Part 57: James

The first bell, the Warning bell for Advisory Time, rang at 7:20; the second one, the but-really-this-time Warning, at 7:25; the Late bell chimed promptly at 7:30; and you were actually Late if you got to your Advisory room after 7:32 or so. By late May, even the stickler, by-the-book, if-we-don’t-have-rules-what-do-we-have type teachers were letting things slide, and the eighth graders at Growing Horizons Middle School knew it all too well. So the twelve-ish minutes that followed the first bell were the perfect time for such activities as: pretending to re-organize your locker to block the person above or below you from being able to get to theirs; frantically copying the homework of someone who had probably copied it from someone else and so on ad infinitum, which would lead to some version of the “first mover” problem if anyone ever bothered to think about it; and of course, gossiping.

James usually - for the past three days, at least, which was as far back as his school-memory really went - spent this time with his headphones in, leaning against a wall, and thinking about why exactly he hated each of the people who passed him. But Wednesday, before he had a chance to put his headphones back in - you had to take them off when you walked into school, because there was a teacher of some sort (name and official position unknown) who had made that her mission, her passion project - he was harpooned by Courtney Collins.

He shut his locker and she was standing there, beaming, her stupid flat face plastered with what was definitely the wrong amount of make up, her hands behind her back like the teacher’s pet she still, deep down, was. “James!”

“Oh, Courtney, hey,” he said in his morning voice. The first words he had said all day; how sad.

“Did you see it? Did you even?” she asked eagerly.

“See what, Courtney?” She was always first-name, last-name when you talked about her, but to her face she was Courtney.

“Oh my God, you didn’t see it. You don’t even know, do you?”

“Know what? How am I supposed to know if I know if you won’t even tell me what the hell you’re talking about?”

Courtney wrinkled her brow for a second, not understanding, but then must have decided it didn’t matter. Her topic of conversation was more interesting. “Hannah’s gone.”

“Well, of course Hannah’s gone. You think I don’t know that? I’m one of her best friends.” He couldn’t say her best friend because Courtney would parry with Victoria and he didn’t feel like having that argument again. Not with Courtney Collins at 7:20 in the morning the day after he realized he was in love and went to bed without dinner.

Courtney rocked on her toes with glee. “No, she’s, like, gone gone. She posted this whole thing about it on Myssenger. I can’t believe you didn’t see it. I can’t believe she didn’t tell you.”

James faked a laugh. “Oh, that. Yeah, she told me she was gonna post that. I just didn’t know she already did.” Not a lie because - well, because it was fucking Courtney Collins and she didn’t count. “I don’t spend my whole life on the computer like you do.”

“Ohhhh, okayyyy.” Courtney was clearly not convinced - but which part was she focused on? That he didn’t spend his whole life on the computer or that he knew Hannah’s whereabouts? “I wonder if Victoria knows.”

“I don’t know, maybe you could try asking her?” James said, performatively looking around the Common Area where all the eighth-grade lockers were.

“She’s not here yet. I already looked.” The message was clear: he had been her second choice. Rubbing news about Hannah in Victoria’s face was a better prospect than rubbing it in his. Not that there had really been any news. What the hell did gone mean, anyway?

“Wait, so what exactly did she say?”

“Victoria?”

“No, Hannah.”

“I thought you already knew?” she smirked.

The second bell rang - a cute little melody, visitors to the school always commented - but it had no effect on any of the students milling about.

“I mean, she told me, like, the main idea. But she didn’t know exactly what words she was gonna use yet. Obviously.”

“I guess you’ll have to read it yourself, then,” Courtney replied cheerily. “I don’t have a photogenic memory. Oh, there’s Victoria, bye!” She practically galloped across the Common Area. She had been a horse girl, too, hadn’t she? And once a horse girl, always a horse girl. That, James decided, putting his headphones in, was why he hated Courtney Collins.