Blackbird Fly (8 page)

The reasons turned into a big lump in my throat. I swallowed them away.

“Did you decide to quit speaking too?” she asked.

“No,” I mumbled.

She raised her eyebrows and kept glaring at me. Waiting for me to say something, I guess. But nothing
would come out. Finally she sighed again and walked toward the door.

Before she closed it, I said, “I tried to put the money back.” But she didn't hear me and shut the door behind her.

T
he next day I walked slower than usual to my locker. I'd ignored Alyssa's phone calls the night before, and even though I hoped she had some kind of grand announcement of her own that would make her and Gretchen forget that I'd been dragged from the band room by Mr. Z, I had a feeling that my departure would be the first topic of discussion.

I was right.

“What
happened
?” Alyssa said, leaning against Heleena's locker as Gretchen riffled through her stuff as usual. “You never came back.”

I'd planned to tell Gretchen and Alyssa that I'd come down with some kind of twenty-four-hour virus. But just as I opened my mouth to talk about my mysterious affliction, Alyssa tilted her head suspiciously and told me she'd heard something that “just couldn't be true.”

“I heard Mr. Z caught you going through his stuff,” she said. “But I was like, what could Mr. Z possibly have that you would even want?”

“I wasn't going through Mr. Z's stuff.” I swallowed. “I just didn't feel well. I was about to get sick in his office, so he got me out of there. I thought I might faint.”

Alyssa narrowed her eyes. “I heard you were going through his wallet.”

I laughed, but the laugh didn't sound like mine. It sounded shaky and unnatural, like someone had
planted it in my mouth. I wished I could just tell them the truth—about how my mom had said no to a guitar twenty-two times and I didn't have any money to buy one myself and I felt desperate and wanted to run away and be like George Harrison—but I couldn't. Maybe if I had different friends, I could. But Gretchen and Alyssa don't even like the Beatles. I played
Abbey Road
for them once, and they didn't even make it to “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window.” They said the music sounded weird and dumb and they didn't see what the big deal was.

“Why would I go through Mr. Z's wallet?” I said.

“I don't know,” Alyssa said. She looked at Gretchen. “Didn't you hear that too, Gretchen? That Apple was caught going through his wallet?”

“I'm going by Analyn now,” I corrected, but they ignored me.

“I don't know,” said Gretchen. “If Apple says she was sick, then she must have been sick.”

Alyssa bit her bottom lip and glared at me, still
suspicious. “You would tell me if you were in trouble, right?” she said. “We're friends, remember?” She lifted her pinkie finger the way she used to when we first became friends. Before all she cared about was being popular. It didn't look right now, her holding up her pinkie like that. It used to, but it didn't now.

I linked pinkies anyway. “Yeah, we're friends.”

“If you're in trouble, you have to tell us,” she said. “We're best friends.” She and Gretchen linked pinkies too. “The three of us.”

I nodded. “I know.”

“You definitely don't need any more notoriety right now,” said Alyssa, bumping hips with me. “Right?”

“Right.”

“I'm still working on getting all that cleared up, by the way. No way you're a number three. And this is the worst thing that could possibly happen right before the dance. You can't go by yourself when me and Gretchen have dates, can you? That would just
be the most embarrassing thing ever.”

“She can if she wants to,” Gretchen said. “Maybe we should just all go as a group. That might be more fun. Don't you think, Apple?”

Alyssa shook her head and said, “I'm not going with a group. Jake asked me to the dance and I'm going with him on a real date, not as some group thing like a bunch of fifth graders.” She rolled her eyes as if Gretchen's idea was the dumbest thing ever, then turned to me. “You better pray you get a date to that dance, Apple. It might be your only hope of redemption.”

W
hen the lunch bell rang, I made a beeline for the library so I could look up
redemption
on the computer. I usually asked Gretchen to Google on her smartphone when I needed information, but I didn't want her to know that I didn't know what the word meant. I'd spent my morning classes thinking about what Alyssa had said, and even though I wanted to forget all about the stupid
Dog Log and go on with my life, I couldn't. Alyssa was right.

redemption (n): the action of being saved from sin or error; something that saves someone from error

I wasn't sure if the error was me, the Dog Log, or both, but I definitely needed saving.

I stared at the screen and the word
redemption
. I heard someone mumble hello. I looked up.

It was Evan, the new kid.

“Hey,” I said.

He did a quick wrist-flick wave before heading straight for the books.

I looked back at the computer.
Redemption
.

Question: Who would take an ugly girl to a dance?

Answer: A boy who didn't know any better.

I found Evan standing in one of the aisles with his head tilted to the side. He was reading book spines. I cleared my throat and sucked in my belly
to stop it from flipping. Part of me wanted to cry, part of me was nervous, and part of me thought Evan was really cute. All these parts mixed together to create a big jumble of nausea in the pit of my stomach.

“Hey, Evan,” I said, smiling broadly. Fake smiles always feel weird, like someone is pulling up the corners of my mouth with fishing wire. “Did you finish
Silmarillion
?”

