Jodi Picoult - Between the lines

I usually say I hate Biology, but it’s possible we just got off on the wrong foot. My teacher, Mrs. Brown, completely lives up to her name: she is addicted to self-tanner and Crest Whitestrips, and spends a lot of time talking about her favorite spots in the Caribbean instead of helping us prepare for the next day’s lab. I think it’s fair to say I’ll be teaching myself about cell division, but I’m totally set if I need to plan a vacation to the Bahamas.

I spent Sunday in my room, plotting Oliver’s escape with him. Sometimes we forgot the task at hand because we went off on a tangent. I told Oliver things I’ve never been brave enough to tell anyone else: how I worry about my mom; how I panic when someone asks me what I want to be when I grow up; how I secretly wonder what it would be like, for an hour, to be popular. In return, Oliver confided his biggest fear: that he will pass through his lifetime-whatever that may be-without making a difference in the world. That he will be ordinary, instead of extraordinary.

I told him that-as far as I was concerned-he’s already been successful at that.

I told him I’d rather die than go to school on Monday and face Allie McAndrews. But here it is, third period, and she’s absent.

Maybe Oliver’s right; wishes can come true.

“Does everyone have a frog?” Mrs. Brown says. I glance down at the poor, dead amphibian in front of me. Usually my lab partner is Zach, but he’s taken a conscientious objector position on this lab, due to his veganism, and instead of doing a dissection he is writing an independent paper on growth hormones in dairy cows.

The door opens, and in walks Allie McAndrews, with two black eyes. She looks like a raccoon, and has a crisscrossed strip of tape over the bridge of her nose too. She hands Mrs. Brown a hall pass. “Sorry I’m late,” she says.

“Better late than never,” the teacher says. “Allie, why don’t you pair up with Delilah?”

Allie shoots me the look of death as she takes the stool beside me. “Touch me,” she whispers, “and I will make your life miserable.”

“Now, class, pick up your frog. I want you to measure the posterior appendages…”

I turn to Allie. “Do you… want to go first?”

She glares at me. “I’d rather join Chess Club.”

I joined Chess Club last year. “Okay, then,” I say. Sorry, buddy, I think as I lift the frog into my palm and pick up a ruler.

Allie’s boyfriend, Ryan, drags his stool toward our lab table, even though he is supposed to be working with someone else. “Hey, gorgeous,” he says, grinning at her. “So what do you say you and I get some takeout and download a movie and not watch it tonight?”

“I’m not in the mood,” she says, glancing at me. “I have to go home and ice. ”

“It was an accident,” I tell her. “I didn’t purposely cross five lanes of the pool just to smack you in the face.” Although, I admit, I might have daydreamed about doing just that.

“You’re the only girl in the school who could make two black eyes look hot,” Ryan says.

Allie twines her fingers with his. “You’re just saying that.”

“Cross my heart,” Ryan answers.

“I love you, babe,” Allie says.

Ryan grins. “Love you more.”

I thought there was a good chance I would feel like throwing up during a dissection lab, but I figured it would be because of the frog, not the conversation.

Mrs. Brown winds past our lab table. If she notices that Ryan is now our third partner, she doesn’t comment. “Now, class, I want you to examine the chest area… What skeletal feature is missing?”

I wait for Allie to pick up the frog to examine it. “You, um, want a turn?” I ask her.

“To smack you in the face? Break your knee?”

“Right, then,” I say, poking at the frog again.

“What kind of takeout should I get?” Ryan asks. “Chinese? Indian? Italian?”

“Ribs,” I announce.

They both look at me with disgust. “Who asked you?” Allie says.

“No… the frog. The skeletal part it’s missing… is ribs.”

She tosses her hair. “Who cares?”

“Gently,” Mrs. Brown warns a boy to my right, who is squeezing his amphibian so tightly that its head is swelling. “Dissection is both an art and a science. Show your frog a little love.”

Suddenly, Ryan grabs the frog off our lab table in one hammy fist. “Yeah… show your frog a little love.” He shoves it so close to my face that I can breathe in the scent of chemicals and death. With all my might I push away from him, knocking over the lab stool and causing enough of a commotion that the entire class stops to watch.

“My bad,” Ryan says. “I thought it said it was a prince…”

The class bursts into laughter. I turn seven shades of red.

“That’s enough!” Mrs. Brown says. “Ryan, go to the principal’s office; you and I will be seeing each other at detention this afternoon. Delilah, take the bathroom pass and go clean yourself up.”

As I grab my backpack and stumble out of the classroom, the students are silent. And then, just before I cross the threshold, I hear it: “ Ribbit . Ribbit. ” It’s one of the kids in the back, and suddenly everyone is snickering and Mrs. Brown is trying (and failing) to get them to quiet down.

The girls’ bathroom is empty. I scrub my hands and face and blot them dry with paper towels. Jules used to be my go-to girl whenever something horrendous happened-the person I could count on to make me feel better. But now I find myself searching through my backpack. Just like after my dream, the only person I really want to talk to right now is Oliver.

I rummage in my backpack, past my Biology textbook and my English binder and my lunch, but the book is missing.

“No,” I mutter, and I pull the textbooks out of the bag. All that’s left now is crumpled paper, nubby pencils, bits of crushed granola bars, and forty-two cents.

The fairy tale-which I had put in my backpack that morning with my own two hands-is gone.

It doesn’t take me long to decide that I’m not going back to Biology class. I’ll just tell Mrs. Brown I was so traumatized I was in desperate need of a guidance counselor. Instead, I hurry to the library, where I find Ms. Winx pasting bar codes into new books. “Ms. Winx,” I ask, “has anyone returned Between the Lines ?”

“Aren’t you the one who has it checked out?”

“I’m pretty sure I left it by accident in the cafeteria before homeroom…”

“Well, if anyone turns it in, I’ll let you know.”

As I leave the library, in the pit of my stomach is a stone. What if I can’t find the book? What if it’s gone forever?

What will I do without him?

I’ve never been in love, but I’ve always imagined it-weirdly-like some sort of OxiClean commercial. The TV host shows a scene from an ordinary day, and then takes a big old sponge soaked in love and swipes away the stains. Suddenly that same scene is missing all the mistakes, all the loneliness. The colors are like jewels, ten times richer than they were before. The music is louder and clearer. Love, the host will say, makes life a little brighter.

When I’m talking to Oliver, I feel like there’s nobody in the world but the two of us.

When I’m talking to Oliver, I want to keep talking forever. I want to know how old he was when he learned to ride a horse, and what his favorite color is, and what pops into his mind just before he falls asleep.