Free First Time for Everything by Andrea Speed Page B

O’Daniels’ face goes beet red. He and Peter glance in my direction. Unsure whether it’s best to smile or frown, I twist my face into some undefinable grimace and quietly thank the higher powers when our teacher speaks up in an attempt to recapture the attention of the class. Saved by the bell.
    It’s another twenty minutes until class is over, and the moment the clock hits 3:30, all the energy that has been missing during the day seems to return like a lightning strike as every kid in class leaps from their desks and bolts out the door. They leave behind them a glittering cloud of sweat, like an early morning mist. I wait until it’s settled before I get up to leave the classroom myself.
    “Mr. Summers,” my teacher says before I reach the door, “you did well on your presentation on the Atlantic Ocean last week.”
    “Thank you, sir.”
    “You seem to have a good grasp of the subject,” he says. “Though it would have been nice if you had been a bit more involved. Try to work on that, yeah?”
    “Sure, I will,” I say, although I have no idea what he means.
    “Have a nice weekend,” he says to me as I leave the room.
    Outside the school gates, groups of students have gathered in their usual cliques, and in the general chattering I hear snippets of conversations, mostly concerning the best place to buy ice cream and the party this weekend. Farther ahead I spot Peter in a small group, his arm wrapped around his girlfriend’s waist. There’s some eerie quality to the scene, as though what I’m seeing isn’t entirely real, but nobody but me seems to have noticed this strangeness. I walk in a big circle around them in order to head home before he or anyone else has the chance to question me further about my attendance at the beach party. Blocking my way farther down the sidewalk are a couple of boys who have taken the first chance they could get to rip off their school uniforms. They’re bare-chested and whipping at each other with their rolled-up, wet shirts. Crude. I straighten my collar as though to counteract their behavior and hurry past them, wondering if I’m really feeling their eyes on me or just being paranoid.
    My mother is the only one there when I get back home. My sister left for college last year, and presumably my dad is still at the office. He and my mother have synced up their daily routine to perfection. He has a normal eight-to-four job; she works night shifts as a security guard. The amount of time they spend together is a bare minimum.
    To compensate, my mother makes sure the house is filled at all times with a welcoming scent of food, and with great success, as my father has grown fatter and fatter throughout the years. Today I am met by the smell of cinnamon cookies. I breathe in deeply. Smells like home.
    “Hi, honey,” my mother chirps from the kitchen. “What happened at school today?”
    My mother has long ago learned that the simple question “How was your day?” would never elicit anything but one-word replies from her children and now makes sure to only ask specifically about the events of the day. “Nothing” is of course not an acceptable answer.
    I step into the kitchen, which is a cozy mess as usual. The light blue tabletops are messy with ingredients and leftover batter, and several bowls stand in the sink, filled with soapy water. My mother is licking a spatula while keeping one eye on the oven, one on me. I put my backpack on a chair.
    “We dissected frogs in bio class, and Shelly Thompson accidentally dropped one into her lunch.”
    A snort of laughter erupts from my mother’s nose. “Oh my God! Did she eat it?”
    “No—she gave it to me. I didn’t eat it either, though.” I slide a hand over my stomach, suddenly remembering its emptiness. “Speaking of which, do we have any food?”
    My mother’s laugher morphs into a displeased hum. “I keep telling you to eat. I don’t understand why you always forget.”
    There’s a faint, warm sensation of