Authors: Rainbow Rowell
corner of the library. The new girl
was sitting there, staring right at
them.
‘She’s kind of big,’ Cal said,
‘but the Impala is a spacious
automobile.’
‘She’s not looking at me.
She’s just staring, she does that.
Watch.’ Park waved at the girl, but
she didn’t blink.
He’d only made eye contact
with her once since her first day
on the bus. It was last week, in
history, and she’d practically
gouged out his eyes with hers.
If you don’t want people to
look at you, Park had thought at
the time, don’t wear fishing lures
in your hair. Her jewelry box must
look like a junk drawer. Not that
everything she wore was stupid …
She had a pair of Vans he
liked, with strawberries on them.
And she had a green sharkskin
blazer that Park would wear
himself if he thought he could get
away with it.
Did she think she was getting
away with it?
Park braced himself every
morning before she got on the
bus, but you couldn’t brace
yourself enough for the sight of
her.
‘Do you know her?’ Cal
asked.
‘No,’ Park said quickly. ‘She’s
on my bus. She’s weird.’
‘Jungle fever is a thing,’ Cal
said.
‘For black people. If you like
black people. And it’s not a
compliment, I don’t think.’
‘Your people come from the
jungle,’ Cal said, pointing at Park.
‘
Apocalypse Now
, anyone?’
‘You should ask Kim out,’
Park said. ‘That’s a really good
idea.’
Eleanor
Eleanor wasn’t going to fight over
an e.e. cummings book like it was
the last Cabbage Patch Kid. She
found an empty table in the
African
American
literature
section.
That was another fucked-up
thing about this school – effed-up,
she corrected herself.
Most of the kids here were
black, but most of the kids in her
honors classes were white. They
got bussed in from west Omaha.
And the white kids from the Flats,
dishonor students, got bussed in
from the other direction.
Eleanor wished she had more
honors classes. She wished there
was honors gym …
Like they’d ever let her into
honors gym. Eleanor would get
put in remedial gym first. With all
the other fat girls who couldn’t do
sit-ups.
Anyway. Honor students –
black, white or Asia Minor –
tended to be nicer. Maybe they
were just as mean on the inside,
but they were scared of getting in
trouble. Or maybe they were just
as mean on the inside, but they’d
been trained to be polite – to give
up their seats for old people and
girls.
Eleanor had honors English,
history and geography, but she
spent the rest of her day in
Crazytown. Seriously,
Blackboard
Jungle
. She should probably try
harder in her smart classes so that
she wouldn’t get kicked out of
them.
She started copying a poem
called ‘Caged Bird’ into her
notebook … Sweet. It rhymed.
CHAPTER 8
Park
She was reading his comics.
At first Park thought he was
imagining it. He kept getting this
feeling that she was looking at
him, but whenever he looked over
at her, her face was down.
He finally realized that she was
staring at his lap. Not in a gross
way. She was looking at his
comics – he could see her eyes
moving.
Park didn’t know that anyone
with red hair could have brown
eyes. (He didn’t know that anyone
could have hair
that
red. Or skin
that white.) The new girl’s eyes
were darker than his mom’s, really
dark, almost like holes in her face.
That made it sound bad, but it
wasn’t. It might even be the best
thing about her. It kind of
reminded Park of the way artists
draw Jean Grey sometimes when
she’s using her telepathy, with her
eyes all blacked out and alien.
Today the girl was wearing a
giant men’s shirt with seashells all
over it. The collar must have been
really big, like disco-big, because
she’d cut it, and it was fraying.
She had a man’s necktie wrapped
around her ponytail like a big
polyester ribbon. She looked
ridiculous.
And she was looking at his
comics.
Park felt like he should say
something to her. He always felt
like he should say
something
to
her, even if it was just ‘hello’ or
‘excuse me.’ But he’d gone too
long without saying anything since
the first time he’d cursed at her,
and now it was all just irrevocably
weird. For
an hour
a day. Thirty
minutes on the way to school,
thirty minutes back.
Park didn’t say anything. He
just held his comics open wider
and turned the pages more slowly.
Eleanor
Her mom looked tired when
Eleanor got home. Like more tired
than usual. Hard and crumbling at
the edges.
When the little kids stormed in
after school, her mom lost her
temper over something stupid –
Ben and Mouse fighting over a toy
– and she pushed them all out the
back door, Eleanor included.
Eleanor was so startled to be
outside that she stood on the back
stoop for a second, staring down
at Richie’s Rottweiler. He’d named
the dog Tonya after his ex-wife.
She was supposed to be a real
man-eater, Tonya – Tonya the dog
– but Eleanor had never seen her
more than half awake.
Eleanor tried knocking on the
door. ‘Mom! Let me back in. I
haven’t even taken a bath yet.’
She usually took her bath right
after school, before Richie got
home. It took a lot of the stress
out of not having a bathroom
door, especially since somebody’d
torn down the sheet.
Her mom ignored her.
