Beckoners (14 page)

After that, whenever Simon
was there, April found a reason to leave, unless Leaf was there too. She never left if Leaf was there. In fact, if Leaf was there, she never left his side. It was almost funny, if it weren't so pathetic, the way she followed Leaf around the tiny room, Shadow following her, the three of them making up a little convoy passing between layout table, computer desk, couch and back. After a while, even Shadow realized the room was too small to follow April around. He gave up and claimed one end of the couch, resting his head on his paws and following April with his eyes instead.

Simon did hissy fit
all over April, but not until the week before Halloween. Simon and Teo were forming a Gay/Straight Alliance, and wanted to run an ad in the paper about the first meeting. He and Leaf were scrolling through the layout on the computer, looking for a place to fit it in. April was unusually silent. Just as they'd decided to put it under the ad for the Halloween dance, she piped up.

“There's no room for it there.”

“Sure there is.” Simon didn't bother to look up at her. “We'll take out your editorial on the SPCA's new no-kill policy.”

“No, you won't.”

“I'm joking.”

“You were not.”

“Okay, I wasn't.” Simon shrugged. “It's a boring editorial. It would've been more interesting to do a scathing exposé before they stopped murdering animals.”

April looked down at last week's paper laying open in front of her. “Your ad shouldn't go in at all.”

“Oh yeah?”

April nodded.

“How come?”

“It's sick.”

“Excuse me?” Simon straightened. He put his hands on his hips. “Would you repeat that please?”

“It's sick.”

“Sick?”

“That's right.” April fingered the cross at her throat. “It's unnatural. I bet the school has a policy against it.”

“Against what?”

“You know what.”

“No.” Simon shook his head. “Tell me.”

“Against people like you.”

Zoe winced. She and Leaf widened their eyes.

“Stand back,” Leaf whispered.

“Oh. People like
me
. Oh.” Simon crossed the room and leaned over April. “You know what, little miss fundamentalist? The
world
has a policy against people like you. At least us queers stick together. You losers have nobody but your lonesome lame-ass selves. How pathetic is that?”

“Simon—” Leaf started. Simon held up a silencing hand. He picked up April's cross as if it were a dead bug. Shadow growled from the couch, hackles raised, although he didn't bother lifting his head.

“This is supposed to mean tolerance and love, isn't it?” Simon dropped the cross. “Maybe you should be wearing it upside down, seeing as how you've got it all ass backwards.”

“It says right in the bible—”

Again, Simon held up his hand for her to stop. “Please, before
you make yourself out to look a hell of a lot less smart than Leaf claims you to be, shut the hell up.”

April abruptly stood. Simon took a step back, arms up, making sure no part of her touched any part of him. April glanced at Leaf, then Zoe, and then back to Leaf. Neither of them said a word. April grabbed her notebook and left the room. Shadow reluctantly slid off the couch and stretched his legs before trotting out the door behind her.

Simon leaned out into the hall. “And don't come back until you've miraculously recovered from your tragic case of homophobia!”

“She works here,” Leaf said as Simon grinned triumphantly at them. “You don't.”

“You can't employ a homophobe,” Simon said. “It's unconstitutional.”

“What about freedom of religion?”

“What about hate mongering?”

“What about freedom of expression?”

“So the three guys who bashed my head into the pavement last spring?” What little color there was drained from Simon's cheeks. “They were expressing their freedom?”

“Come on, you two.” Zoe placed herself between Leaf and Simon. “That's enough.”

Zoe knew she should be feeling something for Simon. She knew how hard it was for him to talk about being bashed. It was like her empathy had been turned off though, because all she could think about was that Simon had said, and she had heard correctly, that Leaf had told him how smart April was. He talked to Simon about April? Then what about her? What about the glances? What about how he inched up right close to her when they were working on the computer together? Did he ever talk to Simon about her?

The next day April
apologized to Simon and told him that she'd pray every day for him to stop being gay.

“I couldn't care less how much you pray for me,” Simon said. “Frankly, I'd love to see your warped version of God try.”

