Silence (4 page)

Alison was sort of like her mother. Except for the polyester and Alison’s glasses. When you were with Alison, you were, in some way, in the Simner household. It wasn’t the only reason they were friends, but it helped. She carried the same blue pack that Emma did, with a slightly different model of laptop (for which official permission had been required). They fel into step behind Michael, who often forgot that he was tal enough to outpace them.

“Did you get a chance to read Amy’s e-mail?”

Damn. Emma grimaced. “Guilty,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry I Damn. Emma grimaced. “Guilty,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry I didn’t cal you back last night—I kind of fel asleep.”

“I guessed. She’s having a party next Friday.”

“Why?”

“I think her parents are going out of town.”

“The last time she tried that—”

“To New York City. Without her.”

“Oh. Wel, that would do it.” Amy was famed for her love of shopping. She was in particular famed for her love of shopping in NYC, because almost everything she was wiling to admit she owned—where admit meant something only a little less overt than a P.A. announcement between every class—came from NYC. “How big a party?”

“She invited me,” Alison replied.

Emma glanced at Alison’s profile. She thought about saying a bunch of pleasant and pointless things but settled for, “It’s not the only time she’s invited you.”

“No. She invited me to the last big party as wel.” Alison shrugged. “I don’t mind, Em.”

Emma shrugged, because sometimes Emma minded. And she knew she shouldn’t. Alison and Amy had nothing in common except a vowel and a gender; Amy was the golden girl: the star athlete, the student council representative, and the second highest overal GPA in the grade. She was also stunningly beautiful, and if she knew it, the knowledge could be overlooked. When people are tripping over their own feet at the sight of you, you can only not notice it by being disingenuous.

can only not notice it by being disingenuous.

Amy also never suffered from false modesty. In Amy’s case, any modesty was going to be false. “Are you going to go?”

“Are you?”

Emma, unlike Alison, had managed to find a place for herself in Amy’s inner circle of friends. Emma could, with relative ease, hit a voleybal, hit a softbal, or run a fast fifty-yard dash. She had decent grades, as wel, but it wasn’t about grades. It had never been about grades. If people didn’t cause car accidents when they saw Emma in the street, they stil noticed her. She had no trouble talking to boys, and no trouble not talking when it was convenient; she had no trouble shopping for clothes, and when she did, she bought things that matched and that looked good.

Alison, not so much.

Alison was plain. In and of itself, that wasn’t a complete disaster; Deb was plain as wel. But Deb could do al the other things; she knew how to work a crowd. She had the sharpest tongue in the school. Alison didn’t. Alison also hated to shop for anything that wasn’t a book, so after-school mal excursions weren’t social time for Alison; she would simply vanish from the tail end of the pack when the pack passed a bookstore en route to something more interesting, and frequently fail to emerge.

But Alison, like Nathan, was a quiet space. She didn’t natter and she didn’t gossip. She could be beside you for half an afternoon without saying two words, but if you needed to talk, she could listen. She could also ask questions that proved that she was, in fact, listening—not that Emma ever tested her.

They’d been friends since the first grade. Emma knew there was They’d been friends since the first grade. Emma knew there was a time when they hadn’t been, but she couldn’t honestly remember it.

Emma didn’t always understand what Alison saw in her, because Emma was none of those things, even when she tried.

“Do you want me to go?”

“Not if you don’t want.” Which wasn’t a no.

“I’l go. Friday when?”

“I don’t think it matters.”

Emma laughed.

There was a substitute teacher alert, which passed by Emma while she was puling textbooks from her locker. Why they had to have textbooks, instead of e-texts, Emma didn’t know.

She dropped one an inch to the left of her foot but managed to catch the messenger, Philipa, by the shoulder. “Substitute teacher? Which class?”

“Twelve math.”

“Ugh. Did you tel Michael?”

“I couldn’t find him. You want to check on him on the way to English?”

Emma nodded. “Who’s the teacher, did you catch the name?”

“Ms. Hampton, I think. Or Hampstead. Something like that.”

