“Harper, can I ask you a question?” I blurted.
She looked at me over her turkey wrap. Her eyes were so round, I could tell she had no idea where this was going. And with my weird behavior lately, she was probably ready for anything.
“Shoot,” she said.
“If you were drawing something on an instrument, what sort of writing utensil would you use?”
“Instrument?” She made a face. “Writing utensil?”
“Come on. Pen? Marker?”
“Hmm.” She thought. “Not knowing the surface, but guessing it could be slippery, I’d have to say one of those special markers they have in Art Club, because they don’t smear. But are we talking about your instrument?”
I shook my head. Before cancer, I’d played viola, but I hadn’t touched it in the last two years. You couldn’t come back to the school orchestra if you were out of practice for two whole years.
“So whose, then?” Harper pressed.
“It’s for a kid in math, okay?”
She smiled. “Boy kid or girl kid?”
“Does it matter?”
“No. Although if it’s a girl, you just say ‘girl.’ You only say ‘kid’ if it’s a boy.”
“I guess.” I took a bite of apple. “Hey, if I came to Art Club, could I borrow one of those special markers?”
“Probably. Pretty sure we have extra. We had them last year, anyway.” Harper raised her eyebrows. “You’re doing Afterschool, Norah? I thought—”
“Just for today,” I said, and immediately changed the subject.
READY FOR FLIGHT
The only kid in both my eighth grade classes who seemed to remember me from before was Ezra, a pimply boy who could multiply three-digit numbers in his head. I mean, he was a very smart person, but even he didn’t seem to remember much. At the end of class that day he walked over to my desk and said, like he’d had amnesia: “Hey, didn’t you used to take my bus?”
“Not sure,” I mumbled.
“Pretty sure you did. Bus three. You always sat with that kid Silas, right?”
Thea was bouncing around Griffin’s desk, telling him some dumb, pretend-dramatic story about yesterday’s soccer practice, so I doubted he heard Ezra’s question, which I didn’t answer. But the thought that anyone in our math class knew, or just suspected, the truth about me was horrifying. It wasn’t that I cared about my age. I was more afraid that once the eighth graders discovered “my whole story,” I’d turn into Cancer Girl for them, just the way I was Cancer Girl for the seventh grade. And if that happened, maybe Griffin would change the way he treated me. Because why wouldn’t he? That’s how it was with everyone else.
My plan for that afternoon was to get to the art studio as soon as the dismissal bell rang, so that I could avoid bumping into Astrid. I was thinking: If Astrid sees me with Harper, she might start to wonder where I’d come from, why a “new” kid like me was such good buddies with a seventh grader. And then she might say something to Thea. Who would possibly say something to Griffin.
When the dismissal bell rang, I ran to the art studio so fast I was panting.
“Can I have that special marker you told me about?” I begged Harper, who was setting up her table. “I really need it now, before people get here.”
Harper eyed me. “Everything okay, Norah? You’re out of breath.”
“I’m fine! I just have something to do.”
“You mean ‘the instrument,’ whatever that is?”
I nodded.
She walked over to a closet and took a black marker out of a jar.
“Wait, can I have a red one?” I asked. “Instead?”
She put the marker back, took a red one, and handed it to me. “Here. I’m not going to ask any more questions, because you won’t tell me anything anyway.”
Thwack. That felt like a slap. Which I totally deserved. “Harper, I’m sorry. I promise that I’ll explain—”
“Whatever. Just make sure you return it, okay? Astrid checks.”
“Thanks.”
I stuffed the marker into my pocket and ran into the hall. But all of a sudden I realized that I didn’t know where to go. Griffin had said to meet him in “the band room,” but because I’d stopped playing an instrument, I had no idea where that was. Was “band room” different from “orchestra room”? Maybe it was. I reached into my backpack for the school map.
Just then Thea and Astrid came walking toward me.
“Hey, Nor-ahh,” Astrid said in a teasing singsong. “So you’re taking my advice?”
“Excuse me?”
“Signing up for Afterschool? Like I said ?”
“Me? No. Well, possibly. I’m kind of checking out something.”
“Yeah? What?” Thea asked in that airy way she had.
“Bugs,” I blurted. I had no idea where this came from, but it was the only club I remembered from the booklet.
“Well, good. You should definitely do something.” Astrid said this like she’d decided my problem was laziness, and the only cure for that was swatting flies.
They walked off, laughing. As soon as they turned the corner, I pulled out the map. The band room was in the basement, so that meant I’d need to find a staircase. And I didn’t have time to get lost—probably my parents were already outside, in Dad’s car, waiting to pick me up. Well, they’d have to wait a few more minutes. This was definitely more important.
* * *
A few minutes later, I’d found the band room. Three boys I didn’t know, plus that horrible Rowan, were playing a song I didn’t recognize. Griffin was sitting in a corner, watching. When he saw me, his face lit up, and he came running over.
“I was worried you wouldn’t come,” he said.
“Why wouldn’t I? I said I would.”
“I thought maybe you’d forget.”
“Norahs have supermemory,” I said. “It’s because we’re Hydra
