* * *
I woke up the next morning feeling restless and groggy. I couldn’t remember my dream from the night before, but I had a feeling it hadn’t been a pleasant one. It took me forever to get ready for school, so Mom ended up taking me on her way to work. The public high school, since it had so many students, started classes at different times throughout the day. Mom’s first English class didn’t start until later in the morning. This is why I usually got a ride with Thomas or Tully, but on those special occasions when I was running late, Mom was my chauffeur.
“You’ll have to catch a ride home with a friend though Meg. There’s a teachers’ meeting at the high school this afternoon.”
I nodded as I pulled myself out of her car in the parking lot of Black Lake High. The final bell had already rung, and I had to visit the office for a tardy slip. I was never tardy to school, so the whole situation put me in a bad mood for the rest of the morning.
At break Tully and Robyn caught up to me.
“Where were you this morning?” Tully asked.
“Slept in,” was all I said. It was the truth after all, and I didn’t feel like elaborating.
At lunch we met up with Will and Thomas out on the field. To my complete horror and agitation, Adam Peders and Josh Turner were on the opposite end, showing off for a posse of freshman girls. The girls were giggling and falling all over themselves because of the attention they were getting from the two hottest junior boys in the school.
Robyn rolled her eyes and started making barnyard animal sounds. It was the first time I smiled all day. Telling myself to forget about the boys, I sat down with my friends under a tall pine tree and started sifting through my lunch.
Everything was going fine until a familiar voice shouted, “Hey Elam.”
I cringed and felt Tully tense up next to me.
Adam sauntered up, his friends following just behind him. Lemmings, I reminded myself, trying not to let my fear show. They’re just a bunch of brainless, follow-one-another-off-a-cliff lemmings . . .
“I heard you were thinking about getting some plastic surgery.”
I did not want to deal with this today.
“Why, what’s wrong with her?” Josh asked, supplying the next line to what I was sure was going to be an insult.
“Someone told me she was born with her ass where her face is supposed to be. But I don’t see how fixing it could make a difference.”
It was like someone had poured lukewarm bacon grease all over me while kicking me in the stomach at the same time.
I barely registered Robyn jumping up and practically screaming, “Piss off Peders!” or Thomas standing to defend me, only to be shoved back by one of Adam’s friends while being fed his very own offensive insult.
Above it all, I could hear the laughter. The freshmen girls giggling and pointing, the other bystanders either shaking their heads in shame or trying to hide their grins.
Suddenly, something inside me snapped. Normally, I would sit in mortification and wait for my tormenters to leave. This time, although I remained sitting, a bone-deep anger began to boil within me. I glared at Adam but he just crossed his arms and simply smirked back, as if to say ‘what are you going to do about it?’
After a silent standoff that lasted a mere few seconds, he snorted and turned to leave, muttering something else to his friends. I didn’t hear it this time, but the chorus of chuckles made me believe it wasn’t anything pleasant.
“Meg, forget those chauvinist pigs,” Robyn was saying.
But I wasn’t paying attention to her. I kept glaring after Adam, my anger rising. I glanced at the few pinecones scattered on the ground around us, still green and not cracked open by the autumn’s heat. I wished with all my might that I could pick up one of those heavy cones and launch it at Adam’s head. If only . . .
I knew right away that my anger must have triggered my imagination, because I pictured one of those cones rising up and flying through the air, making a bee line for the back of Adam’s head.
A strange gasp from Tully, and Robyn’s shocked face as she pointed numbly at the airborne pinecone, was the only evidence proving that I wasn’t imagining anything. The cone cracked against the back of Adam’s head and he went sprawling, face first on the dirt track.
My face drained of all color and my heart almost stopped beating. I had killed him. Somehow I had made that pinecone fly through the air and it killed him! For once in my life, I actually felt like I was going to faint. Fortunately, the crowd that had swarmed around Adam backed away and I could see him struggling to sit up. He looked pretty ticked off and when he pulled his hand away from the back of his head, there was blood. He didn’t look like he had suffered a concussion, though.
I sighed in relief and almost melted into the grass. I hated Adam, but I didn’t want a murder on my hands. It took a few more seconds for my mind to clear, and when it did, it dawned upon me that I had absolutely no idea how I had made the pinecone launch itself at my mortal enemy. Had I really done it? Used some form of telekinetics I unknowingly possessed? I guess it could be true, especially knowing what I’d already witnessed and been a part of this year so far.
“Where did that pinecone come from?” Will asked, his voice breaking into my thoughts.
“Robyn, did you throw it?” Tully whispered.
“No!” Robyn insisted. She gave me a disturbed look, and I merely shrugged, feeling immensely nervous and guilty.
“I’m sitting on the ground. If I had thrown it, the angle would have been greater.” Right? I hoped that made sense. I bit my lip. I felt terribly uncomfortable about the whole thing. Besides, I hadn’t actually thrown it, and if I did admit it, Adam would probably kill me for making a fool out of him in front of half the school.
“Meghan Elam threw it at Adam, I saw her.”
I closed my eyes, wishing for some angel of death to sweep down and take me away.
Robyn hissed beside me. “That bitch!”
She sure was laying on the curse words thick today.
Michaela stepped forward with Veronica and Therese, two other girls from the cheerleading squad.
But no one was looking at them. They were all looking at me. I was screwed.
“Come on Meghan,” Thomas murmured as he helped me to my feet.
I stood, a little shaky as a result of all the high drama. I didn’t know how he thought he was going to protect me. We were sorely outnumbered. And my mom had thought a private school was safer than a public one. At least at a public high school I could have hidden myself in the crowd.
With the help of his friends, Adam stood up and glared so hard at me I suffered from whiplash.
“You are so dead you stupid bitch,” he said loud enough only for those closest to him to hear.
I cringed. Should I hope for another pinecone to fly at him? No, that might actually kill him this time.
Before he could make his move, however, the bell signaling the end of lunch sounded shrilly across the campus. At least I could enjoy a few more hours of life before Adam Peders sought his revenge.
Faelorehn - Book One of the Otherworld Trilogy Page 8