Found

CHAPTER 42

Spoon said, “Let it go.”

Rachel and I were back in his room. I was filling them in on what had happened on Adiona Island.

“How can I let it go?”

“Ema is, like, totally awesome, right?”

“Right.”

“And you trust her one hundred percent, right?”

“Right.”

“So why stop trusting her now?” Spoon asked. “She said it’s best if you don’t know. So guess what? It’s best that you don’t know.”

I looked at Rachel. She shrugged. I looked back at Spoon. He pushed his glasses up his nose and met my eye. Bat Lady had said that he was meant for great things. I started thinking back to the beginning of this, that first day when he introduced himself to me by asking if I wanted to use his spoon. It had been his idea how to get into that computer in the school office, his idea to get into Ashley’s locker, his idea even how to get into school the night he was shot. It was Spoon who had told us to go to the Farnsworth School and to Adiona Island twice.

I had always thought that I was the leader of this group.

But maybe it was Spoon.

As though reading my mind, Spoon gave a small nod and said, “Give her time.”

“So now what?” Rachel asked.

“Nothing,” Spoon said. “Ema said it’s over. It’s over.”

I shook my head. “I don’t buy it.”

“Neither do I,” Spoon said. “But we can’t force it. You want the egg to hatch on its own. You don’t want to break it open. Do you see?”

Everyone in my life was talking like a fortune cookie all of a sudden.

“You break it open if you’re hungry,” I said.

“Stop playing with my metaphors. You got basketball practice, right? Go.”

He was right.

“And,” Rachel said, “I heard about your good news, so it should be a fun time.”

I turned to her. “What good news?”

“You didn’t hear?”

“No, what?”

“They overturned Troy’s positive drug test. He’s back on the team.”