by Meg Cabot
“No,” I said, feeling cold all of a sudden. Except that the AC in the car Grandma referred to as Alex’s junk heap was broken, so we had to drive with the windows down, and it was already over eighty degrees outside. “I didn’t.”
“Huh,” he said. “Well, that’s weird. But not the weirdest part.” He honked at some tourists who’d wandered out into the middle of the street to take photos of a large banyan tree. “Hello, what do these people think, it’s Main Street at Disney? Some of us actually live here, you know.” He honked some more.
“What’s the weirdest part?” I asked, after the tourists had hurried out of the way and Alex had floored it. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear this.
I wasn’t sure I didn’t want to hear it, either, though.
“Oh. Only that there were all these dead poinciana petals up and down your front walk. Just lying there. And this was before that storm. So they couldn’t have been blown there by the wind. I thought that was kind of strange, because there are no poincianas on your street. So how did they get there?…Oh, well.” He turned up the radio. “Ready for school?”
I swallowed. “No.”
I cannot well repeat how there I entered,
So full was I of slumber at the moment
In which I had abandoned the true way.
DANTE ALIGHIERI, Inferno, Canto I
Mom signed me up for a nationally recognized (which was the only reason Dad approved. Otherwise, he said, it was boarding school in Switzerland for me) program at Isla Huesos High called New Pathways.
New Pathways was for “troubled” students: boys like Alex, whose dad had just been paroled from jail and whose mom had been pretty much MIA since he was born, and so he’d been forced to live all his life with Grandma, who ran the island’s only knitting store, Knuts for Knitting. And yes, it was as bad as it sounded.
New Pathways was also for girls like me, who’d died and then come back with a bit of an attitude.
Really. New Pathways: Whatever you have, it’ll cure you (not its official slogan).
“It comes highly recommended,” Mom kept telling me all summer. “You’ll still go to regular mainstream classes, like everyone else. You’ll just get extra supervision during the year by social workers with cognitive behavioral and counseling experience. They really know what they’re doing, Pierce. I wouldn’t have enrolled you if I didn’t think they could help.”
Uh, I thought, but didn’t add, also Isla Huesos High School wouldn’t have taken me if I hadn’t been enrolled in New Pathways, because of what happened to Mr. Mueller.
But whatever. With boarding school for rich kids with social problems in Switzerland being my only other choice, what was I going to say? Yes to New Pathways!
At least the New Pathways counselors — especially Jade, the one I’d been assigned — had been really nice about making me feel welcome, despite knowing what I’d done (or allegedly done, anyway) to a teacher at my last school. Jade had never seemed scared when she talked to me during our orientation meetings, always making full eye contact and smiling a lot and even offering me strips of red licorice from the jar she kept on her desk. My necklace, I’d noticed, had never turned any color when I’d been in Jade’s office. It just stayed a steady, soothing gray…the same color as the coat of a retired greyhound.
But when I arrived on my first day at what was the only high school on Isla Huesos, to which hundreds of students were bused from neighboring islands — there are over 1,700 off the coast of Florida, Mom not so helpfully informed me one day while listing the various ways in which Dad’s company was slowly destroying their ecosystem — I did not feel soothed. I did not need to glance down at the color of my necklace (which I no longer had anyway) to tell me so, either.
I felt overwhelmed, despite Jade’s careful instructions about what to expect. I’d never seen so many kids, particularly so many guys, crowded into so many buildings…four enormous wings in all, all connected by a central, paved courtyard — the Quad, Jade said it was called — at the center of which were all these shaded picnic tables.
This, Jade had explained, was where we were supposed to have lunch every day. The cafeteria was outside.
This made absolutely no sense to me, no matter how many times Jade said it.
Only seniors were allowed to leave campus for lunch. I was a senior, but how was I going to leave campus? I had no driver’s license. The State of Connecticut had apparently agreed with my neurologist that it was not a good idea for me to drive.
