He tilted his head back to meet her gaze. “Oh, we are discussing literature, Professor.” Clearing his throat, he tapped the screen, pulling up Kimbrough’s thirty-ninth published work, Marooned in the Asteroid Labyrinth. “As you can see, dramatist Joel Kimbrough often played on themes of loneliness and abandonment, in which the protagonist is forced to overcome not only external obstacles like space monsters and malfunctioning spaceship engines, but also the internal devastation that comes with complete solitude. His works often employ the vast emptiness of space as a symbol of loneliness and the battles each of us face against our own personal demons. In the end, his protagonists overcome their feelings of insecurity only after they accept the help of an unlikely assistant, such as an android or an alien or”—his mouth quirked to one side—“a pretty girl who happens to be a skilled marksman when she’s handed a high-powered ray gun.”
A wave of tittering rolled through the class, confirming Carswell’s suspicions that he now had an audience.
“So, you see,” he said, gesturing again at the screen, “I was just telling Miss Fallow that the themes in Kimbrough’s works relate to my own personal struggles with math homework. I so often feel lost, confused, completely hopeless … but, by joining forces with a pretty girl who understands the problems I currently have to work through, I may yet overcome the obstacles laid out before me and achieve my ultimate goal. Namely, high marks in math class.” He gave a one-shouldered shrug and added, for good measure, “And literature class, naturally.”
Professor Gosnel stared down at him with her lips pursed and he could tell that she was still annoyed, although simultaneously trying to hide a twinge of amusement. She sighed. “Just try to stay on task, Mr. Thorne.”
“Yes, Professor Gosnel.” He glanced at Kate, and though she wouldn’t meet his eyes, she was nibbling at her bottom lip and almost smiling.
The rest of the class was still chuckling as Professor Gosnel turned back to her own screen and began listing some of the literary terms students should be using to discuss their assignments—words like themes, obstacles, and symbolism. Carswell smirked.
Then a voice broke out of the mild chatter, loud enough to reach Carswell, but quiet enough to make it seem like it wasn’t intentional. “If it’s a pretty girl that he needs to help with his ‘problems,’ he’s out of luck if Kate Fallow is the best he can find.”
Someone else guffawed. A few girls giggled before putting their hands over their mouths.
Carswell glanced back to see Ryan Doughty smirking at him—a friend of Jules’s. He shot him a glare before turning back to Kate. Her smile had vanished, her eyes filling with mortification.
Carswell curled his hand into a tight fist, having the sudden, unexpected urge to punch Ryan Doughty in the mouth. But instead, as the class quieted down, he ignored the feeling and once again scooted his chair closer to Kate’s.
“So, like I was saying before,” he said, teetering on the line between casual and nervous, “maybe we could eat lunch together today, out in the courtyard.” He would have to cancel the afternoon’s card game, which would put him behind schedule, but if he could submit today’s homework during math—complete and on time—it would be the fastest way to start turning around his marks. And he only had a week to show his dad that things were improving before mid-July break started. “What do you say?”
Kate’s jaw was hanging again, her blush having returned full force.
“Carswell?”
Sighing, he didn’t hide his glare as he turned back to Blakely. “Yes, Blakely?”
Her glower put his to shame. “I thought you and I were going to be partners today.”
“Uh—I’m not sure, Blakely. I’m afraid I already asked Kate, but…” He grinned shyly in Kate’s direction. “I guess she hasn’t given me an answer yet.”
Blakely harrumphed. “Well then, maybe we should call off our date to the dance too. Then you two can go fight obstacles and achieve goals together.”
He sat up straighter. “Huh?”
“Last week,” Blakely said, curling her fingers around the edge of her desk, “I asked if you were going to the Peace Dance and you said I’d be the girl you asked if you did. I’ve been planning on it ever since.”
“Oh, right.” Carswell was losing track of how many girls he’d said some version of this line to, which was probably bad planning on his part, but at the time Blakely had asked, he’d been hoping to get her to invest in his Send Carswell to Space Camp fund.
