Jack winds up invalidating his answer a little simply by giving it.
"Which one do you want it to be?" It's a genuine question, and the implication is it's that one — which doesn't make for a very good foundation if it's threat. He's not even sure how he'd follow through. Bug her, maybe, but he doesn't... actually want to do that. First, because it sounds resoundingly uncomfortable and would draw too much attention to him. Second, because he's pretty sure she wouldn't tolerate it even if he tried, and he's not sure how exactly it is she'd retaliate. Some boys find that to be a challenge, they find it exciting, they pull pigtails. Jack has a long history and a cast on his arm that has taught him not to poke things knowing they come with consequences. He still has bruises on his ribs and his toes are too broken for him to really run. If she decided to stomp on his foot there's a very good chance he'd piss himself.
He figures if threat is the right answer it means he won't have to follow through, and if promise is the right answer, well, obviously he won't have to follow through either. He doesn't have to know which one is right if he lets her pick it herself.
If the answer is neither, well, he'll just go home. Maybe try again tomorrow, but earlier this time.
Blue's eyes narrow at his counter question and she tilts her head to consider him. This is not, generally, how conversations go. At home, everyone is ready to argue any particular point -- sometimes for the hell of it -- or they have an answer ready to go. At school-- Well things quickly get heated at school. This sort of quiet surrender is new. She's not sure she likes it, but she's not sure she dislikes it either.
Up above them, a rush of leaves and sharp flutter of wings herald the crescendo of the territorial squabble. The ensuing silence an obvious victory. Blue sucks her lower lip in between her teeth and chews on it while she thinks. She turns the sharpie over in her fingers in a complicated little eight pattern.
"The one that's true," she says finally, having weighed the possibilities against the principle and philosophy of the thing. Obviously making threats isn't very nice, but if that's what he's doing, she'd rather know that. The truth is important, you see.
It's probably not the answer Jack expected or wanted. Maybe it's the look on his face or her name on his cast or Blue's natural sense of curiosity, but she shoves the sharpie back into the pocket from where she got it and retreats to the beech tree.
"You can pick any side you want except this one," she tells him over her shoulder, touching a hand against the smooth bark of the tree. "This one is mine. If you don't bother me, I won't bother you."
His eyes flicker momentarily from her face to the dance of the sharpie in her fingers — he clocks the green smudge, the wear on the brand label, the flourish — and then yanks them right back up to her expression again. Trying to decipher it, and having... not very much luck, admittedly. He doesn't get a lot of facetime with people — pun not intended but definitely enjoyed — particularly facetime with girls. Never outside of school, save the foster kids who don't spend much time around him if they can help it.
It's definitely not the answer he wanted, and he seems almost put out — precarious like a candle in the breeze — but he steadies when she round-about grants her permission. Perks up, even, if you know what you're looking for. Most people don't. He doesn't want to look too excited, lest she take it away from him.
Maybe he should think it's weird, that she's claimed a spot beneath the tree as her own. Maybe anybody else might have scoffed or poked fun. He doesn't; he accepts it as a written law and obeys it by picking his own spot at a nearly ninety degree angle. He could turn his head and catch sight of her profile if he bent right, but if he looks straight forward he can't see her at all. He tries it out for a few seconds, then gets up, walks around, and tries the spot at her other ninety degrees.
Better.
This one is officially his, in accordance with the Law of the Tree.
It takes a few minutes to let himself actually get immersed in his book. At first he's entirely too aware of her presence, and it takes deliberate effort not to glance over at her like a freak. Eventually her breathing and her rustling becomes a little familiar, his hackles slowly fall, and he can actually concentrate on the words in front of him.
As promised, he doesn't bother her. Quiet as the tree itself, he just sits and reads until he loses track of time. When he tunes back in again the afternoon sun has begun to slink precariously down, which means he needs to go. House curfew is dusk, even though that's designed with the freedom and autonomy of the older kids in mind. He doesn't cause enough of a stir for them to realize he probably shouldn't be wandering out into the woods on his own until the sun's almost down.
He doesn't plan on giving them a reason to today, either.
When he stands, there's an awkward moment where he looks at the path home, then looks at her, then hesitates. Not really sure if he should... say something, or if they're ignoring each other so much that even parting should go unremarked upon.
Ultimately, he settles on a simple, "Bye."
And leaves.
He doesn't come back on Sunday. On Monday, she'll spot him in school for the first time. Her grade, her class, but seated in the back corner in the last empty desk, quiet and focused in a way very few of their peers are. Even during their free time he keeps his head down, not reading but rather scrawling sentence upon sentence into a composition notebook without looking up.
It catches the attention of a few of their other classmates, which is probably why a couple of them knock him down and yank it out of his backpack after lunch.
Blue bends and picks up her book before settling back down to read. Almost a ritual, she cracks open the pages and moves the bookmark to its place in the back. Ready for whenever she might need it again. She holds the book up in front of her face, head aimed straightforward. The printed letters might as well be striped lines for all the attention she pays them. Instead, her eyes keep darting to the side, tracking his movements as he sits, then gets back up, rounds the tree, and sits again.
The first time Blue found the beech tree, she did much the same. Her side, of course, is the superior one. The tree trunk is a little wider, the dip just below it nestled between exposed roots just perfect for a person to sit curled up with a book. The other sides aren't bad just not as good. And this one is hers.
Eventually, once she is certain that he's settled -- judge from the lack of movement, and occasional rasp of paper against paper as he turns the pages -- she lowers the book into her lap and starts reading for real this time.
The story doesn't captivate her quite as it did when she first sat down. Her thoughts are too tangled up in the mystery. She wants to ask what he's doing in the forest, how old he is, what he's reading, if he has a last name, and a million other questions all bubbling up in her inquisitive little mind. But a deal is a deal and she doesn't want him thinking he can just disturb her. So she lets her mind drift between the twisted deals of the faeries and the boy sitting almost within arm reach of her if she just leans a little (or a lot) to the side.
Blue's just beginning to think that granting him permission to share her tree was a bad idea -- not that he's doing anything wrong, he's being very respectful, but the fact of his presence is distracting -- when he gets up and leaves with the barest of goodbyes.
Shortly after, Blue climbs to her feet as well and trots down the path that leads home. There's not a curfew waiting for her exactly, more a general understanding that Blue will not stay out late enough for Maura to worry. (Later in life, the fluidity of that time span will become a point of contention, but for the moment, it's been working just fine.)
On Sunday morning, Blue decides before she even gets out of bed that a little bit of quiet company beneath her tree isn’t so bad after all. If they finish reading their books at the same time, maybe they can swap for a while so no one has to go fetch another one.
Before heading out to the forest, she makes herself an egg salad sandwich on homemade bread, cutting it into two crooked triangles and wrapping them separately. She even grabs two little ziplock bags of chips from the pantry -- transferred from the Family Size bag that's cheaper than the 24 pack of individual snack-sized ones -- and jams them into a little back pack.
Three hours later, she's eaten both bag of chips while reading, her gaze darting between the pages, the spot that's his along the side of the three, and the place between the trees through which he appears and disappears. It remains empty.
Blue eats both sandwich triangles before giving up and heading home. For the best really, she tells herself; clearly she was too hungry to share anyway.
Come Monday morning, Blue is almost disappointed with when Jack turns up in her classroom. It means he’s not some kind of school-dodging criminal, the son of international art thieves, a runaway (either escaping the kind of unhappy home Blue has only encountered in books, or hiding from the mob after witnessing a particularly gruesome murder depending on how fanciful she’s feeling at the time), or cursed to walk the forests of the world, forever stuck in the body of a boy for centuries (probably as punishment for some kind of crime against the faerie). He’s just an ordinary boy.
They don't speak. He doesn't acknowledge her, and she won't do him the disservice of associating him with herself and her family on his very first day. See, Blue Sargent has committed the four capital sins of elementary school: she's the wrong kind of poor, her skin is too dark, her family too weird, and she won't just sit down and shut up.
It's not like they're friends or anything, she tells herself at lunch when he sits alone while she sits alone on a bench big enough to hold two. Her name is on his cast, but that’s not a binding contract. It’s just a kindness.
It's what she tells herself when Beauregard Frazer III and his crew rounds in on Jack after lunch. Maura's voice, asking if she might kindly consider getting into less trouble, echoes in her ears.
The smart thing to do, would be to ignore it.
But it's not the right thing.
The indecision doesn't last long.
“That’s not yours.” Blue’s voice is as sharp now as it was when she first found Jack sitting in her spot beneath the beech tree. She descends on the scene like an avenging angel in sneakers and a skirt that leaves her bruised and scabbed knees bare.
“Butt out, butthead,” Bo tells her. (Except it's probably meant to be Beau. All fancy spelling and that even though there's never been a single fancy person in the entire Frazer family.) His friends burst into laughter, repeating the word butthead like it's the height of wit. To be fair, for Bo/Beau it probably is.
"Give it back," Blue demands, jutting her chin out defiantly at him, her hands settled on her hips.
"Or what, little witchy-witch?"
Familiar anger roars to life like a mostly banked fire when you add a little bit of oxygen. It heats Blue's cheeks and dances in her eyes.
"Maybe I'll put a spell on you," she retorts like a whip crack, and a sudden unease spreads among the boys. "I have a whole book at home. All I need is a toad and some mouse blood to make your hair fall out and food turn to ashes in your mouth."
He stays on the ground a few seconds longer than he might have, not because he's hurt but rather because he's baffled by her intervention. It's wholly unexpected — actually, when he saw her in his class he figured she'd probably ignore him like she does at the tree, and he wouldn't blame her. He's doomed to be a social pariah. Between arriving a few weeks late into the school year, being too skinny, sporting a cast, and being weirdly too quiet to talk to anybody it was never in the stars for him to have a good first month here. Eventually he'll fade into the background and he won't even be remarkable enough to bully, but for right now he's an unfortunate novelty.
But there she is anyway — he recognizes her shoes before he recognizes her voice, and it takes another second for him to wrap his head around the fact that she's actually standing up for him. He's filled up with equal parts gratitude and embarrassment. Not, as one might suspect, because she's a girl, but rather because he's in a situation like this in the first place.
