Expelled(5)

Matthew—or maybe I should call him Professor Ellis, since his own daughter calls him by his first name—swirls the ice in his glass. “Well, it’s not as if you need to wake up early for school, my pet.”

“Touché,” Sasha says. “Theo got expelled, too, you know.”

“Yes, but I—” I start.

“I’ve got two delinquents in my kitchen?” Matthew exclaims. “My cup runneth over. Sasha thinks she’s too smart for school. Tell me, young man, are you of the same opinion?”

I wasn’t, but I didn’t want to have a conversation about it. I was sorry I’d come.

“I should probably go,” I say. “It’s late.”

Matthew shrugs, then turns to top off his glass. “Whatever floats your dinghy,” he says, his voice the epitome of apathy.

I meet Sasha’s eyes. “Youshouldcomehangoutwithus

tomorrow.” I say this in a rush, before I lose courage.

“What?”

“Me and Jude—”

“Jude and I,” Matthew interrupts.

I swear I can practically hear Jude’s voice: Dude, that’s a grammar cockblock!

I grab a pen and Post-it from the counter and scribble down an address. “Here,” I say. “If you want to. If you can. If you…” I let the sentence die.

Sasha takes the note and folds it into a tiny square. “Thanks,” she says.

“Sure,” I say. “See you soon.”

Even though I doubt I will.

It’d be a miracle if Sasha Ellis showed up tomorrow, and everybody knows there’s no such thing.





5


I have to unlock three deadbolts and jiggle a funky doorknob in exactly the right way to get into Jude’s house. Then I return the spare keys to their various garden hiding places before tiptoeing down the hall and up the stairs. (Why Jude’s lock-obsessed parents plant spare keys all over their yard remains one of life’s minor mysteries.)

Jude’s still asleep, with a pillow over his face.

“Rise and shine, Tiger,” I say, kicking the foot of his bed.

Jude sits up, looks over at the clock, and then picks it up like he’s going to throw it at me. “You have got to be kidding,” he says. “We don’t have to go to school, but you roll up here at six fucking thirty? What is wrong with you?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” I say.

“What does that have to do with me?”

“I bought you coffee,” I say. This is a lie: I bought myself coffee. But I set it on his bedside table because waking him up was a dick move—I can admit that.

Jude gives a big theatrical sigh and throws off his covers to reveal a pair of blue-and-white striped pajamas.

“Nice jammies, dude.”

He gives me the finger. “This is a two-hundred-dollar Paul Smith sleeping ensemble, FYI, and it’s nicer than the tux you would’ve worn to the prom had you (a) not gotten expelled and (b) managed to find a girl dumb enough to go with you.”

“What are you doing with shit that expensive?” I ask. “Forget my nonexistent tux—those pj’s are worth more than your car.”

“I have a rich uncle,” Jude says. “He knows I like the finer things in life, even if I can’t afford them.”

“Rich uncle sounds suspicious,” I say.

Jude rolls his eyes. “Don’t be gross. He’s my mom’s half brother, and I haven’t seen him since I was eight. Now close your eyes while I change so you aren’t blinded by all this,” he says while gesturing up and down.

I roll my eyes and turn to stare at Jude’s wall, which he’s covered with a huge hallucinatory mural that took him two whole years to paint. I’ve never taken acid, but if I look long enough at Jude’s mural, I start to feel like I have. There are people with frog heads, birds with lizard scales, and flowers with tiny leering faces hidden in their petals. It somehow manages to be both beautiful and scary as hell, and I hope Jude’s done changing soon because it’s starting to freak me out.

Jude’s dog, Alfie, appears in the doorway. Alfie’s small, white, and so hideously cute that Jude won’t walk him anymore because he can’t go three feet without someone asking to take his picture.

The secret to Alfie is that he’s a total pervert. He gives my leg a cursory sniff and then goes into the corner, where he carefully straddles one of Jude’s old stuffed animals, a faded pink pig with a ratty blue bow around its neck. I know exactly what’s going to happen next, and sure enough…

“Alfie’s humping Sex Pig again,” I say.

“He’s always horny in the morning,” Jude says. “Also, he and Sex Pig are in love. Okay, you can turn around now.”

Jude is dressed in cut-off jean shorts, vintage tube socks, and a T-shirt that says CEREAL KILLER, which is so fluorescent yellow it’s like being punched in the eye.

“I just can’t believe it,” I say.

“Believe what?” Jude asks. “How cool this T-shirt is?”

“That we aren’t going to school.”

“I know! We can drive to El Molino Central and eat, like, twelve breakfast tacos, and then we can—”

“But we’re not guilty!” I yell. I feel suddenly nauseated, and whether it’s from lack of sleep or the prospect of my new dead-end life I can’t tell.