All the Little Lights
Page 21

Maybe he would get popular fast and no longer need to try to be my friend. Maybe he would call me weird and spit in my hair like some of the other kids. Maybe Elliott would make it easier to hate him. While I drifted off to sleep, I hoped that he would. Hate made loneliness easier.
Chapter Seven
Catherine
Small white strings tied to a metal vent on the ceiling swayed to a silent beat somewhere inside the ventilation system of the school. They were meant to show that the AC was working, and it was, just not very well.
Scotty Neal twisted himself to stretch, grabbing my desk until his back popped, and then heaved a dramatic sigh. He lifted the bottom of his T-shirt and used it to wipe the sweat from his red, blotchy face.
I twisted my hair, now several inches past my shoulders, into a high bun. The strands at the nape of my neck were damp and tickling my skin, so I smoothed them upward. The other students were fidgeting, too, overheating by the minute.
“Mr. Mason.” Scotty groaned. “Can we get a fan? Water? Something?”
Mr. Mason dabbed his brow with a handkerchief and pushed his glasses up his slick nose for the dozenth time. “That’s a good idea, Scotty. Water break. Use the fountain around the corner. There are classrooms in session between here and there. I want quiet, I want an efficient system, and I want you back here in five minutes.”
Scotty nodded, and chairs scraped against the muted green tile as everyone stood and headed out the door, not at all quiet. Minka passed me, her hair frizzy and threatening to curl. She glared at me over her shoulder, still angry that I’d broken up with her and Owen two years before.
Mr. Mason rolled his eyes at the chatter and shook his head, and then he noticed me, the lone student still in the room.
“Catherine?”
I raised my eyebrows to acknowledge him.
“Aren’t you thirsty?” He waved me away, already knowing the answer. “Oh, it’s a circus out there. I get it. Make sure you go after everyone gets back in, okay?”
I nodded and then began to doodle on my notepad, trying not to think about the line of sweat forming on his shirt where his man boobs sat flat like thick, twin pancakes on his beer gut.
Mr. Mason took a breath and then held it. He was about to ask me a question, probably something like how was I doing or if everything was okay at home. But he knew better. Everything was fine or good or okay. It had been fine or good or okay in his class the year before, too. He seemed to remember to ask me on Fridays. By Christmas break, he’d stopped.
After half the students had returned, Mr. Mason looked at me over his glasses. “Okay, Catherine?”
Not wanting to protest in front of everyone, I nodded and stood, concentrating on the green and white tiles as I walked. Giggling and chatter grew louder, then several pairs of shoes came into view.
I stopped at the end of the water fountain line, and the clones giggled.
“It was nice of you to stay at the back of the line,” Presley said.
“I’m not drinking after her,” her friend Anna Sue muttered.
I dug my thumbnail into my arm.
Presley shot a smirk to her friend and then addressed me. “How’s the bed and breakfast, Cathy? It looked closed the last time I drove by.”
I sighed. “Catherine.”
“Excuse me?” Presley said, pretending to be offended that I even responded.
I looked up at her. “My name is Catherine.”
“Oh,” Presley mocked. “Kit-Cat’s feeling feisty.”
“She’s decided to walk among the peasants,” Minka muttered.
I gritted my teeth, letting go of my arm to ball my hand into a fist.
“I heard it’s haunted,” Tatum said, the excitement of drama sparking in her eyes. She raked her bleached tresses out of her eyes.
“Yes,” I snapped back. “And we drink the blood of virgins. So you’re all safe,” I said, turning for the classroom.
I rushed for the safety of Mr. Mason’s presence, sliding into my desk. He didn’t notice, even though no one was distracting him. No one was talking or moving. It was almost too hot to breathe.
Scotty returned, wiping drops of water off his chin with the back of his hand. The gesture reminded me of Poppy, and I wondered if she would be at the Juniper when I got home, how much help Mama would need, and if anyone new had checked in while I was gone.
“Can I help you?” Mr. Mason asked.
I looked up from my notepad. Elliott Youngblood stood with a gigantic boat of a sneaker partially inside the threshold of the doorway, one hand holding a small, white paper, a faded red backpack strap in the other. More students returned, pushing Elliott forward a step as they shouldered past him, like he was an inanimate object in their way. No apologies, no acknowledgment that they had brushed their sweaty skin against him without so much as an excuse me.
“Is that for me?” Mr. Mason asked, nodding to the paper in Elliott’s hand.
Elliott walked forward, the top of his head barely clearing the small paper Saturn hanging from the ceiling.
I imagined ways to hate him. People who were too tall or too short or too anything usually had exaggerated feelings of inferiority, and Elliott had likely become sensitive and insecure—impossible to be around.
Elliott’s bulky arm reached out to give Mr. Mason the paper. His nose wrinkled on one side when he sniffed. I was mad at his nose and his muscles, and that he looked so different and so much taller and older. Mostly I hated him for leaving me alone to find out Dad had died. I had given him my entire summer—my last summer with Dad—and I’d needed him, and he’d just left me there.
Mr. Mason squinted his eyes as he read the note, then placed it with the haphazardly stacked papers on his desktop.
“Welcome, Mr. Youngblood.” Mr. Mason looked up at Elliott. “Do you come to us from the White Eagle?”
Elliott lifted one eyebrow in shock at such an ignorant statement. “No?”
Mr. Mason pointed to an empty seat in the back, and Elliott walked quietly down my aisle. A few snickers floated in the air, and I glanced back, seeing Elliott trying to fit his endless legs under the confines of the desk. My height was on the short side. It hadn’t occurred to me that the desks were best suited for children. Elliott was a man, a giant, and he wasn’t going to fit in a one-size-fits-all anything.
The metal hinges creaked as Elliott adjusted again, and more giggles erupted.
“All right, all right,” Mr. Mason said, standing. When he raised his arms to gesture for the class to settle down, his dark sweat stains became visible, and the students laughed even more.
The school counselor walked in and scanned heads until she stopped on Elliott. Looking wholly disappointed, she sighed. “We’ve discussed this, Milo. Elliott is going to need a table and a chair. I thought you had one in here.”
Mr. Mason frowned, unhappy with a second disruption.
“I’m okay,” Elliott said. His voice was deep and smooth, embarrassment dripping off each word.
“Mrs. Mason.” Mr. Mason said her name with the disdain of a soon-to-be ex-husband. “We have it under control.”
The concerned look on her face vanished, and she shot him an irritated look. The rumor was that the Masons had decided on a trial separation the previous spring, but it was going significantly better for Mrs. Mason than it was for mister.
Mrs. Mason had lost fortyish pounds, grown out and highlighted her brunette hair, and wore more makeup. Her skin was brighter, and the wrinkles around her eyes were gone. She was full of happiness, and it had begun to seep out of her skin and eyes and pour out all over the floor, practically leaving a trail of rose-scented rainbows everywhere she walked. Mrs. Mason was better without her husband. Without his wife, Mr. Mason wasn’t much at all.