"It's okay," he says, pushing himself slowly to his feet. Foot, mostly, because three toes on his right side still twinge and ache when they're aggravated like this. "He can't read it anyway, he doesn't know how."
It's an unintentionally sick burn. Beau is in remedial language arts with a handful of other people officially-unofficially dubbed slow kids. Beau's face heats up to a furious shade of scarlet, and he bites out an enraged, "You stupid queer!"
Unfortunate timing; it's just loud enough and offensive enough to ping the radar of a nearby teacher, who storms over positively incensed by the language. That's all it really takes to get his groupies to scatter; they were already tentative allies after Blue's promise of a wrathful curse. Probably not true, but she has just enough of a reputation to leave them doubting. In his rage, Beau throws Jack's notebook at her... poorly, ineffectually. The covers flap open along the way, pages fanning out, slowing the momentum so it bounces harmlessly off her belly and lands pages-down, open, on the ground at her feet.
"It's not okay," Blue snaps back at Jack, like she's angry with him too. Like he ought to be shoulder to shoulder with her right now, defending his territory and his rights. Like he should know better than to let people push him around on his first day. But her eyes stay on their aggressors as if eye contact is the only thing keeping them at bay.
Blue's been the target of a composition book thrown to her head before (a particularly rowdy fight with Orla) and she braces for the potential of sharp corners. But Bo/Beau's aim is terrible and his throwing arm less than impressive. (As certainly as he'll never live up to the literary aspirations of his name, there's no baseball scholarship in his future.)
Blue looks down at the book, facedown on the ground, and then back at Bo/Beau. Entirely unimpressed. She hopes she's cocking one eyebrow. She's been practicing in the bathroom mirror and she gets it about fifty percent of the time. It's easier when she can see what she's doing.
"Wow," she says, "you throw like a girl."
It's not really an insult, Blue knows. Girls throw just as well as boys (sometimes better). But Bo/Beau thinks it's an insult and that's what matters.
Bo/Beau's face gets even redder, and his hands curl into fists. Maybe he would've let his hands do the talking (at least there's one thing he's good at other than being the worst human being in the whole school), but that's when the teacher bears down on them.
"Beauregard," she says, "we have talked about this! You come with me, right now."
On their way towards the door, the teacher pauses.
"Blue," she says, "don't encourage bad behavior."
Blue's jaw clamps shut. Sometimes, Maura tells her, it's better to say nothing at all. Even though none of this is her fault. It works, and the teacher disappears into the building with a not-remotely-contrite Beauregard.
Once the door shuts behind them, Blue crouches down and picks up Jack's note book. She turns it around and brushes the dirt off the pages carefully as she stands. Jack was right. Bo/Beau would not have been able to read it. Blue knows because she can't read it, and she's the best reader in her class.
"The kids here are jerks," Blue tells him. "Especially Beauregard. Don't bring anything you can't stand to lose to class."
Carefully, she closes it and holds it out to Jack.
"We go to the library on Tuesdays. I can show you which books are good."
There's a moment of uncertainty there in his posture and his features when her eyes sweep down over the pencil scrawl in his notebook. Not fear, not wariness, he's not particularly ashamed of the contents, it's just... weird, the idea that she might see what he's written. Then again, it's probably an unnecessary worry — his handwriting is undeniably awful. He's got some unfortunately underdeveloped dexterity in his hands still, and it won't improve much later in life. Once he's old enough to be able to do most of his writing on a computer, he won't bother practicing enough to make it more legible.
Truthfully, maybe he's a little disappointed she either wasn't interested or couldn't read it. He doesn't say it, tries not to look it, and diligently tucks it away in his backpack again with a soft, "Thanks. I don't really have anything to bring anyway."
At least that means he doesn't have to worry about it.
He shoves his arms through the straps of his backpack, then hooks his thumbs around them for lack of anything better to do with his hands — and suddenly way too aware of them. Where do people normally put them when they're talking? Their hips? That seems kind of stern. So does crossing his arms. Letting them dangle by his side would make him feel like a stupid caveman or something.
And now he's standing there, talking to her, feeling as awkward as ever — even though he wants to talk to her.
"I know which books are good," he says before he can help himself. It just struck on a tiny little mote of indignation at the thought that he needs somebody else to tell him which books to read. It sounded rude though, probably, which is not what he meant to do. She just stood up for him, of course he doesn't want to be an asshole to her, and he fumbles his way through his best attempt at saving it. "I mean, I just. I read a lot. And I know the library catalog system. I mean, I don't need any help- unless you're, like, recommending one, which is fine. It's cool. If you did. Not because I'm stupid, though, just... because you think it's... good."
When he finally stops, it's with his mouth pressed into a flat line. It was a whole journey, that weird apology-explanation-backpedal, and it ends on a note that reads very clearly how frustrated he is with himself.
There's a fine line between curious and nosy and Blue often finds herself on the wrong side of it. Perhaps with some time and effort -- growing familiarity with the lines of his writing -- she could read it. But he did not give her permission to read his private notes, so anything not visible at a glance is clearly off limits. She is nothing like Beauregard and his little crew of hoodlums.
It'd be a poor attempt at making a friend, she is certain, to invade his privacy right in front of him. Not, of course, that she knows much about making friends. In fact, so far, she has been infinitely better at making enemies.
Except her tentative attempt at friendship -- the school library is very bad, and requires some navigation to make it past the babyish books the school librarian is so keen on pushing -- is squashed near immediately. She didn't mean to imply that he's stupid or can't pick a book on his own. It's just that she knows the library like the back of her own hand and she thought it might be nice to share it with him.
Hurt flickers in Blue's eyes. Something soft and wounded. Before her expression begins to shut down entirely as he speaks. Eyes first. Then her mouth. Then the muscles in her cheeks and her shoulders. By the time he gets to his sorry she is already as shuttered as a store on Christmas day.
This is why she doesn't make friends.
Kids her age are dumb anyway.
"It's fine," she says, in that breezy way that means it's certainly not fine. She sweeps her hands down over her skirt -- a thick grey skirt that used to be Orla's and is safety pinned around Blue's waist, with a yarn border carefully (if somewhat unevenly) embroidered around the hem -- brushing away chips-crumbs from lunch.
"I'm sure you don't need my recommendations. Since you read a lot and know the library catalog system and all that."
With that, she turns on her heel and stalks into the school building where she proceeds to studiously ignore him.
That afternoon, she crashes into the house like a very localized thunder storm. Like a whirlwind, she storms up the stairs to her room where she picks a book she's read a thousand times before, then back down again and out the back door with a short "I don't want to talk about it!" to whoever might be in the kitchen.
Underneath her beech tree, she turns the pages of her book with such force it's a wonder only one of them rips. If he comes today, she tells herself, he'll have to find his own tree. She liked him way better when he didn't talk.
"Wait-" He starts, but it's as timid as the rest of him. Hardly weighted enough to break through her purposeful, determined stride away from him. He tries to catch her eye when they file back into class, but she doesn't flicker so much as a glance in his direction.
Great going, idiot.
Part of him is tempted not to go back to that tree. He's tempted to retreat into himself, write off this one sole potential friendship as an example that he's just never going to have any, and spend the rest of forever reading in his room beneath stomping teenager feet and bickering voices. He debates, because even if he wants to, should he? It's her tree, after all. If she doesn't want him there and he just shows up anyway, she'll either yell at him like she did Beau (daunting), pointedly ignore him while radiating dislike at him (awkward), or simply just leave at the first sight of him (guilty).
Linda, his foster mom, makes cupcakes. That's ultimately what helps him decide. He eats the one she gives him, then summons up courage he never would have had with his dad to ask her for another, so he can take it with him out into the woods. He's skinny, underweight, so it's not a very hard sell. She puts it on a paper plate, sticks some plastic wrap on top, and sternly reminds him to bring his trash home because littering is bad.
He already knows, and he promises.
It's not an easy feat, carrying a book and a cupcake while wearing a cast and hiking through the woods with broken toes. It's a lot of fumbling, a lot of almost smushing it, and he feels almost like he was juggling fine china that he finally gets to put down when he rounds the path to see the home stretch.
Then comes the awkward presentation — tentatively walking up to her across the grass, holding the plate out carefully balanced on one hand, forgetting he'd been carrying his book tucked up under his arm and consequently dropping it like a loser, and stumbling through a rushed, "Hi that's not what I meant and can I please go to the library with you?"
There’s no mistaking the sounds of Jack’s feet coming down the path. There’s something about his gait — a kind of hesitant shuffle almost — that’s both different from other people and instantly recognizable. Blue looks up from her book and the arguments she’s been having with an imaginary Jack — ranging from cooly dismissive to eviscerating him with her wit — when the actual Jack stops in front of her.
Even at first glance, this is already going nothing like she imagined.
The cupcake is unexpected. So is the contrite look on Jack’s face and the rustle-thud of his book against the forest floor.
Like most women in the little house nestled between two edges — the town’s and forest’s — Blue’s anger runs hot and close to the surface. Her ire is easy to wake. But it runs hot and bright and quick. Without further fuel, it dwindles quickly.
“Everyone goes to the library,” she tells him, needing to clarify that one misconception. It’s not a special invitation or anything. “The whole class. Every Tuesday. Right after lunch.”
Carefully, she plucks her bookmark — the same one from Saturday, though the book is new — from the back of the book and settles it between the pages to keep her place. She sets it aside on the same root as last time and climbs to her feet. She bends down near Jack, picking his book up from the ground and carefully brushing leaves and fresh dirt and little sticks from its pages.
Instead of handing it to him — he’s clearly out of hands — she tucks it against her body and considers the cupcake.
The frosting has gone flat where the plastic wrap presses against it. Little wrinkles in the plastic reflected in strange wavy patterns in the frosting. It looks almost store bought — the highest, almost unachievable luxury — and Blue’s eyes flicker between the extended plate and Jack’s face.
