by Melinda Metz
“I just heard some yelling before, uh, around when Alex was leaving,” he said.
Oooh, very subtle.
“Come on. Let’s go get popcorn.” Isabel stood up and pushed her way past him. “I was a total jerk,” she blurted out as they started down the stairs.
Max didn’t answer. “This is the part where you’re supposed to say that there’s no way I could ever be a jerk of any kind,” she told him, shooting a glance over her shoulder.
“But Isabel, there’s no way you could ever –,” he obediently began.
“Oh, forget it,” she said as she led the way into the kitchen. “We both know that’s not true. If you asked everyone at school to come up with one word that would describe me, you know what it would be.”
“Now, that’s definitely not true,” Max answered. “It might make the top ten, but there’s no way it would be number one.”
Isabel grabbed a bag of popcorn out of the kitchen cabinet, stuck it in the microwave, and hit the button. She stared through the little window. Not that watching the bag expand was all that fascinating. It’s just that it was hard to have this conversation and actually look at Max at the same time. Admitting that she’d done anything wrong wasn’t Isabel’s style. Confessing that she’d treated Alex, a guy she actually cared about, like dog poop was almost impossible.
“Okay, maybe it wouldn’t be number one on everyone’s list. But on Alex’s, definitely.” Isabel leaned closer to the little window. She thought maybe the microwave light was too bright because her eyes were starting to sting.
Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, baby, she thought. It’s the light. Because there’s no way you would cry over Alex, the guy you gave the boot.
“Alex knows you’re really stressed about Michael,” Max told her. She heard him pull out one of the kitchen chairs and sit down. “I’m sure if you called him up and said you were sorry about whatever went down, he’d be fine with it.”
“Even if I broke up with him?” Isabel asked.
“You broke up with Alex?” Max yelped. The kernels of popcorn started to explode.
“Yeah, and I wasn’t exactly sensitive about it, either,” Isabel said, still talking to the microwave.
“Why?” Max asked. “You know what,” he said before she could answer, “it doesn’t really matter. You want him back, right? Just call and say that.”
Isabel waited until the popping died down, then she pulled out the bag and ripped it open. The hot steam burned her fingers as she grabbed a basket off the top of the fridge and dumped the popcorn in. “The thing is, I don’t think I do. Want him back, I mean,” Isabel admitted.
She turned around and shoved the basket of popcorn down in front of Max. She grabbed a handful and stuffed it into her mouth, an unpopped kernel singeing her tongue, making her eyes water again.
“Oh.” Max crammed a huge wad of popcorn into his mouth, and they both just crunched for a minute.
Isabel knew what Max’s next question would be – why didn’t she want him back? Good question. Alex was smart, funny, cute. Not exactly the crème de la crème of high school high society. But still. He’d gotten her through some bad times, really bad times.
But now whenever she was with him, she was thinking about someone else.
How could she tell her brother that she’d gone into Michael’s dream and seen him with his arms around her? How could she explain that had changed everything?
She couldn’t tell Max the raw troth – that recently, every time Alex kissed her, Isabel wondered what it would have felt like if Michael had done the kissing. Yeah, she and Max were pretty close. But he was still her brother. And this wasn’t really something she could talk about to a brother, especially because Michael was Max’s best friend, practically a part of the family. She thought it might give Max the wiggins to think of Michael and his sister like that.
“Did you hear something?” Max asked. He jumped up and peered out the kitchen window. “I think somebody’s out there.”
“I didn’t hear a car, so it can’t be Mom and Dad,” Isabel answered. A bolt of pure hope sizzled through her. Michael? She raced to the front door and dashed outside, Max right behind her.
She saw a figure lying on the front lawn, looking half dead. “Michael!” she screamed. She flew over and dropped to her knees next to him.
But it wasn’t Michael. It was some guy she’d never seen before. About her age. Green, sad eyes. His harsh, ragged breathing. He was really pale.
