What We Hide (28 page)

“A tie is not a
helmet
!”

“I know that, Jenn.”

“Did you have to tell Mom and Dad?”

“Not yet. Never, if I can avoid it. Pray that the college holds off. And that includes you, unless you want your tongue sliced and fed to pigeons. Listen to me. There’s an outcome. If I never get high again—”

“Ha! What are the chances of that?” I’d say zero. “You’re high right now!”

Click
. Eyes again. “I’m ignoring your negative vibes. If I chill on smoking. If I can possibly manage to chill on smoking. Which I really, really mean to. Today is my farewell stone. If I go to every lecture. If I miraculously pass my exams next week with gold stars. If all that happens, I get another hearing instead of expulsion.”

“Instead of the army, you mean.”

“Right.”

I lay down with my head on his knee. “You better,” I whispered. “You really better, Tom-Tom.”

He laid a hand on my head and patted ever so gently.

The bell rang for the end of lessons.

“And!” I popped back up. “You write to Matt. Right away.”

He sighed, sort of a moan. “Matt wrote to me,” he said. “That’s what killed me. Him being plucky as hell, telling me plans for after.”

“Or, better yet,
ten
letters.”

“I get it. I hear you. It’s a deal.” He lay back against the lumpy cushions. “Do you think I could stay on this sofa tonight? It’s not in me to hitch back.”

“It’s called thumbing.” Maybe he could pull off his plan, gold stars and all. He was lazy but also crazy smart. “We’re having baked beans for tea. It’s the worst food you’ll ever eat. Wouldn’t you rather sleep in one of the boys’ dorms, if there’s a bed?”

“Seriously, no. I’d have to participate in a schoolboy ritual or something drastic. Can’t I just stay here?”

“I’ll have to ask Richard. The headmaster.”

“Jolly good.”

A church bell in town chimed on the hour. We heard midnight and then waited at the top of the stairs for another many minutes to make sure. Four of us from the girls’ dorms, plus Percy, converged in the corridor outside the kitchen with only one flashlight among us.

“You’re bleeding useless,” whispered Penelope, aiming the beam at the door. “Brenda will come with me, since this is her big adventure. You others wait here to receive the goods.” They were back in under a minute, giggling like maniacs, balancing two baking trays covered in foil.

“Come on, come on, come on!” Percy hopped up and down in socks.

“Did you get cutlery? Napkins?”

“Jesus, do you think we’re at the Buckingham Hotel?”

Tom was not thrilled at first to have a party land on his sofa, but we soon won him over. The flashlight battery died after a few minutes, making the library grow in size, especially with a half-moon glimmering through the window.

“I count twenty-six baked apples,” said Kirsten. “Enough for six of us, do you think?”

Not having spoons or plates, we hovered around the pans, slurping sugary apple flesh and trying not to touch anything else with sticky fingers. We finished off about half before they lost their appeal.

“We’d better return the leftovers,” said Brenda. “Think how ticked Vera will be at dinner tomorrow to find some missing!” She volunteered to tiptoe back with the trays, and I helped her put things away.

“It’s just how I fancied it would be.” Brenda’s voice was eerie in the unlit kitchen hallway. “Staying in the dormitory, mucking about all night, being silly. Dream come true.”

“It’s not always like this. Usually we sleep.”

“For me, it’s my one go. It’ll be this way forever, noshing stolen apples in the dark. Like one of Richard’s poems, you know? ‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may’ …?”

I laughed. “I never thought of you as the poetry-reciting type.”

“One of my hidden talents,” said Brenda. “Learned at Ill Hall.”

We crept back, feet getting bloody cold on the stone floor.

“Oi!”
Penelope whispered urgently from partway up the stairs. “Hairy Mary on the prowl! Percy made a racket so she’s trailing him to Kipling. Kirsten’s gone up. Come on!”

Barely swallowing laughter, we tore upward, completely breathless on the Austen landing, peering over the railing to the dark depths below. All quiet. Brenda crept back into the dorm, but Pen and I settled our bums on the top step, not ready for the night to end.

“Hot gossip out of Brontë,” said Penelope. “Oona got off with Nico
again
! According to her, anyway. Can you imagine? After all that remorse about betraying Sarah. It’s just too foul.”

“Speaking of betrayal …,” I said.

“It’s nothing,” said Penelope. “Your brother and me. Don’t turn it into drama.”

“That’s not what I meant,” I said. “I was wondering about Kirsten. She was a bit chilly tonight.” With good reason, seemed to me.

Penelope did that shrugging thing, lifting her hair and letting it settle in rippling waves. “She’ll forgive me eventually. She always does. I truly didn’t mean …”

Was it that easy? Would Pen be so forgiving if given the chance? Was it trusting, or blind, to assume that a friendship would go on even when the truth came out?

“I have to tell you something,” I whispered. We were side by side, snug on the step, so I didn’t actually have to look Pen in the eye.

“Matt is not my boyfriend.” There. I’d said it. “When you asked me, that first day, I said yes, because I … I think I
wish that he was … Because I love him. But he’s not my boyfriend. That was a lie.”

“Surprise, surprise.”

“That’s it? No evil comment?”

“I’ll think of something. Before you leave.” She slipped off a sock, scratched an ankle. “We’re all hiding something, you know.”

“What if I don’t leave? What if I … tell my parents I want to stay?”

“That would be … grand.”
Grand
means “grand.” “Is it scary? Having Matt over there?”

“Scary as hell,” I said.

Tap, tap, tap …
Hairy Mary’s shoes clicked and echoed on the lower stairs. We scrambled for the Austen dorm.

My bed was still covered in neatly folded piles of rags. I shoveled them into the empty trunk, not minding how they landed. I wasn’t leaving. One semester wasn’t enough. I’d ring my parents tomorrow, after I told Tom the plan.

He would write to Matt. He would pass his exams. We would go home for Christmas and send a huge care package to Vietnam. Peanut butter,
Star Trek
comics, jelly beans …

We would
both
come back to school. Tom not stoned, but straight. I’d make him. And me, straight too, no lies.

I’d pack a ton of regular clothes. Bell-bottom jeans. A peasant blouse. A miniskirt.

I brushed the lint off my pillow, peeled the checklist
from inside the lid of my trunk. What you arrive with is never what you take home anyway.

I crawled under the flannel sheet and gray wool blanket. The first few minutes in bed were always freezing. I would bring a duvet too, after the break. I lay for a long time, my cheek in a perfect hollow of the pillow, listening to the others breathing, letting myself get warm.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Martha Slaughter, Hannah Jocelyn, Michele Spirn, and especially Catherine Nichol, for early input.

Thanks also to the short story workshop of Paulette Bates Alden as part of the Key West Literary Seminar, and to the Access Copyright Foundation for funding my attendance there.

About the Author

M
ARTHE
J
OCELYN
is the author of several award-winning novels and has also written and illustrated picture books. Her novels for Wendy Lamb Books include
Folly, How It Happened in Peach Hill
, and
Would You
. She lives in Stratford, Ontario, Canada. Visit her at
marthejocelyn.com
and
sneakyart.com
.