Out of Order by A. M. Jenkins

Author:A. M. Jenkins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2003-06-28T16:00:00+00:00

Not for long. On the way up the stairs to assistant, it occurs to me: What if somebody sees the broken lock? What if somebody saw me from the windows and puts two and two together? What if it gets back to Vice Principal Sheridan that I had something to do with busting the door open?

If Mom had a cow over bad grades, she’ll come un-fucking-glued if I get suspended.

I can’t work on my English now. I can’t even open the book. I plunk myself down in a chair a few seats down from Chlorophyll, who’s reading, as usual. I scowl at the table, because I’m pretty pissed at myself. I don’t know how I get mixed up in stuff like this.

Chlorophyll doesn’t look up or say hello. She never says anything to me—except when I go first, and even then I have to poke her, or say “Hey.” We’ve been in here alone every day for three weeks now, so I know her, I know that’s how she is. Doesn’t give a shit about anybody but herself.

Her book isn’t a textbook today. It’s a regular book. But she’s actually marking on the pages. With a pencil, writing notes in the margins. Writing in a book that’s already filled up with words. Figures.

I turn sideways, so I can look out the window. I can’t see the concession stand from here, but now I’m realizing my fingerprints are probably all over it. Sheridan could call it more than breaking a hinge. He could call it breaking and entering.

I could get arrested.

How can everything get to be such a mess in a few short minutes of brainlock?

“I’m such a dumb fuck.” I mutter it out loud. I can’t help it. It’s so true, it has to be announced.

“No impulse control.”

It’s Chlo. I look over. Her eyes just keep moving down the page. I thought she was off in her book world. When she’s like that, she could be a chair or a part of the table. She could probably sit here all day and never notice if the roof blew off.

And she must have been talking to her book, because for somebody who just butted in, she doesn’t seem at all interested.

Impulse control. What does that mean? Was she talking to me? She’s not explaining—it’s like she doesn’t even know she said it.

I think about it, looking out the window again. Then I turn around in my chair and stare at the tabletop for a few minutes. I’m trying to figure it out. “You mean I don’t control my impulses,” I say, and as soon as it’s out of my mouth, I know it sounds dumb. But it makes sense, somehow, to say it that way.

“Maybe.” Now she gives me one of those librarian looks, over her glasses. “But then, I don’t know you. Could be you are just a dumb fuck.”

I aim one quick glare at her—what’s she doing listening to me all of a sudden?—but she’s got her eyes down again, and I’m too depressed to start anything with anybody right now.

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