Freefly (16 page)

“What’s the matter?” I say. 

She mutters something under her breath and keeps walking.  I guess the window for sharing secrets has officially slammed shut.  Not that I’ve helped the matter, with my inability to explain my lies yesterday.  I drift up to one of the lockers and tap it with my forefinger. 

“First stop,” I say.

Sammie pulls up beside me, grinning goofily.  “Your locker?”

“The one and only.”

She bounces on her heels.  “Can I open it?  Please!” 

“Sure.”  I step aside, then pause.  “You know how to do it?”

She rolls her eyes.  “Pssh.  First thing they teach you in criminal training is how to open a lock.”

“Criminal training?  They have that?”

“What’s the combination?”

“16, 34, 37.”

Her fingers dance over the lock.  It strikes me how odd this is:  Sammie, her hair falling in her face, leaning in toward my locker.  It is as if the two separate universes of my life have collided. 

Sammie yanks down the lock and pulls open the door.  I can’t help but laugh at the glee on her face. 

“What are you laughing at?” she says, turning to me.

“You.”

She crosses her arms.  “Hey!”

“Sorry.”  I wedge myself closer to the locker and begin to pull out a few of my notebooks.  (If we’re going to my classes, I may as well take notes, right?)

“No, it’s okay,” she says.  “I like it when you laugh.  It doesn’t happen that often.”

Clutching the notebooks to my chest, I look up at her.  “Really?”

She nods. 

I push the locker shut.  She’s right, I guess.  I’m not really a happy-go-lucky sort of guy (even when I’m pretending to be that sort of guy).  Still, I’m surprised that Sammie has noticed this about me.  I thought I was the only one of us carefully observing the other. 

“Where to now?” Sammie says, skipping ahead of me down the B-wing. 

“Well, I have calculus first block.”

“Calculus.  That’s a type of math, right?”

I jog to catch up with her.  “Yep.”

She freezes and puts one hand to her ear.  “What’s that?”

I stop and listen.  We are in the intersection of the A- and B-wings.  Strips of lockers stretch in front of us, but in the hall the cuts across us, many windows flood the school with natural light.  From our left, voices drift, rising and falling in pitch. 

“That must be the choir practicing,” I say.  “The music department is in that wing.”

Sammie’s eyes light up.  “Can we go?”

“To choir practice?”

“Please!  I’ve...I’ve never actually seen a choir before.”  She casts her eyes at the ground.  Pity surges within me.  I realize that this may be Sammie’s only chance to experience what it’s like to be a normal teenager who goes to class instead of doing mysterious work for criminals. 

“Let’s do it,” I say.

Sammie does a little leap (staying in the air just a tad too long) and puts her arm through mine.  She breaks into a run toward the A-wing, and I’m forced to jog to keep up.  The voices grow louder as we approach two broad wooden doors.  I squeeze the handle and open one of them. 

The auditorium opens before us, an expanse of red seats before a vast wooden stage.  Bright lights illuminate several rows of students on the stage, and their mouths gape open and shut as they sing.  The music seems vaguely classical, a slow tune that I think I recognize.  The conductor bounces in front of them, waving his arms around.  “Ave Maria”
—
that’s the name of the song.  I turn to whisper it to Sammie, but stop when I see that she is crying, her left hand pressed against her collarbone.  Our arms still locked together, I pull her further into the auditorium and slide us into the last row.  We sink into the seats, and Sammie folds her hands over her stomach and shuts her eyes.  I put my notebooks under the seat and do the same.

The rehearsal lasts for the entire block.  Afterwards, Sammie and I drift back out the doors.  My head feels light and fuzzy.  Sammie lopes toward one of the windows and stands in front of it, the flow of hallway traffic breaking around her. 

“That was totally awesome,” she says, her eyes on the grassy field outside. 

“It was.” 

“You’re so lucky, getting to hear stuff like that every day.”

I blow out a breath.  That’s the first time I’ve ever heard the choir perform.  Thinking about it, I remember hearing announcements for their concerts in the morning news, and I definitely remember hearing the sounds of their rehearsals ringing in the hallways, but I have never bothered to go and see them before.  I can’t help but wonder why. 

“I am lucky,” I say. 

Sammie turns to me.  “Where to next?  Sorry, I guess I made you miss calculus.”

“It’s okay.” 
“Any other cool stuff going on?”

“Let’s wander around a little.”

I decide to return my notebooks to my locker, because after the tear-inducing choir rehearsal, taking Sammie to a physics class would just be cruel (not to mention deeply ironic).  I stack my notebooks at the bottom of my locker as Sammie leans against the one next to me, her arms crossed over her chest.  The hallway traffic is beginning to dwindle as students file into their next classes, but those who remain stare at Sammie.  Even in my baggy sweatshirt, she is striking.  I wonder what they think when they see
me
next to her, a loser who clearly does not belong.  I pray that Joe Butt or any of his goons do not pass us. 

