Anna and the French Kiss
Page 69

something like this. And I can’t believe I’m being cal ed a slut for just kissing someone! I bal up the note and chuck it at the back of her head. For better or worse, my aim is so abysmal that it hits the back of her chair. It bounces and catches in her long hair. She doesn’t feel it. I feel the slightest bit better. The note is stil stuck in her hair.
Stil there.
Stil th—whoops. She shifts, and it fal s to the ground, but Professeur Wakefield chooses this moment to walk down our aisle. Oh, no. What if he finds it and reads it aloud? I real y, truly don’t need another nickname at this school. Next to me, St. Clair is also eyeing the note. Professeur Wakefield is almost to our table when he casual y slides out his boot and steps on it. He waits until the professeur strol s away before retrieving the paper. I hear him uncrumple it, and my face flushes. He glances at me for the first time all day. But he stil doesn’t say anything.
Josh is quiet in history, but at least he doesn’t switch seats. Isla smiles at me, and incredibly, this singular moment of niceness helps. For about thirty seconds. Then Dave and Mike and Emily huddle together, and I hear my name thrown around while they look back at me and laugh. This situation,
whatever it is, is getting worse.
La Vie is a free period. Rashmi and St. Clair sketch for their art class while I pretend to bury my nose in homework. There’s a tinkly laugh behind me.
“Maybe if you weren’t such a little slut, Skunk Girl, you might stil have friends.”
Amanda Spitterton-Watts, the biggest cliché in school. The pretty mean girl. Perfect skin, perfect hair. Icy smile, icy heart.
“What’s your problem?” I ask.
“You.”
“Excel ent. Thank you.”
She tosses her hair. “Don’t you want to know what people are saying about you?” I don’t answer, because I know she’l tell me anyway. She does.
“Dave says you only slept with him to make St. Clair jealous.”
“WHAT?”
Amanda laughs again and struts away. “Dave was right to dump your sorry ass.”
I’m shocked. Like I’d ever sleep with Dave! And he told everyone that he broke up with me? How dare he? Is this what everyone thinks of me? Oh my God, is this what St. Clair thinks of me? Does St. Clair think I slept with Dave?
The rest of the week, I flip-flop between total despair and simmering rage. I have detention every afternoon, and every time I walk down the hal s, I
overhear my name spoken in hushed, gossipy tones. I look forward to the weekend, but it ends up being worse. I finished my homework in detention, so I
have nothing to do. I spend my weekend at the movies, but I’m so distraught that I can’t even enjoy it.
School has ruined cinema. It’s official.There’s nothing worth living for.
By Monday morning, my mood is so foul that I have the reckless courage to confront Rashmi in the breakfast line. “Why aren’t you talking to me?”
“Excuse me?” she asks. “You aren’t talking to me.”
“What?”
“I never threw you from our table.You stopped coming.” Her voice is tight.
“But you were mad at me! For . . . for what I did to Mer.”
“Al friends fight.” She crosses her arms, and I realize she’s quoting me. I said it last autumn after she fought with St. Clair about El ie.
El ie. I’ve ditched Rashmi, just like El ie.
“I’m sorry.” My heart fal s. “I can’t do anything right.”
Rashmi’s arms loosen, and she tugs one of her long braids. She’s uncomfortable, an unusual emotion for her. “Just promise me next time you attack
Amanda, you’l actual y break something?”
“I didn’t mean to!”
“Relax.” She shoots me an uneasy glance. “I didn’t realize you were so sensitive.”
“You know, I stil have another week of detention for that fight.”
“That was a harsh punishment. Why didn’t you just tell the head what Amanda said?”
I nearly drop my tray. “What? How do you know what she said?”
“I don’t.” Rashmi frowns. “But it must have been something seriously nasty to make you react like that.”
I avert my eyes, relieved. “Amanda just caught me at a bad time.” Which isn’t entirely untrue. I place my order with Monsieur Boutin—a large bowl of
yogurt with granola and honey, my favorite—and turn back to her. “You guys . . . don’t believe what Amanda and Dave are saying, do you?”
“Dave is a jerk. If I thought you’d slept with him, we wouldn’t be talking right now.”
I’m gripping my tray so tightly that my knuckles are turning white. “So, um, St. Clair knows I never slept with him?”
“Anna. We all think Dave is a jerk.”
I’m quiet.
“You should talk to St. Clair,” she says.
“I don’t think he wants to talk to me.”
She pushes her tray away. “And I think he does.”
I eat breakfast alone again, because I stil can’t face Mer. I’m five minutes late to English. Professeur Cole is sitting on top of her desk, sipping coffee.
She narrows her eyes as I creep into my seat, but she doesn’t say anything. Her orange sundress sways as she swings her feet. “People. Wake up,” she
says. “We’re talking about the technical aspects of translation again. Do I have to do all the work here? Who can tell me one of the problems translators face?”
Rashmi raises her hand. “Wel , most words have different meanings.”
“Good,” Professeur Cole says. “More. Elaborate.”
St. Clair sits next to Rashmi, but he’s not listening. He scribbles something fiercely in the margins of his book. “Wel ,” Rashmi says. “It’s the translator’s job to determine which definition the author means. And not only that, but there could be other meanings in relation to the context.”55
“So what you’re saying,” Professeur Cole says, “is that the translator has a lot of decisions to make. That there are multiple meanings to be found in any word, in any sentence. In any situation.”
“Exactly,” Rashmi says. And then she cuts her eyes at me.
Professeur Cole laughs. “And I’m sure none of us have ever mistaken something someone has said or done to mean something else, right? And we’re