Tate shook her head and kept standing. “Don’t mind me. I’m just waiting for my big red A.”
“This isn’t funny,” Mrs. Brummel said, putting the cap back on the marker.
“No,” said Tate. “It’s not. But we can all agree to smile anyway because it just makes things so much easier.”
Mrs. Brummel retreated behind her desk and waved a box of tissues, even though Tate wasn’t crying. “Do you need some time to pull yourself together?”
“No. Because I’m not unbalanced or grief stricken, okay? I’m pissed off.”
“Would you like to go down to the counseling office?”
“No, I’d like someone to fucking listen to me!” Her voice was loud, unnaturally shrill. Suddenly, she hauled back and kicked the desk so hard that the whole room seemed to ring with the metallic clang of her work boot.
“You’re excused,” Mrs. Brummel said, but not in that wispy, understanding voice that teachers sometimes use. Her tone was no-argument, like if Tate didn’t go, there was a chance that she would be escorted out by the school rent-a-cop. For a second, Tate looked like she might hold out for forcible removal. Then she grabbed the books off her desk and walked out without looking back.
The rest of the class sat in awkward silence. I held on to the corners of my desk to keep my hands from shaking, and Mrs. Brummel did her best to wrench us back to Nathaniel Hawthorne and Hester’s big stupid dilemma until the bell rang.
Out in the hall, Roswell was just being dismissed from his math class and he swung into step beside me. “Ready for some conversational French?”
I shook my head and started in the direction of the back parking lot. “I need some air.”
He looked at me like he was trying to figure out how to phrase something. “I think you should go to French,” he said finally.
“I can’t.”
“You mean, you don’t feel like it.”
“I mean, I can’t.”
He folded his arms and suddenly looked a lot bigger. “No, you mean you just don’t feel like it. Semantically, it’s possible.”
I pulled my sleeve down over my hand and reached for the door. “I have to go outside,” I said, and my voice was low and unsteady. “Just for a little while. I really need some air.”
“No, you need to tell me why you look like stone-cold death. Mackie, what is wrong?”
“I hate this,” I said, and my voice sounded tight. “I hate the way people are always fixating on things that aren’t any of their business. I hate that no one can just leave it alone. And I hate Nathaniel Hawthorne.”
