The Square Root of Summer

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Authors: Harriet Reuter Hapgood
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but I hold it out as a further peace offering. “Here. I think Ned made it.”
    Sof hero-worships my brother, because he sings in front of people and she wants to, but is too shy. Half the bands she makes up are for his attention—when she coined “Fingerband,” Ned high-fived her and she didn’t wash her hand for a week.
    â€œYou’re eating white flour?”
    I look up. Standing in front of us, wrinkling her perfect nose at the muffin, is Megumi Yamazaki. Of Thomas-put-a-jellyfish-in-her-lunch-box fame. Her family moved along the coast to Brancaster, so we went to different secondary schools, but I’ve seen her around this year. If Sof’s from the fifties, Megumi’s the sixties, one of those weird, arty French films: striped T-shirt, short hair—and shorter shorts.
    â€œMeg, you remember Gottie? Actually, weren’t you at kindergarten together? And now”—Sof indicates the switch with her hands, ignoring the muffin—“we’re in art and drama. I do the sets, Meg does the stardom.”
    They beam at each other. Sof’s new crush? It seems to be reciprocated. And I don’t have the right to be hurt by her not telling me. Then Meg says, “I keep trying to get her to perform, but would you believe she has stage fright?”
    Um, yes? She’s only ever done bedroom karaoke in front of me.
    The bus arrives. It trundles slowly to a stop, but Sof still leaps up anxiously to flag it down anyway. Grey used to tease her: “Are you definitely a hippie, Sofía? You need to relax.”
    I limp on after Meg and Sof, who are already curled up next to each other, feet tucked up on the seats, by the time I flop down opposite. Meg fishes out her iPod and I hope she’s going to plug in and ignore us, but instead she pops one headphone in her ear and another in Sof’s.
    â€œSorry,” Sof says to me. “Bus tradition.”
    I nod and try to give them privacy while they whisper to each other. I break off a piece of muffin: it tastes like autumn, even though the sun is high in the sky.
    â€œSof, are we on for Fingerband tomorrow?” Meg murmurs.
    â€œNed’s Gottie’s brother,” Sof reminds her, with a glance at me. I hadn’t known the band was playing.
    â€œOh, yeah.” Meg leans over Sof, running her eyes over my outfit, presumably confused how I’m related to Ned. He thinks leopard print is a neutral. “Are you going to be at rehearsal? This end-of-summer party sounds like a kick, doesn’t it? Did Ned’s grandpa honestly sacrifice a goat one year?”
    Her words pop-pop-pop in my ears. Grey threw a bacchanalia in the garden every August. Last year, he wore his hair in bunches, asking Ned to push the piano outside so he could sit in the rhododendron pounding out “Chopsticks.” How can Ned think having this party is okay?
    â€œYou know Jason, then?” Meg speaks in questions, and doesn’t wait for answers. I want to ask how she knows Jason, when they spoke, why isn’t she sure I know him, has he not talked about me, are we still a secret? “Is it true some boy is moving into Ned’s house?”
    Shit. Thomas’s mysterious return isn’t the same for Sof—she moved here the year he left—but she’s aware of who he is. I spent the first six months of our friendship complaining about his bizarre disappearance. It’s unclear yet if she and I are friends again or what, but as she owl-neck-twists to stare at me, it’s pretty obvious: she thinks I should have told her this already.
    Too late and blushing furiously, I tell her: “Uh, Thomas Althorpe moved back. Yesterday.”
    Meg wrinkles her nose, oblivious, as she texts and talks and drops bombs, all at the same time: “Thomas from kindergarten? Is he really living in Ned’s grandpa’s room?”
    I definitely should have mentioned the part where he’s in Grey’s

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