toward the C wing where the science classrooms are. You turn to me constantly to mouth things: people you know through Ethan, more gossip. It’s all new to me, but you know not only people, but the structure of the school itself, its classrooms and hallways, having been here plenty of times for concerts and honor society inductions and award ceremonies for your star brother, Ethan. No doubt he’ll be picked Homecoming King end of senior year.
“Ethan told me,” you whisper not softly enough as we pass room C104, its door bearing a sign that reads: “Never Trust an Atom, They Make Up Everything,” “that Kiki Munson smashed it with Max Gordon right in there, after school, behind the high tables in the Bunsen burner lab.”
“Who smashed what?” I whisper back, more to seem interested than because I am. I don’t know who either of those people are. You cover your mouth to stifle a laugh.
“It,” you say, your eyes bulging wide like I’m dumb. “You know, her. It. Right there on the floor. The janitor caught them, and Ethan says that Gordon kid tried to bribe him with a twenty-dollar bill. To stay and let them finish up. Like, not even caring what they were doing. Ethan says everyone calls it the Munson Burner Incident. Get it?”
“I doubt that happened,” I say. “Did he see it?”
“Well, no. Not him, but his friend Patrick’s friend Boris. And he told Patrick, who told Ethan, who told me. But I don’t think he’d make that up.”
“Whatever. It’s dumb,” I say, loud enough to cause Principal Goldstein to turn again and sternly pronounce, “Girls, please, quiet. We all need to behave like grown-ups here.”
I give you a look, and you say, “Sorry, Principal Goldstein, I’m just trying to show my friend which room is which,” and you smile too sweetly, which makes me want to cringe. You seem different today, insincere. Sure, we always share secrets, but this feels show-offy and mean, as if you’re trying to prove you’re better than me. That you’re in on things I don’t know about or understand. Besides, I’m sure it’s all a stupid rumor, and it’s no one’s business who does what with whom, even if Ethan says so. And anyway, how many girls would want to go to the back of a science room with him, right? My breath hitches at the thought.
I follow quietly until we reach the freshman biology lab where, speaking of Ethan, he’s meeting us, partly because he’s Mr. Slattery’s favorite, so he’s one of the three students walking groups through “Your Typical Day in Bio Lab,” and partly because he’ll be buddying up with us the rest of the day when we break off into individual schedules—one senior assigned for every new freshman, and you made sure I got to pair up with you.
“Hey, Eth,” I say, when we’ve gathered around his lab table. He smiles at me, eyes crinkling through his safety goggles.
“We wear these for most of our labs,” he says, tapping at them. “Chemistry or bio, and there’s an emergency sprinkler up there, in case it’s needed.” He points up to a bronze sprinkler head in the ceiling and adds, “But don’t think you won’t get detention for setting it off on purpose, and you don’t want to end up in detention with the Ellises and the Gordons of the world.”
Ethan winks at me, right as the girl next to me leans across to you and says, “I would. At least with Max Gordon. Seriously. Have you seen Max Gordon?”
You push her back, and Ethan moves on with his demonstration; everyone, including Mr. Slattery, still laughing, though, for the life of me, I’m not completely sure at what.
LATE MAY
TENTH GRADE
If Max’s house is sad, his room completely breaks my heart, not because of how neat and clean it is, made up with a green-and-blue plaid blanket and heavy matching curtains on the window, but because of the bookshelves. One whole small wall covered in them.
“Don’t laugh, I made those,” he says, pointing to the curtains.
“Really?”
“Yeah. I would never lie to you about curtains.”
I laugh, and wrap my arms around his waist and bury my nose in his sweet heady scent. “You’re seriously going to tell me you sew?”
“Not exactly. Not sew.” He shakes me off, and walks over and flips the bottom edge of a panel up toward me and says, “But I can staple pretty well.”
I wrap my arms around him again and kiss the back