"Gordie Lachance," Ms. Evie droned and paused for about a second. "Gordon Lachance?"

"Ah, sorry, Ms. Evie, I'm here."

"Perk up, boy," she said, and the class giggled. She gave them a reprimanding look, then continued down the list. "Mary McRoyan?"

"Present."

"You're the new addition, aren't you, Miss McRoyan?"

"I am."

Roll call. This class wasn't too big, so it would go by quickly. Ms. Evie's lack of enthusiasm however wasn't helping. Mattie prayed that the woman didn't run her Creative Writing class like this. She'd never get anything out of the class if the teacher wasn't even enjoying it. She also hoped that it wouldn't be too hard a class. As far as she knew, she was the only eleventh grade student among twelfth grades.

Later, Ms. Evie handed back a stack of papers that she apparently wasn't very impressed with. She announced that the rest of the class would be devoted to making a list of alternatives to the word "said." Evidently, "said" had been a key word in the class' vocabulary when they had written a short prose piece.

"Miss McRoyan, you may pull your desk up next to Mr. Lachance's since you don't have a paper that I didn't like. I'm going to use the ladies room, so I don't want to hear a peep from any of you."

Mattie did as she said, sliding her desk next to the Lachance guy, a boy with big, sad eyes and mousey brown hair. He had a sensitive, gentle look about him, and she felt like she could trust him immediately.

When Ms. Evie was out of sight, the boy said, "Ms. Evie's sentence would translate to 'I'm going out for a smoke, you can be jackasses all you want but you'd better be looking innocent when I get back.'"

Mattie grinned. "I'll remember that."

"I'm Gordie. Are you Sam McRoyan's sister?"

"Yep. I'm Mattie."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I thought it was Mary."

Smiling, and rubbing at a mark on her desk with the pencil on her eraser, she shook her head. "No. Well, yeah, it is, but I go by Mattie. When Sammy and I were little, he pronounced my name Mattie and it just stuck."

"Your brother seems nice," Gordie said, because it was the right thing to say and it was all he could think of.

"Most of them time, he is."

"Where are you from?" he asked her. He was usually shy, but his shyness was especially pronounced at the moment. All intelligent thoughts seemed to have been erased just by looking at this girl. "And why would you come to Castle Rock? It's a hole in the ground."

"I'm from Portland," she said, that smile no longer lighting up her face. Now she just looked dark. "My mom just died and my grandma lives here and my dad wanted to be close to his mother, so now we're here."

Don't say 'I'm sorry,' Gordie pleaded with himself in his mind, knowing that those two words were the most inadequate words in the dictionary. "Oh, I'm sorry," he said softly.

"Yep, you and everyone else." She exhaled raggedly and smiled again, but it looked painful. "Muttered."

"What?"

"That's another word for said."

"Yes it is, what a smart girl you are," he laughed. "My brother died a couple of years ago. It's really bad, but you eventually get better." He fleetingly met her in the eye and then wrote down the word 'muttered.' "But that's just me."

"And 'called.' That's another one." Glancing out the door and into the hallway, and seeing Ms. Evie approaching, she said, "That's very nice of you to say, Gordie."

A paper airplane flew past Mattie and poked Gordie in the eye. He yelled, "Alright, dammit, who am I killing?" He looked down at Mattie and said, "Sorry for the language." His mother had said that gentlemen don't swear in front of girls.

"Gordon Lachance," Ms. Evie shouted. Mattie could tell by the raspiness in her voice that she had been a smoker for a long time. "May I ask what you are doing?"

"Yes. This paper airplane flew into my eye and it hurt."

"You don't say. And who threw it?"

"Beats me."

"Maybe you'd like to stay after school to think about it?"

"With you? I would rather not." A pink blush coloured the apples of his cheeks. "I mean, no, thank you, ma'am."

Ms. Evie left it at that. Mattie grinned at Gordie. "Courage under fire," she whispered, giggling.

"Miss McRoyan, did something amuse you?"

"Yes." She giggled again and said, "No, I meant no, I am not amused."