Kami smiled up at him. Amusement passed between them, neither of them sure which was whose.
The bell rang and Kami beamed. “Thank God, I have English class. I don’t have to explain things to Angela yet!” Since the bell meant Angela would be emerging from their office any minute, Kami set off at top speed. “Come on, Jared,” she called. “Time’s a-wasting. We don’t want to be tardy.”
He followed her, keeping pace easily as she hurried down the stairs. “Look, you probably have the wrong idea about me. I mean, I read books, but I do it because I want to—because it’s like an escape in my head, like being with you. I always get in trouble in school.”
“That’s because you’re a delinquent who punches people,” said Kami. “Not because you’re not smart.”
“I’m not smart like you are.”
“You’re not dumb.”
“I was put in the year below you after they took one look at my records. I have to take some horrific exam called the GCSEs, whatever they may be. You sure about that?” Jared murmured.
“Yes,” said Kami. “Keep up the pace. Angela moves like a jungle cat when she’s riled.”
“So, my class is over that way,” Jared commented, making a vague gesture in the opposite direction to the one they were heading.
“So go to it,” Kami advised.
Jared continued to head the wrong way.
Kami blinked and said, “I’ll see you at lunch? Angela and I are meeting up at the headquarters.”
“Okay,” said Jared, and stopped. “No, wait. This hot girl with a bike. She asked me to have lunch with her on Monday.”
“This hot girl with a bike,” Kami repeated. It certainly sounded better than “this creepy Asian girl.” Then she realized who he meant. “Holly. I’m an idiot.” She looked up to see Jared had his arms crossed over his chest and was frowning.
“She seemed different than the way you think about her,” Jared said.
“I imagine a guy would see Holly a bit differently than I do, yes,” Kami said. “All the guys love Holly.”
“See, like that,” Jared said, and thought, Dismissive. “Like she’s not important.”
“As opposed to ‘this hot girl with a bike’?” Kami said. “That was a deep observation.” She heard her own voice rise and saw people passing by on their way to class glancing at them with interest.
Jared shrugged and scowled. “I barely know her. It’s just …”
Thought and memory hit Kami, in a tangled rush, of being the kid in class with less money, being the one who people thought of as rough, dumber than the others.
“No, wait a second,” Kami exclaimed, outraged. “I like Holly. And I’ve never thought about her having less money. I mean, I know she does, but I don’t think about it! It’s just she’s more—sort of more a boys’ girl than a girls’ girl, if you know what I mean. She’s not like you.”
“I should hope not, I’m not anybody’s girl.” Jared raised an eyebrow. “If you’re calling her a floozy, I’m by way of being a bit of a floozy myself.”
“Oh, Jared,” said Kami, who was well aware of his romantic experience, or total lack thereof. “You are not.”
“Well, I have floozy ambitions.”
Jared was leaning against the lockers now. Kami wondered if she should remind him that she was actually there, and he didn’t have to pretend not to be talking to someone. She also wondered how his floozy ambitions tied in with the fact that he’d said they should go out. But it was becoming clearer by the minute that that wasn’t really what he wanted.
“Maybe you could try sitting with Holly in this class, instead of letting her stick around by the door so she can watch you go off and sit with Amber again?”
Kami snorted. “You’re ridiculous. And I am going to class.” She headed toward her classroom like a homing pigeon for learning, and did not give Jared a backward glance. She gave him a backward thought, though. You should go to class too.
If you insist, Jared grumbled. Kami? Try not to undress for anyone else today.
Oh, hilarious, said Kami, and bumped into Holly at the door.
“Hi, Kami!” Holly turned in a sunburst of curls and wide eyes. She had been standing by the door, Kami noticed. “I haven’t found Jared today. But I asked him to have lunch, on Friday. I was thinking if you wanted to catch us in the cafeteria, you could interview him then. I mean, if you don’t have lunch plans.”
“Don’t worry about it. I found him,” said Kami.
“Oh,” said Holly.
“He said you guys were having lunch together,” Kami went on, and thought, Hot girl with a bike. “You could both come up to headquarters and have lunch?”
Holly frowned. “Headquarters?”
“Oh, Room 31B,” said Kami. “We’re calling it the headquarters now. Well, okay, I’m calling it that. But I’m sure it will catch on any day. Or, ah, you guys could have lunch together and you could do the interview yourself if you wanted? You’ve been doing all the running around after him; I think it’s only fair. And I don’t want to be in the way of your lunch with the guy. You said you thought he might be fun.” There. She’d chosen her words carefully and well, as a journalist should. Giving Holly her due and not a hint of being judgmental, plus she was helping Jared with his floozy ambitions.
What is wrong with you? Jared demanded. I thought we were having lunch. She hadn’t realized that Jared had meant he’d be canceling lunch with Holly. Possibly he’d been too distracted by the thought of Holly’s hotness to make himself clear.
You are just never ever happy, Kami told him severely.
Holly snorted explosively, making her curls fly up as if in a sudden gust of wind. “The Vale’s full of guys. I’d much rather have lunch all together. Would it be okay if you did the interview? I could watch and learn how to do it right. I don’t want to mess up the paper. Because the paper is awesome.”
