Waterways (19 page)

“My name’s Ryan. Whitford, Race, and Western Tech is my safety school.”

“I’m Vera. Whitford and Pemberton.”

Kory watched the other kids with growing unease. Each of these kids already had a list of schools determined. Even Perry got up and said, “Uh, Pemberton, Gulliston, and Northeast College is my safety school.” Kory had skimmed his brochures, and he knew the names of the schools his mother wanted him to go to, but watching nervous Perry’s confident demeanor as he rattled off school names made Kory feel unprepared, as if he were really a junior and these kids were all a year ahead of him.

“I’m Kory,” he said. “Whitford, I guess, and… Gulliston. And State.”

Mr. Pena gave a short, nervous laugh. “State? We can find you a better safety school than that, Kory.” He flicked his large ears while Kory folded his small ones back. The rustling of the other students sounded like laughter at his back, though nobody followed Mr. Pena’s lead in laughing outright. Kory sank down in his seat. At least they hadn’t asked him why he’d picked State. He wouldn’t know what to answer.

“Now, the earliest thing you’re going to want to do is make sure you’re well-rounded enough,” the fox said when all the kids had introduced themselves. “Colleges like to see applicants with a variety of interests. Some charity work is always good, sports if you have it, yearbook, newspaper, and so on. Math Club, Computer Club are good if you’re going for a science major. And use those clubs as leverage to get into national events and competitions. There are plenty of smart kids out there, but if you can show how smart you are on a wider stage, you’ll stand out.”

Kory saw nodding out of the corner of his eye. All the other kids were looking as though this were just confirmation, not news. Where did they all learn how to apply to colleges? Probably on the Internet somewhere. He’d have to spend some time this weekend looking. “Now, you’re going to have a lot of friends bent on enjoying their last year of high school. I’m here to tell you that that’s not what your senior year is for. The college you attend will shape the rest of your life. Employers will be much more impressed if you graduated from Gulliston than,” his eyes settled on Kory. “State. More kids from this class will go to State than anywhere else, those that go to college at all. That’s not impressive. That doesn’t tell someone that you’re going to be worth hiring.”

Of course he would have to pick on Kory, mentioning State. Kory added Mr. Pena to the list of people he would upset by attending State with Samaki. The prospect didn’t bother him at all. In fact, imagining the older fox’s reaction if Kory announced his enrollment at State had him smiling as he and Perry walked out, so that the wolf asked him what was so funny.

“Oh, nothing,” Kory said. “So, it sounded like everyone already knew a lot of that stuff in there, right? Are you all prepared, too?”

“I don’t know if I have enough extracurriculars,” Perry said. He stood next to Kory on the curb, waiting for the bus. “I wish I were good at a sport. My dad played baseball in college. I just hate gym.”

“Even kickball?”

Perry looked back at Kory mournfully. “I always just kick it right back to the pitcher, and everyone snickers at me.”

Kory liked kickball, but he found most non-aquatic sports fairly boring. “I don’t think they really want English majors to have sport.”

“They like them to be well-rounded.” Perry paced while Kory watched.

“You’re in, what, the hacker club, and you’re on the yearbook. That’s plenty,” Kory said.

“I can’t list the hacker stuff on a college app. I should do some nonprofit work,” Perry said. “Help at the senior home or something.”

“Does it count if you’re only doing it to get into school?”

The wolf stopped at that, and looked miserably downcast. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “What are you doing besides having poems published?”

Kory’s fur prickled. “I’m trying not to do that again. But I do some charity work on weekends.”

“You should get another poem published! You heard what he said about the national stage. Just don’t tell the teachers this time. What charity work are you doing? You mean you already started doing something?”

He hadn’t thought about the words before saying them, and now regretted having mentioned it. “Just a project with a friend of mine. Working with homeless kids.”

Perry’s eyes widened. “Homeless kids? Like runaways?” Kory hesitated a moment, then nodded. Perry’s ears perked up. “Where? Would it be okay if… I mean, maybe I could come along? They always need extra help, right?” Without waiting for Kory’s answer, he started talking to himself. “Homeless kids. That’s terrible. I really do want to help them. I just didn’t know how. Can I come along when you go next time?”

“Urn, you know, I don’t know,” Kory said. He looked down the front of the school, wishing his bus would get here already.

