That’s when I realize having Toby for a friend would be the worst idea in the world. I would never keep my hands off of him. Toby Michaels would be the end of me.
05 | TOBY
I blink, peer up at the clock in wonder, then lean around my computer monitor. “What day is it?”
Kelsey pops her head over the other monitor. “Friday. Why?”
“It’s … It’s Friday already?”
“You’re so scatterbrained, Toby. Hey, are you done with your practice layout yet? Mine sucks.”
This first week of school has flown by so fast. I click in a few places with my mouse, resize one talk bubble, change out a font, thicken the border on a picture, then give up. “Mine sucks, too.”
“So does the play. Did you hear what play Ms. Joy picked for our fall production?”
“Nope. Which play? The Scottish Play?”
“Worse.” She leans even farther around her computer, nearly falling out of her chair. “It’s a script from a former student of hers who’s off at some fancy Drama Academy studying playwrighting, and it’s a super lame love story called ‘I’ll Always Remember Seaside’ and it’s so nauseatingly hetero, Toby. Like, barf-hetero.”
“Hmm. Ms. Joy wouldn’t have picked it if it didn’t have some kind of merit.”
“Or else she’s phoning in a favor,” she retorts with an eye-roll before peering back at the door to our closet of a room. It was left open by Ms. Reyes’s departure ten minutes ago. “Where is she?”
“No idea. Doubt she’ll be back. She ditched us yesterday, too, remember?”
Kelsey sighs. “I’m itching to get to the theater early, anyway, to be honest. To see who auditions for this terrible play. Should we just, like … go right now …?”
“We still have seventh period,” I remind her.
She shoots me a look. “Yeah, not all of us are lucky enough to already be in the theater for seventh period, you study-hall bum.”
With the other two yearbook members on an errand for more printer paper, it’s just us two. I glance at the clock again, my leg bouncing in place. Twenty-six minutes left of class. That’s twenty-six too many. “So are you auditioning?” I ask Kelsey.
“Well, the play needs someone to save it, doesn’t it? So yeah, I was thinking about it. My dads both want me to be ‘less of a spectator, more of a participant’ this year. How ‘bout you?”
“You know I’m not,” I sass back as I frown at the screen, then resize a talk bubble back to normal. No, still looks wrong. I give it a zigzag border. It’s ugly now. “But I want to see who is auditioning.”
“Obviously Frankie will get the lead, but we don’t really have any female leading ladies this year. Have you noticed that?”
I give it a moment’s thought. “Oh … wow, you’re right. Willa graduated last year.”
“Willa graduated last year,” Kelsey echoes with a somber nod.
My eyes flick to the door again. It’d be so easy to just walk on out of the school. The other two members of the staff are such pushovers, they wouldn’t tell anyone if we left. Also, Ms. Reyes is very likely not going to return for the rest of the period. We could pretty much screw off for the next half hour if we wanted.
“You’re tempted,” sings Kelsey in a silly falsetto.
I bite my lip, then feel a smile coming on. “I’m tempted.”
Without so much as asking, she flicks off her monitor, hops off her chair, and darts for the door. I’m out of my seat the next second, and with a laugh, we scurry down the hall toward the exit of the building. We settle on a spot just outside the school baseball field under the bleachers to hang out, our asses on the shaded part of the concrete. Patches of dead grass, dirt, and weeds spread out before us, ending several yards ahead at the brick outer walls of the gymnasium. A few stray trees nearby hiss in the wind, their tall and spidery shadows dancing across the dirt in front of us.
“Okay, so …” Kelsey kicks her heels into the ground, setting free a cloud of dust. “I feel like you avoided this since lunch …”
“Avoided what?”
“Talking about a certain someone … who you seem to be totally avoiding.”
“I’m …” I hug my knees to my chest. “I’m not avoiding him.”
“So what’s going on?”
“He’s in his own little world all the time. I tried to ask him a question in chemistry the other day, and he just looked at me with weird, shifty eyes, shrugged, then went back to taking notes. He probably regrets sticking up for me. Especially now that I know he—” —is on the verge of being expelled for it. Strike one, the principal said. I could be a third of the reason he’s kicked out of yet another school.