Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly [3]
“What the hell for?”
“Because they want you to know. It’s important to them that you know.”
“Know what?”
“That it’s a myth.”
“What’s a myth?”
“All of it, Jimmy. Everything.”
Jimmy goes quiet for a bit; then he says, “So you get out of that fancy school and you got nothin’? Nothin’ to hold on to? Nothin’ to believe in?”
“Well, one thing, maybe …”
“What?”
“The transformative power of art.”
Jimmy shakes his head. “That’s a crime. They shouldn’t do that to a kid. It’s child abuse. You want I should report ’em?”
“Could you?”
“It’s taken care of. I got friends in the police department,” he says with a meaningful nod.
Yeah, I think. Dick Tracy’ll get right on it.
I pack up my stuff. My feet are frozen. I’ve been out here for hours. It’s two-thirty now. Half an hour until my lesson. There’s one thing and one thing only that can get me into my school: Nathan Goldfarb, head of St. Anselm’s music department.
“Hey, kid,” Jimmy says as I stand up to leave.
“What?”
He fishes a quarter out of his pocket. “Get an egg cream. One for you and one for your fella.”
“Come on, Jimmy. I can’t take that.”
Jimmy doesn’t have much. He lives in a home on Hicks Street. He only gets a few dollars’ spending money each week.
“Take it. I want you to. You’re a kid. You should be sitting at a soda fountain with a sweetheart, not hanging out in the cold like you got nowhere to go, talking to bums like me.”
“All right. Thanks,” I say, trying to smile. It kills me to take his money, but not taking it would kill him.
Jimmy smiles back. “Let him give you a kiss. For me.” He holds up a finger. “Just one. On the cheek.”
“I’ll do that,” I say. I don’t have the heart to tell him I’ve had a dozen fellas. Or that there are no such things as kisses on the cheek anymore. We’re in the twenty-first century now, and it’s hook up or shut up.
I stretch out my hand to take the quarter. Jimmy lets out a low whistle.
“What?”
“Your hand.”
I look at it. My ripped nail is still bleeding. I wipe the red off on my pants.
“You should get it taken care of. It looks awful,” he says.
“I guess it does.”
“You must be in pain, kid. Does it hurt?”
I nod. “Yeah, Jimmy. All the time.”
3
“Ms. Alpers?”
Nabbed. I stop, then slowly turn around in the hallway. I know that voice. Everyone at St. Anselm’s does. It’s Adelaide Beezemeyer, the headmistress.
“Do you have a minute?”
“Not really, Ms. Beezemeyer. I’m on my way to a music lesson.”
“I’ll call Mr. Goldfarb to let him know you’ll be late. My office, please.”
She waves me inside and calls Nathan. I put my guitar case down and sit. The clock on the wall says 3:01. An entire precious minute of my lesson has just slipped away. Sixty seconds of music I’ll never get back. My leg starts jiggling. I press down on my knee to stop it.
“Chamomile tea?” Beezie asks as she puts the phone down. “I’ve just made a pot.”
“No thank you.”
I see a folder on her desk. It has my name on it—Diandra Xenia Alpers. After both grandmothers. I changed it to Andi as soon as I could speak.
I look away from the folder—it can’t be good—and watch Beezie as she bustles about. She looks like a hobbit—short and shaggy. She wears Birkenstocks no matter what time of year it is, and purple menopause clothes. She turns unexpectedly and sees me watching, so I look around the room. There are vases on the windowsill, hanging planters dangling from the ceiling, bowls on a sideboard—all glazed in various shades of mud.
“Do you like them?” she asks me, nodding at the mud bowls.
“They’re really something.”
“They’re mine. I throw pots.”
So does my mom. At the walls.
“They’re my creative outlet,” she adds. “My art.”
“Wow.” I point at a planter. “That one reminds me of Guernica.”
Beezie smiles. She beams. “Does it really?”
“Of course not.”
The smile slides off her face, hits the floor, and shatters.
Surely she’ll throw me out of here now. I would. But she doesn’t. She puts a mug of tea on her desk and sits down in her chair. I look at the clock again. 3:04. My leg jiggles harder.
“Andi, I’ll come right to the