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Rising Calm Chapter Five
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I feel a little bad for asking, but I continue anyway. There’s something tugging at the back of my mind that I can’t escape, something more than what happened in the bookstore- something that I know only Crispin can tell me. “Oh, come on. Everyone at this table thinks this is weird, Crispin. We met a few days ago. So far, you’ve broken out the shell you’ve spent the last week building up, you’ve one-eighty-ed your lunch routine to include us, and now you’ve invited yourself to my house. Not to mention you’ve asked for rides from my friends and invited them to a concert with you.” I sigh, realizing how controlling I’m starting to sound. “It’s not that you can’t do those things,” I continue more calmly, “it’s that I don’t know why you are.”
Crispin nods and thinks for minute before he speaks again. “Okay,” he finally says, “First of all, just because this is odd does not mean that doesn’t mean there’s some hidden agenda to it. How long have you known Max and Jade here? And how much time have you spent together since you met?”
He waits while I eye him uncomfortably. Crispin doesn’t look triumphant, just resigned. “That’s what I thought. See, Cara, you told me how much you’ve moved. But I didn’t tell you how much I have. James too. We have parents whose jobs require us to move a lot, and we never know when we’ll have to leave again. So no, we haven’t taken the time yet to branch out and meet a ton of new people. But we saw that you did. Have you ever thought that that’s what gave us the courage to try?”
That can’t be true, I think. To him I say, “You got your courage… from me?”
“Is that really so hard to believe?” he asks me curiously. “I think you’re braver than you’ve given yourself credit for.”
“I haven’t done anything.” I feel compelled to point out to him.
“You put yourself out there. You didn’t allow fear to hold you back. You showed me that I could do the same.”
This is getting a little too serious for a lunchroom chat, and I tell Crispin that. He grins. “Yeah. But there it is. Be honest here Cara, do you really mind spending time with us?”
He’s right. I don’t. And I have nothing left to say. Just like that our quiet conversation is over.
We rejoin the group, entering in on the discussion about whether we should be allowed to take naps in study hall (Jade and James are fervently saying yes, while Max is wondering where else he’d get his homework done). We spend the rest of the lunch period like that, so intent on one another that, for the first time, none of us notice the stares or whispers or general confusion of the rest of the people around us who refuse to believe Crispin Calaway and James Sable are joking and laughing like normal students.
When Sophie gets home from school today, we spend the afternoon cleaning up her room. Between the two of us, we manage to drag a toy chest and a small bookcase up the stairs when we realize the lack of cardboard boxes makes her room look sadly bare. I laugh when she reverently places the two books she got the other day on the top shelf.
All the empty boxes get shoved into the hall. Sophie starts to clear the floor while I stand on her desk chair to press glow-in-the-dark stars around the light on her ceiling. When I look down, she curled up on her bed, watching me.
“What’cha doin’?” I ask her.
She sits up and cocks her head to the side, considering me carefully with her light, coffee-colored eyes. “Just thinking.” I climb down off the chair to sit next to her.
“About what?”
“We move a lot,” she replies.
I nod slowly, unable to see the direction the conversation is headed. “Yes, we do.”
“So, do you think people remember us? You know, when we leave? Do you think they ever wonder about us after we’re gone?”
“I’m sure some of them do. Why are you asking?” I ask her, somewhat worried.
“Do you think Isa will forget about me when we move again?”
A tight, aching sort of pain makes my heart throb at the fact that this, more than anything else in the world, is what my little sister has to worry about. I lie back on her bed and she lays down next to me, using my arm as a pillow. Studying the ceiling I answer. “No, honey. I don’t think she will.”
“But everyone else has,” she whispers.
I pull her nearer to me. “No one else has cared about you as much, or as quickly, as Isa has. No one has loved you the same way David and Max and Jade do. You can’t compare your friendship with Isa to any of the other friends you’ve had, because none of your other friends have been quite like her, have they?”
I wait as Sophie thinks about that for a while. A few minutes later she asks me, “So you don’t think she’s just being nice to me for now?”
“Did you know that Isa is the one who told her dads about the fight you had with Rodney your first day at school?” It feels like ages ago. “She’s the reason the Anthonys came over to offer you rides to school. I don’t think that’s something she would do if she only felt sorry for you. It sounds like something someone does because they’ve found a person they truly want to be friends with.”
