Powder-blue chicory grew on twisted, hunter-green stalks on both sides of the chip-seal road, even after it turned to asphalt a mile toward town. Birds flitted from the tasseled cornstalks to twist-wire fences and up into apple and maple trees scattered around yards and fields. Brown and white cattle grazed between the road and an enormous red barn beside an old gas station. Wilbur Dugan stored hay and straw in the loft, and the smell always made me think of Halloween, when he turned the barn into a haunted house and held a dance in the corral behind it.
A blue Datsun pulled off the road in front of me. The passenger window rolled down and Jimmy stuck out his head. “You’re late!”
I ran to the car and jumped in the back with Mia. She balanced her science book on her legs and scribbled in a notebook on the seat. She’d already started on the next chapter, and the rest of us hadn’t even finished half the first one.
Mia snatched up her notebook, jammed it into the textbook, and stuffed them in her bag. “Hey, Juliet. I like your earrings,” she whispered.
“Thanks,” I said. “Thanks for picking me up, Mrs. Teele.”
Fire-engine red lips wiggled in the rear-view mirror. “You shouldn’t be walking by yourself, dear. Where’s your mother?”
I put my bag on the seat and looked out the window. “Mark was supposed to drop me off, but he forgot. Mom and Dad had other stuff to do.”
“Mm-hmm.” She shook her head. “We missed you in church last Sunday.”
Mrs. Teele kept better attendance records than the minister.
“Were you away?” she asked.
“Huh-uh. Dad had a headache and Mom overslept.”
She hummed her disapproval.
“Can I see what you’re turning in?” Jimmy reached his hand back.
“It’s at school.”
“You didn’t work on it over the weekend?”
“I finished it Friday, so Miss Downey kept it.”
Jimmy pulled a comic book out of his bag. The light struck its plastic sleeve at an angle that blinded me. I reached to move it out of the glare and he jerked it back.
“Don’t wrinkle it!”
“Don’t freak out.” I held out my hand and he passed it over. ‘The Adventures of Hart McSwain’? This is for Art as History?”
“It’s a pioneer story. How Hart McSwain and his five brothers conquered the West.”
“Mine’s really different from this.”
We pulled up to the school and Mrs. Teele dropped us off at the front door.
“Are you seriously already on chapter two in science?” I asked Mia. We sat next to each other in Mr. Holden’s class. He assigned seats at the two-person tables, one smart kid and one dumb kid. I didn’t have to wonder which one he thought I was.
“No.” She shook her head. “I was just looking at it.”
As we passed through the main lobby I checked out the office and down Halls A and B.
“Are you going to the Science Fiction Festival next weekend?” I asked Jimmy.
“Impressive that you know about that,” he said and tapped his index finger on his cheek.
“Lucas told me.”
“I see.”
I glared at him.
“Mom and Dad won’t let him go,” Mia said.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not old enough.” Jimmy scowled at Mia. “It’s none of your business, anyway.”
“Whatever. I’ll see you later, Juliet.” Mia smiled at me and started to say something else, then turned and walked away.
Jimmy and I went down Hall C, toward the art classes. I scanned up and down the corridor.
“Who are you looking for?” Jimmy asked.
I snapped my eyes to the floor, too quickly. “No one.”
“J.B.” Jimmy stopped and crossed his arms over his chest. “Don’t treat me stupid.”
“J.T.,” I said. “I said no one.”
Miss Downey’s door opened. She squeezed a stack of white plastic paint pallets between her waist and elbow and balanced a gargantuan bowl of black bananas, shriveled apples, and moldy grapes on her shoulder.
“I’m glad you’re here. Grab the door for me, Jimmy.” She pushed it open further with the hip of her chocolate-brown broomstick skirt, then slid out as Jimmy grabbed the handle. She knocked the bowl against the doorjamb and a swarm of fruit flies alighted in a sizzling gray cloud.
“It’s not really still-life if the bugs are moving,” I said.