As far as apology offering goes, it’s a good one. Sweet treats are rare in Blue’s life. It’s not that Maura Sargent is leading the charge in a war on sugar or anything. But sweet things are for special occasions and frosting is a hassle. Banana nut muffins are Not, whatever Maura might think, a reasonable alternative to cupcakes just because she doesn’t want to deal with mixing or piping or cleaning up after frosting. (And Maura’ll be damned if she pays for ready-made frosting when it’s cheaper — and tastier — to make her own. Blue doubts both of those asserments. The tastier most of all. She’s had storebought cupcakes, every time a child that isn’t her has a birthday during the school year, and Maura’s lumpy frosting doesn’t even come close.)
”Did you bring a knife so we can split it?” A glance down at the cupcake to clarify it.
Well. That's good. Another reason to feel like an idiot. He was beginning to think he'd run out of them. It leaves him in a weird kind of limbo, stuck in purgatory holding a cupcake there until she slowly stands to set him free one way or another.
Not... exactly in the way he'd been expecting. Which is now sort of... what he's expecting.
"No, it's for you," sounding appropriately bewildered. He hasn't had a lot of interpersonal relationships, he hasn't owned a lot of material things. He doesn't really take himself into consideration when it comes to... well, anything, really but definitely not the distribution of goods, food, or money. It strikes him suddenly why she's asking and he's quick to try and set that to rest, "You don't have to feel... guilty, or anything. I already had one. I just brought this one for you."
Since when do people split apology cupcakes?
Well, since when do people give apology cupcakes, might be the better question.
On a sigh, he breaks down and admits, "I'm not really good at friends and talking and stuff."
There isn't, Blue thinks, enough time in the world to explain to Jack her upbringing and the importance of sharing. Or, for that matter, the difference between the vague concept of a cupcake earlier and the undeniable fact of a cupcake now.
"Okay," she says, perhaps a little uncertain, and takes the paper plate from his hand. As far as cupcakes go it's a nice one. Made nicer by the unexpectedness of its existence.
"Thank you," she adds in a mumble that's directed mostly at the cupcake and mostly out of obligation. She frowns at it, like it's a conundrum that needs solving. Like it's a symbol of their fraught relationship so far.
"I'm not either," she confesses. "Well. The friends stuff."
It's important to her that he doesn't think that she thinks of herself as a poor conversationalist. She's excellent at it. Far superior to her peers. Though, admittedly, she spends very little time engaging with said peers in friendly conversation. It tends to start semi-adversarial and escalate from there.
An elephant of silence sits between them, the pause lasting longer than is comfortable as Blue chews on the inside of her cheek and frowns at the cupcake and tries to figure out where they go from here. It's probably visible, when she makes a decision, determination sharpening her features before she holds his book out for him to take. It's a good one, she can tell. Both from the cover and the thickness.
"You can sit down, if you want," she offers magnanimously with a wide gesture towards her side of the tree. Between the roots, there is ample space for two eight-year-olds. (This summer, Maura and Blue fit side by side easy.) Given, of course, that one of them (Blue) is willing to share and the other (Jack) isn't too shy to take her up on it.
Cupcake plate in hand Blue makes a lap around the tree, eyes on the ground. Occasionally she leans forward and picks up a stick, considers it only to throw it away again. She's almost made a full lap around the tree when one of the sticks meets her approval. It's both thin and sturdy.
Next, she rounds on the giant tree stump (legend has it, the tree was diseased and about to fall and a local lumber jack took it down, but that was long before Blue's time, and she's only ever known it as a stump) a few steps away from the beech tree. She sets the plate down, tongue trapped between her teeth while she works to gently lift the plastic from the cupcake. Once free, she wraps it tightly around the stick and uses it to divide the cupcake into two roughly even parts. The crumbs held together by the frosting.
It's slow going and she ends up with a lot of frosting on her fingers. Carefully licking them clean, she returns to her side of the tree.
"The left one is a little bit bigger, so that one should be mine," she tells him, "But you should have the other half."
Like an apology accepted cupcake. Or the start of the kind of friendship she has only ever read about.
If he's sitting down at the base of the tree, she will sit down next to him -- only jostling him with her elbow once, and only by accident -- and offer out the slightly massacred cupcake for him to take one sticky half.
The offer to sit in her spot is met with all the appropriate reverence — to be honest, for a second there he thinks it's like a trick, or some kind of test. He's tentative about it, uncertain, but ultimately does slowly lower himself down at the very edge of the space, leaving ample room for her. He watches with keen interest as she fashions up a makeshift cupcake separator — truly impressive display of ingenuity there — and then obediently takes the smaller half as declared by Apology Cupcake Laws.
He doesn't eat it until she's in place, until after elbows have been jostled and limbs have been appropriately arranged. When they finally settle, it's with her left arm up against his right, his cast-arm tucked into his lap atop his book, and his cupcake hovering patiently somewhere around chest-height.
He'll take a bite after she does. It seems like the right thing to do.
After he swallows, he figures maybe... talking might be okay. Probably a good idea. Only one topic really comes to mind —
They don't know each other well enough yet, but Jack will come to learn that Blue nearly always means what she says. If there's ever a trick or a test to be passed, he's more likely to find it in her silence than in her words. Also, offering something as important as her spot without really meaning it would be Jenna-levels of mean.
Next to him, Blue peels the cupcake wrapper from the slightly-larger remnants of her cupcake and takes a bite. It's really good. Probably has real sugar in it and everything. In theory, you can sweeten cupcakes with honey, but in practice, Blue really, really doesn't recommend it. She transfers the cupcake to the hand closest to him, and licks the frosting off the fingers of her other hand carefully.
"It's called Hexwood." Blue grabs the book with her mostly-clean hand and turns it so he can see the cover with its twisted branches and the figures seemingly growing out of the wood.
"It's got knights and space travel and a forest that isn't really a forest in it." Blue takes another crumbly bite and chews it thoughtfully. "I've read it before. It's good. You can borrow it after you've finished yours."
A quick glance over in his direction. Maura would tell her that big gestures (like sharing library time or the spot below her tree or lending him her favorite book) don't always seem the same size to other people.
"If you want," Blue adds for good measure. It'd be a shame if they had a breakdown in communication this quickly. She sets the book down and twists around so she's half facing him.
"How about you?" She pauses to push the last of the cupcake into her mouth. "What are you reading?"
He perks up a little as soon as she says the name — already interesting based on title alone, but the cover adds about ten points to the score. He knows you're not really supposed to judge books by them, but he thinks that's probably supposed to be more applicable to ugly books than cool-looking ones.
"Thanks, that's awesome," Jack obliterates books. The unread books count in the tiny home library leftover by foster kids passed is dwindling down to single digits, and the school librarian is being a real bridge troll about both the quantity and type of books she's allotting him.
He turns his thick hardback to the side to show her the paper cover wrapped around the thing — Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, it just came out a couple of months ago.
"Harriet got it for me," He answers, and then realizes Blue won't have any idea who that is. "My new foster-mom. It's the fourth one. You can borrow it, too, but I don't... have the first three anymore."
The last part spoken with a bit of a downshift in excitement. His dad threw them out.
While Blue agrees with the sentiment of the saying -- only mean people judge other people by their looks alone -- she's always thought it was kind of silly. Books aren't born with their covers. No. Book covers are made solely to help you judge the inside of it. Unless, it's like, lost its dust-jacket or something and now it's down to a solid red and only the title and author. In those cases, judging books by their cover alone becomes near impossible.
But whoever designed Hexwood's cover deliberately made it really cool and mysterious with those shapes growing out of the branches, and on the back-cover, someone took care to mention mystery, role-playing games, space, and the line Hexwood is like human memory; it doesn't reveal its secrets in chronological order. It took Blue about two minutes to judge it by its cover and decide she was going to like it. And she does.
People's outsides aren't purposefully designed to match their insides. But books sure are. When they're not, someone is bad at their job.
In summary, Hexwood is even cooler than its cover, and Jack is going to love it. If he's got any sense at all.
Blue tilts her head and takes in the giant dragon breathing fire across the cover. Her heart pinches with a fresh longing. The book's only been out for a couple of months. Consequently it is not: A - in the school library yet where new titles arrive years after they are published (even popular ones that could potentially draw in new readers) B - for sale in the little secondhand bookshop where Maura shops, and finally... C - available for Blue to read yet
("Why would I spend fourteen dollar on a new book when I can get two or three used books for the same price?" Maura always says with the kind of logic Blue can find no fault in no matter how hard she tries. More books are better than less books. (Though sometimes she'd prefer immediate books over later books.) "The words don't change just because someone else has read them before.")
His new foster-mom. That immediately answers the question of what he's doing here and where he lives. There aren't that many families with foster kids in town, and exactly one within walking distance of the forest so...
There's a dizzying moment where Blue thinks he's referring to the number of foster-moms rather than the number of books and her imagination immediately spins away from her. Only to get near-instantly reigned in at the offer to borrow it. You can't borrow people.
It's a little disappointing.
"I've read the first three," Blue tells him seriously. Her little bookshelf at home holds a slowly growing collection. Theirs is not a household that holds on to books for no reason. Sometimes, at the bookstore, they'll let people trade one book for another. Sometimes, when the cousins come they bring books that they leave behind, and they take one for the return journey. The Harry Potter ones didn't last long after Blue finished them.
"They have them at the school library," Blue offers, aware of the subtle shift in tone. "And there's a bookstore in town where you can get them cheap. I can show you sometime."
Blue licks her thumb clean of frosting and settles the remainder of the wrapper on the little paper plate alongside her compromised knife.
"I haven't read that one though." A quick glance at his book, careful not to seem too eager. "I wouldn't mind borrowing it when you're done."
Talking about a bookstore definitely lightens the mood. There isn't a chance in the universe his dad would've ever taken him to one, he hasn't been in very many. The most recent was the Scholastic Book Fair, which he's convinced is just meant specifically for the rich kids. Usually he sees the ones like him — old sneakers and frayed backpacks — wandering around looking at the attractive colors but not even bothering to take anything off the shelf. At 14.99 for practically anything, the whole event was basically designed to rub his face in stuff he couldn't have.
Except. Except, now if he does all the chores he's assigned to (there's an actual wheel, these people are like aliens or magazine families) he gets a five dollar a week allowance. Three weeks in could get him almost anything there. It could also get him a bunch of cheap books from the bookstore. It's the easiest money he's ever made, considering he had to do way more when he lived back at the trailer.
