All Good Children - Catherine Austen [79]
I watch Dallas from the corner of my eye, not caring if I come off gay. He faces the showerhead, moves slowly but efficiently like all the others. He rinses and towels off and walks away without looking at me once.
“Get dressed, Connors! You’re lagging behind!” Coach Emery shouts from the door. I haven’t even soaped yet, but I don’t bother. I shut off the taps and cover myself.
The coach stops Dallas from leaving the room. “Somebody,” he announces to the half-naked class, “I’m not saying who, but somebody left a water bottle on the football field, and you all know how I like a clean field. I want two volunteers to walk the yards and check for litter.” He points at Dallas, then across the room at me. “I want to see you two march like soldiers up and down that field. Pick up any garbage you find. Make sure you check around the trailer. The rest of you are free to go. Merry Christmas.”
I dress hurriedly, not caring that my socks are inside out. As I tie my shoes, I notice that my hands are trembling.
Brennan drops his shoes on the floor at my feet and sits beside me on the bench. He lowers his head and whispers, “Don’t ask any questions till you’re away from the cameras.” He wriggles his foot into his shoe and leans down to tie it tight. “Don’t give yourself away to him, just in case. Let us know what you find out.”
He stands up and passes me a swift sympathetic glance. As he reaches down for his dirty sweats, he adds, “Then get out, Max. With or without him.”
When Brennan leaves, I’m all that’s left in the change room. I like it here. It’s smelly but it smells like kids. Whatever the treatment did to them, it didn’t improve their stink.
Coach Emery sticks his head around the corner. “Time is ticking.”
Dallas and I drop our packs at the trailer and walk to the field in silence. I should have worn my coat, but it’s stuffed in my bag and I’m not thinking straight. I button my uniform, turn up my collar, shove my hands in my pockets. Dallas walks tall beside me, zipped and hooded. I can barely see his face.
The field is an expanse of dead grass fringed with skeletal trees in the west. They reach into a monotonous sky of the palest gray. The sun is a bright disk behind the clouds, already sinking at three thirty in the afternoon.
It’s strange to walk this field in shoes instead of cleats. The ground is hard beneath me, the blades of grass stiff and slippery.
“We should separate and begin at opposite ends,” Dallas says.
“No. We should walk together.”
“It’s more efficient to separate.”
“Four eyes are better than two.”
“No,” he says. “Two eyes—”
“We’re walking together.”
Sixty thousand is a lot of square feet when you’re walking it with a zombie. Fifty paces take us to the sideline, where we square off and head back like we’re mowing a lawn. The school looks formidable in the winter light, six units of ambition stretching into the distance, a place where futures are decided behind black glass.
The students are probably walking out the front doors now, or already gone home for the holidays. The teachers are still here—I see their bikes and Mr. Graham’s car in the lot— but they don’t show any sign of life. It feels like we’re alone.
We reach the sideline, square off, head west again. Dallas lowers his eyes but keeps his chin up, so it looks like he’s staring down his nose. I imitate him, but he doesn’t notice. He doesn’t care.
“What did you do after the library last night?” I ask.
“Small talk distracts us from our work.”
I want to swat him. “What did you do?” I repeat.
He stops and stares at me like I’m defective. Then he furrows his brow. “I don’t remember.” He shivers and walks on, staring down his nose.
“Did you watch a show? Did you do homework? Did you take any medicine?”
“You should look at