The Big Crunch Read Free

closed.
    June’s parents had rented a house eleven blocks away from Wellstone High. Her mother had presented this information to her as if it were a gift.
    “I know you hated that long bus ride in Schaumburg, so we found this place close to your new school.”
    June knew that her convenience had nothing to do with why her parents had chosen this house. The fact that it was near school was purely coincidental, but her mother, typically, had taken credit for supposedly making sacrifices to enhance her poor, pathetic daughter’s life.
    “You can walk to school in five minutes,” her mother had said.
    More like ten,
June thought. “What about in winter? When it’s, like, twenty below? I’ll freeze.”
    “It doesn’t get
that
cold here.”
    “We’re in Minnesota, aren’t we? Icebox of the nation?” Not that what she said could have changed anything.
    She had timed herself on the way to school that morning. Eleven minutes, thirty-four seconds. If they were still living here in January — no sure thing — eleven minutes, thirty-four seconds was enough time to book a serious frostbite.
    She decided to time herself again on the way home. Maybe she could cut her time down to ten minutes if she walked faster and cut a few corners.
    Unfortunately, Naomi Liddell latched on to her as she was leaving the school and yakked her ears raw with something about the school paper. June didn’t know what Naomi was going on about, except that she seemed intent on getting June involved in some sort of after-school activity involving sticking address labels on envelopes. June finally extricated herself by saying she had a dentist appointment, which she didn’t.
    “Which dentist do you see?” Naomi asked.
    “Um, I don’t know.” That was the problem with lies. They got complicated. “My mom made the appointment.”
    “I bet it’s Posnick. He’s nice.”
    “I’ll let you know,” June said, edging away. She checked the time on her cell phone. “I gotta go.” She started walking fast.
    “See you tomorrow!” Naomi called after her.
    June put Naomi out of her mind and gave herself to the rhythm of her heels scuffing the sidewalk. About halfway home she saw a boy ahead of her going in the same direction but walking much more slowly. As she drew closer she noticed his hair — pale brown, kind of on the long side — and his shirt — plaid, unbuttoned, tails flapping in the light breeze. Faded black jeans. Dirty white basketball shoes. He was shuffling along, in no hurry, but every few steps he would sort of skip, or maybe he was kicking something.
    He was kicking a rock, moving it down the sidewalk in front of him.
    June slowed down when she got about twenty paces behindhim. She didn’t want to startle him and throw him off his rhythm. He had probably been kicking that same rock for blocks.
    On the other hand, she was making good time, and she hated that this guy was holding her up. She sped up her pace and walked past him, staying out of the way of the rock by walking on the grassy strip between the sidewalk and the street. As they came next to each other, she glanced over at him and their eyes met. He kicked the rock too hard; it bounced up onto somebody’s lawn. June gave him a flat smile and kept walking, but the image of his face stayed with her, those startled brown eyes, that open mouth. He reminded her of other boys she’d met, but there was also something different. Something about those eyes, the way he looked at her.
    Aqua Girl walked really fast. Wes tried to match her speed, but he couldn’t do it without sort of half running. He gave up after a few seconds; the gap between them widened.
    He kept following her even after passing Fourteenth Street, the street that led, after another mile of nearly identical houses, to the nearly identical house where he lived.
    The girl kept up her rapid pace for several blocks, then turned a corner.
    Wes, a block behind her, sped up until he was almost to the corner, then