We nodded.
“If one of the prints smudges,” he continued, “let it dry and paint over the smudge with the white paint. I’ve blocked off the walkway. If anyone disregards the barriers, tell them to get off the sidewalk. I’ll check back on you later. Don’t leave until the job is finished.”
The security guard returned to his golf cart, leaving us to our fate. As he drove off, he added, “Don’t let your brushes dry out! That’s what the jars of water are for!”
“Thank you, Security Bill,” Cooper muttered. “They didn’t teach that in junior high art class.”
I snickered and sat on the sidewalk with Cooper to tape down the stencils. Even though I’d given him back his clothes, he still wore his gym outfit. “I guess you weren’t so eager to have your clothes back after all,” I said.
“I don’t want to get paint on them.”
“Oh. I just planned on being careful.” It was probably a stupid thing to say. I didn’t know how to have a normal conversation with Cooper. I’d never spoken to him one-on-one unlessyou counted the time in sophomore algebra when I wore a Green Bay Packers sweatshirt and he told me the team sucked.
I couldn’t even argue with him about that. I don’t watch football. The sweatshirt had been a present from one of Peyton’s boyfriends that I’d inherited when they broke up.
Cooper and I worked silently for a while. I was surprised at the number of students who left school late and passed by on the street or on the strip of grass next to the school. A lot of them stopped to talk to Cooper and see what he was doing.
Cooper, of course, was friends with every person in the senior class and half the junior class as well. My group of friends, acquaintances, and curious onlookers was much smaller. The only time people noticed me was when I was on the stage.
All the stragglers finally left. Despite the fact that the principal wanted us to have some sort of heart-to-heart, Cooper still didn’t say anything to me. The only sound was the swipe of our paintbrushes and the tape being ripped from the roll.
A stray cat that always hung around the school appeared to survey our progress and see if we’d left any ham lying about. I brightened. “It’s Mascot.” The name I’d given him would’ve been more fitting if he was an orange tabby and looked more like a tiger. He was white and orange spotted. I felt it was close enough. “Do you have any food on you?”
Cooper glanced at the cat. “You actually feed that thing?”
“Only if I’m eating lunch outside and see him. He won’t come near you, but if you toss cheese chunks, he’ll eat them.”
Cooper shook his head with contempt. “Girls like you are the reason we have a stray cat problem at school.”
“Is there more than one?” I scanned the area as though I might spot a litter of kittens playing somewhere. I’d only ever seen Mascot. “What kind?”
Cooper made a grumbling sound in the back of his throat, letting me know I was missing the point. “Stray cats are a nuisance. They poop on the practice field and pee on the bleachers. You need to stop feeding it.”
Selena had a cat, an aloof Siamese who, as far as I could tell, hated everyone and everything, but I had learned certain cat facts from his care. “Cats cover their poop, so if you find anything on the field, it’s from a dog. Also, it doesn’t matter if I occasionally toss cheese to Mascot. He gets plenty of food from the garbage.” That’s where I usually saw him, hanging around the big dumpster next to the school cafeteria, waiting for breakfast or lunch leftovers.
Cooper jabbed his paintbrush into the paint can. “His gravy days are over. Coach complained about him, so the school put a lock on the dumpster lid.”
“Oh.” I pulled my phone out of my back pocket. “Note to self. Tomorrow, bring a lock cutter to school.” I smiled serenely. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
Cooper scowled in Mascot’s direction. “If the cat wants someone to toss something at him, I can oblige.”
I almost said, “You wouldn’t,” but I knew that response would only make him more likely to throw something just to spite me. I slipped my phone back into my jeans and picked up my brush again. “We’re supposed to be working out our differences. So far, all you’ve done is wave to passing friends and convince me you’re a soulless cat hater.”
Cooper finished painting the last of the stencils. “What’s there to say? We’ll leave each other alone from now on.” He stood up like the matter was settled and moved to the first stencil so we could start reusing them.
I should’ve been happy with his pronouncement and lethim go back to giving me the silent treatment. It bothered me, though. That’s what jocks like Cooper were good at—ignoring the rest of us. He wasn’t getting off that easily this time. “Mrs. Tsuru will ask us what we talked about. It would be helpful to tell her we actually said words to each other.”
He ripped the stencil from the sidewalk. “This one’s smudged. The paint bled underneath.”
“Those aren’t quite the words I was thinking of.”
He pulled off the next stencil. “This one is smudged too. I bet they all are.” He ran a hand through his hair, tousling his curls. “We’re going to have to touch up all of them, and if we don’t do it perfectly, the toes will look weird, and we’ll have to repaint them. This will take forever.”
The problem was the tape. Since the sidewalk was dirty and had bits of gravel on it, the stencils didn’t stick well to the ground. “Maybe if one of us holds the stencil in place it will work better.”
“You want to go from two painters to one? That will also take forever.”
“But we’ll gain time by not having to put tape on and off.”
