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When Marceline is nine, they move again, right in the middle of the school year. She doesn't mind much this time; she's getting used to it and she's always had what a babysitter called "an old soul." (Then Mrs. Tarzarian would shiver and add, a lot more quietly, "very old.") They move a lot; her dad is restless and entrepreneurial. "Got hooves, not feet," he says and she figures she's like him. She likes to keep moving.
But this time, she wants to stay. The crummy city is nothing special, her school is dumb, it's the usual story. But her bus ride is something else. There's a girl, about her age, who goes to the parochial school on the way to Marcy's school. She has blonde hair, heavy and shiny like honey, and calm gray-green eyes. Scabs on her knees, visible on the goosebumped skin between her poorly-pleated kilt and sagging socks. She always had a snack, in the mornings and in the afternoons, too. Chips in the morning, gum in the afternoon.
"Here," Marceline said, the one time she had something to say to the blonde girl. She threw a pack of Hubba Bubba Sweet 'n Sassy Cherry Flavor at the girl's chest, using the crest on her cardigan as the target. "Also this." She shoved a value-pack of Red Hot Rippled Chips into the girl's hand and stalked all the way to her favorite seat at the very back of the bus.
She's not sure why she's thinking about that now, years later.
She's loitering outside yet another new school, hands shoved deep into the big pocket of her black hoodie, cigarette clamped in the corner of her mouth.
She has to squint to see through the smoke, and her left eye is tearing up a little from the sting.
"You're going to die," Bonnibel informs her, voice totally chipper. She opens a third goddamn three-ring binder and smoothes out the pages. "If smoking doesn't kill you, something else will."
"Here's hoping," Marcy says, straddling the picnic table seat next to her.
Bonnibel looks at her, all pursed lips and drawn-up eyebrows. Concerned. Her cheeks are pink and her lips are pinker; the breeze out here is picking out stray tendrils of hair from her french braid and tossing them around. "You don't really mean that."
Marceline pinches the ember off her cigarette and bares her teeth. "Sure I do. One thing about me, princess --"
Bonnibel ducks her head. Her hands look so small on the densely-written pages. "Don't call me that."
"But you are," Marceline whispers as she leans in closer, wiggling, until she's pressed up against Bonnibel's side, her arm snaking around Bonnibel's waist. She hooks a couple fingers over Bonnibel's waistband. "You're my princess."
"I'm your tutor."
"Yeah, yeah, okay, hit me with the sexy chem. Is it chem today? Calc? Whatever, let's get it over with."
"And then what?" Bonnibel asks without looking away from the page. But the corner of her mouth that's visible is deepening, her breath coming a little faster.
"I was trying to say," Marceline says and tips her forehead against Bonnibel's temple. "The thing about me is, I always keep my word."
"Yeah?" Her voice is so soft, almost as soft as her skin.
"So after you cram my head full of nerd learnings, I promise to make it worth your while."
Bonnibel turns so their foreheads are pressed together. "Not," she says, and closes her eyes, because while she's a lot wilder than she'd ever admit, she still gets shy sometimes. She's a genius, maybe she knows that acting shy gets Marceline all revved up. Whatever the reason, she closes her eyes and adds, husky and rough and so, so quiet, "not if I get to you first."
Marceline tries to kiss her, but Bonnibel's suddenly straightening up, pulling away, composing herself. Fuck.
"Have a mint, maybe some gum," she tells Marceline as the vice principal stalks toward them. His ugly white beard and blue polyester sport coat flap in the breeze. "Brush your teeth. You smell like death."
"Whatever," Marceline says and stands up.
"Girls," Mr. Petrikov calls in his horrible nasal whine. "What do we have here?"
"Tutoring," Bonnibel replies primly.
"Nothing," Marceline says at almost the same time.
Bonnibel fixes her gaze on Marceline and says firmly, "Tutoring. Marcy promised to make it worth my while."
"Yeah," Marceline says, sliding back onto the seat and looking hard at Mr. P until he flinches. "So much amazing, mind-blowing calculus." Under the table, she squeezes Bonnibel's thigh. "I just can't get enough."
"Well, isn't that just peachy?" He claps his hands and nods. "I had a feeling about you two, I just did."
Her first day here, he threw Marceline's enormous files - both academic and police - onto his desk and said, "I have a terrible feeling about you, Ms. Abadeer. I don't think we're going to be friends."
She'd crossed her arms and kicked out her legs. "You're breaking my heart here."
"Principal Gunter's none too pleased with your transfer," he continued, as if that meant anything to her. Even if it had, what did she care?
Bonnibel flicks her braid off her shoulder and presses her knee against Marceline's. "We really ought to get back to work, sir."
"Yes, yes," he says a bit vaguely. "All right."
They wait until, having patted his pockets and squinted off into various directions, he finally turns to go. When he has waddled out of hearing range, Marceline lets out the laugh she's been holding and buries her face against Bonnibel's arm. Her sweater is pink and cashmere and smells sweet as anything.
"Oh my God," she gets out, "how is he so lame? Don't answer that, let's get back where we were --"
But Bonnibel leans out of reach for a kiss, tapping one of her binders imperiously. "Partial fractions, Marceline."
"Partial fractions can bite me."
Her smile is dazzling, all these perfect white teeth and crinkled-up eyes. "I'll bite you, if you'll just listen first."
Anger and frustration hum through Marceline, extend to her limits, tempt her to snap back something sarcastic. Or maybe she should just stalk away, get up and fucking go. She belongs on her own, she's always done best like that.
But instead she slumps a little and chews the inside of her cheek for a moment. "Fine. Hit me."
Bonnibel's smile softens, quiets. It shouldn't make Marceline feel half so happy and warm, but it does.
She's so stuck.