“Oh,” Perry said, his ears dipping. “I’m sorry. It’s because I’m just doing it to get into college, isn’t it? I really…” He sighed. “Never mind. Sorry.”

Kory felt like a heel, but really, what else was he supposed to do? Bring along this guy he barely knew to work with gay kids? Introduce him to
(his boyfriend)
Samaki? He might as well tie a pink ribbon to his tail and walk around school with a “FAG” sign on his back.

He told Samaki about Perry’s request that night, indignant. “He just wants charity work so he can get into college.” He pushed away the memory of Perry’s earnest expression.

Samaki paused. “Well,” he said, “does it matter why he wanted to help? The work would still get done.”

“He wouldn’t be able to understand the kids, though.”

“There’s things to do that he wouldn’t have to interact with the kids.”

A little puzzled by the fox’s attitude, Kory responded cautiously. “I guess so, but then, what’s the point? And I didn’t know if he was,” he lowered his voice, “you know, homophobic or something.”

“That’s a good point,” Samaki admitted. “Does he seem like it?”

“I don’t know,” Kory said. “Maybe. I barely know him.”

“He liked your poetry, though. He’s right, you should get something else published.”

Kory shifted in his chair, looking at his computer screen. He typed in another search for college entrance requirements. “He
says
he did.”

The fox laughed. “Why would he lie about that?”

That was a question Kory didn’t have the answer to. When the silence had stretched out long enough, Samaki started telling him about his day at school. At Hilltown P.S., they didn’t have anything like college prep courses. Getting motivated to attend college was all on the kid’s shoulders. “There’s a good site here about college,” Kory said as Samaki was complaining about it. “I’ll forward it to you.”

“Thanks.” Samaki sighed. “I should get going and get started on my homework. Oh, I’ve got a surprise for you for tomorrow night.”

“Oooh. Will I like it?”

“Of course you will, silly.”

“All right, then. I’ll see you tomorrow. Think of me when you brush,” Kory said.

“I will. You too.”

“I will.” He heard the fox’s soft kiss, returned it, and hung up.

He grinned and got to his homework, looking forward to “brushing” even though Samaki wouldn’t be there to share it with him.

Dinner at the Roden household was as much of an adventure as always, but one Kory relished. Mrs. Roden, aware now of Kory’s tastes, made him a less spicy side of the vegetable stew. He devoured it with the soft flatbread she made, grinning at the flavors he never got to taste at home and at the rapid-fire conversation, as Ajani and Samaki and Kasim all told one or the other of their parents what their day had been like. Mr. Roden, normally not home on Friday nights, had switched a shift with someone to make tonight’s dinner and had started by thanking Kory for the signed baseball card and talking about the old days of the Dragons, and the World Series game he’d snuck out of school to go see.

“I wanna get dessert!” Kasim said, springing from his chair and taking his plate to the kitchen.

“Not yet,” his mother called after him.

The cub looked at Kory and grinned. “But I wanna show Kory what we’re having.”

“You can show him later.” His mother laughed, getting up and taking her own dishes to the kitchen. “Come on, you and Ajani can help with the dishes. The sooner they’re done, the sooner dessert will be on the table.”

Ajani lingered over his stew, sopping it up with the flatbread and chewing the bread deliberately. From the captain’s chair, Mr. Roden grinned at him and then turned to Kory. “So, Samaki tells me you’re taking a college prep class.”

“That’s right,” Kory said. “It’s pretty useless mostly.”

“Oh, come on,” Samaki said, “you met a fan of your poetry there.”

“I met him in English,” Kory said, shooting a mock-angry look at the black fox, who widened his eyes innocently in response.

“So what colleges are you looking at?” Mr. Roden said.

Kory opened his mouth to say, “Whitford,” then remembered that Mr. Roden worked at the state college and was sending his children there. Whitford was beyond their ability and he didn’t want to embarrass Mr. Roden by pointing out, however obliquely, that his prospects were better than Samaki’s. “Uh, I haven’t really decided yet,” he mumbled.

“He’s looking at Whitford,” Samaki said.

“Very good school,” Mr. Roden said. “Tough to get in, but I’m sure you’ll have no trouble. Ajani, there’s no more stew there. Go help your mother in the kitchen.”

The cub sighed heavily, put down the bowl he’d been licking, and left it on the table as he slid from his chair. “Take your bowl,” his father reminded him, and he trudged back to the table, retrieved it, and carried it dangling from one paw.