Philipa cringed at the look on Emma’s face. “Sorry, I tried, but it wasn’t clearer.”

“Never mind; good enough.” It wasn’t, but it would have to do. Emma scooped up the offending book and headed down the hal and to the left, where the lockers disappeared from wals in hal and to the left, where the lockers disappeared from wals in favor of the usual corkboards and glass cabinets. She narrowly avoided dropping the books again when she ran into another student.

Eric.

“Hey,” he said, as she stepped to one side of him and started to walk again.

“Can’t talk now,” she replied, without looking back. Had she had the time, she would have admitted that she didn’t particularly want to talk to him, because he reminded her of the graveyard, and she didn’t want to think about that right now. Or ever.

He fel in beside her. “Where are you headed?”

“Mr. Burke’s math class.”

“That’s a twelve, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “But Michael’s in that one. I need to reach him before the teacher does, or at least as soon as possible.”

“Why?”

“Because,” she said, cursing silently, “Mr. Burke is not actualy teaching the class today.”

“Who is?”

“A substitute teacher. Ms. Hampton or Ms. Hampstead.” She reached the math twelve door and peered through the glass.

Michael was standing beside a desk that already contained another student. It was, unfortunately, the desk that Michael always sat at, and Emma could tel the student—Nick something-or-other—knew this and had no intention of moving.

Grinding her teeth, Emma pushed the door open.

Michael was not—yet—upset.

Michael was not—yet—upset.

Emma reached his side, handed him her pack, and then dropped a book on Nick’s head.

“What the fuck—”

“Get your butt out of the chair or I’l upend the desk on you,”

Emma said tersely. She would have asked politely if she’d had more time. Or if she felt like it, and honestly? At this moment she so did not feel polite.

He opened his mouth to say something and then stopped. Eric had joined Emma. He hadn’t said a word, and from a brief glance at his face, he didn’t look particularly threatening, but Nick shoved the chair back from the desk and rose. He added a few single and double sylable words as he did.

“Michael,” Emma said, ignoring Nick as she pushed the chair back in a bit, “Mr. Burke’s not here today. He’s il. Ms.

Hampton or Ms. Hampstead—I didn’t hear her name clearly, but it’s only one person—wil be teaching the class today. I don’t know if she has Mr. Burke’s notes, so she might not be covering the same material.”

“What type of ilness?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t ask.”

Michael nodded. Emma was very afraid that he was going to ask her what Ms. Hampton or Ms. Hampstead actualy looked like. “You shouldn’t have dropped the book on Nick’s head,”

he said instead.

Emma said, “If it were up to me, I wouldn’t have.” She did not add, I would have slugged him across his big, smug face, not add, I would have slugged him across his big, smug face, because when Michael gave a lecture, it generaly lasted a while, and it was hard to interrupt him. “I was in a hurry, and the book slipped. I’ve dropped it once today already.”

Michael nodded, because he could parse the words and they made sense. As a general rule, Emma did not go around the school dropping books on people’s heads.

“I’l see you at lunch?”

He nodded, and she said, “The substitute teacher probably doesn’t understand everything about you.”

“No one understands everything about anyone, Emma.”

“No, but she probably understands much less than Mr. Burke.

If she does the wrong things, remember that. She doesn’t know any better. She hasn’t had time to learn.”

He nodded again and sat down, putting his own textbook on the table and arranging his laptop with care so it was in the exact center of the desk. She left him to it, because it could take him ten minutes.

Eric folowed her out. He hadn’t said a word.

“What was al that about?”

“Michael’s a high-functioning autistic,” she replied. She had slowed down slightly, and while she didn’t have the time to have this conversation unless she wanted to add to her late-slip colection, she felt that she owed it to him. “I’ve known him since kindergarten. He does realy, realy wel here,” she added, half defensively, “and he hasn’t needed a permanent Ed. Aide since junior high. But he’s very particular about his routine, and he junior high. But he’s very particular about his routine, and he doesn’t react wel to unexpected changes.”

