Out of Order Read Free Page B

ever had, he only asks me stuff I can answer.
    So I give in. “Bad,” I tell him. “I’d feel bad.”
    â€œThat’s right,” agrees Mr. Hammond, nodding. Then he moves on, going off on another subject, blah blah blah, blah blah blah. And after a while I forget to try to listen, and look outside. I’d rather be someplace that doesn’t have a ceiling or floor, where the air is fresh and not canned. I’d rather be anywhere, walking around or running or hitting balls, than be in here having to sit in the same place and keep my comments to myself and my hands and feet still.
    Hammond’s on the other side of the room, still talking. I pick up my pencil, hunch over my folder so my body looks like I’m taking notes.
    The grass outside is the same color as honey. The sky’s got no clouds, it’s blue like the soft little sweater Grace wore last night, the one with no sleeves.
    I wish I could not care about her at all. Just until she gets over being mad.
    Anybody besides me, he’d have already moved on—or he’d be able to at least act like he had.
    It ought to be easy to move on. Grace wouldn’t know how to flirt if you handed her written instructions. Her number-one handicap is that she’s very intellectual and serious-minded.
    Me, I do know how to flirt, and I’m about as unserious and unintellectual as you can get. I can hardly keep up with all her bullshit talk about writing and books and movies, excuse me, films .
    Maybe that’s why I’ve got to prove to myself and everybody else that I can have her.
    A hand gently comes down on my pencil—and I realize I’ve been tapping it on the desk. Ratta-tat, ratta-tat, ratta-tat. Like a very small machine gun.
    â€œâ€˜He was energy itself,’” Mr. Hammond’s voice booms, because he’s the one looming above me—Pay attention, Colt!
    I put my pencil down and Mr. Hammond’s hand leaves, but he stays there, inches from my desk, reading from the piece of paper in his hand. “‘…and shed around him a kindling influence, an atmosphere of life.’”
    He always does this—somehow he knows when I’m not really paying attention, so he brings his lecture over right in front of my desk.
    â€œâ€˜He was a man,’” Mr. Hammond reads off the printout, “‘without a mask.’”
    I do what I always do—I stare right at him, so nobodyknows I have no clue what he’s talking about, and nobody can complain how I’m not paying attention. It’s an old trick—just look the teacher right between the eyes, just keep your own eyes glued to that one spot on the bridge of their nose, and then your mind can wander wherever it wants.
    Where my mind wants to wander is Grace.
    That’s the story of my life. The same thing’s always going to happen. No matter what I do or don’t do, I’m always going to end up right back where I started, with Grace stuck inside me like an arrowhead broken off the whatdyacallit. The stick part with the feathers.
    Â 
    Fifth period, I’m an assistant. That means instead of taking a regular class, you sign up to help some teacher; grading papers, running errands, whatever. Usually you have to be an honor-roll student before you get to be somebody’s assistant, but Coach Kline talked Miss A., who teaches English, into taking me on. Coach knows I don’t do too good in some of my classes, and his thinking was that I could use this time as a study hall, plus get help from Miss A. if I need it.
    At first I thought it was cool. Not only would I have a free hall pass, but Miss A. also teaches journalism, so I get to be all by myself in this little room that joins Miss A.’s classroom. It’s the one where the newspaper staffhas their meetings. There’s a door that opens out into the hall, and there’s also a phone in here.
    It’s not so cool now. There’s