“This is Jonas. He seems shy, so please be nice to him.”
Jonas wasn’t sure he would describe himself as shy. The word was gentler than he felt. But what she had said was that he seemed shy, and that at least was true.
“Jonas, this is my friend Lyle—short for Lyla. You’ll probably see her a lot at home. She comes over all the time.”
“Well, hello, Jonas,” the green-haired girl said. Except for her jacket, she was dressed all in black. Her lipstick left bold, red rings on the straw of her milk. “I wasn’t invited over for Labor Day because apparently you were a big mystery.”
Noemi ignored her and gestured to the other girl. “This is Amberlyn. All one name.”
“Nice to meet you. Are you taking bio?” Amberlyn asked. “If you are, then my dad is probably your teacher.” She was dressed in a plain T-shirt and jeans, like so many others in the cafeteria, yet it made her seem out of place at this table. Her hair was very red, and the way it was braided loosely atop her head reminded Jonas of a milkmaid’s.
To his left, Noemi set to work unlatching her lunch box with strawberry-colored fingernails, then prying open the lid of the Tupperware inside. Lyle slapped her hand on the lid. “Wait! We didn’t guess.”
“Fine.”
Lyle looked at Amberlyn, who held her chin in an exaggeratedly thoughtful way. “A deer,” Amberlyn said. She placed her index fingers along her temples and wiggled them, smiling. “Cute little antlers. No?”
“I’m going to guess a tiger. No! Wait. We’ve had that. A squirrel,” Lyle said. “Have you never done a peanut butter squirrel? That seems like an oversight.”
“Pick an animal, Jonas.” Noemi regarded him coolly. Her eyes were green bursting through brown. He had no idea what she was talking about. His mind filled with trees and moss.
“A pine marten?” he asked. More than asking whether “a pine marten” was the correct answer, he was asking, To what question?
“Pine marten? Wow. It’s a good guess,” Noemi told the others. “Never made a pine marten before. Very unique answer.”
The lid popped off, and Noemi’s lunch was revealed. A crust-less sandwich had been cut into a raccoon-shaped face and given little red eyes, a snout, and ears with slices of strawberry. Beside it were thin cuts of kiwi ordered into a stack of hearts.
“It’s supposed to be a badger,” she lamented. “Pine marten might actually be the closest guess, come to think of it. They’re both mustelids.”
“That must take time,” Jonas said.
Noemi shrugged, then flicked Lyle on the hand as she stole a piece of kiwi and popped it into her mouth.
All three girls worked to invite Jonas into the conversation: Lyle asking questions, Amberlyn providing explanations for people and practices he wouldn’t have encountered yet, and Noemi shading everything with her opinions.
The match-lighting kid from that morning squatted on the chair beside Jonas and leaned against the table, his whole body tilting in Jonas’s direction. Jonas’s temporary optimism deflated. Everyone turned to look at the intruder, and Jonas silently assessed the potential danger. It was hard to tell half sitting down if the boy was taller than Jonas, who was admittedly tall. But where Jonas was lanky, this person was lean and athletic, and he looked like he could have detached Jonas’s head from his neck using only one arm. A Misfits T-shirt had parted with its sleeves to emphasize this fact.
“Are you lost?” Noemi spoke through Jonas without casting the newcomer a glance.
“You’re in my seat,” the boy said to Jonas. He perched with one foot bent onto the chair, knee crammed between the table and his own body.
“Your name’s not on it,” Lyle said. Her eyebrows disappeared behind her bangs.
“I sat in it last year.” His eyes were so blue they would be better suited to a robot, two bright LEDs. “And I farted in it. Like a lot.”
Noemi set her sandwich delicately within her lunch box and swiveled toward him. Jonas straightened and leaned back so she could see the other boy. “Oh, grow up. First of all, Gaetan, you sat there.” She pointed to the empty seat next to Amberlyn. “And second, no one now at this table has ever invited you to sit here, so why you would want to is beyond me.”
“Someone’s in a mood. I’d guess you were on the rag, but who could tell?” Gaetan stood, and Noemi prickled at Jonas’s elbow.
“Asshole. Shouldn’t you be selling drugs in a bathroom or something?” Noemi’s voice sharpened.
Gaetan offered no retort, just a lazy salute before sauntering off to a crowded table on the opposite side of the cafeteria.
“I hate that guy.”
Lyle nodded in agreement.
“Staying out of it,” Amberlyn said.
“Did you guys used to date or something?” Jonas asked, oblivious.
Noemi laughed, fierce and humorless. “Don’t be so grotesque. People are eating.”
“I’m not squeamish,” Lyle interjected, jabbing her potato-burdened fork in Noemi’s direction.
Noemi lifted a strip of strawberry with a wooden fork. “A friend of Gaetan’s sat here last year, so we tolerated that pain in the ass on his behalf.”
“I’m surprised you have friends in common.”
She glanced to the girls across the table. While Lyle stared back, round-eyed, Amberlyn’s gaze was narrowed on the apple wedges atop the insulated lunch bag in front of her.
“We don’t.” Noemi shifted in her seat. The gravity around her changed.
Jonas thought of the ornery calico at Lamplight, who could look so restful but for a thrashing tail. Noemi had no overt tells, yet her calm voice and light demeanor still smacked of mechanical affectation.
“There was a student who used to sit here, despite his horrible taste in friends. Last year.” She kept her voice low and her chin inclined toward Jonas as though to prevent the others from hearing; it made it difficult for him to make out her words even sitting right beside her. “Amberlyn, when does hockey start?”
Amberlyn blinked and murmured a confused uh, processing the sudden change in subject. Jonas used the beat to probe further.
“Your friend…graduated?” Staggering mid-sentence, he softened his voice.
He’d never been great at reading a room, always tended to assume the worst-case scenario: that he’d said something wrong or everyone disapproved of him. Here the worst-case scenario would be that their friend had not graduated, that something else had happened, and Jonas looked from their faces to the crumpled paper bag in front of him, remembered the story about the boy in the woods, and dropped the subject.