Kate in Waiting by Becky Albertalli

Author:Becky Albertalli [Albertalli, Becky]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Published: 2021-02-22T00:00:00+00:00

Scene 40

But by history class, Anderson’s completely back to normal. Even better than normal. He’s the goofiest, bossiest version of himself, the kind that usually only surfaces for play rehearsal.

I guess Mr. Edelman’s feeling sassy, too, because we’re doing a study notes review game about Puritans today. He let us pick our own teams, so the squad squadded up. We even moved our desks into a pod as a display of team unity and gave ourselves the most atrocious name on earth: Team Massachusetts Bae. Of course, all the other teams immediately followed suit. Team Plymouth Raunch. Team Thomas Hooker. Team Devil’s Playground. Team Cotton Mather’s Cotton Trousers, consisting of Noah and three f-girls. And Colin Nakamura’s group, the Colinists. Something about AP US History does this to people. Like, here we have a bunch of sixteen-year-olds from Roswell who all apparently think we’re Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Each team gets a whiteboard, and Mr. Edelman stands at his podium with a few sheets of questions. Just your basic trivia competition game. Open-book, but no phones allowed. Twenty seconds after the question is read, each team holds up their answer. It’s completely pointless, seeing as there are no prizes, not even extra credit, but it really starts to feel like your pride is at stake. Like somehow Thomas Hooker’s legacy is contingent on whether four f-boys can answer questions about Calvinism. But you’d never know that, watching the room erupt into shouting, finger-pointing, and desk-banging, so loud I’m pretty sure Mr. Edelman will never recover. It is the rowdiest, most aggressive celebration of Puritanism I’ve seen in my entire life.

Team Massachusetts Bae is no exception. We’re not above it. Brandie and I flip frantically through our textbooks, and Raina and Anderson keep yanking the whiteboard back and forth between them. “Okay, 1636,” Brandie keeps muttering. “It’s got to be Harvard, right?”

“Or Yale! Brandie, use the index.”

“Here it is. The Puritans founded Harvard University in 1636.” I slide the whole book toward Anderson. “Boom.”

Something crashes to the ground right beside me, and I’m so startled, I almost leap from my seat. It turns out to be Noah, in a heap on the ground, blinking out from underneath his overturned desk.

“Oh my God, your arm.” I kneel quickly beside him. “Are you okay? Let me see.”

“I’m fine.” He disentangles himself, looking slightly dazed, while two of the girls on his team tip it back upright. He thrusts his cast arm into my hand and lets me examine it.

“Um,” I say, rotating it just a little, and bending his fingers up and down, like I imagine a doctor would. “Cast looks okay.”

It’s the same cast with the illustrated boobs, so Noah’s doctor appointment must be in the afternoon. Maybe even during rehearsal. Not that I care. He shouldn’t be missing full ensemble rehearsals though. I bet Ms. Zhao’s going to be pissed.

It occurs to me, suddenly, that I’m still holding Noah’s cast. And his fingertips too. I jerk my hand back and clutch it to my chest.

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