Honesty was not overburdened with shame. “Lucky boy, lucky boy,” he said, and he tossed the fruit up in the air—the rest of them shouted—and caught it in his mouth, which he always did. Honesty had the widest mouth Nona had ever seen. He chewed and did not bother to finish chewing before he said, “I don’t mind telling you I need the blood sugar. I’ve got a job after lunch.”
Born in the Morning scoffed, “Real job or Honesty job?” but Born in the Morning was always a bit of a stickler.
“Real job, sunshine, real job. Underground,” he added, and tapped his nose mysteriously.
Hot Sauce said—
“Dangerous.”
“I know; those tunnels is hell,” said Honesty baldly. “But I’ll be in a car the whole time and no shooty-shooty, it’s just stripping stuff off the pipes again.”
Beautiful Ruby was impressed. “You should’ve said, I would have given you half if I’d known.”
“I’m not a boy who boasts,” said Honesty.
“God, you’re a liar,” said Born in the Morning.
When the class teacher clapped her hands together and announced the Hour of Science, which meant Nona was about to get the Hour of Noodle, Hot Sauce dawdled behind. She looked Nona dead in the eye, the ripples of her burns making pretty ridges up and down one cheek, and she said— “You’re right.”
“That I’m beautiful?” said Nona.
“No. About the Angel. The Angel’s worried.”
“Okay,” said Nona.
“Stay on the grounds today,” said Hot Sauce. “When you take Noodle.”
It was getting hot. When she took Noodle down the side stairs of the building and went out through a side door to the rubble out back, the heat hit her like a slap—not as uncomfortable as it would be later, but enough that it wasn’t hard to do as Hot Sauce said and keep to the shade with Noodle. He gamely ran a few times around the fenced part, all six of his legs moving in wonderful concert, but then he tired out and came and sat next to her and panted. Nona shared water with him from a bottle and looked around—looked up at the next building and listened to the sounds on the road, all the carolling honks and people calling out to one another—but there was nothing abnormal at all. This was almost worse, because she had been waiting for it. The most interesting sight was someone lounging in an alleyway opposite the school building, sitting in a busted-up chair next to an overflowing bin, and Nona watched intently, trying to decide if they were dead or not. She decided not dead, because they were wearing quite a good jacket and faceguard and nobody was coming around surreptitiously trying to take either.
She was somewhat disconsolate and cross by the time the main teacher called out to her from the second-storey window, but she cheered up at the handover: Noodle licked her hand, and the Angel said, “Nona, you are a little lifesaver,” and there was the pleasant, after-class dopey feeling of half the children preparing for lunch and sleep. The blinds were being drawn, and a couple of parents were there to pick up children who had food and naps elsewhere, but Hot Sauce and her friends were all dragging their mats together, claiming the coolest and darkest corner of the room.
When Hot Sauce saw her she said, quietly, “Anything strange?” and Nona reported everything, including the possible body, and Hot Sauce seemed satisfied even though there was so little to tell. She said, “Okay. Nothing. Good work, Nona,” and Nona was happy again, and forgot all about the body, or anyone watching anything.
5
CAMILLA WAS WAITING FOR HER in the vestibule where the coats and masks and the bathrooms were. When she asked how school had gone, Nona was able to say “Good!” with perfect truthfulness, and then they sidled away before the main teacher could try to slip them a pamphlet and look Camilla over for bruises, and they walked home in complete amity on the shadiest side of the street. As they went out of the school building Nona looked quickly in the alleyway for the person she’d seen in the coat and mask, but they were gone, which meant either they really had been alive or someone else had gotten to them already.
The heat made the backs of Nona’s knees blister with sweat, but Cam, unlike Palamedes, was always merciless about keeping her going. In a way she was glad that it was Cam today and not Palamedes, because even in his short appearances Palamedes liked to ask probing questions about exactly what the teacher was teaching, and to say things like “My God, that’s how they teach mathematics?” and cluck Cam’s tongue in a way that was impossible to answer. Camilla was just quiet and nice and held Nona’s hand, and once they got into the Building gave Nona a long drink of ice water from the cooling cupboard.