summons. Instead, she’d gone on with her life as if nothing had happened. Rather, she’d tried to go on with her life, and some of her friends had initially gone along with the charade, pretending right along with her. Shadow Council had left Jenny alone — completely alone — focusing instead on her friends, applying their quiet, behind-the-scenes, persuasive tactics. One by one, Jenny’s friends had dropped off her phone-call list. No one would sit with her in the cafeteria, and as long as she defied Shadow Council, nobody had signed out books when she’d worked at the library checkout counter. Sal remembered Jenny’s face, how she’d refused to give in, keeping her chin up, her smile bright and hard, and meeting everyone’s eyes, giving each person she encountered the chance to redeem themselves by returning her smile.
No one had smiled back. By Thanksgiving Jenny’s smile had begun to waver, but her face had continued to fight off doubt. Sal could still feel the weight of the other girl’s eyes sliding across her own one afternoon in late October — desperately sure of herself, resolutely carrying a flag for the possibilities of human nature — and the way her own gaze had dribbled away, leaving the lottery winner to stumble on to the next pair of eyes. By Hallowe’en, Jenny Weaver had given up her mask of hope, and on the Day of the Dead had finally presented herself at Shadow Council’s door.
Her term as lottery winner was now over. People were talking to her again, she sat with a circle of friends at lunch time, Jenny Weaver was as popular as she’d ever been. Last year, and the hell it had brought her, seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth, unless you looked directly into her eyes. Just this afternoon on her way to English, Sal had passed the former lottery winner in the hall with two of her friends. Jenny had been talking a mile a minute, her eyes darting like a dragonfly, here, there, landing nowhere, as if everything she saw was an illusion, a shifting hologram of smiles and laughter, and beyond this stretched the long ache of a truth she’d have to carry alone for the rest of her life.
At the front of the classroom, Ms. Demko began to write the day’s assignment on the chalkboard. As usual, the Pony Express broke into a wild gallop as soon as her back turned. Out of the corner of her eye, Sal saw a note progressing along the back row, hand to hand. As it approached, something fierce and painful fluttered in her chest. She dug her teeth savagely into the inside of her lower lip, telling herself she didn’t care and if she did, it was of no consequence — emotions were trash, should be firebombed and tossed into the dustbin of history. The note slid into the hand of the guy to her right. He read the name written on the front, then slowly, deliberately, leaned across the aisle and tapped the shoulder of the girl sitting ahead of Sal. Slipping the note up her sleeve, the girl waited as Ms. Demko fussed through some papers on her desk, before passing it to the student in front of her.
The note should have come through Sal. The Pony Express followed an established route of dependable couriers, and Sal was definitely on it. She’d taken a giddy pridein her elaborate note-passing skills, riding the communal current that sang through the network of note-passers as each message reached its intended destination. It was a small pleasure, a silly one, something so ordinary she’d never noticed the assumption in it.
Everyone loves a victim. There was no arguing with the words of Willis Cass. Ask the Pony Express. Ask Jenny Weaver, or any one of her so-called friends. Sucking a steady flow of blood from the tear in her bottom lip, Sal realized that if she tried to catch Jenny’s eyes at any point during the rest of this year, the other girl would look away.
She didn’t know whether to show for her after-school rendezvous with Kimmie. They were supposed to meet Tina Wong at the bike racks,
No one had smiled back. By Thanksgiving Jenny’s smile had begun to waver, but her face had continued to fight off doubt. Sal could still feel the weight of the other girl’s eyes sliding across her own one afternoon in late October — desperately sure of herself, resolutely carrying a flag for the possibilities of human nature — and the way her own gaze had dribbled away, leaving the lottery winner to stumble on to the next pair of eyes. By Hallowe’en, Jenny Weaver had given up her mask of hope, and on the Day of the Dead had finally presented herself at Shadow Council’s door.
Her term as lottery winner was now over. People were talking to her again, she sat with a circle of friends at lunch time, Jenny Weaver was as popular as she’d ever been. Last year, and the hell it had brought her, seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth, unless you looked directly into her eyes. Just this afternoon on her way to English, Sal had passed the former lottery winner in the hall with two of her friends. Jenny had been talking a mile a minute, her eyes darting like a dragonfly, here, there, landing nowhere, as if everything she saw was an illusion, a shifting hologram of smiles and laughter, and beyond this stretched the long ache of a truth she’d have to carry alone for the rest of her life.
At the front of the classroom, Ms. Demko began to write the day’s assignment on the chalkboard. As usual, the Pony Express broke into a wild gallop as soon as her back turned. Out of the corner of her eye, Sal saw a note progressing along the back row, hand to hand. As it approached, something fierce and painful fluttered in her chest. She dug her teeth savagely into the inside of her lower lip, telling herself she didn’t care and if she did, it was of no consequence — emotions were trash, should be firebombed and tossed into the dustbin of history. The note slid into the hand of the guy to her right. He read the name written on the front, then slowly, deliberately, leaned across the aisle and tapped the shoulder of the girl sitting ahead of Sal. Slipping the note up her sleeve, the girl waited as Ms. Demko fussed through some papers on her desk, before passing it to the student in front of her.
The note should have come through Sal. The Pony Express followed an established route of dependable couriers, and Sal was definitely on it. She’d taken a giddy pridein her elaborate note-passing skills, riding the communal current that sang through the network of note-passers as each message reached its intended destination. It was a small pleasure, a silly one, something so ordinary she’d never noticed the assumption in it.
Everyone loves a victim. There was no arguing with the words of Willis Cass. Ask the Pony Express. Ask Jenny Weaver, or any one of her so-called friends. Sucking a steady flow of blood from the tear in her bottom lip, Sal realized that if she tried to catch Jenny’s eyes at any point during the rest of this year, the other girl would look away.
She didn’t know whether to show for her after-school rendezvous with Kimmie. They were supposed to meet Tina Wong at the bike racks,
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