Memento Nora Read Free Page A

earlier. It would’ve made a killer T-shirt.
     
    So there we were at TFC-23. Mom, still in her purple scrubs, tired and annoyed with the world. Me, sporting a fresh cast and five stitches above my eye from where I caught the hot dog cart with my head after the black van hit me. I was sketching this little kid watching the bloodiest cartoon I’d ever seen. Then I saw her come in.
     
    Nora James.
     
    I’d seen her in school plenty. She’s one of the pretty, bourgeois crowd. You know, the pretty people with money—but not quite enough money (or smarts) to be in a better school. The kind that look right past you if you’re not in their clique.
     
    Here she was, sitting with the rest of us losers, watching us like we were bugs. I couldn’t resist messing with her head a little.
     
    I got out my pens and wrote that word on my cast in bright red. I flipped it in her direction before I followed Mom into the treatment room.
     
    I did the whole blah-blah-blah thing, telling the doc about getting hit by the van. Then I stuck the pill under my tongue. All the while I was thinking about that girl. I have to confess; I’ve always thought she was cute in this little-girl-lost kind of way. She’s probably never had to sleep in a car in her life. I felt the pill lying under my tongue. And that’s when I decided I’d really mess with her. Wake her up, you know.
     
    Mom was out the door as soon as I sipped some water. I followed at a safe distance. And just as I was passing by that girl—and I was sure no one else was looking—I stuck out my tongue with the pill on it and mouthed “remember” all mysterious-like at her. Priceless. Those big green eyes of hers were as big as hubcaps though she was trying to play it cool. But I saw a glimmer of something else there, too. Disgust for me, yeah, but something more. Something that made me sorry I’d done it.
     
    She looked at me like she saw me. Like I wasn’t just some skater kid with delusions of artistic grandeur. I can’t really explain it.
     
    I tossed the pill in the trash can and ran to catch up to Mom just as the bus rolled to a stop.
     
    Mom slumped into a seat by the window and closed her eyes. I slid in next to her. She’d pulled a double shift just so she could take me to TFC today. I felt bad that she didn’t trust me to go by myself, but she was right. I wouldn’t have bothered going. Still, I felt bad. Bad for Mom. Bad for Nora James. Bad for me for being such a douche all the time.
     
    I stared at some government ad playing on the window by Mom’s head. Consumption is one of our freedoms , it said. Then the ad flipped to one for Home Security Depot. They were having a sale on surveillance and spy cameras this week. One of the cameras looked just like a pair of expensive sunglasses. I clicked the icon, and the scene shifted to a backyard pool party. A woman wearing shades hands a man a plate of hot dogs. The tag line said, Think your neighbor’s not a Good Citizen? Capture the proof, and look good doing it.
     
    Okay, in the grand scheme of things, I wasn’t the douche.
     
    That ad rolled right into another government PSA, this one about the quote-unquote Coalition. Anyone can be an extremist , the bold type said as a sea of faces flashed by. Each one looked oh so innocent until they turned to the camera with a knowing, villainous smirk that said they wouldn’t have any trouble blowing up your car or the occasional coffee shop.
     
    The smirk dissolved into the ever-lovely face of Channel 5 Action News reporter Rebecca Starr. She is hot, especially when she’s wearing a really tiny shirt. You can just see the hint of a tattoo—a tiger claw—reaching over her shoulder. I imagined the beast climbing up her back, one paw sunk into her shoulder, head turned and fangs bared, ready to fend off the world. Today, the Coalition claimed responsibility for a hijacking attempt on a flight into Geneva. Press Secretary, Aurora Adams, renewed the president’s