“Unfortunately,” he said, “it’s looking like I may be babysitting my neighbors’ toddlers that day. Two-year-old triplets.” He shook his head. “They’re a handful, but so blasted cute, it’s impossible not to love them.”
Blakely’s anger fizzled into warm adoration. “Oh.”
Carswell winked. “But if they end up not needing me, you’ll be the first to know.”
She squinched her shoulders up from the flattery. “But do you want to work together today?”
“Ah, I’d love to, Blakely, but I did ask Kate already … er, Kate?”
Kate had her head down, her hair falling over her face so that he could only see the tip of her nose. Her body had taken on a new tenseness, her knuckles whitening as she gripped the stylus.
“It’s all right,” she said, without looking up at him. “I’m sure the teacher will let me work on my own. You can work with your girlfriend.”
“Oh—she’s not—we’re not—”
Blakely grabbed his arm. “See, Kate doesn’t mind. You said that you chose Joel Kimbrough?”
Clearing his throat, Carswell looked first at Blakely, then back up at Kate, now hidden behind an invisible wall.
“Um, fine.” He leaned toward Kate again. “But are we still on for lunch? So I can, you know, check out that homework assignment?”
Kate tucked her hair behind her ear and leveled a look at him that was both annoyed and intelligent. It told him that she knew exactly what he was doing, or trying to do. To her. To Blakely. To every girl he’d ever asked a favor from. Carswell was surprised to feel a tingle of shame down his spine.
Her jaw twitched. “I don’t think so. And we probably shouldn’t study together after all.”
Turning away, she fitted a pair of speaker-plugs into her ears, and the conversation was over. In its wake was a feeling of disappointment that Carswell couldn’t quite place, but he didn’t think had very much to do with math.
* * *
“Seven card royals,” said Carswell, dealing another hand of cards. “Aces are wild. Triplets beat the house.”
“Why don’t we ever play that doubles beat the house?” asked Anthony, picking up his cards and rearranging them in his hands.
Carswell shrugged. “We can play that way if you want. But it means the pots will be smaller. Not as much risk, not as big a payout.”
“Triplets are fine,” said Carina, needling Anthony in the side with her elbow. “Anthony’s just afraid he’s going to lose again.”
Anthony scowled. “It just seems like the odds are a little biased toward Carswell, that’s all.”
“What do you mean?” Carswell waved his hand over the pot. “I’ve lost the last three hands in a row. You guys are bleeding me dry over here.”
Carina raised her eyebrows at Anthony as if to say, See? Do the math. Anthony duly fell quiet and tossed his ante into the pot. They were playing with markers scavenged from the school’s lunch bar—olives were micro-univs, potato crisps were singles, and jalapeño slices made for fivers. The trick was to keep Chien—who was seated on Carswell’s left and had the appetite of a whale—from eating them in between games.
At the end of every school day, Carswell—as “the house”—would divvy up the wins and losses between the players’ real savings accounts. He’d based his system on the same odds that the casinos in the valley used, allowing him to win about 60 percent of the time. It was just enough to turn a consistent profit but also give players frequent enough wins that they kept comin
g back. It had turned out to be one of his more profitable ventures to date.
Carina took the next hand without much competition, but that was followed by a round in which no one could beat the house’s required triplets-or-better, ending Carswell’s losing streak. He kept the grin from his face as he raked the pot of food scraps into his dwindling pile.
He quickly did the math in his head. He was up from where he’d started the lunch period, nearly eleven univs. Just seven more would put him at his goal for the day and push him into the next bracket of his savings account.
Seven univs. Such a small thing to just about anyone in this school, just about anyone in the entire city of Los Angeles. But to him, they equaled sixteen weeks of freedom. Sixteen weeks of being away from his parents. Sixteen weeks of total independence.
He brushed his thumb over his Rampion tie tack for good luck and dealt another hand.
