It was the last week of school, and most kids couldn’t shut up about the year book, as if it was the most exciting thing ever.

Faye had told Johnny not to try and see her or contact her—it would be too risky. She would think of something, she had said. He had seemed real down about it, hearing this. He had probably started worrying by now if perhaps he had disappointed her in bed. He hadn’t. They both had to learn, they were young, they had all the time in the world. She hadn’t told him this, couldn’t think of a way to bring it up again without hurting his feelings.

Now she was sorry she had told him to stay away. He could probably have come into her room without too much trouble. Lemurians were supposed to be stronger than any man, so he could probably just scale the wall to her room, like those mountaineers hanging on their fingers, or if he felt lonely he could have just sat in the tree outside her window and they could have looked into each other’s eyes, and blown kisses at each other. Or something. Anything. She really wanted to see him, needed to see him, like a thirst. And the harder her parents made it for them, the more her thirst grew.

She was also sorry for telling him she would come up with something. He was now waiting for her to come up with something, wasn’t he? She herself was waiting for her to come up with something!

She had heard her mother talking on the phone, and they really were serious about sending her to summer camp, some all-girls camp called Merry Wood, or something that sounded like that. She hadn’t heard anything yet about boarding school, but wasn’t expecting them to forget about it.

She had played with the thought of going to New York, with Johnny, of course, but that seemed like a pipe dream. How would they get there? Johnny didn’t have much money to speak of, she didn’t have any, so how would they live. And how would they get there? Johnny couldn’t travel by car or train. On their bikes?

The whole rigmarole about Johnny saying he’d wait for her, had of course been a lie. She still believed she could get out of it, avoid being send away. Somehow.

Maybe Johnny could come to Merry Wood and break her out.

In the meantime she had to find a way to see him as soon as possible. She was thirsty.

After school she told Patty, “Come, I’ll give you a ride home. I want to tell you something. Something important.”

“C’mon Faye, it’s Tuesday. You know we walk on Tuesdays and go to the soda shop. Claudette will be there with some of her classmates. Please come with, it’s been weeks since you did.”

“I can’t, I’m grounded. I’m expected back home in fifteen minutes, or else… you know what I mean?”

“Grounded? What did you do?” Both Patty and Faye weren’t the type of girls to get grounded.

“That’s what I want to tell you! Come on, Claudette’ll be fine.”

Faye had no idea how Patty would take it, so she took her time to tell the story (The Legend of Faye and Johnny), wanting Patty to understand what had driven her, and that she wasn’t just being goofball, and that Johnny wasn’t being a creep. When they arrived at Faye only half the story had been told—and Patty was bewildered. Faye said she’d pick her up early in the morning, so she could finish the story before school started. She hadn’t even gotten to the part where her parents found out about it—but she’d already said she was grounded, so Patty would figure that out on her own.

“Don’t tell anyone about this, obviously, Pats!” And she rushed into her home.

Next morning Patty’s mother opened the door, with a familiar almost insane smile frozen on her face, “Faye! Dear me, darling!” she yodeled, permanently on the verge of crying Halleluiah and praising the Lord. “How long it’s been! You do look healthy, dear, bless you! Patricia tells me you’ve been awfully busy lately, but the she couldn’t tell us what with! Do tell!”

“Oh, you know, Mrs. S., girl stuff.”

“Marvelous! Come, come, come, let the family have a look at you!”

“Oh no, we must be on our way, Mrs. S., I have an early appointment with Mr. Phipps, for some pointers on, you know, mathematics.” (How practical lying proved to be in all sorts of situations!)

“Oh, my! You are a busy bee! Let me call Patricia!”

Faye left out the part where they ended up in Johnny’s bed—Patty seemed freaked-out enough already. When Faye mentioned the Great Current and truelove and the stars, Patty said, “You sound you actually believe all that stuff. You can’t, really… it’s silly.”

“Is it any sillier than all the silliness that’s in your Bible?”

That wasn’t a nice thing to say, and Faye knew it. But it was true, wasn’t it?

Faye kept an eye on Patty for the rest of the day, and Patty kept glancing over at her and quickly looking away again. She seemed genuinely shaken by the whole ordeal, and Faye wondered if she had made the right decision telling her. No turning back now.

