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Remy Merritt
never have dog-eared the page. His attention was now on the scientific calculator that lay in front of him. He remarked how much he disliked math, but he liked the calculator his father had lent to him for the basic additions and subtractions of second-grade arithmetic. It had large gray buttons and a wide screen that could have held entire sentences, had Henry the desire to pass notes in class. Along the sidewalk outside, a woman in a thin pink sweater was being walked by a massive German Shepherd. Henry watched her pass, distracted. She resembled his homeroom teacher. Henry was led by the two women’s likeness to congratulate himself a second time for his “outstanding” work, according to Mrs. Vierra, on a Cherokee research project for social studies. The chubby grin of a cherub stretched across his St. Ivesscrubbed face. The calculator a distant memory, his wandering eyes led him to track the vines of jasmine that wound their way across the house, a creamy blend of white and pastel pink like Ella in her birthday dress. She had turned thirteen that day, and as an official teenager she had been in the backyard since walking Henry home from school three hours ago, homework and chores be damned. Remembering homework, Henry looked back down at the calculator, then to his grammar workbook. His adverb exercises were nearing completion, and he flipped open the book to fill “quickly” in the blank following: “The rabbit ran.” He had begun to consider whether rabbits could run when Ella burst through the screen door and grabbed a pan. Henry, startled, jerked up his head to watch her. Her movements were poorly timed, and lids clattered to the floor from their iron hooks above the island counter. Ella yelled out an expletive, jumping backward to protect the bare toes that were stained green from the lawn. She noticed Henry seated in the same spot she left him three hours ago. “What’s with the grin? Did you fart or something?”