I threw away my empty sugar packet and headed toward the Speech and Debate classroom.
“It’s called a tartle,” Cassidy said, following me. “In case you were wondering.”
“What’s called a tartle?”
“That pause in conversation when you’re about to introduce someone but you’ve forgotten their name. There’s a word for it. In Scotland, it’s called a tartle.”
“Fascinating,” I said sourly. Actually, it was interesting, but I was still upset with her over what had happened in Spanish class.
“Wait,” Cassidy persisted. “About what I said yesterday? I didn’t know. God, you must hate me. Go ahead, I give you permission to aim an invisible crossbow at my heart.”
She stopped walking and stood there a moment, her eyes squeezed shut, as though expecting me to play along. When I didn’t, she frowned and caught up with me once more.
“It’s not like I was asking around or anything,” she continued. “The whole school’s talking about you. And we’re going to be late, by the way, if we don’t hurry.”
“You’re the one walking with me,” I pointed out.
She bit her lip, and I could tell that she’d made a pretty educated guess as to why I hadn’t wanted to walk her to English the day before. This strange, silent moment of understanding passed between us.
“What’s your fourth period?” I asked, filling the silence.
“Speech and Debate.” Her lip curled, as though she’d gotten stuck with the class like I had.
“Me too. Listen, you should go ahead.”
“And let you take that invisible crossbow and aim it at my back?” she scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
And so we were late together.
“FAULKNER!” TOBY BOOMED. He was sitting on top of the teacher’s desk and wearing another shocker of a bow tie. Class hadn’t started, and hardly anyone was in their seats. Through the little window built into the door, I could see Ms. Weng in the Annex, in conversation with the journalism teacher.
Toby slid off the desk and practically choked when he saw Cassidy.
“What are you doing here?” he spluttered.
“You two know each other?” I frowned, glancing back and forth between them. Cassidy looked horrified, and I couldn’t read Toby’s expression at all.
“Cassidy’s—well,” Toby seemed to change his mind mid-explanation. “She’s a fencer.”
For some reason, this made Cassidy uncomfortable.
“What, like swords?” I asked.
“He means a picket fencer,” Cassidy clarified, grimacing as though the subject was painful. “It’s just this term from debate. It’s not important.”
“Like hell it’s not!” Toby retorted. “I can’t believe you transferred to Eastwood. You transferred here, right? Because, seriously, this is epic! Everyone’s going to freak out.”
Cassidy shrugged, clearly not wanting to talk about it. We took a table together in the back, and, after a few minutes, Ms. Weng came in and passed out a course description. She was young, barely out of grad school, the sort of teacher who would constantly lose control of the class and quietly panic until the teacher next door came in and yelled.
She talked about the different types of debate and then made Toby get up and sell us on joining the debate team.
He sauntered to the front of the classroom, buttoned his blazer, and grinned.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “I presume that we all share an interest in booze, mischief, and coed sleepovers.”
The color drained from Ms. Weng’s face.
“I’m speaking, of course, about getting into college, where one has the option to engage in those sorts of illicit activities after achieving academic excellence, naturally,” Toby quickly amended. “And joining the debate team makes an excellent résumé stuffer for those college applications.”
Toby continued talking about the debate team, the time commitment, and the school’s past record (“We’re even worse than the golf team!”). He was a decent public speaker, and for a moment I wondered why he’d never gone out for student government. And then I remembered the severed head.
Afterward, Toby sent around a sign-up sheet for the first debate tournament of the year, which no one signed. When the sheet got to Cassidy, her shoulders shook with silent laughter. She slid the piece of paper onto my desk.
Written at the top of the list, in obnoxiously hot pink Sharpie, was this beauty:
EZRA MOTHA-EFFING FAULKNER, YO!
(you owe me for the Gatorade piss)
I couldn’t help it—I burst out laughing.
The room went deadly silent, and Toby grinned like he’d just won the Ping-Pong world championship. Ms. Weng frowned at me. I quickly turned my laughter into a fake coughing fit, and Cassidy leaned over and helpfully whacked me on the back. To my deepest shame, this made me actually start coughing in earnest.
By the time I got it under control, it had sort of become an event.
“Sorry,” Cassidy whispered.
I shrugged like it didn’t matter, but when she wasn’t looking, I scribbled her name onto the sign-up sheet in payback and then passed it forward. For the remainder of class, we worked in pairs structuring a parliamentary debate. Cassidy and I partnered together.
“What’s a picket fencer?” I pressed, when she made no move to start the assignment.
“It’s, well, it’s when you place first in every round at a tournament.” She sighed, fiddling with her still-capped pen. “Your cumulative’s a row of ones, like a little picket fence.”