Gone, Gone, Gone(17)

Fuck. I look up.

He raises his eyebrows at me. “Thoughts?”

So I say my first thought. “I think it’s really disrespectful and stupid to compare this to September eleventh.”

Mr. Spavich says, “Oh?”

I bet American Civ had a field day last year, with September 11th. God, how can I even think things like that? I should be arrested. How many awful thoughts do you need to have before you count as a terrorist?

Lio whispers, “Numbers,” but like he’s talking to himself, not to me. It’s still enough for me to get my bearings.

I clear my throat. “Yeah. I mean . . . we just had the anniversary, and already we’re looking for our next big tragedy? This doesn’t compare at all. And how many people died in the Pentagon?”

“One hundred and eighty-nine,” Mr. Spavich says.

Damn. That sounds so low. I thought it was more than that, and it throws me for a second, but then I remember what the Pentagon was and what this is and everything comes back faster and harder. I say, “But, yeah. A hundred and eighty-nine people versus six from a sniper? Like, a life is a life. . . .”


“And more lives is more lives,” Mr. Spavich completes. He says this like it’s my opinion, not his.

“Yes,” Lio whispers, my stomach feels sick.

I say, “I guess so, yeah.” My headache pulls and I realize that that isn’t what I meant at all.

That isn’t what made the Pentagon a bigger deal.

Because the reason I can’t compare this to September 11th is that no one I know has been shot by the sniper. Maybe I only feel stuff if I’m holding hands with someone getting obliterated, or at the very least holding the hand of someone holding the hand of someone getting obliterated, and f*ck, what does that say about my life?

Mr. Spavich asks who’s been watching the news, and a few of us raise our hands, including this one boy who says he can’t help watching the news because every time there’s a shooting it interrupts regular programming for hours and hours. He’s become an accidental rubbernecker. One girl says she isn’t sleeping, and normally I’d roll my eyes at this, because I hate when people pull that, but, God, she looks like shit.

Her parents are telling her to run in zigzag patterns.

There’s a boy wearing a camouflage jacket, and I guess it could be fashion statement, but I get the feeling it isn’t, because he’s tall and dark and stunning and I look at him a lot, but I’ve never seen that jacket before.

It’s stupid, that jacket, so stupid. This isn’t a jungle. This isn’t a war zone.





LIO

CRAIG’S MOM ALWAYS PACKS HIM GOURMET LUNCHES. She gives him a place mat for him to spread over his place at the cafeteria. She doesn’t know we eat outside every day, I guess. We sit in the little field by the side of the school. This time of year, it’s more of a mud flat than a field, and it’s a little cold. But it’s away from the noise.

I give him half of my peanut butter and jelly, and he gives me half of his macaroni and cheese. It has peppers and onions and something clear and spicy I don’t recognize.

We always eat lunch together. When he was home sick two weeks ago, I hid in the library and shoveled down my food as fast as I could. I don’t know when I turned into such a freaky little loner.

There’s an elementary school across the street. Craig’s dad is the principal. Usually we watch the kids playing kickball and four-square. We pretend to be team captains and divvy up the eight-year-olds.

Today there’s no one out.

The morning kindergarteners are heading toward the buses, but I can hardly see them. The teachers are forming a human cage.

“I watched Bananas in Pyjamas yesterday,” Craig says.

I look at him.

He says, “Yeah, at like four in the morning. It reruns at weird times like that.” Craig doesn’t sleep. It bothers me.

“It was on some kids station and I got so sucked in,” he says. “There is so much drama with those bananas. It’s the Australians. They’re sick, you know that? Sick and wrong and amazing. I love Australians. Best accents in the whole world. We should figure out how to do them and just do them all the time.”

I smile at him.

He says, “Anyway, so I was reading some of our old IMs last night. Is that way too lame to admit? I mean, I was going through a ton of old emails.”

I shake my head.

“And I was just thinking . . . I never would have guessed you were this quiet. I mean, you told me you were shy, but I never would have really believed you if I hadn’t met you, and actually seen that you’re so . . . unresponsive.”

That’s not fair.

He says, “Online you were . . . you were kind of unreal. Like so big and personable as to be unreal. And I guess that’s kind of the point. The ‘un,’ I mean. You were like so huge and confident and big and—”

“That’s real.”

“Hmm?”

And when I do talk, he doesn’t listen. “This,” I say. “That you noticed. That you’re here regardless. That’s the real part.”

“Yeah, but where’s your real part, okay? Because . . . because, here’s the thing, what I need to know is . . . what part of this is real for me?”

“I don’t like to talk.”