“Not even to find out who he is?”
“Not even then.” Lori made a face. “Honestly, Jess, you’ve got to know everything!”
I smiled. “It makes life interesting.”
The front door opened, and Mom strode out. She plopped down on the top step. “I can’t believe it!” she exploded.
“Believe what?” I asked. “What are you so steamed about?”
Mom drew in a long breath and blew it out slowly. “I have no right to be upset,” she said. “I’m just surprised, that’s all.”
“About what?”
“The cake I sent to our new neighbors. Well, I found the empty, washed cake pan at our back door. Almost stumbled over it. And not even a note of thanks with the pan. I don’t know what to make of it.”
“Mark told me they were surprised when you sent over the cake,” I explained. “People on the East Coast don’t send over stuff to new neighbors.”
“Nonsense,” Mom said. “Taking over food to help people settle in is the way people try to be neighborly everywhere, not just in Texas. And don’t say stuff. My cake was a cake, not stuff.”
I glanced in the direction of the Maliks’ house. “I just noticed. Their car’s gone,” I said to Lori.
Mom looked at us as though suddenly seeing us for the first time and said, “Surely you girls weren’t running in this heat, were you?”
“We were in the woods,” I said. “It’s cooler there.”
Mom stood and shook her head. “The follies of the young,” she said. “Just don’t overdo it and come down with heat exhaustion.”
“Okay, I promise. We won’t.” As soon as the front door closed behind her, I turned to Lori. “No one besides us ever goes into the woods, but Mark’s new here. What if he went exploring?”
Lori looked puzzled. “If he was in the woods and he saw us, he’d come over and say hello, wouldn’t he?”
“I guess so. He should.”
“Well, of course he should. Anyway, we sat out here forever, and we didn’t see him leave his house.”
“Hey, look!” Lori whispered, jabbing me in the ribs. “The Maliks’ car?”
I watched as the car came to a stop at the curb and Mark climbed out—alone. He smiled at me and strode toward us.
“Yum! Nice smile!” Lori murmured under her breath.
“Hi,” Mark said to me before he turned to Lori.
“Lori Roberts, this is Mark Malik—our new next-door neighbor,” I said.
“Hi, Lori,” Mark said. “Shall I put you down for brownies?”
He laughed at the puzzled look on Lori’s face. “Jess told me that around here everyone brings the new neighbors something to eat. I just thought I’d make a pitch for brownies while I had the chance.”
“Sit down,” I said. “No brownies on hand, but I can get some Cokes.”
“No thanks. Some other time,” Mark answered. “I’ve got work to do. I just came back from the hardware store. I bought what I need to put up shelves.”
The front door opened, and Mom walked onto the porch. “You must be Mark Malik,” she said. “Jess has told me about you.”
As Mark jumped up the lower steps to shake Mom’s hand, I scooted aside to make room, but Pepper leaped out of the way and ran around the corner of the house.
Mark laughed. “Your cat left in a big hurry. Was it something I said?”
“Don’t mind Pepper,” I answered. “There’s no telling what got into him.”
Mark looked up at Mom and said, “I’m glad to meet you, Mrs. Donnally. Thanks for the cake. It was great.”
“Please thank your mother for returning the pan,” Mom answered. “I’m disappointed that I didn’t get to meet her.”
I could hear the trace of coolness in Mom’s voice, but Mark didn’t seem to notice.
“She’s eager to meet you, too, and to thank you for being so kind,” Mark said, “but my dad’s under the weather, and my mom’s kind of worried about him. Ever since his heart attack …” He stopped and smiled at Mom. “My mother wants to ask you how you made that terrific frosting with the coconut and—was it brown sugar?”
While Mom, totally won over, recited the recipe and asked Mark about his father’s health, I stared at his shoes, planted so close to where I was sitting. They were an expensive dark gray suede—not right for Texas weather at all—and clinging to their rough, damp-stained surface were what looked like bits of leaf mold … the kind found in forests, not in shopping malls.