"Okay," easily, happily. "It should only take me a couple days, and then I'll give it to you."
He's not bragging or anything, he just... reads really fast, he reads a lot, and he doesn't have any friends or anything better to do.
The Scholastic Book Fair is a special kind of cruelty. In Blue's class, the kids who can afford to shop generally have no interest in books. They buy the brightly colored markers and coloring books with robots or horses or the little journals with locks on them. Spend two books' worth on a holographic pencil set with dinosaurs on the side. (Which admittedly, those were really cool, but not cool enough to make up for the two books.)
The moment the posters for the book fair go up, Blue engages in a two week long battle with her mother. Last year, it ended with an exhausted Maura giving her three five-dollars bill and telling her to make good choices.
Blue couldn't find a single book -- not even with their pretty and colorful covers, and uncracked backs -- worth the number of books she could get for the same price at the secondhand bookstore. Learning the value of money in elementary school is a harsh lesson.
A couple of days seems about right for the thickness of the book he is holding. Except Blue's never met a kid her age who reads as quickly as she does. (Some kids in her class are still stuck on sounding out letters.) Blue's not sure whether she likes it or not. It's encroaching on territory that up until now has been firmly hers.
"Okay, thanks," she says. Her fingers are already cracking open her own book and flicking towards the bookmark. They've done an awful lot of talking already. Her teeth dig into her lower lip and she visibly turns his question over.
"We've company so I can't this Saturday." Like it's obvious. Like it's equally obvious that they can't just go after school one day. But-- company means a bribe for good behavior. "Sunday? Unless you go to church."
It's something that people in town do and the inhabitants of 300 Fox Way don't. Not for any disagreement with god or anything. The house is thick with belief. Just not necessarily in the Christian god or the popular depiction by the church. Also, the fire-and-brimstone type preacher called Maura Sargent a whore to her face once and that's not something easily forgiven.
He takes her opening her book as a cue, and follows suit — licks his fingers clean, then dutifully scrubs them on his pants to get everything off before he opens his book to the place the dust-jacket has bookmarked. He looks up from it a little too eagerly when she answers, fingers curling around the top of the pages from underneath.
"Why would I go to church? Nobody died." He seems genuinely confused by the question. The only time he's ever been is for a wedding or a funeral; the concept of religion isn't one his dad touched on in between his Klan rallies and his fifth of Jack Daniels. He knows about it, he's seen stuff referenced in books or whatever, but for the most part it's a foreign concept.
Maybe Blue shouldn't be so worried. He might read like a machine, but the number of knowledge gaps he's got could not-fill an empty book.
As in... there's a lot. He's had a weird upbringing so far, he has a lot to make up for in the next couple years. He'll get there.
The question makes Blue frown. As far as she's concerned, there's no reason to go to church even if someone died. But that's an opinion not shared with the majority of the town. Going to church is just something that is Done.
Which is the dumbest reason Blue knows for anyone to do anything.
A little crease appears at the base of her nose, and her mouth twists to the side as she tries to recall what the women of 300 Fox Way have said on the subject. Only problem is-- most of it isn't exactly kind.
"Some people like to remind Jesus of their existence on a weekly basis, I guess," she tells him with a shrug. "It's very dull when you have to go. You have to wear Nice clothes and you can't read while the preacher talks."
None of it doing much to endear Blue to church. The stories can be kind of cool, she supposes, but no one ever seems to go into details about the coolest stuff. Nor are they open to a little bit of constructive criticism. As much was clear two Sundays into Sunday school.
"I can have my mom talk to your--" Foster mom? Just mom? What's the protocol? "Harriet. If you want."
Blue turns her attention to her open book.
"We have a Volvo," she adds. Like it's important information for him to know about the planned outing. Implied: he can ride with them.
You can't read while the preacher talks. Wellp, that seems to be the deciding factor — Jack frowns a little himself, clearly dismissing the idea of church wholesale. Anyway, if Jesus is so magical, he probably shouldn't need to be reminded somebody exists — but what does he know?
It's the latter half of the conversation that he's fixated on, and his lips part. Only silence comes out. The fault in this plan has suddenly announced itself, and the gearshift in his mind grinds, transmission protesting, the whole thing whirring uncomfortably.
"...I've never asked her to go anywhere before," he says finally, voice quiet and concern knitting his brow. Concern, and maybe just a touch of fear. It's probably a weird thing to get hung up on to anybody else, to any normal kid. The thing is... there were certain guidelines to follow with his dad. Some things were completely off the table, some things were nebulous depending on his mood. After the second time having something thrown at his head he learned not to ask stupid questions like can I go to Jessie's birthday party or can Travis come over?
He doesn't know these rules or guidelines with Harriet yet. He doesn't know if he's allowed to ask, or if he'll get in trouble. He just got there, they're being really nice, they keep buying him books and giving him food, he really doesn't want to mess that up.
But he also... really, really wants to go to the bookstore. Overcoming the swirling conflict enough to actually read the words on the pages in front of him is rapidly becoming nigh impossible.
At first, Blue thinks that maybe it's the Volvo that makes him hesitate. Like maybe he's a car snob and he doesn't know to appreciate the safety and practicality of Swedish engineering. (Not that the Volvo is a great car. It's very-- beige.) But something in his low tone catches at her attention.
There's no world in which Blue Sargent can imagine getting in trouble for just asking to go somewhere.
The answer to every question you never is ask is always going to be no.
Another Maura Sargent truism.
It is, generally speaking, the not asking that gets her in trouble. Not, of course, that she's in trouble often or with any significant frequency. Blue is afforded a lot of freedom with the unspoken expectation that she behave according to the rules of the house.
"My mom is really good at talking to grown-ups," Blue offers. Even as she says it, she's not sure if it counts as lying or not. Oh, Maura talks plenty nice to aunts and cousins and the clients sitting in her drawing room. But she's exchanged heated words with the preacher, and the elementary school principal, and a handful of other grown-ups. Maura is good at talking. But she's also very good at yelling and fighting. Which she assumes is not appropriate for this situation. At all.
(Pick your battles, Blue, her mother has told her more than once. Pick them and then fight them well. It's usually in relation to fights Blue has already fought poorly and lost.)
"She could say Harriet would be doing her a favor, letting you come to the bookstore with us." It's perhaps a little disingenuous, but Blue's overheard Maura worry out-loud about her lack of friends before.
He turns the scenario over in his mind, weighing it against him asking Harriet personally — and nods decisively when he finishes fast-forward playing them both out. It's a pretty good strategy, he thinks, to have Blue's mom ask, grown-up to grown-up, and make it sound like a favor — but the real appeal is it happening while Jack isn't in the room. And if she does get upset with him, maybe by the time she found him she'll have calmed down a little. That sometimes worked back home— back at the trailer. He's been trying to shift the association.
Is that cowardly? Maybe a little, but bravery is how you get your arm broken. He'd rather be smart and careful about stuff like this.
"Okay," followed by another thoughtful pause. "Should I give you my phone number?"
Is that how that works? That seems like how it should work, but he's never actually... done it before. Maybe it's an address thing and they talk about it face to face, but that seems weirder. Worse, maybe. His dad always hated it when people showed up at their place — at least when it wasn't Red or one of his other drinking buddies.
A sudden follow-up thought springs to mind that he needs to quickly clarify, "Your mom's okay with doing that, right?"
The time between offer and answer, Blue spends with Ann Stavely in Hexwood Forest. One of her fingers tracking the words. Not because she needs to keep her place, but because she likes to touch the sentences. Like they are physical things, as real as the pictures they conjure in her head.
It's not to be rude or anything. Blue's still listening for his answer. She's just not staring at him in silence like a total weirdo while he makes up his mind. Also maybe (maybe) she's a touch impatient and distracting herself keeps her from being actually rude by demanding an answer already.
Blue's mouth is open to answer his first question, the book gently closing around her fingers in a signal that her full attention is his once more, when he hits her with the follow-up. She frowns like she hadn't even thought of the prospect that Maura might not be okay with it. She turns the novel idea over in her head.
"I think so?" she says, wholly unbothered by the idea that her mother's answer might be anything but positive. "I'll find out for sure when I ask her."
It shouldn't be a problem. But they can always think of another way. Blue's brain begins to spin away at a plan of heist-movie proportions. It involves a lot of misdirection and Jack climbing in the trunk of the Volvo and then pretending to be his own evil twin when they casually bump into each other in the bookstore.
"And I won't need your number," she adds, a touch of pride to her voice, "my mom knows everyone's number; she's got a phone book."
Except, as it turns out, Maura's first introduction to Jack Townsend isn't a quiet excursion to the local secondhand bookstore. Or speaking with his foster mother about the potential of such an outing.
Once the fading light begins to obscure the words on their book pages, Blue declares it time for both of them to head home. She climbs to her feet and gathers up their trash and disappears back through the woods with an optimistic see you tomorrow.
When Blue returns home that evening, 300 Fox Way is in deep preparations for the weekend. Tidying and sweeping floors, making beds and little jars of teas, and Blue judges the look on her mother's face and decides the bookstore is a question for tomorrow morning while they get ready.
Except morning comes with another flurry of activity and instead of sitting on the closed lid of the toilet and brushing her teeth while her mother showers, Blue finds herself eating a slice of dry toast while waiting on the school bus because somehow they ran out of time for both showers and breakfast.
Tonight then. Or this afternoon between school and running off to the forest to read in silence. (With Jack.)
With their desks on near opposite sides of the room, Blue doesn't have a chance to tell Jack about any of this. When lunch starts, Blue has to make a quick detour to the girls restroom, and then back to the classroom to pick up her book from her backpack. By the time she makes it onto the playground to try to find Jack so she can eat her homemade sandwich next to him, the same group of boys from yesterday already have him surrounded. His journal facedown in a puddle of mud at their feet.
Blue doesn't even think before wading into the group like an avenging angel.
Which is how Maura Sargent ends up having to leave work in the middle of the day to meet with the elementary school principal.
