Over the next few days I collected about a hundred book titles from kids at school, and on Thursday evening I divided the most interesting ones into two lists. Next I laid out two extra-large pieces of bristol board that Ms. Fowler had gotten from the Arts Room, and drew the outlines of a pony-tailed girl and a short-haired boy, standing so they were facing the viewer head-on. After some constructive criticism from Keelie, as in, “That don’t look good, his head’s too big,” I shrank the boy’s head from alien to human size, and cut out the silhouettes. Then I used them to trace a second pair of silhouettes onto newsprint, each of which I cut into thirty outlines of books, both open and closed.
Friday after supper Joc came over to help with the next stage. Hunkered down at the dining room table, we traced the outline of each newsprint-book silhouette onto a colored piece of construction paper and cut it out. As each construction-paper book was finished, I fit it into the original bristol-board silhouette of the girl or boy. It was important they fit exactly, so there wasn’t any bristol board showing.
Mom and Dad were out, burning up the town on one of their “dates,” and Danny was upstairs with Keelie, teaching her a video game on his computer. So other than the fact that Joc had Alanis Morissette’s Feast on Scraps CD blasting from the living room stereo, things were pretty sedate.
“Last one,” she said, as she finished cutting out a green book silhouette. “Good thing, too. I’m getting a blister from these scissors.” With a satisfied grin, she fit the book into the single remaining space in the boy silhouette.
“Give me a sec,” I said. “I’ve got a couple more to do for the girl.”
She waited, fidgeting while I fit the last two books into the girl silhouette, then said, “C’mon, I need a smoke. Your parents aren’t home—let’s go out back.”
“Can’t,” I said quickly. “Keelie’ll see. Her bedroom’s back there.”
“The front, then,” said Joc.
“We’ve got neighbors,” I reminded her. “They get along very well with my parents.”
Leaning forward, Joc banged her forehead gently on the table. “Nic fit,” she grumbled. “I’m getting the jitters. It’s been over an hour since my last drag.”
“Near-death experience, I know,” I said. “Okay, let’s go out front, and I’ll sit with you while you smoke.”
“Bless you, sweet one,” said Joc, and we headed out to the front porch where I made sure I was in full view of the neighbors—full non-smoking view, that is.
“Oh yeah,” said Joc, lighting up and dragging deeply. “That’s better. Now my brain’s working again.”
She shifted, and the side of her foot bumped mine. Just that little bump, and right away I was swamped by a wave of heat. Then images started popping into my head, but this time I was smart enough to get a grip.
Uh-uh, I thought. No way I’m doing the lust thing now. Not with the neighbors watching.
Carefully I edged my foot away. Joc didn’t seem to notice. “Mmmm,” I said, taking a dramatic sniff of the smoke coiling off the tip of her cigarette. “Problem is, now I’m getting a nic fit. I was fine until you lit up.”
“Near-death experience, I know,” Joc grinned unsympathetically. Holding out her cigarette, she cooed, “Live a little, Dyllie. Have a drag on me.”
“Uh-uh,” I said, frantically waving the cigarette away in case the neighbors had their eyes peeled. “Mom would absolutely kill me if she found out.”
“You worry too much about what your parents think,” said Joc, taking another blissful drag. “They’re not going to disown you if you smoke one cigarette.”
“I know,” I said. “They’d get mad, though. Really mad. But it’s more than that. They’d be...I dunno...disappointed. I mean, they want me to be healthy, right? I figure—I like smoking, so I’ll keep it to a minor hobby. Y’know, every now and then, when I get desperate. Like Mom says, it’s really just sucking in toxic waste. And she also told me that in ten years none of the major companies will be hiring smokers because it hikes up their employee benefits costs.”
“Oh yeah,” said Joc, tapping off some ash. “Yeah, I guess, if you want to think that way—twenty years down the line.” She paused, considering. “Yeah, I can see it—twenty years from now, you and Cam, both working for major corporations and set up in a ritzy split-level with three or four kids.”
“Supreme bliss,” I said casually, trying to ignore the kick of unease in my gut. “And what about you? What do you see yourself doing in twenty years? Besides spending half your time getting chemo treatments, that is?”
Joc sat silently for a moment, studying the curl of smoke coming off her cigarette. “Probably working at a race track somewhere,” she said finally. “Or doing environmental stuff like Greenpeace. Or...” Turning to me, she grinned. “Maybe I’ll be a two pack-a-day librarian like my mom.”
“Yeah right,” I grinned. “Exactly like your mom.”
“That wouldn’t be so bad,” said Joc. “She’s done some pretty interesting things. She told me about some protest stuff she did in the eighties, down in the States. Even got arrested for climbing onto a nuclear silo once with a nun.”
“A nun?” I demanded, staring at her.
“Yup,” said Joc. “Some of those nuns are pretty lively.” She grinned slyly. “I bet some of them even smoke. That’s what I’ll be—a nun who sneaks onto American military bases and climbs onto nuclear silos. And I promise I’ll send you and Cam and your four kids postcards—”
“Hey, maybe not four kids,” I said abruptly, cutting her off. “And, anyway, how do you know I’ll end up with Cam?”