Don’t be so suspicious, I cautioned myself. Mark cut across the grass when he saw us. That’s just grass on his shoes.
“So please tell your mother I’m planning to come calling as soon as she’s had time to settle in,” Mom said.
“I will,” Mark said. “Glad to meet you, Lori. See you later, Jess.”
He jogged down the steps and to his car, removed two large paper bags from the trunk, and carried them into his house.
“What a lovely boy,” Mom said. “There’s something different about him. He’s so polite … so … I guess I’d say charming. That’s it. He’s charming.”
As she went inside the house, Lori murmured, “Who cares about charming? He’s a hunk.”
“He sure is,” I said. My misgivings vanished with Lori’s giggles.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING Mark rang my doorbell. “I wish I could offer you a ride to school,” he said, “but I haven’t got a car of my own yet. My mom and dad have to use the car to get to work.”
“It’s a short walk,” I told him, glad that he had put away his Eastern clothing and dressed for the heat in a T-shirt and jeans. I grabbed my backpack, yelled goodbye to my parents, and headed for the sidewalk with Mark.
“Where do your parents work?” I asked.
“They’re both with the MaxiMart chain,” he said.
“Oh. Then they were transferred here. Right?”
“Right.”
We came to Mr. Chamberlin’s house, next to the Maliks’, and Mark started to cut across Mr. Chamberlin’s lawn to round the corner.
“Wait,” I said. I put a hand on his arm and tugged him back to the sidewalk.
Mark looked surprised. “What’s wrong with the shortcut?”
“Mr. Chamberlin’s old and kind of crabby. He doesn’t want anyone walking on his grass.”
“Should we care what the old guy wants?” Mark took a step in the direction of Mr. Chamberlin’s velvet-green lawn.
“I care,” I said, and tugged him along, down the sidewalk.
Mark followed reluctantly, but as we came to the thick, neatly trimmed bushes of pink oleander that decorated the corner of Mr. Chamberlin’s lot, Mark grabbed a fistful of branches and shook them.
A loud screech made us both jump.
As Peaches streaked across the lawn toward the safety of her house, I said, “Run! Before he comes out and yells at us!”
We were around the corner, out of sight, before we heard Mr. Chamberlin’s screen door fly open. “Who’s out there?” he yelled. “What cowardly, stupid oaf is trying to harm my cat?”
When we stopped for breath, Mark and I both laughed.
“You’ve learned something about Oakberry already,” I told Mark. “To keep from getting your head chewed off, you have to stay clear of Mr. Chamberlin and his cat.”
“What makes him so mean?” Mark asked.
“I don’t think he even knows he’s mean,” I said. “He used to be okay. About fifteen years ago his wife and two daughters were killed by a drunk driver who got off the charges. Mr. Chamberlin can’t get over it. Mom said he shriveled up like a mealy old apple left in the sun. He’s never stopped grieving. He only has his cat left. I kind of feel sorry for him.”
Mark chuckled as he tapped my arm with his fist. “You would,” he teased.
As we continued our walk to school, I said, “You were telling me about your parents. Which MaxiMart do they work in? The nearest one in Gulfgate Mall?”
“Yes, but why are we talkin
g about my parents?” Mark asked. “You said you’d fill me in, so tell me what I should know about school and what I should watch out for.”
I almost tripped over a tree root that had broken through the sidewalk, just managing to catch my balance. “What do you mean ‘watch out for’? What are you talking about?”
“School politics. Teachers to avoid. Gangs. Whatever.”
I smiled. “There aren’t any gangs in Oakberry. We’re too small a town for gangs.”
“You’ve got to have some people hanging out together. If you don’t call them gangs, then what do you call them?”
I looked at Mark, but he kept his gaze straight ahead. “Friends,” I said evenly.
Mark stared at me questioningly, doubt in his eyes.
“I’m not kidding,” I said. “The jocks and their girlfriends hang out together, the computer fiends spend their lunch hours off somewhere on the Internet, the most popular kids—”
“Most popular. That’s where you fit in. Right?”
