“Was it the broadcast?” asked Honesty shrewdly. “Any chance…” And he made a horrible motion, strangling himself with his tongue out and his eyes floating all the way back into his skull.
“I don’t think so,” said Nona, trying to regain her composure and stop her tantrum in its tracks. It had been a very near thing. She was feeling fragile, as Pyrrha said after long nights. “Pyrrha’s very smart and wouldn’t have got hurt.”
Beautiful Ruby said, injured, “How come it’s cool to ask if your people got hurt or killed but not okay to say one’s a pimp,” and Honesty said, “It’s tact, little man, it’s tact.”
“How’s that tact? Seriously, how is that tact? Someone explain.”
Nona’s eyes were smarting, and she changed the subject hastily. “Where’s Born in the Morning?”
They fell silent, which told Nona all she needed to know.
Honesty said breezily, “Those fuckin’ dads of his, probably already joined up,” and laughed like it was a joke. But his absence was depressing, and they all felt it. It seemed strange that they were all there, even Kevin—even Honesty—but Born in the Morning wasn’t. It felt as though they weren’t all together, they weren’t a gang. They subsided into silence until the door buzzed again. Nona saw Camilla flinch over on the other side of the room, and Honesty darted forward; but it was the Angel, and it was Noodle, and it was Hot Sauce.
“This must be the first time you’re on time, Honesty,” the Angel said. Then she saw Camilla, and after a moment’s hesitation she reached out one firm little hand for Cam to shake, saying in the way adults spoke to each other— “Manic, isn’t it?”
“War zone,” said Camilla. And: “I wanted to thank you.”
The Angel firmly headed that off at the pass. “Nonsense, I did absolutely nothing but give a colleague a lift. Unusual circumstances last night. Come upstairs and we can talk after I’ve settled the kids … Which is really the last and only thing I can do. I don’t think we’ll be able to keep this up much longer. The other teacher’s already left me a message to say that she thinks school shouldn’t resume until everyone’s off the streets, so, you know, who knows when school will ever resume? Come upstairs—come on, everyone,” she said, before Cam could disagree. And as they went up the stairs she said, “I met your partner yesterday,” which had the power of stupefying Cam into silence.
All of them trooped upstairs to the cloakroom and put their things away as per normal and went into the dark, quiet classroom as one. The Angel turned on the lights and they sat at their proper clusters of desks, spread out across the classroom because the nice lady teacher always said no way was she letting them all sit together, with Nona at the Teacher’s Aide desk at the back. Nona was surprised when Camilla, automatic and meek, took an unused desk at the back herself, one of the bigger desks that the older girls sat at. She still had her knees folded up a little too much. Noodle made a beeline for the bed he always sat in beneath the whiteboard, and once he had settled himself, the Angel said— “Is everyone all right? Are everyone’s families all right?”
There was a faint chorus of assent, but then Beautiful Ruby burst out— “Sweetie said maybe now the zombies are back you won’t get knifed in the street, so we should do whatever they say.”
The Angel lifted both eyebrows. “Since when have you called your mum by her first name?”
Beautiful Ruby coloured a bit. “I’m not going to call her Mum anymore, she’s going over to their side.”
“She’s weak,” said Hot Sauce, speaking for the first time.
The Angel looked at Hot Sauce searchingly. Something new was happening between them, Nona decided, they were different from how they had been just before last night. It wasn’t as easy now as Hot Sauce being their leader and the Angel’s protector. Maybe Hot Sauce had gotten into trouble. But the Angel didn’t seem mad, she was only looking at her more carefully, with more interest. She said, “Hmm. Well, it’s a gift to be strong—and when you have to be strong for more people than yourself it gets very complicated. I don’t know how to explain or make it sound good,” she added apologetically. “I don’t want to read you the riot act. Don’t care about what people say … care about what people do. People say all kinds of things because it’s so easy to open your mouth and make words come out. It’s the doing that shows you what they are, and what they feel.”