Not that I’d planned on being there much. I hadn’t been in a school since grade six in Oregon. I’d hated it then and I didn’t see why it would be any different now.
Meg had put me in a remedial class until they figured out what grade I could handle and how well I would socialize. There had been stuff in the news about Danny being found. The local and Toronto papers had called. A TV crew had interviewed Meg and Shan and Swofford, but they’d all been kept away from me, so there were no new photos or anything, even though they said we lived in Port Hope now. Stories had gotten around, I guess. Anyway, I was at my new locker when I heard snickering and feet shuffling right behind me. Someone said, “You really blow all those guys?”
Usually, there are three of them. I went with that now. The main thing, no matter how many there are, is to move first and keep moving, so I just wheeled and smacked the closest guy in the face with my new math book. Which made it good for something. As the kid’s head snapped back, I kicked him as hard as I could, right where it counts, and piled on as he crumpled. When you’re my size, you hit first and hope someone breaks it up before you get hit back.
It worked in grade six and it worked now. By the time the yelling started, I had him on the floor, hitting him anywhere I could, and a few seconds later some teacher was dragging me off and I was on my way to the office. I wouldn’t talk to anybody until Meg got there. When she did, looking hot in sandals and a summer dress, we all wanted to make it work, so the next day I started at Open Book, the “alternative” school.
I liked Open Book. It was just a room over the Big Sisters secondhand store downtown, about a block from the library—everything in Port Hope was close. It had tables and chairs and bookshelves, and sometimes even some students. For assignments, you filled in workbooks. The teacher, Mr. Hunter, was a short head-shaved guy who wore jogging shoes with relaxed-fit khakis and polyester dress shirts. He kept his car keys in the pocket of the jacket he always draped across the back of his chair. I knew that by the second day.
Mr. Hunter was happy if you showed up. The girls usually brought their babies with them. The guys were hip-hop hillbillies, skinny stoners with wallets on chains and bad everything. Mostly what they did was take smoke breaks in the alley. And mostly they left me alone—they were too vacant to care. One day I was passing the alley and one of them asked, “You the guy that pounded Brad Dillon?”
I shrugged. I didn’t even know who I’d hit—and I didn’t need enemies. He took it as a yes anyway and nodded back. “That guy’s an asshole.”
But the main reason I liked Open Book was that on the very first day, when I climbed the stairs, I saw the girl from the library.
She was sitting by herself at a table, writing in some kind of workbook. It was a hot day, but she had on jeans and another sweater with those extra-long sleeves. I was over there before I even knew what I was doing. “Is it okay if I sit here?”
She looked at me through her glasses and then around the room. There were two teenage moms at the far end, drinking takeout coffees. There were plenty of empty tables and chairs. She looked back at her work.
I pulled out a chair. At least she hadn’t said no. I sat down, and my leg started bouncing. I had to know about her name. Keeping my voice low, I said, “Hey, sorry to bother you, but you work at the library, right? Can I ask you a question?”
She kept on writing for a second and then she said, “You took money.”
“What?”
“When the books fell over, you leaned across the desk and took money from the cash drawer.”
“What are you talking about? I didn’t take any money. From where?” If I’d learned one thing in the Bad Time, it was never cop to anything.
She didn’t even blink. “I don’t talk to thieves, and I don’t talk to liars.”
If I’d left right then, maybe I’d never have told anyone any of this. Maybe I should have left, but I couldn’t. I had to know her name to know if my luck was going to run. “Look,” I said, “I didn’t take money from anywhere, and I’m real sorry to bother you. All I wanted was to ask your first name.”
She bent over her work again. “Go away. I don’t talk to liars.”
Except I couldn’t go away, not if I was going to keep my luck running. I sat there and said, “Well, if you saw me steal money, why didn’t you tell?”
Her face got red, but she didn’t look up. “Maybe I will.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, if I had stolen money, what if I’d needed it?”
“I’ve heard that before.”
“Well, what if I’d needed it and was never going to do it again?”
“I’ve heard that before too.” Her head was still down, but she wasn’t writing anything.
“Okay, sorry,” I said. “Like I said, all I wanted to know was your first name.” I pretended I was going to stand up. It didn’t work. She didn’t speak. I had to stand up. I started to push the chair in, saying, “I thought it was the same as somebody I used to know. Someone important to me. I thought I saw it on your name tag, but I wasn’t sure.”
Now she looked up. I gave her that I wish smile I’d given so many times to so many marks. “I’ll tell you when you tell me you stole that money,” she said.
I saw a way to spin it. I sat back down. “Okay. But I had to do it.”
“Right.”
“I did. It’s this delayed-reaction condition from something bad that happened to me.”
“Uh-huh.”
“No, really. It was on the news and in the paper. You probably heard.”
She shook her head. “I don’t watch the news.”
“Why not?”
“Because I was in it once too.”
“Yeah, right,” I said and smiled again. She didn’t like that.
“I was.”
“Really? What for?”
She leaned back in her chair. Her chest was as flat as her voice. “You really don’t know who I am.”
“I’ve been, uh, away,” I said, “For a long time. Apart from your first name, it doesn’t matter. I don’t even want to know. Be anybody you want. Who do you want to be?”
“Who do I want to be?”
“Yeah.”
For the first time, she almost smiled. “Anybody but me. Who do you want to be?”
It was a good question. I shrugged. “I don’t even know who I am.” I laughed to turn it into a joke. “For now my name is Danny.”
“My name tag says Gillian,” she said.
“Gillian?” I asked.
She said, “You say it like a J but spell it with a G.”
It was close enough. My luck was running.