Archive of Our Own

Wyborne Lovat was pretty good at deduction. He’d figured out where each of his teachers had come from and what kind of life they led outside of school after going up to their desk a few times, not a single question asked. He could bet he was the only person who’d noticed the flaming badge on Mr. Bobinsky’s shoulder, the one that meant he’d been a hero (and not just any hero, but the kind who never had to kill anyone to get badged – the best kind, if you asked Wybie).

But he’d never been able to deduce – no, imagine, dream – that he’d one day be standing outside the Pink Palace apartments the day after school let out for the holidays, shivering with cold, nerves, and the sinking realization that he was in pieces, over a girl .

He should have known it the moment his usual tricks couldn’t decipher her (how he thought she was a dowsing witch and she turned out to be from Michigan, how he thought she was just a boring girl, how he thought she was crazy) that there was nothing predictable about Coraline Jones.

He expected her closeness on the first day of school.

After the bizarrely wonderful yard party at the Pink Palace, the two of them hadn’t missed a single day of the remaining winter holidays: they’d explored the woods, explored the rest of the Pink Palace (except, of course, The Door), and taken care of the gardens. More than once, Wybie had wound up holding a basket of elaborate gardening tools and handing them off to Jonesy like a surgical operative, and in return, she had submitted to his sojourns in the public library. She claimed she needed to stay on his good side or risk losing access to his grandma’s delicious home cooking, but Wybie had seen her trying hard not to stare at the Botany section and giving the Fantasy a bit of side-eye.

He’d asked her why she wasn’t done with Fantasy, after everything that had happened. Jonesy had arched one eyebrow, not looking away from the pages of Something Wicked This Way Comes. “It’s obviously interested in me. Why not?”

So, Wybie concluded, we’re friends . If only because he was the only person under the age of 40 she’d met so far. That was the reason Wybie was barely surprised when Jonesy stepped close to his side as they approached the school, a couple of weeks later, when the year started up again. She was actually pretty good at pretending she wasn’t nervous, but he’d learned to look out for the subtle, wary glances she threw at the things she was scared of. No wonder she and the Cat get along – Jonesy’s basically another feline.

Wybie tucked the realization away for a rainy day. “You OK, Jonesy?” He was meticulous in sounding nonchalant, letting her decide if she wanted to be found out or not.

Jonesy stiffened, then abruptly traded her soldier’s poker face for a self-assured smile. “Yeah, sure.  I mean, it’s just school. It’s not like this can be worse than the Other Mother.” And her own words seemed to rally her: “Yeah, what’s the worse they can do? They don’t hold your head down toilets here, right?”

“Nah.” It was one of the perks of living in this particular little town. Wybie knew he’d be the first loser with his head down the tubes otherwise – he had no friends or older brothers, or even a Dad to get into fisticuffs over him.

When they reached her classroom, Coraline took a discrete breath before stepping over the threshold. But she paused, right before her shiny black shoes touched the linoleum across the door frame, and wheeled around abruptly. “You’ll be here to pick me up for lunch, right? You wouldn’t let me eat alone like a huge dork?”

“Ummm…sure,” he answered brightly and wished he could leave it at that. But there was a caveat, and he’d be a sucky friend if he hid it. “But, see, hanging around with me might make you look like an even bigger dork in the long ru -“

“Thanks, Wybie. See you at twelve!” And she punched him in the shoulder with just enough force to make him scramble for balance before marching happily through the door as if she’d been there since kindergarten.

Wybie let out a sigh and turned to his own class, head full. Maybe being a fast-talking, blue-haired kid from a big city would balance out hanging out with the hunchback weirdo a little bit. There might not be huge kids called Butch here to shove him into lockers, but there was a hierarchy, and he was pretty far down on it.

He was glad for it, though, and that lunch hour passed by much quicker between gentle barbs, stories about Mrs. Jones’s culinary disasters, and the latest musical extravaganza the Misses Spink and Forcible were involved in.

They had lunch together until Mary Stuard (nicknamed ‘Queen Mary’), Ellie Frack, and Ximena Estevez, the sixth grade’s Golden Trio, finally registered Coraline Jones’ existence, sometime around the second week of school. It wasn’t like she was hard to miss, with her hair and her autumn-colored gloves striking a contrast against the drab school uniform’s gray – and of course, she was funny and clever, as anyone in her class would be quick to notice. Wybie didn’t think much about the popular Trio’s collective intelligence, but he figured even a blind person would have realized Jonesy was way cool. Schoolground politics dictated that someone that cool should be made an ally before she became competition, or worse, an enemy, so they were bound to make a move at some point.

He arrived late to the cafeteria on the day that the Trio made said move. He didn’t even make it halfway across the room when he caught sight of Jonesy’s head beside Mary’s shiny blonde one. Wybie’s stomach had given a sad little downward lurch at the sight; it didn’t surprise him, not really. But it was one thing to know it and a whole different one to see it happening before his eyes.

Wybie tried to talk himself out of the rut as he dragged his feet over to their (his?) table. He tried to persuade himself that it wasn’t the end of the world: Coraline Jones was unapologetically herself, like Luna Lovegood, only fiercer. There was no chance of her turning into the malignant cheerleader trope (not the least because their school didn’t have a cheer squad), ignoring him, or being ashamed of him in public. Besides, Jonesy was a girly girl who’d need someone to talk about nail polish and boys – gag – eventually. Really, he should be grateful that –

“Hey, Wybie.” Jonesy slipped into the chair in front of him with her usual nonchalance.

Wybie stared. For a wild second, he thought she was about to ask him to join the popular table, or maybe ask him for change to use at the vending machine, but Jonesy was settling in (putting her neon green backpack on the chair beside her, setting her special insulated lunchbox in front of her). “So? How was Math?”

Wybie stared for another minute before remembering there was food in his mouth. He chewed, swallowed, then cast around for the information. “The test was pretty long.”

“Figured, since you’re like a billion years late for lunch.”

“Yeah, the story problems were all full of numbers to trip you up. But I managed.”

“Which means you probably aced it. Good job!” And she stretched her hand across the table for a high five.

“Yeah!” And that would have been a perfect moment to cut him loose, but Coraline only rummaged into her lunchbox for a paper-wrapped item. “Cheesecake from Mr. Bobinsky,” she said, waving it once. “To celebrate.”