“Oh, you will,” Joc said immediately. “You’re that kind of person, Dyl—the marrying kind. It’s weird, in a way, that we’ve been friends for so long, seeing how we’re so different.”
Again, I felt an uneasy kick in my gut. “How are we different?” I demanded.
Joc shrugged. “You’re smarter than me, for starters,” she said. “And moodier, deeper inside yourself. Cam likes that about you—you two belong together, and he knows it. And me...well, you know me. Crazy.” Staring across the street, she snorted softly. “My entire goal in life is to become a stable citizen.”
The uneasy kick in my gut was quickly morphing into an uneasy sinkhole. I mean, I’d never thought about it before, really—how different we were and what that might mean for our friendship after high school.
“What about Dikker?” I asked, my voice suddenly hoarse. Again, Joc shrugged. “He wants to be an actor,” she said in disgust. “Actors spend their lives faking things. How much time would you want to spend with a professional faker?”
Leaning forward, she butted out her cigarette on the front walk, then slid the unsmoked part into her purse. “C’mon,” she said. “Dikker’s picking me up when he gets off work, and we’ve still got to write titles on all those book outlines we cut out.”
We went inside and got back to work, Joc following a master plan I’d drawn up for the boy silhouette while I wrote out titles for the girl. Feast on Scraps had finished while we were outside so the room was quiet, with just the squeak of magic markers as we wrote. Abruptly, three-quarters of the way through the job it hit me—Joc hadn’t said anything for over five minutes. That was not like her. In fact, it was very much not like her.
Suspicion slammed into me. Reaching for her stack of completed book silhouettes, I sifted through them.
“Joc!” I yelped, horrified. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Don’t take a hairy,” she said, grinning at me. “I got bored writing down the titles you gave me, so I made up some of my own.”
“Hamlet Is A Turd?” I bellowed. “Holla Bolla, Moron? Get Thee to a Monastery?”
“Well, I couldn’t say what I really thought,” Joc said reasonably. “It had to be something Ms. Fowler would let you put up in the display case.”
“It took us ages to cut out all those books,” I wailed, glaring at her. “Now I’m going to have to do these all over again. How many did you wreck?”
“Cool your toots, Dyl,” said Joc. “Just five or ten, for a joke. Hail, Basti, who comest forth from the morgue, I promise never to have any fun.”
“Easy for you to say—it’s not your display,” I mumbled, counting the altered titles. Fortunately, I’d caught her after seven. Twenty minute’s work would replace them.
“Watch it,” warned Joc, slitting her eyes at me. “You just rhymed. You’re starting to sound like Shakespeare.”
“A rhyme is a crime,” I shot back, just as a car horn honked loudly outside.
“A rhyme is a slime,” Joc corrected sternly. “And it sounds as if my darling foot soldier has finally arrived. Can I have the books I screwed up? I’ll give them to Dikker. He can pretend they’re fan mail.”
“Here,” I said, shoving them at her. “Good riddance.”
“See you later, Dyllie,” Joc said, her grin absolutely ear to ear as she tucked the construction-paper books into her purse. Then, without warning, she leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek.
“It’s going to be completely and utterly fab, you know,” she said, her nose one inch from mine. “Your display will make the day, even if I am slime-rhyming.”
Then she got up, ejected Feast on Scraps from the stereo and headed out the door, leaving me with the sensation of her lips, still warm and slightly wet, on my cheek.
Early the next morning my bedroom door creaked slowly open, and feet tiptoed cautiously across the floor. The end of my mattress gave slightly as Keelie clambered onto it, and I lay holding myself stock still as she crawled to my shoulder and stared intently at my face. When she’d convinced herself that I was still asleep, she leaned in, flooding me with the scent of baby shampoo and her musty morning breath.
“Good morning, Dylan,” she whispered into my ear. “The sun is waiting for us to get up so it can jump into the sky.”
Reaching out an arm, I tugged her down beside me and we snuggled under the blankets, murmuring back and forth about important five-year-old things. Keelie had just started giving me a rundown on her favorite Quidditch tactics when I suddenly remembered what day it was. Sitting bolt upright, I glanced at my clock radio.
“Geeeeezus!” I yelped. “It’s 8:30. I have to be at the Dief by 9:00.”
Yesterday afternoon Ms. Fowler and I had agreed to meet this morning in the library so I could set up my genius idea in the display case. “Sorry Keelie,” I said, climbing hastily over her. “I’ve got a zillion things to do before we go swimming this afternoon.”
“Can I come, can I come?” she demanded, trotting after me.
“Uh-uh. They don’t allow Quidditch maniacs where I’m going,” I said, ruffling her hair.
As she took off out of the room, I pulled on some clothes and headed downstairs for a waffle. The breakfast thing over and done with, I rolled up the girl and boy silhouettes and tied them to my backpack, then checked through the book outlines Joc and I had cut out to make sure they were all there. Finally I took off for the Dief on my bike. It felt weird, zooming through the early morning streets without taking my usual detour toward Joc’s house, but then I had passed the turnoff and was heading over the Dundurn Street bridge. Racing down a few more streets, I rounded the last corner, and the Dief came into view, a gray concrete outline that looked like several large shoe boxes shoved together. And there, standing at the east entrance, was Ms. Fowler, looking as rumpled, gray-haired and observant as ever. Underneath that quiet exterior hummed a hyper-alert mind. Ms. Fowler was a spy for the gods.