They've had to bring more chairs into the front office to line up all the combatants against the wall of the principal's office. Everyone is quiet. Beauregard Frazer III looks sullen where he sits pressing a wad of tissue paper against his nose, his chin and the front of his t-shirt stained with his own blood. Blue's heel thrums back against one of the legs of her chair, impatient and roaring against the injustice on the inside.
A couple of other moms have come and gone, after speaking with the principal and picking up their little "angels". Maura Sargent looks nothing like any of them when she enters. Maybe it's the hair or the oversized jewelry or the flowy dress cinched together with a snakeskin belt, or maybe it's the spirit of self-possessed calm that inhabits every inch of her even with her face twisted with annoyance.
With a glance over at Blue, she disappears into the principal's office. Blue leans over to Jack and whispers "that's my mom. Maura."
The last time he got in trouble in school and his dad had to come all the way down to the principal's office, he didn't sit right for a week. He knows Harriet doesn't punish the same way as his dad does, but it doesn't stop the anxiety from trying to vibrate his bones out of his skin. It's the not knowing that's eating at him, choking him up. Is she going to yell at him? Does he get sent back to his dad for this? Is she going to be disappointed in him? Throw out his books? That would be almost worse, his dad did that one all the time.
He's not going to cry. Crying only makes it worse, he knows. It's been firmly planted in him that crying is dramatic, that nobody wants to hear it, and I'll give you something to cry about. So he's not going to. Plus, he doesn't want to look like a baby in front of Blue, who might be his friend. Who might not want to if he starts crying like this is a big deal.
Who he wishes would have just let him get kicked around, because they'd have stopped eventually and at least he wouldn't be outside of the principal's office.
He's quiet. Like, stone-cold mute — partly because he doesn't want to say the wrong thing and get in more trouble (his father threw him out of a moving car for hiccuping out of turn, imagine what it's like when the words come out wrong) — but right now, mostly because if he unlocks his throat he thinks his voice will sound off. Thick, stupid, wavering. He doesn't want to open the floodgates.
Maura sweeps in, and there's the next bit of miserable news he didn't even think about until now — Blue's mom is going to see him for the first time after getting in trouble. She might not let him go to the bookstore with them. She might not like him, for getting her daughter in trouble. She might think he's the type to get in trouble. She might be mad at him.
He can't tell, based on the few seconds she's in view. That's almost worse than if she'd have scowled at him.
Blue leans over to whisper, and he wants to be able to say something back. His lips part, and he means to say she's pretty, but all that comes out is a soft click at the back of his throat. There's no way in hell he'll be able to say that much and still sound normal, so a second later he musters up a scratchy, "Okay."
And swallows his tonsils again.
A few seconds later, Harriet passes through the hall to join them. She's a fair bit older than Maura, more plain-looking, with the age and wisdom and patience of a woman who's done this several dozen times before with almost as many foster kids — often kids from troubled backgrounds that act out, so this incident will hardly be a blip on her radar in a few days. She seems far more kind than Jack's anxiety might lead someone to believe, but he's only known her a couple of months. There are habits, instincts, behaviors, feelings that don't fade that quickly.
She offers him a reassuring smile as she passes through, gives Blue a little wave (mostly just her fingers tapping the heel of her palm more than a back-and-forth) automatically like someone who has mom practically encoded in her DNA even if the child is a complete stranger, and enters the office with an immediate greeting from the admin staff. She's definitely on a first-name basis with all of them, and has been for years.
The smile loosens his tongue up just enough to manage, thickly, "That's my foster-mom."
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"Which one do you want it to be?" It's a genuine question, and the implication is it's that one — which doesn't make for a very good foundation if it's threat. He's not even sure how he'd follow through. Bug her, maybe, but he doesn't... actually want to do that. First, because it sounds resoundingly uncomfortable and would draw too much attention to him. Second, because he's pretty sure she wouldn't tolerate it even if he tried, and he's not sure how exactly it is she'd retaliate. Some boys find that to be a challenge, they find it exciting, they pull pigtails. Jack has a long history and a cast on his arm that has taught him not to poke things knowing they come with consequences. He still has bruises on his ribs and his toes are too broken for him to really run. If she decided to stomp on his foot there's a very good chance he'd piss himself.
He figures if threat is the right answer it means he won't have to follow through, and if promise is the right answer, well, obviously he won't have to follow through either. He doesn't have to know which one is right if he lets her pick it herself.
If the answer is neither, well, he'll just go home. Maybe try again tomorrow, but earlier this time.
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Up above them, a rush of leaves and sharp flutter of wings herald the crescendo of the territorial squabble. The ensuing silence an obvious victory. Blue sucks her lower lip in between her teeth and chews on it while she thinks. She turns the sharpie over in her fingers in a complicated little eight pattern.
"The one that's true," she says finally, having weighed the possibilities against the principle and philosophy of the thing. Obviously making threats isn't very nice, but if that's what he's doing, she'd rather know that. The truth is important, you see.
It's probably not the answer Jack expected or wanted. Maybe it's the look on his face or her name on his cast or Blue's natural sense of curiosity, but she shoves the sharpie back into the pocket from where she got it and retreats to the beech tree.
"You can pick any side you want except this one," she tells him over her shoulder, touching a hand against the smooth bark of the tree. "This one is mine. If you don't bother me, I won't bother you."
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It's definitely not the answer he wanted, and he seems almost put out — precarious like a candle in the breeze — but he steadies when she round-about grants her permission. Perks up, even, if you know what you're looking for. Most people don't. He doesn't want to look too excited, lest she take it away from him.
Maybe he should think it's weird, that she's claimed a spot beneath the tree as her own. Maybe anybody else might have scoffed or poked fun. He doesn't; he accepts it as a written law and obeys it by picking his own spot at a nearly ninety degree angle. He could turn his head and catch sight of her profile if he bent right, but if he looks straight forward he can't see her at all. He tries it out for a few seconds, then gets up, walks around, and tries the spot at her other ninety degrees.
Better.
This one is officially his, in accordance with the Law of the Tree.
It takes a few minutes to let himself actually get immersed in his book. At first he's entirely too aware of her presence, and it takes deliberate effort not to glance over at her like a freak. Eventually her breathing and her rustling becomes a little familiar, his hackles slowly fall, and he can actually concentrate on the words in front of him.
As promised, he doesn't bother her. Quiet as the tree itself, he just sits and reads until he loses track of time. When he tunes back in again the afternoon sun has begun to slink precariously down, which means he needs to go. House curfew is dusk, even though that's designed with the freedom and autonomy of the older kids in mind. He doesn't cause enough of a stir for them to realize he probably shouldn't be wandering out into the woods on his own until the sun's almost down.
He doesn't plan on giving them a reason to today, either.
When he stands, there's an awkward moment where he looks at the path home, then looks at her, then hesitates. Not really sure if he should... say something, or if they're ignoring each other so much that even parting should go unremarked upon.
Ultimately, he settles on a simple, "Bye."
And leaves.
He doesn't come back on Sunday. On Monday, she'll spot him in school for the first time. Her grade, her class, but seated in the back corner in the last empty desk, quiet and focused in a way very few of their peers are. Even during their free time he keeps his head down, not reading but rather scrawling sentence upon sentence into a composition notebook without looking up.
It catches the attention of a few of their other classmates, which is probably why a couple of them knock him down and yank it out of his backpack after lunch.
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The first time Blue found the beech tree, she did much the same. Her side, of course, is the superior one. The tree trunk is a little wider, the dip just below it nestled between exposed roots just perfect for a person to sit curled up with a book. The other sides aren't bad just not as good. And this one is hers.
Eventually, once she is certain that he's settled -- judge from the lack of movement, and occasional rasp of paper against paper as he turns the pages -- she lowers the book into her lap and starts reading for real this time.
The story doesn't captivate her quite as it did when she first sat down. Her thoughts are too tangled up in the mystery. She wants to ask what he's doing in the forest, how old he is, what he's reading, if he has a last name, and a million other questions all bubbling up in her inquisitive little mind. But a deal is a deal and she doesn't want him thinking he can just disturb her. So she lets her mind drift between the twisted deals of the faeries and the boy sitting almost within arm reach of her if she just leans a little (or a lot) to the side.
Blue's just beginning to think that granting him permission to share her tree was a bad idea -- not that he's doing anything wrong, he's being very respectful, but the fact of his presence is distracting -- when he gets up and leaves with the barest of goodbyes.
Shortly after, Blue climbs to her feet as well and trots down the path that leads home. There's not a curfew waiting for her exactly, more a general understanding that Blue will not stay out late enough for Maura to worry. (Later in life, the fluidity of that time span will become a point of contention, but for the moment, it's been working just fine.)
On Sunday morning, Blue decides before she even gets out of bed that a little bit of quiet company beneath her tree isn’t so bad after all. If they finish reading their books at the same time, maybe they can swap for a while so no one has to go fetch another one.
Before heading out to the forest, she makes herself an egg salad sandwich on homemade bread, cutting it into two crooked triangles and wrapping them separately. She even grabs two little ziplock bags of chips from the pantry -- transferred from the Family Size bag that's cheaper than the 24 pack of individual snack-sized ones -- and jams them into a little back pack.
Three hours later, she's eaten both bag of chips while reading, her gaze darting between the pages, the spot that's his along the side of the three, and the place between the trees through which he appears and disappears. It remains empty.
Blue eats both sandwich triangles before giving up and heading home. For the best really, she tells herself; clearly she was too hungry to share anyway.
Come Monday morning, Blue is almost disappointed with when Jack turns up in her classroom. It means he’s not some kind of school-dodging criminal, the son of international art thieves, a runaway (either escaping the kind of unhappy home Blue has only encountered in books, or hiding from the mob after witnessing a particularly gruesome murder depending on how fanciful she’s feeling at the time), or cursed to walk the forests of the world, forever stuck in the body of a boy for centuries (probably as punishment for some kind of crime against the faerie). He’s just an ordinary boy.
They don't speak. He doesn't acknowledge her, and she won't do him the disservice of associating him with herself and her family on his very first day. See, Blue Sargent has committed the four capital sins of elementary school: she's the wrong kind of poor, her skin is too dark, her family too weird, and she won't just sit down and shut up.
