“I like flavored coffee.” I frowned. “You like coffee to taste like coal. I like it to taste like hazelnuts. Which one of us is the weirdo?”
“Still you. You look like an angry panda.” He smiled at me, flipped a third crepe. “Did you do all of your homework?”
“Yes,” I lied. But that’s what first period study hall was for. That, and dicking around while teachers weren’t watching. “Do you have anything cool planned for today?”
“Do I ever?” He turned off the stove and moved his pan off the heat. “So. New friends. That’s good. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen them around before. Are they in Drama with you?”
“Nah. I don’t think they’re into it.” Admittedly, given Jing’s sheriff-schmoozing skills, she’d probably kick ass where that club was concerned. We don’t exactly have a lot of killer talent in our little band, passionate though we may be. “I think I’ll be hanging out with them a lot, actually. We’re going to make a coven.”
Coven. Why was that word so sexy?
“Interesting.” He nodded, and his eyes creased, which was the Julian equivalent of a raucous grin. “How do you make a coven?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged and spooned liquid blueberries over a crepe that smelled like God. The syrup on the spoon stained my fingertips, just a shade bluer than the bruises on my knuckles. That douchebag’s face sure did leave an odd impression on my hands. Robin’s-egg knuckles. I whistled through my tooth gap. “Thanks, Dad.”
“I hope it all works out. This town could use a proper girl gang. Too many meathead jocks prowling around and terrorizing establishments for my liking.” He frowned and downed the rest of his coffee. “You could have matching jackets. It’d be very cool.”
A crooked little smile found my mouth. Julian said “cool” like most people said “laundry.” He had the inflection range of an air conditioner. I elbowed him as I crossed behind him and moved to make myself a cup of coffee, which I relished. I should be prescribed coffee. I needed it in an IV drip.
“I’m not surprised you didn’t have much luck at Delacroix. They’re loyal customers of ours, and they have the most beautiful art galleries, but they seldom share their toys. They wouldn’t even let us bid until we mentioned that our daughter would love it, and then suddenly they were willing to sell. How odd is that? Cheap, too. A book that lovingly bound should have gone for at least seventy-five dollars. We bought it for ten. Bizarre, no?” He drizzled blueberries on a crepe and rolled it up, sprinkled it with powdered sugar. “We’ll try and find you one at the next auction. Normally they have another one closer to New Year’s, and we can go then. You could come, if you don’t think you’ll be bored to death. I think I might be the only person in the universe who genuinely enjoys auctions. Even Boris doesn’t like them. Boris just likes seeing artifacts and oddities, but once the paperwork comes out, he gets cold feet. Oh, Boris.” He thoughtfully took a bite.
Oh, Boris. Ick. They were as mortifying as they were endearing.
“I’d like that.” Assuming they didn’t recognize me and not sell to me on principle. I sighed and chugged my coffee, successfully scalding off all my taste buds in the process. “They said the books were in the archives, but they wouldn’t show us the archives because the manager wasn’t there.”
“Maurice is a good man. If we lived closer, I think we might be friends. I see him whenever Boris and I go to Dorothy’s.” He nodded toward the door, plucked his keys off the countertop. “You ready to go?”
Saw him at Dorothy’s, eh? Dorothy’s was a gay bar about five miles out of town. I’d go myself with my fake ID if I wasn’t terrified I’d run into my parents inside. Even though I was pissed at Maurice for not being where I needed him to be, that somehow made me almost like Maurice, or at least the abstract idea of him. Maybe I could go back, explain how important these books are to me. Maybe they belonged to him, and him giving the book to me would mean I could read them. Fat chance.
Whatever. “Yeah, I’m ready.”
“Good.” Julian waited for a moment, eying the coffee pot. “Should I unplug it? I don’t want a fire to start while we’re gone. But then it’ll be cold, and Boris won’t drink it. Oh God.”
“There won’t be a fire,” I said. I wolfed down my crepe and rubbed my mouth with the back of my wrist. “That was delicious, by the way.”
