“Thanks,” I said, “but I wouldn’t want to owe you anything.”
Astrid shrugged and unrolled the coat she’d been carrying over her arm, throwing it over her shoulders. It was a man’s navy cashmere blazer that I’d last seen when Timothy had slipped Dr. Erdos’s article into the inner pocket. “Have it your way,” she said, making a big show of turning up the collar around her face. She was enjoying this.
“Nice jacket,” I said, not at all sincerely.
“Oh, this? It’s Tim’s. I was freezing, so I grabbed it out of his locker,” she prattled. Then, to Eli, she said, “Timothy and I used to sort of be together, so we shared a locker. It was totally casual, but now it’s over and we’re just friends.” Again, Eli reddened and averted his eyes. “Anyway, I was looking for a sweater or something and was surprised to see he left this coat in there. Kind of careless, if you ask me. I’m not sure you can exactly trust everyone at this school.” As she spoke, she looked at me and patted her side where I knew the jacket’s inner pocket was, the pocket that held the article I’d given to Timothy.
My breath became very shallow and panicky. If sweating had been something I did much, my palms would have been slick. Instead, I felt a painful shock in both of my hands as Astrid put her fingers up to Eli’s cheek, caressing it. “See how cold I am? I can never get warm! That’s why I was saying, before Jane got here, that maybe instead of a football game, you could take me to a movie. How’s Friday?”
“Friday. Friday … is good. Okay,” droned Eli. The second Astrid removed her hand, the current between the three of us stopped humming. Clearly, she’d wanted to show me that maybe I’d made an assumption about exactly how powerful she was. Point taken.
“Then I’ll see you Friday,” she purred, turning on the heel of her premium-leather boot. She began to walk away before tossing one last remark over her shoulder at me. “And about your … disorder … Jane? I might know of this Hungarian doctor who’s come up with a cure.”
We both watched her walk away, before Eli turned to me, the fogginess slowly disappearing from his eyes. If he had still been upset with me, his annoyance seemed now to be outweighed by concern. For me. After a moment, he said, “What disorder? What was she talking about, Jane? Are you okay?”
I wasn’t. I wasn’t okay at all. Between our earlier run-in in Ms. Smithburg’s room and her showing up here with Timothy’s jacket, throwing around words like doctor and cure, Astrid had delivered her message loud and clear. Though she couldn’t know everything, she knew at least something about Timothy’s plan and my involvement and she was not going to just go away. “I … I … um,” I faltered, trying to come up with something, anything, to say to Eli.
“You’re crying,” Eli whispered.
Astonished, my hand flew up to my face. For the first time in I couldn’t remember how long, a lone fat, salty teardrop was rolling down my cheek. I wiped at it and looked at my fingers, relieved to see just a glistening, clear wetness. Obviously, my huge meal from the morning had been enough to help produce a one-tear meltdown. It was when Eli squeezed my other hand that I realized we were still attached. I also realized that, much like I had been sending these weird psychic vampire waves into Eli to help interrupt Astrid’s vampiric whammy, he was now sending these weird psychic Eli waves into me, giving me the little bit of strength I needed to pull myself together. I looked up into his eyes. “I’m sorry. I have a lot of … personal … stuff going on right now. I don’t think I’ll be able to work on our project today,” I said.
“I totally get it,” Eli said, shaking his head. “I totally understand. You gotta do what you gotta do. Don’t worry about the project right now. We’ve still got plenty of time.”
Plenty of time. What a crazy concept. Up until now, my life had been nothing but roaming around and killing time. Now I had about forty-eight hours to figure out if I was brave enough to leave my family behind and start an entirely new life with someone I barely knew. Oh, and during the next two days of weighing my eternal fate, maybe I could use my spare time to figure out exactly why a teacher seemed to be dogging me, possibly with the help of her evil assistant, Astrid! Also, I had a French quiz that I was definitely not going to ace unless I studied. It was time to prioritize.
“Thanks,” I said, slowly withdrawing my hand from Eli’s. He curled his freckled fingers closed on his empty palm like he was trying to trap the feeling of my hand inside his. I added another priority to my list: make sure Eli didn’t wind up dazed and drained on a movie-theater floor come Friday night. Not if I could help it. I gathered my backpack and walked out the cafeteria door just as the warning bell rang to let everyone know that time was almost up.
