I’m pushing aside the memory of my nightmare, pushing aside thoughts of Alex, pushing aside thoughts of Hana and my old school, push, push, push, like Raven taught me to do. “It won’t happen again,” I say, trying to look obedient and contrite. “This is your final warning, Miss Jones,” Mrs. People avoid me like I have a disease-like I have the disease. I’ve been enrolled at Edwards since just after winter break-only a little more than two months-and already I’ve been labeled the Number-One Weirdo. “No!” I burst out, louder than I intended to, provoking a new round of giggles from the other girls in my class. “Since you seem to find the Creation of the Natural Order so exhausting,” she says, “might I suggest a trip to the principal’s office to wake you up?” This is the third time I’ve fallen asleep in her class this week. Fierstein, the twelfth-grade science teacher at Quincy Edwards High School for Girls in Brooklyn, Section 5, District 17, is glaring at me. I snap into awareness, to a muted chorus of giggles. “Alex,” I say, and then, a short scream: “Alex!” A hysterical feeling is building inside me, a shrieking voice saying wrong, wrong, wrong, and I sit up and place my hand on Alex’s chest, as cold as ice. “Look at me,” I say, but he doesn’t turn his head, doesn’t blink, doesn’t move at all. He is staring at the leaves without blinking. “I’m cold,” he parrots, from lips that barely move. I try to move into the space between his arm and his chest but his body is rigid, unyielding. “Give me your arm,” I say, but Alex doesn’t respond. My breath comes in clouds, and I press against him, trying to stay warm. And again I realize he’s right: It is snowing, thick flakes the color of ash swirling all around us. We are staring at the web of leaves above us, thick as a wall. There’s a basket at the foot of the blanket, filled with half-rotten fruit, swarmed by tiny black ants. “It probably wasn’t the best day for a picnic,” Alex says, and just then I realize that yes, of course, we haven’t eaten any of the food we brought. The leaves are almost black, knitted so tightly together they blot out the sky. The trees look larger and darker than usual. Alex and I are lying together on a blanket in the backyard of 37 Brooks.
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