Sprout

she was going to get him. Let’s not forget this is the same girl who told her parents she was going to grow a foot and managed to eke out thirteen inches: we should never be surprised when Ruthie Wilcox gets what she wants. The part I didn’t understand—the part Ruthie somehow managed to leave out in her half-hour monologue—was what Ian was doing with Ruthie, since he had this look on his face like a cow standing in line at the slaughterhouse. And then there was my growing suspicion that Ruthie and Ian had been together for longer than the two months school had been in session, which suspicion was based primarily on the heart-shaped card that dangled from the rearview mirror, which bore the inscription “To us, on our quarter-year anniversary.”
    BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP.
    Oh, and the bleeping (by which I mean the plethora of customized ring tones available to the modern aficionado of mobile communications technology): it came from Mrs. Miller’s bag of phones, which I stole. Duh. It was less than an hour since school’d let out, and a Friday to boot, so they were at their peak of busyness, as high schoolers all over northern Reno County called or texted each other to find out, as one of the phones on top of the pile read, “yo where da party at???”
    “The phones are Mrs. Miller’s,” I said to Ruthie. “Long story.” And, to Ian: “I didn’t know your little brother has autism.”
    Ian was still twisted around in his seat, his shirt still pulled up, as though showing off his abs was all he could think to do in this situation.
    “Asperger’s Syndrome. It’s related, but, like, totally different.”
    “That’s illuminating ,” Ruthie said to Ian. Then, to me: “Are you going to invite us in to watch youtube or something?”
    Let me conclude the scene-setting by mentioning that we were in my driveway. In fact, we’d been there for about twenty minutes (it’s only a ten-minute drive between my house and Buhler) but neither Ian nor I had made a move to get out of the car, since it seemed like Ruthie would do something drastic if we did. And, you know, the view from there was pretty interesting. The backseat, I mean, with Ian and Ruthie’s heads framing the view. It’s funny how the tiniest shift in perspective can make you see things differently. For the first time in years I noticed how small our trailer was. I mean, I make fun of how small our trailer is all the time, but the very fact that I can make fun of it makes the smallness interesting. But now it didn’t seem interesting. Just small. And the net of vines covering it didn’t seem interesting either. Just weird. And the stumps were weirder still. But not weird in an interesting kind of way. Who knows, maybe I was only seeing things this way because of what Mrs. Miller’d said about my college fund. I.e., that it didn’t exist. Before, my house had seemed like one of those things you have to endure in order to move on to bigger and better rewards, like the bleaching process you have to go through before you can actually dye your hair. But now that it looked like I might be stuck in our little house forever, it wasn’t so funny anymore.
    “We don’t have a computer,” I said to Ruthie. “Which you know.” And, to Ian: “How long have you two been dating?”
    “Whatever,” Ruthie said before Ian could answer. “We can watch TV or something. We haven’t hung out in forever.”
    have
    “We don’t a TV,” I said, “and how long have you and Ian been dating ?”
    For the first time Ruthie’s composure cracked. She turned around to face forwards, looked at me in the rearview mirror instead of head on.
    “Since the summer,” she said, sighing heavily. “Since you and Mrs. Miller became, like, best friends.”
    “You spent the summer in England.”
    “I spent July and August in England. I spent June with Ian, while you were in Mrs. Miller’s backyard, and Ian’s parents let him come visit me in August.”
    “London’s cool, btw,” Ian said. “What happened to your TV?” He was still holding his shirt up, by the way, which had gone from being funny to scary to slightly neurotic.
    “Long story. Oh wait, no it’s not. My dad threw my dictionary through the screen during Hurricane Irene. And why,” I said to Ruthie, “didn’t you tell me you were dating?”
    “We wanted to tell you,” Ian said. “I mean, I wanted to tell you, but Ruthie—” He smiled nervously, and pulled up his shirt another inch or two to