Max crouched down next to her. He reached out and gently shook the guy’s shoulder. “Are you okay?” he asked. “What in the …”
Isabel jerked up her head as Max’s voice trailed away She saw his eyes widen, then a horrified expression spread across his face.
“Max, what?” she demanded.
He didn’t answer.
“What?” she yelled, jerking his hand away from the guy.
“You’re not going to believe this. I think he’s one of us,” Max told her. “I connected the second I touched him. I saw a pod like ours.” He swallowed hard. “I saw Valenti. A glass cell. I think … I think he’s from the compound.”
Isabel felt all the little hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. “How did he survive it?” she whispered. He had lived her worst fear – being held prisoner at Sheriff Valenti’s mercy
The guy’s eyes flickered open, but an instant later he squeezed them shut again. “Too big,” he whimpered. “Too big.”
“Let’s get him inside,” Max said. He slid his arm under the guy and helped him to his feet. Isabel took the other side, wrapping her arm around his waist. She could feel the guy’s tremors as she and Max walked him toward the house.
“You’re with us now,” Isabel said fiercely. “We’re not going to let anything hurt you again.”
8
Max led the way to the booth in the back corner of Flying Pepperoni, where he had told Liz and Isabel to meet him. It was less crowded back there, but Max was still worried about Adam. He was getting his I’m-about-to-freak expression again.
And Max didn’t blame him. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since Adam had escaped, and he’d already done more new things than most people did in a year. Even stuff as basic as a toaster was strange and amazing to Adam. Yeah, he’d seen pictures of toasters in a book, but he’d never actually used one. He’d loved the popping sound. Max bet between the two of them they’d eaten a loaf of toast that day Max would have eaten even more, just to witness Adam’s pure joy.
“We’ll sit here and wait for everyone else to show up,” Max told Adam as he slid into the booth. Adam slid in across from him. “So, how are you doing? Do you, uh, have any questions or anything?”
“Not really,” Adam answered. He closed his eyes and slid closer to the wall of the booth.
Yeah, he was getting very close to the freak-out zone. Max did a visual sweep of the restaurant. I could use a little help here, guys, he thought. As if in reply to this thought, he saw Liz’s grinning face walk through the restaurant.
“Uh, Adam.” Max waited for Adam to open his eyes, then continued. “This is Liz. I told you about her, remember?”
“Hi,” Adam said nervously. Liz sat next to Max. Adam looked at her and squeezed his eyes shut again.
Liz shot Max a worried look, then she pulled open her bag, rooted around, and pulled out the sunglasses she wore with her Men in Black – style uniform when she was waitressing. She reached across the table and gently slid the glasses on him. He jerked back, startled. “Try opening your eyes now. Everything will look a little less … intense.”
Adam glanced around. Max felt himself relax a bit. Maybe Liz had found a way for Adam to be out in public without risking a meltdown.
“Hey, Adam. I’ve been thinking about you all day,” Isabel said as she hurried up to the booth. She slid in next to him. “How did it go? What did you and Max do?”
Max noticed that with Adam, his sister dropped all her I-am-Princess-Isabel-and-all-must-wo
rshipme garbage. She treated him so tenderly, it was almost bizarre to watch.
“We made toast,” Adam answered. “And Max taught me how to play poker.”
“Great, Max. Toast and poker. I’m glad you covered the essentials. I knew I should have been the one to stay home with him,” Isabel said. “You talked to Adam about not using power, right?”
“Yeah.” Max’s stomach tightened as he remembered that little conversation. “Adam, um, Adam didn’t realize that he comes from another place. He didn’t realize that most people here can’t do the things he can do.”
“What does he know?” Isabel asked.
Max explained what he’d covered with Adam – that he and Isabel and Michael and Adam all came from the same planet and that they were probably the only people on earth who did come from there. And he’d told Adam that he shouldn’t tell anyone this or use his powers. And then there were all the little things – like toast and poker – that Adam had never seen.