Miss Downey winked. “They force me to teach you to paint fruit. No one said it had to be fresh fruit.”
The art world, historically, is populated and driven by subversives. Art should do more than imitate or accessorize life; it should question the rules, stretch the boundaries, investigate the underlying truths behind who we are and what we do.
I got an A on my last art quiz for remembering that word for word.
Why, for example, must art students paint bowls of fruit? Just because they always have? Not according to Miss Downey. She tells us to paint anything that catches our attention, as long as we do so for a reason. That something is pretty or interesting is never a good enough reason to draw it.
The last couple of sketches I did wouldn’t impress her.
“Let me drop this off for the seventh-graders and I’ll be right back.” One of the pallets slipped out of her grip and clattered to the floor. She growled and kicked it with the embroidered toe of one of her lime and tangerine ballet flats, then punted it down the hall into Room 117.
“She should play soccer,” Jimmy said.
We went into the classroom and dropped our things on the front table. Jimmy opened his backpack and slid the comic book out between both thumbs and first fingers. He kissed its cellophane sleeve and laid it on the table between our bags.
“I really want that five hundred dollars.” He smoothed his thin hands over the plastic.
“A lot of kids are entering, you know. It’s statewide.”
Jimmy shrugged. “I know. But I put over eighty hours into this thing. I worked on it all summer.”
“Wow, really?”
Footsteps approached. My heart sped up a little bit, and I spun around to the doorway.
Stupid. Like he’d come to an art club meeting.
Lula’s voice echoed down the corridor followed by Tammy’s screechy laugh and Miss Downey’s humming. They all stopped just outside the door and Lula leaned close to whisper something to Miss Downey.
Miss Downey narrowed her eyes and clucked her tongue. “Don’t believe everything you hear.”
“So it’s not true?” They followed her into the classroom.
“Rumors usually contain a seed of truth sprouted in a field of fabrication.”
Tammy scrunched up her mouth. “But you’re a teacher. You could find out.”
“Find out what?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Miss Downey answered. “Least said, soonest forgotten. Let’s not add to his troubles, if trouble he already has.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Juliet, go get your canvas from my office. Tammy, I put yours there, too.”
We walked to the back of the classroom, into Miss Downey’s office. I grabbed Tammy’s arm. “What were you guys talking about?”
“The new guy. Where have you been?”
“What new guy?”
“Damon Sheppard. Where have you been all week? He’s in Sweeney’s homeroom.”
“What about him?”
“He’s a wild child,” Tammy whispered. “I heard he spent a year in detention before transferring here.”
“So?”
Tammy leaned in and almost touched noses with me. “They say he killed somebody.”
I frowned. “I think you’d get more than a year in juvie for that.”
“He’s only fourteen. He couldn’t be tried as an adult.”
“Sure he could. They do it all the time.”
She rolled her eyes and tsk-ed her tongue. “I’m just telling you what I heard.”
/> Tammy stared at me and I chewed on the inside of my lower lip.
Could Damon Sheppard be the boy I ran into at the dance?
“Maybe ask your dad,” I said. “Police can find out stuff like that, right?”
Miss Downey called from the front of the classroom. “Girls, we don’t have a lot of time.”
We took our canvases to Miss Downey. “Here are the info sheets that accompany these. Fill them out, attach them to your work, and you’re free to go. I’ll package them and I’ll make sure they’re postmarked today. The judges pick the winners the second weekend in October.”
Jimmy smiled. “So we’ll find out who won right after that?”
Miss Downey nodded. “I expect so.”
Lula turned the corner of my canvas to see the painting. “Wow, Juliet. That’s really beautiful.”
Miss Downey leaned over Lula’s shoulder. “Look closer.”
CHAPTER 2
“I am now distributing an orange sheet of paper, on which you will find the school calendar for the months of September and October, Anno Domini nineteen hundred and eighty-two. September is on the front and October is on the back.” Mr. Hirschman’s nasally voice quivered with an impending sneeze.
