The Name of the Star - Maureen Johnson [64]
“No sausage?” the lady behind the counter said. “Feeling ill?”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Don’t worry so much,” Boo said.
We took our seats, sitting on the opposite side of the table from Jerome and Andrew. They’d left space for us, as normal.
“Hi,” I said.
Jerome looked over at me from the remains of his breakfast.
“No sausage?” he asked.
Apparently my pork consumption habits were a matter of public record. Boo dropped down next to me, her spoon bouncing off her tray and clanking to the floor.
“Rory here,” she said. “Sick all night. Crazy fever. Babbling her head off about ponies.”
“Fever?” This caught Jerome’s attention. “You were ill yesterday?”
“Mmmm,” I said, glancing over at Boo.
“Babbling and babbling, like a babbling thing,” Boo went on. “Madness. Wouldn’t shut up.”
“Have you been to the nurse?” Jerome asked.
“Mmmm?” I said.
“She’s really fine,” Boo said. “Probably some period thing. I go completely mental too. Period fever. It’s the worst.”
This effectively killed all conversation for a while. Boo charged right on, telling us a very long story about how her friend Angela was getting cheated on by her boyfriend, Dave. No one tried to interrupt her. I just got through my toast as quickly as I could and excused myself. Boo was right behind me.
“Fixed that,” she said.
“You told him I had period fever,” I replied. “There’s no such thing as period fever.”
“No such thing as ghosts either.”
“No, there is really no such thing as period fever. There’s a difference between being a guy and being an idiot.”
“Let’s get your essay,” she said, looping her arm through mine.
Boo waltzed me into the library, and I allowed myself to be waltzed. Alistair was tucked into a deep corner in the extremely unpopular microfilm section, behind a machine. Boo had provided him with a tiny iPod, and he was listening to something, eyes closed. I guess the earphones didn’t stay in his ears because he didn’t really have ears, but he managed to hold them up. The music flowed out of them into the air. As we came up, he opened his eyes slowly.
“On the shelf,” he said. “Between the bound copies of The Economist, 1995 and 1996.”
I went to the spot he directed us to. There, between the books, were fifteen handwritten pages, with footnotes and comments scribbled in the margins. I had just pulled these out when Jerome approached us. Boo grabbed them from me.
“Sorry,” he said, “but . . . can we talk?”
“Mmmm?” I replied. No guy had ever asked me if I wanted to talk, not like that. Not like a talk, talk kind of talk—if this was, in fact, a talk, talk “can we talk?” Or whatever.
“You go,” Boo said, shoving the papers into her bag. “I’ll see you later.”
I walked toward Jerome slowly, afraid to look at him. I no longer knew how to behave. I had been assured that I wasn’t insane, but that wasn’t very helpful. There was a ghost ten feet away from us who had done my homework, and Jerome couldn’t see him.
“You’re welcome,” Alistair called after me.
We stepped outside into the steel gray morning. I didn’t care that I was cold.
“Where do you want to go?” he asked. There was something nervous about the way he was standing, his shoulders hunched and his hands deep in his pockets, his arms locked to his sides.
Lacking any better idea, I suggested Spitalfields Market. It was big, it was busy, it was cheerful, and it would distract me a little. It used to be a market for fruits and vegetables. Now it was a ring of boutiques and salons. In the middle was a loosely enclosed space, one half devoted to restaurants, the other to stalls full of everything from tourist junk to handmade jewelry. Shoppers buzzed all around us. The racks were heavy with Jack the Ripper merchandise—top hats, rubber knives, I AM JACK THE RIPPER and JACK IS BACK shirts.
“What’s going on with you?” he finally asked.
What was going on with me? Nothing I could tell Jerome. I’d never be able to tell anyone what was going on with me, with the possible exception of Cousin Diane.
We had passed all the way through the market and were in the small courtyard on the side.