“Wha – why?”

“I know, I know, I think Mr. Bobinsky’s a little out there, but he makes awesome cakes. And wait ‘till he makes another strawberry rhubarb – “

“No, no, I mean…what about your new friends?”

“Oh! Those girls.” Jonesy cast them a brief glance then, finally, but immediately fixed her eyes back on her dessert. “They seemed nice. They said I could sit with them, but I told them I’d just appreciate some company before my best friend showed up.” She didn’t even look up from slicing the large triangle of cheesecake into two portions as she said it. 

Wybie’s heart was beating a hopeful rhythm against his ribs. He tried one last, desperate resort, one final pinch before he finally admitted that, yes, this was all real. “Coraline?” he said, and Jonesy looked up in surprise at his forgoing the usual ‘Jonesy,’ “you do realize those are the three most popular girls in sixth grade? Possibly the school?” Every grade had its characters, but Mary’s father had been an actual Wall Street broker who’d made it big before retiring, and Ellie had been modeling for ads since before she could talk.

Jonesy glanced over at the popular table contemplatively. “Yeah, it was kinda obvious.” And she looked away after a moment, popping another spoonful of pie into her mouth. “Grab it or lose it, Wyborne.”

Wybie smiled and swiped his own slice of cheesecake off the paper, his chest full of warm, confusing emotions. He promised himself he’d try to figure them out.

Eventually.

Surprisingly, the Trio didn’t drop Jonesy after the slight (because ditching a VIP invite to their table for the hunchback? Yeah, slight ). They kept holding a place for her at lunch, and sometimes she took them up on it, but she was usually, almost defiantly, with Wybie.

He wondered if they were impressed at the sheer force of her personality or just didn’t know what to do about the way she staunchly refused to let them bring her into the fold.

Jonesy would do group projects with them in class only if Wybie wasn't in it, but she’d happily call a ‘hello’ to them if they met in the halls – and the Trio returned it. When Wybie ran into Jonesy when she was with the Trio, she always called out hello, no matter how pointedly the Trio ignored him .

“I don’t get it,” Jonesy would sometimes wonder, “Why won’t they even say hello back? I mean, it’s not like you’re asking them to marry you.”

“It’s because I’m a dork,” he’d answer patiently.

Jonesy would always raise an eyebrow at that. “Yeah. So?” They’d stare at each other for a minute or two before Wybie shrugged, and Coraline rolled her eyes, and then they’d go back to lunch.

Things came to a head the day Jonesy twisted her ankle during P.E.

Wybie had known something was wrong about ten minutes into their lunch period, what with his sole companion not coming to their table and not sitting with the Trio either. She was usually pretty good with timeliness, especially when it came to food. Girls and boys had their P.E classes separately, so it took one group until the following period at least to catch up on any unusual happenings - and Wybie Lovat, friendless dork extraordinaire, was usually dead last when it came to news. Things had gotten better since Coraline had arrived at the school, but she couldn’t update him of stuff if she was, y’know, the missing party.

He was glad, at least, that whatever had happened to her wasn’t severe enough to merit terrified huddles and whispered conversation, like the time Henry Anderson had tried to climb the flag pole out at the front of the school and lost his grip near the top. He’d survived, but the appearance of paramedics and an ambulance had really put the rumor mill to work.

It was fifteen minutes into lunch when he really started worrying. Jonesy wasn’t stupid enough to climb a flag pole on a dare, but she was brave enough to do other, far more dangerous things (like bets with otherworldly doppelgangers of her mother). And worse still, there was no Wybie to be had in gender-split P.E. class to help keep an eye out for, say, disembodied hands made of needles or doors into pocket universes.

After another minute of indecision, Wybie sprang out of his seat and crossed the cafeteria. If the Trio didn’t know where she was, he’d bike home and raise the alarm with his grandmother and the Cat. Grandma would rally the adults, he and the Cat would rally the weirdos, and together they’d find Coraline, in this dimension or any other, before her soul or eyes were stolen. He could do it. He would do it. All he needed was a lead.

Which would be easier if the Trio acknowledged him.

He hovered right beside them for a minute or so before he realized they were ignoring him. Wybie cleared his throat - nobody moved. “Hello?” he tried loudly, and Ximena twitched at the sound of his voice, but three pairs of eyes remained glued to their lunch trays. Unwilling to find out how affronted they’d be if he poked one of them, Wybie started coughing.

“Excuse me,” said Ellie at last, after a full thirty seconds of hacking, “Do you want to spread your hunchback germs to us or something?”

“Do you know what happened to Coraline Jones? She’s not here.” He didn’t have time to waste with traded insults, not when they could go back to ignoring him any minute and leave him without a clue about Jonesy’s whereabouts.

“Ugh, are you stalking her now?” Ximena wiped her arms down as if the mere thought were soot, and she needed to get it off of her.

“I just want to know if she’s OK,” he insisted evenly. Ximena couldn’t have picked a worse barb. Jonesy had called him the town stalker once, after all.

All three of them looked at him now, distaste in their expressions, but Wybie made no move to leave.

“Corie took a fall during volleyball. Sprained her ankle,” said Mary at long last. Even though she turned to look at her lunch as she spoke, and even though Corie was perhaps the worst nickname ever for Coraline, Wybie heaved a sigh of relief. Sprains were a hassle, but they weren’t life-threatening. Or soul-threatening, for that matter.

“Okay, do you know if she went home or if she’s as the nurse’s – “

“God Lovat, we don’t know ! What’s with all these questions?! Why won’t you leave her alone?!”

“And us too while you’re at it, you stalker!”

“You really should skip on back to the loser table.”

Without gnawing terrors about Jonesy’s safety to distract him, Wybie found himself flooded with annoyance. “What’s wrong with me? Woah, speak for yourselves. How come you just left her? Aren’t you her friends?”

Ellie looked at her friends in outrage. “Why is he even still here?” she said with affront, as if Wybie weren’t still there.

“We told you what we knew, Quasimodo, now just…” and here Ximena made a sharp shooing motion.

“Yeah, because having the time of my life here,” he retorted, rolling his eyes. “I don’t care what you do or don’t do. But Coraline’s my best friend, and I care about her. Which means I care about her even when she isn’t right in front of me.”

“Oh my god, shut up.”

