“It’s my grade, too.”
“You don’t need experience with dissections to design games.”
“And you do?”
“I’m going to be a doctor.”
Kenji looked surprised.
“What? You don’t think I can?”
“I didn’t say that. I just... I thought you were a candy striper.”
Shewas,until Helen made her quit. Marigold made a clean cut along the pig’s intestines, her nostrils flaring from the smell of formaldehyde. “So you thought I wanted to be a nurse.”
“Is that why you study so hard?”
I study “so hard” because my parents still dilute our dishwashing soap to save money, because whenever Dad gambles we go without meat so that we can pay our rent. Because if I don’t get a scholarship, I won’t be able to affordcollege.But Marigold said none of this. Kenji’s family was solidly middle class—she could tell from the stack of comics in his locker, all owned instead of borrowed from the library, how he didn’t have a job after school like she did, how he went to the cinema with friends on Saturdays.
“I want to help fix people,” she replied.
“Fix people? You make it sound like they’re cars.”
“Why not? Our heart’s a battery, our brain an engine, our lungs a radiator.” She set down the scalpel. Kenji never wore his stupid grin around her anymore, but she found his blank, deadpan look even more unnerving. No doubt he was mocking her in his head. “What are you going to fix with your games?”
“Games make people happy.”
She pointed at his hand with her chin. “Do you even know you’ve got a torn tendon? You should see the nurse.”
Kenji trained his attention back on his notes, where, in spite of his injury, he was sketching the fetal pig. “It’ll heal.”
“It’ll heal crooked.” For the captain of the baseball team, she couldn’t believe how little he worried about an injury to his hand. Exchanging her lab gloves for her black ones, she took out the blue box she kept in her backpack.
She opened it cautiously, as not to dislodge the contents, which were fitted neatly into place. On top were her old silk gloves from the attic—worn only sparingly these days, though she still brought them everywhere. Under those were extra leather finger pads, tweezers, pencil grips, folding scissors, antiseptic wipes, a roll of gauze, Tylenol—Marigold liked preparing for little catastrophes, sparks-related or not, but she hadn’t planned on binding her enemy’s sports injury. She took her wooden pencil and cut it in two with her scissor blade.
“Here,” she said tersely, “you should splint that.”
“I’m right-handed. Can you help?”
A muscle ticked in Marigold’s jaw as she obliged. It was tempting to wrap the gauze extra tight, but she didn’t. There, it was done. Quite a professional-looking job, too.
“Thank you.”
Marigold avoided acknowledging him and stole a peek at his sketch instead. His rendering of the pig’s anatomy was impressive, better than the textbook, even.
“You labeled the thymus and trachea wrong,” she pointed out when he looked up.
“Thanks.” He made the change. “I’ll make a photocopy at lunch. Pass to you in English?”
“No thanks.”
“You’re doing the lab, you haven’t had time to take notes.”
She took a firmer tone. “I said no thanks.”
“Hey. Marigold.” Kenji sounded serious. “Why do you hate me so much? Is it because I’m Japanese?” He sounded distraught when she didn’t respond. “C’mon, you can’t really think that. My family’s been here four generations—my uncles foughtagainstJapan in the war.”
Marigold said nothing. The truth was, she wondered if her hostility toward Kenji had gone on long enough. She still didn’t know why he’d swung the baseball bat into the car, but he’d become more serious since middle school, more careful in his words and demeanor.
