A Map of the Known World by Lisa Ann Sandell Page A

again?
    “Yeah, I could tell,” Damian says, smiling. “What’s going on? You’re not partaking in the senior prank?”
    “Senior prank?” I echo.
    “It’s a tradition, the senior class stages a prank sometime during the semester before Homecoming.” I suppose my face looks blank, because Damian grins, and says, “You know, big football game, fancy dance? Homecoming?”
    “Oh, right…I heard about it…from…Nate.” We both look down, and I’ll bet my face looks as twisted with confusion and discomfort as his does. “Wait, Homecoming? When is it?” I ask, my mind starting to reel. I am so not clued into anything going on at school, I haven’t even thought about the dance once. I am pretty sure Rachel has mentioned it at some point or another, but I really can’t recall any details.
    “Seriously? You must be the only girl in school who doesn’t know when the dance is,” Damian replies, laughing. “It’s the second weekend in November. Sound familiar?”
    “Oh,” I murmur. A dance? What do I do? Do I go? Would my mother even let me go? I don’t have a dress, a date. Oh my gosh, I’m not ready for this. Images of girls in poofy Pepto-Bismol pink dresses and high heels, boys with their hair slicked back, waltz through my mind. Not to mention the game…
    “Hey, do you want a ride home?” Damian asks, startling me from my train wreck of thought. He shrugs, smiling. “I thought I’d try again.”
    I feel my eyelids stretching to blink over my bug-eyes. Hold on a minute, what? “Um…okay.” I answer. Wait a second; what have I just agreed to? Getting into a car with Damian Archer? I must really be losing it. My mom would have a conniption if she knew that I was riding in a car with anyone under the age of forty (Rule #3), not to mention the one person in the world she hates most and trusts least. Not to mention the fact that he’s…Damian Archer!
    Little beads of sweat break out on my forehead, but I follow Damian, threading through the still-dancing students, to my locker, where he waits for me to grab my coat and books.
    “You don’t need to go to your locker?” I ask.
    “Nope,” he answers. I cock an eyebrow. Does he ever do homework? But I continue after him toward the parking lot.He drives a gorgeous, carefully painted 1971 cobalt blue El Camino with a silver racing stripe down the middle.
    “My lady,” he says, opening the passenger-side door for me.
    “Why, thank you, good sir.” My voice sounds tight; this playacting at normalcy feels false. My stomach is going spastic, and suddenly I realize, I’m scared. What am I doing? What am I doing?
    “Nervous?” Damian asks. He looks at me closely and climbs into the driver’s seat.
    I pause before answering him. That’s a big fat yes. “Ah, a little bit.”
    He nods and turns the ignition. The car roars; it is a lion of an automobile. I jump.
    “Don’t worry. I’ll drive carefully,” Damian tells me. He grins cheekily, but true to his word, Damian drives as slowly and deliberately as my mother. We sit in silence for a while, until Damian speaks. “Hey, do you mind if I show you something before I take you home?”
    “What is it?”
    “Well, it’s hard to explain. I’d rather just show you.”
    I can’t imagine what he could possibly want to show me. An insatiable curiosity grips me. “All right, I guess.” Those bees start kicking around in my gut again, like they’re trying to sting me back to reason and out of this really stupid haze of pliancy.
    “Good,” he says, and smiles again.
    Soon, Damian crosses the county road and turns right onto Union Street. He’s heading east, away from my neighborhood and out toward the fields of the Wright farm. Oh, where are we going? I wonder. This is likely the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. There is a racket of bees buzzing in my ears, pricking my stomach with angry stings. Two minutes later, we’re pulling off the road and onto a gravel track. Damian slows before stopping