At the teacher’s desk, Peter stared at me, completely frozen. His eyes darted back and forth between me and Tommy and I could tell he was in total shock. He did cafeteria duty with Mr. Jacobs and could have watched me with Tommy for weeks now, but he’d refused to even glance in my direction since that night in the barn. I ignored him and blew Tommy a kiss before waltzing down the hallway. It was beautiful.
After that I could tell Peter was watching me. In Advanced English I made sure my hand was up as much as ever. If anything, I worked extra hard on the assignments so I could always make some point about the book’s theme or subtext that would impress him. For a while he tried to gloss over me, but after he saw me kissing Tommy, he loosened up a little. He began admitting I was bringing up interesting viewpoints, then he started debating my ideas for the benefit of the class to try to get someone else to jump in on the argument. A few weeks after Thanksgiving, he opened the discussion by saying, “Does anyone besides Hattie have anything they want to say about the ending?”
The whole class laughed, including me, but I stuck my hand up anyway.
“Anyone?” Peter looked around hopefully.
After another minute, he sighed theatrically and called on me.
“I thought it was a terrible ending. Nothing was resolved.”
“Anyone else feel that way? Show of hands, please.” He perched on the edge of his desk, which was my favorite position to watch him in. It meant he was going to launch into a lecture and try to make us think about some of the issues in the book. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and my gaze drifted to the hair sprinkled along his forearms before I blinked and made myself listen to what he was saying.
“It’s a book about war. War always leaves society with difficult questions that may or may not be able to be answered. Is it O’Brien’s place to answer those questions for us or is it only his responsibility to point them out so that the reader has to confront them?”
Becca Price answered that one. “I think everyone would have a different answer about whether the war was right or not. I mean, look at how it is now in Iraq and Afghanistan. No one can agree on the right thing to do or whether or not we should even be there. But everybody says it’s the Vietnam of our generation.”
“Yes, lucky you,” Peter said. Some people laughed. Others just stared at their notebooks. I wasn’t the only one with family over there.
“So back to Hattie’s complaint that nothing was resolved—”
“Wait, I didn’t mean that I wanted him to answer big, philosophical questions about war. But none of the characters’ story lines were wrapped up.”
“Maybe O’Brien wanted his characters to symbolize those bigger questions. If the plot wrapped up too neatly, would you still be thinking about the implications of war on ordinary men and women?”
I sighed and pursed my lips, knowing I’d lost my point. But then I had an idea.
Peter kept the discussion bouncing around for a few more minutes and then handed out our essay assignment just as the bell rang. I jumped up and followed him back to his desk while everyone packed up their book bags.
“Mr. Lund, I still have some issues with the book. Could I stop by after school to talk about them?”
I kept my face completely innocent, biting my lip and tilting my head for effect. Peter swallowed and glanced around the classroom. Everyone was talking and laughing, pushing their way toward the door.
“Why don’t you just use those issues as subject matter for your essay?”
“But I can’t write the synopsis if I’m not sure I understand the book correctly. It’ll only take a few minutes.”
I left before he could tell me no again and was on pins and needles for the rest of the day. Would he be there? I knew he had a free period during the last hour of the day—yes, I had his schedule memorized—so he could bolt out of school before I even got out of chemistry. I practically ran out of class when the last bell rang and beat the crowd down to the first floor. A few people tried to call me over as I passed the locker bays, but I just waved and kept walking with my science book clutched to my chest.
When I got to his room, I stopped to catch my breath and peeked in the window. Peter sat at his desk reading. My heart flip-flopped and I pushed through the door, eager to watch his face look up and see what expression it would have. When I opened the door, though, I saw two other students working at desks in the back. One of them was Tommy.
Tommy grinned when he saw me, but I looked away and let my hair fall in a curtain over my cheek, stalking over to Peter’s desk.
“Oh, Hattie.” He glanced up from his computer. “I forgot you were stopping by. I’ve got a couple students doing last-chance revisions.”
Behind me, Tommy snorted softly. Peter ignored it, giving me a bland smile.
“Did you still want to talk about O’Brien?”
“Yes,” I managed after a minute.
“Well?”
I wanted to slap the pretend nonchalance off his face. Instead I rummaged around in my bag to find the book, buying myself some time, and decided two could play this game.
“Here.” I set my book on his desk and grabbed an empty chair by the whiteboard, pulling it over next to his.
“I can’t remember the exact passages right now, but I’ve got them marked.”
He sat up straighter in his chair while I made a show of flipping through the book and making thinking noises. Tommy kept shooting me looks, confused, until I sent him a small grin and a wink to give him the idea I was here for him. It worked. He put a hand over his mouth to hide his smile and went back to work, probably turning all his commas into periods or capitalizing random words.