He interrupted. “Plenty of them are still in Mexico, you know.”
I didn’t.
“Oh, yes. Many. Only they don’t live like the kings and nobles who inhabited those palaces in the cities. They live very simply, much like the Mayan peasants did in ancient days. And they still practice the old ways, some of them. They still have shamans who can still do the magic. Do you know anything about that?”
“A lot of the stuff on the tape is about the religion, if that counts. They were big into human sacrifice. Guess they’re kinda off that these days.”
“Indeed,” he said. “They farm a little, mostly. Sacrifice goes with war.”
“Yeah. Plenty of handy humans you’re not related to. They liked to tear their captives’ hearts out. Did you see Apocalypto? Extremely realistic movie. Also, they had these ballgames— like soccer, you know? And if you lost, say good-bye to your heart— or maybe your head.”
“Some think it was the winners who were sacrificed.”
“Some Olympic medal. Why would anyone want to be sacrificed? They liked tattoos, though. I get that.”
“Well, your parents don’t, do they?”
“Okay, okay, I see your point— everybody’s different. But these guys were off the charts.”
“Pah. If you live as long as I have, you see everything. Continue, however. What were they like culturally?”
“Awesome! They knew all about astronomy, and they had fabulous clothes and jewelry and incredible feathered headdresses, and this very advanced calendar. Oh, and writing and math, and even books that they made out of bark.”
“Very good, Soldier. Excellent. Tell me about the calendar.”
“I’m promoted?”
He said nothing.
“Well, it was complicated,” I continued. “There were three parts to it.”
“Never mind. About the books.”
“Well, uh, they were in the Mayan language—”
“I hardly expected English.”
“Do you have to be so sarcastic?” I said. “I’m really trying here.”
“You’re a soldier, Soldier. Back to the drawing board. Tomorrow I want a full report on the calendar and the books.”
I gave him a pained look “Do I have to?”
I didn’t want him to know it, but this was kind of fun for me. I’d gotten really interested in the Mayans. It was like my destiny was somehow mixed up with theirs, you know? My Vision Serpents and all. And my dreams.
Anyhow, I was rooting around, having a merry old time, as A.B. would say, all full of my own importance. But you want to know the truth? I really had no idea just how big The Assignment was going to be— and how much might hang on it. I just wanted to annoy the Beast. So I pretended the whole thing was a big fat pain and that I had to be bribed to do it.
Also, there was something I wanted to know.
“Look, kittywhompass,” I said. “I might do it, okay? But there’s a condition. I want to know what really happened out on the street. With you and Abuela.”
He tried to shrug it off. “Nothing worth telling. Nothing at all, really.”
“Don’t tell me it was nothing. Hal said you were shot, and so did Juan. So you must have been shot— but there was no gun. What went down out there?”
“Very well, if you really want to hear it. Blast, I wish I could sigh! To begin with, Abuela is old, not unlike your faithful servant.”
I hooted mentally. He was neither faithful nor anyone’s servant.
“Thus, I have great respect and sympathy for the elderly. Owing to that, I usually try to see her home.” He flicked his tail, as if the next part didn’t matter. “So Sunday I was doing that when someone mugged her before I could stop him. I interceded before he could damage her further.”
“What about the gun?’
“There were two men, not one. The one with the gun left the scene prematurely.”
“ ‘Prematurely.’ I love that. What should he have waited around for?”
“What was coming to him, Soldier Girl. What was coming to him.” His tail flicked in anger.
“I don’t think I want to know.”
“Then don’t ask.”
But I couldn’t help it, I had to know. “Tell me.”
“I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again. No one hides from the Alpha Beast.”
“Meaning—”
“Meaning I tracked him down and took him out. End of story.”
“Wait a minute. Before or after we dug you up?”
“After, of course. Even I can’t be in two places at once. I did it this morning.” He paused, annoyance written all over his little puddytat face. “If I could sigh, I would.”
“What are you trying to say here?
