“Art class?” she said. I nodded and looked around uneasily. She propped herself up on her elbows. “Teacher’s in Nashville. Her son fucked up his hand in a car accident.”
“Oh God.”
“Right? He’s a musician too. Was a musician. Hey, it’s hot as shit out here and you look like you’re about to have a heart attack. Why don’t you sit? Name’s Bee, by the way.”
“Shouldn’t we go to the office?”
“Jesus, no,” she said quickly. “They won’t hire a sub. They won’t hire a new teacher. They’ll put my fat ass in PE and move all the art funding to the athletic department like they do with everything. I’m gonna milk this shit for everything it’s worth.”
I nodded weakly and sat. The girl flopped back down with her arms spread wide.
“So you’re the new girl?”
“That obvious?” I said, pulling my knees close.
“Word gets around.” Sweat glistened on her arms and legs, her face pointed up at the sky.
“Oh, right. Sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” she said, still barely moving.
“Sorry,” I said reflexively, then winced.
“You know you never told me your name, right?”
“Amanda,” I said quickly. “Nice to meet you.”
“Sure.” She fished in her battered old Silver Age X-Men lunch box and pulled out a joint. “Mind if I smoke?” She didn’t wait for an answer.
“So,” she said, blowing out a smoky speech bubble. The smell was like mulch after a heavy rainstorm, earthy and a little sour. “Where you from?”
“Smyrna,” I told her. “Dad moved here after the divorce.”
“Dads,” she observed. I didn’t have a response, but she either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “You’re pretty cool, Amanda. I think we’re gonna be friends.”
“I don’t know how cool I am,” I said.
“We’ll see,” Bee said, nodding as she put the half-smoked joint back in the lunch box. “Oh, we will see.” She giggled and lay back in the grass, closing her eyes.
I fell back beside her and started to read Sandman, holding the book up above me to shield my eyes from the sun. I was quickly caught up in the story. As people all around the world fell asleep and never awakened again, I lost track of time. The Lord of Dreams managed to escape after decades of imprisonment to try to rebuild his life. The sleepers woke up to find themselves in bodies they didn’t recognize, subject to the consequences of abuse while they were helpless. Finally, as the Lord of Dreams descended into hell, I put the book away.
Sitting up, the afternoon heat seemed to pulse and throb. I glanced over at Bee, who was in a sort of trance, half-asleep, half-awake. “What’s the time, anyway?”
“Four,” she said as she yawned and flopped back onto the grass.
“Shit,” I said, scrambling to jam my notebook in my bag. I heard the buses hiss into motion as I stood up and ran around the corner to find a mostly empty parking lot.
“Miss your ride? Shitty,” Bee said. “Anybody you can call?”
“Dad doesn’t get off until six.”
“I’d give you a ride,” she said, “but I don’t drive stoned, which is super, super what I am right now. Stoned like a medieval witch…” She snickered dreamily at her joke.
“I have to walk then,” I said.
“I wouldn’t,” Bee said in a singsong voice. “High’s 113 today. Heat-stroke territory.”
“Teenagers don’t get heat stroke though, right? I mean, logically, people lived in the South for a long time before air-conditioning.”
“Your funeral,” she said with a lazy wave. “See you around if you don’t die.”
* * *
Sweat poured down my back as I walked along the shoulder of the road. After the first thirty minutes I had covered two of the six miles, but I panted and dragged my feet. I thought about calling Dad, but didn’t want to bother him on my very first day. I made it another mile, but my knees ached and my bare calves stung, scratched up from the brambles. My tongue felt dry, and my head throbbed.
I barely registered as a black car blasted by, then reversed to a stop on the shoulder beside me.
The window rolled down and a pale girl with short dark hair leaned out. “Need a ride?”
“Nah,” I slurred, “I don’t wanna trouble anybody.”
She turned to someone in the backseat. “I don’t care what she said, Chloe, just get her in here before she passes out.”
A girl with a curly red mane and freckles appeared, squinting painfully in the bright light. She wore a checkered work shirt unbuttoned at mid-chest and rolled up at the sleeves. Without saying a word she took me by the arm and walked me to the rear left seat.
“Really, it’s okay…” I said weakly, but I closed my eyes as the cold air-conditioning blasted across my face. “I hope you guys aren’t kidnappers.”
“We’re not kidnapping you,” a petite girl with blond hair and innocent eyes said from the front seat, her brow furrowed with worry.
“She’ll come to her senses,” the driver said as we pulled back onto the road. “Just give her some water.”
“My name’s Anna,” the blond girl said. I opened one eye as she gave me an excited little wave. “What church do you go to?”