The Impossible Knife of Memory(4)

“Why don’t I get paid for doing your homework?” I asked.

Topher handed me a quarter. “Denotation. For real.”

“Denotation: a noun that describes the action of a student refusing to take notes during class,” I said.

“Denotation,” said the new guy. “The precise meaning of a word, without any pesky implications attached to it.”

Topher took the quarter back and tossed it to his friend. “Butter, not cream cheese.”

“That’s it,” I said, laying my head back down. “I’m done.”

Gracie lobbed a crumpled napkin at my nose. “Just my Spanish, Hayley, puleeeeeze.”

“Why, exactly, should I do that?”

She pushed her books across the table to me. “Because you’re awesome.”

Along with tuna noodle casserole and the muffin basket, Gracie had been carrying a photo album that day she came to our door with muffins. In it were pictures of her kindergarten class—our kindergarten class, because I had been in it, too. Looking at mini-me in a hand-knit sweater and braids gave me goose bumps, but I couldn’t pin down exactly why. The only memory I had of kindergarten was peeing my pants during nap time, but Gracie said that never happened. Then she’d asked if I still liked peanut butter and banana sandwiches.

(Which, I will admit, freaked me out because they were my favorite and there was no way she could have guessed that.)

I did her vocab and handed it back to her as Topher’s friend returned to the table carrying a tray loaded down with bagels and cups of coffee.

“Seven and eighteen are wrong on purpose,” I told her. “To make it more realistic.”

“Good call,” she said. “Thanks.”

The flat-screen televisions mounted in the four corners of the room finally roused themselves and blinked on, tuned into one of the all-news stations. The students who were awake enough to notice gave a halfhearted cheer. I watched for a minute, reading the words that crawled across the bottom of the screen to see if there had been any disasters overnight. Nothing, except for the latest celebrity-worship crap and suicide bombers who blew up a market and a kindergarten on the other side of the world.

“Can I go back to sleep now?” I asked.

“You need to eat your breakfast,” the new guy said, handing me a bagel. “Nice hair, by the way. Is electric blue your natural color?”

“I don’t do breakfast,” I said. “And yes, I come from a long line of blue-haired people.”

“What’s a ‘motif,’” Topher asked, mouth filled with bagel.

“At least have some coffee,” the guy said. “You look like you could use it.”

“I didn’t ask for coffee,” I said.

“Motif: a recurring object or idea in a story.” The guy pulled a handful of assorted fake and real sugar packets out of the pocket of his green-and-brown-plaid flannel shirt and set them in front of me. “Wasn’t sure what you liked.”

“None of them. If I want coffee, I’ll get it myself. And you forgot structure.”

“What?”

“A literary motif is a recurring object, idea, or structure. You forgot structure.”

He looked at Gracie, then me, then back at Gracie, a smile slowly spreading across his face. “You were right, Rappaport.”

“What about me?” asked Topher. “I seconded the idea.”

Gracie said “Shhh” as the boys bumped fists.

“Right about what?” I asked. “What idea?”

“I sort of promised Finn that you would write an article,” Gracie said. “For the school newspaper. I told him you were good at English and stuff.”

“Is this a joke?” I asked.

Finn (what kind of parent names their kid after the body part of a fish?) pointed his bagel at me. “How long will it take you to pull together two hundred words on ‘World of Resources at the Library’?”

“Forever,” I said. “Because I’m not doing it.”

“What’s an unreliable narrator?” asked Topher.

“Come on, Hays,” said Gracie. “You haven’t signed up for anything, even though you promised you would. You need more friends, or at least a couple of people who will say hello to you in the hall. Writing for the newspaper is the perfect solution.”

“I don’t need a solution,” I said. “I don’t have a problem.”

Gracie ignored me. “Plus, you two have a lot in common.” She counted on her fingers. “You’re both tall, you’re both quiet, you’re both strangely smart, and you are both a little weird. No offense,” she quickly added. “Weird in, um, an adorkable way.”

“Is ‘adorkable’ a word?” asked Topher.

“Weird, quiet, and strangely smart?” I asked. “That describes people who make fertilizer bombs. Maybe he does, but not me.”

“Fertilizer bombs?” Finn asked.

“Unreliable narrator?” Topher repeated. “Anyone?”

“I’m not writing the article,” I said.

The flat screen blinked and pixelated, and the school’s mascot, Marty, a white guy with bulging biceps holding a hammer in each hand (we were the Belmont Machinists, God knows why) appeared.