Читать книгу Nirvana Is Here - Aaron Hamburger - Страница 22

LION

IN FRENCH, JUSTIN JACKSON SAT ON the edge of my desk. “Hey, what’s your name?”

Justin was that kid with the deep brown eyes who during my first visit to Dalton had claimed, “You won’t miss me.” Though I’d seen him a few times, he hadn’t seem to recognize me, so I ignored him right back. I overheard him laughing with his friends, “Everyone thinks I’m on scholarship for basketball.” In fact, he played tennis, and his scholarship was academic, not athletic. He’d won some kind of trophy in math. Socially, he wasn’t a jock or a nerd, but belonged to another, mysterious crowd of ironic, smirking kids whose circle I couldn’t place because it hadn’t existed at my old school.

“What kind of name’s Ari?” he asked, setting his briefcase on my desk like an explorer planting a flag to claim some undiscovered country. Justin carried a slender black leather briefcase and a silver pen, and no one mocked him. It was part of his image. “Is it French? Is that why you’re so good at French?”

I loved speaking French. It made me feel more sophisticated, allknowing, confident, and less Jewish. Also, in French class I didn’t have to invent interesting things to say to people. The lines of dialogue were already printed for me to simply memorize.

“No, it’s Hebrew for lion,” I explained. Under my desk, I flattened my palm as Brad had taught me, in case I needed to smack him in the nose.

Justin stared at me. “Lion, huh? You seem more like a dove. Well, I’ll just call you Brain. Did you do that workbook assignment last night? Mind if I take a look?”

I took this as a command, not a request. “Okay.” I dug through my bag for it.

“Hurry, if you don’t mind, before Monsieur Gilbert gets here.”

While copying my answers, Justin asked why I’d transferred to Dalton. I recited my standard excuse: My parents felt my old school didn’t offer enough “enrichment.”

“I love the suburbs. The land of enrichment.” He resumed copying my work in swift lacy writing, with the bored efficiency of a British lord signing a check. “Thanks, Brain,” Justin said in his slow, careful baritone, handing me back my workbook when he was done. He got up to sit with another black kid in the back of the room. “You’re cool.”

I was so startled to hear it that I almost dropped the workbook on the floor.

Was I really? Why did he think so? I wanted to know more.