Ballad by Maggie Stiefvater Page B

the bus with hunger or resentment or exhaustion. They all looked lonely to me. All alone in a sea of people.
    Beside me, Paul said heavily, “I need to get drunk.” He said lots of things in that ponderous, heavy way, but this was a change from his usual repertoire. Usually when you pulled the string on Paul’s back, he said something like, “I do not get what he’s trying to say here,” while staring at an open book or stack of notes. Or, “I’m tired of no one noticing the nuances of the oboe, man.” Very few people notice the nuances of the bagpipes either, and I would’ve had a sympathetic conversation with him about it if the oboe didn’t suck so bad as an instrument.
    I looked away from the people outside to the pens on my notebook, parallel parked bits of pen. They jiggled a little when the bus pulled away from a light. “Drunk sounds so crass. ‘Soused’ or ‘blitzed’ is a bit more romantic.”
    “Man, if I don’t get drunk soon, I might never get the chance.” Paul eyed my lap. He handed me his pen from his backpack and I took it apart as well, adding its innards to the collection. “When will I have this sort of opportunity again? No parents? A mostly unsupervised dorm?”
    “Uhh, I don’t know, maybe that little event they call college. I’m told it comes after high school for highly privileged white kids like ourselves.” I began to screw the pens back together, mixing the pieces up to create three Frankenpens.
    “I could die before then. Then what, I’m dead and I never got drunk? So, what, I’d arrive at the pearly gates a sober virgin?”
    That struck a chord with me. I used one of the pens to write sainted on the back of my hand. “I think a lot of people would argue that’s the only way to get to the pearly gates. Why the sudden push for getting sloshed?”
    Paul shrugged and looked out the window. “I dunno.”
    I suppose if I’d been a responsible adult, I’d have told him that he didn’t need to get drunk to be self-actualized or whatever. But I was bored and generally irresponsible by nature or by choice, so I told him, “I’ll get it for you.”
    “What?”
    “Beer, Paul. Focus. That’s what you want, right? Alcohol?”
    Paul’s eyes became even rounder behind his glasses. “Are you serious? How—”
    “Shh, don’t bother your head about my mysterious methods. That’s what makes me me . Have you had beer before?” I wrote beer on the side of my index finger, since I’d run out of room on my hand.
    Paul laughed. “Ha. Ha. Ha. My parents say beer defiles the soul.”
    I grinned at him. Even better. This was going to be insanely entertaining. Things were looking up.
    “What are you grinning at, James?” Sullivan, a few seats ahead of us, had turned around and was peering at me suspiciously. “It’s vaguely sinister.”
    I sealed my teeth behind my lips but kept smiling at him. I wondered how long he’d been listening. Not that it mattered. My evil plans could go on with or without his knowledge.
    Sullivan observed my closed-lipped smile with a raised eyebrow. He had to speak loudly to be heard over the sound of the bus. “Better, but still ominous. I can’t shake the idea that you’re planning something only marginally ethical, like the takeover of a small Latin country.”
    I grinned at him again. Of all the teachers, Sullivan spoke my language. “Not this week.”
    Sullivan grimaced at Paul and back at me. “Well, I hope it’s legal.”
    Paul blinked rapidly, but I shrugged, indifferent. “In most countries.”
    Sullivan’s crooked mouth made a rueful smile. “ This country?” He read me better than anyone I knew, a fact that was both inconvenient and comforting.
    “My dear professor, your skills are wasted on such deductive reasoning. Don’t you have some English poetry you should be reading?”
    He looked like he wanted to continue with the previous line of questioning, but instead just pointed a finger at me. “Watching you, Mr.