Yellow by Megan Jacobson Page B

your new nickname should be Ibis? Hi Kirra!’
    I’m the scraps.
    Another chip comes flying, and we duck.
    Willow picks up the chip and throws it back, but Lou valiantly steps forward to take the bullet for Cassie.
    Use the words, Kirra, I think.
    Use the words that draw blood.
    I try to think of my practice from the other night, but something stops me. I have a block in my vocal cords, like a strainer, and only soft things can come out.
    Use the words, Kirra!
    â€˜Kirra loves birds, doesn’t she?’ heckles Lou, and the whole bunch of them are squawking at me again, like they did when we had The Circle. Willow flicks her coffee hair and loops her arm around mine, walking me away from them. When we’re far enough away, she leans over to my ear, and with a conspiratorial arch of the eyebrows she tells me – ‘I was in love with Omar, too.’ With those seven words the shame from the last two years shrugs off me, and a small smile tiptoes back onto my face.
    â€˜He was pretty lovable, huh?’
    She winks back at me. ‘Hells yeah, sweet dollface child.’
    And we laugh, talking about hooded eyes that always look like they’re dreaming and white patches in tangled black hair.
    Our last period is science. After class I wait behind as everyone files out. The teacher had leant in too close when he was explaining the Bunsen burners, and his beard is patchy from where the flames had singed the end of it. The room still smells like burnt hair. He’s packing up the Bunsen burners, oblivious to me, when I clear my throat loudly.
    â€˜Excuse me . . .’
    He jumps, then sees me.
    â€˜Crystal!’
    â€˜Ummm, it’s Kirra.’
    I’ve been in his class for two years.
    â€˜Of course, Kirra, what’s up little dude?’
    He sits on one of the desks, swinging his legs so I can see his mismatched socks poking out through his too-short trousers. The other day has been playing on my mind, the whole idea that I’d have to go out to South Beach again, to the back of the reef. I can’t forget how it was out there, underneath the waves, being throttled by blue, and how strong the current was all around me. Boogie says he’s still there, but how could he know for sure? A reef shark could have eaten him up before I was even born. I pick at my fingernails.
    â€˜I have a science question I want to ask you . . .’
    â€˜Shoot away, Crystal – I mean Kirra.’
    I can’t look him in the eye.
    â€˜If a body was dumped in the water near South Beach, how long would it take to decompose?’
    The teacher mulls this over.
    â€˜Well, it depends greatly on the placement of the bones. Salt water itself won’t dissolve bones, so if the bones are deep enough, where there isn’t much water movement, or if it gets covered in silt on the bottom of the ocean, it could last thousands of years.’
    â€˜What if it was weighed down somewhere really shallow, like, on the reef?’
    The teacher considers this.
    â€˜Well, that shallow, the ocean currents will erode it away, like the sea does to rock. And then you have to take into account the microbes that cause decay, then the predatory animals that are accustomed to feeding on bone. If you’re lucky, twelve years. But even a weighted body will float to the surface in three or four days, and if it’s at South Beach reef, the current would dump it onto the shore after that. If it wasn’t eaten by the reef sharks first.’
    That means Boogie’s body isn’t there anymore.
    Shit.
    How can I help him now?
    The teacher looks at me from behind his beard.
    â€˜So if you have a body you need to dump, don’t do that, little dude. What you should do is get hydrofluoric acid to dissolve the body in. It’s corrosive stuff. But make sure you use a plastic tub and not a bathtub, because plastic’s one of the only things it won’t corrode, and you don’t