“That sounds really fun,” I said. “But my mom’s going back to California, so I think I need to be with her.”
Kylie pouted. “Well, will you at least ask her if you can come? She’ll probably just be packing anyway. And I’m sure she wants you to have a social life again.”
Aria gave Kylie a look like: Uh, maybe that was a teeny bit much?
But Kylie didn’t care. “Harper’s coming, obviously. Oh, and your friend Silas, too.”
I nodded. But not in a way that meant: Oh, in that case, count me in! It was more of an I-heard-you sort of nod. Not agreeing to anything, especially the “your friend Silas” part of Kylie’s comment. Although it made me feel funny that she’d described him that way. Like he was so unimportant I might not remember which Silas she meant.
And why was it “obvious” Harper would be coming to her party? It didn’t seem obvious to me.
* * *
“So how did rock band go?” I asked Griffin a few minutes later in math.
He shrugged. “Okay, I guess. I only played for like five minutes.”
“But they liked your bass? How it looked, I mean.”
“Yeah. Everyone said it was cool. The drummer especially.” Griffin was smiling, but he seemed a bit nervous. “Hey, um. I was wondering: Could you do that same drawing on my hand?”
“On your hand?”
“Yeah, like you did on yours. So it looks like a tattoo or something.”
“Sure. I guess. When?”
“Lunch?”
I blinked at him.
“Yeah, I was actually looking for you at lunch yesterday, but I couldn’t find you,” he said.
“You couldn’t?” I broke into a sweat. “Oh, that’s because I was in the nurse’s office.”
“You were sick?”
“Me? No. Allergies.”
“Oh yeah, I get allergies too. Especially this time of year. And early spring.”
“Yeah. Allergies are the worst.”
He was looking at me in a way that made my heart bounce. “So can we meet today? At lunch?”
“Oh, sure,” I said. “That would be great.”
Wondering which period the eighth graders had lunch.
And also how I’d sneak out to get there.
SORT OF HIDING
Before the start of English I asked Harper, who told me eighth grade lunch was fifth period, which was when we had health class.
“Why do you want to know?” Harper asked. She widened her eyes at me.
“Just wondering,” I said.
“Norah, seriously?”
There was a hard edge in her voice I’d never noticed before. Already I’d had the feeling that she was pulling away a little; not that she was trying to make me feel bad, but her casual comments about movies she’d seen with Aria and Kylie, plus the way she kept chatting with Addison, were starting to make me nervous. Harper was too nice to just dump someone for getting sick—but why be friends with a person who couldn’t do anything or go anywhere, and totally refused to share information? What was in it for her?
When you’ve switched off the Share Information button for a while, it can be hard to switch it back on. But now I forced myself to speak. “I just need to talk to somebody then. The same kid. Boy.”
“You won’t tell me who?”
“His name is Griffin. You don’t know him, Harper. He’s a new eighth grader. And we’re just friends. Not even.”
“Well, but if you’re meeting him for lunch, that sounds like friends.”
“He likes how I draw. It’s not a big deal.”
“If it’s not a big deal, why skip a class? You’ll get in trouble.”
“No, I won’t. Anyhow, I’m allowed to skip classes.”
“If you say so.” She gave a sigh. “Hey, are you going to Kylie’s party on Saturday? She told me she invited you.”
Shoot. “Um, maybe not.”
“How come?”
“Mom’s leaving for California on Monday.”
“And?”
“And I should be with her. It’s her last weekend here.”
“Okay, so just come for a little while, then.”
“I can’t.”
Harper threw me a look. “Really? Your mom wouldn’t understand that this was the first party you’ve been invited to in forever, and that I’ll be there, and also Silas, not that you care, plus all your other friends? She wouldn’t let you come for like an hour?”
No, because it’s against my parents’ Back-to-School Rules. I’m trying to get them to change the No-Afterschool rule, so I can’t ALSO ask them to bend the No-Socializing-on-Weekends rule!
“Harper and Norah, are you with us today?” Ms. Farrell asked sharply. Class had started sometime during our conversation, and we hadn’t even noticed.
“Sorry,” we both muttered as we opened our notebooks.
And when Harper passed me a note—Your mom will be happy that you have a social life again!—I just wrote back: I don’t know. Maybe.
* * *
Would I really do this? Skip a class my first week back at school? Just to make Griffin believe I was an eighth grader? It seemed crazy, so unlike me, or the person I thought of myself as being.
But maybe I wasn’t that person anyway. Maybe chemo had zapped that person right out of me. Or maybe I was still that person mostly, but I’d also changed over the last two years. Mutated into a norah. And this tentacled, many-headed creature was the kind of person who met a boy for lunch when it wasn’t even her lunch period.
I had to do this, I told myself. There was just no choice. If I didn’t meet Griffin for lunch, he’d realize that I wasn’t in his grade, and then everything about me, “my whole story,” would be exposed. Anyway, I’d only be skipping health class—and if there was one class I felt entitled to skip, it was that one. Because, I mean, all I’d done for the last two years was obsess about health. I am utterly SICK OF HEALTH. Time for a new topic!
At the start of fifth period, my heart was pounding as I went up to Ms. Nargesian, the health teacher. She was at her desk, counting pamphlets called Making Sensible Decisions. That is definitely NOT a message to me from the gods, I told myself. Even so, I looked away.
“Um, I think I need to go rest
