Luckily we were all rushed into the gym to run laps around the room, so neither of us could say anything more. I guess we had both said plenty. I kept my head down to avoid anybody’s reactions.
I honestly do not enjoy being the center of attention. I wasn’t just saying that.
“Subtle,” Emmett said, beside me. No teams in running laps.
“Yeah,” I agreed, without making eye contact with anyone but my sneakers. “That’s the truest thing about me. Subtlety.”
Emmett shrugged. “She’s pond scum.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Sienna slowed down to jog with us. “Amazing, right?” Emmett asked her.
“Gracie is the best,” Sienna agreed.
“You guys, stop.” I appreciated the support, but I also disagreed. “Really.”
“You okay?” Sienna asked.
“Always!”
“What was that all about?” Sienna whispered.
“Dorin,” Emmett said. “Right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Just, you know, Riley being . . . Nothing.”
Awesome Ms. Washington blew her whistle, so we filed out. Riley and I avoided each other in the halls. I kept my eyes on my books.
“That was hilarious,” Michaela whispered to me on our way in to social studies.
I didn’t say anything back.
At the lockers at the end of the day, Beth whispered, “You are so funny, LOL.” She wasn’t actually laughing out loud, though.
Sienna and I walked out of the building together, without stopping to chat with anyone near the café, even though people were murmuring stuff like, “What’s uglier than your face? Racism.” Hard to say whose side they were on, and I so didn’t want to be on a side, never mind be one of the sides.
We got in line for Italian ices from the Coco Helado lady outside school, even though we were going to be baking. Not for a while, though, because we were stopping off at the pet store on our way. Plus icies are mostly just ice, right? We watched Riley flounce out of the school building and into the black town car waiting for her at the corner, her nanny and sister already in the backseat.
“Phew,” Sienna said.
“Yeah,” I said, and breathed out.
“Did Dorin get picked up early?” Emmett asked, rainbow icie in hand.
“Dunno,” I said. “Probably. Icies are mostly ice.”
“Absolutely,” Emmett agreed. “Food coloring and sugar are nothing.”
“Yeah,” AJ said, loping over to join us. “They basically don’t exist.”
We all concentrated very much on our icies then.
“See you guys,” Emmett said. He has opera after school on Thursdays, so he has to take the 1 train down to Lincoln Center.
When I told Mom in second grade that Emmett sings at the Met, she was like, Oh, honey, if little Emmett Barnaby sings at the Metropolitan Opera, I will eat my hat. Which I thought was kind of an alarming if/then. So she called up Emmett’s mom like, Gracie said the funniest thing about Emmett singing in the—No way, really? Because Emmett’s mom was like, Yeah, he’s in the Metropolitan Opera Children’s Chorus. Instead of eating her hat, Mom took me to see him in Carmen, and she ate a smoked salmon sandwich at intermission, which at the time sounded equally gross to me. I ate a cookie and fell asleep before the end, but still it was fun to see Emmett in that. He looked tiny up there on that huge stage, like a toddler. He doesn’t talk about it much, but I think he likes it. He misses school sometimes for rehearsals, though, which sucks for me because everything’s less fun when he’s not there.
When I turned from watching him cross Broadway, the line at the Coco Helado lady had disappeared so it was just me and AJ and Sienna left standing together on the sidewalk. In case there hadn’t been enough awkwardness for one day.
AJ kicked at a crumbling bit of pavement a couple of times. Just as Sienna was starting to say, “Well . . . ” he said, “I forgot I have . . .”
“Go ahead,” Sienna said.
“Oh no, it’s okay.”
They were both blushing and looking hard at the sidewalk, like maybe a heads-up penny would please appear and give them some luck.
Eventually AJ said, “You don’t have volleyball?”
“Not today,” she mumbled.
“I should . . . I have . . .”
“Sure,” Sienna said.
AJ galumphed back into the school building. Usually he runs so gracefully.
“Well, that was horrible,” Sienna said.
I had to agree. There was no getting around it.
“Let’s go see some Russian tortoises,” Sienna suggested.
We tossed the dregs of our icies and didn’t talk much on the way down to just past Ninety-Ninth. We don’t need to chatter all the time like the Loud Crowd girls. We just enjoyed the walk, and being together, the sun on our heads. It had been a long cold winter, and the icies had cooled us enough to enjoy the heat.
“You’re so funny,” Sienna said, around 102nd. “But you don’t need to insult yourself so much.”
“I don’t usually, do I?”
“Yeah,” Sienna said. “We both do, I’ve noticed. We should try to not do that. Boys don’t do it. Just girls. And we shouldn’t, you know?”
“You’re right,” I said. “Okay.”
“We’ll try to catch each other. We don’t have to keep saying how bad we are at stuff, as an antidote to being braggy like Riley.”
“Good point.” I shrugged. “I might suck at that, but . . .”
Sienna laughed. I love making her laugh.
“This is going to take some work.”
“We’ll practice,” Sienna said. “Promise we’ll both try?”
“Promise,” I said. “No insulting ourselves.”
“So, Riley was on your case about standing up for Dorin?” Sienna asked. Before I could answer, she added, “Riley is such a cramp.”
“She so is,” I agreed. “Just clarifying: we can dump on Riley, just not ourselves?”
“Absolutely,” Sienna said.