“Oh, was it? I was afraid it was bland. The recipe never turns out the way I had it in my head. I like crepes to be thinner than air . . .” he trailed off and meandered in the direction of the door. “Come along. I’d hate for you to be late.”
The wall clock, which was five minutes fast, said we had a half an hour until school started. We lived ten minutes away. I wasn’t awake enough yet to harp on him for it, though. I trudged behind him, stopping only to grab my boots along the way.
So, my school is repulsive. It’s a crumbling mass of rats and rusty lockers. There was supposed to be a new high school three years ago, what with the asbestos problem and all, but the funding always ran dry before it could get anywhere. No doubt we’ll all die in West High. It was like a Venus flytrap for happiness. I walked toward the main doors alongside my emotionally anemic peers and, like them, considered turning around and running as quickly as I could in the opposite direction. But I didn’t. I skulked my way inside and shouldered through clumps of denim-clad teenagers, pushing and shoving a path to my locker. I wished that I was as cool as Madeline had been at the party. She’d spliced crowds like it was her profession.
The hallways smelled like weed. This was normal. All the vents in the building looped back to the girl’s bathroom, which proved a blessing for the West High stoner population and a curse for the administration. If someone smokes early in the morning and blows little cannabis rings into the air vent, the smell permeates the entire school, and then everyone else can smoke as they please with no fear of being caught. Basic part of West High hazing, actually. Someone has to be the first to light up.
My locker was between Mikayla’s locker and Hotaru’s locker. Hotaru was nice enough, and she had the courtesy to be habitually tardy. We never had to brawl over elbow space. Both of us got on better that way. Besides, it wasn’t fair to fight with Hotaru, because it’s hard to fight with anyone that blissed out. Mikayla, on the other hand, could be problematic. She always managed to arrive within three minutes of me, and she didn’t grab her shit and leave like a normal human being. No, she had to linger in her locker and play with an ancient Tamagotchi until first bell. Our lockers are too skinny for this shit. I never have enough room.
Sure enough. Mikayla. I could always tell it was Mikayla from across the hall, because her egg-shaped head makes her look like an alien. A weird, pasty Tamagotchi-worshiping alien. I soldiered over to my locker and took care not to bump her as I opened it. For as stringy as Mikayla looked, it was no secret that she (along with the rest of the field hockey team) had curb stomped our rival team’s star player before a game last year. That was a little too much even for me. Not today. I hauled a few textbooks out of my locker and dropped them in my bag. It was like stuffing my bag with bricks. I slung it back over my shoulders and reeled forward, sucked in a breath. Would it kill the school district to order lighter books?
I turned around and wandered in the direction of my study hall. Study hall was in the cafeteria, the other side of school from where I was now. It would be a damn long walk from here to there. I popped in my earbuds, cranked up my music, and headed toward class with anesthetizing shoegaze crashing around my head.
The cafeteria was still mostly empty, save for two JV cheerleaders and Austin fucking Grass. They stood huddled together, snickering and squealing, heads angled toward the floor. Sequined hairbows bobbed. Austin laughed loud enough that I heard it over my music. There was a heather-yellow shadow on Austin’s nose that stretched from one cheek across the other. He’d slapped a flesh-toned Band-Aid across the center of the bruise bloom for some reason, and, much to my amusement, his un-fucked-up skin was the same
damn color as the Barbie-plastic bandage. My hand thrummed sympathetically.
Curiosity possessed me, and I turned off my music, kept my earbuds in.
“Oh my God. Like, ew! Why are there roaches? This is a cafeteria. Isn’t there, like, a health inspector or something?” One of the JV girls, wearing her hair in a distinctly Daisy-inspired style, bounced in her sneakers as if the roach was about to rear back like a cobra and bite her. “God, Austin. I’m literally gonna hurl.”
“Isn’t that the cheer squad’s favorite diet plan?” Austin laughed in the back of his throat. “It’s just a little roach. Look at it, wriggling around on its back like that. Looks like one of your squad girls, am I right?”
