“She doesn’t know who I am.”
“What?Yes, she does! Everyone knows who you are. You’re a town council kid, and on top of that you’ve been on TV.”
Her blush deepened. “Yeah, for weird things like investigating ghosts.”
“So? You’re still popular. You have tons of friends.”
“No, I don’t.”
“If you have at least two friends, that’s ‘tons of friends’ to me.”
“You can have people who call themselves your friends and you can still be alone. It’s not about hanging out or liking the same things. It’s about understanding each other. When you understand someone, you care about them, for good or for bad. You have a bond.That’sfriendship.”
“Maybe you don’t have friends because your definition of friendship is kind of lofty.”
“Don’t pretend like you’re too cool for a meaningful examination of one of the most basic human experiences.”
“Too many big words today.”
Artemis rolled her eyes.
“You talk about howIdeflect all the time,” I said. “None of this had anything to do with whether Mads knows you. Mads definitely knows you. She was talking about you at work last week.”
“She was?”
“She was wondering what you use on your hair to make it so shiny.”
Artemis yanked her scarf over her face. “Ohhhh. Oh no.”
“‘Oh no’ what? Isn’t this a good thing?”
“She’stoocute! I don’t know what to do with my body when she’s around!”
“You were talking to her the other night, at Hal’s!”
“Yes, but I wasn’tlookingat her. When you want to date someone, you have tolookat them.”
“Ugh. I’m too asexual for this.”
The marching band passed us. Artemis did look. Mads glanced our way. I waved. Mads pointed her baton and waved back. Artemis buried herself in her scarf and squeaked in defeat.
“Mads is going to be at Hal’s tonight, by the way,” I said. “You should come ask her—”
Artemis jabbed a finger across the street.“Bach.”
My mouth snapped shut. I followed her finger to where Bach stood on the sidewalk outside the library, surrounded by empty space, no townspeople, dead or alive. Sunglasses hid his eyes, the breeze ruffled his hair. Except for the sunlight, he looked appropriately vampirish. Tall, dark, ageless. He never came to public outings. One of the hazards of having an immortal body was people noticing that you never aged.
He wasn’t watching the parade. His head roved slowly back and forth, like he was scanning the street and the sidewalks. Looking for something, or someone. I tried to catch his gaze, but he didn’t look my way. His eyebrows furrowed. Worried. The ghosts nearby had scattered. The ghosts all the way down the street had scattered. The ghosts in town were used to Bach by now; they wouldn’t have left because of him. I grabbed Artemis’s wrist.
“What is it?” she said.
“The firestarter is here,” I said.
The floats turned down Valleywine. Four of them, one for each grade, all depicting the Addamsville football team crushing Harrisburg. The freshmen had made a giant game of Mousetrap with the Harrisburg’s Eagle Pete as the mouse; the sophomore float was Morty the Dead Miner jumping out of a grave in a mini end zone to scare Eagle Pete to death; and the juniors had carved a giant Eagle Pete headstone out of foamand half the JV football team sat on it, singing the Addamsville High fight song.
The senior float rolled past to uproarious applause. On their trailer, another mound of foam had been carved and painted to look like the straining bodies of Harrisburg football players, all of them holding up a throne occupied by none other than Hal Haynes III, the hero who made a sixty-yard Hail Mary pass to win the 2011 homecoming grudge match against Harrisburg in the rain and mud, with a sprained ankle to boot. Up on that float he looked every inch the all-American boy: bright eyes and a white smile, apple pie and fireworks.
His blue and gold jersey and his glittering homecoming crown were set off by his dark-brown skin, and he wielded a golden scepter that flashed in the sunlight. He nodded and gestured to his subjects as he passed, and at one point stood up and yelled, “ALL HAIL ADDAMSVILLE! MAY THIS GAME BE BLESSED!”