It's not like they're friends or anything, she tells herself at lunch when he sits alone while she sits alone on a bench big enough to hold two. Her name is on his cast, but that’s not a binding contract. It’s just a kindness.
It's what she tells herself when Beauregard Frazer III and his crew rounds in on Jack after lunch. Maura's voice, asking if she might kindly consider getting into less trouble, echoes in her ears.
The smart thing to do, would be to ignore it.
But it's not the right thing.
The indecision doesn't last long.
“That’s not yours.” Blue’s voice is as sharp now as it was when she first found Jack sitting in her spot beneath the beech tree. She descends on the scene like an avenging angel in sneakers and a skirt that leaves her bruised and scabbed knees bare.
“Butt out, butthead,” Bo tells her. (Except it's probably meant to be Beau. All fancy spelling and that even though there's never been a single fancy person in the entire Frazer family.) His friends burst into laughter, repeating the word butthead like it's the height of wit. To be fair, for Bo/Beau it probably is.
"Give it back," Blue demands, jutting her chin out defiantly at him, her hands settled on her hips.
"Or what, little witchy-witch?"
Familiar anger roars to life like a mostly banked fire when you add a little bit of oxygen. It heats Blue's cheeks and dances in her eyes.
"Maybe I'll put a spell on you," she retorts like a whip crack, and a sudden unease spreads among the boys. "I have a whole book at home. All I need is a toad and some mouse blood to make your hair fall out and food turn to ashes in your mouth."
She's proud of that last one.
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But there she is anyway — he recognizes her shoes before he recognizes her voice, and it takes another second for him to wrap his head around the fact that she's actually standing up for him. He's filled up with equal parts gratitude and embarrassment. Not, as one might suspect, because she's a girl, but rather because he's in a situation like this in the first place.
"It's okay," he says, pushing himself slowly to his feet. Foot, mostly, because three toes on his right side still twinge and ache when they're aggravated like this. "He can't read it anyway, he doesn't know how."
It's an unintentionally sick burn. Beau is in remedial language arts with a handful of other people officially-unofficially dubbed slow kids. Beau's face heats up to a furious shade of scarlet, and he bites out an enraged, "You stupid queer!"
Unfortunate timing; it's just loud enough and offensive enough to ping the radar of a nearby teacher, who storms over positively incensed by the language. That's all it really takes to get his groupies to scatter; they were already tentative allies after Blue's promise of a wrathful curse. Probably not true, but she has just enough of a reputation to leave them doubting. In his rage, Beau throws Jack's notebook at her... poorly, ineffectually. The covers flap open along the way, pages fanning out, slowing the momentum so it bounces harmlessly off her belly and lands pages-down, open, on the ground at her feet.
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Blue's been the target of a composition book thrown to her head before (a particularly rowdy fight with Orla) and she braces for the potential of sharp corners. But Bo/Beau's aim is terrible and his throwing arm less than impressive. (As certainly as he'll never live up to the literary aspirations of his name, there's no baseball scholarship in his future.)
Blue looks down at the book, facedown on the ground, and then back at Bo/Beau. Entirely unimpressed. She hopes she's cocking one eyebrow. She's been practicing in the bathroom mirror and she gets it about fifty percent of the time. It's easier when she can see what she's doing.
"Wow," she says, "you throw like a girl."
It's not really an insult, Blue knows. Girls throw just as well as boys (sometimes better). But Bo/Beau thinks it's an insult and that's what matters.
Bo/Beau's face gets even redder, and his hands curl into fists. Maybe he would've let his hands do the talking (at least there's one thing he's good at other than being the worst human being in the whole school), but that's when the teacher bears down on them.
"Beauregard," she says, "we have talked about this! You come with me, right now."
On their way towards the door, the teacher pauses.
"Blue," she says, "don't encourage bad behavior."
Blue's jaw clamps shut. Sometimes, Maura tells her, it's better to say nothing at all. Even though none of this is her fault. It works, and the teacher disappears into the building with a not-remotely-contrite Beauregard.
Once the door shuts behind them, Blue crouches down and picks up Jack's note book. She turns it around and brushes the dirt off the pages carefully as she stands. Jack was right. Bo/Beau would not have been able to read it. Blue knows because she can't read it, and she's the best reader in her class.
"The kids here are jerks," Blue tells him. "Especially Beauregard. Don't bring anything you can't stand to lose to class."
Carefully, she closes it and holds it out to Jack.
"We go to the library on Tuesdays. I can show you which books are good."
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Truthfully, maybe he's a little disappointed she either wasn't interested or couldn't read it. He doesn't say it, tries not to look it, and diligently tucks it away in his backpack again with a soft, "Thanks. I don't really have anything to bring anyway."
At least that means he doesn't have to worry about it.
He shoves his arms through the straps of his backpack, then hooks his thumbs around them for lack of anything better to do with his hands — and suddenly way too aware of them. Where do people normally put them when they're talking? Their hips? That seems kind of stern. So does crossing his arms. Letting them dangle by his side would make him feel like a stupid caveman or something.
And now he's standing there, talking to her, feeling as awkward as ever — even though he wants to talk to her.
"I know which books are good," he says before he can help himself. It just struck on a tiny little mote of indignation at the thought that he needs somebody else to tell him which books to read. It sounded rude though, probably, which is not what he meant to do. She just stood up for him, of course he doesn't want to be an asshole to her, and he fumbles his way through his best attempt at saving it. "I mean, I just. I read a lot. And I know the library catalog system. I mean, I don't need any help- unless you're, like, recommending one, which is fine. It's cool. If you did. Not because I'm stupid, though, just... because you think it's... good."
When he finally stops, it's with his mouth pressed into a flat line. It was a whole journey, that weird apology-explanation-backpedal, and it ends on a note that reads very clearly how frustrated he is with himself.
This. This is why he shouldn't talk.
"Sorry."
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It'd be a poor attempt at making a friend, she is certain, to invade his privacy right in front of him. Not, of course, that she knows much about making friends. In fact, so far, she has been infinitely better at making enemies.
Except her tentative attempt at friendship -- the school library is very bad, and requires some navigation to make it past the babyish books the school librarian is so keen on pushing -- is squashed near immediately. She didn't mean to imply that he's stupid or can't pick a book on his own. It's just that she knows the library like the back of her own hand and she thought it might be nice to share it with him.
Hurt flickers in Blue's eyes. Something soft and wounded. Before her expression begins to shut down entirely as he speaks. Eyes first. Then her mouth. Then the muscles in her cheeks and her shoulders. By the time he gets to his sorry she is already as shuttered as a store on Christmas day.
This is why she doesn't make friends.
Kids her age are dumb anyway.
"It's fine," she says, in that breezy way that means it's certainly not fine. She sweeps her hands down over her skirt -- a thick grey skirt that used to be Orla's and is safety pinned around Blue's waist, with a yarn border carefully (if somewhat unevenly) embroidered around the hem -- brushing away chips-crumbs from lunch.
"I'm sure you don't need my recommendations. Since you read a lot and know the library catalog system and all that."
With that, she turns on her heel and stalks into the school building where she proceeds to studiously ignore him.
That afternoon, she crashes into the house like a very localized thunder storm. Like a whirlwind, she storms up the stairs to her room where she picks a book she's read a thousand times before, then back down again and out the back door with a short "I don't want to talk about it!" to whoever might be in the kitchen.
Underneath her beech tree, she turns the pages of her book with such force it's a wonder only one of them rips. If he comes today, she tells herself, he'll have to find his own tree. She liked him way better when he didn't talk.
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Great going, idiot.
Part of him is tempted not to go back to that tree. He's tempted to retreat into himself, write off this one sole potential friendship as an example that he's just never going to have any, and spend the rest of forever reading in his room beneath stomping teenager feet and bickering voices. He debates, because even if he wants to, should he? It's her tree, after all. If she doesn't want him there and he just shows up anyway, she'll either yell at him like she did Beau (daunting), pointedly ignore him while radiating dislike at him (awkward), or simply just leave at the first sight of him (guilty).
Linda, his foster mom, makes cupcakes. That's ultimately what helps him decide. He eats the one she gives him, then summons up courage he never would have had with his dad to ask her for another, so he can take it with him out into the woods. He's skinny, underweight, so it's not a very hard sell. She puts it on a paper plate, sticks some plastic wrap on top, and sternly reminds him to bring his trash home because littering is bad.
He already knows, and he promises.
It's not an easy feat, carrying a book and a cupcake while wearing a cast and hiking through the woods with broken toes. It's a lot of fumbling, a lot of almost smushing it, and he feels almost like he was juggling fine china that he finally gets to put down when he rounds the path to see the home stretch.
Then comes the awkward presentation — tentatively walking up to her across the grass, holding the plate out carefully balanced on one hand, forgetting he'd been carrying his book tucked up under his arm and consequently dropping it like a loser, and stumbling through a rushed, "Hi that's not what I meant and can I please go to the library with you?"
Followed by a knit brow and held, bated breath.
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Even at first glance, this is already going nothing like she imagined.
The cupcake is unexpected. So is the contrite look on Jack’s face and the rustle-thud of his book against the forest floor.
Like most women in the little house nestled between two edges — the town’s and forest’s — Blue’s anger runs hot and close to the surface. Her ire is easy to wake. But it runs hot and bright and quick. Without further fuel, it dwindles quickly.
“Everyone goes to the library,” she tells him, needing to clarify that one misconception. It’s not a special invitation or anything. “The whole class. Every Tuesday. Right after lunch.”
Carefully, she plucks her bookmark — the same one from Saturday, though the book is new — from the back of the book and settles it between the pages to keep her place. She sets it aside on the same root as last time and climbs to her feet. She bends down near Jack, picking his book up from the ground and carefully brushing leaves and fresh dirt and little sticks from its pages.
Instead of handing it to him — he’s clearly out of hands — she tucks it against her body and considers the cupcake.
The frosting has gone flat where the plastic wrap presses against it. Little wrinkles in the plastic reflected in strange wavy patterns in the frosting. It looks almost store bought — the highest, almost unachievable luxury — and Blue’s eyes flicker between the extended plate and Jack’s face.
