The Impossible Knife of Memory(28)

“How many people are working on this thing?”

“Counting me? And you? Two.”

I laughed. “You are the worst high school newspaper editor ever, aren’t you?”

“My proudest achievement to date.” He finally opened the milk and gulped it down. When it was finished, he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “So do you hate me?”

“Because you said a dumb thing about women’s periods?”

“I was thinking more about the fact that you didn’t call or answer my texts after Saturday morning.”

“It was my phone.”

Finn groaned. “Come on, Blue Girl, something original, please.” He took a deep breath. “I know . . . I was . . .” He sighed. “I ambushed you with the date thing. I’m sorry if it pissed you off.”

“Pissed me off?”

He leaned forward and banged his forehead on the table three times.

“Stop that!” I put my hand between his head and the table. “Are you crazy?”

“Certifiable,” he said.

“Look. I wasn’t making it up.” I dug Dad’s guilt-present phone out of my backpack and handed it to him. “My old phone was killed on Saturday, just as you were texting me. I got this one yesterday and I don’t have anyone’s numbers and I couldn’t ask Gracie because, well, things at my house were weird.”

“Weird with your dad or weird with the 10th Mountain Division?”

“With my dad,” I explained. “And those guys were the 101st, out of Kentucky. They left early Saturday morning.”

Finn perked up. “So you weren’t ignoring me because you hated me because I lied to you about Friday night and, in fact, if you recall our conversation, offered to pay you for what turned into a date?”

I hesitated while I picked through all the clauses he’d shoved into that question. “Ignoring you, no,” I said. “And we agreed that it was an anti-date, remember?”

He relaxed and laughed. “Excellent! I was starting to feel a little less than confident about the whole thing. But!” He pointed at me, then leaned so close that my vision blurred and made two faces of his one. “Now the truth can come out. You were on a secret mission all weekend. Black ops. Which was the real reason those soldiers were there. Don’t worry,” he sat back up, “you don’t have to explain the details. I understand everything.”

“Everything?”

He opened his second container of chocolate milk. “I spent the weekend contacting sources and bullying reluctant suspects. I know it all: your years working for the British secret service, the favor you did for the Swedish royal family, and the fact that you speak twenty-seven languages fluently.”

I took the chocolate milk from him and sipped. “Twenty-eight.”

“What?”

“I speak twenty-eight languages. You probably forgot Udmurt. Most people do.”

“Udmurt?” He laced his fingers together behind his head, showing a shocking amount of bicep and pec definition under the thin material of his shirt. “You are flirting with me, Miss Blue.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” I muttered, blushing so hard I expected the sprinkler system to activate.

“Oh, yeah,” Finn said, grinning. “I’d like to go on record as stating that if you come to your senses and decide never to talk to me again, I will cherish this moment forever. Udmurt. That was awesome.”

Before I could deconstruct that sentence and figure out if he was mocking, teasing, or paying me a compliment, Topher burst in through the door and ran over to us.

“You better come,” he said, panting. “She is seriously freaking out. In the bathroom.”





_*_ 36 _*_

Based on his panic level, I expected the hall to be filled with a SWAT team and hostage negotiators. Instead, I found a group of girls standing in front of the bathroom door, waiting like excited spectators at a medieval hanging.

“You can’t go in there,” the tallest one said to me, stepping in front of the door.

“Yeah,” chimed in the one wearing pajama pants and furry boots. “Our friend needs some privacy.”

Inside the bathroom, Gracie sobbed.

“Your friend?” I asked.

“She’s having a really hard time,” said the third girl, her voice oily with drama.

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

“She’s depressed,” said the tall one.

“Suicidal,” said Pajamas.

“Or it could be her period,” said the third one.

The slack-faced, highlighted zombies stared at me, trying on the different expressions of concern and self-righteousness they’d memorized from reality shows. I looked around, hoping to see someone who actually knew what to do in a situation like this, but found only Topher and Finn, a few steps behind him.

“Do you know her name?” I asked the girls.

“What?” asked Pajamas.

“What’s your friend’s name?” I asked. “The one who is in there crying?”

“Her name is Gwen,” said the third one. “I think she’s in my gym class.”

“Get out of my way.” I pushed between them and opened the bathroom door.