Out in the hallway, I walked through the swelling crowd of students to my locker to unload my books and pick up my gym clothes. I looked at myself in the magnetic mirror stuck to the inside of my locker door. Even though I felt shaky and scared, my face looked cool and calm. I was formulating a plan that was so crazy, it just might get me close-to-killed. Or suspended! There was also a slight chance it might work, if I didn’t screw anything up.
In the girls’ locker room, I chose a bench near the back corner, where I quickly changed out of my jeans and into my sweatpants. I wasn’t trying to be extra-inconspicuous just because I was on a mission, I was trying to be extra-inconspicuous because my bra was tiny and my underwear was eleven years old and I didn’t want anyone to see me almost naked. I stuffed my jeans into my backpack and walked upstairs to take a seat on the bleachers.
My gym teacher was Mrs. J. I don’t know what J stood for. I don’t think anybody had ever dared to ask. Just as puzzling as the mysterious J part of her name was the Mrs. part. She wore no wedding ring on her thick, tan fingers and try as hard as I might, I could not imagine any person of any kind agreeing to live with her and watch TV with her and share a bathroom with her. I pictured her wearing her huge sneakers to bed after drinking raw eggs for dinner. She was tough and prickly, and I’m not even making a joke about her numerous chin hairs, which were not her fault but which also didn’t help matters.
I had hoped to step up and speak with Mrs. J before class began, but I could see through her office window that she was leaning back, talking on the phone, with her blinding white size tens up on the desk. She didn’t look like she was going to move anytime soon.
The bell rang and the bleachers filled with other girls as we all sat waiting for Mrs. J to emerge. When she did, an ear-splitting tweet from her silver whistle signaled us to stand. “All right, everybody. Get in five rows of five, five feet apart. We’re going to stretch and warm up for indoor soccer.” There were a few groans, but very quiet ones, as everybody walked out onto the court. I hung back and slowly sidled up to Mrs. J.
“Mrs. J,” I said weakly, “I don’t think I’ll be able to play soccer today.” Mrs. J looked at me through the brown lenses of her glasses, which were the kind that magically darkened depending on how bright the light you were in. They weren’t dark enough that I couldn’t see her glaring at me.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked.
“It’s my stomach. I’m having really bad cramps,” I lied. Actually, it wasn’t an enormous lie. My stomach was churning, but it was mostly out of fear. Still, it was kind of like method acting.
“Oh, you’ve got your friend?” asked Mrs. J.
I looked around to see who she was talking about. “No, it’s just me,” I replied stupidly. One girl on the gym floor overheard and stopped her lazy stretching to elbow her neighbor. They both guffawed.
“No,” Mrs. J said impatiently, “is your aunt visiting?” A little too late, I realized she was asking if I had my period. Of course, by now, every other girl in class was occupied with eavesdropping on our conversation while convulsing with silent laughter at my stupidity.
“No, I just have cramps,” I said. I could feel the anger and humiliation rising in me.
“So you’re not menstruating,” Mrs. J finally said, so loudly that my classmate
s could no longer contain their hysteria. Their jeering made it feel like the walls were closing in on me. For a second I wished that I could turn on all of them and bare my fangs. I pictured myself sinking my teeth into this girl Ally McNally’s spray-tanned neck while she screamed for her two best friends, Allie and Ali, to help her. And then what would I do? Go into a blood-induced anaphylactic shock as a bunch of humans snapped pictures of me with their cell-phone cameras to put on their Tumblrs? I needed to calm down and end this conversation ASAP so that I could get on with my plan. The old me, of a few days ago, might have backed down, but the new me wasn’t such a wimp. If Mrs. J was actually trying to embarrass me, maybe it was best to fight fire with embarrassing fire.
“No,” I responded defiantly, “my periods are extremely irregular. In fact, it’s been a long time since I last had one.” Mrs. J’s lips tightened in discomfort as I spoke and the girls from my class had gone from shrieking with laughter to just tittering. Maybe they all decided I was less funny-crazy and more scary-crazy. Good. Because if you thought about it, I had something like nine hundred months’ worth of PMS coming to me and now was as good a time as any to use some of it. I continued, even louder, for everyone’s benefit. “The pain isn’t in my uterus or pelvic area. My genitals are fine. But I am having some intense cramping.” Mrs. J’s jaw had gone slack from my graphic description. “So, may I go to the nurse now?” I asked, with what sounded to me like an edge of actual menace in my voice. It felt awesome.
