* * *
After being abandoned by Nasty Nancy, Prissi has been sitting alone with her dinner and her thoughts. Tonight’s dance. Smarkzy’s special lecture on Sunday. The essay due on Tuesday. How boring Spring Break was going to be. And the thing she didn’t want to think about: Seeing Joe’s cousin Jack Fflowers in less than twenty hours at The Bissell School dedication.
Prissi’s thought get even more jumbled when she sees Joe run into the dining room and grab a tray.
As Joe moves from station to station filling his tray, he looks down the length of the cavernous room to where his teammates are sitting. In the far left corner Beak, Frankie Nuts, Willie T and Bawlzout Bechley seem to be scrimmaging as much as eating. Feeling too confused to defend himself against their rough friendship, Joe veers off to the right side of the Tudor-style hall to where Prissi perches at a table by herself. Just before he sits, Joe looks back to be sure that the dessert station will block his teammates’ view. After he drops his skate bag, Joe nods to Prissi.
Prissi tips her head at Joe’s tray, which is filled with meat and potatoes, and in a mocking voice says, “All green.”
Joe, laughing at the line some Ecos use as a greeting, responds with its complement, “Or all gone.”
Prissi dramatically twirling her fork through the edamame and udon noodle salad she has been avoiding says, “Or, not.”
When a nonplussed Prissi saw Joe bee-lining toward her table, she had twisted around so quickly to see if the hockey corner was empty that she had snapped a couple of quills. Now, while Joe scarfs his food, Prissi leans forward so she can angle her wing and pull out the useless quills.
Freeieekin feathers. She was born too late. Sixty years ago, it was still possible to get membrane wings. But, the ersatz bat wings had gone out of favor not only because the folds of flesh didn’t contain melanin, thus wouldn’t tan, but also because the wings couldn’t be grown without claw-like appendages at the end, which had to be kept trimmed. Plus, of course, they were disgustingly ugly, which Prissi, given her age, actually considered a strong selling point.
Fine, she thinks. Wings that looked like they were made from the wattles of dowager geris had drawbacks, but they didn’t have freeieekin feathers.
After Prissi finishes her wingkeeping and looks over, Joe Fflowers seems a million kliks away. Not sure of what he might be thinking or feeling, Prissi feels an irresistible urge to touch the bumps on her face before putting her head down and stirring her food. She wishes Nasty Nancy hadn’t run off to finish her homework before the dance. Although Prissi is still hungry, she is not hungry enough to chance the social dangers of eating udon with Joe at the table. She can visualize noodles flying across the table and onto Joe after being launched by some random spazz neuronal blast. Or, if by some unexpected good fortune, the food happened to make it to her mouth, she is sure that half of it would hang from her lips like the slobber and green that slops from the mouth of a hippo deep into its dinner. But, swirling and twirling, but not eating, looks stupid, too. And, she can’t leave…because… Because. Because, she can’t. Because her honor demands that she say something about going to The Bissell School tomorrow to see Jack.
After a painful moment, instead of the truth, the guilt-driven side of Prissi opts to go with a non sequitor.
“Smarkzy. What do you think?” Prissi blurts as a second part of her brain wonders how Joe’s nose still seems to be pointing up when his head is tipped down over his plate
“What about Smarkzy?”
“Genius, huh?”
“Not to me. He’s just a garden variety scientist.”
Prissi’s face goes from the pink of internal conflict to anger’s bright red. She asks combatively, “And that would be?”
“Dissatisfied, superior, tunnel-visioned snoops.”
Prissi fakes a smile she hopes will convey her surprise that such a handsome privileged alete can be so cynical.
“But, interesting, right?”
Joe puts his fork down and tilts his head so he can face Prissi more directly.
“Not to me. They’re all the same. It’s all about dissatisfaction. It doesn’t matter how much they know, it’s not enough. Science is all about knowing. Every time a scientist learns something, he wants to leap forward to learn something else. It’s like they’re Boy Scouts collecting badges and can’t get enough.”
“So, like every other alete who got in here on brawn and nor brain, you prefer ignorance.”
Joe Fflowers shakes his head in disgust and turns back to the solace of his plate. Prissi stirs her food and savors the double dip of guilt—over what she has said and what she hasn’t. After waiting long enough to suggest that she is withdrawing rather than retreating, Prissi gathers everything onto her plate and pushes back her chair. As she tentatively walks behind Joe, the unhappy teener retches a small, bitter, “Sorry.”
Joe nods his head, then, without turning around, quietly says, more to himself than to Prissi, “I prefer feeling to knowing.”
Since it is easier to feel righteous than guilty, Prissi says, “Well, since you do, let me say that I FEEL more like studying tonight than dancing.”
A part of Prissi hopes that Joe will parry something back, but he just shakes his head again. Prissi hurls her plate and silverware onto the conveyor at the bussing station, then, bolts from the silence that trails behind her.