A List of Cages(14)

She smiles when she sees me, and Charlie gives me a knowing look before he whines, “I’m starving.”

“You’re always starving.”

We’re still two periods away from lunch. After Government it’s time to grab Julian and bring him to Dr. Whitlock’s, then there’s nearly an hour of just sitting.

“But I’m really starving.” He looks pretty pitiful, actually.

“There might be some food in my backpack.”

He dives for it, and looks disgusted when he comes up with nothing but a Ziploc of carrots. “Well, this sucks,” he says, but he eats them anyway.

A minute later Mrs. Conner announces that we can work in groups. “We love you, Mrs. Conner!” I shout, then pull my desk next to Emerald’s because if you’re going to do an assignment with anyone, it should be her. I watch the totally engrossed way she works—for Emerald, every assignment’s a major one. I have the urge to unravel her braids or maybe touch the mole beneath her eye. Instead I ask her how Brett is.

She looks surprised for a second, then her whole face lights up—beautiful except for why she’s lighting up. “All right,” she answers.

“Amazing!” Camila corrects, leaning over their desks so I have no choice but to look down her shirt. “He’s taking her up in the plane this weekend.” Emerald’s blue eyes widen and she looks a little embarrassed, like maybe this whole sky date was supposed to be a secret.

“Seriously? That’s awesome.” Because seriously, it is. It’s exactly the sort of badass date you’d love to plan for your girlfriend, but instead you end up taking her to the food court at the mall.

“I guess.” Emerald lifts one shoulder in a graceful shrug.

“You guess?” There’s obviously no way to impress her. “I mean, seriously, I want to be Brett’s girlfriend.” She, Camila, and Charlie start to laugh. “Do you think Brett would consider a sister-wife thing?” More laughs. “Be sure to tell us how it goes.” Emerald shrugs again, looking more embarrassed than stoked.

For the rest of class I have this weird feeling. I’m trying to write, but for each word I’m picturing Emerald and the rower-pilot barreling through the clouds.




I take the note from Miss Hooper and step gingerly toward the hall. The pain has lessened, but I can still feel each cut stretching my skin when I move. When I open the door, Adam is there, only this time I’m expecting it, so I don’t embarrass myself. He’s smiling brightly, but I don’t really know what he’s thinking, because you can’t always believe smiles.

“Hey,” he says. “I wasn’t sure you’d be here. Dr. Whitlock said you’ve been out the past couple of days. Were you sick?”

I nod.

The morning after the punishment I woke up to find a twenty-dollar bill beneath the conch on my dresser, which meant I was allowed to miss school and order pizza. Seeing the money, I had the usual conflicting feelings. Guilt that he’d be going to work while I stayed home. But relief too. If he was letting me miss school and order food, he couldn’t be too angry anymore.

“Feeling better?” Adam asks.

I nod again.

“I hope you didn’t take a bunch of pharmaceuticals. That stuff’s poison.”

“No…”

“Good. You ready?”

I nod and fall in step beside him, watching our feet. I’m wearing my bleached white sneakers. Today his shoes are red high-tops, like Superman’s boots.

“So do you like to draw?”

I nod, even though I don’t.

“Cool. You’ll have to show me your work sometime.”

This is what happens when I lie. Almost instantly I’m put in some situation where I have to tell more lies or I’ll get caught. We walk in silence, but it’s actually not that uncomfortable, because he doesn’t seem to mind that I don’t know what to say.

“I took Art my sophomore year,” he says a couple minutes later, as if there was never any lull. “I sucked.”

He smiles, and now I wish I had just told the truth, because then we could have had sucking at art in common. He launches into a story about how his friend Charlie was in his class and went insane during the third week of their hallway projects. The hallway project, Adam says, sucks.

“You have to draw these three-dimensional hallways using nothing but tiny squares.” He explains that it requires a lot of patience and Charlie has none. “He tore up his paper and threw all his markers on the floor. He’s kind of a giant first grader.” Adam laughs, but I’m just staring in awe, because I’d be way too afraid to do something like that.

“I know, right?” he says, as if I said that aloud. “He got two days of ISS. Personally, I’ve never even gotten a detention. And…” He looks at me pointedly. “I’ve never ignored a faculty member’s summons and hidden out in the school.” He might be joking, but I’m not sure. “I really should stop hanging out with delinquents.”

“Is…?” Adam watches me, his expression patient, as if he doesn’t mind waiting for me to finish my question. “Is Charlie your best friend?”

“You mean, do we wear matching friendship bracelets and have photos of each other in our lockers?” He smirks, so I guess I said something stupid. “I don’t know. I mean, we’ve known each other since kindergarten. It’s funny—he’d never gone to preschool or anything before, so that first day he was flipping out. He cried, like, all morning, till I gave him my cookies at lunch.” Adam grins. “We’ve seen each other practically every day since then. Well, except for when we went to different middle schools. But I don’t think I’ve ever labeled anyone as Best Friend. I just have a lot of friends.”