Sprout

That’s it, but that day I just thought the girl approaching me looked like a pop star in front of an invisible troupe of backup dancers. You could almost hear the internal soundtrack—my guess, based on the T-shirt, was Hole’s “Rock Star”:
    Well I went to school in Olympia, and everyone’s the same …
    “A hem . I said , ‘Nice kicks ,’ newbie.”
    I looked back at Ian. He had an interesting face too. Well, maybe not interesting as much as handsome—a little bit like Josh Hartnett in The Virgin Suicides (hey, just because I’m a teenager doesn’t mean I can’t like old movies), although he was thicker than JH, more muscly.
    I lifted both feet up (I wasn’t levitating, I was sitting on a stump, remember?) and stared at the graffiti on my shoes. “Fucate,” I said. “Painted, or disguised with paint.”
    “ Hey , Ian.”
    Liberty Leading the People had arrived.
    Ian jumped, turned.
    “Ruth Wilcox,” he said, the way some people say “George Bush” and other people say “Osama bin Laden” and Matt Groening says “Walt Disney.” He pretended to look for something in his pockets. “Too bad I don’t have a letter that needs opening. I could use your nose.”
    I kind of doubt Ian Abernathy had or has any idea what a letter opener is, unless maybe he thinks it’s an email application or something. Ruthie’s nose, however, was most people’s go-to place for an insult. It was just so, well, in your face. Or, in this case, in Ian’s: Ruthie stood so close to him that the tip of her very long, very sharp-looking proboscis practically touched his forehead.
    “Fuchsia,” I said. “A purplish-red color.” Neither of them noticed.
    “Beat it, Abernathy.”
    “You beat it, Wilcox.”
    “Fucoid. A seaweed.”
    I could’ve been talking to the wind for all the attention either of them paid to me. Not that I was surprised. This wasn’t about me. It was a turf war. Crips versus Bloods, schoolyard-style.
    Ruth Wilcox walked around Ian Abernathy like a drill sergeant checking out a sorry-looking recruit.
    “Let’s face it, Ian. We’re not kids anymore. Now that I’ve got these”—she grabbed her chest, which, if anything, was flatter than mine—“it’s no longer okay for you to throw down with me. Which means I can beat the tar out of you, but if you lay a finger on me the whole school will come down on you like a ton of bricks for hitting a girl. So either I kick your butt until you crawl off in shame, or you just crawl off in shame. What’s it gonna be?”
    I’m not sure if it was the basic truth of what Ruth Wilcox said that drove Ian Abernathy away, or just the sheer number of words. His mouth opened and closed several times, and so did his fists, and then he turned to me. “This ain’t over, newbie,” he said, and marched across the playground.
    Neither of us said anything while Ian walked away, the sound of dead grass crunching beneath his sneaks gradually drowned out by the distant screams of first-and second-graders playing tetherball and four-square and game boy. Why do little kids scream like they’re dying when they’re supposedly having fun?
    “I said , is that a dic tionary?”
    I glanced up at Ruth Wilcox, who was staring at me as impatiently as Ian Abernathy had a moment before. I found myself wondering if she’d chased him off so she could beat me up herself.
    I glanced at the ground on either side of the stump. “Huh?”
    “Home room, duh . Did you actually bring your own dictionary to class?”
    I shrugged. “You know, budget cuts and all. I wasn’t sure what sort of resources a rural school would have.”
    She rolled her one visible eye. I’m guessing the eye under the wedge of hair rolled as well, but I couldn’t say for sure. Ruth Wilcox struck you as the kind of girl who could learn to roll one eye at a time.
    “Miss Tunie said you were good at English and composition.”
    “Yeah, I don’t really know what she meant by—”
    She held up her hand, not so much “stop” as “Stop! In the Name of Love” (although, given Ruth Wilcox’s love of all things eighties, it would’ve been more like Stop Making Sense by the Talking Heads). She reached into her purse, pulled out a sparkly silver notebook and something that was, depending on your point of view, a long pink pencil with a troll doll on the eraser end, or a troll doll that just happened to have a pencil hanging from its butt. She held them out until, not knowing what else to do, I took