Avalon High Part 4

A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,

He rode between the barley-sheaves,

The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves,

And flamed upon the brazen greaves

Of bold Sir Lancelot.

I took the bus to school the next day. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Liz, the girl from the track team who lived nearby, was waiting at the stop, so we started talking, then ended up sitting next to each other.

Liz is a high jumper. She let me know right away that she doesn't have a boyfriend or a driver's license yet.

I knew we had solid groundwork for friends.h.i.+p based on the latter two facts alone.

I didn't mention to Liz that A. William Wagner had visited me after school the day before, then stayed for dinner. For one thing, I didn't want to seem like I was bragging. And for another, well, Liz seemed to really like talking about people in school, and I wasn't entirely convinced it was a good thing to have spread around. That Will had come over to my house, I mean.

I got a pretty good idea, in fact, that it was a bad thing when I closed my locker a few periods later and found Jennifer Gold standing on the other side of it, not looking too happy.

"I hear Will came over to your house for dinner last night," Jennifer said, in a distinctly unfriendly voice.

Since I hadn't told anyone that Will had been over, I knew the spillage was courtesy of him. Unless Jennifer had spies in my neighborhood, or something, which seemed unlikely.

So I just said, wondering why tiny girls like Jennifer always get the tallest boyfriends, leaving all the pip-squeaks for giraffes like me, "Yes. He did."

But Jennifer didn't say what I expected her to say. She didn't go, "Well, he's my boyfriend, so hands off," or "If you so much as look at him again, you're a dead woman."

Instead she asked me a question: "Did he say anything about me?"

I looked down at Jennifer wondering if she, like her boyfriend, was also suffering from some kind of mild form of psychosis-only in her case, not on account of liking me.

She looked sane enough in her pale pink cotton sweater set and capris. But it's hard to tell if someone's crazy just by how they dress. The cheerleaders at my old school dressed totally regular, but a couple of them were certifiable.

"Um," I said. "No."

"Or Lance?" Jennifer's perfectly made-up eyes narrowed. "Did he say anything about Lance?"

"Only," I said, "that the two of them sailed up the coast this summer. Why?"

But Jennifer didn't answer my question. She just went, "Good," looking relieved. Then she walked away.

But Jennifer Gold wasn't the only person who asked me about Will that day.

Mr. Morton, my World Lit teacher, announced that for our first nine-week project, he was a.s.signing us each a poem to study and then deliver an oral report about. In front of the whole cla.s.s. The report would count toward twenty percent of our semester grade, and had to include critical, secondary, and source materials.

As if that weren't bad enough, he was also a.s.signing us partners to work with.

Gee, thanks, Mr. Morton.

He handed out our partners' names first. When I got mine, I raised my eyebrows.

Because my partner's name was Lance Reynolds.

Which didn't seem possible, since I'd been certain yesterday that I didn't have any cla.s.ses with the guy. I mean, after all, he was a year older than me, like Will.

But sure enough, when I turned around, there he was in the back of the room. He was looking down at the slip of paper Mr. Morton had handed him, his golden brow furrowed as he tried to figure out who Elaine Harrison was. When he glanced up and saw me staring at him, I raised my own slip and mouthed, "Lucky you."

He didn't react the way I'd have expected a jock who'd been a.s.signed to do a project with the too-tall new girl would. Instead of sn.i.g.g.e.ring or even just nodding, he turned a deep, dark shade of umber. It was kind of interesting to watch, really.

Then Mr. Morton gave us each our poem. Ours was Beowulf.

My heart sank when I saw it. I hate Beowulf almost as much as I hate Jeopardy!

"Right, everyone," Mr. Morton said, in his clipped British accent. "Find your partner and discuss how you'd like to approach your topic. I'd like your outlines on my desk by Friday."

I got up and went back to where Lance was sitting, since it didn't seem likely he was going to come up to me. He was pretending that he didn't see me coming, messing around with his books and everything, when I slid into the empty desk in front of his.

"Hi," I said, in a phony voice, like on a commercial. "I'm Ellie, and I'll be your project partner this semester."

He messed up, though. He'd been trying to pretend like he didn't know who I was. But somehow, "I know," slipped from between his lips, and he turned an even darker shade of red.

This was pretty interesting. I couldn't remember ever having made a guy blush before. I wondered what Lance had heard about me, to make him react that way.

"I...I saw you that day," he stammered, by way of explanation. He didn't look like the kind of guy who stammered often. "That day in the park."

"Oh yeah," I said, like I had only just remembered the incident myself. "Right."

"Will had dinner at your house last night," Lance said. Carefully. Too carefully, I thought. Like he was fis.h.i.+ng for information.

"Yeah," I said. I wondered if he, like Jennifer, was going to ask if Will had talked about him.

But he didn't.

"So," Lance said. "Beowulf, huh?"

"Yeah," I said. "I hate Beowulf."

Lance looked kind of surprised. "You've already read it?"

