Peter is late to class, again, and accepts the detention for tardiness, again, with silent defeat. He comes and sits beside Ned in the row in front of MJ, and the two fist bump, but under the desk, because the teacher is in a thunderingly bad mood and has already handed out two other detentions for basically nothing at all.
"You OK man?" whispers Ned.
"Yeah," mutters Peter, pretending to arrange his study books. His clothes are rumpled like he just got out of bed. "I didn't find anything."
MJ lets her hair fall forward over her face and leans towards this surreptitious conversation.
"It must be something," Ned says. "The flood-" His voice goes a little loud.
"Shut up , man."
Ned shuts up.
The teacher looms over MJ's desk. "Well, Miss Jones? Are you going to startle us all with your brilliance today?"
She calls up the Suit, and answers the teacher's questions with icy calm, and correctly.
"Well done," he says in a way that tells her he wishes she'd got at least one wrong. Jerk.
He returns to the front of the class and behind his back she gives him the finger. Peter has turned around to look at her and sees. She shrugs.
"Parker! What is wrong with your shirt?"
Peter leaps in his seat. "What? Sir?"
"Jeez you're bleeding," says Ned.
Peter scrambles to his feet. The weak-stomached kids recoil from him.
"That," says the teacher, "is a clothing violation."
MJ stands and grabs Peter, who is pale, and appears to be on the verge of fainting. "He's hurt ," she says to the teacher.
"Detention!"
Her mouth drops open. "You can't -"
"And another for you, Jones, shall I keep going?"
Peter looks at MJ. The blood is coming from a wound above his hairline, and has bled all down the front of his checkered shirt. He shakes his head slightly and murmurs, "I'm OK."
"He should see the nurse," MJ says loudly, because nobody else seems to give a damn.
Maybe mention of the nurse sparks some recollection of duty, or potential lawsuits, in the teacher's mind, because he hesitates, and then says, "Fine," like a parody of the world's sulkiest teenager. "Jones, go with him. Do not be more than five minutes."
MJ grabs Peter's arm, and his bag, and they stagger together into the hall.
"I'm OK," he says again.
"What happened?"
"I don't know. Something fell on me on the way to school. A metal sign." He touched his head, looked at his bloodstained fingers. "I thought it was OK, I went home and changed -"
"Jesus. Come on." She drags him in the direction of the nurse's office. "Wait, you get the bus to school."
"Yeah…"
He's not telling her something. Something that Ned knows. He's been off somewhere, doing stuff that is secret between the two of them, and not her.
So what? says the Suit.
Peter straightens up. "I'm feeling better. I'll be Ok on my own-"
"That's not going to cut it, loser." She grips his arm in case he tries to make a run for it. Boy bravado is real, and it leads to concussions.
"Thanks," he says after a few more steps. He is actually leaning on her a little. "It was a big sign." He gives a weak smile. She rolls her eyes. He smells of fresh laundry and donuts, only part of which makes sense.
"What was the sign for?" she says as the door for the nurse's office looms ahead.
He cringes. "A bakery. They were really nice." He closes his eyes for a moment. "The sign was in the shape of a muffin."
She shakes her head in despair, then laughs. "That is too good."
He's wincing and laughing too. "Don't, it hurts."
She delivers him to the nurse and walks back to class, thinking.
She travels at least eighty percent of the same bus route to school as Peter. Every day, for three years now.
There's no bakery with a metal sign shaped liked a muffin.
What the hell is he lying about? And why does that - hurt?