Z’s attendance record was less than stellar.
Yes, that is correct.
Reason?
I can only speculate.
And would that speculation involve potentially illicit activities?
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. He was a good student. But life was difficult for him at home. Considering that, I think he managed remarkably well.
—Police interview with Edward Cole, principal at St. Ann’s
The next few days sped by in a blissful haze.
Every so often, I’d find a surprise in my locker. Always small gifts, like stickers or jelly beans or a plastic spider ring. I’d immediately arrange the stickers on the front of my notebooks, or slip the ring on and admire it, making sure to thank Z loudly so that Parker and the others could hear. He’d always just shrug and say, “No problem, Precious.” I know they’d all heard him call me that.
I wanted to believe I was his Precious. You know, like the ring in The Hobbit. His Zahir.
After the first few gifts, I asked him again how he got my locker combination, and he winked and said, “It isn’t exactly a matter of national security.” So I let it slide. Of course, that made going to my locker a new obsession. Before, I used to visit my locker once or twice a day to change my books. Now I visited after every class.
Then, a few days before the auditions for Macbeth, everything came to a standstill.
The bell rang, and Z’s desk remained empty. When Reese took attendance, she seemed shocked by the lack of Z’s enthusiastic “Here!” You could hear a pin drop in the silence.
By the end of that first day without Z, the whole school fell into a general malaise. Students moved through the halls slower and didn’t smile as much. Everyone looked doubly hard at Z’s desk, as if staring could will him back. He was the sun, and his disappearance had sent us all out of orbit. And so, as the planet closest to him, I felt even more purposeless.
On the second day of his absence, I wanted to call in sick too. The minutes ticked by like years. Is this how school had been before Z arrived? So lifeless and dull? Had the classrooms’ lighting always been so gray and depressing? How had I managed to exist in such a state of utter boredom? I stopped checking my locker for gifts between periods and began checking my phone for texts. Surely he would text me about the homework he was missing.
But my phone remained quiet. Then, in the middle of English, as Reese droned on about “The Zahir,” it hit me.
I could text him.
My body quivered as I turned the thought over in my head. Could I be so bold? What would I say? Maybe he was bored stiff, lying in bed with whatever illness he had, waiting for contact with the outside world.
By the time English came to an end, my resolve had strengthened, and I’d formulated a message. I reached into my bag for my phone and typed: Out again?
Ten seconds later: Yup. Sick.
I thought about what a friend would say. What I would want a friend to say to me. Want me to get your homework for you?
Nope. Under control.
I blushed, feeling stupid. His answers were short, terse, as if he didn’t want to talk to me. Maybe he was at death’s door, but it felt more like a blow-off. I reminded myself that I was his Precious, the one he left locker gifts for, right? He couldn’t hate me. So I tried again.
Think you’ll be in tomorrow?
Why? Miss me that much?
My cheeks burned. I was about to lie and tell him that no, I didn’t miss him, when he came back with:
Miss you too, Precious.
I smiled like an idiot for the rest of the day. Nothing had the power to erase that smile from my face, even during chemistry, when Lincoln made me work with Parker and Rachel because I didn’t have a lab partner. They both looked at me as if I were from an alien planet, and whenever I talked, they looked at me as if I were speaking Alienese. I had the urge to shove Z’s texts under Parker’s nose, to show them that I was somebody, that I was precious, not the piece of dog crap their disgusted looks seemed to imply. But I zipped my mouth shut and wrote notes, stopping every few seconds to check the clock and see if I could break free yet.
Ten minutes into the experiment, Parker removed her goggles from her head, being cautious not to disturb her perfectly coiffed hairdo. “So…”
She was looking at me. Addressing me. For the first time ever.
“Where’s your lab partner?” she asked like she didn’t know his name, but I was wise to that game.
I said, “Home. Sick.”
She grinned as if she knew more than me. “Riiiight.” Rachel rolled her eyes and grinned too.
Normally I cared nothing for their secret whisperings, but knowing they were talking about Z, I itched to be in on it. Maybe Parker knew something I didn’t. Her dad was principal, and she knew more about the school and its students than most. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing.” Then she and Rachel burst into giggles. I wanted to lunge across the table, grab her glossy mane, and thrust it into the blue light of the Bunsen burner. “I’m sure he’s home getting chicken soup from his mommy,” she said in a baby voice.
“His aunt,” I corrected.
She laughed. “Whatever. You really think that is his aunt?”
My insides were starting to boil. She’d seen Bethany. How had she seen Bethany? Z didn’t discuss his background with just anyone. What right did Parker have to ridicule people who didn’t have all her advantages? Indignant, I said, “Not everyone’s life is as perfect as yours. Mind your own business.”
She studied her nonregulation nail polish undeterred and shrugged before giggling more at Rachel. The bell rang, and I let out the breath I’d been holding, relieved. Lincoln told everyone to have a good afternoon and, as I was packing up my books, said, “Victoria, hold back a sec, OK?”
I cringed. Mr. Lincoln stood at the front of the classroom, a vaguely disappointed look on his face. I hunched over as I approached his desk, my face already burning. Parker’s whispers and giggles faded into the hallway, leaving the lab eerily silent. I muttered, “I’m sorry,” before he had a chance to speak.
