Henry Franks A Novel - By Peter Adam Salomon Page 0,1

looked over, she made shooing motions with her hands and pointed to the other side of him.

He turned around. Bobby Dixon, at the next desk over and wearing his football jersey as usual, had his hand out, waiting for the note. Head down, Henry refolded the paper and passed it over, unable to look at either of them.

From behind him, he felt a tap on his shoulder before another student slid a ripped piece of paper down his arm. Even in the dim light, the words were easy to read:

Did you really think her note was for you?

On the bus ride home, he sat alone as always and thought about invisibility until Justine took the seat in front of him.

“I heard.” She turned to face him, her arms on the back of the bench. “Small school.”

Henry looked out the window and shrugged. “Been that kind of life.”

“Could’ve been worse,” she said, then turned away from him as the bus started moving.

“How?” he asked, but the question was drowned out by the diesel engine. He pushed himself up and leaned forward to talk to her.

“How?” he repeated.

She looked back at him and smiled, lighting up her soft brown eyes. “Could’ve been a longer movie.”

She was a sophomore, too, but not in any of his classes, and she was the one person at school who seemed to know his name, mostly because she lived in the house next door to him. She knew everyone, it seemed, and he was … well, he was Henry.

“Any plans for summer?” she asked.

Henry opened his mouth, though he didn’t have an answer. No plans, ever.

“Football practice,” came from the seat behind him. Bobby stretched his arms over Henry, pushing him out of the way in order to drum a quick beat on Justine’s backpack where it sat beside her. “You cheering again?”

Henry squeezed up against the window as they drove over the only bridge onto St. Simons and Bobby’s elbow kept hitting his shoulder. In the heat of the bus, his shirt was sticking to his skin and the thin white scar that circled his neck appeared for a moment when he pulled the collar out, but he quickly hid it away.

Justine pushed her backpack to the floor, breaking the beat. “No, my parents didn’t appreciate the three Bs I got this year. They decided I would get better grades without distractions.”

The bus stopped with a squeal of hydraulics and Henry ducked beneath Bobby’s arm.

“Bye,” Bobby said, slapping Henry’s shoulder and pushing him forward so that he stumbled down the aisle. Someone laughed, but he didn’t turn around to see who it was.

“Henry,” Justine called to him as he walked down the street.

He stopped walking but, for a long moment, didn’t turn around. When he looked over his shoulder at her, she was lost in the shadows of the oak trees lining the street.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

Henry shook his head before turning around to face her.

“I was actually asking you,” she said, taking a step closer to him, “on the bus, about summer.”

He let his hair fall into his eyes before finally brushing it away. “No plans,” he said. “You?”

“Junior counselor at the Y camp, that’s about it.” She walked a little in front of him, maintaining most of the conversation as usual. “I overheard my parents talking about a trip somewhere but I didn’t pay much attention.”

He turned into his yard even as she was speaking, and as he walked up to his house he could still hear her as she continued walking home.

Henry waved, even though she had already disappeared inside, and slipped his key into the lock. He jiggled the handle up and to the right, then turned the knob. Repeat steps two and three as needed. A bare bulb burned right inside the door, the weak light reflecting off the dark wood paneling and darker floor with a strange yellow tinge. Curtains, thick and dusty, were pulled across the windows and allowed knives of sunlight to sneak through and slant across the room. Dust danced and tumbled around him as he walked down the hall. Spanish moss fell against the windows, adding a diseased pallor to the heavy air.

Upstairs, Henry closed his bedroom door, dropped his backpack on the bed, and slid down to the floor. The room was sparsely furnished: a small desk with a laptop attached to an LCD monitor, and mismatched furniture. There had been a mirror over his dresser once but he’d taken it down, leaving