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“Well,” Kota said, picking up his book bag and standing. “I want to check out the library. Anyone else going?”
“I will,” I said. I had no idea where the library was and I was curious about it. “We should probably pick up at least one of those books for English, right?”
Kota brightened at the suggestion. “Might as well start now.”
“Aw come on, it’s the first day,” Gabriel complained. “Stay here with us, Sang.”
“You should get one, too,” I said. “Come on. We’ll all get the same book and then we can compare notes.”
He seemed to like this idea and he picked up his book bag.
“I guess I should go, too,” Luke said. He grabbed the notebook I had given him earlier. There were doodles on the front cover. At least he used it for something.
When his head tilted, I recognized my clip. His blond locks were pulled back and twisted in a similar way that I did mine.
I smirked at him. “Nice hair,” I said.
He looked surprised and reached back, his fingers catching the curve of the clip. “Like it? It’s a new thing I picked up.”
“He threatened me in the hallway, Sang,” Gabriel whined. “I didn’t want to give it to him. I was going to give it back. Eventually.”
I sighed. Luke was right. I’d need to bring reserve clips around Gabriel. Perhaps even additional spares for Luke.
We were headed out of the courtyard when I noticed Silas was following us. I paused so I could fall back and walk next to him.
“Do you have some required reading, too?”
“No,” he said. “But we’ve got our class coming up. I thought I should stick with you so we could walk together.”
It was so thoughtful and while I wanted to say so, I couldn’t find the words. Instead, I smiled as warmly as I could. He dipped his hands into his pockets as we followed Kota up the main stairwell and through a set of hallways.
The second floor was empty.
“How come no one hangs out up here?” I asked.
“They probably aren’t supposed to,” Kota said. “There are lockers up here. I imagine they don’t want to encourage theft or property damage.”
Still, there was no one around to tell us to not be there. I wondered how well those upper hallways were monitored.
We found the library at the end of one long hallway, as if tucked away in the most distant corner of the school. Kota held the door open for us and we all stepped in.
The library appeared to be the same size as my garage at home. Shelves were lined up around the walls of the room. There were a handful of older computers in one corner with Windows 2000 screensavers. There was a small circulation desk, painted in orange and brown and two women with peach-tinted hair and glasses stood guard behind it.
We were the only students in the library. The librarians’ eyes followed us as we moved toward the walls of shelves. It was hard to tell if we were unexpected or if they felt they needed to monitor us so we didn’t damage or steal anything.
“Hm,” Kota said, looking through the rows of books. “It appears to be only encyclopedias and all the required reading books. Not a lot of other options.”
I picked up a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, the cover was torn in half and the binding was a little loose. “Good thing we came today. There are only a handful of copies of each.”
Everyone except Silas debated on which book to start with but it was Kota that decided to start with Dracula. “It’s one of the only ones with four copies available. We’ll go somewhere else for the next book. I feel guilty as it is just taking their last copies of this.”
“I’ve read a few of these already,” I said, checking out the reading list again.
“I know. Me, too,” he said. “Save the ones you’ve already read just in case things get busy later. If not, we’ll use things we’ve already read for the last couple of tests and have an easy time before finals.”
That was pretty clever thinking. I was happy that Kota was there or I would have been tempted to reread something I already knew.
We were at the circulation desk before I realized the others had pulled out cards.
“Do I need a library card?” I asked. “It hadn’t occurred to me that there might be one. In my last school, the librarian just typed in your name.”
“It’s a school ID,” Luke said. “You were supposed to go get one during study hall... oh wait, that’s right. You didn’t get a study hall.”
I rubbed a fingertip over my eyebrow. “I didn’t realize we needed one.”
Kota took the book from me. “I’ll get this. Silas, you go with her to get her ID.”
“Are you sure?” I asked Kota.
He smiled at me and nodded. “Don’t worry. If you forget to turn it in, I know where you live. I’ll come by and get it.”
My eyes widened and he laughed. He knew how to keep me in line.
I walked alongside Silas through the quiet hallways. It was starting to feel like a rush to get everything done today. I felt flustered trying to come up with something to talk about but he seemed content to walk quietly beside me.
“You’re going to join the baseball team here, right?” I asked, finally settling for sports. I knew he liked baseball.
“I’m considering changing my mind,” he said. “I checked out the field and it looks pretty bad. Besides, the football coach was bugging me this morning about try outs.”
I looked up at him but he stared at the ground, his face unreadable. “Football isn’t your favorite?”
“Not really.”
“So why settle for football? Why not go with something you love?”
He shrugged. “Not everything works out the way you want it to.”
“It should,” I said. I felt it was true. There was so much fun stuff to do out there and it seemed silly to waste time with doing something you didn’t want. I spent a lot of time at my parents’ house when other kids were in dancing school or summer camps or going to the park to play. Even now my mind was turning as to what I could do, what my parents would allow for me to do, that involved more time away from the house. “Maybe the baseball team could use a player like you. Someone with talent and passion for the game. It might inspire others to play.”
His lips curled up. “Perhaps. I might do both. Football for the fall, baseball in the spring. Mr. Blackbourne might want me to do it, anyway. I may try to convince North to go with me.”
“Does North like sports?”
“Watching them,” he said. “He hates playing. He doesn’t really like being told what to do.”
Silas lead the way to the offices downstairs and near the front of the building. We followed a small corridor near the nurses’ office. A round wood table had been set up with a computer hooked to a camera and a printing station. A teacher sat by a machine. She asked my name, typed it in a computer and had me stand in front of a blue sheet of paper that had been taped to the wall.
I was waiting for the photo to flash when Silas got into my line of sight. “Smile,” he said.
I blushed. “It’s just a school photo.”
He shrugged. “Do it anyway. Say cheese or fiddlesticks or San Francisco or whatever.”
I felt my lips moving into a grin hearing him say fiddlesticks and the camera light flashed. Red and green colors washed over my eyes.
In five minutes, I had a photo ID where my cheeks were pink and I had a crazy smile. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had my picture taken, so my face looked strange to me.
“I look terrible,” I said, holding my ID up and analyzing how my hair looked mangled on one side.
“Let me see,” Silas said, reaching for the card. He tilted it toward his face, angling it away from a gleam of light reflected in it. “It’s not bad. You’re cute.”
I rubbed my hands over my cheeks as they felt hot. “I only have to use it if they ask for it, right? And for the library?”
“I think they use it as your yearbook picture, too.”
My eyes widened. He broke into a grin and started laughing.
“That’s not funny,” I said, reaching for the ID.
He held it up over my head. “I might keep this. I don’t have a picture of you.”
