Californium Read Free

stand in front of it.” Everyone’s staring at him, and I’m thinking,
Yeah? What about when you stand up to walk over to the podium?
But then Mr. Krueger shoots out from behind the desk sideways, the metal wheels of his chair humming along the tile floor like a train on its tracks. He pops up at the podium, grinning again. “You learn this”—he points back at the periodic table—“and life here will go smoother than you ever thought possible.”
    Mr. Krueger lets us go seven seconds before the bell rings, and Keith stops me by the door. “We’ve got to get on it,” he says, pointing at a poster taped to the wall. “The Howdy Dance is Saturday.”
    The bell rings and by the time we’re to the stairs, people are everywhere, headed in every direction. Conversations are buzzing by, people laughing, people yelling to other people going the other way, some people already talking about Friday night and
Are you gonna go?
Then the lockers start opening. They’re outside lockers, all along the classroom buildings and crammed into the breezeways, that
click, click, pop,
over and over again like a scratched record.
    Keith’s not looking at me when he says, “You’ve got Algebra next and Spanish before lunch, right?” He doesn’t even wait for me to answer. “Remember, when they call roll, write down all the names of people who aren’t freshmen. No freshmen, no matter what.”
    Keith’s going to go over my list after school and tell me who to take fashion notes on the rest of the week. “And if you see van Doren,” he says, “write down everything, even if the guy picks his nose.”
    .
    The Wednesday after I met Keith, my dad dragged me out of bed early. “It’s trash day,” he said. “Remember? That’s your chore now.”
    I had hot summer sleep all over me, and as I got to the side of the house, my hair was standing up on its own. On the other side of the fence, our neighbor was pulling his cans out too, the plastic grinding across the driveway like a plane taking off. Halfway to the curb with my first trash can, I heard, “Hey, trash buddy,” and it wasn’t the voice of somebody’s dad. It was Astrid.
The
Astrid Thompson. Skinny, muscly, tan legs stretching out forever from her Dolphin shorts to her sneakers. Blond hair feathered into perfect wings, very
Charlie’s Angels.
She also had a tank top on under a gigantic sweatshirt that had no collar. You might think that would look more like a potato sack than something cool, except the sweatshirt was hanging off to one side so one tanned shoulder stuck out like it was saying,
You should see what else is in here.
I couldn’t dream a girl that beautiful, you know? “I’m Astrid,” she said.
    â€œReece,” I said, wiping my hands on my pants and holding one out.
    She took my hand for this little shake, and it was like dipping it into a sink full of warm water, each finger getting its own dose of soft and nice. She said my dad told her dad that I’d be starting atEsperanza. “I’ll be looking for you at the football games,” she said, real serious. “You better have school spirit.”
    â€œI will. I’m very spiritual.”
    She laughed and went into her house.
    Now I’m up a little early every Wednesday to make sure I’m not wearing something stupid, and then half the time I don’t see her anyway. When I do see her, I have no idea what to say. I mean, what do you say to the most perfect-looking girl ever when you’re taking out the trash,
Nice cans
? Actually, I almost did say that one morning because the Thompsons really do have these shiny silver cans with matching lids and no dents, but thank God I realized what I was saying as I was saying it and changed it midsentence to “Nice, uh, day.” And even though it was pretty gray outside, Astrid said, “Yeah.