“Get a pass off my desk and go,” said Mrs. J, obviously eager to shut me up. I tuned everything out except the squeaks of my Chuck Taylors crossing the polished wood floor. As I took a pass from Mrs. J’s desk, the bleat of her whistle reverberated off the brick walls and steel beams of the gym. Normal PE activity had resumed, but I was out the door. The first step of my ten-step mission had been a less-than-rousing success, but I’d done it. Step two was figuring out what steps three through ten actually were.
ten
I heard a knock on my bedroom door and before I even had a chance to say, “Yeah?” Zachary barged in, pushed open the dark drapes on my canopy bed, and sat on the edge of my mattress. I’d given up on hoping that his manners would improve decades ago. “Hey,” he said, “I’m sorry I was a jerk at breakfast this morning.” For a second, I was stunned, then I got wise.
“Did Ma make you come and say that?” I asked.
“Of course she did,” he replied. “She was worried because you’ve been all mopey ever since you got home from school. She thinks it’s because you’re pissed at me.”
“Not really. I know you can’t help yourself,” I said, mussing his already-mussed mop of hair.
“But I am sorry,” he said, trying to duck my hand. “Hey, I’ve been working on another idea for your blood-intolerant thing, J.”
“You have? Tell me about it,” I said.
“Okay, so blood types are a classification of blood based on the presence or absence of inherited antigenic substances on the surface of red blood cells, right?” he rattled excitedly. “Some blood types make A antigens, some make B antigens, some make H antigens, which is important because in order to receive, like, a blood donation, a person has to get the type of blood that matches the antigens present on the surfaces of their other cells and tissues, y’know?”
Honestly, he had lost me a while ago. I was a good student, for sure, but science wasn’t really my thing. Maybe it’s because I had learned the hard way that what science does not know about certain things is a lot. For example, a Nobel Prize–winning geneticist might tell me that I don’t exist. Which, I happen to know, is false. I also never really enjoyed dissecting things, possibly because I’ve often worried about being caught and dissected myself. So, no, I didn’t know, but I was enjoying listening to his squeaky little voice spout facts.
“So, when we were … you know … transformed, I think something went haywire with you that basically killed whatever antigens were on the surfaces of your tissues. Not sure how that happened. Of course, if you were willing to submit to a biopsy …”
“No, I don’t think I want you coming after me with a vegetable peeler,” I said, punching his arm.
“Ugh, fine.” He sighed. “Anyway, my theory is that if I could find a way to extract some HH antigen from the Bombay blood we have in the freezer, stabilize it and grow it, then recombine it with common blood plasma through plasmapheresis …” He continued breathlessly, “Do you know what that would mean?”
I frowned. “I don’t. Tell me in English.”
“It would mean that we could have an endless supply of blood … of food … for you. You could feed on more than just a drop every few days. If it worked, you could feed all you wanted. Maybe put a little juice in your caboose!” he exclaimed. I smacked his arm. Brothers should not be talking about their sisters’ cabooses under any circumstances. “Well, what do you think?”
“I think I am lucky, and I also think I have the best little brother in the world,” I said. It was true. My brother was loud and often obnoxious, but he had this incredible gift, and he chose to use it trying to figure out a way to make my life better. Not a lot of vampire or human girls can say that.
“I don’t want to get your hopes up too high,” he admitted. “I believe it’ll work, but it’s gonna take time. Not to mention using up some of the Bombay we have stored for you. But if I can make it happen, it could really change things,” he said seriously. He was right. Not only would it be possible that I might gain strength, it would also make purchasing blood products on the black market so much simpler and less expensive for our parents.
“I love you, Zach,” I said, swallowing hard on the lump in my throat. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some homework to slog through. Not everyone in the family can be such a brainiac.”
“Okay,” he said, getting up. “I’ll update you on my findings. Let me know if you change your mind about the biopsy,” he said, wiggling his fingers in front of him like a mad scientist in a scary movie.