“Good morning, Dylan,” she said, as I dismounted and locked my bike to a street sign. “Ready to go to work?”
Got it all done last night,” I grinned. “All I have to do now is staple it into place.”
“That’s lovely,” she said, unlocking the school door. “Just let me know how I can assist you.”
We walked quickly through the halls, the sound of our footsteps traveling ahead of us into the long emptiness. When we got to the library, Ms. Fowler let us in, then flicked the light switch, and the place lit up with endless books arranged on shelves, stacked on the check-out counter and piled into filing carts.
“As you can see, I’ve cleared out the display case,” said Ms. Fowler, turning toward it. “I had one of the maintenance men bring in a stepladder so you could reach the top of the case, and the staple gun is right here on the check-out desk. Would you like me to help?”
“Um,” I said, hesitating. I hadn’t thought about it ahead of time, but now that I was about to start, the task of putting up the display felt private—like getting dressed or something.
Ms. Fowler clued in immediately. “Ah,” she said, taking a step back. “Why don’t I let you get on with it, and you can call me to observe the final product?”
With that she vanished into her office, and I got to work, climbing up the stepladder and stapling the girl and boy silhouettes into place. Then I began stapling each construction-paper book into position. Halfway through the job, I realized that I could have glued the individual books into the girl and boy silhouettes at home, shortening the process considerably, but even so I was really getting into it, watching the girl’s body grow book by book, title by title: Absolutely Normal Chaos dead center in her forehead, Harriet the Spy riding her eyes, and The Chocolate War for her mouth. Next came Color of Absence as her throat. With slightly shaky hands, I stapled The Egyptian Book of the Dead into place as her heart. Good Families Don’t went into her gut, and Foxfire, in an orange open-book shape, each side tilted upward like a flame, became her groin. Another slew of titles like The Handmaid’s Tale and The God of Small Things went into her legs and feet, and then I was ready for the boy silhouette.
Cirque du Freak hit him smack in the middle of the forehead, Rats Saw God took over his eyes, and with a grin I stapled The Joy of Sex into place as his mouth. Cam was going to love that. The Giver became his throat, The Subtle Knife his heart, Tribute to Another Dead Rock his gut, and The Once and Future King his groin. Just as I’d promised, I’d spent the last three days reading T. H. Whyte’s book, and like Cam had said it was a soul book, a servant-king for your mind. Giving it a satisfied beam, I moved on to the silhouette’s legs, and finished off the feet with Hate You and Bad Boy. Then I stapled the leftover titles into little thought clouds around the edge of the display: Watership Down, Gone With the Wind, The Stone Angel, Never Trust a Dead Man. Finally I put up the display’s title, The Small Words In My Body, written inside a huge thought cloud, and backed down the stepladder. It was done now, whatever was up there was utter crap or halfway decent. Either way, it was about to make its multicolored construction-paper way into the eyes and minds of every student at the Dief.
“Why that’s excellent, Dylan,” said Ms. Fowler from behind me, her voice quiet as ever, but I could hear the pleasure in it. Slowly she approached the display, and I stood holding my breath as she ran her eyes over it.
“The Chocolate War for the mouth,” she said slowly. “That’s good. Breathing Underwater for the nose and Color of Absence for the voice—I like that.” She paused a moment, her eyes fixed on the girl’s heart, then continued on without comment. “Foxfire,” she murmured suddenly. “How interesting. Very interesting.”
As she glanced toward the boy silhouette, an actual grin flashed across her face. “The Joy of Sex,” she said. “We’ll have to see what Administration says about that. And The Giver. One of my favorites.”
Her eyes traveled downward and widened. In that second I swear I actually felt her thought vibes quicken. “The Once and Future King,” she murmured. “How very very interesting. Yes, Dylan, I think you have done a tremendous job here.”
I could have whooped, but managed to keep a grip. “Thanks, Ms. Fowler,” I said. “I loved doing it, I really did.”
“Well,” she said, turning toward me, her eyes fixing on a spot to the left of my face. “It’s almost lunch. Shall I order in some pizza?”
“Oh, I can’t,” I said, dismayed. I mean, the uncertainty in her voice was obvious, something delicate and shy. “Mom asked me to take my little sister swimming at one.”
“I see,” said Ms. Fowler. For a second she stood blinking rapidly, then turned toward her office. “Well, that’s all right,” she said briskly. “I just wanted to express my appreciation for all your work.”
“Ms. Fowler,” I said quickly. “I’d really like to, sometime... have lunch with you, I mean.”
She stopped, and I felt the pause in her. Then she turned slightly and glanced again at the space to the left of my head. “I’d like that too,” she said quietly. “Perhaps sometime we will. Thank you again for your work.”
Pulling her cloak of mystery quiet about her, she went into her office, and I headed outside to unlock my bike.