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thank me or run. I see he needs a push. So I wink in his direction.
    “Thinking you might come after school now?” I ask.
    Quinn wrinkles up his nose and stalks away. As if I’m nothing more than a dirty slut. Nice boys are such cowards.

7
    Quinn
    I slam my locker open after school, hang my backpack on the hook and wish it weren’t so wrong to hit a girl. For once I want to knock every woman in my life on their rear ends: Kat, Mrs. Williams, Molly, Amy, my mother. I’m so effin’ tired of falling short of their expectations. When Preston taps me on the shoulder, I jump.
    He holds up his hands. “You okay, man?”
    “Fine,” I bang my locker shut. “I’d give you a ride but—”
    “You have some after school music junk, don’t you?”
    I nod. “Chamber music. It’s good, though. I need to blow off some steam.”
    Preston hits me on the shoulder. “I don’t know what you did, but you’re my new hero. Must be nice to get so much attention from the hottest girl in school.”
    “Are you nuts?” I hit my forehead with my palm. “Kat is a sociopath.”
    “Who cares, she’s got it going on!”
    “Hey Quinn, you coming,” the two Emilys in orchestra say from over my shoulder. All my life there’s been an over-abundance of girls named Emily in my classes. It’s as if there was a shortage of baby names to pick from the year I was born.
    The Emilys pause to wait for me, one tall and one short. They both have straight, dirty-blond hair, and if not for the height difference, they could be sisters. “You gonna let a bunch of girls boss you around?” Preston laughs.
    Short Emily shoots him a dirty look.
    He snorts and leaves.
    When we get to the orchestra room, I find my cello case sitting against the wall. This one is a rental. I keep my good cello at home. After opening my instrument case, I take time to rub my cello down with a soft cloth, tighten my bow and extend the metal end-pin from the bottom.
    “Molly was seriously pissed last period,” short Emily tells me as she takes out her viola. “What’s the deal with you and Kat?”
    “Nothing,” I say as the door behind us opens and Brandon, the bass player, comes into the room. “Nutty Mrs. Williams made us partners. Now I get to write a twenty-page paper on the meaning of the word childish . And somehow I doubt I’ll get any help.”
    “That was one messed up class, wasn’t it?” Brandon says, rubbing his goatee. “I’d switch chairs with you if Mrs. Williams wouldn’t have a fit. Did you hear what happened the last time someone defied one of her seating charts?”
    I shake my head. There are so many off-the-wall Mrs. Williams stories I never know which ones to believe.
    “Lets see,” he taps his chin. “Remember last year when Ty Smith was quarterback?”
    I nod.
    “Well, I think all that popularity went to his head. Because Ty and one of his friends switched seats without permission in Mrs. William’s class. So to show them just how serious she was, she made them sing ‘I’m a little tea pot’ in front of everyone for more than half an hour.”
    “That song must be fifteen seconds long,” I say, thinking there’s no way Brandon’s story could be true. “How is that even possible?”
    “Ty and his friend had to turn it into a skit,” he says. “You know, like those really cheesy ones they make you do in boy scouts. Everyone was laughing, but not because it was funny. Ty had a nervous breakdown on the football field that day.”
    “Yeah, right.” I snort.
    Mr. Youk, our orchestra teacher, walks through the door with Kat’s good friend, John Lindner. Could this day get any worse?
    “We’re moving to the choir room,” Mr. Youk says. “They have a piano.”
    As we walk across the hall, I think what an unusual combination of instruments we have. Tall Emily plays the violin, short Emily the viola, Brandon the bass and John the piano. Since when do jocks play the piano?
    “Hey John,” I call. “When did a tough guy like you