Page 3 of Sweet Tooth
“Not by choice,” he was saying. “My dad used to be a history teacher. After my mom died, we weren’t so good at talking to each other, so that’s what he’d do. Spit history facts at me, then quiz me on them later.”
“Oh, I’m…”
“Sorry,” he said. “I know. It’s fine. It’s been years now.”
“You must have a good memory,” I said to change the subject, feeling bad. You didn’t meet many kids our age who had lost a parent. Most were just split up like mine.
“I guess.” Another one of his half-shrugs. “Makes no difference though if you don’t study.”
I said nothing to that although I did take another sidelong look at what he was wearing. The black snug-fitting shirt and faded grey jeans gave away nothing. Usually hot guys were popular jocks, but he wasn’t wearing any polos. He didn’t have the shoes, hat,s or oversize clothes to be a gangster, nor did he have the slightly-off apparel or the awkward self-consciousness of the nerds.
Listen to yourself, I scolded myself. Why can’t he just be some cool new guy – why do you have to throw him into a category within the first five minutes of talking to him?
I knew the answer. Because, if I figured out who he was, then I could figure out if this whole presentation and tour thing was just a blip, just a new guy getting his bearings. Going for easy pickings for a first friend.
Tamara and I weren’t universally scorned, but we were pretty close to the bottom of the social pole. We didn’t get cute, popular guys talking to us, unless it was some douchebag thinking he was doing us a favor with one of his creepy suggestions.
As the tour went on – from the library, to the gym, and finally to the café.
“Sorry for keeping you from lunch,” he said as we stopped at my locker.
I opened it, rifling through its messy paper and random crap stuffed depths for my lunchbox.
“You really like frogs, eh?” he asked. He indicated the floor, where a frog pen, a frog eraser, and a picture of two crying frogs Tamara and I had drawn in History one time when we were bored lay.
“Yeah,” I said. “I have a bit of a problem.”
As we walked away, he turned around. “603,” he said to himself, as if committing my locker number to memory.
At my questioning look, he shrugged. “Now I know where to find you.”
As if realizing how weird what he’d said was, he frowned. “If I need to, I mean.”
“Cool,” I finally said.
“So about lunch,” he said as I closed my locker. “Let me get you something as a thank you.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “I was about to die there in class, couldn’t remember anything about the War of 1812, so we’re even now.”
“You like cookies?” he said.
“Yeah, but I have to meet someone,” I lied.
“Ok.” He shrugged. “Suit yourself. See ya.”
Only once I was safely inside the bathroom stall did I allow myself to breathe. Just being in his presence like that, with him so close, so sure of himself had me all disoriented.
He hardly knew me and yet he seemed kind of into me. I frowned at my frog pen, which I’d been unknowingly clutching all this time, tucking it into my hoodie pocket.
The guy had to be screwing with me.
After lunch, when I got back to my locker, it was official. There, on my locker door, was the note – cut into the shape of a frog: WHAT ARE YOU DOING TONIGHT? it said, and I didn’t have to ask who it was from.
I stared at it for a few minutes, my heartbeat all the way up into my throat.
BUSY, I scrawled, hurrying away.
Whatever this Zane guy was playing at, I wasn’t interested.
Next day, a new frog-shaped note was there. AND TONIGHT? its message read.
STILL BUSY, I scrawled back.
“You really should give him a chance,” Tamara chastised me in class, after I’d avoided meeting Zane’s eye. “He seems legit. Mandy told me he told off Gillie for being a bitch in gym.”
“What?” I asked, my eyes nearly popping out of my head.
People didn’t tell off Gillie the same way you didn’t point a machine gun at the President. It just didn’t happen.
“Apparently she was making fun of Bertha for not being good at volleyball, when he stepped in. Served a ball right at her head.”
“Oh my God,” I said, quietly cracking up.
“I know, right?” Tamara fixed me with a look. “So, don’t be an idiot, please. Just give him a chance.”
“I’ll see,” I said, still sure his interest in me was some kind of a set up for a cruel joke. I mean, I wasn’t hideous or anything like that, but I didn’t see myself anywhere near the level of someone as hot as Zane Matthews.
