Authors: Rainbow Rowell
de-dah-dah, de-dahh, de dahhh.’
He nodded.
‘And his voice at the end,’ she
said, ‘when he goes just a little bit
too high … And then the
very
end,
where it sounds like the drums are
fighting it, like they don’t want the
song to be over …’
Park made drum noises with
his mouth: ‘ch-ch-ch, ch-ch-ch.’
‘I just want to break that song
into pieces,’ she said, ‘and love
them all to death.’
That made him laugh.
‘What about the Smiths?’ he
asked.
‘I didn’t know who was who,’
she said.
‘I’ll write it down for you.’
‘I liked it all.’
‘Good,’ he said.
‘I loved it.’
He smiled, but turned away to
look out the window. She looked
down.
They were pulling into the
parking lot. Eleanor didn’t want
this new talking thing – like,
really
talking, back and forth and
smiling at each other – to stop.
‘And …’ she said quickly, ‘I
love the X-Men. But I hate
Cyclops.’
He whipped his head back.
‘You can’t hate Cyclops. He’s
team captain.’
‘He’s boring. He’s worse than
Batman.’
‘What? You hate Batman?’
‘God. So boring. I can’t even
make myself read it. Whenever
you bring Batman, I catch myself
listening to Steve, or staring out
the window, wishing I was in
hypersleep.’ The bus came to a
stop.
‘Huh,’ Park said, standing up.
He said it really judgmentally.
‘What?’
‘Now I know what you’re
thinking when you stare out the
window.’
‘No, you don’t,’ she said. ‘I
mix it up.’
Everybody else was pushing
down the aisle past them. Eleanor
stood up, too.
‘I’m bringing you
The Dark
Knight Returns
,’ he said.
‘What’s that?’
‘Only the least boring Batman
story ever.’
‘The least boring Batman story
ever, huh? Does Batman raise
both
eyebrows?’
He laughed again. His face
completely changed when he
laughed. He didn’t have dimples,
exactly, but the sides of his face
folded in on themselves, and his
eyes almost disappeared.
‘Just wait,’ he said.
Park
That morning, in English, Park
noticed that Eleanor’s hair came to
a soft red point on the back of her
neck.
Eleanor
That afternoon, in history, Eleanor
noticed that Park chewed on his
pencil when he was thinking. And
that the girl sitting behind him –
what’s her name, Kim, with the
giant breasts and the orange Esprit
bag – obviously had a crush on
him.
Park
That night, Park made a tape with
the Joy Division song on it, over
and over again.
He emptied all his handheld
video games and Josh’s remote-
control cars, and called his
grandma to tell her that all he
wanted for his birthday in
November was double-A batteries.
CHAPTER 14
Eleanor
‘I know she doesn’t think I’m
going to jump over that thing,’
DeNice said.
DeNice and the other girl, the
big girl, Beebi, talked to Eleanor
now in gym. (Because being
assaulted with maxi pads is a great
way to win friends and influence
people.) Today in class, their gym
teacher, Mrs Burt, had shown
them how to swing over a
thousand-year-old
gymnastics
horse. She said that next time
everybody had to try.
‘She has got another thing
coming,’ DeNice said after class,
in the locker room. ‘Do I look like
Mary Lou Retton?’
Beebi giggled. ‘Better tell her
you didn’t eat your Wheaties.’
Actually,
Eleanor
thought,
DeNice did kind of look like a
gymnast. With her little-girl bangs
and braids. She looked way too
young to be in high school, and
her clothes just made it worse.
Puffed-sleeve
shirts,
overalls,
matching ponytail balls … She
wore her gymsuit baggy, like a
romper.
Eleanor wasn’t scared of the
horse, but she didn’t want to have
to run down the mats with the
whole class watching her. She
didn’t want to run, period. It made
her breasts feel like they were
going to detach from her body.
‘I’m going to tell Mrs Burt that
my mom doesn’t want me to do
anything that might rupture my
hymen,’
Eleanor
said.
‘For
religious reasons.’
‘For real?’ Beebi asked.
‘No,’ Eleanor said, giggling.
‘Well. Actually …’
‘You’re nasty,’ DeNice said,
hitching up her overalls.
Eleanor put her T-shirt on
over her head then wriggled out of
her gymsuit, using the shirt as
cover.
‘Are you coming?’ DeNice
asked.
‘Well, I’m probably not going
to start skipping class now just
because of gymnastics,’ Eleanor
said, hopping to pull up her jeans.
‘No, are you coming to
lunch?’
‘Oh,’ Eleanor said, looking up.
They were waiting for her at the
end of the lockers. ‘Yeah.’
‘Then
hurry
up,
Miss
Jackson.’
She sat with DeNice and Beebi
at their usual table by the
windows. During passing period,
Eleanor saw Park walk by.
Park
‘Why can’t you get your driver’s
license by homecoming?’ Cal
asked.
Mr Stessman had them in
small groups. They were supposed
to be comparing Juliet to Ophelia.
‘Because I can’t bend time and
space,’ Park said. Eleanor was
sitting across the room by the
windows. She was paired up with
a guy named Eric, a basketball
player. He was talking, and
Eleanor was frowning at him.
‘If you had your car,’ Cal said,
‘we could ask Kim.’