As far as apology offering goes, it’s a good one. Sweet treats are rare in Blue’s life. It’s not that Maura Sargent is leading the charge in a war on sugar or anything. But sweet things are for special occasions and frosting is a hassle. Banana nut muffins are Not, whatever Maura might think, a reasonable alternative to cupcakes just because she doesn’t want to deal with mixing or piping or cleaning up after frosting. (And Maura’ll be damned if she pays for ready-made frosting when it’s cheaper — and tastier — to make her own. Blue doubts both of those asserments. The tastier most of all. She’s had storebought cupcakes, every time a child that isn’t her has a birthday during the school year, and Maura’s lumpy frosting doesn’t even come close.)
”Did you bring a knife so we can split it?” A glance down at the cupcake to clarify it.
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Well. That's good. Another reason to feel like an idiot. He was beginning to think he'd run out of them. It leaves him in a weird kind of limbo, stuck in purgatory holding a cupcake there until she slowly stands to set him free one way or another.
Not... exactly in the way he'd been expecting. Which is now sort of... what he's expecting.
"No, it's for you," sounding appropriately bewildered. He hasn't had a lot of interpersonal relationships, he hasn't owned a lot of material things. He doesn't really take himself into consideration when it comes to... well, anything, really but definitely not the distribution of goods, food, or money. It strikes him suddenly why she's asking and he's quick to try and set that to rest, "You don't have to feel... guilty, or anything. I already had one. I just brought this one for you."
Since when do people split apology cupcakes?
Well, since when do people give apology cupcakes, might be the better question.
On a sigh, he breaks down and admits, "I'm not really good at friends and talking and stuff."
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"Okay," she says, perhaps a little uncertain, and takes the paper plate from his hand. As far as cupcakes go it's a nice one. Made nicer by the unexpectedness of its existence.
"Thank you," she adds in a mumble that's directed mostly at the cupcake and mostly out of obligation. She frowns at it, like it's a conundrum that needs solving. Like it's a symbol of their fraught relationship so far.
"I'm not either," she confesses. "Well. The friends stuff."
It's important to her that he doesn't think that she thinks of herself as a poor conversationalist. She's excellent at it. Far superior to her peers. Though, admittedly, she spends very little time engaging with said peers in friendly conversation. It tends to start semi-adversarial and escalate from there.
An elephant of silence sits between them, the pause lasting longer than is comfortable as Blue chews on the inside of her cheek and frowns at the cupcake and tries to figure out where they go from here. It's probably visible, when she makes a decision, determination sharpening her features before she holds his book out for him to take. It's a good one, she can tell. Both from the cover and the thickness.
"You can sit down, if you want," she offers magnanimously with a wide gesture towards her side of the tree. Between the roots, there is ample space for two eight-year-olds. (This summer, Maura and Blue fit side by side easy.) Given, of course, that one of them (Blue) is willing to share and the other (Jack) isn't too shy to take her up on it.
Cupcake plate in hand Blue makes a lap around the tree, eyes on the ground. Occasionally she leans forward and picks up a stick, considers it only to throw it away again. She's almost made a full lap around the tree when one of the sticks meets her approval. It's both thin and sturdy.
Next, she rounds on the giant tree stump (legend has it, the tree was diseased and about to fall and a local lumber jack took it down, but that was long before Blue's time, and she's only ever known it as a stump) a few steps away from the beech tree. She sets the plate down, tongue trapped between her teeth while she works to gently lift the plastic from the cupcake. Once free, she wraps it tightly around the stick and uses it to divide the cupcake into two roughly even parts. The crumbs held together by the frosting.
It's slow going and she ends up with a lot of frosting on her fingers. Carefully licking them clean, she returns to her side of the tree.
"The left one is a little bit bigger, so that one should be mine," she tells him, "But you should have the other half."
Like an apology accepted cupcake. Or the start of the kind of friendship she has only ever read about.
If he's sitting down at the base of the tree, she will sit down next to him -- only jostling him with her elbow once, and only by accident -- and offer out the slightly massacred cupcake for him to take one sticky half.
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He doesn't eat it until she's in place, until after elbows have been jostled and limbs have been appropriately arranged. When they finally settle, it's with her left arm up against his right, his cast-arm tucked into his lap atop his book, and his cupcake hovering patiently somewhere around chest-height.
He'll take a bite after she does. It seems like the right thing to do.
After he swallows, he figures maybe... talking might be okay. Probably a good idea. Only one topic really comes to mind —
"What are you reading?"
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Next to him, Blue peels the cupcake wrapper from the slightly-larger remnants of her cupcake and takes a bite. It's really good. Probably has real sugar in it and everything. In theory, you can sweeten cupcakes with honey, but in practice, Blue really, really doesn't recommend it. She transfers the cupcake to the hand closest to him, and licks the frosting off the fingers of her other hand carefully.
"It's called Hexwood." Blue grabs the book with her mostly-clean hand and turns it so he can see the cover with its twisted branches and the figures seemingly growing out of the wood.
"It's got knights and space travel and a forest that isn't really a forest in it." Blue takes another crumbly bite and chews it thoughtfully. "I've read it before. It's good. You can borrow it after you've finished yours."
A quick glance over in his direction. Maura would tell her that big gestures (like sharing library time or the spot below her tree or lending him her favorite book) don't always seem the same size to other people.
"If you want," Blue adds for good measure. It'd be a shame if they had a breakdown in communication this quickly. She sets the book down and twists around so she's half facing him.
"How about you?" She pauses to push the last of the cupcake into her mouth. "What are you reading?"
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"Thanks, that's awesome," Jack obliterates books. The unread books count in the tiny home library leftover by foster kids passed is dwindling down to single digits, and the school librarian is being a real bridge troll about both the quantity and type of books she's allotting him.
He turns his thick hardback to the side to show her the paper cover wrapped around the thing — Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, it just came out a couple of months ago.
"Harriet got it for me," He answers, and then realizes Blue won't have any idea who that is. "My new foster-mom. It's the fourth one. You can borrow it, too, but I don't... have the first three anymore."
The last part spoken with a bit of a downshift in excitement. His dad threw them out.
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But whoever designed Hexwood's cover deliberately made it really cool and mysterious with those shapes growing out of the branches, and on the back-cover, someone took care to mention mystery, role-playing games, space, and the line Hexwood is like human memory; it doesn't reveal its secrets in chronological order. It took Blue about two minutes to judge it by its cover and decide she was going to like it. And she does.
People's outsides aren't purposefully designed to match their insides. But books sure are. When they're not, someone is bad at their job.
In summary, Hexwood is even cooler than its cover, and Jack is going to love it. If he's got any sense at all.
Blue tilts her head and takes in the giant dragon breathing fire across the cover. Her heart pinches with a fresh longing. The book's only been out for a couple of months. Consequently it is not:
A - in the school library yet where new titles arrive years after they are published (even popular ones that could potentially draw in new readers)
B - for sale in the little secondhand bookshop where Maura shops, and finally...
C - available for Blue to read yet
("Why would I spend fourteen dollar on a new book when I can get two or three used books for the same price?" Maura always says with the kind of logic Blue can find no fault in no matter how hard she tries. More books are better than less books. (Though sometimes she'd prefer immediate books over later books.) "The words don't change just because someone else has read them before.")
His new foster-mom. That immediately answers the question of what he's doing here and where he lives. There aren't that many families with foster kids in town, and exactly one within walking distance of the forest so...
There's a dizzying moment where Blue thinks he's referring to the number of foster-moms rather than the number of books and her imagination immediately spins away from her. Only to get near-instantly reigned in at the offer to borrow it. You can't borrow people.
It's a little disappointing.
"I've read the first three," Blue tells him seriously. Her little bookshelf at home holds a slowly growing collection. Theirs is not a household that holds on to books for no reason. Sometimes, at the bookstore, they'll let people trade one book for another. Sometimes, when the cousins come they bring books that they leave behind, and they take one for the return journey. The Harry Potter ones didn't last long after Blue finished them.
"They have them at the school library," Blue offers, aware of the subtle shift in tone. "And there's a bookstore in town where you can get them cheap. I can show you sometime."
Blue licks her thumb clean of frosting and settles the remainder of the wrapper on the little paper plate alongside her compromised knife.
"I haven't read that one though." A quick glance at his book, careful not to seem too eager. "I wouldn't mind borrowing it when you're done."
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Except. Except, now if he does all the chores he's assigned to (there's an actual wheel, these people are like aliens or magazine families) he gets a five dollar a week allowance. Three weeks in could get him almost anything there. It could also get him a bunch of cheap books from the bookstore. It's the easiest money he's ever made, considering he had to do way more when he lived back at the trailer.
"Okay," easily, happily. "It should only take me a couple days, and then I'll give it to you."
He's not bragging or anything, he just... reads really fast, he reads a lot, and he doesn't have any friends or anything better to do.
Except maybe...
Tentatively...
"When can you show me the bookstore?"
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The moment the posters for the book fair go up, Blue engages in a two week long battle with her mother. Last year, it ended with an exhausted Maura giving her three five-dollars bill and telling her to make good choices.
Blue couldn't find a single book -- not even with their pretty and colorful covers, and uncracked backs -- worth the number of books she could get for the same price at the secondhand bookstore. Learning the value of money in elementary school is a harsh lesson.
A couple of days seems about right for the thickness of the book he is holding. Except Blue's never met a kid her age who reads as quickly as she does. (Some kids in her class are still stuck on sounding out letters.) Blue's not sure whether she likes it or not. It's encroaching on territory that up until now has been firmly hers.
"Okay, thanks," she says. Her fingers are already cracking open her own book and flicking towards the bookmark. They've done an awful lot of talking already. Her teeth dig into her lower lip and she visibly turns his question over.
"We've company so I can't this Saturday." Like it's obvious. Like it's equally obvious that they can't just go after school one day. But-- company means a bribe for good behavior. "Sunday? Unless you go to church."
It's something that people in town do and the inhabitants of 300 Fox Way don't. Not for any disagreement with god or anything. The house is thick with belief. Just not necessarily in the Christian god or the popular depiction by the church. Also, the fire-and-brimstone type preacher called Maura Sargent a whore to her face once and that's not something easily forgiven.
