of the students watched out the windows, at the duo of black bears that had surrounded the flagpole. They milled about, sniffing at the lawn, curled up on top of the picnic tables that still smelled of sack lunches. All of this reminded Jake of the beginning of Red Dawn, one of his favorite movies, but without the Russians. He would have preferred Russians, because they probably would have shot Ms. Bray first.
Ms. Bray had enough and pulled the curtains shut. The students groaned, and Jake looked up at the blackboard to see Ms. Bray’s crudely drawn version of the continental drift. It resembled a basketball with patches of eczema.
Jake surreptitiously pulled his copy of Flowers in the Attic from his desk and slid it behind his earth science textbook. It was his second time through the entire series, but it was delicious, and far preferable to hearing Ms. Bray opine about Pangaea.
Ms. Bray caught him, even though he was trying to keep his page turning as quiet as possible. She pointed to the front of the class, and Jake knew the routine, knew that she would give the speech about how if he found cheap paperbacks more interesting than a junior high school education, he should just go live under a bridge. It was always the same. Sometimes she switched it up, and suggested that he go live on the streets of San Francisco, which always made the class snicker.
“What is it this time?” Ms. Bray took a seat in an empty desk at the front of the class, one leg crossed over a knee, her foot bobbing expectantly. “I cannot wait to hear about hobbits or Nancy Reagan’s astrologist or Jonathan Livingston Seabird.”
“Seagull,” said Jake.
“Don’t let me stop you,” said Ms. Bray. “Tell the class what is more interesting than the formation of every continent on this globe!” she shouted, which was a first.
Jake cleared his throat. “I am currently reading Flowers in the Attic, by V. C. Andrews, and it is a novel. This book is about a normal family, except they are all blondes. The father is killed in a car accident, and the mother takes all four of her children to live with their grandmother in a grand old mansion. The grandmother is evil, because she is not blonde, and she forces the children to live in the attic, which is okay, because it’s a mansion, and it’s a really big attic. But then the kids get really bored, and the oldest brother and sister start fucking each other.”
The class erupted, and Ms. Bray was on her feet. Jake paused to take a deep, dramatic bow. He was not afraid anymore, and he soaked in the cheers of his classmates. Ms. Bray slapped the book from his hand, and shoved him toward the door.
“This is not funny!” she screamed at the class, who continued to howl, as she pushed him into the hallway.
“Go to the principal’s office right now,” she said, and shut the door behind her.
Jake could no longer hear the students laughing, as he walked down the long hall toward the administrative offices. He looked over his shoulder, and turned left instead of right, and marched out the front doors of the school. He didn’t care about the black bears. He walked to the Sinclair, where Martha Man Hands mostly ignored him, caught up in all of the bear sightings squawking on the police scanner. He ate a corn dog, and returned in time for second period.
* * *
As promised, Shyanne waited at her locker. She still had a walking cast on her foot, but the orthopedist said she was healing well and should recover to full capacity. She told him this as they walked the empty hallways; school had ended ten minutes earlier, and the students were eager to get back out into the unseasonable air and the chaos of the black bear invasion. Shyanne was wearing her usual athletic shorts—for a while, she had worn sweatpants, depressed because she thought she had blown her chances at a scholarship over a stupid women’s softball game. But here were the shorts, and those legs that still came up to his neck, and he followed her into the auditorium, where her entrance caused every boy to punch each other and stare at her legs.
At exactly four o’clock, the student council president called the meeting to order. Twenty students were present, all elected representatives from their respective classes, plus Jake. Nobody seemed to notice or