by Spear, Terry
Emily found her classroom and took a seat in the back. Whiteboards, desks, the smell of paper and cleaner…same as her old school. But the faces were different. No one said a word to her. When the teacher walked into class, he stroked a Donald Duck tie, then leaned his backside against his desk. “I’m Mr. Smith. You’ll find your names on the desks already, if you’ll go ahead and find your seat.”
Anyone who wears cartoon ties can’t be all bad. She took her seat next to an empty chair. On the other side sat...Red. How did she ever get so lucky? He eyed her with contempt. She ignored him and faced the front.
Mr. Smith ran his finger down the seating chart. “Mr. Michael Shipley isn’t here?”
She assumed he meant the kid whose vacant seat was located next to hers.
The teacher combed his fingers through sandy-colored hair. His face was bronzed from the sun, and she wondered if he served as a lifeguard over summer vacation. She definitely wouldn’t have minded if he’d rescued her.
“We’ll start by going around the room, giving your names and where you’re from originally,” Mr. Smith said.
When introductions made it halfway around the room, a six-foot tall dream of a guy walked in. His sable hair and eyes reminded Emily of semi-sweet, dark chocolate, and his skin was as golden as the teacher’s. When she caught his eye, she smiled. He quickly mirrored her expression and sat in the vacant seat beside her.
Things were definitely looking up.
“Mr. Michael Shipley, I presume,” the teacher said.
“Yes, sir. Sorry I’m late. I had to take my grandmother to the hospital.”
Hospital?
Since Emily had just lost her grandmother—the only grandparent she’d had left—she hoped for Michael’s sake his own wasn’t experiencing anything life threatening.
“Nothing serious, I hope,” Mr. Smith said, with genuine compassion.
Emily’s thoughts shifted to her own grandmother, dying in the hospital, her eyes gray, her skin sallow, her skin stretched across bones. For two months, the lung cancer had invaded her organs, her tissues, her cells, and she’d wasted away until she died. Emily couldn’t shake loose of the image until Michael spoke again.
“She fell off a boat.”
Emily closed her gaping mouth. She tried to read his mind while the teacher resumed introductions, but she couldn’t scan Michael’s thoughts. Her stomach churned, and she felt as though she was suddenly brain impaired.
“Miss Emily Rundle?”
She turned her head in the teacher’s direction, startled when she realized she’d been studying Michael all this time, totally oblivious to anyone else in the room. “Emily Rundle from Beaverton, Oregon.”
“Yankee,” Red sneered.
Michael offered her another smile. “Michael Shipley from Sacramento, California.”
He was a West Coaster, too. And good looking. She was dying to know what happened to his grandmother, though. Totally frustrated she couldn’t see his thoughts, her brows drew together.
Another girl gave her name, and Emily willed the teacher to question Michael about his grandmother.
Mr. Smith obliged. “About your grandmother, Michael, what happened exactly?”
Michael’s tanned face turned as white as the sandy beaches in Panama City, Florida. “Maybe I could tell you after class, sir.”
Then he glanced at Emily, and she felt like he knew what she had done. Her heart took a dive, and she quickly looked away. No one knew what she was capable of unless she told someone.
Was this the danger the ghost warned her of?
* * *
When technology class ended, two students spoke to the teacher and Michael hung back. Emily watched, hoping to overhear his explanation about his grandmother without getting caught. She could tell he really didn’t wish to speak about her. Was she near death and he was worried he’d get tearful or something if he talked about it?
She felt terrible she put him in a bind.
Without confiding in the teacher, Michael turned and headed for the doorway. The very one she blocked while she stared at him. Her face instantly flushed, she did an about-face and hurried down the hall.
Michael caught up to her. “So, you’re from Oregon.”
His deep voice sent a tremor of warmth down her spine. “Uh, yes. Beaverton, a suburb of Portland.”
“A Yankee.”
He had a sense of humor. She liked that. Hmm. Another thought occurred to her. If he talked to her, she could find out about his grandmother. “And you’re from Sacramento, California.” She stuck out her hand.
He hesitated and the thought immediately struck her she was being too forward, or just totally inappropriate. For an awkward second, he stared at her as if she had sprouted an extra head. More than anything she wished she knew what he was thinking. Maybe they didn’t shake hands in California. Averting his eyes, he cleared his throat. Before she could drop her hand to her side, he reached out and shook it.
Momentarily, his touch made her lose her train of thought. Something bothered her about him, but she couldn’t sense what. Her molecules shifted uneasily in a whirlwind of motion like a dirt devil swirled everything in its path. When their hands separated, her stomach settled. She regained her speech, but the strange sensation still lurked in her bones.
“Yeah. My parents were from Manitoba originally, but I was born in Alberta...you know, Canada. We moved to California when I was little. So, what made you move here?” Michael asked.
“My dad’s here for the space program. But...my grandparents were from Quebec.” She raised a brow. “Canada, you know. So, what are your parents doing here?”
“Same as yours.”
“Working at the space program. When did you move here?” Emily asked.
“I’ve been here all summer.”