“I think she’s my best friend,” Sophie tells me quietly, the way she does when she’s voicing a thought she’s worried I’ll laugh at.
I never do. “I think you just might be hers too,” I reply.
Sophie soon hops off the bed and happily begins telling me about the stuffed bear named Hunter in her classroom at Belinder that everyone takes turns bringing home for a week at a time to care for. “I get to bring him here next week!” she declares. “And we have to take pictures and everything to show what we did with him.”
The doorbell interrupts her mid-speech. I’m now in the middle of shifting misplaced boxes of sheets and towels out of her room, so Sophie skips down the stairs to answer it. I set down what I’m carrying and slowly follow suit.
The door is already open by the time I get there, and Sophie is peering curiously at the boy standing just outside.
His tousled black hair is immediately familiar to me, though I can’t quite see his face because he has knelt down to talk to Sophie. When he hears me he straightens up and fixes his striking gray-blue eyes on me. The corner of his mouth curls up when he sees my surprised expression.
“James,” I say finally. “What are you doing at my house?”
He leans against the doorframe and stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Wow. You don’t exactly roll out the welcome wagon for your guests now, do you?” He has an unbuttoned black shirt on over a plain gray tee and the sleeves are pushed up to his elbows, despite the chill. He doesn’t give me time to respond before he continues. “And I’m actually here with Crispin. You didn’t forget about your tutoring date with him, did you?”
I wrinkle my nose. “I thought I told him no?”
Just then, Crispin comes into view on his way up the walk.
“I thought I told you no,” I call out to him.
“Ah,” he replies, joining James in the doorway. “You did. But I’ve been told that when a woman says no, she really means yes. So I read between the lines.”
“Well, whoever told you that was wrong,” I say, trying to regain my composure.
“Unless you’re asking that woman if Brad Pitt is sexier than you. In that case no always means yes.”
Crispin looks faintly amused, but James arches an eyebrow. “Always?” he asks.
Personally I’m not terribly fond of Brad Pitt. But I unconvincingly reply, “I’m just telling it like it is.”
James shrugs carelessly. “Well, there’s no accounting for some people’s taste.”
“Amen,” I murmur. James smiles slightly as though he can hear me, but I know I spoke quietly enough that he couldn’t have.
“Look, Cara, can we come in?” Crispin asks.
I pretend to think about it, but Sophie pipes up before I do. “Sure! We’re going to make cookies!”
Crispin smiles kindly down at her. “Cookies? My word, now we have no choice but to come in.” Then he acts serious. “Although… what kind exactly were you planning on making for us, little lady?”
Sophie giggles. “Snickerdoodles!”
“Stupendous! Lead me to them!” Crispin announces grandly. He links his arms through hers and they waltz to the kitchen together.
“Damn,” I mutter.
James looks at me questioningly, a crooked smile still on his lips.
“Now Crispin will have to some over everyday, just to hang out with Sophie.” I explain grudgingly.
James laughs soundlessly as I shut the front door and lead him to the kitchen, where Sophie and Crispin are already chatting like old friends. I lift Sophie up and set her on the counter. The boys roam around the room, examining the drawings hung on the fridge and the pictures nailed to the wall.
“I don’t remember telling you we were going to make snickerdoodles,” I say to Sophie as I watch them. James seems particularly engrossed by the Dala horse my father brought us back from a trip Sweden a few years ago, and he takes it over to Crispin to show him.
“Yeah you did,” Sophie tells me. “Remember? When you and Jade were making chocolate chip cookies and I asked for snickerdoodles, you said we could make them ‘next week’. And then I didn’t even ask yesterday, which was actually the real beginning of this week, so we can make snickerdoodles now!”
“I think she’s got you there,” Crispin calls from across the room.
“Well I suppose you’re right. I promised you snickerdoodles.” With a sigh I begin getting the baking supplies out of the kitchen cabinets. Sophie slides off the counter to join Crispin and James where they’ve settled down at the kitchen table, and she begins to explain Hunter the Bear to them. I let her, for a while, and then I say, “Hey Soph, why don’t you go call Isa about spending the night this weekend? Before we forget.”
Sophie happily obliges. Crispin helps her look up the Anthony’s number in the phonebook I bought the other day at her school, and then she scampers into the hallway to talk.
“Thanks for listening to her,” I tell the boys. “I know she can kind of talk your ear off.”