I’d looked at the written test for the State of Florida online because Jade had encouraged me to, and there were even more questions on it than on the one for the State of Connecticut. It was hopeless.
Alex had said on the way to school, “I’ll meet you in the Quad for lunch. We’ll go grab a burger.”
But when lunchtime came, of course I couldn’t find him. He hadn’t told me where to meet him. This was typical Alex. Also, typical me, unfortunately, to forget to ask.
I selected two caffeinated sodas, a bag of nuts, a bag of chips, and a bag of cookies from the vending machines. Then I hid out in the library to eat them. This seemed like the safest thing to do.
The library was where Jade found me.
“Pierce,” she said, pulling out the chair from the study carrel next to me and lowering herself into it. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“I’m here,” I said stupidly. Obviously I was there. I took out my earbuds. “How’s it going?”
“Good,” Jade said. “How’s it going with you? Didn’t make it to the cafeteria for lunch, I see.”
“Not today,” I said. “Maybe tomorrow.”
What was I supposed to say? I didn’t have my necklace to protect me anymore? Not that I believed I needed its protective powers, necessarily.
I just wasn’t sure I didn’t need them.
“Hey, listen, I get it. It’s cool,” Jade said. Jade had very dark hair and many black leather cords that she wore around her neck and wrists. A tattoo on her wrist said Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself in fancy script. “But if you want to talk, maybe about that thing that happened with that teacher at your old school, or about that friend of yours who died…anything. You know where to find me.”
I did know where to find her. The New Pathways offices were located in D-Wing, which was also where all of my classes happened to be located. Convenient.
And really…anything, Jade? What about the guy I ran into last night in the cemetery? Can we talk about him? Because I’ve run into him before, actually during “that thing that happened with that teacher” at my old school. When “that friend” of mine died.
Or at least when I tried to make her death right.
And he put a teacher in the hospital.
“Thanks,” I said, not mentioning any of that. “Will do.”
Jade gave me a funny look, halfway between a smile and a frown.
“Hey,” she said, reaching out to touch my hand. “I mean it. None of what happened at your old school was your fault, you know.”
I froze when she touched me. And not just because the librarian was shooting us a disapproving look from across the room, either…though I’m pretty sure she didn’t appreciate our having a conversation in the quiet zone of her library, let alone my using it as a lunchroom.
“Right,” I said. “I know.”
Was she kidding?
Jade nodded. “Good,” she said. “Just remember that. In the meantime, try to enjoy yourself, okay? I know you’ve been through a lot, but give yourself a break. It’s just high school.”
I pasted a smile onto my face. “Sure,” I said. Maybe Jade was the one who was crazy, not me. Although she and her fellow New Pathways staff members had taken great pains to remind us all that there’s no such thing as “crazy” or “normal.” These words aren’t therapeutically beneficial. “I’ll try.”
“Okay, well, great talk.” Jade got up. “Five minutes till the bell rings. Be sure to stop by to check in with me after
school. I got some more of that licorice you like. The red kind. Oh, and there’s an assembly in the auditorium at two. Don’t miss it. It’s gonna be epic.”
She winked and left. Epic, unlike crazy or normal, is a word the New Pathways staff members love. Especially Jade. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.
It was clear that my experience at IHHS was going to be sink or swim.
I already knew what it was like to sink.
I decided I might as well swim.
When I arrived at the auditorium for the assembly, the din was deafening. The two-thousand-seat room was filled with people greeting each other after a long summer apart: girls with long, white-tipped nails — this look was considered totally over up north…at least according to gossip I’d overheard back at the Westport Academy for Girls, before I was thrown out — screaming and hugging, and tattooed guys in head scarves fist-bumping and high-fiving one another, and some actually greeting one another a bit more aggressively than that. So many students talking at a volume so loud in a room so large, I was tempted to slip my earbuds back in just to keep myself from going crazy. Or whatever the therapeutically beneficial word for crazy is.
