The Book - E Lockhart

“Are you sure you should pet that thing?” asked Varsha.

“Don’t they spit?” muttered Spencer, hanging back.

“They’re really soft,” I said. “They won’t spit unless you scare them. Come try.”

Nora held out her hand shyly, but she yanked it back when the llama snorted. Varsha and Spencer kept a safe distance.

I scratched the soft fur, and whispered some llama compliments such as what a fine-lookin’ specimen he was, what nice clean hooves he had, and so forth. And I felt, for the first time in a while, like I was good at something.

Something other people weren’t good at.

Those of us on the swim team (Varsha, Spencer, Imari and me) worked out with Mr. Wallace in the later afternoons, though the pool was hardly long enough to build up any speed and it was harsh cold when we got out of the water. I worked on my flip turns, which have always been slow.

Then people were assigned to cook dinner, and other people were given jobs like making the Xeroxes for the next day or tidying up the central living area, and we did that until it was time to eat.

In the evenings, Wallace and Glass put movies on the DVD player. They said they picked films that were meant to spur our thinking on the issues we’d been talking about in the mornings, and also that they felt were just good for us to see, since we all probably watched lots of movies that were complete crap. 5

We saw Badlands, Brazil, Dr. Strangelove, Citizen Kane, The Piano, Do the Right Thing and One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

And you know what? I was the only one who’d seen them all before.

None of the other people had seen any of them, except for Noel, who’d seen Dr. Strangelove, and Grady (one of the senior boys), who’d seen Citizen Kane.

Mr. Wallace got all cranked when I told him I knew the movies already, and started (half jokingly) referring to me as a cinema expert. He’d turn to me, in the discussion, and say something like, “Ruby, have you seen Twelve Monkeys ? Do you want to make any connections for us between that and what Gilliam is doing in Brazil ?”

And the thing was, I had seen Twelve Monkeys —twice, actually—and I’d seen most of the other movies he asked me about as well, like A Clockwork Orange and The Shining, and The Portrait of a Lady, so I ended up talking quite a bit in those evening discussions.

Maybe people thought I was annoying or show-offy, talking so much in class.

But I found I didn’t care.

Such was the general way things went over the course of the week, but on Wednesday night, when we were discussing Do the Right Thing, Noel looked kind of gray in the face. He was sitting next to me, but he was staring down at his shoes, not saying anything.

While Grady and Courtney were disagreeing with each other over the movie, I wrote Noel a note on a scrap of paper. “Do you want to get up early and go see the llamas?” (He hadn’t seen them yet.)

He took the note absently, read it and folded it into a tiny square. But he didn’t answer.

Halfway through the discussion, he stood up and left the room. Just waved to Mr. Wallace (who was talking)—not even asking to be excused.

Mrs. Glass followed him.

I sat there as Wallace went on about Gilliam’s dystopia in Brazil versus Spike Lee’s in Do the Right Thing, feeling slightly huffy that Noel had ignored my note. Why, after we’d been to Singin’ in the Rain and pizza and all of that, after he’d said to me, “You are my thing,” and signed up for Canoe Island, and told me about his asthma when he didn’t tell anyone else; after we’d been lab partners and formed the Rescue Squad and eaten lunch together lots of times, why were we not on more regular friend-type terms? We didn’t go to each other’s houses, didn’t call each other up, didn’t hang out on weekends except for that one time.

I mean, why couldn’t I pass him a note like a normal friend and get a note back?

Thursday morning, when I went to breakfast, Noel was standing in the dining room. At first, I thought, Oh, we’re going to the llamas after all—but then I saw that he had his suitcase packed and his sleeping bag in a roll at his feet. He was looking out the window at the water, scanning for the charter ferry on the horizon.

“You’re leaving?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Why?”

He cracked a false-looking smile. “The Hooter Rescue Squad needs my expertise.”

“What?”

“I got a telegram. There are Seattle hooters in serious danger. I need to bring on my supply of Fruit Roll-Ups.”

“Noel, really. How come?”

“What, you don’t take the Squad seriously anymore?”

“Noel!”

“I know you’re Mission Director, but this assignment came from headquarters in Los Angeles. Hooter-exploitation central.”

“Are you really not telling me why you’re going?”

He turned away from me. “I just am, okay?”

I backed off. “Okay.”

“Not everything is your business, Ruby.”

“I said okay.” I walked from the dining room into the kitchen, where Mrs. Glass was frying eggs, Mr. Wallace was drinking coffee and Imari was putting strips of bacon onto the grill. I opened a cupboard and pulled out the peanut butter, deliberately starting a conversation about swim team and the meet coming up week after next.

Noel stuck his head in to tell the teachers that the boat was coming into the dock.

“Take care, DuBoise,” said Glass.

“I will.”

“See you back in school.”

And Noel was gone.

At the start of our philosophy discussion, Mr. Wallace announced that someone in Noel’s family was sick, and he’d had to go home. Afterward, I so wanted to call him and apologize, but no one besides teachers had been allowed to bring cell phones to Canoe Island, so there wasn’t a lot I could do.

That evening, before dinner. Me and Nora in the women’s sauna.

Varsha and Spencer had just left. We’d been warming up after swim practice. Nora was sweating out her toxins.

Nora: Poor Noel. Did he tell you what happened?

Me: No. Did he tell you?

Nora: No. I only know what Wallace told us.

Me: I hope it’s not anything serious.

Nora adjusted her boobs in her swimsuit, the one I saw her buying in the U District that spring. She really does have a great body, when she shows it off.

Her: Do you think…

Me: What?

Her: Do you think he’d ever, you know, think of me?

(What?

Oh.

OH.)

Me: You mean, think of you, like a thing?

Her: Uh-huh.

Me: You like him?

Her: Yeah. Yeah, I think I do.

Me: Wow.

Her: No, I definitely do.

Me: Since when?

Her: Kyle’s party.

Me: He’s shorter than you.

Her: And I’m sure I weigh more than him too. But he’s cute, don’t you think?

Me: Sure.

Her: I’m not a size-ist.

I laughed. At five foot eleven, Nora can’t afford to be a size-ist, or there would be hardly any guys for her to date.

But it hadn’t mattered until now, because she hadn’t wanted to go out with anyone.

Her: You guys are such good friends. He hasn’t said anything about me, has he?

Me: No.

Her: Are you sure?

Me: We’re really not that good of friends. I don’t think he’d tell me if he had a thing for you.

Her: He wouldn’t?

Me: No.

It hadn’t occurred to me to think of Noel and Nora. But now it did. She was kind, and funny, and good at sports. She had beautiful dark curls and huge hooters. Plus she could bake.