Crispin stands up, waving the comment away. “She has interesting things to say,” he insists. “I have an adopt- a, err… cousin, about her age. It’s good to know not all younger kids are as stoic as he tends to be.” Apparently eager to cover up his fumbled explanation, Crispin comes over to me and asks, “What can I do to help?”
I’m measuring sugar, but I tell him to get butter from the fridge and melt it into a bowl. James comes over to help too, so soon I’m doing more directing than actual work, trying to watch them both at once.
“So you’ve never baked before?” I ask them, already anticipating the answer.
Somehow James has managed to get streaks of flour down the front of his black shirt and in his hair, though I’m pretty sure it’s Crispin that I told to measure the flour out. “Is it obvious?” he asks, whisking the eggs so violently that some of it slops over the side of the bowl.
He throws me an impish grin when I sigh, dark eyes glittering mischievously. “Not at all,” I say. “Anyone would think you were professionals. I would be tempted to leave you both to it and run a few errands, but I’m afraid if I exit the room the result may be inedible. And after all this work, that would just be sad.”
Sophie comes running back into the kitchen then. “Cara! David wants to talk to you!”
I take the phone from her. “Watch these two,” I instruct her. I nestle the phone between my ear and my shoulder so I can pull a chair over for Sophie to stand on, that way she can see over the countertop. “Hey, Dave. What’s up?” I ask him.
“Hey there, Cara,” David’s deep voice says from the other end of the line. “I hear Sophie gets to bring Hunter home next week.”
I groan and turn away from Sophie so she doesn’t hear my next comment. “I’m so sorry. She told you too?”
David laughs. “I don’t mind. Isa was just as excited when it was her turn.”
“This bear must be something,” I mutter. When I turn around to check on my baking crew, I practically dive across the counter to stop James from pouring baking powder into the mix instead of baking soda. “That felt a little dramatic,” James tells me when I snatch the container from his hands.
“Hang on a second, David,” I say into the phone. I ask Sophie to hand me the baking soda, and then I show James his mistake.
“Oh,” he says ruefully.
“Yeah,” I reply. Then I put the phone to my ear again. “Okay, I’m back.”
“What are you doing?” David asks me.
“I think I’m teaching a cooking class,” I tell him. “It’s hard to tell at this point. If I am, than both my students are failing. I’ll probably have to retire after this due to the stress.” I show Crispin which measuring spoon size to use as I continue. “What did you need to talk to me about?”
“The sleepover,” David says.
“Oh. Why? Does Friday not work for you guys?” I ask.
“No,” he says, “Friday is fine. Isa was just hoping Sophie would want to come over here to spend the night instead. My dads are kind of hoping the same thing. Isa doesn’t have people over very often, and they love Sophie. Entertaining guests is kind of their favorite thing. And I thought it might be easier on you too, not having to worry about Sophie and Isa.”
“I’d love to have Isa over here any time,” I’m quick to reassure him. “It would never be any trouble at all! But it would be fantastic for Sophie to go to your house. I’m sure she’d be ecstatic.”
Sophie nods excitedly to show me that she would.
“Perfect,” David says, sounding just as pleased as I feel. “My dads will iron out the details and call you back. And Isa wants to talk to Sophie again, if that’s okay.”
“Of course. I’ll put her on. Thanks, David.”
“No problem. I’ll talk to you later.”
I hand the phone back to Sophie, who starts talking to Isa about all the toys she can bring over when she goes.
“David Anthony has a younger sister too?” Crispin asks me when we start dropping the finally completed snickerdoodle dough onto a cookie sheet.
I smile. “Yes, thank goodness. She and Sophie are already as thick as thieves. It’s been a lifesaver.” I explain to them, quickly and quietly, how Sophie got in a fight her first day at Belinder. “If it weren’t for the Anthony’s, I think every morning would start with her arguing with me to get out of going to school.”
We put the cookie sheet in the oven and all traipse into the living room. I push some boxes off the couch for them to sit down, and I pull an armchair over opposite them. I fall into it wearily. “Who knew baking could be so exhausting?” I say, to no one in particular.
“I have new respect for the cooks,” Crispin says, propping his feet up on one of the boxes like it’s an ottoman.
“What cooks?” I ask.
“Oh… All of them. I have respect for cooks in general now.”
I eye him closely. He meets my gaze evenly.
“Where’s my big suitcase?” Sophie calls down the stairs.
