Made You Up(11)

They fell right out of their covers like guts out of a fish.

“Looks like someone destroyed the binding in your books,” said Miles.

No shit, asshat. Screw him—Blue Eyes or not, I wasn’t putting up with this.

I picked up my ruined books, stuffed them into my bag, and slammed my locker shut. “Guess I’ll have to fix them.” And then I stomped off toward the gym, knowing I wouldn’t be able to get away from him now.





Chapter Six




Tucker was wrong about the East Shoal Recreational Athletics Support Club. Miles hadn’t chosen that name. Principal McCoy had, and he’d told me so when he explained my mandatory community service to me and my mother.

I walked to the main gym now with Miles on my heels. His cat stare burned into my shoulder blades. I stopped inside the gym doors and looked around, trying to be inconspicuous about spinning in circles.

The gym was older than the one at Hillpark; I’d expected it to be newer, remodeled, like East Shoal’s disgustingly expensive football stadium. The bleacher row adjacent to the main doors housed the table with the scoreboard controls. The basketball goals were raised to the ceiling, giving me a straight view across the gym to the scoreboard hanging on the far wall. “East Shoal High School” was spelled along its top in green letters.

Miles tapped me on the shoulder. Just the tip of his index finger, just a jolt; I jumped.

“Don’t keep them waiting,” he said, slipping past me.

At the scorer’s table stood five kids laughing together. One of them was a girl I recognized from English; she had a pair of pencils spiking out of her messy blond bun. The two boys standing next to her were so identical I couldn’t tell them apart. I’d never seen the other two, but every one of them stood at attention when Miles walked up. I hovered awkwardly behind him.

“This is Alex,” he said without any sort of greeting. “Alex, this is Theophilia.” He motioned to the girl from English class.

“Just Theo,” the girl replied, glaring at him.

“—and these are her brothers, Evan and Ian.” He motioned to the two identical boys, who grinned in unison.

“To reduce confusion, we’re triplets.” Theo thrust out a hand, very businesslike. “And please don’t call me Theophilia.”

“No worries,” I said, staring at her hand—guilt had made me shake Miles’s, but I had no good reason to go near hers. “My parents wanted two boys—they named me after Alexander the Great and my sister after Charlemagne.”

Theo put her hand down, apparently not at all offended by my refusal to shake it, and laughed. “Yeah, my parents wanted boys, too. Instead they got two idiots and a girl.”

“Hey!” Theo’s brothers cried in unison. She dropped the clipboard and faked a punch toward their crotches. Both boys recoiled. I knew how genetics worked—even normal identical twins didn’t look as identical as Theo’s brothers. My fingers tightened around my camera.

Miles rolled his eyes and went on. “And this is Jetta Lorenc and Art Babrow.”

Jetta shot Miles a dimpled smile, shoveling her mass of curly hair back over her shoulder. “Eet is nice to meet you,” she said, holding out a hand like she’d wait as long as it took for me to shake it.

I didn’t. “Are you French?” I asked instead.

“Oui!”

Foreign. Foreign spy. French Communist Party acted on Stalin’s instructions during part of World War II. French Communist spy.

Stop it stop it stop it

I turned to Art, a black kid who was a foot and a half taller than me and whose pecs were about to burst out of his shirt and eat someone. I gave him a two on the delusion detector. I didn’t trust those pecs.

“Hi,” he rumbled.

I waved weakly.

“This is the rest of the club,” Miles said, gesturing around to all of them. “Theo, concession stand. Evan and Ian, bleacher duty.”

“Aye aye, Boss!” The triplets saluted and left for their posts.

“Jetta, net and ball carts. Art, get the poles.”

The other two departed as well. I relaxed once they were all gone, even though I still had Miles to deal with. Miles, who turned to the scoreboard controls and forgot about me.

“So what do I do?” I asked.

He ignored me.

“MILES.”

He turned, sporting the Magnificent Quirked Eyebrow.