The Amanda Project: Book One

The Amanda Project: Chapter Eight

CHAPTER EIGHT

Nia snickered when Mr. Thornhill offered us a chance to "come clean" right after we'd each picked up a bucket filled with rags, rolls of paper towels, and cleaning products piled by the door. It took me a minute to get the joke about cleaning, but I'm not sure if that was because Nia's smarter than I am or if it's because I was so confused by all the thoughts whirling through my head that I didn't have room in my brain for a pun.

When nobody said anything, he just gestured toward the door and we trooped out in a line: Hal first, then Nia, then me.

"It's not like we're going to be able to get the stuff off his car with this," I pointed out, rattling the bucket toward their backs. "Spray paint doesn't exactly wash off."

Neither of them said anything, as if during lunch they'd made a pact to ignore me. Well, two could play at that game, and I didn't say anything more. A crowd was gathered by the gate to the faculty parking lot to gape at Mr. Thornhill's car (some people had out their phones and were taking pictures); at first the security guard, who was holding them back, wouldn't let us through. Hal had to explain for about fifty years that we had to go to the car, and even then the guy was reluctant to let us pass. As we walked past him, I spotted Lee's curly dark hair towering above the crowd and then I saw Traci, Heidi, and Jake, who were all standing with him. Lee saw me before they did, maybe because he's so tall, and he put his fists up over his head and shouted, "Go, Callie!" as Traci and Heidi clapped and Jake whistled. I hoped Hal and Nia heard them. I hoped they realized who they were ignoring.

The VP's ancient Honda Civic was parked far enough away from the crowd that the noise of the onlookers was muffled, or maybe it was just that the sensory overload of looking at something so vivid made it difficult to register anything else. The clouds had rolled in since we'd first looked out Thornhill's office window, but even in the watery sunlight of a March afternoon, the car pulsed with color and energy.

"Wow," said Hal.

I had to agree. From a distance, we'd only been able to see the biggest shapes, but up close you could make out the detail work-tiny birds carrying intricate olive branches, long daisy chains intertwining with meticulously drawn rainbows. It wasn't just bright and colorful, it was really, really good art.

Suddenly, I thought of something. Despite my private vow not to talk to either Hal or Nia, I turned to Hal, who was standing next to me admiring the lunar landscape that covered the driver's side of the windshield. "Did you draw this?"

Either Hal was seriously ignoring me or he hadn't heard what I said. He reached out with his index finger and traced the edge of the moon. "Hey, it's-" he started to say, but before he could finish, I grabbed his arm.

"Did you do this?"

"What?" he turned to face me but I could tell he was still absorbed in admiring the masterpiece that was Thornhill's car. I noticed that after he'd touched the moon, his finger had a light coating of bluish-white.

"I said, did you draw this?" Hal was the best artist at Endeavor, and there was no doubt someone with real talent had decorated this car.