You know. Like how an abnormally large hemorrhoid is special.
“Ew,” says Alyssa, wrinkling her nose at Dave. “Did you really just say that?”
I can see the wheels in Dave’s head turning, trying to figure out a way to walk back the offensive comment enough to win Alyssa’s approval, but without having to apologize to me.
I put an arm around Alyssa’s shoulders, hoping she’ll wait until Dave isn’t looking to tell me to knock it off.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he mutters, narrowing his eyes at my arm like he’s trying to light it on fire.
“It’s okay, Dave,” I say magnanimously. “I forgive you. I know you really do want us at your party.” I emphasize the us.
I feel more than see Alyssa roll her eyes; she’s turned her attention back to her sketch, but her shoulders give a slight shake and her chin twitches, which translates roughly to Justin, you are so full of crap.
Fortunately, Dave does not speak fluent Alyssa, and therefore does not realize that she’s only barely tolerating me right now. Based on the look he shoots at me, if you could give a person gonorrhea through sheer force of will, I’d be covered in warts by now.
Or, you know, whatever the actual symptoms of gonorrhea are. I don’t know; I just imagine it’s gross.
As if on cue, the winner wraps up his speech onstage, and Taylor Strickland skips back to the microphone, dismissing us to class with a reminder that everyone’s invited! to the pep rally tomorrow night.
I grin at Dave as I rise to my feet, keeping one hand on the back of Alyssa’s chair. “So I guess we’ll see you there?” I say cheerily as she packs up her sketchbook.
“Whatever,” he grunts, shrugging on his backpack and shoving his way out of his row.
“Single file, Mr. Derrin,” Mr. Shaw calls after him, sounding bored.
Even though he wasn’t talking to her, Alyssa jumps up, following the person beside her out of our row and grabbing my wrist to make sure I’m doing the same.
The wrist-grabbing isn’t necessary; I’d follow her off a bridge. But I’m hardly going to complain about it.
Once we’re back in class, Alyssa pulls out her sketchbook again, swapping her charcoals for colored pencils, but has barely started shading in my eyes when Shaw lumbers into the room, dropping a thick stack of papers on his desk with a sound like a door slamming.
“Okay, rabble,” he rumbles as we all startle to alertness. He picks up the papers he just put down, clacking the edges against the desktop like an exclamation point. “One last thing before you scurry out of here for the weekend.” He begins to distribute them, dividing the stack into chunks that he drops on the front desk of every row.
As we send stapled packets from hand to hand like the well-oiled machine we are, Shaw explains, “As the mayor mentioned at the assembly, applications for the internship at city hall need to be turned in to the front office by next Wednesday. These internships will last through the end of the school year, and can earn you college credit. While the mayor will only be accepting a handful of interns, anyone who completes an application will get a homework pass.”
Shaw keeps talking, something about civic responsibility and the unfortunate work ethic of our generation, but I stop paying attention as I scan the application form, my eyes blurring on rows of questions I can’t answer.
What are your college plans?
Which accomplishment（s） are you proudest of during your time at Warren Memorial High School?
Describe a time you demonstrated leadership among your peers.
Where do you see yourself in ten years?
What is your greatest wish for the future, and what are you doing now to make it a reality?
Alyssa is already hard at work filling out her form, pinning down her dreams and aspirations with her pen like she’s afraid they might fly away.
I stare at mine, trying to come up with an answer to even one question, but they’re all about achievements and ambitions, future plans and career goals.
This application wasn’t written for someone like me.
The bell rings, and the room fills with the sounds of sneakers hitting the floor, papers rustling into folders, backpacks zipping closed. Alyssa sighs and slides her application into her sketchbook, half of the page already dark with her handwriting.
As we all cluster at the front of the room to shuffle out the door, I glance around to make sure no one is looking, then drop my application in the trash.
Chapter Two
ROSE
“Hi, would you like to donate a dollar to help—”
“Not interested, thanks.”
Rose Yin let the hand holding the coffee can drop to her side as the woman shouldered past her, not even pausing to glance at the signs she’d spent all night creating.
FIRE DESTROYS LIFETIME OF TREASURED MEMORIES, one read in bold black marker. Rose had pasted newspaper clippings underneath, detailing the story of the fire that had destroyed Mrs. Hanley’s garage and nearly burned down her house. The Buford County Sheriff’s Department had ruled the circumstances “suspicious,” but wouldn’t commit to calling it arson.
“We’re looking into it,” officers said any time Mrs. Hanley or Noah’s parents called the police station. “Just be patient.”
Somehow, Rose doubted there was any definition of patience that would work out in Mrs. Hanley’s favor. Meanwhile, the charred husk of the garage languished behind her house, neglected and forgotten.
HELP HER REBUILD, the other sign said in glittery pink letters over an enlarged photo of the elderly woman’s face. The Xerox machine had turned Mrs. Hanley’s warm-brown skin black and grainy, and her carefully arranged gray curls seemed to merge with the top of her head. They hadn’t had many photos to pick from; she’d moved most of her albums to the detached garage after her husband died, so they were destroyed in the fire. This one had been plucked from a box underneath Rose’s bed, taken on Noah’s seventeenth birthday last year.
Noah had pushed for her not to use it. “Nope,” he said the second she slid the enlargement out of the Kinko’s envelope. “You can’t show this to people. Gran will hate it.”
“It’s a good photo!” Rose insisted, tilting her head sideways.
“Not when you copy it in black and white and blow it up to twenty times its size.”
“It has to be big for the posters.”
“Just put a photo of the house on the posters.”
“People don’t want to give money to a house. They want to give it to a person.”
Noah smiled ruefully. “I don’t think they’re going to want to give money at all, but I appreciate the effort.”
“Sure, they will,” Rose said confidently. She flipped the photo toward him, holding it up so her nose brushed against the back of the paper. “Who could say no to this face?”
As it turned out, lots of people.
Rose tapped the coffee can against the side of her leg, listening to its meager contents jangle against its tin sides. They’d been stationed in front of the Food Mart ever since school got out and had barely collected anything, despite the bustling Friday foot traffic.
She arched up onto her tiptoes, shading her eyes as she scanned the parking lot for the hundredth time.