As the betting began, he glanced up and caught sight of Kate Fallow sitting on the low stone wall that surrounded the courtyard, the pleated skirt of her uniform pulled snugly around her knees. She was reading from her portscreen—no surprise there—but it was odd to see her out here at all. Carswell had no idea where she normally spent her lunch hour, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t in this courtyard, where he could always be found.
The betting ended and Carswell began to dole out replacement cards, but now he was distracted. His gaze kept flicking back to Kate. Watching how she smiled at something on the screen. Mindlessly tugged at her earlobe and tapped her heels against the wall. Seemed to sigh with a hint of longing.
Maybe she came to the courtyard every day and he’d never noticed. Or maybe she’d come here today because he’d suggested it, even if the offer had ultimately been declined.
Either way, it was clear from the faraway look in her eyes that she wasn’t in the courtyard right now, not really, and he couldn’t help wondering where she was.
Holy spades. Was he developing a crush on Kate Fallow? Of all the girls who smiled and swooned and giggled, all the girls who would have handed over their math homework for nothing more than a flirtatious compliment, and he suddenly couldn’t keep his eyes off one of the most awkward, isolated girls in the school?
No, there had to be more to this. He was probably just confusing his desperation to raise his math grades and lift his dad’s punishment with something that bordered on romantic interest. He didn’t like Kate Fallow. He just wanted Kate Fallow to like him so he could swindle her out of her math homework.
Just like he swindled everyone.
There it was again. That peculiar tingle of shame.
“Ha! Suited triplets!” said Chien, laying out his cards. The other players groaned, and it took Carswell a moment to scan the hands and determine that, indeed, Chien had taken the round. Usually he could pick out the winning hand in half a glance, but he’d been too distracted.
As Chien scooped up his winnings, Carswell determined that he probably should have quit while he was ahead after all. He was back down to eight univs won for the day, ten behind his goal.
Boots would not be impressed.
“Well done, Chien,” he said. “One more hand?”
“There won’t be time for it if our dealer goes out to space again,” said Anthony. “What’s wrong with you?”
He cringed, the words reflecting his father’s question from just that morning. “Nothing,” he said, shuffling the cards. “Just had something on my mind.”
“Oh, I see what he was looking at,” said Carina. “Or should I should say who.”
Chien and Anthony followed Carina’s gesture. “Kate Fallow?” said Anthony, with a curled lip that said he highly doubted she was the person who had caught Carswell’s interest.
Ducking his head, Carswell redistributed a new round of cards, but no one picked them up.
“He was flirting with her in lit class this morning,” said Carina. “Honestly, Carswell. Everyone knows you’re a hopeless flirt, but do you really have to get every girl in the whole school to fall under your spell? Is this some sort of manly conquest you’re on or something?”
It was easy for Carswell to slip back into his most comfortable role. Cupping his chin in one hand, he leaned toward Carina with a suggestive smirk. “Why? Are you feeling left out?”
Groaning, Carina shoved him away, at the same time that the speakers announced the end of lunch hour. A groan rose up from the courtyard but was hastily followed by the sounds of footsteps padding back into the buildings and friends bidding each other good-bye for the whole ninety minutes they were about to be separated.
Carswell gathered up the cards he’d just dealt and slipped them back into his bag. “I’ll tally the winnings,” he said, shooing away a fly that was buzzing around the pile of food.
“How do we know you won’t take a little extra for yourself?” asked Chien, with unhidden distrust.
Carswell only shrugged. “You can stay and count up your own if you’d prefer, but then we’ll both be late to class.”
Chien didn’t argue again. Of course, a lost univ or two was nothing to any of them, so what did it matter if Carswell skimmed a little off the top?
By the time he’d entered the balances into his portscreen and put in a reminder to shuffle the money between their accounts when he got home, the courtyard had emptied but for him and the seagulls that were creeping in to pick at the scraps of abandoned food. Carswell slipped his portscreen back into his bag beside the deck of cards and heaved it over one shoulder.
