Adrianne’s birthday party last July felt like a million years ago, especially with her not being around anymore. “Do you remember what we talked about at Adrianne’s birthday?”
He finished chewing his pizza, looked from one side of the cafeteria to the other then said, “Listen, Roxie, there’s no going back.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s one of the rules.”
“Who made up the rules anyway?” I say getting sick of everyone else knowing what’s going on except me. At least that’s what it always feels like.
“Roxie, no one goes back,” Hayden whispers.
“Okay so there’s three rules? I’m sort of losing count. Any other rules I should know about?”
“You didn’t listen to me last year, why would you listen to me now?” he says. His eyes kind of turn into slits when he says this.
“Listen, I have to go back. I have the map and the seven secret words and I never found out what they mean. Mitch got me out of there too quick.” For a second I think I see him turn seventeen before my eyes, what he looked like when I wanted to stay in the shadow world forever because I had everything I wanted and Hayden was so amazing. I didn’t want to go home.
“Roxie, you okay?” he says.
“Uh, yeah, I just need to know where it will take me, the map. What the words mean and why the map with the seven words only appeared for me. I need to know what I’m supposed to find.”
“Maybe you were never meant to know. Maybe you shouldn’t have ever gone in the first place.” He says the last part kind of whispering to himself, but loud enough so I can hear.
“Oh, like I wasn’t supposed to save Lola’s life? Besides, everyone goes to Planet Popular. You told me that, remember. Only some people remember and some people don’t. That’s what Mitch said. But maybe you and Mitch were making things up as you go along. Maybe all this stuff about the rules are just lies to keep me from doing what I have to do.”
“And almost die in the process?”
“Well there was a reason why the map appeared only to me. Why I AP’d to Planet Popular to save Lola and remembered everything. I have to go back and find out.”
“No one goes back.”
“You’re only saying that because no one ever has,” I say.
Hayden shakes his head. “Listen, Roxie, it’s complicated.” He gets up from the lunch table and sits on my same side. I gulp down my Capri Sun hoping it will erase my peanut butter breath and make it smell like vanilla ice cream and red hots, the flavor of our kiss in the shadow world. I reach into my pocket for one of the half-stick pieces of gum I always have rattling around in my pockets since I don’t like chewing them whole. I have no idea why and never really thought about it until just this second. My fingers work to unwrap it.
“You know the rules. If you break them you’ll be lost there. Forever. No one will be able to save you. There’s no going back. Don’t try. Some things need to be left alone.”
I sort of just sit there because Hayden has never gotten mad at me before and now that he borderline is, it kind of takes my breath away. The last time he took my breath away the two of us danced and kissed in the shadow world at the Enchanted Island Homecoming Dance. When we were both seventeen. It’s really hard to be fourteen after you’ve been seventeen for a whole day. But, I’m trying. I miss the feeling of his arms around me. I pop the gum in my mouth, trying to ignore the denim fur embedded into it.
“Adrianne’s disappeared.” Hayden says setting only me in his blue-eyed sights. “Isn’t that enough of a OMG? I don’t want you disappearing too.”
“You think Adrianne disappearing has something to do with Lola or Mitch? Or…me?”
“I don’t know. It’s just when friends start disappearing it’s time to rethink, oh I don’t know, things like astral projecting back to the shadow world. Look, I remember when we were at Adrianne’s party last summer and what you said about going back on your birthday...” Hayden’s knee bounces up and down beside me, rubbing against my jeans.
“So you didn’t forget?” I say doing the math in my head. With high school starting and everything going on I really haven’t obsessed about my birthday like last year. But now, in Hayden’s stare, I realize my birthday is only weeks away.
