Like Mandarin - Kirsten Hubbard [15]
At last, I crumpled the bill into an unreasonable wad and tried to stuff it into the slot.
“I’ll trade you,” a voice said.
I whirled around, backing into the machine.
Mandarin was posed before me in a lavender sweater, one hand balanced casually against her hip. With the other, she held out a fresh, unwrinkled dollar bill.
“Go on,” she said.
I plucked it from her fingers and gave her mine. “Thanks,” I mumbled. “I’m really thirsty.”
“Sure seems like it.”
The machine took Mandarin’s dollar on my first try. I pressed the button for a bottled water, and it banged down into the catch.
“Just water?” Mandarin said. “There’s a fountain right around the corner, y’know. Spouting out an unlimited supply. For free.”
“I know. It’s just … the tap water here’s kind of disgusting.”
“Yeah, I guess it does taste dirty. Moldy, even. They probably pipe it straight outta the irrigation canal.”
Mandarin watched as I unscrewed the bottle and sipped at the water self-consciously.
“I thought you were thirsty.” She reached out. “May I?”
I handed her the bottle. She tipped her head and drank, her throat rippling with each swallow, as if my water were ambrosia, nectar of the gods shipped down from Mount Olympus. A trickle escaped from the corner of her mouth and she caught it with her index finger. Then she handed the half-finished bottle back to me.
“So there’s a reason I tracked you down,” she began.
My heart began pounding like an Indian drum. I hoped she couldn’t hear it.
“I ain’t doing too good in history,” Mandarin went on. “Actually I ain’t doing too good in any of my classes. Like math, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. I never got two- and three-sided shapes, not to mention five- and six-sided ones.”
There’s no such thing as two-sided shapes.
“And history. I’m flunking history. Plus, I haven’t even chosen a service project yet—and neither have you, I’ve heard.”
Now my heart pounded like a whole symphony of Indian drums. An entire drum circle.
“So I thought, maybe there’s a chance you could help me out.…”
“But why?” I blurted.
Mandarin studied me, her eyes narrowed slightly.
“Well,” she said after a long pause, “you’re, like, Washokey’s resident genius, right?”
“I do fine, I guess.”
“You don’t have to be modest,” she said. “Not around me. Like I said, I’m flunking, and graduation’s getting close. And I sure as shit ain’t going to stick around, not even for an extra day. So, what do you say? Is there any chance at all you’re free to come to my place this afternoon?”
I replied in involuntary gulps, like hiccups: “I can come. I can help.”
“Perfect.” Her smile exposed a row of crooked bottom teeth. “Come around five-thirty, if possible. Wait—you need my address. You don’t know where I live.”
I shook my head.
“Here.” Mandarin withdrew a fat red marker from the seat of her jeans and took my arm, extending it in front of her. I held my breath as she tattooed her address onto my flesh in bold red letters: 34 Plains Street. She didn’t release my arm right away. I felt the cool touch of each of her fingertips separately, like bits of ice.
“So five-thirty, yeah?”
“Five-thirty,” I said.
“Bring your textbooks. I always forget mine.”
Finally, Mandarin dropped my arm. She waved, her hand fluttering like a hummingbird’s wing, and sauntered off down the hall.
My eyes traveled back to my arm, tracing the cherry-colored letters, and stopped at the water bottle in my hand. I glanced around to make sure I was alone. Then I tipped my head back and tried to swig like Mandarin had. But when the final bell rang, I choked.
In less than two hours, I was supposed to knock on Mandarin Ramey’s front door. So after dropping off Taffeta, I headed for the Tombs.
The Tombs was a granite jumble that looked like a graveyard stirred and stacked by the wildwinds. It ran along the edge of the