“It’s so tedious, really. It’s just that today the town will be full of the usual vampire and werewolf stories. I never leave blood in the bodies, you see— and now there are two of them.”
“Two?”
“I killed the tire-iron artist as well, of course.” He punctuated this with a decisive tail-thunk. “You didn’t seriously think Abuela did it?”
“And I thought the Mayans were bloodthirsty.”
Again, he flicked his tail— this time gently, more like shrugging. “It’s nothing to do with that. It’s just my mandate.”
“But that blood thing—”
“Do you really need the details?’
“Uh. I think I might let it go.” I was actually pretty freaked out.
But one thing about A.B.— he might be a pompous ass, but at least he didn’t brag for no reason. At lunch, everybody was going bananas about the “murders.” Even Evelina and Hal were walking around with worried looks.
CHAPTER NINE—RIDING THE OZONE
“Ozone Rangerettes?” said Carlos. “I might be gay, but still.”
Sonya said, “You’re gay? Had me fooled, and I’m psychic. Listen, nobody’s asking you to join. It’s a big deal for us even to have a guest. We are super, super, super secret, okay? Absolutely no one can know about us! Understood?”
We both shrugged. “Uh, sure.”
“How many members does this exclusive club have?” I asked.
“Three. And Kara’s out tonight. So it’ll be just the four of us. Oh, and our mascot. Jag always comes.”
Huh? What was this? Jag was the Alpha Beast, not some stupid club mascot.
“And for the moment, Aura-Girl, keep that to yourself,” said the Beast himself, who was already curled up on the table of the room Sonya led us into. It was one of the so-called “study rooms” on the third floor of the library, and it was furnished something like a mini-library— walls lined with books and a big table to put your books on and pore over them. In fact it was such an exact replica, I thought to A.B., “As below, so above.”
“Quite correct, Student. There are moments when I do not absolutely despair of you.”
The Beast not only wasn’t alone in there— the other two occupants were even more surprising, if that’s possible. Even Sonya was shocked by one of them: “What’s he doing here?”
Seated at the table were Julia, the blonde mall rat, maybe the last person on campus I expected to see if you didn’t count her companion, the dread Cooper Allingham. Did I mention she’s kind of a dusty rose? Not one of my favorite colors.
Though Sonya had addressed her question to Julia, trust Cooper to dive in first.
“Great question. Mall rat, Chicano jock, fat black chick, and Candi-hair. This is the Outcasts Club, right? My lucky day or what? Hey, Carlos, you on steroids? Even half those biceps, you’d be out of proportion. And Reeno, where do they even do tats that tacky?”
“Believe it or not,” Julia said, “he may not be a complete and total asshole.”
Cooper said, “Hey, I didn’t mean to, I just…” Once again, I saw his chin jerk some crazy way, as if he were somehow unsure of himself, and then he shut up.
“These the two you mentioned?” Julia said to Sonya.
“Uh-huh,
Aura-Girl and Healer Boy. Maybe. On the other hand, he could just be a perv.”
Carlos and I exchanged glances and, as if by unspoken decision, sat down at the table.
“You mind telling us what this is all about?”
“Kara and I were the first ones,” Julia said. “We were in a class together, and realized we were picking up each other’s thoughts.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah, that’s what we thought. Great big huh. So,” she shrugged, “we started meeting and, you know, practicing. Seeing exactly what we could do. Oh, and we might have told each other a couple of secrets.”
Cooper said, “Like what, Mall Rat? How much each other’s sweaters cost?”
“One of Kara’s stress reactions is throwing things.”
I was puzzled. It’s not exactly civilized, but who hasn’t done it? “So she’s got a temper,” I said. “Big deal.”
“Well, see, she doesn’t use her hands.” Julia waited for it to sink in. “She does it with her mind.”
I remembered the book that hit my shins. “Oh. My. God. She threw something at me the other day. But, now that I think of it, I don’t think it was on purpose.”
