are you okay?” August asked. “You look kind of green.”
“I’m fine,” Cecelia said.
“Well, we’re here.” The bus rounded another corner and pulled up in front of the school. It slowed to a stop, and everyone stood up and lumbered off, the exact opposite of people hurrying to get off an airplane. It seemed to Cecelia that if this new bus driver had taken off and kept driving, everyone would have sat back down and been willing runaways. August and Cecelia were the last ones off the bus, and when Cecelia hit the pavement in front of the school, the clump of identical girls was standing a few feet in front of her, each one checking her makeup in her phone’s forward-facing camera.
The second-in-command, Bailey, made eye contact with Cecelia through the screen, and then whipped her head around. “What?”
This made the other two girls turn as well. New students, in a school of any size less than gigantic, meant potential ripples in the social hierarchy. They had to make sure Cecelia wasn’t a threat.
“You’re new?” Sidney asked. Up close, Cecelia could see the differences between the three girls. Liesel was a good four inches taller, a fact that she tried to correct with terrible posture, with a rip in only the left knee of her skintight jeans. Bailey was the blonde, with a face as round as a full moon, and rips in both knees. And Sidney, clearly in charge, had an upturned nose like a sniffling pug that had been told it was beautiful every day of its butt-sniffing life. Reality had no bearing on her power. Cecelia recognized her type immediately—it was the same look Katherine would have given her, the Queen Bee stare, and somehow identifying it as such did not lessen the impact.
Cecelia nodded. “Yeah, hi!” She waved, her heart beating fast. Friendliness was key to survival.
“Um, okay,” Bailey said, and turned back to her phone.
Liesel and Sidney followed suit. When they walked by, August leaned over and whispered into Sidney’s ear, “She’s a witch,” and then he hooked his arm through Cecelia’s elbow and they walked into school. Once they were safely through the front door, Cecelia laughed nervously.
“Don’t worry,” August said. “If she really thinks you’re a witch, she’ll at least give you a little distance. You’re not, are you?” He paused for effect and then pretended to be relieved when she shook her head. Cecelia crossed her arms over her chest. The jumpsuit was a little heavy for the day, but she’d worn it anyway, like a suit of armor. It was okay, it was okay. Cecelia often felt like she was late to things—late to her period, late to attempting to put on eye makeup, late to her life—but maybe she was showing up in Clapham at the right time. Maybe those girls weren’t so bad. Maybe, just maybe, Cecelia would always know August, even when they were fifty years old, even if August moved to Buenos Aires and became a flamenco instructor, even if he became a Rockette, or a doctor, or an astronaut. It was a reassuring idea. Just because her last friends hadn’t stuck around didn’t mean it would happen again. She could be cool this time; she could roll with it, whatever it was. Friendship was so weird. People spent so much time talking about falling in love, but making friends was just as hard—if you thought about it, it was crazy: Here, meet some total strangers, tell them all your secrets, expect no hurt or humiliation to come of it.
“Not that I know of.” She looked down and realized she was still holding half a muffin in her hand, and so she stuffed the rest into her mouth and crumpled the wrapper in her hand, holding it there like a good luck charm.
* * *
—
The eighth grade had four different homeroom classes, each with thirty students. Thirty sounded like a lot but the rooms were enormous and spacious, with a tidy, labeled desk for each of them, all with their own narrow pencil grooves. Cecelia’s seat was in the second row from the back—alphabetical. That seemed in some way discriminatory, or at the very least, rude. What if she had terrible eyesight? What if she had a quiet speaking voice? In her Brooklyn school, where half the students had teacher’s aides to assist with their ADD or ADHD or their autism, the teachers arranged the room over and over again like a game of Jenga, always trying to make sure that so-and-so didn’t climb out the window, or that so-and-so’s parents didn’t call to complain about her treatment in the great educational machine of New York City. Clapham Junior High looked, on the inside, the way her Brooklyn school looked in 1960, probably. The carpets were clean, with earth-toned concentric circles. The water fountains shot springy geysers high into the air. The bathroom’s tampon machines worked. August was in another homeroom, which meant that she had to say goodbye after he helped her find the office and jimmy open her locker, and now she was alone. Alone with twenty-nine other kids and one adult, her new homeroom/English teacher, Ms. Skolnick, Cecelia slid into her seat and gently put her empty notebook down on the desk.