Paper Covers Rock by Jenny Hubbard

Author:Jenny Hubbard
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780375899423
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2011-06-13T21:00:00+00:00

I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21, 12:35 P.M.

Running, Yesterday

It is the time of day when the sun turns treetops into keepers of light. After redoing my homework and leaving it on Miss Dovecott’s desk, I run through that light, up one side of the hill and down the other, imagining possibilities.… Miss Dovecott is only five years older than I am, and in five years, when I’m out of college and the age difference won’t matter, we can fall in love properly and go to restaurants and drink wine and whisper into each other’s eyes and get married and live in an apartment with fresh flowers on every table and bookshelf, flowers that I select myself and bring home from the corner market.

The wildflowers that grow on the banks of the French Broad River have all gone under the earth. Like Thomas. It is a Friday with no rain. The sun leaves nothing of itself on the water; cold air raises goose bumps on my legs. Birds skim across the path, leaves murmur beneath my shoes, sounds that become one with the river.

I stand on a bank far away from the headwaters, far away from the rock. The water is gray but inviting because it is moving, going somewhere. I step down into it, and it covers my shoes and socks. Cold, cold. I take another step, then another. I am up to my knees in water. I test myself to see how far I can go: top of my shorts, my balls start shriveling; up to my belly button; my gray shirt sucks up the gray water, turning my shirt darker. I make it up to my neck, and then it’s too much. I flounder back up the bank, where I fold into myself to stay warm, rocking back and forth to the pulse of the river until my heartbeat falls in unison with it.

“Oh, Alex, it’s you,” a voice says, and I jump.

When I turn my head around, Miss Dovecott steps toward me, her eyes flickering with curiosity. She must wonder what I am doing here when most guys are having dinner with their parents.

“You’re all wet,” she says.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Why would you want to go swimming on a day like today?”

“Uh …” I don’t have an answer.

“You’re cold.”

“I just finished running.”

“You should dry off.”

I take off my shirt.

“You’re shaking,” she says. When she pulls her sweatshirt over her head, I see her nipples poking through her bra and into her shirt. “Here. You need this more than I do.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. I’m fine. I have on a turtleneck.”

“I don’t need your sweatshirt, Miss Dovecott.”

“Alex, the tips of your fingers are blue.”

I lift my hands to look at them. She holds the sweatshirt out to me, and I take it, putting my arms through the sleeves, then pulling it over my head in one quick motion. On Miss Dovecott the sweatshirt is miniskirt length, but it fits me.

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