“Nobody knows where Adrianne and her family are. Don’t bring up APing. I don’t want to talk about this stuff ever again,” Hayden says biting the nail off the finger closest to me before staring at me with the same look that made me sink into his arms in the shadow world. When we were both seventeen and did seventeen-year-old things that make me all tingly inside. He must have picked up on how freaked out I am because right then he bolts up out of the seat on the cafeteria bench beside me and walks out of the cafeteria without even looking back, leaving me alone with my brown paper bag and my orange and my jelly-stained paper towel napkin with two lonely bites of sandwich left for company.
I want to cry. I’m friend repellent. Ally’s mad at me and so is Hayden and everything feels wrong. Everything feels like it’s changing. When I AP’d to the shadow world everything was wonderful. Weird for sure, but wonderful. Everything I ever wanted came true. Hayden was my date, we kissed at The Enchanted Island Homecoming Dance. Everything was wonderful except Mitch saving me. I wish I could have lived in the shadow world forever, especially if this is how it’s going to be from now on. I can’t wait to go back. No one would really miss me anyway, it’s not like I’m even on the radar at this school.
I eye the clock to see how much more time I’ll have to sit all alone in the cafeteria, when I hear someone talking to me.
“Hi.”
I turn to face the not-quite familiar voice. “Oh, hey,” I say wishing I was still alone. Because the only thing worse than being a loner is being seen talking to the weird new girl. This is The Lunch of Horrors.
Wanda sits next to me. Like right next to me, in the spot where Hayden sat, just as close. Ewww. “So I’m going to tryouts after school, what about you?” she says.
“Oh, I didn’t tell my folks.” I say with a smile. It’s not exactly a lie. I never intended to tell my parents in first place since there’s no way I’m going to tryout for the school play. Me being the center of attention is too terrifying, especially since even Ally & Hayden probably won’t come to see me. And, besides, I’m not like Wanda’s best friend or anything. I didn’t tell her I would for sure try out. I don’t say anything. The idea of being this terrific actress that everyone adores is appealing in a that-will-never-happen way. Maybe finding a whole new group of friends is what I’ll have to do now that it feels like all my old friends are abandoning me.
“And I can’t miss the bus,” I add. It’s just easier to blow people off sometimes.
“You’re just afraid,” Wanda says like she knows me, which under the circumstances is as creepy as her teeny smile.
I almost choke on my gum as I take the second to the last bite of PBJ. And it’s weird because all of a sudden, now that we’re in high school, no one brings lunch to school anymore. Everyone buys. Everyone except me and Ally. I still eat my middle school PBJs. I like PBJs.
“You don’t get to talk to me like you know me. You don’t know me. Why don’t you go find some other freshman to bug,” I say, flicking my hair in a way that seems like I think I’m better than her but I don’t, I’m just not in the mood to be a whole different person today.
She looks around the cafeteria. “No one else is sitting all alone,” she says.
Well, there is that. Lunch of Horrors, like I said.
I swallow my last bite of peanut butter and jelly hard. My throat hurts as it strangles it down to my stomach. I fidget in my seat, wanting to get up but having nowhere to go. I’m so pissed at Ally and Hayden for abandoning me in the middle of lunch, leaving me with Wanda. I want to scream.
“Here, check this out,” Wanda stands up and waves her hand in the direction of the cafeteria door, like she doesn’t have a care in the world.
My eyes sweep t
he cafeteria as I consider actually leaving with Wanda to go check out whatever it is she thinks is so amazing, and I see Him. The 10. Ally’s talking to him right by the food line, deserted now because the bell’s about to ring. Talking. To. The. 10. He smiles at me. Me. When our eyes meet across the room I get that same feeling I did on Planet Popular. It’s a dream come true. He’s a dream come true. And even though he’s all the way on the other side of the cafeteria I feel like something is close by, something I can’t touch and it keeps me calm when I’d think I’d normally pass out.