‘You can ask Kim,’ Park said.
Eric was one of those tall guys
who always walked with his
shoulders about a foot behind his
hips. Constantly doing the limbo.
Like he was afraid to hit his head
on every door jamb.
‘She wants to go with a
group,’ Cal said. ‘Plus I think she
likes you.’
‘What? I don’t want to go to
homecoming with Kim. I don’t
even like her. I mean, you know
…
You
like her.’
‘I know. That’s why the plan
works. We all go to homecoming
together. She figures out you
don’t like her, she’s miserable,
and guess who’s standing right
there, asking her to slow dance?’
‘I don’t want to make Kim
miserable.’
‘It’s her or me, man.’
Eric said something else, and
Eleanor frowned again. Then she
looked over at Park – and stopped
frowning. Park smiled.
‘One minute,’ Mr Stessman
said.
‘Crap,’ Cal said. ‘What have
we got … Ophelia was bonkers,
right? And Juliet was what, a
sixth-grader?’
Eleanor
‘So Psylocke is another girl
telepath?’
‘Uh-huh,’ Park said.
Every morning when Eleanor
got on the bus, she worried that
Park wouldn’t take off his
headphones. That he would stop
talking to her as suddenly as he’d
started … And if that happened –
if she got on the bus one day and
he didn’t look up – she didn’t
want him to see how devastated it
would make her.
So far, it hadn’t happened.
So far, they hadn’t
stopped
talking. Like, literally. They talked
every second they were sitting
next to each other. And almost
every conversation started with
the words ‘what do you think …’
What did Eleanor think about
that U2 album? She loved it.
What did Park think of
Miami
Vice
? He thought it was boring.
‘Yes,’ they said when they
agreed with each other. Back and
forth – ‘Yes,’ ‘
Yes
,’ ‘
Yes
!’
‘I
know
.’
‘
Exactly
.’
‘
Right?
’
They agreed about everything
important
and
argued
about
everything else. And that was
good, too, because whenever they
argued, Eleanor could always
crack Park up.
‘Why do the X-Men need
another girl telepath?’ she asked.
‘This one has purple hair.’
‘It’s all so sexist.’
Park’s eyes got wide. Well,
sort of wide. Sometimes she
wondered if the shape of his eyes
affected how he saw things. That
was probably the most racist
question of all time.
‘The X-Men aren’t sexist,’ he
said, shaking his head. ‘They’re a
metaphor for acceptance; they’ve
sworn to protect a world that hates
and fears them.’
‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘but …’
‘There’s no but,’ he said,
laughing.
‘
But
,’ Eleanor insisted, ‘the
girls are all so stereotypically girly
and passive. Half of them just
think really hard. Like
that
’s their
s u p e r p o w e r ,
thinking
.
And
Shadowcat’s power is even worse
– she disappears.’
‘She becomes intangible,’ Park
said. ‘That’s different.’
‘It’s still something you could
do in the middle of a tea party,’
Eleanor said.
‘Not if you were holding hot
tea. Plus, you’re forgetting Storm.’
‘I’m not forgetting Storm. She
controls the weather with her
head; it’s still just thinking. Which
is about all she
could
do in those
boots.’
‘She has a cool Mohawk …’
Park said.
‘Irrelevant,’ Eleanor answered.
Park leaned his head back
against the seat, smiling, and
looked at the ceiling. ‘The X-Men
aren’t sexist.’
‘Are you trying to think of an
empowered X-woman?’ Eleanor
asked. ‘How about Dazzler? She’s
a living disco ball. Or the White
Queen? She thinks really hard
while wearing spotless white
lingerie.’
‘What kind of power would
you
want?’ he asked, changing the
subject. He turned his face toward
her, laying his cheek against the
top of the seat. Smiling.
‘I’d want to fly,’ Eleanor said,
looking away from him. ‘I know
it’s not very useful, but … it’s
flying
.’
‘
Yes
,’ he said.
Park
‘Damn, Park, are you going on a
Ninja mission?’
‘Ninjas wear black, Steve.’
‘What?’
Park should have gone inside
to change after taekwando, but his
dad said he had to be back by
9:00, and that gave him less than
an hour to show Eleanor.
Steve was outside working on
his Camaro. He didn’t have his
license yet either, but he was
getting ready.
‘Going to see your girlfriend?’
he called to Park.
‘What?’
‘Sneaking out to see your
girlfriend? Bloody Mary?’
‘She’s not my girlfriend,’ Park
said, then swallowed.
‘Sneaking out Ninja-style,’
Steve said.
Park shook his head and broke
into a run. Well, she wasn’t, he
thought
to
himself,
cutting
through the alley.
He didn’t know where Eleanor
lived, exactly. He knew where she
got on the bus, and he knew that
she lived next to the school …
It must be this one, he thought.
He stopped at a small white house.
There were a few broken toys in
the yard, and a giant Rottweiler
was asleep on the porch.
Park walked toward the house
slowly. The dog lifted its head and
watched him for a second, then
settled back to sleep. It didn’t
move, even when Park climbed
the steps and knocked on the
door.
The guy who answered looked
too young to be Eleanor’s dad.
Park was pretty sure he’d seen this
guy around the neighborhood. He
didn’t know who he’d expected to