“Oh.” She sighed. “I just arrived this past weekend. My parents didn’t realize school started so early. The schools in Oregon didn’t begin until after Labor Day. Half of our stuff is in boxes still.” Quit talking, Emily, or he’ll think you’re nervous.
His dark eyes sparkling with humor, Michael nodded. “What’s your next class?”
“Life science. Yours?”
“Same.”
Afraid she’d scare him off, she tried not to show how delighted she was. She was dying to know about his poor grandmother though. Didn’t Michael need a sympathetic ear?
“I was awfully sorry to hear about your grandmother.”
“No big deal.”
She couldn’t believe her ears. Not having any living grandparents, she couldn’t understand how he could be so uncaring about his grandmother. “I guess she wasn’t injured too badly.”
He pointed to the classroom. “This looks like the one.”
She waited for him to tell her more, but he didn’t say anything. Her mother always told her she was too curious for her own good. Still, she had every intention of finding out about his grandmother one way or another. She wasn’t really nosey, or a busybody or anything, but Emily needed closure. She hated mysteries unsolved, puzzles not finished, tasks undone, or goals not met.
Plus, her imagination was going wild. She envisioned a high-speed boat out of control and poor old gray-haired Grandma falling into the shark-infested Atlantic Ocean or tangling with a stingray in the brackish water of the Banana River. Then again, maybe she boated on one of the snake-plagued Florida lakes. Or what if she had fallen into a canal where an alligator lurked? No matter what, Emily was dying to know the whole story. And she had every intention of finding it out.
She glanced at Michael who was studying her, his whole demeanor serious. His eyes deepened into pools of dark melted chocolate, his brows furrowed slightly, but his lips remained perfectly noncommittal; no hint of a smile, but no scowl either. Yet when her gaze drifted from his mouth to his eyes, he looked at her lips.
Unnerved, she licked them and pointed to the classroom. “I guess we ought to go inside.”
Then she caught a glimpse of th
e bully boys standing down the hall. They stared at her like a pack of wolves waiting to get her alone, eager to pounce and rip her to shreds.
The ghost had warned her beware the danger, and she suspected they represented the danger, taunting her in the form of three demons spawned from hell.
Chapter 2
Michael recognized trouble as soon as he saw it. And Emily spelled big trouble. It was bad enough he had to cover for his grandmother’s accident, hide why he was living with her in the first place, and attempt to keep a low profile—but Emily—he could see now, would make it impossible for him.
Inexplicably, she drew him to her. But he noticed she’d already made some enemies her first day of school. He couldn’t let anyone hurt her, the protective kind of guy that he was, the damsel in distress that she was.
He glanced at her red hair, thick and curly, hanging in a ponytail down her back. Deep down, she reminded him of Susie from her sparkling green eyes to the way she smiled like a warm, summer’s day. Squelching the painful memories surfacing, he couldn’t help but feel driven to keep Emily safe. But there was something more about her that intrigued him.
He thought Emily was the one who had nudged at his thoughts, trying to read them on the sly. When the teacher asked him about his grandmother out of the blue, struck him as odd. Several students had introduced themselves before the teacher had asked about Michael’s grandmother, and it was like a bolt of lightning dropping out of the sky on a clear day hit the teacher, forcing him to pose the question. Not only that, but when Michael had looked at Emily, her cheeks flushed beautifully, and she shifted her attention so quickly from him, she looked guilty as hell.
Michael observed Red and his buddies watching her. It appeared the difficulties between Emily and them were bound to escalate, if matters weren’t handled right. Though he wasn’t able to save Susie from dying, he’d protect Emily in any way that he could.
He still couldn’t believe she was so concerned about his grandmother, and he felt badly he couldn’t share his secrets with her. That will be the day. She’d believe in ghosts as much as he believed in the Tooth Fairy. Of course, even he had doubts about his grandmother’s story.
Michael grabbed Emily’s hand and pulled her into the classroom, intent on taking his duty seriously.
* * *
So surprised that Michael had grabbed her hand, Emily’s mouth dropped. Was he protecting her from the menace? The notion warmed her. Her own special knight. Immediately, her thoughts shifted to the fall dance. Maybe he’d like to take her?
Then she scoffed at herself. They barely knew each other. Why would he be interested in taking her to the dance? If he learned for real how strange she was…
As soon as they entered the class, he released her hand as if he held onto a hot potato way too long. The idea of the fall dance went by the wayside.
After seating arrangements and introductions, their life science teacher jumped into a discussion of global warning. “No matter what our premise is, whether we believe global warming is a true phenomenon or not, we can attempt to decide this using the scientific method,” Mrs. Johnson said, flipping her long blonde hair back over her shoulders.
Emily’s attention focused on Michael, not that she wasn’t interested in what the teacher had to say. However, Michael watched the door as if he waited for something. Word concerning his grandmother, perhaps?
“What about you, Michael? Can you state any situation that might arise that you could solve using the scientific method?” Mrs. Johnson asked.
He was concentrating so hard on the door when the teacher proposed the question, he didn’t seem to hear her.
“Michael,” Emily whispered.
He glanced at her.
“Mrs. Johnson asked you a question.” She nodded at the teacher.