At the end of the day Faye caught up with Patty, and handed her a sealed envelope.

“This needs to get to Johnny. It’s really important, you understand? Look up Pearly in the shantytown, and give it to her. Or give it to Johnny, if you see him and you’d still recognize him, you’ve seen him once, outside the soda shop. Or Tuto, I almost forgot about him, you can give it to Tuto, if you can find him. But to no one else, it has to get to Johnny. And if you could do it today? Like, now?”

“So, that’s why you told me all about it! So I could be your messenger!”

“No, that’s not true. I told you because you’re my friend.”

“Am I? You haven’t been much of a friend lately. Or friendly…”

“C’mon, Pats, stop whining, will you? This is important. I have to get going. I’ll see you in the morning! And thanks for this!”

And Faye rode off, thinking: That girl thinks life is as easy for everybody as it is for her, nothing but fun and games…

Next morning Patty looked guiltily at the ground and handed the letter back to Faye.

“What’s this? No, no, I don’t want it back. Why didn’t you bring it?” Faye was mad as hell. She had waited up half the night, looking out the window, waiting for Johnny to appear, God damn it. “This isn’t a joke, Patty, I haven’t seen him for over a week, goddammit! No, I’m not going to take it, put it away and bring it to Pearly after school!”

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Patty looked like she was in pain, her eyes pleading behind her thick glasses, “I couldn’t. I rode my bike there, but I didn’t dare go into the shantytown. You know my parents don’t allow it, and it looks… unsafe. I’m sorry.

“Jesus, stop being a child, Patty. I’m serious. Bring the letter!”

Faye pedaled hard, real angry with her friend.

“Hey, Faye!”

Faye was broodily eating, sitting alone having her lunch, when Claudette’s birdbrained boyfriend came into the cafeteria, hollering. Everybody looked up from their lunch. What did that doofus want? He was waving something in the air. It couldn’t be—the letter! It was the letter!

He strode to the table where she was sitting, a gaggle of his doofus-friends followed him, and trailing behind were Claudette and a very upset-looking Patty.

“What in God’s name is this, Faye?” Spencer said, waving the letter in her face. She grabbed for it, missed, she got up, he held it high, she tried climbing up him, he pushed her away.

“Aren’t us human boys good enough anymore? Are you some kind of pervert? You like putting out with flea-ridden animals? ‘Oh, Johnny, I do miss you so…’ ” he said in a high-pitched girly voice, starting to read from the letter, while keeping Faye at arm’s length.

“You don’t know who Johnny is!” screeched Faye, tears in her eyes.

“I don’t? Claudette told me all about this Johnny,” he said, pointing the letter at Claudette, who gave Faye a hard look, while she kept an arm around a nervous Patty who didn’t know where to look.

“I see Patty there handing a letter to my girl,” Spencer started, rather theatrically, addressing the cafeteria full of kids, who’d all stopped chewing their lunch, mouths hanging open, all ears. “So, I say, ‘Hey, what’s this? Someone writing love letters to my girl?’ I ask, just joking, you know? But then Patty starts acting all nervous and tries to hide the letter. So I think, hey, what’s up with this? What else can I think, right? So, I get a bit bummed out, really wanting to know who’s writing letters to my girl, you see? So I take the letter, to find out who it’s from. Now I don’t normally go around reading other people’s letters, but I’m worried, see?”

Faye had sat back down in her chair, there was no more fight in her. It didn’t matter anymore. Everyone now knew.

“ ‘Let’s meet before the sun is up, I’ll be eager to drown in your beautiful eyes again and kiss you with kisses that last forever,’ ” Spencer was reading from the letter again, not using his girly voice anymore. Whenever Faye dared to look up, she saw all the kids looking back at her. She wanted to run. Again. But she didn’t. She wiped the tears from her eyes, and tried to look dignified in her chair. She wasn’t going to break down. She focused on her rage. She had never really hated anyone before, but she truly wished Spencer would die, right now.

“I think we’re gonna pay this Johnny a little visit,” Spencer turned to his friends, who were leering and guffawing. “We’ve got to protect our girls, don’t we?”

“I’m not your girl, you ape,” Faye snarled.

Spencer ignored her. “Who’s with me? Chuck? Bickel, Shorty?”

“You bet!”, “Hell yeah!”

