My mouth dropped open. “Omigod, that’s incredible! I’m so happy! Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Because she’s convinced she won’t get hired. But your mom is a brilliant teacher, and I’m convinced she will. Nicole’s even making a celebratory dinner tonight.”
“She is? For Mom?”
“Yep.” He reached over to pat my knee. “Also for you.”
“Me? What did I do?”
“You went back to school today, didn’t you? We know it hasn’t been easy, and we’re all so proud of our tough girl. How did it go?”
I told him about the speech project, how Ms. Farrell wanted me to “dig deeper” into the Persephone myth, but I felt like I’d already struck the bottom.
“Maybe pick a different myth?” Dad suggested.
I was horrified. “No, Dad! I absolutely have to do Persephone! It’s my myth!”
“Hmm. Well, if it’s your myth, don’t give up on it, then.”
We turned the corner onto Maple Avenue. And maybe if Mom had been in the car to enforce the No-After-School-Socializing rule, I wouldn’t have said anything. But it was just Dad and me—and I’d always had the feeling he was a little calmer about the Parent Rules. So I asked if we could stop at Silas’s house, which was the next block over.
“Silas?” Dad repeated. “I thought you two weren’t such good friends lately.”
“We’re not. I just need to yell at him about something.”
“I don’t know, Norah. You heard what Dr. Choi said about needing your rest—”
“Five minutes! Please, Dad? I’ll talk to Silas really fast!”
He grunted. “Five minutes. And if you’re not out in five, I’m honking my horn.”
I got out of the car and ran up the driveway to Silas’s house, a place I’d been a million times, although never in the last two years. Nothing about it seemed different, although when I rang the doorbell, a dog started barking inside. Silas had a dog now? This was new.
The door opened. Silas was holding a squirming shaggy gray dog by the collar.
“Oh,” he said, startled to see me. “Hi.”
I didn’t bother smiling. “Can I come in for a sec? My dad’s waiting.”
“Sure.” Wrestling with the dog to keep it from jumping on me, he led me into his kitchen, where the TV was blaring.
“You got a new dog,” I said brilliantly.
“Actually, Jasper belongs to my grandparents, and he pees all over the place. What’s up?”
“Not much. I heard you got suspended.”
“Yeah. I can’t go back to school until next Monday.”
“Silas, what’s going on with you? You keep letting Kylie get you into trouble.”
He released Jasper, who ran over to sniff my jeans. “I don’t care,” he said. “It’s worth it.”
“How can that possibly be true?”
“I just really like her.” He was blushing so hard I had to look away. “Like you like that new kid, Griffin.”
My stomach dropped. “What? Silas, where did you—how do you even know about that?”
He shrugged. “Everyone knows. It’s not a secret. So anyway, you should understand.”
“Actually, I don’t! Because the situations are completely different! Griffin is a really sweet person. But Kylie doesn’t care one bit about you—”
“That’s your opinion. In my opinion, she’s beautiful.”
“Silas, I never said she was ugly!”
“I even wrote a song for her. You want to hear it?”
“NO THANKS.”
“Well, you’ll hear it in school. I’m doing it for my speech.”
I felt like bopping him. But what good would it do? Silas was hopelessly in love. And I’d read enough Greek myths to know that love could make you stupid.
I petted Jasper’s shaggy head. “Anyway, Harper said you wanted to talk to me?”
“Yeah. You want a glass of water? Or some soda?” He opened his refrigerator door and stared inside, as if he was searching for something. But then he closed the door empty-handed.
I could tell he was stalling for some reason, and that made me nervous. “So what did you want to talk about?”
“Um. Well, all right.” He hugged his arms like he was shielding his body from attack. “It’s about why I never visited you in the hospital.”
“You already told me that, didn’t you? You said you wanted to, but you couldn’t. Whatever that’s supposed to mean.”
“Yeah. I know how it sounds.” He didn’t say anything for a few seconds. I could hear Jasper chewing something in the living room, and also the humming of the refrigerator. And just when I thought these noises would be the end of the conversation, he said:
“Hey, Norah. Remember that dumb game we used to play? On our bikes?”
I shrugged. “You mean the one with the evil elves? And how we’d have to ride around finding magic crap to break their spells?”
“Yeah. I was thinking about it the other day when I was putting out the garbage. It was so dumb.”
“I know.”
“But also really fun.”
“Okay.”
“And I was thinking how nice it was, just riding around the neighborhood. We did that every afternoon, didn’t we?”
“Uh-huh.” What does this have to do with anything?
“And I guess that’s how I still think of you, on your bike. I know it’s stupid of me, okay? But when you got sick, and I knew you didn’t look like that anymore, and maybe you wouldn’t be okay, or just not, you know, riding your bike, I couldn’t . . .” He shook his head helplessly. “It just felt like you were done with the game, but I wasn’t.”
A loud honking sound, which I knew was Dad.
Was this it? Was Silas finished with his big explanation? He hadn’t told me anything I didn’t know.
But he was right about one thing: I was done with our game. And maybe that wasn’t only because I’d gotten sick.
“Have to go,” I said.
Silas’s head drooped. Then his shoulders started shaking, and I could tell he was crying. I didn’t know what else to do, so I gave him a piece of paper towel. To hand it to him I had to get up close—close enough to get a whiff of his laundry detergent. I’d always liked the scent of his clothes—just chemicals,