But I knew I couldn’t. I had promised myself that I would stay engaged this year. If I didn’t stay engaged, how would I keep the next girl from dying on my watch?
And okay, I had failed miserably to help the last one.
But you never knew. I had a lot of advantages here on Isla Huesos that I hadn’t had back in Connecticut. At least here I wasn’t invisible, the way I’d unfortunately made myself for too long back at my old school. I could already tell, because some guy in a white shirt had noticed me and held the auditorium door open for me.
I hadn’t quite been able to believe it myself, actually.
“After you,” he’d said politely.
I wasn’t sure which had startled me more: the fact that he was the first person to have spoken to me all day — besides Jade — or the fact that he was so nonthreateningly gorgeous in a boy-band kind of way: tall, blue eyed, friendly smile at the ready, revealing a set of perfectly straight white teeth, a tan you could tell had come from healthy outdoor living and not from a salon, as had the blond highlights in his sandy-brown hair.
All of this was capped off with a pair of khaki shorts and a white polo that showed off his biceps.
Unbelievable.
Kite sailing, if I had to guess. You didn’t get biceps — but also a tan — from regular sailing.
“Thanks,” I said, not smiling.
It was right then that the ocean breeze swept my pink class schedule out from the top of my bag.
“Oh, here,” he said, letting go of the door. “Let me get that.”
“It’s okay,” I said. I just wanted him to go away. He was like the concept of an outdoor cafeteria: I did not understand.
It was too late, though. He’d already peeled my schedule from where it had plastered itself against a trash can with a sticker on it that said THIS IS FOR CANS AND BOTTLES ONLY.
“So, Pierce Oliviera,” he said, looking down at my schedule as he handed it back to me. He let out a laugh. “D-Wing, huh?”
I had no idea what he was talking about. I guess he could tell from my expression, since he was only too happy to explain.
“It’s cool, don’t worry about it,” he said. This seemed strange, coming right on the heels of Jade telling me to give myself a break. At least he hadn’t told me to relax. I hate it when people tell me to relax. “New Pathways, right?”
I stared at him. How had he known? Was I wearing a sign or something? I’d dressed so carefully that morning. It was my first day in public school, which meant my first day with no uniform…my first day of school wearing whatever I wanted. What had I done wrong?
“Everyone in D-Wing is in New Pathways,” he explained. “Not that that’s a bad thing. New Pathways is great. I’ve had a lot of friends go through New Pathways. It’s a great program. Really grea —”
I leaned over and took the schedule from him, then stuffed it back into my bag. He was making me nervous. The more attractive people were, the more nervous I tended to get around them.
Maybe that was because attractive people also tended to be so engaged, and engaged people freaked me out. How did they keep their clothes so neat? This guy’s shirt was so white. How had he not spilled anything on it by now? That couldn’t be right. The only good thing about not having to wear a uniform anymore — that I could tell — was that at least I could wear black shirts, so the stains wouldn’t show.
John never wore white. To me, this was a good thing.
Oh, right, I was never thinking about him again.
“I have rage issues,” I informed the guy. Everyone was going to figure it out sometime. Might as well get it out in the open.
“Hey, it’s not the worst thing,” he said, showing me all those dazzling teeth. “I mean, you’re still Pierce Oliviera. That’s good, right?”
“Yeah,” I said, smiling because he had. Jade had told me when I wasn’t sure about how to react to something, I should just mimic the behaviors of the people I saw around me. “I guess.”
You’re still Pierce Oliviera? What did that even mean? Had that been a smirky “You’re related to Zack Oliviera” smile?
Or a “Your mom’s brother is the guy who went to jail for so long” smile?
Or a “Aren’t you the girl who did that thing to that teacher?” smile?
I couldn’t tell. Maybe all three. Maybe none of the above. I wish John hadn’t thrown my necklace into the night.
No, I didn’t. He was a jerk. I was done with him. I was on a New Pathway.