I threw a pillow after him as he ran out of my room and closed the door, leaving me alone on my bed. Even though I’d already swallowed one lump, I had a brand-new one in my throat. Here my little brother had been thinking of ways to help me, while I’d been thinking of ways I might leave him and the rest of my family behind forever. Actually, if I was being honest, I’d been thinking of ways to avoid thinking about that so far. I knew I had to give Timothy my answer, and soon, but first there were a few things I needed to sort out. Primarily, what was the damn deal with my history teacher?
For someone who had, prior to that week, never broken a school rule, I’d sure made up for it in two days. I’d become a one-woman crime wave! Okay, maybe just a one-girl minor-infraction machine. Still, I’d gotten pretty bold. After faking sick in gym, I’d passed right by the infirmary and went to the main office. A shiver went through me as I remembered the horrible secretary looking up at me over the tops of her reading glasses.
“Is Mrs. Rosebush here?” I’d asked. “I need to see her right away.”
“Mrs. Rosebush is at a school-district meeting,” she said with her pouchy cheeks quivering. “She won’t be back today.” Snap. I had planned on Rosebush being there. I wasn’t exactly sure what I would do once I got to her, but I hadn’t bargained on dealing with anyone else. Especially not this nasty lady. But I couldn’t really leave without getting what I came for either.
“Okay,” I pressed, “then … do you know if she ever found my file? She said it was missing during my meeting today and—”
“I’m afraid I wouldn’t know the answer to that,” she interrupted. “You’ll have to check back in with Mrs. Rosebush tomorrow.” She went back to shuffling the papers on her desk and I stepped closer. She looked up, jutting her round chin out, not understanding why her dismissal hadn’t worked on me. I leaned down, then reached out and grabbed her fleshy wrist with my thin, cool fingers and looked into her dull gray eyes.
“I’m afraid I can’t
wait until tomorrow,” I said. “That file contains all kinds of private information about me. It’s not good that it’s lost.” It was only my second attempt at trying to glamour anyone, and since this time it was for semi-nefarious purposes, my nerves were acting up. I felt certain that at any moment, this could become an epic fail. I really needed to work on my self-esteem. “You understand, don’t you?”
“I do,” she said dreamily. “I do understand.” That was a relief.
“Good,” I said, not letting go. “Do you think maybe it was accidentally moved? Is there a file-storage room here?”
“There is.” She nodded. “In the basement.”
“Then I need you to go,” I instructed, “and see if my file was mistakenly put down there. Do you remember my name?”
“I don’t know,” she said, softly shaking her head. Of course she didn’t. She knew enough about me to feel like it was okay to treat me like I was a piece of chewed gum on the bottom of her orthopedic shoe, but she hadn’t bothered to learn my name. Either way, it didn’t matter.
“That’s fine,” I said. “Just go down to the basement and look for my file. Do not come back without it. Do you understand me?” I let go of her arm slowly and stepped back. I’d hit her with all that I had, and hopefully it would last for a while.
“Yes,” she said, standing up and getting her cardigan off the back of her chair. She shuffled out of the office trying to button her sweater, but she had missed the bottom hole. She looked sort of insane, and I would have felt bad for her if I had liked her even one little bit. But I didn’t, and I hoped she’d be down there for hours, looking for a file that wasn’t even there. If anyone found her and brought her around, between the misbuttoned outfit and her explanation that she was looking for paperwork on a student whose name she couldn’t remember, I was pretty sure they’d at least make her lie down for a while.
Once she was out of the office, I closed the heavy door after her and turned the lock. I looked out the wire-reinforced window to make sure nobody had seen me, and then pulled the shade down tight. The office seemed so hectic every morning, but by this time in the afternoon, it was pretty quiet, while the students listened to afternoon lectures, dozed off during filmstrips, or quietly gossiped on the basketball court about the weird girl’s freak-out over her cramps. I pushed those thoughts from my mind as I sat down behind the secretary’s desk and started going through her bottom drawer, which was jammed with yellowed papers in browning folders. Was this the second desk I was ransacking within twenty-four hours? I was becoming quite the badass! I spoke quietly to myself as I thumbed through the tabs, “School holiday calendar, medical forms, letterhead, budget, by-laws, education board meeting minutes …” Cripes, hadn’t this woman ever heard of alphabetizing? I didn’t see anything that looked helpful to me. I closed the drawer and briefly checked the next one up, which contained approximately one old leather handbag, twenty pads of blank hall passes, and seven million pens.
Jane Jones Page 9