His face grew red, and his embarrassment triggered a trail of goose bumps down Emily’s arms. What was it about him that caused such a reaction? Only when she and her girlfriends had gotten into trouble together did she experience symbiotic emotions, feelings transferred from them to her. In this case, his humiliation caused a reaction of sympathy in her. But it never happened with someone she barely knew. And never with a guy.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Johnson,” Michael apologized. “I had to take my grandmother to the hospital earlier this morning, and I was just worried about her condition.”
Emily’s eyes widened. His grandmother was worse off than she suspected. He must be hiding his grief.
“Did you wish to make a call and check on her?” the teacher asked.
“Next class break would be okay.”
Again, a strange response, which totally threw Emily. Was he worried about his grandmother or not? She glanced at the door, wondering what else could have drawn his attention, and thought she saw something dark flit past the narrow window in a flash. Her heart skipped a beat. Whatever it was moved too fast to be a student.
Mrs. Johnson repeated her question. “In your own words, explain how the scientific method would be used in a situation, any situation, as an approach to problem solving, Michael.”
Emily shuddered but attempted to force herself to quit thinking about the apparition, if that’s what it was. She reconsidered Michael’s situation. Had he even heard what the steps were? If she could, she would transfer the information to his subconscious. But that trick she couldn’t perform.
She shifted her gaze from him to the door, watching for any movement. But the brightly-illuminated hallway remained quiet. Still, when Red had punched her in the arm this morning, she swore it was the same aberration that had distracted her then as now.
Her skin prickled and she turned her focus back on the teacher, though she continued to watch the door out of the corner of her eye.
She sighed. More than anything, she wanted Michael to show how bright he was while the other students waited for him to fall on his face. Or maybe not. If he didn’t get the answer right, someone else would move to the hot seat.
Michael cleared his throat. “A student wants to harm another. That’s the problem.”
Swinging her head around, she stared at Michael, her face heating. He wouldn’t dare bring up her problem with Red in class, if he even realized she was having trouble. The guys she’d known wouldn’t have noticed.
“First, I would find out all I could about the two students. After collecting as much information as I could, I might consider previous cases of student abuse brought on by bullying behavior,” he continued.
Emily tilted her head in surprise. Was Michael a genius? She narrowed her eyes. Geniuses were weird, weren’t they? Like nerds? She had her own peculiar foibles. No way did she want to hang around a guy who had them, too. They’d quickly be branded the two weirdest kids in school.
“Next, I would form a hypothesis. If I could find out why the two students acted at odds, maybe I could serve as an intermediary and help them resolve their differences.”
Yeah, right. Emily made Red think he burned his hand when he tried to shove her from her seat on the school bus. Then, because his effort to remove her from his conquered territory didn’t work, he managed to punch her in school. In retaliation, she made him dance like a ballerina, minus the tutu. Okay, Michael, solve that problem.
Michael smiled at Emily briefly as if he could read her mind. Her whole body heated, and she felt she’d been immersed in the swamp during the hottest time of the day.
“This hypothesis of mine would form one variable, and it would be my experimental group. My control group would consist of two students with a similar beef, only I wouldn’t act as an intermediary in their case.”
Emily propped her elbow on the desk and rested her head on her hand. Her gaze centered on Michael while she considered his words. Now, that would be interesting, finding two cases where the one bullying the other was made a fool of through the use of mind control.
“Afterward, I would record the result of the experiment. Then I would check the results by conducting a similar experi
ment using mediation in one instance, and none in the other.”
Emily glanced around the room to see the kids listening with rapt attention. Did Michael get the answer right? That’s what she read flitting across their minds.
“Lastly, I would report my findings. Maybe even institute new school policies to ensure kids could resolve their differences in a more agreeable way.”
Mrs. Johnson smiled. “Very good, Michael. Anyone else have an example?”
No one said a word.
Michael gave Emily an all-knowing look. Had he noticed Red’s interest in bullying her after all? Nah, guys were never that observant. Yet, he had taken her hand and pulled her into class as if attempting to protect her.
Mediation. Hmph. That would be the day. People like Red, Daniel, and Rocky needed reform school, tough love…or the threat of someone yielding a very big club. Not mediation.
The light in the hallway flickered, drawing her attention. The hall was silent and empty, but she swore cold air spilled into the room underneath the door.
The first bell rang, jangling her nerves, already on edge. Everyone hurried out of class, all except for Emily and Michael.
“Anything wrong?” he asked, grabbing his book bag.
“No, nothing.” She attempted a smile, but her stomach was somersaulting. If the school had a poltergeist, it was probably benign. Nothing to worry about, yet it didn’t chase away the bad vibes she was getting.
When they exited the class, she expected Michael to call the hospital to check on his grandmother, but instead he walked her to the next room. “Can I ask you something, Emily?”
Just the way he said her name made her shudder with anticipation. “Sure.”
“Where do you live?”
Did he want to see her after school? Maybe he would ask her to the fall dance after all. One day at a time, Emily. “Sunset Development.”
He twisted his mouth.
“Is something wrong, Michael?”
“Which street?”
“Sunrise Drive.”
“At the entrance of the new development where the bulkhead for the canal ends and across the two-lane road from where the…”