Zoe had to give April credit for resisting Simon's invitation to volley. Zoe thought April's praying was weird, but if it made April less of a Bible-thumper around Simon, then great.

The truce lasted less than one day.

Simon and April's fresh battle was over the subject of Halloween. April had put up with all the Halloween content in the paper, but she was putting her foot down and refusing to allow Simon to decorate the Dungeon with the fake cobwebs and cardboard tombstones he'd custom-made for each of them and Shadow.

“Halloween is satanic,” April said. “No way.”

“Oh, LORD,” Simon said before putting his palm to his chest. “Oh no, my mistake. You think he's on YOUR side.”

April would settle at nothing less than Simon ripping up her and Shadow's tombstones. Simon responded by tearing them up into the tiniest pieces he could manage.

“Some thanks.” He dumped the shreds into the recycling bin. “That's the last time I do something nice for you, April.” He patted Shadow on the head. “But not you, old grubby. We can't blame you for having a Jesus-freak mommy.”

Once again, Zoe was impressed at April's ability to let an insult slide. Her capacity to ignore—was that a good thing? Or a bad thing?

April agreed to let Simon put the others outside in the hall, until Zoe reminded him that the Beckoners didn't know she was working on the paper and she'd like to keep it that way.

“I'll take mine home?” Zoe said, as a kind of apology.

“Fine.” Simon threw the fake cobwebs into the trash. “I don't care.”

Simon stewed in self-pity
on the couch for a while, and then he said, “Leaf has a crush on you.”

Both April and Zoe looked up at once.

“Zoe.” The way Simon said her name made it perfectly clear that he was choosing this precise moment to deliver this information as a direct hit against April. It was no secret that she was glitched over Leaf: the way she followed him around, the strange moony smile she reserved just for him, her nervous fluttering whenever he was in the room.

April slumped forward a little, as if he'd stabbed her with the ballpoint pen he was balancing on his knuckles.

“Me?” Zoe felt tingly, like her blood wasn't getting all the places it was meant to.

“He told me he thinks you're cute.”

April straightened. She turned back to her computer and starting typing furiously. Zoe could see that she was typing gibberish, that she was obviously upset, but she didn't really care.

“He told you I was cute?” Zoe flew across the room and jumped on the couch beside Simon. “When? What was the context? Was it something I said, like, ‘Isn't that cute what she said?' Or was it me, like physically cute?”

“I don't know.” Simon shrugged. “He just said you were cute.”

“Cute, like ask-outable cute? Or cute, like, ‘She'll never be pretty but she's cute?'”

“Cute, like don't ask me, cuz I don't know what kind of cute. God, how many cutes are there?” Simon raised his voice to match Zoe's high, excited tone. “Cute, like it's a compliment, so just shut up and take it, all right?”

“Okay.” Zoe patted his knee. “I'll shut up now.”

“Good girl.”

Zoe rested her head on Simon's bony shoulder and was quiet for all of thirty seconds, during which April grew more fidgety, typing harder, jiggling her knees under the desk.

“Tell me more?” Zoe pleaded.

Simon whispered in Zoe's ear, “I think April's a little jealous.”

“So what?” Zoe shrugged. “I could barely care less. Hey, Simon? When did he say I was cute? Recently?”

“A few days ago, I think. Monday?”

What had she been wearing? Zoe tried to recall every move of that day, but she couldn't think of anything specific.

“Hey, April,” Zoe raised her voice, knowing full well she was rubbing salt in a wound. “Has Leaf ever say anything to you about me? Monday, maybe?”

April shook her head, eyes locked on her monitor.

“Aw, April's mad cuz Leaf likes Zoe.” Simon pouted. “Poor thing. Maybe you should try girls, April.”

April bit her lip. Her shoulders drooped. Zoe watched, waiting to see if this one would slide off. It didn't. April shoved her notebook into her pack.

