Red Rain

Chapter 11 - Red Rain

When I get back to my room at last, just as the rain starts up again outside, I put on "Here Comes The Night Time" while I crack open Scarlet for the first time. It's pretty fun, listening to a song that totally doesn't belong with the book you're reading.

"Hey, what happened to that other book you were reading all last week?" Luca asks when he comes back in after about five minutes. "The Lunar Chronicles or whatever it was called?"

"Oh, that," I say, using my thumb to mark my place as I lower my book. "I gave it to Fionna so she could start lending me books from Castledown. What, don't tell me you wanted to read it, did you?"

"I dunno," Luca says. "You made it sound pretty interesting."

"Did I? I don't recall describing it to you."

"You did, actually," Luca says. "On Thursday, after the vigil."

I rack my brain trying to remember the details of such a conversation. "Nope, still not recalling."

"Maybe you can get Fionna to lend it back to you so I can try it out?"

I shake my head, laughing. "Dude, you never read for pleasure. Why start now?"

"Why not?"

"Got me there," I admit. A lifelong reader, I've spent years trying and failing to convert others to the cause. "But here's the thing - you need to contribute a book of your own to their little system. I think. Fionna wasn't too clear about that. But if that's the case, I don't see any books on your side of the room to donate."

"I could give 'em one of Marco's old books," Luca says. "For example, those Percy Jackson books. I dunno why he still insists on keeping 'em, 'cause he never reads 'em anymore. He's usually one-and-done with those."

"Percy Jackson? Oh, that's cool," I say. "They love those books in Hell. Go for it."

"Yeah, sure," Luca says. "I'll go ask Marco about it, and if he says yes, I'll mail it across the Bridge after class tomorrow."

Luca leaves the room for a bit, and apparently Marco does say yes, because he comes back with the entire collection of Percy Jackson and Heroes of Olympus books stacked clumsily in his arms. He places them on his bed, then looks around for a moment and says, "I need a box. Where would I get a cardboard box?"

"Janitor's closet?" I suggest.

"Good idea," Luca says. He leaves again, and I turn my Arcade Fire back on and reopen Scarlet. I'm liking this book's redhead heroine a little more than Cinder - she's pretty, she's tough, and she's French, so I find myself translating all her lines as I read them. Now I'm waiting for her to meet the Big Bad Wolf - just like Cinder's a heavily re-imagined Cinderella, Scarlet is based on Little Red Riding Hood.

Luca returns with a large cardboard box, then goes into one of his notebooks and tears out a sheet of paper.

"Are you sure that box is a good size?" I ask, raising my eyebrows. "Doesn't the post office have an upper limit?"

"It was the smallest one I could find that I thought would hold all those books," says Luca, clicking open his pen. "How do you spell Fionna's name again? You said it had a funny spelling."

"No, dude, don't send it to Fionna," I say. "You don't even know her. Send it to Gabe."

"I don't trust Gabe not to stiff me," Luca says.

"Then tell him if he doesn't send you the correct book, I'll bring him here and string him up from the clock tower by his pinky toes."

Luca snorts. "Is that another one of your stupid pop-cultural in-jokes?"