I stalk out of the cafeteria and nearly knock Emmi off her step stool. She and Mr. Fotsios are tacking Kekri posters to the noticeboard. The volunteer sign-up sheets for the traditional Kekri buck building go flying, and I scramble to gather them up.
“Sorry,” I mumble, face heating as I collate the pages.
“No harm done,” Emmi says. She’s ditched her rain cloak and looks as if she’s recently been to a Renaissance fair in her dowdy brown dress complete with poofy long sleeves and a lace-up bodice.
“Taika, shouldn’t you be in lunch?” Mr. Fotsios frowns.
“No. Yes. I—”
“Want to help?” Emmi saves me from further humiliation, offering me a poster and some thumbtacks.
“Sure.” It’s not like I have anything better to do. Despite how silly other students might find the annual dance, I secretly love it. Not that I’ve ever gone with a date—not really. I’ve gone with Natalie a few times, as friends—of course. There’s an ache deep in my belly. Guess that single mouthful of mush did more damage to my insides than expected. Or—
“Seriously, no one would go if there was like, literally anything else to do here.” Ekaterina’s voice is like a papercut to the brain. “This whole Kekri thing is ridiculous.”
Emmi frowns, lips pursing as if she’s just taken a bite out of a lemon. Fotsios shakes his head and grumbles something about entitled teenagers as Sini & Co. file past.
“Hey, where’s Natalie?” I ask before I can stop myself.
“Enjoying time away from you,” Sini fires back. “Too bad we have to see you in Chemistry.”
I close my eyes and suck in a deep breath, hoping it won’t—but nope, there’s that little voice again, woken from dormancy and chanting: Taika the Talentless, worthless, pathetic. No way I’m surviving a seventy-minute lesson making herbal concoctions for everyone else to imbue with magic. Taika the Tea-maker, another moniker they’ve started branding me with. This day can go suck it.
Emmi is saying something about ignoring it all and being a bigger person, but I’m done. I dump the thumbtacks and grab my jacket, already heading for the doors.
Outside, the dark-gray sky still splutters dark-gray drizzle. I flip up my hood and stomp away from the school half expecting Mr. Fotsios to come running after me, but Emmi must’ve told him I needed space. She knows me well enough to know I’m not going off to sneak cigarettes or sips from a hip flask in the bushes like some of the older kids. Instead, I angle toward the rickety bridge on a trajectory toward true rebellion and delinquency: the library.
