What They Always Tell Us by Martin Wilson Page B

Tyler and Kirk, who sit in the back, are conversation buddies today. Lang is also in this class. It’s like a minefield. But when they do have to talk to each other, at least it’s in a foreign tongue.
    Mr. Ramos tells them to talk about the weather, but Alex can barely concentrate. He wants to be outside, back in his sweats, running in the fall air.
    “Alejandro?” Patty asks, using his Spanish-class name. Patty’s Spanish-class name is Patricia. Pa-TREE-see-ah. Their names are prettier in Spanish.
    “Sí?”
he says, breaking out of his spell. Patty frowns and continues droning on, her accent mangling the language.
“El
weather
esta nublado y frío, uh, hoy,”
she says. The classroom is filled with such manglings, all about the autumn air and cloudy sky, the orange and yellow leaves, whatever else they can manage to say with their limited vocabularies. When the bell rings later, he dawdles so that Kirk, Tyler, and Lang leave before him.
    The next and final class of the day is study hall. Each week a new teacher fills in as the class babysitter. This week it’s Mr. Wiley. He mostly ignores them and grades a stack of papers.
    Alex received special permission to skip gym this semester, which he is thankful for. Still, it’s not like the incident made him an invalid or anything. And starting in January he will have to join the gym class throng again—the people not good enough to qualify for a varsity sport. Varsity athletes practice during sixth period—so right this very moment James is at tennis and Nathen is at cross-country, enjoying the air outside. Alex barrels through some chemistry reading and gets a jump on a set of trig problems. His work is sloppy, lackluster. Mostly he stops, puts down his pencil, and stares outside, waiting for the jolt of the bell to announce yet another end to a school day.

    When he gets home, Henry is sitting on the curb in front of his house, wearing jeans and an oversized green sweater.
    “Hi, Alex! How was school?” he shouts the second Alex gets out of his car.
    Alex lumbers over to him, his school satchel on his shoulder. “The usual.”
    “I like school.”
    “Just wait till you’re my age. Then you won’t.”
    Henry squints up at him and smiles. “Whatcha doing now?”
    “Some homework. I may go jogging later.”
    “Mom is taking me to a movie tonight.”
    “Oh yeah?”
    “And pizza after.”
    “That’s nice,” Alex says. Henry’s mother had finally come home that Sunday after Henry had stayed over. Alex had watched her with Henry, from the living room window, as she got out of her car, acting as carefree as if she’d just come home from a haircut. He’d walked outside with Henry, and when she saw them she just waved at them and shouted, “Hi, sweetie!” Alex had wanted to say something—but what? It wasn’t his place.
    “Yeah, it should be fun. Mom doesn’t let me eat pizza much—she says it’s junk food. But she knows I like it.”
    He should ask what movie. But he just wants to go inside. “Well, I better get started on my homework.”
    “Oh, okay,” Henry says.
    An hour later, while grabbing a Coke from the fridge, Alex spies Henry outside, still on the curb, staring off into space.
    James walks into the kitchen and grabs an apple from the fruit bowl. He follows Alex’s gaze out the window. “What’s the deal with that kid?”
    Alex shrugs. All of a sudden he feels protective of Henry. “I dunno.” He wants to say,
What’s the deal with
you?
    James is still in his tennis clothes—black, shimmery nylon sweats and a long-sleeve T-shirt that all the players got for playing in the state finals last spring. “Nate said he ran into you jogging last night.”
    “Yep. I’m going tonight, too. Need to get back into it.”
    James takes another crunch out of his apple. “Good,” he says, before climbing the stairs and shutting himself in his room again.
    Alex guesses that was James’s attempt at brotherly conversation. It’s better than