“I might be going to State,” Kory said.

Mr. Roden raised an eyebrow. “From Whitford to State? That’s a wide range. I’m sure you can do better than State.”

“It’s not that bad a school,” Kory said.

The older fox leaned over the table and smiled. “Kory, if I could send my children to Whitford, I’d do it. I know Sammy would do well there. But just for him and Kande to be going to college at all is great. Maybe his children will go to Whitford.” He sat back, looked at the two of them, and flicked his ears, but his discomfort lasted only a moment. “If you two choose to have kids,” he said, grinning slyly.

“Dad!” Samaki protested. Kory felt his ears get very warm as he stared fixedly down at his plate.

“Well, its not likely to happen by accident, is it?” his father said.

“Dad!”

Mariatu, who had been pushing her stew around in her bowl with a piece of flatbread, announced, “Two boys can’t have a baby.”

They all turned to stare at her. “They have to get a mommy, and then they take turns kissing the mommy and whichever one she likes better she gives that one a baby but they have to promise the mommy that she can see the baby because otherwise she cries and she takes the baby away.”

Kory and Samaki looked at each other, caught between blushing and giggling. Mr. Roden just smiled. “Where did you hear that, Mari?”

“In school,” she said. “Billy Tooman said he wanted to kiss me and have a baby and I said he should kiss Vincent and he said two boys can’t kiss and have a baby. He said his daddy Allen and his daddy Forrest had to kiss his mommy but he lives with his daddies and not with his mommy because she lives out in, um, Mars.”

Mr. Roden turned to Kory and Samaki and shook his head. “A month ago she didn’t want to go to kindergarten. Now she’s kissing boys and making babies. I hope Billy Tooman is a fox, at least.”

“He is,” Mariatu said. “Vincent is a porcapine.”

“Por-cue-pine,” her father corrected her.

“Porcupine,” she said, and lowered her ears. “May I please be excused?”

“Yes, go ahead,” her father said. “Take your bowl.”

She slid away from the table and scampered into the kitchen with her bowl. Kory watched the small flip of her tail as she walked, marveling at her acceptance of his relationship with Samaki. This was like another world, populated by alien foxes who knew and approved of their son and brother dating another boy.

“Now, we were talking about colleges?” Mr. Roden leaned back in his chair, his tail twitching.

“I’m going to apply to Whitford,” Kory said, relieved to have the topic move away from his relationship with Samaki, “but I don’t really think I’ll get in.”

“You’ve got as good a chance as anyone,” Samaki said. “You got a poem published.”

“It was a good poem,” the older fox said. “You’ve definitely got talent.”

He’d been expecting Samaki’s father to ask about the poem, not already have seen it. He felt another flush as he looked up at Samaki. “You showed it to your parents?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Oh, jeez.” Kory covered his face with a paw.

Samaki put a paw on his shoulder. “It was published in the newspaper, you know. Millions of people read it.”

“But not people I know!”

The black fox giggled. “Silly. It was good, admit it.”

Kory groaned. Mr. Roden said, “If it’ll make you feel better, Kory, you can read the article Samaki had in the newspaper when he was ten.”

“Dad!”

Kory peeked through his fingers. “You had an article in the paper?”

“There was a cub reporter competition,” Mr. Roden said, “and they published the top five articles.”

“What was it about?”

“I don’t remember,” Samaki said.

Mr. Roden grinned. “It was a fashion article. It was quite good.”

Samaki grabbed Kory’s plate and his own. “Hey, Dad, Kory and I were just going to go for a walk before dessert. Can I take the car?”

“Sure.” His father handed the keys over. “Back before ten, right?”

Samaki nodded. “Sure thing.”

Kory helped take some dishes to the kitchen, staring at the black fox as he did. Kasim tried to get his attention in the kitchen to show him the pie Mrs. Roden had baked, but Kory kept trying to get the grinning Samaki to meet his eye (though the pie did smell delicious, all cinnamon and apples and a couple less familiar spices). Finally, in the foyer, he nudged the fox and said, “You can drive by yourself?”

Samaki grinned. “Surprise. I haven’t passed the official test yet, but my dad said I passed his test, so as long as I stay under the speed limit and get back by ten, I can take the car.” He opened the door, letting Kory precede him outside.