Nothing

by Annie Barrows

  Frankie, one of the six or seven kids in the class who’d actually done the reading, had contributed her thought-provokement right at the beginning of the Round Table, to get it over with, but she was regretting it now, as she listened to person after person say, “I really liked the part where he, uh—you know—like when he was playing ball and, uh, made the free throw [because they figured that the guy had to have made a free throw at least once for the book to be called The Free Throw Line]. That part was really thought-provoking.”

  Then Miss Mathers would say, “What did you find thought-provoking about it?”

  And Kid X would look at her blankly and say, “The free throw.”

  Help me, God, prayed Frankie. Send earthquake. Now!

  She looked at the clock again. 2:44. Twenty-six more minutes.

  “I must say, I am very disappointed in the quality of your work, students,” sniffed Miss Mathers. She whirled around on OCD Luis. “Luis, let’s hear what you have to say.”

  Frankie stiffened with pity. Poor Luis. He could barely talk when someone spoke to him nicely, and Miss Mathers’s whirling and sniffing was going to freak him out.

  It did.

  Luis began stuttering, “Uh, uh—okay, uh—well—uh—”

  And one of the asshole Chrises yelled, “Spit it out, Louie!”

  “Chris! That’s enough!” snapped Miss Mathers.

  “What? What? I was just, like, trying to help!”

  Sweating, Luis tried again. “I—I—was—well—”

  “Have you done the reading, Luis?” snapped Miss Mathers. You bitch, thought Frankie. Of course he’s done it.

  “Yes!” cried Luis, shaking now. “Yes!”

  “Because I’m afraid I’m not seeing much evidence of that. If you had read it, you would surely have found something to say about it.”

  “I read it!” Luis panted. “I read it, and—” He broke off.

  “Yes?” said Miss Mathers nastily.

  “Why doesn’t anything good ever happen to Mexicans in books?” he said in a rush. “That’s what I thought. Why are Mexicans always so, like, down and messed up? Like, is there some law that Mexicans can’t have good lives?”

  There was a brief, shocked pause. No one had ever heard Luis say that many words before.

  Then one of the Chrises said, “Try the black man, Louie. They worse.”

  And the other Chris said, “That’s racist, man.”

  “Shut up. I’m black. I can’t be racist,” said Chris. Then to Luis. “You ever seen an okay—like, normal—black guy in a book? Shit you have. They’re always fu—”—he glanced at Miss Mathers—“messed up.”

  Race. Oh my god, race. The classroom was frozen with panic.

  Except Luis, who said in a shaky voice, “It’s depressing. Why can’t we read something about someone Mexican who’s, like, happy?”

  Then Raven spoke up. Raven Nuts, who had a shaved head and talked to herself and who everyone avoided because she was just too scary—that Raven—said, “It’s a control technique. They give us these books so we’ll think the world is so terrifying that we can never hope to succeed in it unless we follow their rules and behave ourselves. If we’re happy, we’re out of their control.”

  Which was so unbelievably like what Frankie had always felt but had never been able to put into words that she found herself saying, “Yeah!”

  “But that’s mean,” Luis objected.

  Raven shrugged. “And this surprises you?”

  Chris started laughing.

  Miss Mathers broke in. “Why, that’s just silly, Raven! We read to learn about the experiences of other people.” She looked around the room, smiling nervously. “We are on a tangent, boys and girls. Let’s return to our Round Table discussion—”

  Frankie looked at the clock. 2:57.

  And. And. And . . .

  3:10! The bell rang, and a survivors’ cheer went up all over the school. In Miss Mathers’s class, the thunder of thirty-one kids un-wedging themselves from desks, squishing binders into backpacks, putting on jackets, and pulling out phones was even more thunderous than usual. As her students stampeded out of her classroom, Miss Mathers stood stiffly by her desk, flicking papers around, a tiny, tense smile on her face. Frankie surprised herself by feeling sorry for her.

  “Have a good one, Miss Mathers,” called unnaturally polite Josh.

