Free Stranded by J. T. Dutton Page A

i . I had abbreviated Kelly Louise to Kelli,to match the Frenchness of the beret. I was proud of the i . I’m sure Tina Louise probably included a heart over her i too because it was like a little blown kiss to her many admirers.
    “So, Greeny Locks,” he asked, “LiLi is your cousin, or whatever?”
    “Yes.” I hoped the news would frighten him away.
    “What the hell is this?” Kenny tapped the little pink organ decorating the end of my name.
    He didn’t bother to whisper. Apparently the rule was that if Ms. Duncan was writing on the board, you could talk away.
    “It’s a heart,” I stated.
    “Jesus.” He kept the notebook and swung around to his desk.
    He wasn’t the first person in Heaven to react negatively to my flourishes. Ernie, the bus driver, hadn’t liked my wink. My beret wasn’t yet wowing Steve Allen into glancing longingly my way. Kenny pulled a Sharpie from his pocket and scrawled his name under mine on my page of doodles: Kenni Robert Stockhausen . He added a black heart over his i .
    I tried to retrieve my property, but Kenny held on to my notebook with both hands and wouldn’t let go. We were tussling when Mr. Gruber knocked on thedoor, accompanied by two men in police uniforms. Thankfully, they remained near the entry because otherwise they would have noticed guilt blazing like an unnatural pimple from my forehead. I tasted metal in my mouth, sure that they had found evidence to implicate Natalie. Everyone in class settled into the silence.
    “I need to borrow Mr. Stockhausen,” Mr. Gruber said to Ms. Duncan.
    Ms. Duncan abandoned her echinoderm, dropped her piece of chalk in a cup by her desk, and shook the dust off her fingers.
    “We were just going to start discussing the Paleozoic era,” she told Mr. Gruber.
    “I see,” Mr. Gruber said.
    “Can it wait?” Ms. Duncan asked hopefully.
    “These gentlemen need to inspect Mr. Stockhausen’s locker.” Mr. Gruber employed a principal voice.
    Ms. Duncan fiddled with her hands.
    “Fuck you.” Kenny used his asshole voice.
    Mr. Gruber took him by the elbow and, after a brief struggle, was able to lead Kenny from the room. Nothing as dramatic had ever happened in my classes at French High School, even though the stereotype is that cities have more crime.
    “Could you please collect Mr. Stockhausen’s things and bring them to us?” Mr. Gruber asked Ms. Duncan from the hallway.
    The two men in uniform closed like parentheses around Mr. Gruber and Kenny.
    Ms. Duncan flitted to the gouged desk, assembled Kenny’s coat, my notebook, and his pen. I almost told her that the notebook she was taking was mine but felt weirdly shy about interrupting her and calling attention to myself in case Natalie and I weren’t out of the woods yet and this was to be a double or maybe a triple arrest. I had written some very private letters to Katy. I had scribbled that I loved Heath Ledger. The police were also going to discover how concerned I had been all along about the chemical reaction that led Kenny to call me Greeny Locks.
    I hadn’t written anything about Baby Grace. I had done as Mom asked and hadn’t mentioned her to anybody and had even stopped talking to God, since he had never returned my church call. Maybe Kenny’s arrest would be like the argument the fat character Hurley has with the bald guy on the television show Lost . Their verbal exchanges always distracted me from the Kate-Sawyer-Jack love triangle, which seemed like the more important story. Talk about asaga that has so many twists you forget where you left off. I still watch it, though, which just goes to show you people will get caught up in anything rather than face another boring evening.

10
    WHEN THE MEN WHO KIDNAPPED KENNY LEFT and the door closed behind Ms. Duncan, Steve shifted his current Bart Simpson drawing to the corner of his desk.
    “What’s the word, Boog?” Steve asked the heavyset boy who, along with Kenny, had egged on my wrestling match with Sherry.
    Boog