to yourself. I’ll help you figure out the details. It’s just… This is too good. The world should know who Hank Kirby is. You have so much talent, and you’re a good person. You deserve good things. So many people don’t. But you do.” She squeezes my arm as if that will drive the point home, then swallows hard, tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and adds, “And most of all because I know it took a lot of courage for you to show me this. I’ve never had anyone trust me that much.”
“Well, I have more pages. I mean, I’d love to show you more of them if you’re interested.” I’m hoping she is.
“Of course I’m interested.” She beams and hugs the papers to her chest. “Can I keep these for a while?”
“Sure. Whatever blows your hair back.”
She reaches into her back pocket and pulls out a pack of bubble gum, offering me a piece.
“Wow, matches and gum at school. You’re a rebel.”
“I’ve never been much for following rules I didn’t agree with. That’s probably the reason I’m not Student of the Month,” she says and blows a ginormous bubble. “So did you know that the guy who invented Captain America and the Fantastic Four and a bunch of other famous superheroes was named Jack Kirby? Maybe he’s, like, your long-lost uncle six times removed.”
“Where’d you learn that? I mean, I knew that, but…I’m impressed that you do.”
She leans into me and says, “If I’m going to be friends with the next big comic book artist and writer, it’s in my best interest to be up on my superheroes. You can’t ever be too informed.”
I smile and give her a playful nudge, intended to convey how much it means to me that she looked up this stuff because she knew it was important to me. That’s pretty cool. “It’s true. You never know when you could be in a life or death match of Trivial Pursuit.”
“I will have you know that I kick ass at that game. I used to play all the time when I was in the hospital.”
It slides out of her mouth and from the look in her eyes, she wishes she could reel the words back in. But before I can ask her what she’s talking about, we are interrupted by the sound of footsteps. Then our English teacher, Mr. Vaughn, skitters past, his head down, covertly sneaking a puff off a joint. He spies us mid-inhale and freezes as if deciding his best course of action, looking every bit as surprised to see us as we are to see him.
Mr. Vaughn is pretty chill as teachers go, and he exhales loudly as he brushes back the hundred or so hairs—each of them shoulder length and gray—that remain on his head. He’s the kind of guy who must have been to a million Grateful Dead concerts. I wouldn’t be surprised if he stays at just the right level of stoned to make it through us kids massacring the English language every day in his class.
“What are you two doing back here?” he asks, trying to be all official, which is hard when you’re cupping a joint in one hand.
“We’re taking a break,” Peyton tells him. “What are you doing, Mr. Vaughn?”
He studies the ground for a minute, as if the proper answer will manifest itself there, and then looks at us and grins. “I guess I’m taking a break too.”
Peyton nods. “I think it’s good to take a break now and then.”
She may be up for casual conversation, but I’m practically pissing myself at the thought of Mr. Vaughn turning us in. But I suppose catching a teacher smoking a jay cancels out two teenagers reading and talking about superheroes during a fire drill, even if one of them was responsible for the fire that caused the drill.
Mr. Vaughn notices the stack of papers in Peyton’s lap. “Whatcha got there?”
Peyton hands my comic to him, and I feel my cheeks burn with embarrassment. I reach out to grab the pages back but Peyton swats my hand away.
“It’s a comic Hank writes and illustrates. He’s going to be famous,” she says with authority.
Mr. Vaughn flips through the pages and starts smiling, then laughing, but in a good way. He takes another puff of his joint. He exhales and says, “This is really good, man. You going to art college next year?”
I can practically hear Peyton say, “See? I told you so!”
“That’s not the