Wayward Son - Rainbow Rowell Page 0,6

nothing back there. I keep leaning back against walls to check. I go to the men’s room and pull up my shirt, looking over my shoulder at the mirror. Nothing but freckles.

When I come out, Baz and Penny are queued up to get on the plane, and Penelope is motioning for me to hurry up. I squeeze behind her, jostling no one with my wings. I’m thinking of everything I could do like this. Get on the Tube. See a film. Stand next to someone at a urinal without knocking him over.

I would never have fit on the plane with my wings. I couldn’t have got down the aisle without clipping everyone who was already sitting.

Baz moans when we get to our seats—in the middle of a row, in the back of the plane. “For snake’s sake, Bunce, you couldn’t spring for first class when you were stealing our tickets?”

“We’re keeping a low profile,” she says.

“I could keep a low profile in first class.”

I pull him down. It’s a tight fit between me and the lady on the other side. (She’s wearing a cross. That’s handy—Baz won’t be tempted to bite her.)

It feels good to sit back and push my shoulders directly against the seat. My spine pops. It feels good to sit this close to Baz. And the lady with the cross can’t get mad at us because we have to sit this close. It’s sitting in economy that’s making us gay.

Not that she will get mad at us necessarily.… You just never know when someone’s going to make you feel bad about what you are. The last time Baz and I held hands in public, some girl with a nose ring took offence. If you can’t trust people with nose rings to be open-minded, who’s left?

Baz said the girl wasn’t looking at us funny—he said her face just looked like that. “That woman has a miserable aspect. She put that hoop through her septum to distract from it.” He also says I can’t assume that everyone who frowns at me is frowning because I’m with a boy. “Some people just won’t like you, Simon. I didn’t like you for years.”

That was … months ago. The girl with the nose ring. Us holding hands. It was snowing.

I think about taking Baz’s hand now—I reach out, but he picks up a magazine and starts flipping through it.

Eight hours in the air. Penny says we can watch films. And that they’ll bring us food constantly. She says we’ll forget we’re over the ocean after a few minutes, and it’ll just be boring.

We’re flying into Chicago, so that Penny can see Micah. She’s hoping he’ll decide to come along with us on our road trip. “He says he has to work. But maybe he’ll change his mind.”

Baz’s knees are pressed up against the seat ahead of him. (All his height’s in his legs. Torso-to-torso, we’re the same height. I might even be taller.) The person sitting there pushes her seat back, and Baz yelps.

“You could magic yourself more space,” I say.

“Can’t. I’m saving my magic.” He angles his knees towards mine. “Just in case I have to ‘Float like a butterfly’ this entire plane.”

7

PENELOPE

I’ve been dating Micah since he came to Watford as an American exchange student our fourth year.

America doesn’t have magickal schools of its own. Most countries don’t. Sometimes foreign families send their kids to Watford for a year for the cultural experience. “And because no one offers the magickal foundation we do,” Mum likes to say. “No one.” (She’s Watford’s headmistress now, and she’s very proud.) American children go to Normal schools and learn their magic at home. “Imagine learning only the spells your parents can teach you. No elocution, no linguistics, no forensics.”

Micah’s elocution is very good—and he’s bilingual, so he can cast in Spanish. (That only works in Spanish-speaking areas, but Spanish is a growing language!)

I know everyone at Watford thought that Micah was basically my imaginary boyfriend all these years, but for us, it was very real. We communicated by letter and email. We Skyped. And then we FaceTimed. We even talked on the phone sometimes.

We went three years without seeing each other in person. Then, two years ago, I spent the summer with Micah’s family in Chicago, and as real as our relationship was before, it became more real.

I would have gone back to visit him after we finished school; I was going to. But we were all in a state of shock, with the