“Yeah, zip it.”

“There’s a thought,” said Mary with a nasty chuckle, “You’d really improve, Lovat, if someone would just staple your lips shut –”

The deafening bang of an empty tray against the tabletop cut off Mary abruptly. Every head turned to the opposite end of the popular table: Coraline Jones had materialized there, still in her gym clothes, backpack hanging off one shoulder, and her entire forehead contracted in anger. Her hand was still clutched to Mary or Ximena’s empty tray.

“Don’t you ever ,” she intoned dangerously, “ever, silence Wybie. Never .” She leveled a steely glare at all three girls. “If I ever hear you – no, if I ever even imagine you saying that staples thing ever again…” After a thick, tense silence, Jonesy flicked the empty tray out of her hand as if it were something dirty. Then she turned from her four spectators and started limping her way to the cafeteria doors. Wybie thought he heard someone clap.

After another few seconds of shock, Wybie’s sense returned to him, and he dashed back to their table for his own backpack before hurrying after her. He caught her just beyond the cafeteria door, limping down the hall with determination.

“Jonesy. Hey. JONESY!”

Jonesy stopped, but her face was still rigid with anger, and her eyes remained steely, trained on the school’s main entrance.

“Jonesy?” He tugged on her backpack, swinging it onto his own shoulder when it slipped off of hers with no effort at all. “Uh, are your parents picking you up or something?”

Just when Wybie was about to give up on the whole talking thing, Jonesy’s face scrunched up. “What is wrong with them!? I mean, sure, you’re pretty much an alien and all, but what did you ever do to them?”

The question was clearly rhetorical, but Wybie couldn’t, in fact, zip it. “I’m a dork, Jonesy. When I’m not in this grey mess, I dress different, I like to read murder mysteries in the corner of the yard during break, and I’ve got a bit of kyphosis.” The doc had told him and Gran that it would be relatively simple to fix, but he’d still have a few more months of being called Quasimodo or The Hunchback of Notre Dame or Igor before the corrective treatment began in earnest.

“I know you’re a dork!” She yelled indignantly, “I probably know better than they do how much of a dork you are! I still don’t understand what’s so bad about that! ” She took a shuddering breath. “They’ve never even talked to you! They don’t know!”

They don’t care. They live their lives by a convoluted kind of politics that makes it so they’re on top. But Wybie knew that she knew. He knew her distress had very deep roots - she’d told him about the Other Wybie after all. So he shrugged, holding her gaze until all the anger left Coraline with a sigh, and both of them trudged down the hall together, out the door and on towards the narrow road to wait for Mr. Jones to drive up.

Jonesy didn’t say another word, but she stood very close to him, tense and alert. It felt as if she were protecting him , hurt though she was, and Wybie felt a funny, warm pressure on his chest at the idea.

To everyone’s overwhelming shock, Coraline was back at the popular table within a week.

Wybie thought that was weird, weirder still when Coraline told him they’d all apologized . “Well, OK, it wasn’t much of an apology. It was more of an ‘Okay, newbie, we’re sorry we hurt your feelings, but we won’t do it again, and we won’t bully your pet weirdo anymore either,’” she explained on the way back home.

“They called me your pet weirdo?”

“Well, not in so many words, no. But When I told them to lay off, they sort of rolled their eyes and muttered, and didn’t say no.”

“And…that means yes?” When she nodded, Wybie let out a low whistle. “Girls are weird.”

The Trio clearly wasn’t as stupid and superficial as he thought they were if they’d figured that Coraline Jones took nobody’s crap. They also took to jerking their heads at him by way of acknowledgment every time their paths crossed. In the interest of keeping the truce, Wybie cut down his pointed “Hello CORALINE” to just a hello when the Trio and Jonesy were together.

Wybie took the new development as it came and then watched the social fabric of the school reform around the wound. Almost overnight, people who’d never given him the time of day suddenly called out a “Hi Wybie!” as he wandered the halls or “Bye Lovat!” as he trudged out the doors with Jonesy. He still got picked last when P.E. dictated they break up into teams, but it seemed to him that whichever team ended up taking him was far more gracious about his awkward presence than ever before.

Twelve years of a perfect, uninterrupted streak as the school weirdo, upset by one girl. Now that, Wybie had to admit, he didn’t expect.

A few weeks later, Valentine’s Day sneaked up on them – then sprang. Bulletin boards, doors, and windows sprouted tissue paper hearts in every shade of red and pink, and the eighth grade lined up some tables together near the cafeteria door to peddle carnations: a rose or a bag of butter cookies for your sweetheart, hand-delivered by an eighth-grader on the magical day. You could even tell them to add a card (sometimes one of the 40-a-pack from the hobby store, sometimes a handmade one), at no additional cost – and if you asked, they’d also withhold your name (at no extra cost either).

Wybie didn’t sweat Valentine’s much, thanks to that perk. He’d been getting light-headed at the sight of Ivy Campbell since fifth grade, and he’d sent her a carnation and a handmade card the year before, anonymously, of course. He’d go ahead and do the same this year. She’d eat her cookies and hopefully get a kick out of having a secret admirer, and he’d get the satisfaction of making her happy – and live another day. Ivy wasn’t Trio-level popular, but she was very pretty, and Wybie had an inkling she didn’t care for his newfound status as…well, he wasn’t sure. He’d begun calling it diplomatic immunity. So he’d be anonymous again this year.

(He didn’t want to think too hard about what that said about Ivy. Mary and Ellie and Ximena were stuck-up and sometimes flat-out dumb, but they had something like principles, and they’d forgiven Coraline’s righteous anger. Ivy…he’d never seen her do those sorts of things. Half of what he liked of her were things he'd created in his head. And yet, Wybie still felt the blood rush to his face when she raced past him for class. He’d remember the time he’d seen her help Mrs. Fairweather pick up her cans when her grocery bag tore open, and think – hope, wish – that it meant something .)

But something went wrong at the carnation stand. It must have. Because after last period on Valentine’s Day, Ivy Campbell marched up to him as he waited for Jonesy on one of the low walls that lined the main school building. She slapped the bag of cookies onto the brick beside him, the innocent confections crumbling to dust under her hand.

 “Lovat,” she intoned, “what is the meaning of this ?” And she shoved the handmade card, a blue heart edged with silver ribbon, under his nose.

