The Art of Us

Chapter Eight

Kal

Kal swirled a few paints together, pulling the emerald down into the forest green before using the results to outline the flat, needlelike leaves of the redwood tree. The faint odor of ammonia in the paint bothered some people, but Kal liked it. He also liked the dried-clay smell of chalk and the turpentine smell when he was working with oils. Simply put, he loved the smell and sound and sight and feel of creativity. He’d have gone so far as to say he loved the taste of it, too, but he’d never taken a lick of his paintings before, so the jury was out on that.

The mural outline was done, aside from a few finishing touches he was currently adding. He’d done some branches in shadow and some in full light. The outlines of the sections left plenty of room for students to fill in with their own art.

“I’d better get going,” Ireland said from below him as she stretched out the kinks in her back and neck.

He glanced outside to find that not only was there a sunset in their mural but there was also one in the real-life sky. That meant if Ireland wouldn’t let him drive her back to her bathroom, she’d end up having to walk. In the dark. By herself. He didn’t dare follow her again in case she caught him, but Kal hated her going alone.

He looked down from his scaffolding and said, “Let me drive you tonight. You don’t want to be walking home.” In the dark. By yourself. He finished the thought in his head.

“I’m fine. But I should really get going now.”

“Why?” That question came from a different voice. Mara’s.

Ireland seemed confused that Mara was talking to her directly. “Why what?”

“Why leave now? We’re not done yet.”

“We’re done with my part.” As if to prove her point, Ireland dropped her brushes into the can of water at her feet and swirled it around.

“I thought you wanted to be part of the club.”

“It’s okay, Mara.” Kal felt like he’d better interject because the two girls below him seemed like they were hovering on the edge of arguing, and he wasn’t emotionally prepared to deal with that kind of situation. “Her part is done, so she doesn’t need to stay if she doesn’t want to.” The sooner Ireland left, the less walking in the dark she’d have to do.

“I don’t see why any of us should get to go home before the others,” Mara insisted.

“Charisma left before we even started,” Ireland said, definite irritation in her voice.

“Charisma cleared that with everyone first. You’re being low-key selfish right now since you know none of the rest of us can go home until this is done.” Mara had her arms crossed over her chest and a scowl so deep that she could have given lessons to the Grand Canyon.

“I have to get home, or I’ll get in trouble. Sorry if that’s a problem for you, princess. See you later, Kal.” Ireland turned on her heel and pretty much stomped off before Kal could scramble off the scaffold to give a decent goodbye.

Rowan, one of the seriously rich kids in school, had apparently been staying late for track practice because he had been in the art room to talk to Cooper when the altercation between Mara and Ireland happened.

Kal had never liked Rowan. The guy used too much product in his dark brown hair and he had a habit of standing straight as if to prove he was taller than everyone else—not to mention his hooded brown eyes tended to trail after girls in the school in a way that made Kal feel queasy. But he liked him even less as the guy watched Ireland storm off. The way Rowan’s mouth pursed and his eyes tracked Ireland’s every step made his skin crawl. He held his breath to see if Rowan would follow Ireland, but he didn’t. Instead, he sauntered over to where Mara and Kal were working.

It appeared as if he were about to greet Mara, which would make sense since they hung out in the same circles, but instead he twisted his face as if he smelled something rotting and said, “Nice paint in your hair, Mara. You do know it’s supposed to go on the wall, not on you, right?” Then he went off the way Ireland had gone, making Kal’s anxiety spike for reasons that didn’t make sense. Rowan wouldn’t hurt her, would he?

“What’s going on, Mara?” Kal asked, baffled that Mara would lash out at anyone, least of all Ireland, and completely weirded out by Rowan insulting Mara, who was one of the most popular girls in school.

“Nothing.” Mara stomped off too, leaving Kal to wonder what had just happened. The thing with Ireland seemed like a power play, but what kind of power? And the thing with Rowan was just plain next-level oddball. Kal frowned while he finished up the leaves and climbed down from the scaffold.

He wanted to tell Mara to go easy on Ireland, but he couldn’t think of any way to phrase it that wouldn’t make things worse. He worried about Ireland making it home okay. Rowan wouldn’t have followed her. That was too paranoid to consider. Yet he couldn’t stop considering it. Kal had hoped that by making friends with the art club members, Ireland would find someone in that group to confide in to help her so she wasn’t alone and vulnerable.

But if the situation with Mara offered any evidence, she wasn’t any closer to those sorts of friendships than she was to being involved in a lunar landing.