I drew a semicircular arch and trimmed the edges with thick stubble.
Pam Martz snorted right behind my head, “How do we know October isn’t on the front and September’s on the back?”
I filled in brows, eyes and a bulbous nose, and put more shading over the jaw and upper lip. A cleft chin with a fat mole under the lower lip. Black-rimmed glasses. “And he sneezes again,” I whispered. A word bubble over his head read, “Pardon”. Then I folded it in half and tucked it in my notebook.
“Please note, students, that September 17 is the deadline to… ”
He stopped, pulled a wadded handkerchief from his pocket and opened his mouth. Everyone in the first three rows slid down in their chairs. When he sneezed, a spray of droplets erupted out of his nose, as if his nostrils had a fan setting, like a garden hose. A rainbow glistened in the dusty swath of light from the window.
“Pardon.” He wiped his nose, blew into the rag again, stuffed it back in his pocket, and smoothed down his tie. “September 17 is the deadline to sign up for the Academic Olympics. That’s all the announcements. Take out your homework and turn to problem one. Miss Brynn, please write it on the blackboard.”
Of course, it had to be me.
I took out my notebook and stood up. On my way to the blackboard I passed between Bethany and Tori.
“Cute shorts,” Bethany said, and wrinkled her nose. “Did you get those at the Disney store?”
After more than a year I still hoped that one day they’d take me back and I’d be cool. One Friday we were all friends. Then I missed Amica’s first boy-girl party, and on Monday they didn’t like me anymore.
So I didn’t say anything. Instead, I turned red, and my ears got hot, and I tripped over an eraser on the floor, and my eyes watered, because people laughed and Mr. Hirschman didn’t even hear it since he sneezed again, and this time he got me wet too and all I wanted to do was go hide in the art room.
“Let’s go, Miss Brynn,” he said between wipes. “Problem number one, please.”
I went to the board and picked up a piece of chalk. My hand shook. “4x + 8y = 32.” I blinked to keep a tear from slipping down my cheek. “And y - x = 1.”
“Now, show the class how you solved it.”
I didn’t solve it.
I tried to solve it. I had two lines of work beneath the problem, but no answer. Mom didn’t know how to do algebra, and Dad said, “This is why I became a history professor. Ask your brother.” But I had the dance on Friday night, then Mark slept till one on Saturday, after which he rushed out to a movie with a girl, then he came home and took a nap and a shower and left for a date with some other girl.
“Miss Brynn, are you still with us?”
I wrote the first line I’d done beneath the two equations. “4x + 8y - 8y = 32 - 8y.”
“Very good. Keep going.”
“And y - x + x = 1 + x?”
Mr. Hirschman sat down at his desk and crossed one leg over the other. “Why did you do that?”
“It’s the same thing I did to the first equation.”
He held up one finger. “The idea is to isolate one of the variables. Not both of them.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “I thought they’d be less lonely if they were isolated together.”
The class snickered.
“May I go to the restroom, please?”
I gave him the look. A male teacher never refuses a girl a bathroom break if she gives him the look.
He held out the hall pass.
I clutched my notebook and dashed to the door. I just needed a few minutes alone and some cold water on my face. I fled the room and turned left.
And I crashed into him again.
* * * * *
My notebook dropped and loose papers fluttered over the floor.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Are you okay?”
“My fault,” I stammered and knelt down to pick up my stuff.
“Let me help.” He knelt down and picked up one of the papers. “If we keep crashing into each other like this, we’ll have to start filing flight plans.”
I stopped mid-reach. “That’s funny.” I looked in his face. He couldn’t have seen the drawing on my wall. Could he?
Did somebody else see it and rat me out?
“But you’re not smiling.” He leaned over and picked up the last paper. “That’s a good drawing. You’re really talented.”
“What did you say?”
“I said that you’re talented.”
“Before that.”
His face turned pink.
Do guys blush?
“I know, it was stupid.”
Mr. Hirschman came out of the classroom.
My sketch! He still has it!