“Why do you need it?” I call back.
“For the sleepover,” she says.
“You’re not taking your big suitcase to the Anthony’s.”
“But I can’t fit everything in the little one!”
“Soph, honey, make it fit, or else take some things out. That’s the suitcase you’re taking next week, small or not.”
“Can I take your suitcase?”
I don’t answer, which is a kind of answer itself.
“Fine,” Sophie says. “I’ll take the small one.”
“Don’t forget that you have to fit clothes in there too!” I call, shaking my head.
“You’d think she was going on vacation for a month, the way she packs,” I tell the boys, who have been listening with some amusement. “I take it neither of you have younger siblings?”
James says no, he doesn’t, and after a slight pause Crispin does too.
Minutes later the timer on the oven goes off, and, though I told them they could stay in the living room, James and Crispin follow me back to the kitchen. Crispin takes his chemistry book from his backpack as I retrieve the cookies. I grimace at it.
“You’ve got to learn sometime,” Crispin tells me.
“Not true,” I say. “I believe I can live quite happily for the rest of my life without ever learning anything about chemistry.”
“Would you quit fighting me on this? It might actually come in handy someday.”
I gesture at all the dishes piled in the sink from our baking exploits. “I would love to, really, but some things have to be done first.”
“Fine,” Crispin says. He leans against the counter and opens the book. “I’ll quiz you while you work.”
I groan, turning on the water in the sink and digging dish soap out of the cupboard.
He pretends not to hear me. James steals a cookie.
At some point I get lost and stop actually trying to answer correctly. I know Crispin can tell, but he continues anyway. After saying something about acids and bases he asks me another question that I don’t know the answer to.
“Umm… pH?” I guess.
“Titration,” he corrects me. “What about the relationship between-?”
“Crispin, what about this do you find interesting?” I cut him off.
He considers the question seriously. “I suppose I just enjoy knowing how things work. Why things happen the way they do. And chemistry tells you a little bit about everything you could ever want to know.” He gives me a good-natured shrug.
I hand James a dishtowel and pass him the now clean and dripping dishes. He looks reluctantly at them. I wave the whisk under his nose threateningly. “I washed them all, you help dry. You baked too.”
James takes another cookie, his fourth, and points to Crispin. “He baked too.” He offers Crispin the dishtowel.
I press the measuring cup into his hand for him to dry. “He is furthering my education, albeit slowly. Dry.”
He mumbles something unintelligible. I raise my eyebrows warningly. James ducks his head when he sees my expression, too late to hide his boyish grin at my severity.
“Just do it!” I can’t help but laugh.
When the kitchen is in order, Sophie has had some cookies, and I’ve failed at least two more Crispin quizzes, I call it quits and collapse on the living room sofa. Just in time to be roused by the doorbell.
“Goodness we’re popular today,” I say to Sophie where she’s perched on the back of the couch. “Should we ignore it?”
In answer, she scurries off to answer. “As long as it’s not another boy trying to make me learn something,” I mutter.
Crispin smiles at me.
END OF CHAPTER FIVE
I am dismayed to see my math teacher is back today. She’s in a foul mood due to being home sick with the flu for the past week, and it would appear that she thinks we all are to blame for her illness. This leads to a wonderful class period.
“Why haven’t you turned in any assignments besides the ones for this week?” she snaps at me halfway through class.
I haven’t been paying much attention so it takes me a moment to realize what she’s asked. But I finally reply, “Oh! I wasn’t here. Sorry, I just arrived the other day. I didn’t know you needed them from me.”
“Well that’s no excuse!” she barks.
It seems like a completely reasonable excuse to me, actually, maybe the best reason anyone has ever had for not getting homework done. I’m startled. “I’m sorry? I can-”
“No, no!” she cries. “Too late! Don’t bother.”
“I… Okay,” I say.
She fixes me with a glare that I decide to return. Not my best decision.
She now finishes out the period by making sarcastic remarks about me under her breath (which I can hear perfectly), threatening to call my parents (I have to bite my tongue to stop from daring her to try), or arguing at me. I can’t get a word in edgewise.
Finally the lunch bell rings and, barely holding back a sharp retort, I storm out the room and collide with someone in the hall. When I look up to apologize I see it’s none other than Crispin Calaway.
He peers past me into my classroom, then back at me, apparently amused at my furious expression. “Rough day?” he asks.
