When Jackie stood, Sadie, his girlfriend since December, made a show of kissing him goodbye. Raven found all the posturing amusing. It was like when she watched marmot colonies in the mountains of Montana.

Jackie was quiet as they walked out of the lunchroom. When they neared their classrooms, he asked, “Do you like Chris?”

“Of course I like Chris.”

“As a friend?”

“You know he’s my friend.”

“You know what I mean,” he said.

“Why are you asking me this?”

“Because . . . I just want to make sure you know what you’re doing. Chris is a lot more experienced than you are.”

“Are you saying you don’t trust him?”

“No. He’s a nice guy.”

She stopped walking and faced him. “Then what’s the problem?”

He searched her eyes, as if trying to read her feelings for Chris. “There is no problem,” he said. “I’ll see you on the bus.”

“You aren’t driving home with Huck?”

“He has baseball practice.”

Raven sat at her desk and opened her backpack. She ran her fingers over the old copy of Great Expectations she’d picked up from the library on her way to lunch. She couldn’t start it on the bus because Jackie would want to talk to her. And that would make Sadie jealous and she’d start babbling to get his attention. It happened every time Jackie rode the bus. She liked to be with Jackie, but she almost wished he wasn’t going to be on the bus.

Raven had started reading library books on the bus in fifth grade, the first year she rode alone because her friends had moved up to middle school. She relished immersing herself in novels, especially in love stories, and she still hid her library books from Mama. Her mother said reading love stories was a silly waste of time. But she had to be wrong about that. Romeo and Juliet and Pride and Prejudice were love stories, and she had studied them in English class. From novels, Raven had learned things about people and their relationships she couldn’t have found out from Mama or the earth spirits.

Chris was waiting for her in front of the doors to the buses. And thanks to everything she’d learned from novels, Raven knew why he was there. She perceived that he liked her as more than a friend, and now he’d decided to do something about it. That was always a good part in a love story. She wondered if he’d try to kiss her. Her heart beat fast.

“Hey,” Chris said.

“Hey,” she said.

“I was wondering if you’d want to drive with me instead of take the bus,” he said. “We could stop at Bear’s and get something to eat for your birthday. I’m buying.”

“You already gave me a gift.”

“That was nothing.”

“It was nice.”

“Then let me be nicer.”

“Chris . . . you know how it is. At my house.”

A familiar glint of resentment lit his eyes. Chris, Jackie, Huck, and Reece were the only four people Raven had told about her promise to never set foot on the Taft property. She’d told them mostly to warn them not to come on her property—because her mother had made the comment about her gun. That was long ago, but it still enraged the boys.

“Are you worried about the driveway cameras?” Chris asked.

She nodded.

“I’ll drop you off where the cameras can’t see. I’ll get you back around the same time as usual. That’s a long bus ride.”

Even if he did, the cameras would record the bus going past her driveway without letting her off. Raven didn’t know if Mama looked at those videos. If she did, if she found out Raven had come home with a boy, Raven couldn’t predict how she would respond.

“Don’t you ever want to say screw it to all that?” Chris said.

She’d never had a reason to, but now maybe she did.

“Just try it,” he said. “You said she never hits you. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Mama’s anger was what would happen. It had terrified her more than anything when she was little. But she wasn’t little anymore. She was old enough that a beautiful senior boy might want to kiss her.

“Okay,” she said.

“Okay? Really?”

She nodded. She liked how happy he looked.

They were a few steps out the door when Jackie caught up to her. “Aren’t you taking the bus?”

“Chris is driving me home,” she said.

“What about your mom?”

It was as if they saw double when they looked at her: Raven plus the shadow of her mother. She was so tired of not being just Raven to them.

“I guess my mom will have to deal with it,” she said.

Jackie looked stunned. Chris grinned.

“See you tomorrow,” she said to Jackie.

“The rebel emerges!” Chris said. “I like it!”

His car was parked in the senior lot. Many of the seniors stared at them. Some said hello to Chris, and a few greeted Raven.

It made her feel different. Less of an outcast. And maybe prettier than she usually saw herself. Chris was popular, a football player.

She was suddenly aware of what she was wearing. She was glad she’d worn her favorite jeans, sweater, and boots. Raven had endeavored to look like her peers since she’d started school, and to that same end, Mama let her order almost any clothes she wanted.