Page 90

“Thank you, Ranger Rick.” Alvin locked eyes with me, one hand mindlessly rubbing at the bandage on his hand.

The moment he caught me looking, he dropped his arm. We’d told everyone he’d burned it on the camp fire last night, just how we explained away the gash I’d gotten from the dock. It was believable enough that no one asked further questions about either.

The kid pointed at the plant, breaking my and Alvin’s silent stare-off. “What happens if you touch it?” he asked.

“You itch,” Alvin replied.

“Badly,” I added.

“Like when Dee hears someone say the word feelings.”

The group laughed. I kept walking. That was the only appropriate response to Alvin. If you encouraged him, he became worse. If you ignored him, he became creative. If you threatened him, he usually smiled.

Take last night for example. I’d never seen him so worked up before—interpret that how ever you want, because it had multiple meanings. He wouldn’t listen to me about Cindy so I stopped trying to explain it to him. I honestly didn’t know how to explain it to myself.

Nothing like that had ever happened before. Not since I first kissed Lauren Moser in the sixth grade and quickly discovered she had spinach stuck in her braces. And even then, I hadn’t puked over it. Just excused myself from the gym and hid out in the locker room until the bell rang. And maybe brushed my teeth a couple of times to get the taste out of my mouth.

“Are you sulking?” Alvin asked, falling into step beside me. He was good at pretending last night didn’t happen. Almost better than I was.

“No,” I grumbled under my breath.

“You have your sulking face on.” He lifted a hand and made a circular motion around my head.

“This is my regular face,” I said, mimicking the gesture.

“Exactly. Tragic.”

Alvin was wearing a pair of black shorts he’d rolled up and pinned higher on his thighs and a camp-issued t-shirt that had clearly lost a fight with a pair of scissors when he cut a bunch of little strips at the bottom and tied the ends off. His sneakers were muddy and his hair was pulled back, badly, with a few loose strands falling around his face.

He looked ridiculous. He also looked good. And I hated both facts equally.

Ahead of us, Omar pointed out another plant. Pastor Carter’s assistant had somehow joined the group halfway through the trail and immediately made himself useful.

Alvin caught up to him, laughing at something he said. I stepped on a branch hard enough to snap it in half, while imagining it was Omar’s neck. I didn’t like the guy, and he hadn’t even spoken two words to me.

Alvin glanced back over a shoulder. He flicked his eyes to the ground, then up to my face. “Was that branch talking about your mother?”

“Keep walking,” I grunted at him.

He did the opposite, turning fully around. Hands on his hips and a foot tapping in time with each of the steps I took forward before reaching him. “You’re in a mood,” he said, raising a manicured brow at me.

“I’m always in a mood.”

“Not like this. This is a special kind of mood. This is the mood you get when a waiter brings you sparkling water instead of still.”

“I don’t care about sparkling water,” I huffed and moved to walk past him.

He started walking beside me again. “You sent it back.”

“It tasted wrong.”

“It was water.”

“It had bubbles.”

“That’s generally how sparkling water works, sweetie.”

My head twisted in his direction at the pet name. He intentionally fluttered his eyelashes at me.