King and the Dragonflies: Chapters 12–19

Sandy keeps up his fishing and picking berries, and even sets up a snare for a rabbit, which he catches and skins and cooks like it’s nothing.

“Homework?” I say, wincing at the question in my own voice.

Khalid didn’t say a word—just put a hand in my curls, and when I blinked, we were standing in the clouds, big and soaking the light of the world, colors shining around us like a kaleidoscope, and when I looked up, I saw our town again, hanging upside down far above us, so far it was disappearing, becoming just a dot, and the blue of the sky enveloped us, becoming nothing but light, light, light.

It feels like a thunderstorm, gray clouds billowing across the sky.

I could scream from all the frustration stacking up inside me.

“He’s so immature,” she tells me.
I was immature to her, too, once. Who knows? Maybe Jasmine still thinks I’m immature, but she hasn’t said anything about it, now that she’s my girlfriend.

He gives the good hospitality smile, way you’re supposed to give anyone in our little town, no matter who they are, but I can see right through it. Sheriff Sanders hates me.

“You leave now and promise you won’t come back here again,” he tells me, “and I won’t have you arrested and sent to juvenile court for aiding a runaway minor.”

“No,” I say, my voice hoarse. It’s a brittle word.

He lets out a laugh, and I automatically duck, thinking that mischievous glint in his eyes means he’s going to whack me upside the head.

I go to the library instead, sitting where I’d usually be with Sandy and Jasmine, as if I’m hoping Sandy will materialize out of thin air—but he doesn’t come.

She’s clutching her backpack straps, and for all the time she wouldn’t look at me before, she sure is looking at me now—staring straight at me, eyebrows all furrowed in concentration, like she’s studying everything about me.

I unfold it, and scrawled across, it says:
Meet me in front of the school tonight.

“I was surprised by the idea that—you know, that you might be gay.” She waits. Waits and waits, trying to see if I’ll say anything to this. If I’ll confirm or deny it.

“I didn’t want to overwhelm you, or scare you with questions,” she says.

“Come in out of the hot sun now,” she tells us, and we follow her into an even hotter hallway that’s all scuffed wood and stained wallpaper.

I can smell chicken and shrimp and greens wafting up from the kitchen, all the way from the very first floor.

“Maybe what he needs more than anything else right now is for you to listen. You know, I think we underestimate children. It’s easy to forget what it was like. How much smarter we were than adults would give us credit for—and King is clever.”

I hear my name before I see my mom—but when I do see her, calling my name and looking all around frantically, I run right up to her and let her hold me tight.

Time in the bayou with Sandy seemed to stand still, immortalized like in a painting or a book, but now the world is speeding forward like it’s trying to make up for when time was frozen.