I glance at Daniel, who’s looking at the screen like he already gets it. Ms. Bernstein tells us to take out our phones.
“That’s a first,” Braden laughs. “Y’all always tell us to put them away.”
“For this assignment, you’ll use your phone camera. I want you to experiment with composition without worrying yet about the mechanics of the single-lens reflex cameras we’ll use later on.” Ms. Bernstein shows a slide with instructions for getting to the camera settings on iPhones and Androids. “Almost all phones have the option to overlay grid lines. Follow these instructions to turn them on.”
Everyone does except Daniel. Fiona peeks over his shoulder. “Of course you already had them on, photo geek.”
“My dad turned them on,” Daniel mumbles around a suppressed yawn.
“Your assignment, due next Friday, is to make a photo that has two subjects placed at the intersections created by your grid lines. Experiment with placement. See what feels right. As for the content, choose two objects that are personally significant to you and place them on a plain background. That could be a towel, a stretch of pavement, a poster board, whatever. As long as it’s all the same color and texture and it fills the frame.”
Braden snickers under his breath. “How about a couple hundred-dollar bills on my left butt cheek?”
Fiona shoots him a look like you’re disgusting.
“Any questions?” Ms. Bernstein asks.
A kid at table four raises her hand. “Why’d you say ‘make a photo’ instead of ‘take a photo’?”
Fiona pokes Daniel. “You know.”
“Daniel, what do you think?” Ms. Bernstein says.
“Um. You make a photo when you choose what goes in the frame and like . . . compose it. I mean put the subject there on purpose. Instead of taking a photo, where you see something interesting and snap a shot of it.”
Ms. Bernstein smiles. “Correct. When you use your pinhole cameras next week, you’ll take a photo. When you do your rule-of-thirds assignment, you’ll make a photo. Each of you will present your rule-of-thirds photo to the class next Friday.” She claps her hands. “On to loading the pinhole cameras. Make sure when you put the paper in, the shiny side is toward the hole you poked in the box.” She says it like a thousand students over the years have done it wrong. “Table one, go on into the darkroom. Table two, when someone comes out, one of you can go in. We’ll go around the room that way. Four kids max in there at a time. The rest of you, please take out your lens worksheets from yesterday.”
Daniel yawns about fifty times while Ms. Bernstein walks us through the worksheet. His dark wavy hair keeps falling over his forehead and he keeps pushing it away. Braden is sneaking popcorn out of his drawstring bag, eating most of it but occasionally flicking pieces at us when Ms. Bernstein isn’t looking. Fiona notices me watching Daniel and one sculpted eyebrow goes up. She hides a smile with her hand.
I focus on my worksheet, a blush spreading over my face. I always feel like a klutzy nincompoop around eighth graders, which makes no sense ’cause I’m the same age as them since I flunked sixth grade. They’re just so . . . I don’t know. Like they know something I don’t. Like they’re about to spread their wings and take flight while the rest of us are pushing out pinfeathers.
Especially Fiona. How she can make a navy-blue Avengers T-shirt look elegant is beyond me. Maybe it’s her thin gold charm bracelet with all the tiny Avengers charms. Or her gold Squirrel Girl earrings. Or the way she’s built all willowy and strong like a ballet dancer.
Two kids from table three come out and Daniel and Fiona go in the darkroom. It’s hard to focus on the worksheet with Braden chewing like a cow next to me. When the guy I have a minor crush on is in a darkroom with a girl he kissed. I switch to sketching my beagle, Booper, doing the cute little awoo sound he makes when I get home from school and hug him. It’s one of my favorite parts of the day.
When another kid comes out of the darkroom, I grab my oatmeal box and photo paper off the shelf and open the door to the vestibule, the coffin-sized pitch-black room that’s there so no classroom light gets into the darkroom. I wait till the classroom door is closed and then reach for the darkroom door just as I hear it start to open. The darkroom’s dim red safelight isn’t bright enough to show the person’s face. They collide with me and make an oof sound.
“Daniel?” I ask.
“Yeah, who’s—I mean sorry, I just—oh god.” A peal of laughter comes out of him, bright and contagious in the cramped, dark space. “This dog thing’s got me so tired I don’t know what year it is.” He giggles again like a rippling purple ribbon, and then there’s a fuzzy curved thump like he’s slumped against the wall.
“Dog thing?” I giggle too. “Like, a mutant zebra-platypus-shepherd mix?”
He laughs like that mental image is sending him over the edge. “No, no. Forget I said that.” He tries to stifle the laugh and fails. “Sorry, I’m just tired because—because—”
“Super Smash?” I suggest.
“Yes!” Something hits my arm like he just gestured. “Oh crap, sorry, it’s dark!” His laugh flattens and thins as it edges toward hysteria. “I can’t see you because it’s dark!”
I’m worried the boy is gonna blow a gasket. A sharp knock sounds at the classroom door. “What’s going on in there?” Ms. Bernstein asks.
“Nothing,” Daniel gasps. “Sorry. Oh my god.”