There was something about his tone of voice, something about the way he asked the question that I didn’t like. I shifted my backpack and began to walk faster. “No. They’re the rich kids whose parents have big homes down on the bay. Sorry to disappoint you.”
Mark didn’t speak as he kept pace beside me. Then suddenly he put an arm around my shoulders. His voice was light and warm as he said, “Wherever you are, Jess, that’s a good place to be.”
My face grew warm. Take it easy, I cautioned myself. He’s coming on awfully fast. Mark may turn out to be the nicest guy I’ve ever met, or …
“It’s hard to come into a new school in your junior year,” Mark said. “I need a friend to help me through the worst of it. I can’t afford to make any mistakes that might land me in trouble.”
Amazed, I turned and stared at him. “Why should you get in trouble? I don’t understand.”
He dropped his arm from my shoulders and took a step away. “I’ll be honest with you,” he said. “I’ve got a temper. Sometimes I blow up when I shouldn’t.”
He turned on the full power of his smile, and I felt the charge right down to my toes. “Stick with me, Jess,” he said. “Help me stay in line. Okay?”
What had Mom said about Mark? Polite and charming. That was it. So why was I looking for something that wasn’t there?
Flustered, I tried to keep things easy. “Which am I—a guiding star or a shining light?” I asked.
“Both,” he said, and we laughed.
We turned a corner, and I pointed out the boxy, two-story, orange-red brick building at the end of the next block. “There’s Oakberry High,” I said.
Mark looked at his watch and shrugged. “Before we get there you’ve got time to tell me something about yourself. You’re interested in more than school and homework and serving burgers and fries. What’s on your mind, Jess? What do you want to do with yourself?”
I stammered, “C-College after graduation next year. Maybe social work, helping kids.”
“And?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what else? You’ve got a life now.”
I shrugged. “Now I’ve got an idea, but I need to tell my mom and dad what I want to do and then let Mrs. Emery in on it.”
“Mrs. Emery?”
“She teaches our class in social problems. She’s the one who set up a field trip to visit local caregiving agencies.”
He looked puzzled, so I explained, “Welfare agency, crisis hot line, child-abuse prevention center, and the children’s ward at our county’s Community Hospital.”
“Let me guess,” Mark said. “They all need help. That’s what you’re thinking of. Right?”
For a moment my mouth fell open. When I could talk, I asked, “How could you know that?”
“Easy,” he said. “Now it’s just a matter of figuring out which agency you’re interested in and what you want to do.” He smiled and said, “They probably all have fund-raising social events, and high-school students aren’t usually at the top of the guest list, so fund-raising isn’t your goal. Hmmm. Whatever you have in mind means volunteer work. Am I right again?”
“Yes,” I said.
He continued to study my face. “And the volunteer work involves kids.”
“Okay,” I said. My laugh was a little shaky. “I don’t know how you do it, but you ought to take your mind-reading act on the road.”
It was Mark’s turn to laugh. “I did it by watching your face. When I mentioned kids you kind of lit up. You gave yourself away. You’re easy to figure out, Jess.”
“Are you always this good at reading people?”
“Wait! I’m not through,” he said. “Whatever plan you’ve got in mind probably involves other volunteers, too.”
“What!”
“Well, if it was just something you wanted to do yourself, you wouldn’t have to talk to your social problems teacher and make such a big deal of it.”
“Listen, Mark,” I said. “I do have a plan in mind to help out with the little kids in the hospital’s children’s ward, but I don’t want to talk about it yet. I haven’t worked it all out, and Lori reminded me I should talk to my parents first … I mean about my job at Bingo’s and my other responsibilities.”
“Lori believes that you should never walk into a new situation unless you’re covered.”
“Covered?”
“You know … like having all the bases covered.” Mark’s smile was easy. “It’s a good idea and a good move. You’ll make points as a model citizen.”
