Today, Grimshaw has an enormous formerly pink suitcase next to her. The suitcase means she had a fight with her mother this morning and is running away to my house. The suitcase has a bumper sticker on it from Niagara Falls, which dates from her parents’ honeymoon.

“We’re free,” I announce, taking my first pull.

“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” she sings as she exhales her first drag. Grimshaw speaks mostly in lyrics from prehistoric rock and roll, especially if the song is about getting free. She’s obsessed with getting out of the Minnechaug Valley, which is our very small corner of New York State. She’s never been anywhere else, so she’s sure it’s better there.

“Do you think you passed?” I ask her.

She shrugs. “I didn’t really get the essay questions.”

“Did you write anything?”

“I sure as hell didn’t write a book.”

“As long as you wrote something. It’s not like he gave you much space to fill. I had to use extra paper.”

“I know. You didn’t even look up when I left. What did you write about? The usual?”

“Pretty much.”

“You never learn.”

“Neither do they.”

Grimshaw grinds out her cigarette as she walks toward the bus. “I’m not coming back, anyway,” she says. “I’ll be eighteen. After that, what’s the point?” I pick up her suitcase and follow her. I know what’s in it—her toothbrush, toothpaste, and a set of rose-printed flannel sheets. My mother bought them for Christmas last year, a gesture that offended her mother. Mrs. Grimshaw doesn’t drive, so one of her sons brought her over to our house to return them. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Grimshaw hardly ever leaves her house, and so coming over to my house and yelling at my mother was kind of a big outing for her. But of course, the next time Grimshaw spent the night at our house, she picked up the sheets again, so here they are. She walks ahead of me, still humming a tune. Her white T-shirt has fallen off one shoulder, revealing a shiny black bra strap. With her, it looks like an invitation. It’s something about the way she moves. If her big ambition to be a dancer dies, plan B is to be a stripper.

“Slut,” somebody says, as we pass by a group of cheerleaders. I turn around. Of course—it was Junior Davis’s girlfriend, no doubt pissed that her boyfriend spent the Western Civ exam playing with Grimshaw’s hair and ignoring the death-looks of his girlfriend.

“Bitch,” I say back, even though they weren’t talking to me. “Cheaters.”

“Like you don’t,” she says to me.

“At least we’ll pass.”

Grimshaw just keeps humming and gets on the bus.