“Ivy, hey, well, wha-”

“I said,” Ivy interrupted angrily, “what is this?”

“Um, it looks like a carnation –“

Ivy scoffed. “I know what it is! What I want to know is why you had to make some grade 12 hand it to me just when Andy Peterson was going to ask me something! Probably out on a date!” Her voice rose, and her indignation with it. “And that guy wouldn’t even tell me who sent it, and I had to ask and ask, and finally some chick claimed she’d seen Coraline Jones’s boyfriend running around with it and how dare you, you –”

“Wow,” said a calm voice from behind them. “You should try breathing in between all those words, Ivy. You don’t want to go fainting in front of Andy Peterson.”

Wybie and the breathless Ivy turned to see Jonesy walking up to them, one eyebrow raised in distaste. Ivy stared at her for a moment, pretty blue eyes bugging out, before gasping indignantly and heaving another breath. But before she could release a new barrage, Jonesy marched up to her and plucked the card from Ivy’s rage-loosened fingers. She looked the little blue heart over, smiled, and tucked it into the deep pockets of her uniform's skirt.

Ivy gaped, all her fight extinguished. “Wha – but – the girl said - !”

“She said she’d seen Wybie with it, right? Obviously, there was some mistake.”

“It’s…it was for you?”

“Of course it’s for me,” said Coraline, her face perfectly straight, “I mean, weren’t you the one telling everybody I was his girlfriend? Yelling actually. Anyway, it’s even the same blue as my hair. Clearly it’s for me. Really, Ives, you might wanna tone it down with the whole Mean Girls thing.”

Ivy paled, then blushed, then paled again. “ Wellsomepeopleshouldbemorecareful ,” she bit out in a rush before turning tail and all but fleeing the scene. Wybie watched her go, more confused than hurt, until the blue heart he’d crafted so carefully popped into his sight and bopped him on the nose.

“You’re welcome,” said Jonesy, not bother to wait for any answer from him. “Look, if it’d been anyone else I might have tried for a different save, but really? Ivy Campbell?”

“She was really nice to this lady at the grocery store, one time.” It sounded weak to his ears now.

“Even a broken clock is right twice a day,” she quipped back smartly. “That doesn’t mean it works.”

Wybie ran a hand over his messy curls. “Now you’ll have to deal with everyone thinking you’re the local freak’s girlfriend, though.”

“No, I won’t. I know you think she hung the moon or something, but nobody listens to Ivy. And it’ll be her word against mine – and Ellie, Mary and Ximena’s word too.”

Which meant the Trio-plus-one won by a landslide. Wybie sighed, and Jonesy slung her arm over his shoulders. “Trust me Wybie, you’ll be thankful someday.”

“I’m thankful now, actually. It’s just that…it’s been a long time.” A year was a long time to be dead wrong about someone, is what he meant.

Jonesy’s soft nudge made him feel like she’d heard the thought somehow. “Cheer up. Someday some weird goth chick will move here, and she’ll fall for you, and you’ll be the stalker-victim for once. She’ll have you sit at the graveyard and read poetry to each other.”

“Or…I could just settle for going out for ice cream with my best friend today, instead?”

She smiled, and Wybie wondered how he’d never noticed, how bright and cheery it was. Jonesy was calmer and cannier than some adults until she smiled at you like that, and it was like getting invited to a secret sleepover with pizza and games. Wybie shook his head clear of the wayward thoughts. “Anyway, you up for some lime vanilla?”

He’d thought he’d learned his lesson after the Valentine’s Day incident: there was no predicting the erratic path of Coraline Jones. He tried to be unsurprised when no less than five boys tried to ask her to every dance between spring and summer – and tried harder still not to gape when she turned them all down. All of them, including the famous Andy Peterson, who had been trying to ask Ivy for a spare pen on Valentine’s, not out on a date. Andy Peterson, who bided his time and waited for the last dance of the year, who made a point to say ‘hello’ to Jonesy and to Wybie, and peppered Ellie Frack with enough questions about her blue-haired friend that Ellie was in a terrible mood with everyone for the days leading up to the dance.

Despite all his preparation, Andy was shot down. Wybie was ashamed to admit he was probably only a little less surprised than Jonesy’s failed suitor.

“It’s just – it doesn’t seem like it’ll be a whole lot of fun,” she confessed to Wybie, as the two of them watched Andy’s back, spine curved in defeat. “Ellie even said all he talks about is basketball. And you’re not going.”

“I could have gone. Y’know. For backup?”

Jonesy rolled her eyes. She wouldn’t even dignify that with an answer.

Instead, the two of them said good-bye to the sixth grade by going to the movies the day after the last dance of the school year – with the Trio. It was more fun than he could have predicted, sneaking glances at Queen Mary’s many faces of horror as he and Jonesy laughed at the bad CGI monsters of the horror flick. They even deigned to have pizza later – and he could have sworn that his and the Trio's barbs were beginning to soften.

The Trio and Wybie Lovat, Sharing a Table. He figured the only reason reality hadn’t exploded at that particular aberration was the moderating presence of Coraline Jones, official Bender of Reality. At that rate, he might end up developing a soft spot for those three harpies.

Jonesy seemed to pick up on his train of thought, and her sauce-streaked smile made one perfect day all the better.

Seventh grade proved to be a lot like sixth. While a few things did change – Andy Peterson got a girlfriend, Ivy Campbell got a boyfriend, Sarah Lee and Susan Oakley weren’t best friends anymore, and tiny Andrew Larson shot up at least six inches – Wybie Lovat remained the unclassifiable weirdo who shared his lunch breaks with Coraline Jones, the popular, socially invulnerable girl who pretty much did whatever she wanted (including hanging out with the Trio). He also had three classes with her, including project-heavy History, so Wybie counted himself lucky for being able to relax about the group projects on the lesson plan for once. Smooth sailing all the way to winter.

But of course, once again, he underestimated the disruptive potential of Coraline Jones.

Before, Wybie would have sworn up and down that he’d learned his lesson. That he’d stopped trying to fit a rogue variable into an ordinary model and that he’d be amused instead of surprised by whatever his best friend did in life – be it upset the social order, ride dragons, or get Queen Mary to mutter ‘hi, Wyborne’ at him in the halls sometimes.

