Oliver nudged me. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Forgot his math homework.”
“Oh . . . The Stanhope—”
“I know. Why do you call her that? She loves you.”
He tilted his head with a bewildered gaze. “Dunno. It’s fun saying it, I guess.”
Mrs. Stanhope clapped her hands again, this time with such forcefulness the room went dead. She smirked.
“Take out your division homework. Place it on your desk in front of you.”
Papers rustled, kids scrambled, slamming loose-leaf sheets down as if they were tickets that would save them from being tossed off the train. She scanned each row, her eyes squinting. I sat on my hands. I couldn’t get myself to take mine out. I couldn’t move.
She stopped in front of Sawyer.
“Mr. Ford. Where is yours?”
“I forgot it,” he said without missing a beat.
Her eagle eyes darted to me. “And you, Ms. Baek?”
Sawyer snapped to look at me and then down at the surface of my desk, blank and smooth.
“I forgot too,” I heard myself say.
She cleared her throat, and I could have sworn she uttered a low growl.
“That is unlike either of you.”
She tapped her foot. We were not her typical troublemakers. I even wondered if she was going to give us some reprieve.
“But . . . nonetheless. If you can’t complete the assignment, then you can’t be in my classroom. Stand up and gather your things. Hurry, you are wasting everyone else’s time.”
She sent both of us to detention.
Sawyer refused to look at me. It was the first time he had ever ignored me. His face was ruddy and seemed warm.
When detention was over, I pulled his arm outside the room. “What’s with you?”
He ripped his hand down. “Don’t.”
“What?” I halted, stunned.
“Don’t ever do that again, Isla. That was stupid.”
“Huh? I was just trying to lessen the blow on you.”
“It was stupid. Don’t ever do anything like that again.” He hoisted his bag over his shoulder and walked away. The bell rang.
Oliver caught up with me as I lost sight of Sawyer in the sea of kids that spilled out of each classroom, like zombies piling on each other for their first bite.
“Sawyer already left?”
“Yeah . . .” I fiddled with the strap dangling from my backpack.
“Weird. He always walks out with us.”
“He’s mad at me—I don’t get it.”
Oliver looked up at me. His tiny face suddenly looked so wise. “He cares. He’s one of those people who actually cares. You know what I mean?”
Dad picked up Marlow and me after school. She proudly handed him a collage of cutout butterflies and ink stamps. He looked at it briefly and placed it on the front seat.
“That’s nice, honey,” he said quickly.
“Daddy? Can we stop and get a secret doughnut?”
Secret doughnuts were our thing on Dad’s pickup days. Usually it was midweek and it was a pick-me-up for the three of us. A doughnut run that Mom never knew about.
“Not today—”
“But, Daddy. I made that for you in art today.” She regressed to a babyish voice as she reminded him of this.
“Yes, I said it was nice, Marlow. But we’re in a hurry.”
It was not often Dad brushed Marlow aside like that. He usually took extra care to answer her questions, to affirm her need to please constantly. But today he was not having it.