“Hold on,” he said, motioning to the stool next to his desk. “How do you even know what this is about?”
“I don’t. Sorry.”
“Then hold on to those apologies,” he said, shuffling through some papers on his desk. He arranged them in a neat pile and then sat on the stool next to me so that our knees were almost touching.
For some reason, the whole inappropriate relationship vibe that Z had joked about stuck in my head. Ridiculous. And yet…why did the things Z said to me always take root and grow in my mind? Was it because I rehashed them over and over again, like a favorite song on my iPod? I squirmed, putting some distance between me and my teacher and hoping I wouldn’t fall off the stool.
“I wanted to discuss your lab reports…”
“What about them? They’re not good?”
“They’re great. They’re typical Victoria Zell quality. But I’ve been observing, and you’ve been doing the majority of the heavy lifting.” He had one of my recent labs in front of him. He picked it up. “This one, for example.”
“We have a division of labor. Z does most of the lab work, since I’m a little clumsy,” I explained. “I take notes.”
He pulled out another sheet of paper. I recognized Z’s light scrawl. He placed it beside mine. I wasn’t sure what he was getting at until I started to compare the two. My eyes darted back and forth between the two sheets, faster and faster. I’d done my reports alone in my bedroom after school. And yet…
His report was, word for word, the same.
“I don’t understand,” I said. This had to be a mistake. The product of two people being so in tune that they produced the same work. Two peas, same pod. We’d worked off the same notes. It was possible. Besides, my chemistry notebook was with me, in my backpack until I got to school. Then I put it into my locker until chemistry class.
My locker.
“Did you let Z copy your work?” he asked.
“No, I, um…” My throat constricted as it all became clear. Those Hershey’s kisses, the little tokens…they were not gifts. They were payment. I swallowed to get my voice back. “It’s just a coincidence. We worked off the same notes. And…” I saw his eyes narrow in disbelief, so I lied: “we…sometimes do our homework together.”
He looked at me intently for a moment, then said, “OK, Victoria. If you say so.”
I exhaled deeply. He’d bought it. I was his star student, after all. “Yes.”
“All right.” He smiled. I relaxed. Then he leaned forward, and I knew what was coming. “How are things with you otherwise?”
“Fine,” I answered.
“No problems at home? Problems with friends?”
Great. As if I hadn’t heard it enough from Father Leary and my parents. Now I had to answer to my science teacher? I knew if I spoke up, anything that came out of my mouth would reek of bitterness, so I pressed my lips together and shook my head.
“Well, that’s good. It’s not easy, being the new kid.”
Or so everyone liked to remind me. Somehow, I didn’t think Z had the same problem. “It’s all right. I’m not all that social. I actually prefer to be alone.”
“And there’s nothing wrong with that.” He gave me one of his signature shoulder squeezes and motioned to the door with his head. “Now get on out of here.”
When I got into the hall, I pulled out my phone. Quickly, I texted: Just got in trouble with Lincoln because your lab report is exactly the same as mine. How did that happen?
Two seconds later, my phone rang. It was Z. Two minutes before next class. I rushed into the bathroom and answered it. Before I could say hello, he said, “Because I borrowed your report.”
“Borrowed?” I challenged.
“OK, stole?”
“That’s more like it, since you didn’t ask me,” I muttered. “Couldn’t you have changed a word or two? I mean, duh.”
“Sorry, Precious. I was busy the night before it was due. I thought that since we’re friends…”
“You could have asked me. I would have let you look at mine. I would have helped you.”
“I know. But this way, you’re innocent. You knew nothing about it. Plus, there’s no reason for Lincoln to be pissed because we did use the same notes. So obviously our work would be the same. Did he give you hell?”
“No. I told him that we did our homework together.”
“Right. That’s my girl.”
His girl. I liked that. But still, I was mad at him. Really mad. For…why again? For a flash, I couldn’t remember, and then it came back to me. “He’s going to give you hell if it happens again.”
I expected him to say that it wouldn’t, but instead, he said, “Don’t worry. I’ve got that all under control.”
“Maybe you should stop going into my locker too,” I suggested weakly.
“You don’t like the gifts?”
I couldn’t tell him the truth: I loved the gifts. They brightened my time at St. Ann’s like nothing else. I felt dumb for even suggesting that he stop. “No, I do, but… Forget it.”
I could sense he was smiling. “Forgotten. And Lincoln won’t be giving me hell, or I’ll give it right back to him. You see?”
I didn’t. Anyone who challenged a teacher like that would be in major trouble. Fear knotted in my throat. “You want to be expelled?”
“Vic. Calm,” he said, laughing, as I remembered that he was out sick. He didn’t sound sick. His voice wasn’t gravelly or strained, and he hadn’t coughed once. I started to ask how he was feeling when the bell rang. It echoed in the small, tiled space, and I jumped.
Oh shit. I was late. “Got to go,” I said, hanging up the phone and running for the door. By the time I made it to my next class, I’d decided to use stomach cramps as an excuse. The teacher just nodded, and I slipped into my seat, feeling weirdly thrilled and exhilarated, like I was part of something bigger than anything that could be found inside the walls of St. Ann’s. You know I’d never been one to fudge excuses with teachers, Andrew. But I was surprised at how easily the lies had come.