But Max hadn’t told Adam what would happen if he did tell people the truth. He didn’t tell him that most people would be afraid of him. Or that some would hate him. Or that some would want to kill him. Max knew he’d have to explain this to Adam sometime soon. But not now. He had enough to deal with.
“Here come Maria and Alex,” Liz said. She scooted closer to Max to make room, and he looped his arm around her shoulders, just like normal guy. Max never thought he’d be able to have this, to have a girl – a human girl – know the truth about him and still love him.
I should tell Adam about me and Liz, he thought. He should know that just because he’s diffferent doesn’t mean he doesn’t get any of the good stuff.
Maria went to sit by Liz, but Alex hooked her by the arm. “Sit here,” he said, nodding toward the spot next to Isabel. An awkward silence lingered as Maria looked at Alex, confused. Postbreakup weirdness, Max thought. They sat down.
“Adam, this is Alex. And that’s Maria,” Max told him. “If you need anything, you can come to any of us. You can talk to any of us about anything. You can ask us any questions. You can –”
“You can trust us,” Alex interrupted.
“Yeah, that basically covers it. You can trust us,” Max agreed.
Adam didn’t say anything. He had to be on complete overload. “We need to decide what to do with Adam,” Max went on. “Who we’re going to say he is, where he’s going to live, what he’s going to do for –”
Max stopped himself. He was talking like Adam wasn’t even there. He had to keep reminding himself that even though Adam acted sort of like a little kid, he wasn’t. “Sorry, Adam,” he said. “I didn’t mean to make it sound like we were just going to decide everything for you. It’s just that you’re pretty much walking into a whole new world.”
“Yeah. It’s a place we’ve lived in all our lives. So we know the basic stuff that you need to get by,” Maria added. “Do you think we could say he was an exchange student? If we did, maybe he could just live with us.” She turned toward Adam. “An exchange student is someone from another country who comes to live and go to school in a different place for a while.”
“Like on TV,” Adam said.
“They didn’t have TV in the compound, so I was teaching him how to channel surf,” Max explained.
“What a mentor,” Isabel said, smiling.
“I don’t know if the exchange student thing would really work. I mean, where would we say he was from?” Max said.
“Delaware?” Alex joked. Isabel flashed him an annoyed look. “Just kidding. You know, kidding,” Alex said.
“We could always take him to the cave,” Max offered.
“I don’t want him so far away. Not all alone,” Isabel answered, her voice rough with emotion.
“We have this little shed out in the backyard that he could stay in until we figure out something better,” Liz told them. “It has electricity and everything because once for two seconds my dad thought he wanted to do carpentry and he bought all these electric tools.”
“What do you think, Adam? Would you mind living there?” Max asked. “You’d have to stay out of sight when Liz’s parents are around.”
Adam looked over at Liz. “I would be close to you?”
“Totally close. I could be out to the shed in three seconds if you needed me,” she promised him.
“That sounds good,” he answered, a slow smile spreading across his face.
Max had felt that same kind of goofy smile on his own face when he looked at Liz. He tried to imagine what it would be like to go sixteen years without ever seeing a girl your own age and then to suddenly be surrounded by them. It might be kind of scary, but fun scary. At least Adam had Liz, Maria, and Izzy to be his training-wheel girls.
“I’m starving. Does anyone actually work here, or are we supposed to take our own order and then make ourselves a pizza?” Alex asked.
“Lucinda Baker is working today. One of you guys take off your shirt. That will get her back here fast enough,” Isabel said.
Adam started to tug off his sweatshirt. “No, no. I was just kidding, Adam,” Isabel said, stopping him midstrip. The entire table broke into laughter. “Lucinda! If you want anything approaching a tip, get back here,” she yelled. Lucinda appeared almost immediately
“So what do we want?” Alex asked. “Adam, what’s your favorite?”
“I don’t know,” Adam answered, tensing up a little.
“They never let him choose his food,” Max told Alex. The second the words were out of his mouth, he realized it was a stupid thing to say.
