“Think I’ll get a scar?” said Honesty.
“No, it just looks disgusting,” said the Angel, looking him over. She reached over to probe gently at one of the swollen bits as Honesty flinched. “It’s going to hurt like fury, though.”
The main teacher came over with a relieved expression, having seen off a parent.
“Oh, thank goodness you’re here. I wouldn’t have the first clue what to do. Does he need to go to the clinic?”
“No, nothing’s detached or broken, as far as I can tell,” said the Angel, draping the cold cloth back on his face. “Once he’s had ten minutes with that we’ll get him an icepack wrapped in a towel. What in living memory hit you, Honesty? This wasn’t a fist.”
But Honesty glared at her truculently out of his other eye.
“How do you know? You weren’t there. It might’ve been a fist. Might’ve been two.”
“Honesty, she’s a doctor,” said the nice lady teacher.
“Well,” said the Angel, straightening her lapels in a funny way, “I am adjacent to being a doctor, and I’m getting a good crash course in, er, triage. Anyway, Honesty, if you don’t want to talk about it that’s your lookout. I don’t like violent stories myself.”
“I’m not squealing to anyone. I’m not Kevin,” said Honesty.
“Sure. Nobody here minds. Be good for Nona, she’s doing you a favour.”
The nice lady teacher looked as though she did mind, but she followed along in the Angel’s wake, chatting inconsequentially about traffic, which left Nona to hold the damp cloth to Honesty’s eye and shield him from goggle-eyed tinies until the bell was rung to start the school day. The Angel got him an ice pack wrapped in a staffroom dish towel and he seemed quite glad to hold it to his face, really.
Hot Sauce had trailed in behind the Angel at a suitable and careless distance. She passed by her own seat and ousted a tiny who sat near the window, and when questioned about it the tiny peeped up that they had wanted to swap with Hot Sauce anyway, so all the main teacher could say was that they would swap back please after the break. Nona rather doubted whether this would happen, and in any case it was a silly idea to pit your will against Hot Sauce’s. Hot Sauce was always going to win and the whole class knew it.
This was illustrated at break. All of the gang were inclined to fawn over Honesty with his wound—Nona’s fruit had been promised to Born in the Morning but Born in the Morning didn’t even raise an issue when half that portion got slid along to Honesty—and most of the class had clustered around too, out of their seats when they weren’t meant to be, asking him if his eye was going to fall out. Hot Sauce told them, “Scatter,” and they scattered.
Then she said—
“Who did this to you?”
“You don’t have to go apeshit, Hot Sauce,” Honesty said sulkily. “I don’t want to talk about it. I can’t talk about it. I promised.”
Hot Sauce sat down on the cushion in front of him. She waited, resting her elbows on her knees and her hands in her lap, and she stared with her eyes open, not blinking, not watering. She did the thing she only did every so often, and only when they all begged her to—made her eyes go very wide and the corners very white. Because the stiff greyish-roseish ripples of her burns didn’t move when the other bits of her did, this made her suddenly lopsided and terrible with waiting. Born in the Morning and Beautiful Ruby and Nona all stopped eating and got very quiet. The only one who kept eating in perfect serenity was Kevin.
Honesty swallowed and said, “Come off it, boss.”
Hot Sauce said, “You keeping secrets from me, Honesty?”
Honesty shrivelled. “Nah.”
“Okay,” said Hot Sauce.
Even shrivelled, Honesty still wavered, which Nona found impressive.
“Boss—maybe not in front of, you know, the kids—”
“We don’t have secrets from each other,” said Hot Sauce.
Honesty swallowed again. He bent his head toward the rest of them and stared at the floor. At this cue they all put their heads together, even Nona, despite the fact that Camilla had said not to do that if at all possible because of nits.
Honesty dropped his voice so low that they almost couldn’t hear it. Then he said what had hit him. Nona, who was good at hearing whispers, didn’t have to strain to make it out, but Hot Sauce said, “Say that again,” probably because she didn’t believe it.
This made Honesty go red, and he hissed— “A streetlight. I’m not fucking kidding you here.”