I realized what kind of dweeb I must have sounded like. I mean, it was bad enough I was even taking World Literature. It's an elective, open to anyone in any grade who's interested-or who needs an extra humanities credit, as Lance evidently did. It was even worse that I'd already read most of the books on the syllabus. On my own. Because they're all the same books that have been sitting on my parents' bookshelves forever, and it's not like I ever had much of a social life, so...

Not wanting to admit this, however, I just said hastily, "Well, yeah. My parents are professors. Medieval studies. Beowulf is kind of their thing."

It was as I was saying this that I noticed a skinny-necked kid in gla.s.ses, sitting one desk over, looking at us very intently. When he saw me glance his way, he went, "Sorry but...did I hear you say you guys have Beowulf?"

"Yeah," I said, glancing over at Lance, who was staring at the kid with narrowed eyes. I recognized the look. It was the kind of look the popular give to the unpopular-like Lance couldn't believe Skinny Neck had had the nerve to speak to him. "So what?"

Skinny Neck glanced nervously at his partner, an equally nerdy-looking kid.

"We love Beowulf," he said, his voice going up a few octaves on the last syllable.

"Yeah," his partner agreed. "Grendel rules."

I supposed Grendel would rule to a couple of guys who, back in the Middle Ages, probably wouldn't have made it past the age of five on account of inhalers not having been invented yet, or whatever.

"What'd you get?" I asked Skinny Neck, referring to his a.s.signed poem.

"Tennyson," Skinny Neck said, making no effort to hide his dissatisfaction.

I recoiled.

"Not The Lady of Shalott," I said, in horror.

"Yeah," Skinny Neck said. Seeing my expression, he added, "It's way shorter than Beowulf."

"Sorry," I said, seeing all too clearly where this was headed. "No can do."

"Wait a minute." Lance b.u.t.ted in. "What's wrong with the shallot lady? If it's short-"

"My mom's writing a book on her," I interrupted, not mentioning the part about having been named for the main character in the poem.

"Then the paper'll be a cinch," Lance said, brightening. "Just ask your mom what to say!"

I stared at him. I couldn't believe this was happening. And yet, at the same time, I sort of could. Which seemed to be how my life was going at Avalon High. Weird and yet strangely not weird.

"Contrary to how you might do your homework," I said, in a desperate effort to save myself from what I saw barreling down on me, knowing full well there was no escape, "I do my homework myself, without my parents' help."

"This one's shorter," Lance said, taking the piece of paper from Skinny Neck's fingers. "We're doing it."

It was obvious there wasn't going to be any discussion, much less arguing, over the issue. Lance had spoken. And what Lance says-it was perfectly clear, even to the new kid, namely me-goes.

I'll admit it. I was peeved. I'm sick of the Lady of Shalott. Her and her stupid robes of snowy white, loosely flying left and right.

"Fine," I said, s.n.a.t.c.hing the topic paper out of his hands. "I'll write it. But you have to stand up in front of the cla.s.s and read it."

The smug expression vanished from Lance's face. "But-"

"You're doing it," I said, matching the tone he'd used with me exactly. "Or we can just flunk, for all I care."

He looked stricken. "I can't get an F. Coach won't let me play."

"Then give the report," I said.

Sinking a little deeper beneath his desk, Lance said, "Whatever," which I-and the nerds, who turned in their seats to give each other high fives, triumphant in having secured Grendel-took to mean he agreed.

When the bell rang, I waited until Lance had cleared the room before I followed him, so we wouldn't have to make awkward conversation out into the hallway. I ended up exiting the cla.s.sroom right behind the nerds....

So I had a front row seat to what happened next.

And that was that some of Lance's friends from the football team met him outside the cla.s.sroom door. Then one of them-either because he was bored, or mean, or possibly a combination of both-reached out and, as one of the nerds in front of me pa.s.sed through the doorway, s.n.a.t.c.hed the kid's notebook.

"Rick," Skinny Neck said, in a disgusted voice. "Give it back."

"Rick," one of Lance's friends echoed in falsetto. "Give it back."

"Get a life," Skinny Neck said, making a grab for the notebook.

But Rick held it high in the air, out of reach of its much shorter owner.

"Get a life," one of the other team members said, in the same falsetto. "Christ, look who's talking."

The nerdy kid looked like he was about to cry. Until a hand belonging to someone taller than all the other jocks reached out and plucked the notebook from Rick's fingers.

"Here, Ted," Will said to Skinny Neck, giving him back his notebook. Ted took it with trembling fingers, his gaze, as he looked up at Will, wors.h.i.+pful.

"Thanks, Will," he said.

"No problem," Will said to the geek. He had not once cracked a smile, and he didn't do so now, either. To Rick, he said, "Apologize."

"Come on, Will," Lance said, in an Aw-Shucks-We-Were-Just-Jos.h.i.+ng manner. "Rick was just messing around with the kid. He-"

Will's voice was cold. "We talked about this," he said. "Apologize to Ted, Rick."

I wasn't a bit surprised when Rick turned to Skinny Neck and said, sounding genuinely regretful, "Sorry."

Because there'd been a steely note in Will's voice that made it clear no one-not even a two-hundred-pound halfback-had better try to mess with him. Or dare to disobey one of his commands.