Read Online Yellow by Megan Jacobson - Free Book Online Page B

me lurches about pretending to be drunk. The geography teacher, Mr Gobstopper, wondered aloud if we’d all turned into zombies over the weekend. We call him Mr Gobstopper because he rolls his words around on his tongue, sucking on each of them before he spits them out, me­andering on and on about faraway places and lulling the class into a rockabye stillness. Anywhere that’s not my town seems like a foreign country, I think. I can’t imagine Russia.
    Even in the library some kid whose name I can never remember gave me grief. He’s the kind of kid who seems roughly drawn, like he’s only a sketch and his features are just quick, brief pen-strokes, so you never remember his face. I’d never heard him speak before, but when I sat down at a table and began to read about French history his friends jostled him, and in a small, mouse voice he peeped, ‘I hear you had a wild party on Friday.’ His pen-stroke of a mouth flicked upwards as the rest of his group cracked up.
    That’s why I’m here, sitting on the toilet seat and breathing in fumes of diarrhoea. After a particularly fruity squirt the person flushes and leaves me alone. A sob breaks free from the heaviness in my stomach and climbs out of my mouth, and I rest my head on my lap so I’m almost completely folded. I can hear someone else enter the bathroom and I hope their stomach’s in better shape. Instead, I hear the click of a lighter and cigarette smoke curls up towards the ceiling. After a moment I hear scuffling and I look up to see Willow’s head poking out over the stall. She eyes me wryly.
    â€˜I’d offer you scrunched-up toilet paper to blow your nose, but I figured you had your own supply.’
    I hoist my shoulder up to wipe my face on my school sleeve, and l look up at the head haloed by smoke.
    â€˜I heard crying. I figured the odds were pretty good it’d be you,’ she says as she holds out the cigarette.
    â€˜Want a drag?’
    I shake my head no. I feel like an animal being studied in a zoo. Willow blows a perfect smoke circle.
    â€˜So you can totally stay here if you want to, but it’s a sunny day outside and I’m going to pursue my raging love affair with cancer,’ she gestures to the cigarette to illustrate her point, ‘by soaking in some melanomas on the back oval. You’re welcome to join, but I can’t promise the duck pond will smell much better than here.’
    A half smile tiptoes onto my face.
    â€˜Yeah. Okay.’
    The head disappears, and moments later so does the smoke as the cigarette is flushed down the toilet.

    Willow’s searching for four-leaf clovers and I’m lying on my back, watching the clouds as they gently stroll across the sky and bump politely into each other every now and then. Our shoes and socks are kicked off a little way away from our feet, and the sun is staining everything.
    Willow’s nice. I’d never really spoken to her before, and all the things I’ve heard about her over the years don’t seem to match the girl lying next to me. She’s funny, dry as all hell, and a bit rough in a way that no amount of sandpaper could ever smooth over. But she’s clever. And she honestly doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her, in a way that I find almost shocking. It’s beyond my comprehension, that attitude, like trying to understand quantum physics. I can’t quite twist my brain around it.
    â€˜Cassie and everyone’s looking at us . . .’ I warn her. And they are, gawking. Willow looks over and arches an eyebrow, then curls her lips above her teeth in a fake smile and waves. They return her greetings with raised middle fingers.
    â€˜What do you care what Nipples thinks of you, anyway?’
    Cassie acquired a new nickname after Friday night and the blame is squarely on Willow’s shoulders, and mine too, by association. Willow’s watching them, amused, as they pick at