“See, that’s the problem. She can’t control it yet— that’s one of the things we’re working on.” Suddenly I remembered seeing Kara and Sonya doing something with a pack of cards, and when I came in, the cards started flying around the room. I must have made them lose focus. And the same with the book; I’d disturbed her and she’d lost control. I was starting to get this now— maybe not understand it, but at least I knew what I was seeing.
“When she was living at home,” Julia continued, “stuff would just start flying. Sometimes really dangerous stuff. She only figured out it was her that was doing it when she got mad in math one day.”
“What happened?”
“An eraser rose up and hit Mr. Aldrich in the head.”
We all laughed, even Cooper. Who hasn’t dreamed of doing that to their least favorite teacher? In fact, we couldn’t stop laughing. Cooper picked up a book and pretended to sail it at me. And then we were all tossing imaginary missiles.
“So,” Julia finally said, “does this mean the ice is broken?”
She was so serious that set us off again. And then the ice really was broken. I could actually feel something like warmth starting to creep into the room.
“Okay, Mall Rat,” Cooper said, “what’s your big secret?”
“I know too much,” Julia said. “I’m clairvoyant. I see things I’m not supposed to.” She turned to Cooper. “Like what I said about you. You know what I told you? That I don’t think this is your fault— you know, the way you always have to be an asshole.” She turned to the rest of us. “Carlos, you’ve got a secret, right? Okay if I mention it?”
Carlos shrugged.
“The picture I get is of you kissing a boy. But here’s the weird thing. You’re in, like a locker room, and you’re both wearing football uniforms.”
“Big deal. I’m gay and I play football. I haven’t exactly hidden either earthshaking fact.”
“You’re number eighteen, right? Who’s twenty-one? Blonde kid, taller than you— built like a quarterback.”
Carlos put both hands on the table, eyes bugging. “Jesus Christ! Nobody knows about that. It could get him kicked off the team.”
Julia ignored him. “And Reeno, you’re sad. You’re just really sad. Something horrible’s going on in your life, isn’t it? I don’t know what it is, but here’s what I see— blood. An Asian girl and—”
I put my hands over my ears. “Stop!” I didn’t want to hear what she had to say. Maybe something awful had happened to Haley.
“It’s okay. Right now she’s okay.” She spoke as if she’d… well, read my mind.
“See, Julia sees things. She’s clairvoyant. Me, I’m clairaudient,” Sonya said. “Means I hear things. Sounds jus’ like somebody’s talkin’ to me. Always thought I was crazy till Kara caught me in the bathroom, talking to my angel— that’s what I call my… you know, my spirit. Whatever it is tells me stuff. Kara took me to her room and showed me how she can make stuff move, say she and Julia been workin’ on it. So I teamed up with ‘em.”
“Hence,” said Julia, “the birth of the Ozone Rangerettes.”
“Ta-da!” I said, unable to stop myself. I was kind of fascinated, no question. Though I absolutely had no idea where I fit in.
“Excuse me, Miss,” said a familiar voice, “but do you from time to time engage in meaningful colloquy with someone of another species?”
Before I could stop myself, I laughed.
“Not,” A.B. said, “that I would encourage you to mention it just yet. I fear it would strain even a psychic’s credulity.”
“What’s so funny?” Sonya asked.
“Nothing, I just…” I seized on something A.B. had just said. “I guess I’m just realizing what this is all about. You and Kara and Julia— you’re all psychic.”
“Give that girl the Firm-Grip-On-The-Obvious Prize,” Cooper said.
“And we think you three might be,” Julia said.
“Well, you know about my two,” Sonya answered. “One knows Kara’s sick before even Kara does, the other knows how to heal her. Think we got a couple of candidates here. But what’s up with Trashmouth over there?”
“Okay, let me ask you something,” Julia said. “He says these really awful things, right? Do you notice that it’s like he somehow zeroes in on the millimeter of a subject that’s the most painful for you?”
“Aha,” Carlos said. “Like he can read your mind, kind of.”
“Well, I can’t, Jock-Itch, or I’d be beating you up right now— because I’d know all the ways you want to Kama Sutra me.”
