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The pencil tip made a scratching sound against the sketch paper as Xiao Ya curled up behind the curtains in the Art Classroom. The sunset filtered through the beige sheer drapes, casting a golden hue on her hair. On the paper, Zhao Qiang's grip on Lin Xiaochuan's collar gradually became clearer under her pencil—an image from three days ago at the Bicycle Shed, where she had hidden behind a rusty Distribution Box, half of her pale face obscured by her Sketchbook.
"Is the class monitor drawing the Plaster Statue again?" a passing girl casually asked. Xiao Ya quickly flipped the paper over, smudging five gray streaks on her school uniform skirt with her fingers covered in charcoal dust. She gestured "practicing human anatomy" in Sign Language, her Hearing Aid swaying slightly with each nod, its metallic casing reflecting the shadows of the wisteria trellis outside.
On page seven of her sketchbook, Zhao Qiang was always depicted in baggy basketball shorts, and she repeatedly sketched the bulging veins in his neck as he lifted his chin. Xiao Ya erased the blurred faces of onlookers but lingered for a long time on the outline of a Swiss Army knife protruding from a boy's pocket—this was from last Wednesday when Zhao Qiang had carved "waste" into Lin Xiaochuan's desk with its tip; it was the fourth sketch she had drawn while hiding behind a bookshelf.
The wooden floorboards of the attic creaked late at night as Xiao Ya stuffed her sketchbook into a pipa case covered in scratches. Moonlight slanted through the skylight, illuminating the unhealed marks on her wrist—yesterday, when she was cornered in the girls' restroom, Li Na, Zhao Qiang's new sidekick, had pressed her fuchsia nails into her skin while her sketchbook lay on the wet tiles.
"Is this damn thing me?" The paper, tinged with cigarette smoke, rustled as Xiao Ya stepped back and knocked over an easel; cobalt blue paint spread across Zhao Qiang's Limited Edition sneakers. He stepped on a rolling tube of orange paint, and the crushed image beneath his shoe resembled Lin Xiaochuan's glasses that had been stomped on last week.
"Little mute knows how to complain?" Zhao Qiang tore down the drawing, knocking over the easel as well; the head of the Plaster Statue of David bounced across the floor and rolled under the bed. In the ventilation ducts of the library's top floor, Xiao Ya used a utility knife to carve small notches along the edges of her paper. Those wavy lines and triangular symbols were secret codes from Deaf-Mute School; when she saw Lin Xiaochuan sign "thank you" in Sign Language at lunch, she drew a sun symbol on a napkin that oozed grease like a melting sunflower.
The mouse cursor trembled over a prompt that read "Upload Successful," and the blue light from the internet café computer screen reflected off Xiao Ya's eyelashes. She hid her USB drive inside her hair tie while silent instrumental music looped through her headphones. Across the street, neon lights flickered at a milk tea shop where Zhao Qiang and his entourage were laughing and raising their cups behind glass windows; she captured the moment when their straws pierced through black sugar pearls on the back of a receipt.
Puddles reflected distorted streetlights in the rainy night as Xiao Ya stuffed her new sketchbook into a Public Donation Book Box. On its still-drying cover, Zhao Qiang's reflection holding a Swiss Army knife faintly revealed the shiny bald spot atop the dean's head. As a security guard’s flashlight beam swept through the bushes, she hid her phone inside her oversized school uniform; it was uploading her 37th artwork, aimed at the red banner reading "Civilized Campus" on the bulletin board.
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