And then, as if some superior being was listening to him (and placing bets against him), Homecoming dance hit the school.

Before seventh grade, dances were duly anticipated, but they came, they happened, and that was that. While sometimes someone got to take their crush (or even became a couple), they were just one more barely notable event, far less exciting than Halloween or Christmas.

But the looming horizon of adolescence had granted dances a whole new meaning. Dances were suddenly the moments where Things Happened (or were expected to happen, at least). Preparations began weeks early, hallway talk seemed to be all about dresses, and Mary Stuard was stopped by the school’s theater group for a ‘drive-by acting exercise’ that concluded with a guy revealing himself and asking her to go. While novel and heartwarming, the gesture only served to raise the general anxiety up a few notches, with every boy now striving to become a prince and every girl hell-bent on making the cut for Cinderella.

When an eighth-grader whose name Wybie couldn’t really place peeled himself away from a wall of lockers and intercepted them in the halls to ask Jonesy to go with him, Wybie decided he hated Cinderella .

Even though this had happened the year before, the very act of standing there as the guy did the whole introductions-dumb questions-‘Hey there’s a dance this Friday’ felt different to Wybie. Probably because the whole dance concept was different, it had nothing to do with the rush of protective anger that welled up in his chest as the too-tall guy, with a voice that had already started to drop, stood closer to Jonesy than Wybie would have liked.

He didn’t feel the need to step away from Jonesy as she talked – why should he? This guy, whatever his name was, was the actual intruder. He didn’t want to interpret the guy’s body language or try to get a read on him through the small embellishments the uniform allowed - Wybie registered a nice watch, against his will, and declared it a stupid watch. He was sorely tempted to glance at his own watch – what the heck, he went and did it, hoping the guy would take a hint and wrap up his spiel.

Eighth Grade didn’t notice, though. He probably wouldn’t have noticed a car crashing through the wall to the left of them, actually. His eyes were all but glued to Jonesy, even though he had to tuck his chin way into his chest to look at the much shorter girl without leaning down.

Something angry and uncomfortable twisted in Wybie’s stomach, so sudden that he mistook it for heartburn at first. Once the first aftershocks were done with, Wybie caught the tail-end of a thought (‘I hope he trips and breaks his face!’). He took a deep, calming breath and decided this guy was probably a creep (a handsome creep, to be sure, but a creep).

He wasn’t surprised that Jonesy picked up on it. Any other girl would have gotten tripped up by the guy’s stupid, shiny blond hair, but not her: Wybie hardly lifted an eyebrow when she turned down this guy too.

But he definitely didn’t expect the swell of relief he felt after the fact, telling himself it was because the guy had been all wrong for her. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t tried to interpret the guy. He just knew (and apparently so did she), so of course, he was relieved that his best friend, his only friend, wouldn’t end up in the claws of some psycho.

And he absolutely, positively didn’t expect the thought that bobbed up through the lake of his thoughts once Jonesy turned back to him, after the grade eighth (and come on dude, a whole year older? Were they short on girls in his class or something?) walked away, his back only a little less bent than Andy Peterson’s had been.

Like a cork, held down far under the water by something until it wasn't, up to the surface it came. I should ask Jonesy to Homecoming. 

Wybie stood still. He shook his head once, hard, then tried his thought process again as the hallway re-emerged from the whirlwind of white and blue . I should…ask Jonesy to Homecoming? The thought was still there. Wybie shook his head, harder this time. What flowers do you get for the corsage of a girl who actually grows them? Yep, weird thought still there. Never mind that he’d never felt the slightest inclination to dance, or even stand by the refreshment table of any school dance, ever. Never mind that he didn’t know if corsages were still a thing, outside eighties prom movies, that is. Never mind that there was no reason for him to want to take Jonesy, of all people…was there?

Wybieland was in chaos, but time still went resolutely forward in the regular old world, and Wybie realized that someone was talking to him. Jonesy. He looked up at her, his heart beating nervously.

“Huh?”

“I said, did you get a load of that guy?” Jonesy replied, but her tone lacked indignation - like she’d been saying things to him – at him, rather – with no answer for a while.

“What? Which guy?”

“They only guy. The one that just came and asked me to Homecoming,” she said slowly.

“Oh…” Wybie scrambled for something to say other than ‘He had a stupid watch,’ but to his horror, his mind seemed to have jammed: all he could think of was, do you want to go to Homecoming with me? And no, he was not going to say that.

“What’s wrong with you? Did Ivy walk by or something?” Jonesy looked over her shoulder, then over his.

“Who?” Wybie wasn’t trying to be funny. He really, really wasn’t. His crush on Ivy Campbell just seemed so long ago, and so foreign, as if it had happened to someone else. Why would Jonesy talk about Ivy?

Jonesy facepalmed and muttered, without a doubt uncomplimentary things, but Wybie stopped listening: with her face hidden inside her gloves, he had at least fifteen seconds to stare at her, to ground himself in the familiar sight and banish the intrusive thought.

Jonesy was wearing a funny plastic Saturn-shaped clip in her hair today. Gardening and plants were her one true love, but her flavor of the week was astronomy, so she’d been reading a few books (and adjusting her accessories). She wore the same grey skirt and grey sweater (painfully boring, she’d always called it) every girl in the entire school wore, but the drab tone made the colorful, striped gloves she wore all the brighter.  Her hair was still blue. Her freckles still stood out only slightly while she was under direct light.

She was the same. And she was beautiful. Wybie’s heart raced with panic.

Jonesy looked up before he could pretend to stare at the floor or something. Her face went slack. “Wybie, what is wrong with you?!”

“Oh! Oh, nothing.” Just…everything.

Wybie was almost glad when he and Jonesy went their separate ways after school that day (almost, because the insidious new feeling insisted it was Not A Good Thing when she went up the path towards the Pink Palace and he turned west towards home, so that he couldn’t see her). Jonesy hadn’t stopped asking what was wrong, and Wybie knew he couldn’t stop insisting everything was alright.

Back at home, he fended off his grandmother’s questions too, then holed himself up in his room. He didn’t feel like moving.