Carlos looked at him like he was a specimen in biology class, flattened, pickled, and laid out for dissection. He pushed his chair back on its two back legs. He spoke to Julia, not Cooper. “Yeah. Yeah, I get what you’re saying. It’s not like he sees what’s in your mind, necessarily. He goes for your worst fear.”
“What?” Sonya said. “He’s not that bad looking. Why would it be your worst fear to have sex with him?”
Carlos came down on all fours again. “I wouldn’t be afraid to have sex with him. I’d be afraid he’d think I wanted to.”
“Oh.” Sonya and I spoke together.
“Okay,” Sonya said, “maybe he’s got some sick telepathy thing going, but he’s still an asshole. He doesn’t have to mention how fat I am every time he opens his mouth.”
“You’re not fat!” This time everyone who wasn’t Cooper answered at once— me, Carlos, and Julia.
“This is getting spooky,” Carlos said.
“Maybe he’s got Tourette’s,” I suggested. “You know, that thing when people blurt stuff they don’t mean to? Cooper, have you been tested?”
“Does the Pope molest little boys?”
“Hey,” Sonya protested, “I’m Catholic.”
“He knows,” Julia said patiently. “At least on some level. That’s the whole point. Look, I found out he hates talking, so I’m going to talk for him. We’ve got a class together and what happened was, I started picking up some stuff about him. Like, maybe that he was really hurting inside, that everything he said hurt him as much as it hurts the person he says it to. And some other stuff. So we had some talks. Here’s the bottom line— he’s been tested for Tourette’s and every other neurological disorder. His family’s convinced he’s just a bad seed— that’s pretty much why he’s here. But he doesn’t want to say those things; he just can’t help it. And not only that, he can’t even say that. That he can’t help it.”
That sounded right. I remembered the strange little chin jerk, as if he wanted to speak, but couldn’t. But I was curious. “How do you know this stuff?”
Julia wrinkled her nose at me. “Did I mention I’m psychic? I just had a hunch, okay? And then of course we had a few long talks.” She gave Cooper a look. “Very long talks.”
&nbs
p; “I can imagine. Insults every breath.”
“Yeah, but…” Long pause, as if she was trying to decide whether to say it or not. “Every now and then I’d see tears.”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “I’ve seen that.”
Julia said, “I just think there’s more going on than we can see.”
Carlos shrugged. “Okay. So what’s next?”
“We ride the ozone.”
“Huh?” The three newcomers all spoke together.
Sonya spoke up. “You know. We troll for what’s out there— and the ozone’s way out there. Tha’s how come our name.”
“All very fine,” I said, and Cooper finished for me: “But what the frick does ‘ride the ozone’ mean?”
“We’re going to go into a trance and figure this thing out.”
“Yeah?” Cooper said. “Have pigs sprouted wings or something?”
“Look, we’re trying to help you.” Julia was getting miffed. “You don’t have to go there if you don’t want to. Just sit here and wait, I really don’t give a flying, uh, pig. Is everybody else in?”
I couldn’t see any down side and neither, apparently, could Carlos, although I didn’t have a clue what they actually meant. Maybe Carlos didn’t either. It just sounded cool. Like something that happened in movies, not real life. I, Reeno Dimond, was about to go into a trance? Wow. I was all over that. I just wasn’t sure what it actually was.
“A trance,” Julia intoned, “is nothing but a focus.”
“Bullshit!” Cooper said.
“Uh-huh,” Sonya said. “Cowboy know everything. As usual. For your information, the Ozone Rangerettes have done extensive research.”
I was puzzled. “Why is he a cowboy?”
“Raised in a barn.” She sat back in her chair, arms crossed on her chest, clearly pleased with herself.
Carlos fired a finger gun at her. “Good one.”
Julia kept on as if nothing had happened. “So a trance is a focus, okay? The deeper the focus, the deeper the trance.”
Cooper said, “We just sit here and focus? That’s it?”
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