Ally doesn’t even glance my way, but I can hardly blame her. If he makes me feel this good from far away I can only imagine what she’s feeling standing an arm length away from him. Make that, um, well now she’s a lot closer. The 10 gives Wanda a nod, but she’s too clueless to see. I can’t breathe right because a blob of peanut butter is stuck to the roof of my mouth. That, combined with The 10 in my sights makes me breathe faster forcing me to almost choke on the PBJ blob in my mouth. I wish I could describe The 10 to you but I can’t. It’s mostly things you can’t describe that make a guy a 10 anyway. It’s the way he makes you feel inside, all tingly and weird, and how you feel instantly prettier when he smiles at you and how your whole life is different after.
“Come on, you have to see this,” Wanda says, turning her back to The 10.
It’s almost impossible to turn away. I don’t want to be seen leaving with Wanda. I don’t want The 10 to think that she’s my best friend. I want him to know that Ally is. But then, he’s swarmed and it doesn’t matter at all because he couldn’t see over all the guys high-fiving him. Ally’s got to be having the best day of her life. I walk out of the cafeteria and down the hallway, half-following Wanda and half-staring at The 10 through the cafeteria windows.
“It’s okay, this is even more important than a beautiful boy,” Wanda says. The bell rings. “I’ll show you later,” she says, with a shrug. “It’s backstage.”
I spend all of Biology wondering what Wanda wants to show me. But, as the day wears on, I try to care less and less because caring means we’ve crossed over from being strangers who ride the same bus to people who talk to each other which means we’d sort of be friends, and I’m not sure I want to go there. Not yet. By the time I walk into English I so want this day to be over. I want to escape into a book. I don’t even care if it’s freaking Shakespeare. I hope the teacher assigns us an epic.
“Something...happened to your English teacher. Your regularly-scheduled English teacher,” the fourteenth substitute in as many school days says, semi-smiling at me adding, “it’s lucky for you, I’m here to fill the void.”
The Goth teacher is some rock-star wanna be. English teacher, my butt. He’s not like any of the other substitute teachers I’ve ever had, one’s that cower at loud noises and make for the door at the first sign of uprising from the worst of us––shell-shocked and retreating. No this guy is in our faces. He even has a tattoo on his hand. A star, I think, but I can’t see it completely because his long, black sleeve covers it every time I try to get a better look. There is this perfectly trimmed beard that traces his jawline, wrapping around his two o’clock shadow. He’s kind of History Channel, like someone from another time, a century a bajillion years ago. I can’t really put my finger on it and have no idea why I’m vibing that. And what’s super spooky is no one blows him any crap. Which is weirder than him, because we’ve gotten away with murder with all the other subs. They never last more than a day. We must be the most feared English class in all of Substituteland. But this guy doesn’t look scared. I wonder if he’ll be back tomorrow. They all say they will.
Maybe the weird stubble and crazy facial hair has something to do with Halloween. I can’t believe I freaking forgot my birthday until today. The haunting English teacher passes back my paper and I get an even more frightening C on my first vocabulary quiz. My parents don’t understand Cs. They don’t understand how high school is so completely freaky. If they get word my grades have gone down I’m not going to get to do anything I want this year. Even though I’m not exactly sure what I want to do in high school because there’s so many clubs and teams.
Rock-and-Roll teacher spins around and says, “And what do you desire this year, your Freshman year?” Out. Freaking. Loud. Looking right at me. I stare at the board where all the teachers have usually scrawled their name and I freeze. He hasn’t written his name up on the board. Gulp. Desire.
In order to not be such a loser, in order to stop the nightmare that is my tongue-tied self, I run through all my options in my mind. All the people I could be in high school. And I sit there, week two of freshman year, all eyeballs on me trying to answer the unanswerable. Sure, I could share with the class my greatest desire. There’s two really. APing back to the shadow world for all my answers. And, talking to The 10. Pffff. I’m not that stupid. So I go to the regular things that should be on my mind but really haven’t. Will I stay in band and play flute in the high school marching band and be that girl, or will I keep up my artistic flare and forever be the that girl. Or, will I try something new? Something no one expects. Something I’ve never tried before. Or will I be a smart aleck back at him.
