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Michael scrambled into fourth-period English five minutes before the bell rang, hoping to claim a seat in the back. He’d had to sit in the front row in Algebra II thanks to his morning conversation with Robbie but had managed back row in Spanish and the second to last row in Biology, which had assigned seating.
Score! As he entered the room, he spotted only one other student, a girl with magnifying bifocals sitting in the front row probably because she had to. He smiled politely at her and headed for the desk in the back-left corner. He’d have the best seat in the house so long as the teacher didn’t assign them like Mr. Lukens. There, he would be dissecting frogs with a cute but shy girl he hadn’t the courage to speak to. At least he’d gotten her name through roll call. Jasmine, like the... fruit? Flower? Whatever Jasmine was like, Michael had spent the entire class trying not to look at her.
She probably thinks you’re a freak. He sighed and dumped the textbooks from his overloaded backpack alongside his chair, sat down, then checked the underside of the desk for gum, happy to find none. Rumor had it that the janitors scraped it all off with putty knives every year, and at the end of last year, they’d had enough to jam the trash compactor in the garbage truck, but Michael had no idea if that was true. A smiley face had been carved into one corner of the desk, and he smiled back at it before arranging his notebook and pen at his desktop’s center.
Looking to his right, he gasped. Someone had materialized in the seat beside him. The boy, who Michael had never seen before, dressed like he was trying to impress his grandmother—wrinkle-free button-down, green sweater vest, dress pants, and suede boat shoes. His hair was light brown, combed to the side and shaved on the other where the part would have been. He looked clean and neat; Sam would have said he belonged in an Old Spice commercial, not at Carnegie High. Too perfect, too preened, a lot like Tessa’s stepfather had been. He must have been new to the school and had no idea who Michael was, or he probably would have avoided sitting next to him.
His prettiness made him stand out in a school where everyone expected conformity. Sure, some of the girls might take a liking, but that would only make him more of a target for the boys. Michael instantly took a liking to him for that. The boy was different, like him. Alone.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” the boy said, flashing a smile full of metal.
So he isn’t perfect after all. Michael laughed. “Not scared, just surprised. Damn, you’re quiet.”
The boy shrugged. “Sometimes it’s nice to go unnoticed, don’t you think?”
“Dressed like that?” Michael scoffed. “I think you’re going to be noticed.”
The boy frowned. “What’s wrong with my clothes?”
Michael’s cheeks flushed. “I... I didn’t mean...”
“Relax!” The boy laughed and slapped Michael on the arm. “Yeah, I know, I’m a bit overdressed. First day, new school—I never know what to wear.” He stuck out his hand, which Michael found an oddly fitting greeting from his prim and proper new classmate. “I’m Dylan.”
Michael stared at the hand uncertainly, then slowly took it. “Michael. Most of my friends call me Mike.” He had, at most, three or four friends he could think of, stretching the definition of the word to its boundaries, and they rarely called him Mike. He wasn’t sure why he’d lied. It had just spilled from his lips.
As they shook hands, Michael watched Dylan’s gaze lower to his glove briefly before he let go. If he thought anything strange about Michael’s fashion accessories, he was kind enough not to say anything.
“So, you’re new here?” Michael shook his head. “Stupid question. You just said that. Were you at Durfee before this?”
“What’s Durfee?”
“Another Fall River school. I’ll take that as a no.” Michael clicked his teeth. “Okay, where did you come from?”
“A little place called Barranco. It’s in Peru. We go where Dad’s business takes us, you know?”
“Wow, Peru. Really? I only left the country for the first time—just got back, actually.” The classroom filled as they talked, all the seats taken but the one next to the quiet girl with the bifocals.
“My...” Michael tilted his head, wondering how best to describe Sam to a stranger. “My foster mother and I just got back from a cruise to the Caribbean. It was pretty amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it, except on TV. So when we’re all done with this,” he said, nodding to the class, “and I start making my millions, I think I want to travel ‘just about everywhere.’”
“Well, traveling is fun, but take it from someone who really hasn’t had a home—it’s nice to have a place where you fit in.”
Michael flinched. Being a foster kid, he’d never had a place he fit in. The Plummers had been nice enough, good foster parents, but not real parents. Tessa’s stepdad had ended all that. Sam tried to make him feel like her apartment was his, but often he felt like he was just a freeloader or in the way. He wasn’t so dumb as to not know the apartment had been hers alone before he’d taken over one of the spare rooms. She liked things her way, and he noticed her masked sighs or the twitch of a frown when he left his shoes by the door or carried food into his room. She was kind and patient enough not to say anything, but a thousand words laid in her expressions, and he was beginning to know how to read all of them.
Sam never invited anyone over the whole time he’d lived there, not a friend or boyfriend or girlfriend. He knew she cared for him, but sometimes he felt like he must be the biggest inconvenience in the world.
I mean, what did she have two spare bedrooms for anyway? He stared down at his long black gloves as an awkward silence settled between him and the new kid despite the hum of chatter and laughter of his classmates.
When he looked up, Dylan appeared to be watching him. Michael sighed. “So... aren’t you going to ask me about the gloves?”
Dylan snickered, showing off his braces, a flaw Michael thought made him easier to talk to. “That’s none of my business. I figured you’d tell me if you wanted to tell me.”
Michael soured. He looked down at his hands. “I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough.” He sighed again, then inhaled, recalling the taunts some of the jocks had made about his gloves before Robbie had put a stop to it. “I-I-I’m not gay if that’s what you’re thinking.” Warmth rose in his cheeks. “I mean, it’s cool if you are.”
Entirely deadpan, Dylan said, “That’s too bad.”
They stared at each other for a few seconds as a giant smile slowly crept up Dylan’s cheeks.
“You dick!” Michael shouted, and they both busted out in what Michael thought might have been the best laugh he’d had in a long time. Sam was great and all, but humor was not one of her gifts.
They were still laughing as the bell rang, and a surly middle-aged woman wearing ugly beige pantyhose—the kind that Helen Plummer used to wear and came in an egg—entered and closed the door behind her. Her presence was undoubtedly commanding. The entire class quieted, all eyes on their new teacher.
“Hello, all, and welcome to English II. For those of you who didn’t have me last year, I’m Ms. Alvarez. I hope you like your seats because you’ll be sitting there for the rest of the year unless I have to move you. Believe me when I say that you won’t like it if I do.” She held up a copy of a paperback book with what looked like an old ship on the cover. “Your first day is going to be easy. You’re all going to begin reading Herman Melville’s classic, Moby Dick.”
A few of the kids in the class snickered, and Ms. Alvarez rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes, and I suppose I should tell you now that Moby Dick is a white sperm whale.”
A few more kids laughed, and Michael thought he saw the trace of a smile on Ms. Alvarez’s lips. “Get it out now because we are going to be saying Moby’s name a lot over the next month. Your assignment today is to go pick up a copy from the library. Ms. Armstrong has a stack ready and waiting for all twenty-four of you. Read the first four chapters and be ready to discuss for tomorrow. You may use the rest of the period to begin reading.”
When no one moved, the teacher flapped her arms. “Well? What are you waiting for? Get moving.”
Dylan stood, rolled his eyes at Michael, then giggled. “Shall we?” he asked with a slight bow and wave.
Michael smirked, finding Dylan’s formal mannerisms quirky but in a good way. He rose, grabbed his backpack, then curtsied. “Yes, I do believe we shall.”