“You don't have to leave, April.” Simon uncurled his legs and got up. He stretched. “I'll be gracious this one time. See you later, Zoe.” He kissed her on the cheek, and then blew a kiss to April across the room. “Bye, darling.”

April took out her
notebook and began typing again. Zoe watched her. Of course Leaf wouldn't be into April; she was awkward and arrogant and ugly. She smelled bad, like she didn't do her laundry often enough. She never said the right thing, and her timing was terrible. Like now, for example.

“Do you like him?” April asked all of a sudden.

“Who, Simon?” Zoe asked, even though she knew exactly who April was referring to.

“No. Leaf.” April stopped typing. “Do you?”

Zoe didn't know what to say. Why should she tell April anything? She shrugged. “I don't know.”

“You know.”

“
You
seem to.”

“You like him.” April swallowed. “I know it. You like him.”

“He's all right.” Zoe shrugged again, trying to be casual.

“He's more than
all right
.'” April shook her head. She started typing again, to keep from looking at Zoe, sitting there all smug on the couch.

“Look, April, if you think he'd consider going out with you for even one second, you really are stupider than he
thinks you are
. A guy like him would never be into a girl like you.”

“A girl like me.”

“Yeah.” Zoe wished she had a spare sock to shove in her own mouth. She heard the bitterness in her voice, the spite, but she kept talking. “A girl like you. A total loser. A bottom feeder.”

“You're not exactly Miss Popularity right now, hiding from the Beckoners like a scared little mouse.”

“I'm still glad I'm not you.”

“Not yet, maybe.”

“Not ever. I'm not like you, and do you know what, April?”

“No.” April paused before continuing. “But I'm sure you're about to tell me.” She sighed. “Go ahead. Tell me.”

“It's your own fault that you're such a loser.” Zoe was on a regrettable roll. “You bring it on yourself, like you were born with a target on your back and you go around handing out arrows for people to take their best shot. Like Simon, he would've been your friend if you weren't so weird and homophobic. There aren't many people in this school that would even stand being in the same room with you if they had a choice, but he's one of them, and you go all Christian Nazi on him.”

The door opened, and Leaf appeared, balancing a tray of coffee and donuts along one arm.

“Excuse me.” April grabbed her notebook, shoved it back into her pack, and headed for the door. She and Leaf did an awkward little dance, both stepping in the same direction twice, before April just shoved past him, nearly toppling the tray.

“What was that?” Leaf handed Zoe a donut, slightly soggy from the sloshed coffee.

Zoe looked at Leaf. “Do you like me, Leaf?”

“Do I like you?”

“Yeah, do you
like
me, like me?”

Leaf swallowed, his Adam's apple bulging. He set the tray on the layout table and stared hard at it, like he was memorizing it for that game where the tray would be covered and he'd have to recall exactly what was on it.

Zoe wanted to kill Simon. Leaf never told him anything. He'd made it all up just to hurt April, and now Leaf was about to prove it.

Leaf folded his arms and crossed his legs at the ankle, like he'd rather twist up and disappear than respond.

“Yeah, I
like
you, like you.”

“Well, okay then.” Zoe took a bite of donut. That settled that.

“Okay then what?” Leaf untwisted himself a little.

Zoe looked at her donut, wanting to throw up the bite she'd just swallowed. “Did I just ask you if you liked me? That was out loud?”

Leaf nodded.

“Oh.”

“What do we do now?”

Zoe shrugged. “I don't know. I hadn't thought that far ahead.”

The day after Halloween,
Zoe woke up to the doorbell ringing. Alice called up from the bottom of the stairs.

“You awake, hon? It's April.”

Zoe hadn't seen April since that afternoon in the Dungeon two days before. She groaned, pulling the covers up over her head. She heard Alice send April up. She probably wanted an apology. Zoe kept the blankets over her head, even when she knew April was standing in the doorway, waiting.

“What do you want, April? Look, if you want an apology, I'm sorry about what I said in the Dungeon.” That came out nastier
than she'd intended. She sounded like Heather. Zoe swallowed and tried again, softening her voice. “I'm sorry.”