“What’s the deal with the color of your hair?” I can tell his hair is not any kind of natural color, which means he’s choosing to go around looking like a stoplight. Even a stuffed animal would be embarrassed to have hair that red.
Aubrey runs his fingers through his tight curls, destroying his little horn and making his hair poke out in different directions. “No deal.”
Don’t tell me, then.
“I could probably help you with giving speeches,” he says. “I really like stuff like that. It’s only scary the first few times. You see how easy it is to talk to me, right here? That’s all you have to do when you give a speech. It’s the same thing. You could practice with me.”
“No, thanks,” I say.
Aubrey’s smile is a little shaky, but then it grows, reaching all the way up to his topaz eyes. “Yep,” he says. “Tough one.”
Talking about Astrid Dane is one thing, but speeches? I’d rather eat burned eggs. “Do you know your way home?” I ask, putting an end to this conversation.
Aubrey winks at me, which I didn’t know was something people our age did in real life. “Gotcha!” He grabs his book bag off the floor and heads out of the kitchen, and before I know it, I hear the front door open and close.
I’m not disappointed. Not at all. I wanted him to leave. But I don’t think that was a normal way to leave someone’s house. Aren’t you supposed to say goodbye? Saying gotcha isn’t saying goodbye. I don’t know much about Aubrey, but I have figured out one thing: he’s as odd as I am.
I make my way upstairs and stand outside Malcolm’s door. His music is muted, like he has a pillow over his small portable speaker. I want to ask him to help me make dinner. I want to ask him if he’s okay. I want to ask him if he could try and be happy about being at home.
Instead, I go back downstairs to make dinner by myself. But before I do, I send Rox another text.
Malcolm was talking about how much fun you two used to have. He sure misses you.
Almost immediately, Rox texts me back.
I miss him too.
I tap my teeth with my fingernail, thinking. This is going good. I don’t think it’s too bad that I’m not telling the exact truth because I bet Malcolm does actually miss Rox.
He feels bad about how things ended. But you know Malcolm. He’ll never tell you.
I stare at the message for over a minute. Maybe I’m going too far. This doesn’t seem right, to be getting all into their business. But what if it helps Malcolm? I press send.
18
All That Time
The next day, Aubrey makes himself comfortable right next to me at lunch, and I’m not all that interested in trying to get him to eat somewhere else.
“I like your lunches,” he says. “It’s like what my mom would eat.”
Today, I packed some Brie and soft French bread and olives and a little bit of salami. I shrug. “It’s not that different from a ham sandwich,” I say, putting a bit of Brie on bread and then a piece of salami. I take a bite. “Totally normal.”
Aubrey pulls out his (boring) sandwich and takes a huge bite. Then he says, “So why don’t you like giving speeches?”
What he actually says is “Ohh whuh dur ur eyck grring speeshes?” But I understand him just fine.
“I don’t understand why we’re doing speeches in English. It’s supposed to be about reading and writing and, I don’t know, dangling modifiers,” I say.
Aubrey’s eyes go pretty wide while he’s trying to get that monster bite down his throat. “But like Mr. Humphries said, not all speeches will be extemporaneous, so for those we’ll have to write it first.”
I’m not going to lie. It’s sort of impressive that Aubrey can reel off a big word like that with no trouble. “Then we should just be able to hand in what we wrote.”
“You mean without giving the speech?”
I nod.
“But . . . then it wouldn’t be a speech.”
“Exactly.”
Aubrey takes a few more bites of his sandwich, and I eat one green olive, then two black ones.
Suddenly, he grins at me and snaps his fingers. “You know what? For your next speech, you should do it on Astrid Dane. You wouldn’t be nervous at all. Click!”
I’ve never heard anyone use click like that, but I can sort of figure out what he means. “It’s not click,” I say. “It’s un-click!”
Aubrey cracks up at that. “You’re so funny! You can’t say un-click! Click is like . . .” He looks around like maybe the definition is lying on the grass or up in the sky. “Click, like . . .” He holds up his hands as if he’s holding a camera and then presses down with his finger. “You know, it’s such a sure thing, so obvious, it’s like a picture? You can see it?” He laughs some more, and him laughing at me for not using a dumb word right is annoying.
“Well, if something can be so obvious, then something can be so not obvious.” I shove an olive into my mouth.
Maybe Aubrey doesn’t see how annoyed I am, because he smiles. “Yeah, okay. Un-click. I’ll give you that one. But I still think I’m right. You’d give a great Astrid Dane speech.”
The thought of standing in front of the class again with them staring at me makes me get all sweaty and anxious. My heart starts thudding hard like I just finished running a mile. There’s not one thing I could do that would make me survive giving another speech. I shove the rest of my lunch back into my bag. Why did Aubrey have to ruin everything?
“You can practice it with me. I’m good at speeches. I—”
“I’M NOT GIVING ANOTHER SPEECH! JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!” I stomp away from Aubrey, and I don’t stop until I march all the way to Mr. Humphries’s class.
Mr. Humphries already has the door open, even though it’s not time for class. Before I realize what I’m doing, I start arguing against me giving speeches. I tell him about alternative projects I could do. Or superlong papers, or extra book reports, but Mr. Humphries just smiles and says he understands, but no, I have to do a speech.
“I just don’t understand why we have to do speeches in English,” I say, even though I know it’s no use.
Mr. Humphries laughs as if I told a great joke. “Effective communication is important, Jenae. And learning how to think about things. These speeches will teach you a lot more than just about standing in front of people.” Then he says, “And by the way, that was actually a pretty good persuasive speech you delivered.”
Mr. Humphries thinks he’s funny. And obviously I didn’t give an effective speech, since I didn’t persuade him. I slink to my desk.
When class starts, Mr. Humphries announces that he got a great idea at lunch for our next speech assignment. “I’d like you to present an argument—in other words, a persuasive speech.”
I feel like Mr. Humphries is making fun of me, and I slide low in my chair and steam.
After class, Aubrey heads out without looking my way, and I’m certain I don’t have to worry about him bugging me anymore, so I’m really surprised when I come out of school at the end of the day and find him standing there. The way his face lights up when he sees me, it’s obvious he’s been waiting for me, and I know if I try to walk past him, he’ll just start shouting at me.