“And the person you dropped the book on?”

“He’s an asshole.”

“You go around dropping books on every asshole in the school, you’re not going to make many classes.”

In spite of herself, Emma smiled. “Michael always sits at the same desk in any class he’s taking. Everyone who’s in his classes knows this. Al the teachers too,” she added. “But substitute teachers might not know. If Nick had stayed in that chair, Michael would have probably blown a fuse before the teacher showed up, and a strange teacher on top of that interruption—” she shook her head. “It would have been bad.

And Nick knew it.”

“And you realy would have upended the desk on him?”

“I would have tried. Which, to be fair, would probably have upset Michael just as much. He’s not a big fan of violence.” She added, “Thanks.”

“For what?”

“For coming in. I’m not sure Nick would have moved if you hadn’t been there.”

It was Eric’s turn to shrug. “I didn’t do anything.”

“No. You didn’t have to.” She smiled ruefuly. “I’m not always this…aggressive. Michael doesn’t sit in on al of the normal classes. He has trouble with the less academic subjects, but he also hates English.”

“Hates?”

“There’s too much that’s based on opinion, and he has to “There’s too much that’s based on opinion, and he has to make too many choices. Nothing is concrete enough, and choice always causes him stress. You should have seen him in art classes. On the other hand,” she added, as she stopped in front of a door, “I’m expected to attend al the regular classes.”

“So am I,” he told her, and he opened the door to the English class.

“Emma, are you okay?”

Emma blinked. Half of English had just passed her by.

Normaly, anything that made English go by faster was a good thing. But she’d missed the good thing—whatever it was—and was left looking at a clock that was twenty minutes ahead of where it was supposed to be.

“Emma?”

She turned to look at Alison, who was watching her with those slightly narrowed brown eyes, which her glasses made look enormous. “I’m fine.”

Alison glanced at the computer on Emma’s desk. The screen on which notes were in theory being typed was a lovely, blank white. “I’l e-mail you what you missed.”

“Don’t worry about it. I can read up on it.” She put her fingers on the home row of her keyboard and listened to Ms. Evan’s voice. It was, as always, strong, but some of the sylables and some of the words seemed to be running together in a blur of noise that was not entirely unlike buzzing. This, Emma thought, was why the word droning had been invented.

She tried to concentrate on the words, to separate them, to She tried to concentrate on the words, to separate them, to make enough sense of them that she could type something.

“Em?” Alison went from expressing minor concern to the depths of worry by losing a single sylable—but that was Alison; she never wasted words in a pinch.

Emma looked at her friend and saw that Alison was not, in fact, looking at her. She was looking at Emma’s laptop screen.

Drawn there by Aly’s gaze, Emma looked at it as wel. She lifted her hands off the keyboard as if it had burned her.

She had typed: Oh my god Drew help me help me Drew fire god no

Reaching out, she pushed the laptop screen down. “E-mail me your notes.”

“Emma?” Alison was worried enough that she almost walked into the edge of a bank of lockers in the crowded between-classes hal.

Emma shook her head. “I’m—I’m fine.” Nothing had happened in art, and nothing had happened in math; her computer hadn’t suddenly sprouted new words that had nothing to do with either her class or her. But she felt cold.

“Emma?” Great. Stereo. She glanced up as Eric approached.

“You okay?”

Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, made sure she had her laptop, and made double sure it was closed. “Yeah. Alison,”

Emma said, “this is Eric. He helped me out when Nick was being a jerk in Michael’s math class this morning. Eric, my best friend, Alison.”

Alison.”

Alison smiled at Eric, but she would—he was new, and he’d helped Michael. Which, Emma had to admit, was part of the reason she found him less scary. She started to walk more quickly. “We’ve got to hurry,” she told him. “We meet Michael for lunch.”

The cafeteria, with its noise and its constant press of people, wasn’t Michael’s favorite room. It was also not a room in which a table could easily be marked out as his. The first day he’d come to Emery, Emma had found him loitering near the doors.