  “Thank you, Josh,” she said primly. “Same to you.” Having been relieved of the burden of being so disliked as to receive not a single good-bye, her shoulders relaxed.

  So did Frankie’s. Thank you, unnaturally polite Josh. She smiled at him, and he smiled back. “Have a good one, Frankie,” he said brightly.

  Did you go to military school or something? she thought. “You too, Josh.”

  Breaking a path through the teeming corridors toward her locker, Frankie caught a glimpse of Raven hoisting her bulging black backpack onto her shoulder. In addition to the bulging black backpack, she carried a small ice chest—the kind that usually held a six-pack—with a biohazard sticker on it and a French horn case.

  “Hey Raven,” Frankie called, surprising herself again. “That was good, what you said.”

  The backpack fell off Raven’s shoulder and she dropped the ice chest. “Thanks,” she said, re-slinging the backpack.

  Frankie picked up the ice chest and handed it to her. “I thought that, too, kind of, but I could never think how to say it.”

  Raven took the ice chest and nodded. “Cool. Thanks.” She didn’t seem to have anything to add.

  Frankie realized that she’d thought Raven would be glad—maybe even sort of honored—that Frankie was talking to her, since most people didn’t. But Raven wasn’t. Embarrassed, Frankie looked down at the ice chest. “Is there really a biohazard in there?

  Raven tilted her head and looked at Frankie sideways. “Plague bacillus.”

  Frankie took a step back.

  Raven laughed. “No. It’s my lunch, really.”

  “Weirdo,” Frankie said.

  Raven snickered and turned to go. “See ya.”

  “Have a good one.”

  “Yeah,” said Raven. “Don’t let ’em shit on your dreams.”

  “Lottie! Baby!” Frankie hollered.

  Charlotte pulled her eyes away from her phone. “Lester, baby,” she said, but her voice was muted.

  “What?” Frankie hurried over. “What’s up?”

  “He’s just so—great.” Charlotte sighed. She held out her phone. “Look.”

  Frankie didn’t need to ask who she was talking about. Sid. She looked. It was a photo of a snowman, only it wasn’t a snowman, it was just a face, sculpted in snow. But it was an artwork, too, because the face looked almost alive. The way it was smiling, with one-half of its mouth higher than the other half—it looked like it had just stopped laughing.

  “Wow. Did he make that?” asked Frankie.

  “Yeah. I think,” said Charlotte. “See what he says?”

  Like my selfie? read Frankie. “That’s him?” she asked, even though she knew Charlotte didn’t know. There were no pictures of Sid. Not anywhere. He didn’t allow it, and he wouldn’t say why. All he said was that he wanted to be hard to find when they came looking for him—which Charlotte thought was a joke, but Frankie wasn’t so sure. Charlotte had met Sid on Instagram through a friend of her cousin, and they texted all the time, but they’d never met in real life, and Charlotte was positive they never would because he lived a state away, in Oregon. Frankie had pointed out that a state away wasn’t an insurmountable obstacle. It wasn’t like he lived in the Himalayas, for instance. And Charlotte said Sisters, Oregon, was like the Himalayas if you were fifteen. Frankie said that was a defeatist attitude, and then Charlotte got pissed off and said she didn’t care what Frankie thought, she wasn’t going to waste emotional energy hoping to meet a guy she was never going to meet who probably didn’t give a shit about her anyway, which was when Frankie realized that Charlotte really, really liked him.


  Not that she would ever admit it.

  It made Frankie crazy, the way Charlotte refused to get excited about anything, like she had a policy against it, but Frankie had known her for a long time, and she knew that Charlotte did care about stuff, a lot. She was just scared to say so. It was like she’d made a bargain with the devil or something, that as long as she didn’t say she wanted anything—like, for instance, meeting Sid—her life wouldn’t be ruined. But if she ever dared to admit, out loud, that she was hoping for thing X to happen, she would be destroyed. Frankie didn’t really get it. Obviously, no one likes to be embarrassed, but why would Charlotte’s life be more ruined if she admitted she was into Sid and it turned out he wasn’t into her than it would be if she didn’t admit it (but still was) and he wasn’t into her?