“Oh, not you,” I moan, too frustrated to be civil. “I don’t have time for this.” I start to walk away.
Crispin falls in step with me. “Time for what?”
I gesture between us. “This. Whatever it is. Yes, it’s a rough day. I can handle it. Good talk.” I speed up, dying to see Max and Jade.
“What’s eating her?” Someone asks Crispin. Someone with a familiar lilt in his voice.
I stop and whirl around to face them. James Sable and Crispin both stop too.
“Yes ma’am?” Crispin asks.
James, who stands a couple inches taller than Crispin and almost a head taller than me, has no trace of the expression he wore at the bookstore as he regards me coolly. In fact, neither of them suggests that anything out of the ordinary has passed between us at all. Which is frustrating for me, because I spent the better part of my first weekend here worrying about it. “Don’t you all have somewhere to be?” I ask at last, not sure why I want them gone. We are getting some weird looks from the passing students though.
“We do, in fact,” Crispin tells me. He and James both step around me and continue down the hall in the direction I need to go. “Lunch.”
I stare after them for a moment, and then I run to catch up. “Oh. I forgot you had the same lunch as me.”
“Don’t you feel lucky?” James says without looking back at me.
“No, as a matter of fact, I don’t,” I mutter.
Waiting right where they always are I see Jade and Max, scanning the hall for me. With a hurried goodbye I scoot around Crispin and James to get to them. “Guys!” I call out.
They turn and wave me over, but I’ve barely taken three steps before I notice them looking behind me. I glance back over my shoulder and see James and Crispin didn’t go into the lunchroom like I expected. Instead, they are standing a few feet away, clearly waiting for me but chatting at one another like they have nothing better to do.
I glare at them, but they both give me their best innocent looks. Then they walk over to meet Max and Jade, leaving me to follow yet again.
“Hi guys,” Crispin says to them cordially. “Good to see you again. This is James Sable. We asked Cara if we could sit with you all today. I have some chemistry notes I need to talk to her about, and I think some freshman stole our table yesterday anyway. She said it was all right, but we thought we’d check with you too.”
I roll my eyes at no one in particular from my spot in the background. I know the unspoken rules of the lunchroom. Freshmen do not just take tables, especially not in the middle of the semester, and not when that table belongs to hot senior boys.
I seem to be the only one who thinks that’s a poor excuse though. Jade is about to hyperventilate and Max shaking hands with James, never having been formally introduced. I intervene before anyone says anything more.
"All right!” I clap my hands together. “This’ll just be super. Crispin, you mind grabbing me some cookies on your way through the line? Thanks so much. We’ll meet you over there.” I steer Jade and her sack lunch through the doors without pausing before Crispin can protest. Max, who has also brought a lunch, follows us. We make for the table toward the back of the room.
"So..." Jade prompts when we take our seats.
"So what?” I try to ask nonchalantly.
"Being his lab partner is just lucky. But inviting him to sit with you at lunch? That’s straight up courageous. And after Saturday…”
“I didn’t invite either of them! They invited themselves. Trust me when I say I’m as shocked as you.”
“What happened Saturday?” Max asks, looking back and forth at the two of us.
I relay the story to him as quickly and clearly as I can. “I guess I just don’t understand what they’re doing,” I tell him. “Why would they sit with us now? Didn’t you guys say that they never talk to anyone? What changed?”
“We said that Crispin never talks to anyone. Honestly, I’d never really noticed James before you talked to him in photo,” Jade says.
I stare at her for a moment. She’s the queen of noticing cute guys. She pointed out four in first period the other day. “You’re kidding, right?” I ask. “He’s in your photo class. He’s been sitting two feet away from you! How could you not notice?”
Jade shrugs. “I don’t know. I just never noticed.”
I shake my head but don’t push it. “Fine. Why are they sitting here though?” I ask again.
“You know what? I’m not sure it matters why. They’re super cute. I think we can deal.” Jade takes a bite out of her sandwich. “Hey, maybe Cara can find a sexy senior girl to sit with us tomorrow for you, Max.”
Max has unfortunately just taken a sip of water, and he all but spits it back out on us both. He swallows it with a painful expression. “I think I’ll pass, thanks though.”
“Really? Not even if it’s Abigail? We already know you like her.” Jade says this last part in a sing-song voice, gesturing to a pretty brunette a couple of tables away.