The little kids were already out
on the playground. The new
house was right next door to an
elementary school – the school
where Ben and Mouse and Maisie
went – and the playground was
just beyond their backyard.
Eleanor didn’t know what else
to do, so she walked out to where
she could see Ben, by the swing
set, and sat on one of the swings.
It was finally jacket weather.
Eleanor wished she had a jacket.
‘What are you supposed to do
when it gets too cold to play
outside?’ she asked Ben. He was
taking Matchbox cars out of his
pockets and lining them up in the
dirt. ‘Last year,’ he said, ‘Dad
made us go to bed at 7:30.’
‘God. You too? Why do you
guys call him that?’ She tried not
to sound angry.
Ben
shrugged.
‘I
guess
because he’s married to Mom.’
‘Yeah, but’ – Eleanor ran her
hands up and down the swing
chains, then smelled them – ‘we
never used to call him that. Do
you feel like he’s your dad?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ben said flatly.
‘What’s that supposed to feel
like?’
She didn’t answer him, so he
went back to setting up his cars.
He
needed
a
haircut,
his
strawberry-blond hair was curling
almost to his collar. He was
wearing
an
old
T-shirt
of
Eleanor’s and a pair of corduroy
pants that their mom had cut off
into shorts. He was almost too old
for all this, for cars and parks –
eleven. The other boys his age
played basketball all night or hung
out in groups at the edge of the
playground. Eleanor hoped that
Ben was a late bloomer. There
was no room in that house to be a
teenager.
‘He likes it when we call him
Dad,’ Ben said, still lining up the
cars.
Eleanor looked out at the
playground. Mouse was playing
with a bunch of kids who had a
soccer ball. Maisie must have
taken the baby somewhere with
her friends …
It used to be Eleanor who was
stuck with the baby all the time.
She wouldn’t even mind watching
him now, it would give her
something to do – but Maisie
didn’t want Eleanor’s help.
‘What was it like?’ Ben asked.
‘What was what like?’
‘Living with those people.’
The sun was a few inches
above the horizon, and Eleanor
looked hard at it.
‘Okay,’ she said. Terrible.
Lonely. Better than here.
‘Were there other kids?’
‘Yeah. Really little kids. Three
of them.’
‘Did you have your own
room?’
‘Sort of.’ Technically, she
hadn’t had to share the Hickmans’
living room with anyone else.
‘Were they nice?’ he asked.
‘Yeah … yeah. They were
nice. Not as nice as you.’
The Hickmans had started out
nice. But then they got tired.
Eleanor was only supposed to
stay with them for a few days,
maybe a week. Just until Richie
cooled down and let her come
home.
‘It’ll be like a slumber party,’
Mrs Hickman said to Eleanor the
first night she made up the couch.
Mrs Hickman – Tammy – knew
Eleanor’s mom from high school.
There was a photo over the TV of
the Hickmans’ wedding. Eleanor’s
mom was the maid of honor – in a
dark green dress, with a white
flower in her hair.
At first, her mom would call
Eleanor at the Hickmans’ almost
every day after school. After a few
months, the calls stopped. It
turned out that Richie hadn’t paid
the phone bill, and it got
disconnected. But Eleanor didn’t
know that for a while.
‘We should call the state,’ Mr
Hickman kept telling his wife.
They thought Eleanor couldn’t
hear them, but their bedroom was
right over the living room. ‘This
can’t go on, Tammy.’
‘Andy, it’s not her fault.’
‘I’m not saying it’s her fault,
I’m just saying we didn’t sign on
for this.’
‘She’s no trouble.’
‘She’s not ours.’
Eleanor tried to be even less
trouble. She practiced being in a
room without leaving any clues
that she’d been there. She never
turned on the TV or asked to use
the phone. She never asked for
seconds at dinner. She never
asked Tammy and Mr Hickman
for anything – and they’d never
had a teenager, so it didn’t occur
to them that there might be
anything she might need. She was
glad that they didn’t know her
birthday.
‘We thought you were gone,’
Ben said, pushing a car into the
dirt. He looked like somebody
who didn’t want to cry.
‘Oh ye of little faith,’ Eleanor
said, kicking her swing into
action.
She looked around again for
Maisie and found her sitting over
where the older boys were playing
basketball. Eleanor recognized
most of the boys from the bus.
That stupid Asian kid was there,
jumping higher than she would
have guessed he could. He was
wearing long black shorts and a T-
shirt that said ‘Madness.’
‘I’m out of here,’ Eleanor told
Ben, stepping off the swing and
pushing down the top of his head.
‘But not gone or anything. Don’t
get your panties in a bunch.’
She walked back into the
house and rushed through the
kitchen before her mom could say
anything. Richie was in the living
room. Eleanor walked between
him and the TV, eyes straight
ahead. She wished she had a
jacket.
CHAPTER 9
Park
He was going to tell her that she
did a good job on her poem.
That
would
be
a
giant