“God, Austin, you’re awful,” giggled the other JV girl. She touched his arm, leaned her head against his chest. “Are you sure you’re okay? It’s pretty screwed up that Ethan threw a football at your face. Like, you should kick his ass. He totally did it on purpose.”
“Oh, he probably did. It’s chill, though. I screwed his girlfriend, so we’re even.” He stretched his arms over his head and yawned. “If you ladies want proper revenge, though, I could always make him eat this here cockroach. Oughta teach him.”
I painted an image in my mind of my boot’s on Austin’s neck.
Wait. Opportunity. I stood up a little straighter, squared my shoulders, thrust out my chin. I took a few wide strides and shouldered my way through the group, taking care to shove Austin in the process. Slowly, deliberately, I leaned down and plucked up the roach by one of its legs, cupped it in my hands.
“Oh my God!” squeaked the girl to my right.
“Oh, come on, fresh meat. You two best get used to roaches around here.” I gave them a wolf grin and turned around, beaming up at Austin, who looked petrified. “Good morning, Grass.”
“Austin,” said the girl to my left.
Austin said nothing. He froze like a tiny gazelle in a lion’s path. Hadn’t he heard that the whole freezing thing doesn’t work? I licked my teeth, waggled my brows, rose onto my tiptoes, and tenderly dropped the roach down the front of his shirt.
He balked, squealed, and flailed his hands around his torso.
Fucking loser.
I nodded to the girls and walked away, over to the hand-sanitizer dispenser fixed on the far wall. Austin cussed and writhed behind me. One of the JV girls was laughing, and I felt radiant. I squirted a dollop of hand sanitizer on my hands and rubbed away until my skin felt tacky and gross, which meant it was working, I think. I doubled back and took a seat close to the fray.
Other people were drifting in, chatting and moaning, creeping toward the greasy benches with sleep still on their faces. I paid them no mind. I didn’t have any friends in study hall since Mickey-Dick was almost always a solid forty minutes late to school, and we were really more like acquaintances, so I wasn’t sure if I minded that much. It did mean I was more likely to use study hall to actually get work done. Or sleep. Whatever. I swung my bag onto the table and ferreted around for my algebra homework.
Fucking sentence problems.
Joaquin is interested in buying a gym membership. Fitness Fun has an initiation fee of $100, with additional payments of $25 per month. The Happy Health Hut has an initiation fee of $150, with additional payments of $15 per month. If Joaquin wants to keep a membership for a year, which membership is a better deal? Show your work with an equation and a graph!
I stared at the problem for a moment and felt my eyes glaze over. I didn’t know what was more painful, names like Fitness Fun and The Happy Health Hut, or the inevitable butchering of a name like Joaquin in class. My math teacher wasn’t exactly good at pronouncing names that weren’t Megan or Tom. We’ve been in school over two months and he still couldn’t grasp that Alexis Nguyen’s last name wasn’t pronounced na-goo-yen.
Thank God he only graded for completion.
I drew two lines at random on the graph paper. Joaquin should go to Fitness Fun, not because it’s cheaper, but because going to a gym called The Happy Health Hut would literally be worse than death. I BSed my way through an equation and crept through the rest of the worksheet, barely skimming each question, writing down random numbers where it felt appropriate. My math teacher seldom did more than flip through the pages and scan for handwriting. This should be more than enough.
Something hit the back of my head.
What the hell?
I pawed at my curls and found something crinkly. I tugged it out of my hair and set it on the table, eying it before I opened it. Violently pink paper, pink as Hello Kitty hell. Definitely not from Austin Grass. I uncrinkled it, spread it flat across the tabletop.
Hey sexy. Guess who. Also, your hair looks fucking weird today. It’s like you’re wearing a Persian cat for a wig.
The scribe dotted her i’s with hearts.
I turned my head, and Daisy Brink glowered back from two tables behind me. She waggled her fingers at me, half waving, half spooky spirit-fingering. I caught myself smirking and turned back around, scribbled a line beneath hers.
Did you see Austin’s face? Classic.
I crushed the note back up and tossed it back.
Seconds later, the little ball hurtled back.