“That’s not why I—”
“Take it easy,” he said. “I know that’s not why. I was just teasing.”
As we reached the main building, I left Mark to make his way through the enrollment paperwork and met Lori in our usual spot, under the large oak tree next to the gym.
Lori gave a little hop. “I talked to him this morning!” she squealed. “He’s in our first class, and he is real cute—sort of brooding and mysterious.”
I smiled. “That’s straight out of Wuthering Heights. Remember? We read it last year. Does this brooding, mysterious man stalk over the moors, too?”
“Very funny,” Lori said. She tried to sound indignant, but she giggled. “Wait until you meet Scott. You’ll see what I mean.”
As the first bell rang, we entered the main building and walked toward our lockers.
“His name is Scott Alexander,” Lori volunteered.
“Nice name,” I said, “but it doesn’t fit somebody who’s brooding on the moors.”
I dumped my backpack inside my locker, took only my English lit book and notebook, and walked to class, greeting most of the kids. In a town the size of Oakberry, there weren’t many people I didn’t know.
As I slid into my desk, near the back of the room, Lori nudged me and nodded toward a long-legged guy in the last seat of the window row. He was tall and a little too thin, and his high cheekbones looked as though they’d been molded by someone with an artist’s touch. A shock of his thick blond hair fell back from his forehead as he raised deep blue eyes to Lori.
He didn’t smile. He merely nodded recognition, but Lori glowed as she quickly introduced us and asked Scott a question.
I didn’t hear either the question or the answer. I was captivated by the intensity of Scott’s eyes, which completely hid whatever thoughts lay behind them.
CHAPTER
four
Mark didn’t show up until our third-period social problems class. As he slid into the chair next to me, his eyes glittered with anger, and his breath came in hard, quick spurts.
“What happened?” I asked.
“The papers should have been in order, but they weren’t.” Mark spat out the words. “No math listed. Stupid dorks! And that warden downstairs in the office—she acts like her whole life depends on having the right forms filled out.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. I found myself nervously drawing back from the raging fire that possessed him.
/> Mark turned from me, rested his chin on his chest, closed his eyes, and took three long, deep breaths. When he looked back, I could sense that he had recognized my fear.
Why blame me? I thought, positive that I wasn’t the only person who wanted to get out of the way when Mark turned angry.
“I have better things to do than sit in an office for two hours,” Mark said, and to my surprise his voice was now steady, with a hint of humor in it. “The clerk downstairs wouldn’t take my word that I’d had Algebra Two. She had to try to reach my mom, who called back from work, and now Mom has to call my former school to get them to correct my records so I can be admitted. They finally allowed me to come to class when I told the clerk, ‘Forget the whole thing. I’m walking out.’ ”
“They’ll fix the records,” I said. “It’s no big problem.” I was puzzled because Mark had made it a bigger deal than the situation warranted. He’d confided he had a temper, and it was obviously true.
Lori and Scott were the last to come into the classroom, slipping into two seats in the window row just as Mrs. Emery began taking roll, glancing back and forth from her students to her list, soundlessly mouthing their names.
“Scott Alexander and Mark Malik,” she finally said. “Welcome to our class. Which of you is Scott, and which is Mark?”
Each identified himself, and Mrs. Emery said, “You’ll have a lot of catching up to do. The text is just part of what you learn here. We try to approach community problems in an original, positive manner. Active participation in class discussions is not only encouraged, it’s expected. Today you’ll discover what we do in class. After that, if you have any questions …”
Mark raised his hand, but even before Mrs. Emery could respond, he spoke up. “If you’re looking for action and not just talk, Jess—Jessica Donnally—and I have been discussing the biggest need at the Community Hospital’s children’s ward, which is volunteers, and the ways that the people in this class could help.”
What is Mark doing? In shock I gripped the edge of the desk so hard my fingers hurt. “Not yet, Mark!” I blurted out. “I mean, I’d rather discuss this idea when it’s all worked out, Mrs. Emery.”
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