Chapter Three

Minerva stood in her bedroom, frantically shoving her school supplies into her backpack and trying to tease her hair into a ponytail at the same time. She caught her hair elastic in her mouth, and let her calculator clatter to the wooden floorboards as she loosened the rubber band from the grip of her front teeth. She was perching on the edge of her bed, pushing loose leaf notebook paper into her bag at the speed of light, when her mother walked by her bedroom with a big tub of clean towels for the linen closet.

“Minnie,” she said, her voice trailing off. “I thought you were going to stay home. And, you know…grieve.” Sakura meant it as a statement, but her voice cracked at the end, making it sound for all the world like a question. Minerva pursed her lips and zipped up her bag, slinging it over her shoulder and finally teasing her elusive black strands of hair into her hot pink rubber band.

“I can’t miss school. You should know that. Exemptions and all that.” Minerva stood in her doorframe now, her purse slung over her shoulder as well, knocking into her side and making tiny metallic noises in tandem with her belt buckle.

Sakura looked her daughter over. Other than the big blue-black smudges of bruises under her eyes, you would never have known that Minerva’s sister had just died the day before. Maybe this was just her way of coping? Sakura couldn’t cope, and she knew that. She was simply going to pretend that this whole incident had never happened…and perhaps it was better that way.

“Do you insist on doing this thing, Minerva?” her voice was strained and pitiful, and Minerva’s eyes lowered to the ground for just a moment before looking back up to meet her mother’s gaze.

“I not only insist, mom, I demand.” She stepped around her mother into the hall, her ponytail bobbing behind her as she went down the stairs. “I’ll see you after I get home from work tonight.” Sakura waited until her daughter was out the front door, and when Minerva’s car started, she placed her back to the linen closet, slid down the wall, and began to sob into a clean towel.

000!000

“What the hell are you doing here?” A flustered Lisa Hollowell was walking down the hall to Minerva’s locker, Haley Gordon at her heels. Lisa went pale, and tried to hide the large clutch of bobbing sympathy balloons behind her back. Haley rolled her eyes and strode forward, grasping Minerva by the shoulder.

“Let’s you and me take a walk, buddy.” She said quietly, steering Minerva away.

“I need my Calc book! I have a quiz!” Minerva shrieked, straining forward like an overly zealous puppy on a leash.

“Later.” Haley snapped, and Minerva couldn’t argue with the girl. They made their way to the cafeteria, and Minerva looped her fingers through her belt loops so she wouldn’t have to come into contact with Haley: she wouldn’t let anyone touch her, ever, no matter what the circumstances were. It just felt wrong, on so many different levels, to her.

Haley deposited Minerva at a table close to the serving lines, and re-emerged a few moments later with a sticky roll on a styrofoam tray.

“Have at it, Minnie.” She said, peeling a piece off of the cinnamon bun and depositing it in her mouth. A few people, walking by, slowed their steps to watch what was going on. Minerva Hall, a token geek, not much of a talker, head of the literary magazine staff, was eating breakfast, sharing it, no less, with Haley Gordon, countess of the soccer court, keeper of the entire boy’s soccer team, and queen bitch of Rose Falls High.

The expression on Minerva’s face was a priceless, rare glimpse into her emotions. If you were to take her literally, she looked like she had just seen a black widow spider; her eyebrows were almost touching her hair line, and she kept nervously smoothing her hair back into her ponytail.

“Um…I…I’ll just let you tackle this one.” Minerva made to stand up, clearing her throat self-consciously. “I need to go to my locker, Haley.” Even more people began to slow to watch these arrangements unfold. If they had known that Haley and Minerva had been friends since the previous October when Haley pulled Minerva out of a prickly bush by the outside door to the Lit. Mag. offices, then maybe their unusual, on-off, relationship would make more sense.

Haley opened her mouth, seemingly to protest, but then just shoved the remainder of the sticky bun into her mouth all at once. The sweet icing ran in rivulets down her cheeks. It always disgusted everyone how much Haley could eat (and Haley could eat) and yet always remain a ridiculously tiny size four.

Minerva made her escape, crossing across the overhang to her bank of lockers, and smiled at Lisa, who stood in front of her locker, feverishly dumping a baggie of confetti into the vent holes at the top.

“Oh.” She said, almost sadly, throwing the baggie into the air. “Welcome back? Much too early, might I add.” Minerva couldn’t help herself, and felt a grin flit its way into her mouth. She opened her locker, and cascades of glitter and confetti poured out at her. She reached for her Calc book, dusting the coat of glitter off its top, and patted Lisa on the shoulder.

“Thanks, Lisa.” She said tiredly. Lisa beamed, pleased. Minerva had patted her on the shoulder, which was about as up close and personal as she would ever get. Minerva turned and padded back into the building to sit in her first period class early. Nothing would touch her today, she decided, and if it did, she would just deflect it. Simply as that.

000!000

Minerva, to her credit, made it until fourth period English before she felt herself cracking. All day long, people had been pointing at her and calling her names behind her back. “Did she kill her sister herself?”…”Why the hell is she here? Shouldn’t she be grieving? What’s wrong with her?”…”I bet it was a hate crime. How disgusting is that.” None of her teachers really spoke to her all that much, and she wasn’t asked to take the dreaded Calculus quiz along with the rest of her class.

Somehow, she just couldn’t make it through English. Her mind kept straying from Hamlet, and she couldn’t focus in enough to play her normal part of Gertrude. She passed her copy of the play script across the aisle to Petra, asked her softly to please keep being Gertrude, and stood up to leave. She knew she wouldn’t be questioned, and as she teased open the creaking door, nobody asked her where she was planning on going.

Minerva made it to the water fountain across the hall from her classroom before nearly collapsing on top of it, heaving with great, tedious breaths. She coughed quietly and took in several large gulps of water, the cool liquid spilling in and out of her mouth. She stood up, cracking her back, and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

“Minerva?” She looked up, alarmed and frightened, to see her Junior English teacher, Mrs. Ellis Pritchard, speaking to her from her room across the hall from the fountain. Ellis was clutching a large black spiral-bound grade book, and her hair was all astray. It was obvious that this was her planning period, and she was probably heading to the staff room to sort out her hair and her grade book all in one fell swoop.

“Yes?” she said hoarsely, resignedly. Ellis took a few steps across the hall, transferring her grade book to under her arm, and looked Minerva in the eye.

“Would you like to come sit in my room for a few minutes? You know, with quiet? I bet you could use it. I won’t be there…I have some grading to do, but you’re more than welcome to go sit if you need the peace…” Ellis trailed off as Minerva Hall wordless turned on her heels and walked across the hall to her classroom, shutting the door, leaving Ellis in mid-sentence. She paused, unsure where to go, before slowly, resignedly, turning and making her way down the hall to the staff room. She’d figure the Hall girl out later.