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The lesson went on, and compared to a lot of Anthony’s other classes, it wasn’t so bad. Mr. Finnegan was good at keepingeveryone engaged. If he noticed someone dozing off, he would get their attention, but not to humiliate them by asking a question they didn’t know the answer to. Instead he would ask them to weigh in on a subject and would always treat their opinion as valid. Like when he wanted to know how people got their news, and a smart ass named Ghalen said, “From MTV. Where else?” Mr. Finnegan ran with it and replied, “That’s great! Kurt Loder is a journalist too, and MTV has its own newsroom. They use the same investigative techniques that we’re learning in this class.”

So far he’d stopped short of telling everyone that they only needed to believe in themselves, but that still seemed inevitable to Anthony.

“Okay,” Mr. Finnegan said toward the end of the period. “I’d like you to choose a current event to write about. Like last time, you’ll be teaming up with a partner. Someone different than you did previously.”

Anthony immediately spun around in his seat to match gleeful expressions with Omar.

“Notone of your friends,” Mr. Finnegan said, having noticed this exchange. “If you’re ever lucky enough to work in a newsroom, your colleagues will be a family of sorts. You might not always like each other, but you should know each other’s strengths and weaknesses so you can collaborate and put out the best publication possible.”

Anthony turned around in his seat again, wanting to commiserate with his best friend, but it was a mistake. Omar was too busy glancing around the room for another option, but Ricky noticed him, his face filled with questioning hope. Anthony nodded curtly before facing the front again and cursing under his breath. Ricky was fine. It didn’t really matter that he was a freshman. They’d all gotten over it. Dave and David were even nice to him now. And yet, there was something about him that rubbed Anthony the wrong way. He wasn’t sure what, but now—like it or not—he’d have plenty of opportunity to find out.

— — —

They met in the public library the next day. Staying late to use the school library would have been more convenient, but once the final bell rang, Anthony’s urge to flee was too strong. They also could have reconvened at one of their houses, but that felt a littletoofriendly for his liking. So he came up with this planinstead, troubled that he was going to such lengths. He wasn’t a snob. Except about music maybe, and yeah, he was selective about who he got close to, probably because of the gay thing and the necessity of keeping secrets. But generally, Anthony didn’t care if someone was a nerd or a jock, an outcast or a popular kid. In fact, he couldn’t come up with a single reasonnotto like Ricky. And yet, here they were instead of being at home where they’d have access to snacks and video games.

Although you couldn’t do much better than the William S. Burroughs Public Library. The architect had gone wild, starting with a huge open space just past the front door. No less than four spiral staircases could be used to reach the upper story, a number of wacky designer lamps and modern art mobiles dangling from the ceiling to fill the empty air. For those who preferred a cozier vibe to read in, deep in the stacks were hidden little nooks to curl up in. Some only offered a single plush chair. Others were large enough for two or more people.

They had been lucky enough to find Anthony’s favorite nook unoccupied. It was in the far corner of the building, partitioned from the rest of the library by a curved bookshelf. Behind it were two plush chairs that faced each other in front of a large circular window which overlooked the meditation garden outside.

“I love this place,” he breathed.

“Do you come here a lot?” Ricky said as he took a notebook and pen out of his backpack. He set these on the square table that separated them.

“Not so often anymore,” Anthony admitted. “But when I was little, all the time. My family doesn’t have much money, so whenever the library would hold special events for kids, my mom would bring us here for story time or arts and crafts. We made our own Christmas ornaments once. I still hang mine every year.”

“What about Omar? Did he go with you?”

Anthony tensed. “Of course. We’ve been friends for as long as I can remember.Bestfriends,” he felt the need to add, despite feeling foolish for doing so. “He’s dragged me here a few times recently to check out movies.”

“He’s crazy about cinema,” Ricky said, as if Anthony needed to be told.

“Yup. He was dead set on seeing this British movie a while back, and the library was the only place that had it. Except thetape was in some weird foreign format, so we had to check out a special VCR just to watch it. They gave it to us in this giant plastic suitcase, the kind you’d expect to see in a spy movie.”

“Like there would be a bomb and a timer inside?”

“Exactly. We joked about that when towing it home. Literally. Back then, Omar was always making me pull him around on his skateboard. I'd ride my bike with two ropes tied to the frame. It was fun, but I can’t count how many accidents we got into. Man! I haven’t thought about that in ages.”

“Good times,” Ricky said with a grin, like he’d been there too and found it just as amusing. Which was dumb because he didn’t know Omar at all. Not really.

“I’m sure you have plenty of similar stories,” Anthony said. “You know, with your own friends.”

Ricky frowned. “Yeah. I miss hanging out with them.” He turned his attention to his notebook and began flipping through it to find a particular page. “What should our article be about? The big mess in Hawaii is making headlines.”

“Hurricane Iniki?” Anthony shook his head. “Mindy is writing about that with her partner, and I heard someone else talking about it on the way out of class.”

“Oh. Endeavor is going to land soon.” Ricky noticed his blank expression. “NASA’s most recent space shuttle? It’s a big deal to me because Mamoru Mohri is on the team. He’s the first Japanese person to ever go into space. I’d love to follow in his footsteps someday. Oh! And also…” Ricky lifted a page of his notebook to double-check. “Mae C. Jemison is on there too.”

“The first African-American woman in space,” Anthony said with a snap of his fingers. “I remember seeing that on TV. Yeah! We should absolutely write about that. Great idea! I guess Omar was right.”

“About what?”

“He said I was lucky to have you as my partner.”

This news made Ricky so happy that his grin nearly split his head in two. And the strange thing was, his reaction made Anthony feel defensive again. Was he worried about losing his best friend to Ricky? That didn’t make sense, because Omar had always hung out with other people besides him. Anthony did too. So what?

He shoved these thoughts aside as they went to work. Alibrarian helped them collect recent periodicals that mentioned the Endeavor. They began extracting information from these, and at one point, Ricky went to research other first-time achievements.

They had their noses buried in books when Ricky broke the silence.