“Let’s go then! C’mon, Biff!”

“You mean right now? We’ve got class in ten minutes,” said Biff.

“You think the teachers won’t understand? We’ve got to fight for our species!”

Now Faye was really going to pieces. She grabbed Spencer’s shirt, but he easily shook her off.

“What do you think you’re going to do!” she shrieked, “Are you crazy? Claudette! Stop him, Claudette!”

She grabbed Claudette by her shoulders. Patty had stepped aside, looking at the floor. Claudette met Faye’s panic with a cold stare through slitted eyes.

“You… you told me I should hang out with whoever the hell I wanted,” Faye pleaded, “and… and you said love doesn’t care if it’s convenient! Stop them, Claudette!”

“I can’t believe you’d actually go this far,” said Claudette. “I think it’s better if they do run him out of town. For your sake.”

Faye banged through the doors, jumped down the steps outside, and frantically pirouetted. There they were! She could make out about seven or eight boys in the parking lot, some getting into Spencer’s car (the jazziest car in town), others in a second car. Faye started to run for her bike, when she saw the cars weren’t moving yet. She changed course, maybe she could still make it, scratch out Spencer’s eyes, couldn’t drive without eyes.

Just before she reached them, another boy appeared, carrying an armful of wooden baseball bats. This boy got into Spencer’s car, Faye could hear some of them cheering, and the car turned out of the parking lot, the other car followed, and they sped off towards the shantytown.

“Aaaaaahh!” Faye screamed, and turned around again for her bicycle.

She couldn’t breathe when she got there. She got off her bike and almost dropped to the ground—her legs were made of jelly. She tried to inhale deeply, but the air didn’t seem to reach her lungs. She saw the two cars, parked about three hundred yards from the shantytown. She tottered over—they were empty, left here because the boys had probably been worried the Mexicans might steal them.

Faye breathed in and out and in. Here legs were a bit more solid again, and with a grunt she got back on her bike.

As soon as she entered the village she saw the group of boys coming towards her. The Mexican women outside their homes looked at them curiously, others looked at Faye curiously.

Faye met them halfway. “What happened? What did you do?”

Then she saw Spencer in the center of the group, held upright by two of his goons. He clutched the side of his head. Faye saw blood on his shoulder. Was he bleeding from his ear? His eyes were open, but he was dazed, and didn’t seem to know where he was.

Faye almost laughed. Had Johnny kicked his ass? But then she saw the bats the boys carried (no blood on them)—he couldn’t have beaten them all, could he? Then she was pushed by one of the boys, and she and her bike fell.

“You asshole!”

They walked on toward their cars, without saying a word.

Faye brushed the dirt from her butt and elbows, got back on her bike, and rode to Johnny’s shack.

When she arrived she saw the lemurians in a state. Some were arguing and waving their arms. There were some Mexican women, standing in groups, talking to lemurians. When they saw Faye coming, the lemurians gave her dirty looks.

She didn’t see Johnny, nor Pearly. The lemurians she did see were all pretty old and feeble. A group of them were gathered round someone, listening. Was it Johnny? Faye rushed over, and saw a baseball bat on the ground, broken in two.

“Johnny?”

The whole group turned toward Faye. And from their midst emerged Johnny’s mother. Faye took a step back.

The mother looked at her, seriously pissed off. Then her expression changed—she looked shocked. And now the mother actually took a step back. She then pulled an old lady lemurian closer, and whispered something in her ear. The old lady stepped slowly toward Faye with small steps, looking at her mysteriously.

“I’m sorry,” said Faye, not knowing what was going on. “Is Johnny okay? Did those guys hurt anyone? I tried to stop them, really I did!”

No one seemed to be listening to her. The old lady scuffled back to Johnny’s mother, and said something to her. Johnny’s mother looked at Faye in horror, and it turned Faye cold inside. The mother clutched at her chest, and seemed to crumble—looking for support on the shoulders of the frail elderly. And now she was actually carried off, much like Spencer had just been carried off. The mother and the lemurians disappeared into a shack, which wasn’t Johnny’s home.

Had Faye just given her a heart attack? She was completely confused and unnerved. All the stares she got from the lemurians and the Mexicans just became too much. She climbed back on her seat, and rode away, back. Back where? Home? School? Nowhere?