Page 116

"Comes to what?"

"We'll see," she said.

"Let's go up to my room," Elliot said. "I have that surprise I promised."

Roberta stayed very close to me, her breast pressed against my upper arm. She was only an inch or so shorter than I was, but she was so much broader in the hips that she made me look taller than I was.

"You have such a firm arm." she told me. Elliot overheard her and turned back. "Show her your sandpaper hands. Nobel... Instinctively. I closed my fingers into fists.

We followed Elliot and Harmony up the stairs. Outside of his room. I hesitated.

"Are you all right?`' Roberta asked me. "You look a little pale. Doesn't he. Harmony7

She nodded.

"I was sick," I told them. "I just got over something."

"Did you have to go to the school nurse?" Elliot joked. "That would be his mother, and the school principal and the janitor. too."

As soon as we entered his room. he went to the stereo set he had in the corner and turned on a tape. He flopped on his bed and spread his arms. The music blasted, but no one seemed to mind.

"Make yourselves at home. girls," he said and winked at me. Then he reached under his bed and came up with a cigar box. Harmony sat beside him and looked excitedly up at Roberta and me.

"Just as I promised." he said and opened the box to reveal what I thought were poorly made cigarettes, The last of my New Jersey stash," he declared. "Better than what you guys get up here, I bet."

"I'll let you know," Harmony said, plucking one out of the box.

I stared. confused.

"Nobel, this is something called a joint, pot. You've never seen it. I'm sure."

"Yes, I have.," I said. "I've read about it."

"Does your mother teach you about such things?" Roberta asked me. "Does she tell you to just say no?"

"No. She never talked about it. I just read about it. I said."

I really hadn't read much about it at all, and the first time I had heard the word was when Elliot mentioned it that day in the woods.

"But you never tried it, have you?" Harmony asked me.

I shook my head.

"How could he? He never leaves the nest," Elliot said and then smiled. "Until now. This is your lucky day," he declared, glanced at Roberta, and added, "in a few ways."

He handed one to Roberta and then held one out to me. I didn't move. He gestured emphatically, pumping his hand at me. I started to shake my head.

"Just take it," he said sharply and shifted his eyes toward Roberta and then back to me. I took it and stepped back.

"Aren't you worried your father will smell it?" Roberta asked. "I always worry about that."

"Not a problem," Elliot said and threw open the windows. "Besides. I'll blame it on my sister. Dad believes everything anyone says about her," he said.

He lit his joint and then lit Harmony 's. Roberta lit her own and offered me the match.

'I don't smoke," I said, and the three of them laughed. This isn't smoking. This is different," Harmony said. It looks like smoking to me."

Try it once," Elliot said. "Just for the fun of it." shook my head.