He didn’t bother trying to trace back the course of the…well, he might as well say it, the crush . Maybe it had been there all along, or maybe it had only just happened. Maybe it was like dances or the wine his grandmother brewed for special occasions (dandelion wine, a hint of summer to be enjoyed in the dead of winter), stored for maturation until the right moment. Dances, however, were kind enough to advertise their presence, and wine he couldn’t have, not until his grandmother deemed him “a man.” No, crushes were definitely a whole other species, rudely blundering onto a perfectly orderly little life and upsetting everything.

Wybie rolled onto his stomach, face planted firmly into his pillow. It didn’t matter, in the end, when it had started and how it had happened. Now that he’d noticed it, he needed to decide on a course of action. Which was to say he had to figure out how to keep this secret until it went away, or until they both died of old age in eighty years. He didn’t know what Jonesy felt for him other than friendship, and for the first time, his keen awareness of her unpredictability frightened him. Ivy Campbell had been a known quantity, right down to how she’d never deign to give him the time of day. Having a crush on Coraline Jones, however, felt like standing on the edge of a cliff…

…or maybe finding the tunnel to an alternate dimension hidden behind the wallpaper of your dull new house. The thrill of anxiety and the prickling of fear appeared one on top of the other, and it was hard to tell which was which.

Wybie adopted an ‘act normal aggressively’ tactic for the next day: he laughed at her, laughed with her, and suppressed the urge to stare at her whenever it seemed she wasn’t looking. He managed to control the weirdness by the end of the week because this was Jonesy, and he loved her before he loved her, and told himself it’d be easy once he got used to it. Maybe he’d get over it by Halloween, even.

By the time the first December snow made its appearance, Wybie was ready to explode.

He held his tongue for four dances and three major holidays. He endured six more new suitors (including Andy Peterson again , after he broke up with his girlfriend and declared that there was no greater beauty than Coraline Jones – Wybie nearly wept with relief when Coraline shot him down, again ), a secret admirer (who turned out to be a girl, which was when Wybie thankfully discovered Jonesy didn’t swing that way), a thousand gardening sessions, two dozens of movies (where he hoped beyond hope that she’d reach for his hand in terror, but no, of course, the girl who’d outwitted an interdimensional monster didn’t need his comfort) and hundreds of lunch periods. After resenting his slowness all his life, he vowed never to take P.E. seriously ever again (not that he ever had) if it meant that Jonesy seized his wrist to pull him along when he lagged on their rambles through the forest behind the Pink Palace Apartments.

But Wybie was good at Math. Six suitors per dance, per year, adjusted for Jonesy’s looks (Wybie glumly concluded they would probably increase), for the rest of their years at school…? The odds were bad. Really bad. He was tempted to create the equation and plot the line, but it churned his stomach to angry mush to consider a timeline for when a b-b-boyfriend would turn up.

And, statistically speaking, more time meant more chances for him to mess it up. Jonesy was a little dense when it came to noticing the ordinary, but pretending he didn’t have a crush on her got harder when, say, she leaned into him during a movie or grabbed his hand. They’d go to so many movies, just next year. And Jonesy felt so comfortable around him, as if Wybie were Mary or Ellie, that she might be three feet away at one moment and wrapping both arms into his the next. One of these days, Wybie would do or blurt out something stupid, probably at the worst time, and ruin everything. He just knew it.

He had to do something. Anything . He watched Christmas decorations go up around town, around the school, with a vague sense of horror – hadn’t he said this would be old news by October? – and counted the days left of school with dread. What he would do without the moderating routine of school to help him, he didn’t know.

After days of decorations, shopping with Grandma, wrapping with Grandma, and panic, Wybie found himself doing that ‘anything’ – which meant showing up at the door of the Pink Palace Apartments on the day after winter holidays began, with no speech in his head, no plan outlined in his mind, and a little snow globe, wrapped in festive paper, hidden in his trench coat.

It wasn’t some ugly, tourist-trap sort of snow globe. Jonesy would have loved it, even if it had been touristy, but this one wasn’t for the Joneses to put on the mantle. It was for her, it had to be special. He’d gone out to every last store in town after school for two days, looking for something, not sure what, and the snow globe had been it – it had two little cherry trees, sat side by side on a pretty green hill. Once shook, pale pink and white flakes fell all over the cherry trees in a delicate wave, like in the cheesy Korean dramas that sometimes showed up on cable in the afternoons: a cherry blossom storm, a little slice of spring. Wybie wasn’t a snow globe enthusiast, but he’d spent a good few minutes entranced by the cherry blossom rain before taking his treasure to the cash register. Jonesy was going to love it.

He had no idea what he was going to say, and really, why bother? He was beginning to really internalize that ‘no predicting Coraline Jones’ thing, so staying up late to write the proper confession speech would have been a waste of time. Not that he’d slept, anyway.

Wybie was still gathering his nerve when the Cat sauntered into view.

Of course, the Cat knew. Wybie had told him the whole story back in September when his old friend had deigned to visit – the Cat had always preferred the Pink Palace, but now that Coraline lived in it, Coraline’s room was his official safe place. The Cat couldn’t talk, of course, not on this side of reality, but he did understand, and the mere knowledge had made Wybie feel better. The one thing the Cat hadn’t approved was Wybie’s staunch determination to wait for the crush out.

And boy did he remember: the Cat took one long look at Wybie’s nerve-tensed shape and went from curious to smug, flicking tail and expressive eyes all but saying so you’re finally doing it . The Cat dropped down from his perch on the veranda to sit daintily by his feet as Wybie dithered.

Wybie took two steps, nose almost on the door, then stepped back. “I’m not making a mistake, am I?”

The Cat shook his head.

“I mean, this could be the end of our friendship. The end of the world!”

The Cat looked at him, skeptically. Almost pityingly. Poor stupid human, he seemed to say, worried about such trifling matter.

“Maybe I should have gotten her flowers and chocolates like a normal guy.”

The Cat looked insulted, then amused, so expressive that Wybie half-expected a laugh out of the little creature. Wybie felt like laughing too after a moment: Coraline Jones was about as normal as a blue rose in the dead of winter. Whatever the right road was, normal was definitely not it.

The Cat nudged his leg with his soft head. Wybie took a deep breath, took one step forward, and knocked. The Cat brushed against his leg in a final comforting gesture before sprinting off. The world held its breath.

All too soon, Mrs. Jones came to the door. “Hello, Wybie.”