“He just got out of one of those really strict boarding schools,” Liz jumped in.
“Oooh, you must have been a bad boy,” Lucinda teased. “I like bad boys.”
Uh-oh. Now, Lucinda, she definitely wasn’t a training-wheels girl. She had a whole home page on the web describing the kissing technique of the guys at school that made it very clear she had some pretty high standards. She’d eat little Adam alive.
Before Max had a chance to decide what he should be doing about this Lucinda-Adam situation, Lucinda reached out and ran her fingers down Adam’s cheek, her screaming red nails looking even brighter against his pale skin. By the enthralled look on Adam’s face, Max knew he had connected with her. He’s got to get out of that habit, Max thought.
Adam gave a little jerk. “I like that underwear you have,” he told Lucinda. “The brown ones with the white squiggly lines. It reminds me of a cupcake.”
Max covered his face with his hands. Isabel laughed out loud.
“Hey, how did you know about my underwear?” Lucinda demanded.
Okay, think fast, Max ordered himself. You don’t want Adam ending up in the circus. Or with his own nine hundred number.
“Oh, Lucinda, come on,” Isabel answered, before Max could formulate some kind of excuse. “You have shown way too many guys your underwear to ask that question. You know how guys like to brag.”
“You know what? Could we get that pizza to go?” Max asked.
9
“So, do you want to play truth or dare?” Cameron asked. She leaned back against the glass wall of his cell.
“Do I look like a junior high school girl to you?” Michael answered, although he was already thinking of some pretty interesting ways the game could go.
“Oh, come on,” Cameron begged, bouncing her head against the glass. “I’m so bored.”
“If you keep doing that, you’ll give yourself enough brain damage that you’ll never be bored again,” he answered. She shot him an annoyed look. “Okay, okay,” he relented. “What’s the most embarrassing thing that you’ve ever done? Truth or dare.”
“You’re supposed to ask if I’m a virgin. That’s always the first question,” Cameron teased.
“So are you?” Michael asked. Yeah, it was definitely going to be an interesting game.
“Too late,” she said. “You already asked something. Most embarrassing, most embarrassing. Let’s see …”
“Too many to pick from, huh?” Michael asked. He stretched out on the floor, propping himself up with his elbow.
“Okay, I got it. I was at this party. I was about twelve, I think. And I don’t know why, but we ended up doing this thing where we got in pairs and had to look into the other person’s eyes for a full minute without talking.” Cameron took a deep breath and rushed on. “So anyway, my partner was Sean Wentworth, this guy I had a total crush on. We started looking at each other, and I don’t know exactly what happened, I guess I just got nervous, because I barfed and some of it splattered on him.”
Michael cracked up. He could totally picture it.
“It wasn’t funny,” Cameron said. “I’d been pigging out at the party, and there were these lumps of half-digested pizza and chicken wings and stuff in there. It wasn’t one of those nice, all-liquid deals.”
Michael laughed harder. The story seemed like something Maria might tell him. Not Isabel, though. No way. If Isabel ever had a most embarrassing moment, she definitely wouldn’t describe it down to the lumps of half-digested pizza.
“If you could manage to stop laughing at me, it’s my turn,” Cameron told him.
“Go ahead,” he said, straggling to control himself.
“So are you a virgin? Truth or dare,” Cameron asked.
“Dare,” Michael answered without hesitation.
“You realize you answered the question, whether you think you did or not?” Cameron informed him. “Any guy who wasn’t a virgin would be totally bragging about it.”
He felt his face getting warm. If I’m blushing, then I know for sure what my most embarrassing moment is, he thought.
“I’m one of those sensitive kind of guys who respects women way too much to ever do anything as crude as bragging,” Michael said quickly “Not that I don’t have things I could brag about.”
“Ooohh. I’ll bet you have all kinds of stories about lusty hookups, adoring female fans, and championship football games,” Cameron snapped. “Am I right there, cowboy?”