Page 67 of Kingmakers, Year Two

She climbs back over the wall, dropping down on my side.

“I’m sorry,” I say, “I’m not even on your team.”

“Who gives a shit,” she says. “Get up on my shoulders.”

She boosts me up and Zoe helps haul me over.

I run with them all the way to the end.

The Freshmen finish last and are eliminated from the competition. At least it’s not my fault—eight others lagged behind me.

The Sophomores come in second place after the Seniors. The Juniors finish third, safe from elimination, a result that seems to annoy Miles and Ozzy since it means they’ll have to keep competing in the next round. They don’t buy into the ferocious hype around theQuartum Bellum,especially not when it involves getting this dirty.

“I’m gonna be picking mud out of my teeth for a week,” Miles says bitterly, spitting on the grass.

“I can’t believe they made me participate when I’m still a cripple!” Ozzy complains, looking at his poor bandaged arm, two inches thick with mud.

“Isn’t mud supposed to be good for your skin?” Chay says, pretending to massage the dirt into her cheeks with her fingertips.

“Good point,” Ozzy says. “You want that rubbed anywhere else?”

“I wish you could help me,” Chay says, pretending to pout. “But as you said, you’re barely functional . . .”

“I think you know that isn’t true,” Ozzy growls, making a grab for her with his good arm.

Chay laughs and slips his grip, dancing away from him, but not too far.

My sister told me that Chay is still refusing to date Ozzy. On the other hand, she’s been disappearing for suspicious amounts of time, coming back to the dorms flushed and messy, refusing to say where she’s been.

I have no romantic prospects on the horizon, and I’m certainly not looking for any.

However, I’m pleased that my relationship with my roommate Rakel has progressed all the way to entire conversations.

It all started when I asked to borrow her graphic novel.

This was a bold foray on my part, since up to that point, I was pretty sure that Rakel wouldn’t lend me her carbon dioxide, let alone her favorite book.

I’d been reading Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography as part of my Leaders, Rulers, and Dictators class when I came upon this quote:

Having heard that a rival legislator had in his library a certain very scarce and curious book, I wrote a note to him, expressing my desire of perusing that book, and requesting that he would do me the favor of lending it to me for a few days. He sent it immediately, and I returned it in about a week with another note, expressing strongly my sense of the favor. When we next met in the House, he spoke to me (which he had never done before), and with great civility; and he ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions, so that we became great friends, and our friendship continued to his death.

It seemed paradoxical that asking someone for a favor would make them like you more, but Franklin said, “He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.”

I thought old Ben probably knew what he was talking about.

So I asked Rakel to borrow the graphic novel, the one I’d seen her reading our very first day of school and plenty of times after.

She stared at me, her dark eyes sharp and suspicious, her pointed nails drumming irritably on the bed.

Then, to my surprise, she dug the book out of her nightstand and thrust it into my hands.

“Don’t crease the pages,” she said.

I read through the whole thing that night. It sucked me in instantly. It was about a bunch of superheroes calledThe Watchmen. They weren’t really heroes. Actually, most of them were complete assholes. And the villain had a plan that was, if not totally reasonable, at least intended for the greater good.

The next morning, Rakel said, “What did you think?”

We talked about it for over an hour, all the way down to the dining hall where we ate breakfast together for the very first time.

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