…By his thirdweek at Bonner High, Iggy hates it a little bit less than on day one, and it’s all due to the folks he’s met at play practice. The other stage crew volunteers are a friendly group, and unlike most other cliques, they accept the New Kid into their circle. Maybe not with open arms, but no one’s shoving him into lockers or bumping into him at the water fountain.
The only place he can’t find real peace is during lunch, because none of his theater friends are in second lunch, not even Monte Montgomery. Iggy particularly enjoys working with Monte on building canvas flats and assembling the first bits of Munchkin Land in the wings of the auditorium stage. In other schools Iggy has attended in the past (too many to count), a guy with Monte’s build and confidence usually plays football, but Monte is…adorably clumsy.
Almost comically clumsy, and at the end of practice yesterday, Monte had the white paint splatters in his hair and on his face to prove it.
It sucks they don’t have any classes together. Iggy looks for him in the hall, but other than first period, when their classrooms are nearby, they never cross paths. So, when the last bell rings, and Monte doesn’t show for stage crew, Iggy is flustered. Confused.
Annoyed as hell.
He asks a few folks if Monte is sick, and a shy, black-haired girl fond of kohl eyeliner says he wasn’t in their biology class today. Monte doesn’t have a cell phone, which is a little unusual, but not everyone does, and the school has a working payphone still. Iggy has no idea where Monte lives other than “in Chance,”and even if he knew, who goes knocking on their new friend’s door because they miss one day of school?
Losers, that’s who.
The next afternoon, Monte shows up after Beth has divvied up the day’s work, and he barely returns Iggy’s greeting. Even more annoyed at being dissed, Iggy waits until Monte takes three paint rollers over to the utility sink and corners him there, away from the other worker bees.
“What’s up, dude?” Iggy asks. “You sick yesterday?”
Monte’s shoulders hunch up, and he stays angled over the sink. His response is muffled by the running water.
“What?” He pokes Monte in the left shoulder to get his attention. Monte yelps and his entire body jerks away, all three rollers clattering into the sink.
Monte reaches back to rub his upper arm, a little too wild-eyed for Iggy’s liking. “Yeah, I was sick, so what? You the call-out police now?”
“You hurt your shoulder?”
“Yeah. So?”
Iggy frowns, concern overriding his irritation. He’s been in and out of foster homes and temporary placements most of his life, and he’s seen some shit. He knows when someone’s hiding a bruise or a sore muscle. “What’d you do? Walk into a fist?”
Monte’s face reddens, and his lip curls back. “Fuck off, Donohue. It’s not your business.”
His entire spine snaps from half-serious to fully invested. “Monte, for real, are you hurt?”
“Leave it.”
Iggy opens his mouth to argue, and he’s cut off by Beth, who asks him to pick up a paint order from the hardware store. She knows Iggy drives Uncle Howie’s car to school most days, since Uncle Howie’s commute is literally a hundred feet across gravel.
“Sure, and Malcolm here can help me load it all,” Iggy says, jacking his thumb at Monte.
“Fine, just don’t take forever,” she replies, her attention already back on her ever-present clipboard. “We need the gold if we’re ever going to get the yellow brick road started.”
“On it, boss.”
Monte grumbles about being volunteered, but follows Iggy out of the school and to the station wagon without real comment. Once the heat is blasting, and Iggy is navigating his way toward the store, Iggy asks, “You got Epsom salts at home?”
“What salt?” In the bright daylight, Monte’s wide eyes betray a new shadow Iggy didn’t notice before. “Like, for the sidewalk?”
“No, dummy, like for sore muscles and bruises. You put it in a hot bath and soak for a while.”
Monte doesn’t reply right away; he also doesn’t tell Iggy to shut the fuck up and mind his own business. He seems thoughtful. “Does it work?”
“Sometimes.”
Another few minutes pass, and Iggy’s heart is starting to pound. He hates that he’s guessed something correctly, but he loves that Monte is trying to be honest here. They’re friends of two weeks, and have never interacted off school grounds until today. Monte owes him nothing.
“You have, uh, experience with that?” Monte finally asks, faint, difficult to hear over the station wagon’s engine.
“Yeah.” Iggy hazards a glance to his right, and he’s surprised to meet Monte’s eyes. Briefly, because he’s driving, but those eyes flash with so many things. Anger, concern, confusion, shame, all emotions Iggy knows personally. “I live with my uncle, because my parental units constantly malfunction. Last fall, they both terminated their parental rights, and instead of going back into the foster system, Uncle Howie took me. Permanently.”
