Read Online The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy by Kate Hattemer - Free Book Online Page B

Maura Heldsman.
    “I think she thinks you’re cute,” Luke told me.
    “Really?”
    “Nah, just making that up.”
    That was not a vote of confidence, but I promised I’d go find her after school. This was Friday. I knew I was doomed to failure, not through my nerdiness or her stratospheric awesomeness but because she had
Giselle
rehearsal till 6 p.m. So I took an easy loop through the dance hallway and then headed to the Appelvan. God, it was a creepy vehicle. If somebody offered you candy to get inside, you’d run away screaming.
    I informed Luke and Jackson and Elizabeth that I’d try again Monday. We hung out at the Appelden all evening.
    “Weird,” I said. Baconnaise was practicing his tightrope walking again. “Did you eat a pebble, Bake?”
    When he’d made his glorious leap from the rope to my waiting hands, I’d felt this tiny round lump in his midsection. He looked confused, so I massaged his stomach again to find it.
    “Here. Has this always been there?”
    He shrugged.
    “Jackson, have you ever noticed this pencil-eraser-type thing in Baconnaise’s stomach?”
    “A growth?” said Elizabeth.
    “Gerbils eat anything, right?” I said. “He probably ate something he can’t digest.”
    “Probably,” said Jackson, unconcerned. “Either that or he’s got terminal cancer.”
    “Not funny.”
    “I’m not joking.”
    I dropped the subject, but I didn’t put him back in his cage that evening. During the new episode of
For Art’s Sake
, he sat in my lap and comforted me, and I was very careful to avoid touching the lump. It was probably nothing.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Sel wyn ? Sell- outs !
That’s who we are
.
    We’re orbiting an ersatz star
.
    We used to spend our time creating
    But now we walk the halls awaiting
    The latest, greatest Nielsen rating
.
    —
THE CONTRACANTOS
    They called for votes via text message this time. Brandon, Maura’s boyfriend or ex-boyfriend or whatever: he got kicked off. That didn’t mean Maura was down to one guy. They kept zooming in on her and Josh DuBois playing footsie. It was foul. And then Kirtse Frumjigger slapped her.
    “She knew Josh and I had a thing,” explained Kirtse to Adelpha and Miriam.
    “A thing or a
thing
-thing?” asked Adelpha.
    “A
thing
-thing thing.”
    I couldn’t even keep straight which guy Maura was supposed to be canoodling with. I did not like it. Not in a house,not with a mouse. I spent the rest of the weekend holed up with the triplets. I did not like it in a box. I did not like it with a fox.
    But Luke kept texting me.
You need to talk to her
. I still wasn’t sure what crucial information he thought I’d glean, but I wasn’t exactly opposed to the idea. By Monday morning, I was ready. I’d lifted weights on my dad’s bench in the garage on both Saturday and Sunday, and now my delts were sore in a pleasantly macho way. I’d showered that morning and even combed a little gel through my Jewfro. I was wearing my favorite
Catcher in the Rye
T-shirt.
    Jackson got us to school early. I headed to the dance hallway.
    Bingo. Maura Heldsman was sitting alone on the floor, her back straight as a plumb line. She had a binder open on her lap. Her hair was in its usual bun and she was wearing leggings and a hoodie. My heart throbbed, for real, and I don’t know whether it was because I was nervous or because she was just so frigging pretty.
    “Hey,” I said.
    “Hey, Ethan.”
    She knew my name.
    “What’s up?”
    “Finishing English homework. Did you get number six?”
    She knew I was in her English class.
    “Which one was that?”
    “Sit down and look.”
    She wanted me to sit by her.
    I could not imagine this going any better.
    It was a handout on rhetorical devices in Pound’s
Cantos
. Number six was obvious.
    Hast ’ou fashioned so airy a mood
    To draw up leaf from the root?
    Hast ’ou found a cloud so light
    As seemed neither mist nor shade?
    “It has to do with the ‘hasts,’ ” I said.
    “That one where you use old