“Hi there, Mrs. J,” he said, one hand down his pocket to assure himself that the present was still there. “Is Coraline – “

“ Is it Wybie at the door!?” came a voice from deep in the house. Jonesy. “Tell him I’m coming!” 

Mrs. Jones shrugged, half- annoyed and half fond. “You can wait for her in the living room.” Then she wandered off to the kitchen where her laptop probably awaited, like this was any other day, and not the day of…well, doom meant fate as well as it did all the bad stuff, so the day of his doom it was.

So, Wybie swallowed and marched into the Pink Palace’s main apartment like a man marching towards his doom.

The Joneses had really spruced up the place for the holiday, in their own particular style: fresh pine, holly, and baskets of poinsettias outnumbered plastic and paper. There were nice, understated ceramic ornaments on the coffee table, red and green candles on the shelves, but Wybie’s favorite piece was the Christmas tree: along with pretty crystal baubles, the tree featured gaudy macramé angels courtesy of Misses Spink and Forcible, exquisitely painted men in furry hats (heirlooms of Mr. Bobinsky’s) and a mouse skating on a popsicle that Coraline had produced.

“I didn’t ask for anything ,” Jonesy had explained when Wybie’d first seen the tree. “Mr. B came down to hand us our mail one day and hung a few of these while Mom was busy, then Miss Spink came up to tell us we HAD to have a few, and the tree was full before we knew it. Which was awesome, by the way, since half of our ornaments broke in the move.” Mrs. Jones had grumbled about it, apparently, but had decided the tree had “a Frankensteinian sort of charm” since then. (Wybie had been asking Gran to part with just one of their own baubles. Because, of course, he wanted in.)

The minutes wore on. Wybie’s mind flitted from peace to a complete nervous breakdown from one moment to the next. After a small eternity, Wybie finally, forcibly, set his racing mind to rest: he had never been able to predict the erratic movements of Coraline Jones. He had never predicted her kindness, her wit, her fuck y’all bizarre take on the world. But whatever happened…whether the little snow globe well hidden in his trench coat pocket ended up on her shelves or shattered to pieces on the floor, Wybie knew there was one constant to Jonesy: her total, inexplicably dedicated loyalty to her best friend. He’d be OK.

“Hey, Wybie!”

“GAH!” Wybie nearly rolled sideways off the couch in surprise.

“What’s wrong? Why are you so jumpy?”

“Nothing!”

Jonesy eyed him oddly, but brimming with cheer as she was, it was easy for her to let it go. “Wait here.” She dashed to the kitchen, then returned with a platter of gorgeously iced cookies.

“Wooow.” Wybie picked up a dainty little shell, half-dipped in chocolate. “Did your mom make these?”

“Psh. Mr. B. baked them.” She settled the platter on the coffee table and he picked a handful for himself. “So. Why are you all weird?”

“Wha-”

“You’re acting so weird. I think you’d set a new record if this were a competition,” she answered serenely. “What’s up?”

“Nothing!” And then, thoughtlessly, Wybie shoved his hand into his pocket, needing physical proof that yeah, his snow globe was still there.

Beside him, Jonesy stiffened in alert. “What’s in your pocket?”

“Nothing,” he repeated, but his restless hand said otherwise.

“Did you catch some sort of winter banana slug? Is it trying to escape? Let me see!”

“Slugs don’t – ” But before he could remind her that slugs didn’t have the physical ability to struggle out of pockets, Jonesy had launched herself across his lap, agile as a feline, and stuck both hands in his pocket.

“Hey! No!”

“Wybie -!”

After a frantic ten-second struggle, Jonesy had rolled to the floor; the little package clutched in her hands and Wybie’s trench coat trapped between the coffee table and her back. A disheveled Wybie, hand raw from struggling against her, could only lay alone on the couch and stare in wonder.

“This is a present!” She announced brightly. “This is – this better not be for Ivy.”

Wybie actually had to sit and think before he remembered why the heck the gift could possibly be for Ivy. “Nope.”

“So?”

Wybie pointed at her.

Coraline threw him a funny look before digging into the wrapping paper. It was printed with prancing reindeer, probably left over from the nineties, and Wybie managed six seconds of acute embarrassment before the wrapping paper flew off. After that, all he could focus on was Jonesy’s face.

Jonesy’s eyebrows shot up as she gazed at the snow globe. “Wybie…” she didn’t say anything else, though. She just shook the globe, a bewildered smile appearing over her face when the storm of cherry blossoms obscured the two little trees.

“Wybie…this is…where’d you get this?”

“Mrs. Wentworth’s resale shop.”

“This is amazing,” she said, giving it another shake. “It’s so beautiful. It almost looks magic.” Then she finally looked back at him. “This isn’t magic, is it?”

Wybie raised a hand in a solemn pledge. “No magic. Mrs. Wentworth promised it had been at the store for ages, and the Cat gave it a look too. It’s safe.”

“Good, ‘cause it would be such a shame to throw something so pretty down a well.”

They stayed like that, Jonesy turning the snow globe over, Wybie watching her play, for a good ten minutes. Jonesy liked to complain of boredom, but Wybie had noticed how she could nevertheless squeeze fun from almost anything. Like a cat with a string, he thought. A really cute, really fluffy cat…

As if she’d read his mind, Jonesy finally looked away from the snow globe then, her delighted smile fading. “So. This was really pretty. Thanks.” She cupped it in both hands and looked off to the side. It took Wybie a second to realize the almighty Coraline Jones looked insecure.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s just…” she looked down at the glass dome in her hands, “This is an awesome gift. The perfect gift. Mom’ll love it too, and Dad will probably wax poetic about it. And you give me stuff all the time –”

“So do you.”

“You give me stuff all the time,“ Jonesy continued, pointedly. “So…this should be normal. This should be just one more present in the history of presents.” She looked up then, warm brown eyes so gentle, Wybie forgot how to breathe for a second. “But…it doesn’t really feel like any other gift. I don’t think it is.” A beat. Then, gently, “Am I crazy?”

There was a brief pause while Wybie tried to maneuver a tongue that felt a hundred thousand pounds heavier. “No. I mean, you’re not crazy,” he managed somehow, “You’re – this is…I mean.” Heaving a great sigh, Wybie looked away from Coraline’s inquisitive gaze and at his linked hands. “What I mean to say is that…you’re not crazy. Or maybe you are. But…you’re also…well, perfect.”