  Privately Frankie thought Sid’s no-picture policy was weird, but Charlotte thought it made him intriguing and different. And even Frankie had to agree that his Instagram was pretty cool. He was a great photographer, and he didn’t take pictures of the usual stuff—sunsets, flowers, pretty people. He took pictures of things you mostly didn’t notice. He’d done a whole series on the backs of people’s heads, which had made Frankie really look at the backs of people’s heads for the first time. There was a lot of personality in head backs.

  “How would I know if it’s him?” Charlotte said. She leaned over Frankie’s shoulder and looked at the snow face. “Isn’t it good, though? See how he did the smile?”

  “Yeah. He’s good,” said Frankie.

  Charlotte rubbed her chin against Frankie’s shoulder. “Maybe he’s good. If it’s him who made it. Maybe his girlfriend made it.”

  “Oh, right!” Frankie slapped her forehead. “I forgot about her! His long-legged, big-boobed girlfriend with perfect eyebrows! Who’s also incredibly talented! She must’ve made it!”

  “And after she was done,” Charlotte continued, “they ripped off all their clothes—”

  “And had sex—”

  “In the snow,” added Charlotte. She was giggling now.

  “But!” Frankie held up a finger. “They didn’t feel the cold, because . . .”

  “They’re so fucking hot!” yelled Charlotte.

  Frankie put her arms around Charlotte and squeezed. “Not that you care.”

  Charlotte burrowed her face into Frankie’s jacket, and for a second, she was quiet. “I don’t even know the guy. We text all the time, but I know nothing about him. Except what he decides to tell me.”

  Frankie nodded.

  “I know—I mean, I’m sure—that it wouldn’t turn into anything. But still, it would be nice to—you know, meet him. Not that I will.”

  “Maybe you will,” said Frankie. “It’s possible.”

  “Oh yeah,” said Charlotte, pulling her face out of Frankie’s jacket to give her a don’t-be-a-moron look. “Next time I’m passing through Sisters, Oregon, I’ll drop in.”

  “Well,” said Frankie, a little defensively, “it could happen. You could make it happen.”

  Charlotte shook her head. “By the time I could make it happen, I won’t care.”

  “Don’t let ’em shit on your dreams,” said Frankie.

  “What?”

  Frankie hesitated. “I mean, don’t just—surrender. It’s like you give up without even trying sometimes. I think you should, well, aim for more. You know.” She made a fist. “You gotta fight the fight.”

  Charlotte glared at her. “You gotta shut the mouth.”

  Frankie sighed. “You are such a twat.” She gathered Charlotte into her arms and gave her one more squeeze. “Come on!” She lifted Charlotte off the ground. “Let’s get this Christmas break rolling!”

  NOTHING

  Frankie and Gaby and Noony and I solved our Christmas-present dilemma by giving each other mascara. On the Saturday after the Friday we got out for break, we went to CVS and bought it together, which was really fun and also didn’t cost that much (even though Noony wanted this fancy kind that cost fifteen dollars. Frankie and I went together on it). Afterward, we were walking up Redwood Road, looking in the stores, when we passed the drug addict Christmas tree lot and saw this pathetic little tree that nobody would ever buy in a million years. We were joking around about how it made us want to cry, and I ran in and asked if we could have it for two dollars, and the guy gave it to me for free! Then we went back to CVS and all chipped in to buy some cheapo gold balls. We went up to Canyon Rock and stuck the little tree in a crack and decorated it. It turned out to be really pretty up there, with the sun setting and the gold balls all sparkly. We got high and Noony started singing “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” and these hipsters joined in, and then we were all singing it, and it was fun, even though we only got up to the tenth day and we were too lazy to look up what came next. We took a bunch of pictures, and then Alex and Reed and this friend of Reed’s named Arian showed up. We got cold after a while and went down to my house and ate ramen and Oreos.

  It was pretty normal but at the same time, pretty nice, too.

  So I was happy.

  And then Frankie went psycho.

