Lock and Key(12)

He looked at me for a second. “Uh . . . yeah. I do.” He nodded at my mug. “You’re not eating?”

“I don’t like breakfast,” I told him.

“That’s crazy talk.” He pushed back his chair, walking over to grab two bowls out of a nearby cabinet, then stopped at the fridge, pulling it open and getting out some milk. “When I was a kid,” he said, coming over and plopping everything onto the table beside me, “my mom fixed us eggs or pancakes every morning. With sausage or bacon, and toast. You gotta have it. It’s brain food.”

I looked at him over my coffee cup as he grabbed one of the cereal boxes, ripping it open and filling a bowl. Then he added milk, filling it practically to the top, and plopped it on a plate before adding a muffin and a heaping serving of fruit salad. I was about to say something about being impressed with his appetite when he pushed the whole thing across to me. “Oh, no,” I said. “I can’t—”

“You don’t have to eat it all,” he said, shaking cereal into his own bowl. “Just some. You’ll need it, trust me.”

I shot him a wary look, then put down my mug, picking up the spoon and taking a bite. Across the table, his own mouth full of muffin, he grinned at me. “Good, right?”

I nodded just as there was another ping! from the laptop, followed immediately by one more. Jamie didn’t seem to notice, instead spearing a piece of pineapple with his fork. “So,” he said, “big day today.”

“I guess,” I said, taking another bite of cereal. I hated to admit it, but now I was starving and had to work not to shovel the food in nonstop. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had breakfast.

“I know a new school is tough,” he told me as there were three more pings in quick succession. God, he was popular. “My dad was in the military. Eight schools in twelve years. It sucked. I was always the new kid.”

“So how long did you go to Perkins Day?” I asked, figuring maybe a short stint would explain him actually liking it.

Ping. Ping. “I started as a junior. Best two years of my life.”

“Really.”

He raised an eyebrow at me, picking up a glass and helping himself to some orange juice. “You know,” he said, “I understand it’s not what you’re used to. But it’s also not as bad you think.”

I withheld comment as four more messages hit his page, followed by a thwacking noise behind me. I turned around just in time to see Roscoe wriggling through his dog door.

“Hey, buddy,” Jamie said to him as he trotted past us to his water bowl, “how’s the outside world?”

Roscoe’s only response was a prolonged period of slurping, his tags banging against the bowl. Now that I finally had a real chance to study him, I saw he was kind of cute, if you liked little dogs, which I did not. He had to be under twenty pounds, and was stocky, black with a white belly and feet, his ears poking straight up. Plus he had one of those pug noses, all smooshed up, which I supposed explained the adenoidal sounds I’d already come to see as his trademark. Once he was done drinking, he burped, then headed over toward us, stopping en route to lick up some stray muffin crumbs.

As I watched Roscoe, Jamie’s laptop kept pinging: he had to have gotten at least twenty messages in the last five minutes. “Should you . . . check that or something?” I asked.

“Check what?”

“Your page,” I said, nodding at the laptop. “You keep getting messages.”

“Nah, it can wait.” His face suddenly brightened. “Hey, sleepyhead! You’re running late.”

“Somebody kept hitting the snooze bar,” my sister grumbled as she came in, hair wet and dressed in black pants and a white blouse, her feet bare.

“The same somebody,” Jamie said, getting to his feet and meeting her at the island, “who was down here a full half hour ahead of you.”

Cora rolled her eyes, kissing him on the cheek and pouring herself a cup of coffee. Then she bent down, mug in her hand, to pet Roscoe, who was circling her feet. “You guys should get going soon,” she said. “There’ll be traffic.”

“Back roads,” Jamie said confidently as I pushed back my chair, tugging down my sweater again before carrying my now empty bowl and plate to the sink. “I used to be able to get to the Day in ten minutes flat, including any necessary stoplights.”

“That was ten years ago,” Cora told him. “Times have changed.”

“Not that much,” he said.

His laptop pinged again, but Cora, like him, didn’t seem to notice. Instead, she was watching me as I bent down, sliding my plate into the dishwasher. “Do you . . . ?” she said, then stopped. When I glanced up at her, she said, “Maybe you should borrow something of mine to wear.”

“I’m fine,” I said.

She bit her lip, looking right at the strip of exposed stomach between the hem of my sweater and the buckle on my jeans I’d been trying to cover all morning. “Just come on,” she said.

We climbed the stairs silently, her leading the way up and into her room, which was enormous, the walls a pale, cool blue. I was not surprised to see that it was neat as a pin, the bed made with pillows arranged so precisely you just knew there was a diagram in a nearby drawer somewhere. Like my room, there were also lots of windows and a skylight, as well as a much bigger balcony that led down to a series of decks below.