Chapter Forty: Linh

CHAPTER FORTY LINH

Everyone is just about settled in class and any minute now a school aide will start her rounds, trying to catch kids playing hooky from class. The noise in each classroom—chattering, laughing, the droning of a documentary—reaches me. I’m not sure where I’m going until I stop by rote.

Ali, to no surprise, sits at the front of her AP History class. She sees me through the door window, a smile ready on her face. She stops mid-wave. Then her hand shoots straight up.

“Mrs. DuBois?” she says, the sound muffled.

“Yes, Allison.”

“Can I go to the bathroom?”

“Why didn’t you go before? We’re just about to—”

“Thanks!” Ali bolts from her chair, swiping the bathroom pass from the whiteboard’s frame.

Out in the hall, she pulls me aside and lays her hands on my shoulders. “Linh?”

And I just cry.