Kal hated how the worry was living in his head like some malignant, snarling growth. He couldn’t check on her at her bathroom because he was afraid she’d catch him, and then she’d know he knew, and then it would be awkward, and he couldn’t deal with that.

But he didn’t like the way Rowan had watched her. He didn’t like knowing she was alone. And now it was Friday, and he was stuck with another weekend without knowing if she was okay or not.

He felt a tightness in his chest that he didn’t know what to do with. He finished up his portion of the mural, adding in the dark- and light-leaf outlines, and when he felt like he’d made it as perfect as he was able, he cleaned up his brushes and paints and climbed off the scaffolding. Cooper was already folding up the scaffolding on his side and took care of Kal’s as well while Kal took the paints and brushes to the supply closet to clean them all up in the sink there. On the short walk, Kal made a decision. No more. He couldn’t keep Ireland’s secret for another minute. Someone else needed to know. He couldn’t keep worrying about whether she was fed or cold or safe. He wanted an adult to worry with him. But he didn’t want to tell his parents because they didn’t know Ireland. They wouldn’t know how to help her.

But Mr. Wasden knew her. He was one of those incredibly levelheaded sorts of people who could find solutions without creating more chaos. Kal walked into an adjoining gallery room in search of his teacher.

Once inside, Kal glanced around to see if he could find his teacher. “Hey, Wasden.” He walked farther into the room. “Where are you, man?” His eyes filtered over the various framed pictures on the wall done by students past. There was some really great work up there. Every time Kal looked at it, he had the distinct impression he was really in an art gallery. Mr. Wasden had managed to get really beautiful frames from various thrift stores to highlight the beauty of the art. No crummy plastic frames for his students. Wasden wasn’t that kind of guy. Everything he did was intentional. Kal wondered if Wasden would ever consider any of Kal’s work good enough to place on the wall of greatness.

Kal was just about to go check the supply room when Wasden came in behind him, entering from the art room.

“There you are!” Kal said.

“Here I am. Just checking the mural. It looks great, Kal. Seriously. Great. It’s something to be proud of. And the spaces you created for the student body to work within are big enough and provide the color variety we’re looking for to be accessible to everyone. For the up-high stuff, we’ll need to do a separate sign-out sheet from the lower scaffold. We don’t want more than two people on the upper scaffold at a time, so if you’d make those and get them pinned to a couple of clipboards outside the classroom, that would be great.” Mr. Wasden stopped talking and really looked at Kal. “Hey, you okay?”

“No. Not really.”

“What’s up?”

Kal sucked in a deep breath. Here goes nothing , he thought before he let it all tumble out from him, from the first time he saw Ireland stealing leftover pizza to the moment he discovered her living conditions in the woods to all the reasons he worried she was so vulnerable to every nightmare villain in every horror film he’d seen.

Wasden didn’t interrupt. He listened until Kal finally fell silent, having exhausted his every panicked prediction of Ireland’s potential fate. The teacher finally scrubbed the back of his hand under his bristled chin. “And you’re sure that’s where she’s living?”

“Positive.”

Wasden nodded. “Let me do some checking into her file and background and come up with some things that we can do to help.”

Kal nodded. He was still gripping the paintbrushes and paints tightly in his fists. “Okay.”

“Let me take those. You deserve to go home and rest. You’ve done a lot to make this project work, and I appreciate it. So go home and relax. I promise I’ll help Miss Raine, okay?”

“Yeah. Okay.” Kal released the brushes and cans to Mr. Wasden and then left, feeling lighter than he’d been in days, maybe months. Having someone else who knew what troubled him didn’t seem like it should have helped him so dramatically, but it did.

He’d told someone, which was more than he’d done for Brell when she’d become so distant and he knew she was hanging out with the cesspool crowd of their high school. If he’d told someone on her—no, not on her but for her—maybe she would still be breathing.

No spiraling, he told himself.

And, for once, he was able to listen to himself because he wasn’t in this alone. If anyone could help, it was Wasden. Maybe he wouldn’t have to make sandwiches every day. Kal’s dad had asked why they were already out of meats and cheeses and then muttered that maybe he’d forgotten to add them to the grocery list. And when his brother came to visit from college in Arizona and found the pantry empty of all the snack foods, his dad had frowned and said that he was slipping in his old age because he was sure he’d stocked it the week before.

He wouldn’t be able to sustain his pantry pilfering for too much longer. But if Wasden got Ireland help, maybe he wouldn’t have to.