All These Things I've Done (Birthright #1)(15)

‘Well, it’s a very small school,’ I replied. I showed him my slate screen. ‘I’ve not gotten very far. I like to spend time thinking at the beginning.’

‘Makes sense,’ he said. He put on a pair of gloves, a gesture I appreciated in a potential lab partner, then he pointed to the backs of her bottom teeth. ‘Look, the enamel’s damaged.’

I leaned over. ‘Oh!’ I hadn’t looked at the back yet. ‘She must have been throwing up.’

‘She must have been sick,’ he said.

‘Or making herself sick,’ I added.

‘Yes.’ Win nodded. He lowered his head so that he was eye to teeth. ‘I think you’re right, Anya. Our girl was making herself sick.’

I smiled at him. ‘Her whole life story right here, waiting for us to read it.’

He agreed. ‘It’s sad when you think about it, but also kind of beautiful.’

It was a strange thing to say, I suppose. But I knew what he meant without having to ask. All these teeth had once been in real, live people. They had talked and smiled and eaten and sung and cursed and prayed. They had brushed and flossed and died. In English class, we read poems about death, but here, right in front of me, was a poem about death, too. Only this poem was true. I had experienced death, and poems hadn’t helped me one bit. Poems didn’t matter. Evidence did.

It wasn’t even 8.00 a.m. yet. Pretty early for such deep thoughts.

Still, that’s what I loved about forensic science.

I wondered if Win had ever had someone close to him die.

The bell rang. Win gently put away the teeth, marking the tray with a piece of tape that read BALANCHINE DELACROIX – DO NOT TOUCH!!! I slipped my slate into my bag.

‘See you at lunch,’ he said.

‘I’ll be the girl in the hairnet,’ I replied.

For my physical education elective (fourth period), I was in Advanced Fencing. The ‘advanced’ designation did not speak particularly to my skill but to the fact that I had completed two previous years of fencing. The sport was kind of ridiculous when it came down to it. Despite being an ‘advanced’ fencer, if I were ever in mortal danger I wouldn’t use one iota of fencing knowledge. I’d use a gun.

Scarlet was my fencing partner and, though she filled out the outfit nicely, she and I were equally clueless fencers. The thing was, she could actually strike a series of plausible offensive poses, and I had the knack for striking appropriate, corresponding defensive postures. I’m reasonably sure that Mr Jarre, the fencing master, saw through us, but he didn’t really care. We bolstered the head count in Advanced Fencing, which meant that the class wouldn’t get cancelled.

After warm-ups, which included lunging and stretching, we broke off into pairs.

Scarlet and I fenced (sort of) and talked (mostly).

‘So it’s Friday, which means we have to ask Win today,’ she reminded me.

I groaned. ‘Seriously, just ask him yourself. I’ll come, but . . .’

Scarlet tapped my shoulder lightly with the foil. ‘A touch!’ I yelled, mainly for Mr Jarre’s benefit. Then I staggered several steps backward.

‘It’ll sound more casual if you’re there. Stop by about five minutes before lunch is over,’ she said. ‘And, Anya, my love, if you think of it, take off the hairnet.’

‘Funny,’ I said. I launched my foil into her hip.

‘Ow,’ she said. ‘I mean, a touch!’

It was the last day of lunch duty, and I think I can say I was finally getting the hang of it. I knew how to pick up multiple trays without getting anything in my hair or on myself, and I knew how to serve Gable’s table with a sarcastic ‘Y’all come back now’ smile.

As I picked up Gable’s tray, he said, ‘Hope you learned your lesson.’

‘Oh, I did,’ I said. ‘And thank you so very much for teaching me.’ I dropped the tray on to the cart so that a little bit of lunch (ground tofu with mysterious red sauce in a bun – Asian Delight?) splashed on his face. ‘Sorry,’ I said, and then I rolled my cart away before he had a chance to respond.

I unloaded the trays on to the dish-cleaning belt, at which point the head lunch lady gave me permission to eat my own lunch. ‘Good work, Anya,’ she said. I know it was just lunch duty but I was still glad that she thought I had done a good job. Daddy always said that once you’d committed (or were committed) to something, you had to honour it all the way.

Scarlet was sitting with Win and several of her friends from the drama club. I sat down next to Scarlet and said my line. ‘So are we still going to Little Egypt tonight?’

‘What’s Little Egypt?’ Win asked, which was, conveniently enough, exactly what he was supposed to ask.

‘Oh, it’s kind of dumb,’ Scarlet replied. ‘It’s this nightclub that the city opened in the northern part of that abandoned museum on Fifth. There used to be a collection of Egyptian stuff there, which is why they call it Little Egypt.’ There were similar nightclubs in various abandoned structures across the city. They were a modest but steady source of revenue for the government, which was usually on the verge of a total financial collapse. ‘It’s lame, but kind of cool if you haven’t been there before and, I don’t know, j’adore le discothèque!’ (You will recall that Win and Scarlet had French together.)