The look Emily gives Jesse is baffled and betrayed. She seems to ask, silently, Why would you do this to me? In this second, Jesse feels the space between them collapse; she’s transported to the bathroom in the library, transported to a place where there is no distance between her body and Emily’s, where they are in perfect alignment, where they know each other extremely well and love each other exactly right. She’s transported, briefly, into the center of a perfect kiss.
“Sprawlwatch dot net,” Esther supplies, since Jesse’s voice seems to have vanished again.
“Yeah,” Jesse says hoarsely. She breaks Emily’s gaze to look at Esther. “Sprawlwatch dot net.”
***
When Jesse comes stumbling out of the student council meeting, she is filled with more vibrant, swirling mixed feelings than she’s ever felt at one time before. Esther is ecstatic beside her, practically crowing with glee.
“All of them,” Esther giggles breathlessly. “Every single one of those kids is signing that petition right now! You know they are.”
“They were totally into it,” Jesse agrees.
It’s a gorgeous afternoon, chilly and bright, with red, orange, and gold leaves fluttering hot against the blue sky all around them—the kind of crisp, high-definition fall weather Jesse loves. But her insides are a muddled blur.
Esther’s right: every single one of those kids is busy forwarding that petition to their friends right now. Moments ago, when Esther and Jesse walked out of A23, every other kid who was not on student council went with them. No one had come to that meeting to make banners for the lacrosse tournament or figure out clever new ways to get kids to sell more fund-raising chocolate. Everyone was there to talk about getting StarMart out of Vander NOW!
Everyone except Emily. In the end she shut down debate before it was even over—there were still kids who wanted to ask questions when Emily forced them all to move on to the next “action item,” or whatever she called it. She interrupted Esther in the middle of a sentence. She insulted their flyers. Jesse can’t even imagine what’s going to happen in the handicapped bathroom next Tuesday afternoon.
“Hey,” Esther says, “let’s go get cocoa at Beverly Coffee! Don’t you want to? I feel like a giant hot cocoa with whipped cream and shaved chocolate right now.” She slips her arm companionably through the crook of Jesse’s elbow, and snugs Jesse close in a friendly squeeze.
“Yeah,” Jesse says. “That sounds perfect.”
Just then Jesse sees, from across the school’s wide front lawn, Wyatt stand up from the bench where he’s been sitting. Has he been waiting there for her since before school got out? Was she supposed to meet up with him today?
As he walks toward them, he calls out, “Howdy,” in a relaxed voice. He’s still too far away for Jesse to tell whether he’s mad or not.
“Hi!” she calls back, and gently disengages her arm from Esther’s. She uses it to wave at Wyatt once it’s free, as if to justify to Esther why she pulled away.
As Wyatt gets closer, Jesse can see that his Western wear is in full swing now; under his navy-blue windbreaker, it appears he is wearing fringed chaps.
“This is Esther,” Jesse almost shouts, too loud and too soon. There’s no reason for her to be yelling this introduction across such a distance, except that she’s somehow nervous to be making it and wants to get it over with soon.
Wyatt keeps walking toward them, unhurried. “Wyatt Willette,” he says when he’s reached hand-shaking distance. He takes Esther’s hand in his.
“This is Esther,” Jesse says again, gesturing redundantly. “She’s a ninth-grader. Esther, this is Wyatt. He’s homeschooled.”
“That’s an activity, not an identity,” Wyatt explains suavely.
“Nice to meet you.” Esther shakes Wyatt’s hand with tons of energy and no grace whatsoever. When she releases it, Jesse catches Wyatt looking down to inspect his open palm, as if Esther had altered it somehow by shaking it.
“So what kept you kids so long?” Wyatt looks Jesse over, assessing her coolly. “I thought I would catch you on your way out of school. Too bad about your phone being broken.”
“My phone’s not—” Jesse starts, then bites her lip. “Sorry.”
“Yeah, I thought after eight messages I should just come find you. Make sure you were still alive.”
Jesse looks down at the ground.
“We were just fighting for justice in there!” Esther exults, and laughs her strange little bark-whoop laugh.
Wyatt raises his eyebrows archly. “Fighting for justice? Inside the halls of Vander High? I find that hard to believe.”