  Okay, maybe not medical-grade psycho, but definitely off. She’s been off all break. It began on the Friday school got out, when she was ragging on me about Sid—you don’t try hard enough, you’ve got to fight the fight (what fight?), you’ve got to make it happen. Which is sort of mean, in my opinion, because it’s like accusing me of lack of effort, when really, there’s no effort I can make that will result in me meeting the guy. Okay? So it’s like she’s saying I’m a pussy. And then I start wondering, am I a pussy? Am I, like, defective? Would someone else be able to figure out how to make it happen? I worry about this.

  That was the beginning.

  Then, on Sunday, Silent Max comes home with his friend Grant.

  And Frankie loses her shit.

  Get this: Grant sleeps all day. He gets up at, like, five in the afternoon, eats dinner, and then he and Max go out to—what?—clubs, I guess, until three or four in the morning. And then he sleeps all the next day, repeat, repeat.

  To me, this seems like normal college-guy behavior.

  But oh my fucking god, Frankie thinks he’s got some mysterious condition, I can’t remember the name of it, like a sun allergy. People who have it can’t go outside during the day and they’re called, according to Frankie, Children of the Night.

  The internet, where logic goes to die.

  Frankie gets all obsessed, and for two days she calls me every time she has a Grant sighting, to tell me how pale he is, and all about his potentially pathetic life expectancy and oh my god low sperm count, and I keep saying, “Wow!” and “Huh!” and “Poor guy!” because I want to be a supportive friend, but inside I’m thinking: You are a fucking loon.

  And on day three, she Facetimes me at ten a.m., which is a little bit on the early side for Christmas vacation, so my mouth is full of toast when I accept. “Wha?”

  “He doesn’t have it,” she whispers.

  I have no idea what she’s talking about so I say “Wha?” again.

  “Grant. He and Max are going to the beach today.”

  I swallow. “Ohhh. No Child of the Night, then.”

  “Right.”

  I don’t know what a supportive friend is supposed to say here, so I say, “That’s good.”

  She makes a feh noise. “He’s also really short.”

  “Well. At least he’s got plenty of sperm.”

  Thank god, she busts up laughing. But after we shit-talk Grant for a while, she says, “I gotta go.”

  “’Kay. How come?”

  “I’m going on a thing.”

  “What thing?”

  She hesitates—she’d make a crap spy—and says, “It’s just this thing.”

  “Franklin.”

  “Okay, okay.” She sighs, and then she says quick, “I’m going on a tour of St. Albans.”

  “What?” St. Albans is St. Albans College Preparatory. It’s a fancy private school for assh
oles that’s over in Coso, which is about forty minutes away. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “I’m just taking the tour, Char. It’s nothing. I’ll probably hate it.”

  “Why are you taking the tour? You don’t even like school—why would you want to go to fucking college prep? Those kids have six hours of homework a night.” Not to mention it costs, like, thirty thousand a year.

  She starts hemming and hawing. “It’s just my dad. He wanted me to take a look.”

  This is total bullshit, because her dad always wanted her to take a look, and Frankie always said no. “Frankie! Who do you think you’re talking to here? Are you really thinking about going there? Why didn’t you tell me? What the hell is going on?”

  “It’s just a tour, Char,” she says in this kind of weary voice. “I just want to see if—maybe it would be good to do something different, you know?”

  “I can’t believe you didn’t say anything to me.” My feelings are hurt, I admit it.

  “It’s just a tour,” she says again. Then her mom comes in the room. “I gotta slide, Char.”

  I don’t even say good-bye. I just hang up.

  And of course, she does hate it. Duh. About two hours later, I get a text: Help! I’m surrounded by assholes

  My feelings are still hurt, so I don’t answer. About two minutes later, I get another one: omg they’re talking about how much they love studying until 3am

  I don’t answer.

  Two minutes later: this ho is saying how college was easy next to StA

  I don’t answer.

  Two minutes later: now this other ho is saying StA gives her life purpose

  I relent: Jay Alvarrez gives my life purpose