The second announcement blared. The halls were abandoned as Carswell made his way to second-era history. He would be a couple of minutes late for the second time that day, but the teacher liked him, so he couldn’t bring himself to be worried about it.
And then, through the quiet that was laced with the padding of his own footsteps and the hushed conversations behind closed classroom doors, he heard a frustrated cry.
“Stop it! Give it back!”
Carswell paused and traced his steps back to the hallway that led off to the tech hall.
Jules Keller was holding a portscreen over his head, grinning, with Ryan Doughty and Rob Mancuso surrounding him.
And then there was Kate Fallow, her face flushed and her hands on her hips in a semblance of anger and determination, even though Carswell could tell from here that she was shaking and trying not to cry.
“What do you keep on this thing, anyway?” said Jules, peering up at the screen and scrolling through her pages with his thumbs. “Got any naughty pictures on here?”
“She sure does stare at it a lot,” said Rob with a snort.
Carswell’s shoulders sank, first with embarrassment for Kate, then with that inevitable feeling that something bad was about to happen. Bracing himself, he started down the hall. No one seemed to have noticed him yet.
Kate squeezed her shoulders against her neck and held out a hand. “It’s just a bunch of books. Now give it back. Please.”
“Yeah, sleazy books, probably,” said Jules. “Not like you could ever get a real date.”
Kate’s bottom lip began to quiver.
“Seriously, there aren’t any games on here or anything,” said Jules with apparent disgust. “It’s the most boring portscreen in L.A.”
“We should just keep it,” said Ryan. “She’s obviously not using it right.”
“No—it’s mine!”
“Hello, gentlemen,” said Carswell, at the same moment that he reached up and snatched the portscreen out of Jules’s hand. He had to get on his tiptoes to do it, which he hated, but seeing the flash of surprise and bewilderment that crossed Jules’s face made it worthwhile.
Of course, the look didn’t last long.
Carswell took a few steps back as Jules’s hand flexed into a fist. “What a coincidence,” he said. “I was just coming to look for Kate. So glad you found her for me.” He raised his eyebrows at Kate, then quirked his head back down the hallway. “Come on.”
She swiped at the first tear t
hat started down her cheek. Wrapping her arms around her waist, she dodged around the boys to come stand beside him, but Carswell hadn’t taken two steps away before Jules grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him back around.
“What, is she your girlfriend now or something?” he said, nostrils flaring with, if Carswell hadn’t known better, a hint of jealousy.
Which just blasted figured. Mocking and bullying a girl would be the way that Jules attempted to show affection. It somehow seemed to fit with that completely messed-up head of his.
Carswell stifled a sigh. Maybe he could start an after-school Flirting 101 class. There were a lot of people in this school who could really use the help.
What could he charge for that? he wondered.
“Right now,” he said, drawing his attention back to the numbskull in front of him and placing a hand on Kate’s arm, “she’s the girl that I’m escorting back to class. Feel free to spread whatever rumors you want from that.”
“Yeah? How about the rumor that I gave you a black eye because you wouldn’t mind your own business?”
“I’m honestly not sure people are going to buy that one, given that—”
The fist collided with Carswell’s eye faster than he’d have thought possible, sending him reeling back against the row of lockers with a resounding clang.
The world tilted and blurred and he thought Kate may have screamed and something clattered on the ground—her portscreen, falling from his own hand—but all he could think was, Spades and aces and stars, that hurt.
He’d never been punched before. He’d always assumed it would be easy to bounce back from, but now he had the instinctive desire to curl up into a ball and cover his head with both arms and play dead until they all went away.
“Carswell!” yelled Kate, seconds before Rob grabbed him by the elbow and yanked him away from the lockers, and then Jules’s fist was in his stomach and he’d probably broken a rib and Carswell was on his knees and Ryan was kicking him and all his senses were made up of pain and grunts and Kate’s shrieks and he really would have thought that he’d have lasted a lot longer than this, but …