Five Things About Ava Andrews by Margaret Dilloway

Author:Margaret Dilloway
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-05-04T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

On the way home, I send a group text to the improv group telling them what happened. Cecily writes back: That’s awful—anybody wanna meet tomorrow and talk about what to do?

But what can we do? I tug on Nana Linda’s sleeve. “Hey, Nana Linda, would it be okay if my improv group came to your house tomorrow so we can . . . you know?” I punch the air. “Figure out what to do next.” And I’ll get to hang out with them, I add in my head. Which I like.

She squeezes my hand. “Of course. The more the merrier.”

I squeeze her hand back.

Mr. Sukow gives us class time to work on our group project the next day. Sometimes thinking about it makes my stomach hurt and then I don’t even want to try to do it, so I don’t. Ty’s got his desk pushed against mine, but his head is lowered, his face hidden by the Chromebook cover and the black hoodie. He kind of stinks the way my brothers stink when they don’t shower and don’t open their bedroom window all weekend. I wrinkle my nose.

Of course that’s when he looks up and sees me. My look of grossed-out-ness. I cringe, feeling my face go hot. “What’s your problem?” he says. “I’m just trying to fix what you lost.”

“The program lost it. Not me.” The woman who wrote the app had written back to us, apologizing, but hadn’t been able to recover my document. Mr. Sukow said we could have an extra week to make up for it if we wanted. Both of us said no. We don’t want to work on this a second longer than necessary.

“You should have made a backup in Word. You were the typist.”

I shake my head. He sounds like Luke. “Are we going to talk about this forever?” Or can you build a time machine to travel into the past to fix it? I add in my head.

Ty cranks his neck back to look at me, startled by the gush of words. “Fine.”

“Fine.”

Ty’s words appear on my screen in our shared document.

This is a napkin. It is absorbent. It helps you clean up spills. Buy me.

I blink at him. It’s not long enough. It’s boring. It’s never going to convince anyone to buy a napkin. But he’s smirking at me as if he’s written the best thing on the planet. Just like when Luke sets the dining table and doesn’t bother folding the napkins.

I add, Made from 100% recycled materials, Bliss Napkins are the best on earth.

“Bliss? What’s that?” Ty wrinkles his nose like I just ate brussels sprouts and had a stinky toot.

I smile and point at my mouth. “Happy.”

Ty deletes the word and types happy. “Too fancy.”

“It’s not.” Is he really going to do this to me? Bliss, I type back.

Blis| I watch the backspace get rid of my word.

Bliss bliss

Blissbliss

bliss

bliss

I type over and over again.

HAAPPPPPY, he types. Yelling.

I’m about to unleash about three hundred blisses when something soft yet rough hits my forehead and bounces down into my lap.

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