So, not completely unlike Romeo.
I look over at him. He’s already looking at me. His eye’s less swollen but more bruised, mottled purple all around, a sick yellow at the edges. His lip’s almost healed in one spot but newly split in another.
I show Petra the note. “Chicanery,” she pronounces.
So I write back, “Is this a trick?”
I watch the note make its way across the room. I watch him unfold and read it. He looks up and makes shocked eyes at me. Why, the very suggestion! I watch him write on the note, watch him fold it back up, watch it make its way back to me. I unfold it.
“No,” it says.
Petra rolls her eyes.
“What made you maybe slightly somewhat change your mind?” Writing. Passing. Unfolding. Reading. Furtive glances at Mrs. Shriver who is talking about Britain outlawing slavery in 1833. Writing. Passing. Unfolding. Reading.
“Magic.”
* * *
At lunch when he comes over and sits down with us, Petra is assembling a sandwich she’s brought in pieces—English muffin, strawberry jelly, potato chips—by using one of the sturdier chips to spread the jam.
“According to my calculations,” he says, lisping a little around the cut in his lip, “that potato chip is approximately eleven and a half calories.”
“It’s not a potato chip.” Petra doesn’t even look at him. “It’s a jam spreader.”
“Like a knife?”
“Exactly.”
“Why don’t you make lunch at home where you have an actual knife?”
“If I put the chips on at home, they’d be soggy by lunch.”
“I thought you were just using them to spread the jam.”
“Not just,” says Petra. “After I use them as knives, I put them in the sandwich.”
“Why?”
“They’re crunchy”—she shrugs her braid over her shoulder—“unless you’re dumb enough to assemble your sandwich at home.”
He considers this logic.
“Are you okay?” I ask. I do not ask, “What’s happening to your face?” because it seems rude and like something better left unspoken. As if it’s not noticeable. As if not noticing would be a kindness. Kindness is not my goal anyway, but something has shifted here maybe, and I want to get him to tell me what it is.
“I’m fine.” He tongues the raw inside of his cheek and keeps his eyes on Petra’s sandwich.
He doesn’t look fine, but I was just being polite anyway. If he doesn’t want to tell me, there are more pressing things to discuss. “So. Magic?”
“Well, misdirection anyway.” He smiles, winces, embarrassed or maybe it hurts his face to move it that much. “More like old-fashioned spy tactics I guess.”
We wait.
“Cell reception sucks in this town,” he says.
“We’re aware,” says Petra.
“We had to put in an actual landline.” He looks appalled. “But then I realized the most amazing thing: if you pick up the phone upstairs, you can hear what’s being said on the phone downstairs, and no one else on the phone call can tell you’re listening because it’s not really a shared call. No one invited you to join. No split screen. Nothing. It’s like a technological marvel.”
“We’re known for that here,” Petra says.
“The phone rings a million times a night, and it’s always my grandfather, and he’s always yelling, and my dad is always agreeing and apologizing and ass-kissing. So last night, I went upstairs and picked up the other phone and listened.”
“And?” I try not to sound too eager or expect too much. “What did they say?”
He blanches. “I don’t want to tell you.”
“Tell us!” Petra and I demand at once.
“I can’t. It’s not nice.”
“They’re not hiding in the school cafeteria.” Petra peeks theatrically under the table. “You’re spying on them. They’re not spying on you. They’ll never know.”
“Not not nice to them,” River says. “Not nice to you.”
“We can take it,” I assure him because maybe this is it. I’ve watched my mother fight this battle a long time. I’m not naive enough to think that mean things River overheard his father say would make a difference. But maybe he overheard something that would, something we could tell Mama, and Mama could tell Russell, that would finally move the lawsuit in front of a judge who would at last be presented with evidence that could not be ignored or denied.