Max turns red, either embarrassed or choking on his drink, I can’t tell which. I step in for him.
“Sorry Max. I think my magic powers only work with annoying boys.”
“Who has magic powers?” Crispin and James have already made their way through the line, and they take seats on the side opposite Jade and Max, leaving me in the middle. Crispin is waiting for an answer.
“Oh I didn’t tell you earlier?” I say, “It’s true, I’m magic. Cool, huh?”
Crispin makes a noncommittal face.
“Fine. Act unimpressed.”
“I will, thank you. I’m sure it will be an incredibly difficult act to pull off, but, somehow, I believe I’ll find a way to convince you that I am truly not impressed by your ‘magic’.”
I snort. “You can try to convince me all you want. But I think we all know that you’re not that good of an actor. And may I ask where my cookies are?”
“You mean these ones?” Crispin holds up an empty bag. “Yeah, the line was longer than expected, so I had to eat something.”
“That’s it,” I say. “First you doubt my magic powers, now you eat my cookies? Those were your ticket to the table, my friend. I’m afraid you’ll have to leave.”
James looks amused and unsurprised by Crispin and I’s back and forth, but Jade and Max are watching us in amazement. I bump the table so they snap out of it before Crispin looks back at them.
“Max, how was woodshop?” Jade asks quickly. Max has told us more than once that woodshop is the class he dreads because East’s new teacher hates him.
Max launches into a passionate rant, and he includes hand gestures that occasionally sent bits of his sandwich flying. He has Jade and I giggling at his impersonation of his teacher, and I can’t help but glance over at James and Crispin to see if they’re laughing too. When I do, I find James' dark eyes trained on me. We both look away quickly. I blush. Jade notices and kicks me under the table harder than I think is necessary.
"What was your last class again?” I ask her, giving her something to do besides gape openly at Crispin. By this point Max has settled into a content silence, having said all that he needed to say. Jade grins.
"Oh, yes, science. Well, considering chemistry is in fact awful and that it has yet to get better, it went wonderfully. The lecture was quite boring, but I did draw an excellent picture of a moose on a snowboard.”
I don’t look at Crispin when she mentions chemistry but instead congratulate her on her moose drawing. She pretends to bow. “Oh the joys of chemistry,” I sigh.
“That’s right. You and Cris are lab partners now. I hear that’s going well,” James says, sounding like he knows “well” is the wrong word. I’m about to say something in reply when I realize that this is the first thing James has said since we met up with Max and Jade. So I raise my eyebrows at him. He raises his back, grinning slightly, as though he can tell what I’m thinking. I search for the guilt I saw in his expression the day before, but there is no trace of it.”
Crispin turns to me. “Speaking of chemistry Cara, here are those notes for you to look over tonight. I think if you start learning this stuff now,” he slides the same notebook I gave him back yesterday across the table to me, “it’ll be easy to just jump into tutoring when we start.”
I can practically hear Jade’s jaw hit the floor when Crispin mentions tutoring. “Why would you say that?” I ask him, making a face and pulling the notebooks over with one finger.
“I’ve marked the pages you’ll need,” Crispin continues as though I haven’t spoken.
“And, if it works for you, I’ll drop by your house tonight or tomorrow. The sooner you get it all, the better.”
“Whoa,” I say. “You know you could just do my work with me, and I could watch while you do the labs. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about tutoring me and you could save a ton of time! Think about it.”
“Not a chance. Don’t worry, we’ll have you chemistry ready in no time.”
“Crispin, I just got here. Do you really think I’m going to invite you to my house to teach me chemistry in the first week I’m at school? ...Or the first month, even?”
“I know you weren’t going to invite me. That’s why I invited myself. Tonight actually works best for me, if that’s all right. We won’t go over much, just the basics so you’re ready for class next week.”
“Oh, please, please, please, say you’re kidding.”
“He doesn’t kid about chemistry, Cara. He is a very serious student,” James tells me.
“Uh-huh. It’s obvious that you aren’t in our class. Serious is not even close.”
James looks surprised. He and Crispin exchange glances, James looking warningly at Crispin, who shrugs slightly. I wonder about it for only a minute.
James turns to say something to Max about woodshop; I gather he knows and dislikes the teacher too. Jade leans in to add something, so I take the time to talk to Crispin, unnoticed.
“What are you doing?” I ask him quietly.
“What do you mean?” Crispin says, not quite meeting my eye.