The boy looked at Hirsch, then at me, then at Hirsch again. And he slipped the paper inside his jacket.
Who wears a leather jacket on a day like this?
“What’s going on out here?”
He handed Mr. Hirschman a hall pass. “I’m supposed to switch to your homeroom. So I can fit geometry into my schedule.”
He’s going to be in my homeroom.
“Geometry? That’s a challenging course. I should know, since I teach it.” Hirsch examined the paper in his hand. “Damon Sheppard. Weren’t you on your way to the ladies’ room, Miss Brynn?”
I wanted my sketch back. I pretended to organize my notebook.
“Do you have a transfer slip?”
“Right here.” He reached inside his pocket and his jacket opened up in front.
I fell back against the wall. No way.
Hirsch pointed to the boy’s T-shirt. “Very nice, Mr. Sheppard. We like Einstein around here. Miss Brynn! Either use that pass or get back to your desk.”
* * * * *
Erik Athaca, head of the class and first-string basketball player, pressed his science textbook open with one freakishly large hand while he scribbled definitions into a notebook. Across the table Drew Barony’s head rested on his elbow and he snored. I plopped down, opened my math book and sighed.
“Everything okay?”
How can popular guys be so nice but popular girls are such jerks? “Math. It’s always math.”
“Algebra’s not that hard.”
“So says you.” I opened up my book to the problems we had to turn in today. Hirsch gave me till seventh period to finish them or he’d mark them late.
Erik looked over at my notebook. “Maybe you can get half credit for doing half of all the problems.
“Very funny.” My eyes heated up and I bit my lip. Do not cry in study hall. “I just don’t get it.”
Erik shrugged. “I’d let you copy mine, but I turned it in already.” He grabbed my notebook and spun it around to face him. “It’s like Hirsch said, isolate one of t
he variables in one of the equations, then substitute the answer in the other equation.”
“Then what?”
He pushed it back to me and went back to his science book. “Then solve for the second variable. After you have a number, you plug that into the first equation and solve for the first variable.”
I slumped over and dropped my head on my notebook. “Why is math so easy for you?”
“Why is art so easy for you?”
“Art’s not hard.”
“So says you.”
I scowled. “Not being able to draw a tree won’t keep you out of college.”
“Art college, maybe.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “You should get someone to tutor you.”
Like Lucas?
Erik’s eyes got really big all of a sudden, like he just thought of something. “Hey. Are you signing up for the Academic Olympics?”
“Why would I?”
“We could use you this year. They added arts and literature, if you can believe that.”
The school brainiacs, playing Pictionary? “That doesn’t sound very academic.”
“Wait till you see some of the questions. Come by Hirsch’s room after school.”
“Maybe.”
* * * * *
I spent the rest of the morning jittery, sweat dripping out of my armpits as I prayed to run into Damon again. With only three hundred students at the school, I’d have to see him eventually, wouldn’t I? Maybe the rest of his schedule changed along with his homeroom.
He didn’t show up in English or gym. I didn’t expect him in art, though I jumped out of my seat when a brown leather jacket passed by the doorway. It happened so fast I couldn’t tell if it was him, but I made a mental note to get to art early tomorrow and keep an eye on the door, just in case.
Lunch happened in three shifts during fifth period, so that class lasted longer than the others. Fortunately, I had art then, so I didn’t mind the extra time. I also had the last lunch shift again this year, which hardly seemed fair.
Since we finished our contest entries, Miss Downey gave us a free painting day. Lula and Tammy worked on the other side of the room next to the oils cabinet. Jimmy did another comic book at his desk. I put my easel next to the watercolors and started a painting for Mom.
I penciled in four flowers growing out of a crack in some steps, then sketched a rose for my mother, a dragon lily for my dad, and a cattail for Mark. For me I drew a vine of moonflowers that twisted on the ground around the others. In real life, moonflowers would grab onto and climb up the other flowers, choking them in the process. But that’s one of the great things about art. You can make life do what you want it to.