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"Why would I go to church? Nobody died." He seems genuinely confused by the question. The only time he's ever been is for a wedding or a funeral; the concept of religion isn't one his dad touched on in between his Klan rallies and his fifth of Jack Daniels. He knows about it, he's seen stuff referenced in books or whatever, but for the most part it's a foreign concept.
Maybe Blue shouldn't be so worried. He might read like a machine, but the number of knowledge gaps he's got could not-fill an empty book.
As in... there's a lot. He's had a weird upbringing so far, he has a lot to make up for in the next couple years. He'll get there.
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Which is the dumbest reason Blue knows for anyone to do anything.
A little crease appears at the base of her nose, and her mouth twists to the side as she tries to recall what the women of 300 Fox Way have said on the subject. Only problem is-- most of it isn't exactly kind.
"Some people like to remind Jesus of their existence on a weekly basis, I guess," she tells him with a shrug. "It's very dull when you have to go. You have to wear Nice clothes and you can't read while the preacher talks."
None of it doing much to endear Blue to church. The stories can be kind of cool, she supposes, but no one ever seems to go into details about the coolest stuff. Nor are they open to a little bit of constructive criticism. As much was clear two Sundays into Sunday school.
"I can have my mom talk to your--" Foster mom? Just mom? What's the protocol? "Harriet. If you want."
Blue turns her attention to her open book.
"We have a Volvo," she adds. Like it's important information for him to know about the planned outing. Implied: he can ride with them.
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It's the latter half of the conversation that he's fixated on, and his lips part. Only silence comes out. The fault in this plan has suddenly announced itself, and the gearshift in his mind grinds, transmission protesting, the whole thing whirring uncomfortably.
"...I've never asked her to go anywhere before," he says finally, voice quiet and concern knitting his brow. Concern, and maybe just a touch of fear. It's probably a weird thing to get hung up on to anybody else, to any normal kid. The thing is... there were certain guidelines to follow with his dad. Some things were completely off the table, some things were nebulous depending on his mood. After the second time having something thrown at his head he learned not to ask stupid questions like can I go to Jessie's birthday party or can Travis come over?
He doesn't know these rules or guidelines with Harriet yet. He doesn't know if he's allowed to ask, or if he'll get in trouble. He just got there, they're being really nice, they keep buying him books and giving him food, he really doesn't want to mess that up.
But he also... really, really wants to go to the bookstore. Overcoming the swirling conflict enough to actually read the words on the pages in front of him is rapidly becoming nigh impossible.
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There's no world in which Blue Sargent can imagine getting in trouble for just asking to go somewhere.
The answer to every question you never is ask is always going to be no.
Another Maura Sargent truism.
It is, generally speaking, the not asking that gets her in trouble. Not, of course, that she's in trouble often or with any significant frequency. Blue is afforded a lot of freedom with the unspoken expectation that she behave according to the rules of the house.
"My mom is really good at talking to grown-ups," Blue offers. Even as she says it, she's not sure if it counts as lying or not. Oh, Maura talks plenty nice to aunts and cousins and the clients sitting in her drawing room. But she's exchanged heated words with the preacher, and the elementary school principal, and a handful of other grown-ups. Maura is good at talking. But she's also very good at yelling and fighting. Which she assumes is not appropriate for this situation. At all.
(Pick your battles, Blue, her mother has told her more than once. Pick them and then fight them well. It's usually in relation to fights Blue has already fought poorly and lost.)
"She could say Harriet would be doing her a favor, letting you come to the bookstore with us." It's perhaps a little disingenuous, but Blue's overheard Maura worry out-loud about her lack of friends before.
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Is that cowardly? Maybe a little, but bravery is how you get your arm broken. He'd rather be smart and careful about stuff like this.
"Okay," followed by another thoughtful pause. "Should I give you my phone number?"
Is that how that works? That seems like how it should work, but he's never actually... done it before. Maybe it's an address thing and they talk about it face to face, but that seems weirder. Worse, maybe. His dad always hated it when people showed up at their place — at least when it wasn't Red or one of his other drinking buddies.
A sudden follow-up thought springs to mind that he needs to quickly clarify, "Your mom's okay with doing that, right?"
He doesn't want to get Blue in trouble either.
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It's not to be rude or anything. Blue's still listening for his answer. She's just not staring at him in silence like a total weirdo while he makes up his mind. Also maybe (maybe) she's a touch impatient and distracting herself keeps her from being actually rude by demanding an answer already.
Blue's mouth is open to answer his first question, the book gently closing around her fingers in a signal that her full attention is his once more, when he hits her with the follow-up. She frowns like she hadn't even thought of the prospect that Maura might not be okay with it. She turns the novel idea over in her head.
"I think so?" she says, wholly unbothered by the idea that her mother's answer might be anything but positive. "I'll find out for sure when I ask her."
It shouldn't be a problem. But they can always think of another way. Blue's brain begins to spin away at a plan of heist-movie proportions. It involves a lot of misdirection and Jack climbing in the trunk of the Volvo and then pretending to be his own evil twin when they casually bump into each other in the bookstore.
"And I won't need your number," she adds, a touch of pride to her voice, "my mom knows everyone's number; she's got a phone book."
Except, as it turns out, Maura's first introduction to Jack Townsend isn't a quiet excursion to the local secondhand bookstore. Or speaking with his foster mother about the potential of such an outing.
Once the fading light begins to obscure the words on their book pages, Blue declares it time for both of them to head home. She climbs to her feet and gathers up their trash and disappears back through the woods with an optimistic see you tomorrow.
When Blue returns home that evening, 300 Fox Way is in deep preparations for the weekend. Tidying and sweeping floors, making beds and little jars of teas, and Blue judges the look on her mother's face and decides the bookstore is a question for tomorrow morning while they get ready.
Except morning comes with another flurry of activity and instead of sitting on the closed lid of the toilet and brushing her teeth while her mother showers, Blue finds herself eating a slice of dry toast while waiting on the school bus because somehow they ran out of time for both showers and breakfast.
Tonight then. Or this afternoon between school and running off to the forest to read in silence. (With Jack.)
With their desks on near opposite sides of the room, Blue doesn't have a chance to tell Jack about any of this. When lunch starts, Blue has to make a quick detour to the girls restroom, and then back to the classroom to pick up her book from her backpack. By the time she makes it onto the playground to try to find Jack so she can eat her homemade sandwich next to him, the same group of boys from yesterday already have him surrounded. His journal facedown in a puddle of mud at their feet.
Blue doesn't even think before wading into the group like an avenging angel.
Which is how Maura Sargent ends up having to leave work in the middle of the day to meet with the elementary school principal.
They've had to bring more chairs into the front office to line up all the combatants against the wall of the principal's office. Everyone is quiet. Beauregard Frazer III looks sullen where he sits pressing a wad of tissue paper against his nose, his chin and the front of his t-shirt stained with his own blood. Blue's heel thrums back against one of the legs of her chair, impatient and roaring against the injustice on the inside.
A couple of other moms have come and gone, after speaking with the principal and picking up their little "angels". Maura Sargent looks nothing like any of them when she enters. Maybe it's the hair or the oversized jewelry or the flowy dress cinched together with a snakeskin belt, or maybe it's the spirit of self-possessed calm that inhabits every inch of her even with her face twisted with annoyance.
With a glance over at Blue, she disappears into the principal's office. Blue leans over to Jack and whispers "that's my mom. Maura."
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The last time he got in trouble in school and his dad had to come all the way down to the principal's office, he didn't sit right for a week. He knows Harriet doesn't punish the same way as his dad does, but it doesn't stop the anxiety from trying to vibrate his bones out of his skin. It's the not knowing that's eating at him, choking him up. Is she going to yell at him? Does he get sent back to his dad for this? Is she going to be disappointed in him? Throw out his books? That would be almost worse, his dad did that one all the time.
He's not going to cry. Crying only makes it worse, he knows. It's been firmly planted in him that crying is dramatic, that nobody wants to hear it, and I'll give you something to cry about. So he's not going to. Plus, he doesn't want to look like a baby in front of Blue, who might be his friend. Who might not want to if he starts crying like this is a big deal.
Who he wishes would have just let him get kicked around, because they'd have stopped eventually and at least he wouldn't be outside of the principal's office.
He's quiet. Like, stone-cold mute — partly because he doesn't want to say the wrong thing and get in more trouble (his father threw him out of a moving car for hiccuping out of turn, imagine what it's like when the words come out wrong) — but right now, mostly because if he unlocks his throat he thinks his voice will sound off. Thick, stupid, wavering. He doesn't want to open the floodgates.
Maura sweeps in, and there's the next bit of miserable news he didn't even think about until now — Blue's mom is going to see him for the first time after getting in trouble. She might not let him go to the bookstore with them. She might not like him, for getting her daughter in trouble. She might think he's the type to get in trouble. She might be mad at him.
He can't tell, based on the few seconds she's in view. That's almost worse than if she'd have scowled at him.
Blue leans over to whisper, and he wants to be able to say something back. His lips part, and he means to say she's pretty, but all that comes out is a soft click at the back of his throat. There's no way in hell he'll be able to say that much and still sound normal, so a second later he musters up a scratchy, "Okay."
And swallows his tonsils again.
A few seconds later, Harriet passes through the hall to join them. She's a fair bit older than Maura, more plain-looking, with the age and wisdom and patience of a woman who's done this several dozen times before with almost as many foster kids — often kids from troubled backgrounds that act out, so this incident will hardly be a blip on her radar in a few days. She seems far more kind than Jack's anxiety might lead someone to believe, but he's only known her a couple of months. There are habits, instincts, behaviors, feelings that don't fade that quickly.
She offers him a reassuring smile as she passes through, gives Blue a little wave (mostly just her fingers tapping the heel of her palm more than a back-and-forth) automatically like someone who has mom practically encoded in her DNA even if the child is a complete stranger, and enters the office with an immediate greeting from the admin staff. She's definitely on a first-name basis with all of them, and has been for years.
The smile loosens his tongue up just enough to manage, thickly, "That's my foster-mom."
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