“What’s this, Damien?”  Sammie points to a flyer stuck with Scotch tape to one of the lockers.  It has bold, black lettering and a large disco ball in the center. 

“The Spring Shake,” I say, getting to my feet. 

“What’s that?”

“It’s a dance they have every spring.  I think it’s tonight, actually.”

“A dance?”  Sammie’s eyes brighten.  “Have you ever gone?”

I take a deep breath.  Normally, this would be my turn to lie, to fabricate a fantastic experience and make myself sound well-liked.  But I’m tired of lying.  “No.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”  I start walking down the hallway to avoid having to make eye contact.  Sammie scurries along beside me.  “I guess I’ve never really been interested?”

“Not interested?”  She throws up her hands, incredulous.  “Why would you not want to go to a dance?  It seems so...fun, and magical, and normal.”

“I’ve always been very focused on my studies.”

“On getting into GLOBE.”

I nod.

Sammie remains silent, but I know what she is thinking:  Are you insane?  I wonder if I have been, if maybe there are wonderful things right here in Boorsville High, and I’ve just been too self-centered to see them. 

We wander the halls long after everyone else has gone to class, swells of excitement and anxiety battling in my stomach.  I have never, ever skipped class before, let alone wandered the halls like a juvenile delinquent.  But Sammie wants to get a look at all of the wings, so we slink through the C-wing (math), where the windows in the doorways reveal students hunched over their desks.  Then I lead Sammie through the D-wing (science!) and I whisper about all the great experiments I’ve done.  Then Sammie spots some artwork on the walls of the E-wing and sprints toward it.  I trot after her. 

“What wing is
this?
” Sammie says, stopping in front of a gigantic piece of artwork on the wall.  It’s made of many squares of paper, each one containing a small part of the larger, overall work.  (I remember doing a project like this in middle school, when you couldn’t avoid taking art classes, and I recall that a different student makes each square.)  All together, the piece depicts the knobby face of Abraham Lincoln. 

“Art,” I say.  “I’ve, uh, actually never been in this wing.”

Sammie turns to me, incredulous, before continuing down the hall.  I follow her, walking slowly to admire the watercolor paintings on walls.  Many of them are sloppy, but some of them are quite beautiful:  moist-looking depictions of flowers, houses, and covered bridges.  The smell of fresh paint and the rumble of conversation drift from the open doorways.  I try to imagine taking one of these classes:  staring at a photograph of a tree and trying to copy it with the wet strokes of my paintbrush, chatting with the person next to me.  It seems alien.  I am used to classes in which the teacher talks and you listen, because these are the sorts of classes you take to become someone important. 

“Promise me you’ll take one of these classes,” Sammie says, keeping her eyes on the watercolor paintings as we slide past them. 

“I think I will.”

The bell sounds, and students pour out of the rooms.  Sammie presses her back against the wall to make room, and I move to stand next to her, watching her watch them.  Her eyes contain curiosity, but also fear, like a person on safari who has stumbled into a lion’s den.  Slowly, I cover her hand with mine.  She stiffens, then exhales visibly and turns to me. 

“Thank you,” she says.  “For this.” 

I do a little shrug.  “No problem.”

“What happens next?”

Her question hangs in the air, her hand warm and smooth beneath mine.  Does she mean what happens next with
us
, after this escapade in my high school is over?  Does she feel the same overwhelming agony at the thought of never seeing each other again? 

She tugs her hand out from under mine and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.  “Let me guess.  Microbiology.  Am I right?”

I force a smile and try to ignore the sinking feeling in my chest.  “Yeah.  Microbiology.  Lunch first, though.” 

We cross the school, making our way down the D-wing and then the C-wing, then finally emerging into the cafeteria.  Sammie stands in the entrance and just stares.  Students cram the long, rectangular tables that stretch across the large room, which has white walls and a high ceiling, with a skylight punched out.  A line of people snakes up the middle of the cafeteria, then wrenches past the windows where the food is dispensed.  The chatter of the students is a continuous roar. 

Sammie turns to me with bulging eyes. 

I laugh, then jerk my head toward the line.  We make our way across the cafeteria, garnering the stares of just about everyone. 

“I don’t have any money,” Sammie murmurs.  She stands behind me, glancing around at the tables of students.

“It’s okay,” I say.  “I have an account.”

“An account?”

“Yeah.  Mom deposits a bunch of money at the beginning of the year, and all I have to do is punch a code and the money pays for my meals.” 

“Fascinating.”

“I thought you’d like that.”

When we reach the food, Sammie puts two slices of greasy pizza on her tray, while I grab a bagel, an apple, and a Rice Krispy Treat.  We check out and make our way toward the very back of the cafeteria, in the corner, where I usually sit and study.  I slide into a chair, and Sammie slides in across from me.  There are empty seats on both sides of us.  (This table is not particularly popular, due to its location beneath the icy blast of the air conditioning vent.)