I pointed at the doors to the auditorium. “Are you —”
“Oh, sure, yeah.” The guy leaned over and opened the door again. A deafening blast of sound hit us.
“Thanks,” I said, and walked away from him.
Shake it off, I told myself. That was what Jade would call a positive interaction. It had been epic.
Except maybe it hadn’t been. Because when I saw the guy in the polo shirt for a second time inside, he looked over at me again and smiled. He’d joined up with a few of his buddies. They all smiled at me, too. Two girls with flat-ironed hair (a miracle to achieve in southern Florida) started giving me the evil eye. They were tapping on the keypads of their cell phones with their white nail tips. I was amazed that they could type and glare at someone at the same time. That was taking multitasking to a whole new level.
“D-Wing,” one of them sneered at me. Like this was some huge insult.
What was everyone’s obsession with D-Wing around here?
Hoping I wasn’t about to have a full-blown panic attack — the throbbing at the back of my neck was stronger than ever — I looked around the auditorium, unable to find Alex anywhere. I did, however, see a girl I recognized from my econ class. She’d been in the New Pathways office last week, having her own orientation sessions with a different counselor. I remembered her because…well, she was a little difficult to forget. Also, I’d noticed whenever she’d been around, my necklace turned purple. I didn’t know what it meant, but she was sitting on the end of an aisle, and there were tons of empty seats around her.
“Is this seat taken?” I went over to her and asked.
She ignored me. It took me a second or two to realize that she wasn’t snubbing me. She was wearing earbuds. I hadn’t been able to tell because her giant aurora of dark curly hair, shot here and there with streaks of bright purple, hid them.
She looked up from the screen of her cell phone when I tapped her on the shoulder, then said, “Oh, sorry,” and moved her legs for me to get by.
“Thanks,” I said, and collapsed into the seat next to hers.
I should have known, of course, that it was going to go like this. Not just after last night — I still wasn’t a hundred percent sure any of that had happened, even after Alex’s story about the poinciana blossoms. The storm had swept most of them away by the time I got up �
� but after getting to school and seeing that I was one of the only girls wearing a skirt that wasn’t a mini. Mine, in accordance with the IHHS student handbook, which Mom and I had pored over, especially the section marked Student Dress Code, was exactly no more than four inches above my knee, just like the handbook specified.
How was I supposed to know that the dress code was in no way enforced — particularly the ban on “bare midriffs and low-riding or sagging pants or slacks” — when I hadn’t met any people my own age from Isla Huesos until today? What time I hadn’t spent biking around the cemetery in the past week before school started, hoping to catch a glimpse of John, I’d spent hanging out on the couch with Alex and his dad in front of the TV at Grandma’s.
And Alex, a typical guy, had answered, “I don’t know. Clothes,” when Mom and I asked him what girls at IHHS wore to school.
The girl next to me — lip and eyebrow piercings — turned back to the screen of her phone as soon as I’d sat down. Some people might have thought it impolite to eavesdrop on what she was doing. Not me. True, to an outsider it might have looked like I was snooping…maybe because I myself had no cell phone.
But actually, Tim, the head of the New Pathways program, had taken mine away before school. He said I could have it back at the end of the day. He thought that I’d focus better and “interact more” if I couldn’t go online.
I didn’t bother arguing. I knew from what had happened at my school last year that everything he was saying was true.
I’d told my best friend, Hannah, the day I’d come back after my accident that I’d protect her from the evil.
But I hadn’t. Instead, hurt by the fact that she had called me crazy, still numbed by what I’d seen John do in the jeweler’s shop, and worried he’d come back someday and do it to me next time, I’d just lain back inside my glass coffin and waited for my handsome prince to come rescue me.
That’s how I hadn’t noticed the evil. Not the kind people like to pretend is real, the kind they tell ghost stories and make horror movies about.
But the real evil that had been roaming the halls of the Westport Academy for Girls, looking for the sweetest, most innocent victim it could find.