The Julian Game Read Free

quiet and penis are almost identical.
    But nobody else in the class got it, and I felt somewhat creepy-geeky that I did. It had been a trend in my old school to learn all the dirty words in Chinese, and then to use them liberally—preferably in front of our clueless parents.
    “Miss Parker,” said Filth, in English and smirking, “you are confusing a noun and an adjective. Try again.”
    “Was it penis in the market?” Ella asked carefully.
    Now Filth laughed outright. Beebee had typed the word into her MacBook. “Ew, Ella, careful,” she warned. “ Ying jing means ‘dick.’”
    The class exploded. Expressionless, Ella stood and removed her petal pink gloves, slapping them five times into the palm of her hand. She always did things like that. Little touches and taps and knocks.
    In the next second, she was out of there.
    “Mr. Phillstack, can I follow her?” Beebee wasn’t in the Group, but she was captain of the varsity field hockey team, which made her Ella’s closest contact, status-wise.
    “Why? So you two can jabber in the bathroom until end bell? Don’t think so.” Filth pointed. “Raye Archer. Go retrieve Ella.”
    Me, because I was least likely to jabber with Ella? But I went. Checking a few places along the way—library lounge, soda pit, bathrooms, cafeteria. Ella had a thing for the cafeteria’s kitchen. I’d seen her zip in there for the Clorox spray to wipe down her table before eating at it, and sometimes to wash her hands under the high-pressure sink faucet.
    That’s where I found her. Sudsing away.
    “Filth told me to get you.”
    “He’s such an ass. Laughing at me.”
    “I guess he thought it was funny.”
    “Let’s see if that old fart’s still jolly when I get him fired. Set his screensaver to porn or something.” She turned off the taps and wiped her hands. Up, down, up on a dishtowel. “He’s out for me. My last test looked like his pen had hemorrhaged red ink.”
    “Everyone knows Filth’s an idiot. Honestly? I could teach you better with one arm tied behind my back,” I said on i mpulse.
    Her answering stare flattened me. “Doubt it.”
    “Well, okay, if Chinese isn’t your thing,” I continued quickly, “then what about Spanish? It’s way less—”
    “Because my parents think I need it for college,” Ella snapped. “Even though I told them nobody else is taking it. They don’t get it’s like the hardest language invented.”
    Nobody else . She didn’t even hear how insulting that was. I decided to ignore it. “Yeah, the tonal stresses are tough for me.”
    “Oh, shut up. You’re the Sophie Fulton-Glass Scholar. You go to Fulton for free. You get straight A’s. You’ve got your room all picked out at Princeton, right?”
    “Ha,” I answered, though it was all true. Except the room at Princeton.
    “And my parents won’t let me take Spanish—they think it’s a cop-out. They both graduated Harvard, and they’re clinging to this moosick fantasy that I might go there, too. My sister’s a junior.”
    What did Ella want me to say? “I understand.”
    “Except my point is that you don’t.”
    How had this turned into a debate? I’d completely annoyed Ella Parker, and I hadn’t done a thing. But still I wanted to soothe her. “There’s more to smart than school smarts,” I said. “And you’re all over me on that.”
    She looked at me hard. “How?”
    “People watch you. You have a way of doing things.”
    “What things?”
    “I don’t know.” I stammered to explain it. “You’ve always got the best line.” She was waiting for an example. “Last week in chorus, you told that freshman Jillian Sweeney to move it, since her bad breath was bleaching your eyebrows. The way you said it made everyone laugh.” Except Jillian, who’d turned bright red.
    “It did smell rank.” Ella shrugged, but I sensed that she was pleased. “And I like to tell the truth.”
    “Exactly.”
    She touched a finger to the spigot. Tapped it seven times.