Those Kids from Fawn Creek: Chapters 9–17

Before Orchid showed up, the air was heavy and stifling. But the week after she appeared, it changed. When Monday rolled around, it was seventy degrees with low humidity.

Maybe that’s why he suggested, insisted, and ultimately volunteered to invite Orchid to their lunch table.

Orchid didn’t react at first, and for a moment Greyson had the ridiculous thought that she was a hallucination. The way the sunlight touched her face. The small, delicate bite in the apple. The strange glow in her eyes.

Besides, something about Orchid made her feel small. Like she was shrinking. It wasn’t anything the new girl did, necessarily. It was just her presence.

They walked stealthily, as if they were doing something wrong.

She glanced over her shoulder then maneuvered around the boxes, leading the way.

See, this was why Slowly didn’t have much “social stock,” as Janie’s mother would say. You’d think the Kingery boys would be popular just because of who they were—the Kingerys had their names on just as many business signs as the Crawfords—but it hadn’t worked out that way for them.

They were saved only by their family name. But they weren’t unscathed. Take Lehigh, for instance. He’d been called Lee as a kid, but then he started Fawn Creek Elementary and it became clear that he couldn’t keep up with the rest of the class. That’s when someone—Renni, probably—named him “Slow Lee.”

“Because it’s a billion degrees outside and they’re going to be covered in mosquito bites from head to toe in about ten seconds. Watch. They’ll probably need a blood transfusion.”

“She looks dirty. All that hair.”
This was ironic since Barn’s aversion to bathing was practically legendary, but no one pointed that out.

“She looks dirty. All that hair.”
This was ironic since Barn’s aversion to bathing was practically legendary, but no one pointed that out.

Janie didn’t know if he liked her for certain, of course. It was just a hunch. But the best part of a hunch is when you discover that you’re right.

The grass was overgrown, partly obstructing their view of the lunchroom window.

The mosquito on her arm flew away. Dorothy wondered if it would leave a welt.

“There are a lot of great Dorothys.” Orchid counted on her fingers, naming a slew of Dorothys that Dorothy had never heard of.

Dorothy tried to conjure some nicknames for herself, but her mind went blank.

After being best friends for seven years, they knew every nuance of each other’s expressions.

Dorothy and Greyson had the same routine for every game: as soon as the first quarter started, they bought armfuls of chips, popcorn, and push-up pops from the high schoolers at the concession stand and lugged their haul to their favorite out-of-the-way picnic table.

Dorothy knew there was not a single cell in Greyson’s body that had any desire to trudge through the marsh to kill ducks.

“It was bound to happen sooner or later.”

They walked together down the sidewalk. Students passed, eyeing Orchid, eyeing all three of them. Dorothy felt regal, walking with Orchid like that.

Greyson wondered if that’s what happened when you traveled the world. You became more mature and learned how to sound sophisticated, maybe.

“There are so many beautiful brown things!” Orchid said, her voice pitched with incredulity. “Chestnuts! Trees! Violins!”

Orchid continued, even louder: “Mahogany! Teddy bears!”

He’d dropped a bite of peach cobbler on his shirt, so now there was a wet glob right in the center of his chest, like a bull’s-eye.

She’d intended to sound more casual, like Hey, just curious what you were talking about because it looked like you were having an interesting conversation, but that’s not why she’d come outside, was it?

“How did you manage to get an adverb for a nickname?” Orchid asked.
Janie sighed. Ugh. Were they seriously going to talk about Slowly this whole time?

She would use this precious time to talk about Janie. She would gauge Max’s interest.

She tried to imagine Colt as that teary-eyed and screaming second grader. That’s what Greyson had told her to do when she felt inexplicably shy.

“Who knows. The man is a mystery wrapped in an enigma.”

She spent much of her time washing clothes, preparing food, and spreading the good word. It wasn’t the grandiose adventure her classmates had imagined.
But now she was sitting next to someone who’d actually had grandiose adventures.

“You can get any kind of food you want at any time.”
“Like what?”
“Like chicken shawarma. Falafel. Samosas. Pancit. Lumpia. Kefta and couscous.”

Daelyn felt self-conscious all of a sudden. Did she sound too braggy? Did Orchid think she was showing off?

Mrs. Ursu was straightening up at the front of the classroom with Slowly lingering nearby. This was the pose she usually took just before she gave them a flurry of instructions.

A thick line of honey trickled out. It moved slower than he expected.
“It’s like snot,” he said.
“It has more density than snot,” Mrs. Ursu said.

From out of the corner of his eye, Slowly saw Barn lick a dollop of honey off his finger.

In a place like Fawn Creek, three things were always certain—heat, humidity, and eavesdroppers. This was especially true at school, where the kids were forced into the same shared space from morning to afternoon, with only a brief respite at lunch (and even then, you weren’t spared from meddlers, as proven by Janie’s appearance on the basketball court).

It was confounding to her that she’d be so excited about news that had nothing to do with her.

He stopped scrolling on his phone for a moment to squint at the relentless Louisiana sun. “I hate the weather here. I wanna move someplace cold. Or at least a place that has seasons.”

He walked and scrolled at the same time, even though they were nearing the crosswalk and he was sure to get a stern talking-to from Miss Pam, the crossing guard.