“You’re so right.” Kami beamed at her, and took a chance to prove Jared wrong. “Uh—do you want to sit together?”
Holly lit up as if she had a lightbulb under all that hair. “Absolutely.” She made an imperious motion at Eric Dawkins, who was looking at her longingly, and he hastily went and sat beside Amber Green.
Amber, despite having had a boyfriend since she was five, looked delighted. Kami began to darkly suspect Amber Green of being a floozy. Of course, she felt generally gloomy about the fact that Jared might have been right. She made for a desk in the front, and Holly slid in beside her, still glowing.
“So, what do you think about the Lynburns being back?” Kami said. “My mum doesn’t seem too thrilled.”
“My parents aren’t either,” said Holly. “I don’t blame them. My uncle Edmund, I don’t know if you’ve heard about him?”
“My dad said he used to go out with Lillian Lynburn,” Kami offered cautiously.
Holly nodded. “He left town and left her. The Lynburns did not take the insult well. My dad’s not all that rational on the subject, but the way he tells it, you’d think the Lynburns made his crops fail. They definitely called in debts and took a lot of our land.”
The Prescotts lived on a small struggling farm outside of town. Everybody knew that Holly’s father drank; Kami had put the struggles down to that.
“Not the nicest people in the world, then, the Lynburns.”
“I can see why everyone’s afraid of them.” Holly shrugged. “They’ve got money and they own half the town. You don’t get away from that in a couple of generations. People still see them as having all the power. I know my dad does.” She glanced up at Kami. “You’re not going to put this in the paper, are you?”
“And alienate one of my best reporters?” Kami said. “No way.”
Holly laughed. “Thanks.”
“How are you at English?” Kami asked. Maybe she could get rid of all this guilt with tutoring.
“Scored an A last year,” Holly said with pardonable pride. “How about you?”
“Uh, a B plus,” Kami confessed. “But Miss Stanley is really harsh. Who was teaching your class?”
“Miss Stanley,” Holly said with a little smile.
“Ah.”
Kami decided to be enraptured by her pencil case. It was worse than being an idiot. She felt like a jerk.
You’re not a jerk, said Jared.
Are you in class? Kami demanded. Go to class!
If he did not go to class and concentrate, she did not know if she could. She felt so restless, his feelings all mixed up with hers, as if they were two rivers that had crashed together and now no separate course was possible. Kami pulled a hand through her hair and told herself she could fix this.
Holly leaned against her a bit to get her attention. “Lunch together,” she whispered. “Should be fun.”
Kami tried to put herself in Holly’s shoes. Holly—who’d had curves by the time she was eleven and all the attention from guys and hostility from the girls that went with them—looked happy, about a simple lunch. Kami felt more like a jerk than ever.
Well, she could sit around torturing herself or use the time to make up for being a jerk. She nudged Holly back and grinned. “Should be.”
“Oh no, oh no,” Angela moaned as soon as she walked into the headquarters at lunchtime. She drew Kami into a corner away from the others. “What are these people doing here, Kami? You know I don’t like people.”
“Come on,” said Kami. “You know Holly. Didn’t you tell me you sat together in science class once?”
“When we were fourteen. I doubt she even remembers my name,” Angela hissed. “And that new boy is crazy. Which reminds me: I want my explanation!” She glared across the room at Jared, who was sitting behind Kami’s desk.
Jared eyed her back as if she was some sort of challenge.
I beg you not to throw down with Angela, said Kami.
I know you want us to get on, Jared replied. But—
She’ll beat you down until you cry. I’ll be so embarrassed for you.
Holly was sitting on Kami’s desk, her apple on top of Kami’s computer. She misinterpreted Angela’s glare entirely.
“This is Jared Lynburn,” she said helpfully. “Angie Montgomery. We used to sit together in science class when we were fourteen.” Holly smiled. “It was always fun because the boys were sometimes so busy looking at our desk they walked into walls.”
Angela scoffed, but the tips of her ears went a little pink.
“Jared,” Angela commented. “Like the imaginary friend you have, Jared?”
“I used to have an imaginary friend when I was seven,” Holly contributed. “A unicorn called Princess Zelda.”
Kami gave Angela a wide smile. “Isn’t that a coincidence?”
Angela spared a glare for Kami, and then resumed her marathon glaring session at Jared. “I’m not calling you that,” she announced flatly. “It’s too weird. I’m going to call you Carl.”
Jared scowled. “I don’t want you to call me Carl.”
“That’s interesting, Carl,” said Angela, cheering up.
This distracted her from holding Kami penned up in a corner, so Kami ducked under Angela’s arm to freedom. She surveyed her headquarters with satisfaction: bright lamps and shining desks and good people. You could take over the world from a headquarters like this. “Be a lady, Angela,” she said. “No assaulting anyone until you get to know them.”
“But I already feel so close to Carl.”
“You’ll feel closer to him after the interview,” said Kami, flipping open her notebook and turning to a blank page.