Excerpt: Exeunt

Chapter Two
Ellie

As Ellie and Rhonda walked to science class, Ellie's heart was still pounding in her chest. Though she had no particular reason to fear Alexander Petersen, she had caught him looking at her, staring really, several times over the last few months. If nothing else, that creeped her out.
“I can't believe he just gave it up,” she said to Rhonda. She and Rhonda were best friends, thought they'd only known each other since the fifth grade. Ellie had had a really good friend throughout elementary school, but Kristin moved away in the summer after the fourth grade, leaving Ellie alone. Rhonda moved to town at the same time Kristin was moving away, however, and when she showed up in school the first day of fifth grade, their teacher asked Ellie to show Rhonda around, and they made fast friends.
Though she’d thought little of it in the fifth grade, Ellie liked the fact that Rhonda was black. She knew that Vermont was mostly a white state, and her neighborhood was mostly a white neighborhood. But there was diversity out there, especially in Burlington, the state's biggest city. Ellie hadn't sought out plugging into that diversity, but once she was, by happenstance, she was glad she was. It gave her a different perspective on a lot of things, especially in their civics class, where things like learning about apartheid in South Africa to Latinas in the Supreme Court took on a whole different meaning.
Aside from that, Rhonda had almost all of the same interests as she, and excelled in academics just like she did. That saying, that birds of a feather flock together, seemed especially apropos.
“He was caught red-handed,” Rhonda said. “I hope he gets expelled.”
“Yeah,” Ellie said, but not sure she agreed that he should be. She certainly didn't countenance stealing, but expulsion was a bit much. She realized that though Alexander creeped her out a bit, the fact that she had caught him staring gave her ego a bit of a boost, as did the fact that he blushed when he looked away quickly when she caught him staring. Watching him surreptitiously in the gym, it didn't seem like his heart was in the taking of the book. As far she could tell, the book he took was either a Jane Austen book or a Louisa May Alcott book, none of which seemed like his style.
As they kept moving down the hall to the science labs, she thought back to just what had caught her attention in the gym a few minutes before.
Ellie wasn't quite sure she'd seen what she thought she'd seen. Darren Polito had stuck a book into his back pocket, or at least she thought he had. She didn't know Darren very well, though she did know that his friends called him Hammy, for reasons that she didn't know, and didn't care to know. She wasn't sure, though, because it could have been a folded-up sheet of paper, too. She looked over at Rhonda, who was looking at a stack of history books, her favorite subject in school. She moved a step closer and said, “Ronnie, I think that kid just stole a book.” Rhonda looked up at Ellie and then in the direction Ellie was looking. “Don't look!” Ellie said, then turned so she was facing away from Darren.
She moved to stand in front of Rhonda, giving her cover, and said, “Darren Polito – keep an eye on him.” She looked over her shoulder and saw Darren move closer to Alexander Petersen, who was looking around the gym guiltily. The other kid, whose real name Ellie couldn't remember, but who was known as Scratch, had said something to Alexander. He put down a largish book that he'd been holding and picked up a smaller one off the table, then slipped it quickly into his backpack. She turned to Rhonda. “Did you see that?”
Rhonda quickly looked down at the book she was holding, something about the presidents, and nodded that she had. Ellie turned around and saw Scratch and Darren headed toward the door. She moved toward one of the moms staffing the sale.
“Excuse me,” she said.
“Can I help you find something, dear?” the woman said.
Ellie ignored the question. “That kid right there, with the black T-shirt and dark blue back pack – he's stealing a book. He put it in his backpack.”
The woman looked up a Alexander, who was by now moving toward the door behind Darren. “Are you sure, dear?”
Annoyed that she was being questioned, and annoyed that she was being called “dear,” Ellie sighed, but quickly indicated that she was sure. She felt Rhonda move close to her, and then Rhonda's hand on her shoulder. “She's gonna get him,” Rhonda said.
The woman moved quickly to the door and caught Alexander by the shoulder. She didn't raise her voice or call out “thief!” or anything, but the commotion still caught everyone's attention. After Alexander pulled the book he'd taken out of his backpack, the woman called another parent over, and a few minutes later, Vice Principal Riley had arrived, and the three of them left the gym behind. Ellie wanted to say something to someone about Darren and Scratch, but she had no proof that they'd done anything, so she let it go.
Now, as she sat down at her seat in the science lab, she felt as though only partial justice had been done. As she mulled it over in her mind, she was trying to figure out how to let someone, anyone, know that they should interrogate Darren and Scratch, too. She was about to tell Rhonda all this, and enlist her help in trying to figure out what to do, when Mr. Lennox walked into the lab and started talking about the day's class. By the time the bell rang to signal the official beginning of the period, Ellie had forgotten about seeking justice and was to puzzle out what the chemical reaction between baking soda and vinegar was all about.