“I want to tryout for the school play,” I say biting my lip afterward. I don’t know why I say it. Out. Loud. It had been days since I’d thrown away the hot pink paper and then fished it out of my garbage can. There was something about the pinkness of the paper. How it practically screamed every time I tried to throw it away. So I’m that girl. Good Move.
“Indeed?” The teacher’s eyes sparkle.
Now, if I don’t make it, people will be finger-pointing for weeks. Now, I have to try out and turn into a totally different person who can actually go on stage and memorize lines. Gulp. My stomach’s all twisty-turny and my knees buckle even though I’m already sitting down.
Ally turns sideways in her chair like she’s about to come talk me out of it because there’s a best friend code. What one best friend does in high school bounces off the other. If she’s not cool, then your not cool by association. She so doesn’t want me to tryout. I can feel it in her stare. Ally can’t deal with people or being the center of attention. That’s why she runs cross country, to get away from everyone. That’s why she’s so fast. I think it has something to do with when she starved herself. But she’s over that now. I can tell she isn’t thrilled about the extra weight. She isn’t fat. She’s just normal. But, well, I can’t really explain it. She’s always, and I mean always working out.
And the substitute just strolls up to the front of the class and asks us to open to Antigone in our textbooks. Antigone. Now there’s a weird name for a girl. And just as I open to the right page, Mr. Rock-and-Roll stares as if in a trance and recites lines he knows by heart and his gaze shifts to me.
“Antigone is the girl who will rise up alone and die young,” he says.
He doesn’t take his eyes off of me. The words he speaks feel like an incantation or like he’s some sort of Goth fortuneteller or something. A chill creeps up my spine. He’s still staring. A chill slices me in two and lingers around my spine because I feel like I’ve met him. Maybe I’ve just seen him on TV or something. My mind searches for his face among all the faces I’ve seen. I writhe a little in my seat. Writhe isn’t a word I normally use, but it describes exactly what I’m doing.
“Haemon, Antigone’s dashing fiancé, chats with Ismene, her beautiful sister. Though one would have expected Haemon to go for Ismene, he inexplicably proposed to Antigone on the night of a ball. Creon is king of Thebes, bound to the duties of rule. Next to the sisters’ sits the Nurse and Queen Eurydice. Eurydice will knit until the time comes for her to go to her room and die. Finally three Guards play cards, indifferent to the tragedy before them.”
And I kind of space out here. All I hear is muffled. All I see is The 10. His words are hypnotic. I turn to see if his words have the same effect on Ally. To try and ground myself in reality because I feel like I’m kind of floating
away. Not quite, here. But, Ally looks fine. She shrugs her shoulders, rolls her eyes and laughs a teeny little laugh.
“Ally, my dear, do share with the class what you find so funny?” Rock-and-Roll Teacher says.
Ally’s mortified. Her eyes go wide and beg me to come to her rescue.
“Is it that Antigone is going to have to chose between life and death that’s so hilarious?” the teacher says.
Ally doesn’t say a word and shrinks into her seat.
“Is it that Antigone is torn with grief at the inequities of society and it’s judgment? L-O-L!” He says LOL super sarcastic, like nothing is funny at all. And it isn’t funny the way he’s all over Ally. He’s super-intense and spooky.
“No,” Ally says.
“Then, do tell. Share with us the humor here. We all need a laugh,” he won’t give it a rest.
“I um, I think, um, I’m...going to,” Ally says, running out of the room.
The class bursts out laughing. Their laughs terrify me and drown out the teacher yelling at me. Blah, blah, I’m sure he says something like don’t leave my class or if you leave you’ll have detention. Or something like that. But I don’t care. Ally’s upset and she needs her best friend. Because she’s the center of attention. I run down the hall chasing Ally because that’s what best friends do. End of story. Besides, the teacher freaked me out too. His voice lulled me into a sort of sleep that had a power over me.
13 on Halloween (Shadow Series #1) Page 19