He looks so much better like that. He’s telling everyone that you worship Satan and have a voodoo doll of him in your locker. People are believing it, too, after that party. Should I confirm or deny? XOXOX
I snickered, muffled my mouth with the palm of my hand.
Surprise me. Are we pretending that you’re not doing witch shit too?
I made eye contact with one of the custodians as I tossed the note back to Daisy. He winked, went back to absently sweeping. Ricky the custodian was a good guy. He and I got on. He wasn’t going to rat on us.
Texted Jing. She’s down with us all coming out of the witch closet. I’m about to scare the living fuck out of Austin. Prepare to die laughing.
I glanced out of the corner of my eye toward Austin’s table, where he sat with the JV girls and some jock asshole whose name I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t see Daisy from this angle, but I did see a piece of pink paper sail toward his table.
He smirked, elbowed his guy friend, and unfolded the paper. His smirk fell away. “What the fuck?”
“Language, Mr. Grass,” said the overseeing teacher, looking up from her laptop long enough to stare razors toward Austin’s table. “Study hall is silent. No talking.”
“Sure thing,” said the boy beside Austin. He looked pleased. Austin, however, did not look pleased. He gawked down at the page and stared at Daisy behind me, and then turned his gaze at me, his eyes the size of his fists.
What the hell did you write?
I tossed the paper back at Daisy, literally snagging my tongue between my teeth to keep from laughing.
I told him that he only lasted three minutes with his girlfriend because we hexed his cock. Good guess, right?
As predicted, I died. I put my head on my algebra book and broke into laughter. My sides shook. My diaphragm burned. My sweater’s stickiness felt like it might be squirming around. I chose not to think about that too deeply.
“Is there a problem, Ms. Pike?” I felt the overseer’s eyes on my back like they were made of pokers.
“Oh, man. It’s just this algebra homework. Good stuff.” I raised one of my thumbs and held my breath, tried to beat my laughter into submission.
Overhead, the bell rung thrice.
I pulled myself upright, stuffed my homework into my bag and chucked the bag back onto my shoulders. The lunch tables groaned as everyone moved. A rat scurried across the floor, eliciting scattered curses and squawking from the students in a five-foot radius. I rolled my neck, strolled toward my next class.
Daisy caught up to me. She wrapped her arm around my shoulder and leaned up on tiptoe to kiss my cheek, and I felt myself turn red. I grinned like mad. She skittered her nails over my shoulder, which was affectionate, I think.
“That party is literally part
of the school mythos now.” She locked step with me and swept her eyes across the crowd, meeting everyone’s gaze, beaming at them. “Everyone who’s everyone knows. For real. Three girls asked me this morning how we did it. They’re all so fucking thrilled, but not half as thrilled as I am. This weekend should be killer. We need something fucking big for it, you hear? And it’s closer to Halloween, so we can up the creepy factor without being tacky. It’s gonna be sublime.”
“Are we going to have it at Jing’s again?” Tentatively, I moved my arm around her waist, moving slowly enough to catch it if she protested. She didn’t. I let myself relax. Walking through the halls with Daisy Brink on my arm, even platonically, was like wearing an invincibility star. I felt like a rock star, or maybe a cult leader. Her hair smelled like strawberries and cream.
A couple of people shot us nasty looks. I was used it, but the looks weren’t directed at me, per se. They were a little to my left.
Had anybody ever looked at Daisy with disdain like that?
Was I contagious, or something?
“Nah. Her folks are back in town. We’re scoping out a new location, something private.” She fooled with a hole in my sweater, seemingly oblivious to the gazes of lesser mortals. “I have a few places in mind. When we have it narrowed down, we’ll let you know. It’d be sick if we could set up all the sigils and stuff before the party so that we could get down to business quicker. Waiting around isn’t hot. What class are you going to?”
“Math.” I grimaced. “You?”
“History.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s so fucking bogus, you know?”
Math and History were in the same hallway, for some godforsaken reason, which gave us a few extra seconds of walking together. I leered at someone who gawked too long, defensive even if Daisy wasn’t. “Not a fan?”
The Scapegracers Page 20