Happy waited outside Mr. Pacheco’s class for Sweety to finish packing up her bookbag. He wore a freshly laundered longsleeve top to hide his bedbug scabs.
“Oh, hi,” Sweety said.
“Hey, can I walk with you to your next class,” Happy said.
“Won’t that make you late for your own?” Sweety said.
“I can say I peed my pants,” Happy said.
Sweety laughed.
“So, how was your summer?” Happy said, awkwardly.
“It was quiet,” Sweety said.
“I thought Amit would have planned lots of sick dates,” Happy said.
“We broke up midway through,” Sweety said.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Happy said.
Was this change in status the reason she’d been more open in her body language this year? If true, what did that mean?
“What about you?” Sweety said.
“Well I got super sick in India, and then I came home to my Uncle getting arrested and now I’m in school with a guy who hates my guts and now I’m trotting around with his ex, so it’s been fun haha,” Happy said.
It was then that they both ran into the cool kids; Dilmit, Ram, Amit and the rest. Since grade 9 Ram had ingratiated himself to the in crowd owing to dating Dilmit now. The girl Happy had discounted was actually a ticket into the in ctowd. Since the gang had split up Amit had refactored the power of the school’s social circle to align with the valedictorian crowd. Dilmit was actually a good student and Ram was one too, so Amit had rebranded scholastic achievement as cool. Amit was still edgier, so he was able to procure things for them and do things for them that they couldn’t. In exchange they did his bidding and made high school a breeze for him as he grew his fledgling criminal enterprise.
Now Happy was starting right at these power brokers while walking with their latest outcast.