Page 3 of Hilarina and the Ogre

So far as greetings went, that was rude, but Trenton didn’t seem to think so. The boy was bending over the leg he had up on the bar, and with the comment he lengthened, tightening his core and pulling his shoulders back the way Annette must have taught him. She was a stickler for form.

Hilary took hold of the boy’s ankle and pulled. “You’re pronating inward, that’s why. Imagine a string pulling through your big toe. Try to keep in alignment.”

“Thanks,” Trenton said, and made the fix.

It seemed Annette was right about the boy. Trenton was better than all the other beginners, and young kids usually had the advantage in flexibility. “You do gymnastics, or something?”

“Martial arts,” Trenton answered.

That would do it. Annette used to share a studio with a Taekwondo instructor. Mercedes had been able to do things with her body he could only dream of. She’d been strong as well.

“You shouldn’t date her,” Trenton said.

Hilary had been turning a little, trying to see from his peripherals whether Varda was still watching. Had there been guilt on his face?

“Why not? She’s pretty, isn’t she?”

“She’s popular,” Trenton corrected. “So you think you need her, but you don’t.”

Hilary felt frozen, though inside, his heart rate had ticked up. He knows. Maybe it was crazy to think so. What the hell could the guy know about anything? This was the first time they had spoken.

“It’s not that serious.” Hilary didn’t know why he was answering, or why he was irritated. “What’s wrong with having fun?”

“She’s vicious.”

It was a strange thing to say. Vicious? Varda was an asshole sometimes, and cold, but vicious was going a little far. “And that’s your professional opinion, is it?”

Trenton said nothing. The boy knew being the Whale didn’t exactly put him in a position to be giving social advice about anything.

Hilary turned to go. With any luck, Varda had forgotten the lecture he was meant to be delivering. Annette was busy helping her with the headpiece, and lots of curious little ones were oohing and ahhing over the sight of it. Varda was pretty. Beautiful, even. Hilary hadn’t been lying about that.

“Aspen.” And with that naming, Trenton straightened up, turning to Hilary for the first time. “You should date Aspen.”

The suggestion proved just how out of the loop the boy was. “Doesn’t she like girls?” But that was underselling it. Aspen was a hardcore lesbian. Everyone knew that.

“She likes you too.”

That was even more ludicrous. Hilary had spent about as much time interacting with Aspen as he had with Trenton. Though of course, that wasn’t why Trenton had said it. Almost, Hilary was disappointed. He didn’t think he looked like a girl anymore. Sure, he didn’t grow facial hair and skated the line of pretty more than he did handsome, but he looked male now. He was almost certain of it. Then again, his name had always invited the comparison. “Fuck off.”

As far as retorts went, that wasn’t clever, but he had no interest in being clever.

Hilary took hold of Varda’s arm and pulled her toward the door. Usually, that would have set off a squawk of protest, but she seemed to have been waiting for it. “So is he going to—”

“Ignore him,” Hilary bit off, more annoyed than he wanted to be. “He’s an asshole.”

Chapter Two

Hilarina Ballerina

Hilary’s costume didn’t end up looking as bad as it should have, but it was still bad. The Yeti-corn had been his mother’s idea. She had a jacket of fake fur he could wear, even if it was a bit short in the wrists, and for the horn they’d fashioned something out of tinfoil and painted over it. They’d done the same for the hooves, though Hilary was sure they wouldn’t last the night. He was also sure Varda was going to accuse him of ruining the effect of her much nicer costume, but she only gave him a look of vague disapproval and told him to help fold her into the car. The vampire-mermaid ensemble was magnificent, though of course everyone had expected it to be. Varda was the queen of costume parties, though why she bothered pulling out all the stops for the school’s lame school party Hilary didn’t know.

“How do I look?” she asked as she checked over her makeup in the car’s overhead mirror.

“Really good.” And Hilary wasn’t even lying or using the other Hilary’s voice. “Sexy.”

She snorted. “What would you know about sexy?”

That hit closer to home than Hilary thought it would. It was something he’d been nervous about (really nervous about) and his main impediment to getting a girlfriend—even a fake one. Sex was something he thought he’d grow into wanting. Delayed, like his puberty had been. But the desire had never manifested. If anything, he’d grown more resolute against it. There had been a kind of fascination with the act at first that might have been mistaken for interest, but that had faded, leaving only the distaste—even repulsion—when he thought about the topic for too long. He wasn’t scared of sex; he just didn’t want to do it. Thankfully, Varda didn’t either. It wasn’t that she was repulsed the way he was; she just wasn’t attracted to him. Hilary hadn’t told her about hating sex, but she seemed to know, and whatever else he could say against her, she didn’t mock him for it.