“No, but I'm ready for something else,” he said. “Not sure what, though.”

“Oh.”

I considered turning around and bolting, but I couldn't move. He stared at me like he was waiting for me to explain myself. When I didn't say anything, he went back to reading the book spines.

“My name is Analyn, by the way.”

He didn't look away from the books. “I know. You told me, remember? A-N-A-L-Y-N.”

“Oh yeah.” Could I be a bigger dork?

“But I thought I heard your friend call you something else. Apple, I think?”

“Yeah, that used to be my nickname.” I rubbed my finger along some of the spines, just to have something to do.

“What do you mean ‘used to be'? Usually when someone has a nickname, they have it for life.”

“I decided to drop it. Start going by my real name—Analyn.”

That was the third time I'd told him my name. I was getting more ridiculous by the second.

“Why?” he asked.

“Just because. It was time for a change.”

He shrugged. “Apple's pretty cool. I never heard that nickname before. How'd you get it?”

I picked at the loose binding on a book called
The Blue Girl
. I wondered if it was a book about a blue-skinned girl, a depressed girl, or a girl with the last name Blue.

“It's an embarrassing story,” I said. I pulled
The
Blue Girl
from the shelf; as soon as I did, Evan leaned over to see what I'd selected. I put it back in a hurry.

“It's better than Evan Temple,” he said. “At least your name doesn't sound like a place people go for church.”

I laughed. My laugh sounded nervous and weird, like I was having an out-of-body experience.

“It's because I have a big head,” I explained. “Round, like an apple. That's what my mom says anyway.”

He looked at my head and blew his hair away from his face. “It doesn't look big to me. It looks like it weighs between seven and nine pounds, which is average. I'd estimate that if we put your head on a scale, it'd come in around three-point-six kilograms.”

“Oh,” I said.

He took a step closer, pulled
The Blue Girl
from the shelf, and started to read the dust jacket.

“Is the girl blue, or is she depressed?” I asked.

“Skin's blue,” he said. He tucked the book under his arm. “Are you Filipino?”

For a second I wasn't sure I'd heard him right. All my life people have asked me where I'm from, what ethnicity I am, if I am Chinese or Latina, but this was the first time someone actually knew.

“Uh, yeah,” I said. “How'd you know?”

“Because you look Filipino. How else?”

“It's just . . . people around here don't usually know what I am.”

“There's tons of Filipinos where I'm from. One of my best friends from back home is Filipino. His name's Raoul Gonzales, but everyone calls him Bon-Bon. He moved to the States when he was in the fourth grade. What about you? Were you born in the Philippines? You don't have an accent.”

“I was born there, but we left when I was little.”

“Cool.”

He tried to head back to the desk to check out his book with Mrs. Fastaband, the librarian, but he
didn't get too far, because I was in his way.

“I'm going to check out my book now,” he said, waiting for me to move out of his path. I didn't move though, because I needed to put my plan into action.

My mouth opened, but no words came out.

“Um.” He raised his eyebrows.

“Er . . . uh,” I said.

“Are you okay?”

No
, I thought.
I'm the biggest dork in America. No, the world. I'm the biggest dork in the world.

“Yeah. Sorry. I kinda blanked out.” I stepped out of his way.

“That's okay,” he said, walking past me with the book under his arm. “See you around, Analyn-Apple.”

“Er . . . uh,” I said.

I peeked around the bookcase and watched him give
The Blue Girl
to Mrs. Fastaband. She punched some buttons on the computer while he tapped his foot and blew his hair out of his eyes. When he spotted
me, I turned away as fast as possible. I wondered if I would have a heart attack right there in the Chapel Spring Middle School Library. Would Mrs. Fastaband leap up from her desk and save me?

“Apple?”

I turned. Evan was standing there.

“Yeah?” I said. My throat was dry. I swallowed, but it didn't help.

“Are you sure you're okay? You're acting weird. Then again, maybe this is how you act all the time. I wouldn't really know.”

“Well . . . actually . . .” My body felt hot from the inside out. What if I started sweating? What if a puddle formed around my feet? What if my face turned so red that he thought I was choking? What if it was red now? It was hard to tell what I looked like from the expression on his face.

“Actually what?” he asked.

Time to just blurt it out and get it over with.

“You wanna go with me to the Halloween dance?”

“I thought the boys were supposed to ask the girls,” he said.

I shrugged. “I guess so, but . . . well, I don't know . . .”

I was definitely the biggest dork in the world. No, the universe.

“Do I have to wear a costume?” he asked.

“Yes. Well, no, not if you don't want to. . . . I mean, I was gonna wear one, but you know, whatever.”

“Okay then,” he said.

We looked at each other silently.

“Maybe you should give me your number.” He took his phone out of his pocket. “You know, in case we need to get in touch and stuff?” He opened the screen for a new contact. His hair fell around his face. Without looking up, he said, “Okay, what is it?”

I couldn't remember my number. Was it four-oh-five-five or five-oh-four-four? Or maybe it only had one four and one five. But wasn't there a three somewhere? Oh god. I had to say something.