All Good Children - Catherine Austen [47]
“I did not know that! That’s excellent nutritional value.”
“Indeed.”
We don’t smile, but inside we’re laughing. Our shoulders relax and our breath comes easy. We’ve found a way to hide ourselves in what they want us to be.
“I guess we’d better pull up our socks,” Mr. Graham says.
The lunch lady wipes her lip.
I pause outside Xavier’s door on my way in from school. His mother answers. She wears bright blue pants with a khaki sweater. I can’t tell if Celeste has made her up to look old or if that’s just her face. “Yes?” she asks. “Oh. Max. Hello.”
“Hello, Mrs. Lavigne. I noticed that Xavier wasn’t in school today and I wanted to make sure he’s all right.”
She looks over her shoulder into the living room. “He’s fine. He has a migraine, so we kept him home.”
“Will he be coming to school tomorrow?”
She squints like she doesn’t trust me. “It depends on his health,” she says and shuts the door.
The hallway smells like carpet cleaner. I imagine people sitting behind the walls surveying me, waiting for me to slip up.
I collapse onto our sofa and call Pepper.
“Hello, Max. How are you?” she says. Ponytail, monotone. No lip gloss, no smile. She’s not right.
“I noticed you weren’t in school today,” I say.
She doesn’t respond.
“I’m calling to make sure you’re fine,” I add. I pop my eyeballs at the screen, trying to convey a secret.
“Yes. I’m fine.” She doesn’t even blink.
“Why weren’t you at school?”
“I sprained my ankle, and the doctor said the walk to school might be damaging.”
“That bleeds.”
She stares at me like I’m a stranger. “Is there anything else?”
“You missed the vaccinations.”
“They had vaccinations at the clinic.”
My heart thumps. I breathe through my mouth and wait for a sign that doesn’t come. “I have to go,” I say at last.
Ally tiptoes into the room with a packet of licorice to share. “What’s wrong?” she asks.
“Leave Max alone for a while,” Mom calls from the kitchen.
Ally threads a licorice string through my fingers and sings, “All my friends were here, but all my friends have gone. All my friends were here, but they left me all alone.” She kisses my cheek. Pat, pat, pat. “It’s okay, Max. I still love you.”
I hold her to my chest and drench her in hormones.
NINE
Pepper’s back at school on Friday with a bandage around her ankle and a patch beneath her sleeve. When I ask if she wants to eat with us, she says, “I prefer eating with my girlfriends,” and limps away.
“I bet they taste good,” Dallas whispers. That phrase is our new password. He’s such a premium actor, I needed a code to prove that he’s not a zombie. Whenever we meet or message, one of us says, “Zombies eat brains,” and the other says, “I bet they taste good.” If we answer properly, we can let our guard down. If we don’t—I don’t want to think about that.
“Spending time with her fellow dancers may improve Pepper’s skills,” Dallas says.
I nod. “Perhaps we should spend time with our fellow footballers.”
“I believe there is a practice after school today.”
“That will present a fine opportunity.”
We turn to each other and nod. We take our humor dry these days.
Zombie football is no fun. It’s hard to describe what’s different about the team, but it’s easy to feel. There’s no energy or emotion. It kills me to feign disinterest as a thousand pounds of zombie pile on top of me over and over again.
“We might have to quit the team,” Dallas whispers at the edge of the field.
“I can’t. I love football.”
“That’s why we should quit.”
I conduct a zombie survey in search of inside information to improve my faking. I tell my teammates I’m exploring the role of sports in adolescent bonding. I call it “adolescent bondage” but the irony gets depressing when no one cracks a smile. I record their answers to questions like, “How do you experience tackling as a social interaction?” and “How does it feel to score?”
“I’m proud to carry out the play,” everyone says. Everyone except Brennan, who mutters, “You know how it feels, Max.”
I pocket my RIG and ask, “Does it feel like it always felt?”
“Only for some