Nothing but the distant sound of the Pink Palace’s ancient boiler system was heard for a moment. Wybie kept his gaze firmly on his hands, until a soft whoosh of air leaving a cushion alerted him to another occupant on the couch.

Jonesy was there, eyes turned down. “I kind of already knew.”

“ What?! ” All those months of walking on tenterhooks, of pasting on his best smile every time some boy came sniffing, all that pinching his own arm –

“OK, maybe I didn’t know know,” she amended, sounding cross and indignant, like the Coraline Jones he was used to, “But I figured it was going to happen sooner or later.”

“Huh?” If she chose this moment to reveal that she really could read minds, Wybie promised himself he’d die. He’d go find the nearest cliff and drive off of it full tilt on his bike. Or maybe he’d just die of embarrassment right then and there, on the Joneses’ nice couch, while the object of his misguided affections dithered.

Jonesy bit her lip. “Remember when I told you about Other Wybie?”

Wybie sobered immediately. “Sure.”

She’d told his grandmother the whole story after the garden party that spring – the door, the sand-crafted creations meant to mimic the people in her real life—the Beldam and her button eyes, and of course, the ghost children. Grandma had shed a few tears, but it had been a relief to finally fill in the gaps left over from decades of reading, questioning, and terrible realizations about the magical undercurrents hidden just beneath the rational world.

Jonesy had been reluctant to talk about Other Wybie, mostly because she felt guilty. It didn’t matter much that his doppelganger as good as told her that he was falling apart anyway, though Wybie had never figured out why.

Until now.

“The Beldam,” she began, cringing a little at the name, “She was powerful enough do all this magical voodoo stuff…so I always wondered why she let all her magic puppets rebel all over the place. Other Father and Other You, at least. So I figured, maybe the puppets just took after the people they were made to look like, whether she wanted them to or not.”

“Okay…?”

“As far as I could tell, the Other Misses Spink and Forcible weren’t made of magic sand, and the Other Mr. B was made of sand rats, so maybe they were loyal to her because they were just knock-offs. But Other Dad and Other you…they were really meant to be you guys. And they risked their lives for me, just like you would have.” Jonesy shook her head as if to ward off the sadness or to shake off the tears Wybie noticed anyway. “What I meant to say is – ”

“That…you figured I liked you because Other Wybie did?”

“Yep?”

“I guess it makes sense.” He’d find the theory wildly interesting tomorrow, maybe, when he got used to the fact that his crush didn’t like him back. Because clearly, she didn’t, if all she had to say to his present and his admittedly lackluster confession was ‘I figured it out months ago.’ “So…Grandma’s probably wondering where I am.”

“What? You’re leaving?” Wybie shrugged and made to get off the couch, but he hadn’t even laid his feet down on the floor proper before Jonesy tugged him back up. “Don’t you dare , Wyborne. We aren’t even done talking!”

“We aren’t?”

“Of course not! You can’t just come and confess your feelings and then run off! At least tell me when’s our first date or something!”

Her words caught Wybie like a snowball to the back of the head. He turned then, catching a wry smile on Jonesy’s face and the slightest hint of red on her cheeks. Anyone not intimately familiar with the precise color of her face and her freckles would have missed it. Nothing made sense. “Huh?” He said at last, very intelligently, considering the state of his mind. She’d be well within her rights to thump him in the arm.

But Jonesy let out a sarcastic, fond chuckle instead. “See if you can figure out the rest before I spell it out for you.”

Wybie frowned in confusion. “What do you mean ‘figure it out’?”

She sighed. “What were we just talking about, mister I - know- the-scientific-names-of-all-the-slugs? Why do you think the Beldam bothered to make a you for my perfect world?”

“I don’t know. So you’d have someone your own age? So it wouldn’t look too weird?”

“Seriously Lovat?”

The point she was trying to make hit Wybie an embarrassing five minutes (five whole minutes!) later. An annoyed Jonesy had slipped off the couch and headed towards the mantle with the snow globe by then, muttering imprecations.

But back on the couch, Wybie’s head spun hard. Why would the Beldam make an Other Wybie in the first place? Because she somehow figured Coraline would want him there. Which meant...

Wybie sprang out of his seat and ran to her. It was lucky that she’d set the snow globe down already, or Wybie, winding his hands into hers with pure, dumb joy, would have sent the poor thing flying. “Jonesy!” he exclaimed, looking all over her face and finding confirmation everywhere.

“And he finally figured it out,” she replied, laughing again. “Mary just lost a bet, by the way.”

“Huh?”

“Mary Stuard? You know, your bestie, Queen Mary? She said you’d probably figure it out sometime around the end of twelfth grade if I kept hinting hard enough.”

“You gave me hints ?”

Jonesy rolled her eyes. “I’ll point them out for you. One of these days. Maybe it’ll come in handy someday.” And then she smiled and tugged on their linked hands. Somehow Wybie didn’t careen into her, but just past her, and her warm, winter-chapped lips hit him squarely on the cheek as he tumbled by. The world blurred for a bright, perfect moment before Jonesy tugged him back to stillness. “Come on,” she said after a moment, “You’ve got to ask Mom for permission to date me.” She started dragging him towards the kitchen then, even as he began to thrash like a dog tangled in a string of daisies.

“What ?” His grandmother, a firing squad, the Beldam - he’d take any of them before he tackled Mrs. Jones.

“Kidding. She went upstairs when you were trying to break my snow globe,” Jonesy giggled. “But there’s more cookies in the kitchen. So come on.”

“When the heck did I try to break your snow globe?”

“Um, when you kept trying to keep it in your pocket?”

“I was nervous! I was worried you'd hate me, or maybe hate my present!”

“And why would I hate you? Also, come on, me hate a snow globe? Where’ve you been for the past year?”

“Oh boy. What am I getting into.” But there was a happy ring to the words, and Wybie threaded his fingers more firmly into hers. They were barely five minutes into being…something (a couple? Boyfriend and girlfriend?), but nothing had changed, nothing at all – not even the way she all but dragged him in her wake, and the way he grinned and let her.

No doom, no disaster. Easy as breathing. Everything he hadn’t expected, hadn’t dared to hope: otherwise known as par for the course when it came to Coraline Jones.