by Diana Wagman
He played with my fingers. “Still itching?”
“Not at all.”
“Right as rain,” he nodded. “Isn’t that what you said?”
I blushed, mortified that he chose to remember that of all things.
“Don’t be embarrassed. It’s perfect.” He looked up at the darkening sky. “Rain is always exactly right.”
I didn’t want him to let go of my hand, but everything he said was a little confusing. He had blond, curly hair that was casually messy and I wondered if he worked hard to make it look that way. His jeans were expensive, if well worn, and he wore nice sneakers and a gray sweater that looked like cashmere. A blue T-shirt exactly the color of his eyes was just visible around the neck of the sweater. That T-shirt was definitely on purpose. He knew how good-looking he was and in my experience—okay, in books I’d read—guys like that were not to be trusted. I didn’t know anything about him, I’d never even heard of Hayden College, and more importantly, no one knew where I was.
“When is this experiment thing going to start?” I forced my voice not to quaver.
“Soon.” He saw my discomfort and apologized. “I’m just curious, so curious.”
“About what?”
“You.” He did seem to be studying me. He smiled. “How did the itch begin?”
I groaned. I really didn’t want to talk to him about that. “It went away.” I hoped that was enough, but he was persistent.
“Did it come on slowly? Gradually? Like a little tickle first, then a little more?”
Maybe if I told him we could move on to a more interesting subject. “It started out of nowhere,” I said. “In the middle of History class. The bottom of my foot. Bang. Like that. Like an explosion on my foot, followed by a fire everywhere.”
“Bang,” he almost whispered it. “You’re lucky.”
“I am?”
“A strong itch means a strong reaction.”
“To what?”
“To turning eighteen.”
Birthdays didn’t cause itching, did they? And how did he know I was about to turn eighteen? I supposed Principal Hernandez could have told him I was almost eighteen. I was a senior. The experiment was about applying for college. It wasn’t so far fetched.
“I’m nervous,” I said. “About graduating. Moving away from home. Were you nervous when you went to college?”
“You’ll be fine. I think you’re made for this.”
“Made for what?” Okay, now he was creeping me out.
“Do you like the outdoors?”
I wasn’t going to tell him. It was time to go home, past time. Lots of serial killers are attractive; I remembered that from the psycho-murderer show on PBS.
“I have to go,” I said. “I told my dad I wouldn’t be long.” I tossed my hair back and Walker’s grip tightened.
“What’s that on your neck?”
With my free hand, I touched the red mark I had seen in the mirror. It was raised, bumpy, and kind of hot to the touch. “I don’t know. I must’ve scratched myself.”
“Was there someone at your house today?”
“My dad.”
“Anyone else?”
“This kooky woman.”
He frowned and waited for me to go on, but I didn’t want to tell him about my dad and Madame Gold.
“I must’ve bumped into something.” I stood up, pulled my hand from his and immediately shivered as if an ice cube had dripped down my spine. I wanted his warm hand back, but I turned away. “Thank you. Maybe we can try this at school one day.”
“I’m not here long.” He paused. “Four days. Tops.”
I shrugged and stepped back toward the parking lot.
“Yoo hoo!” A girl’s voice rang out across the park. “Walker! October!”
It was Luisa and Jed, her tall, skinny boyfriend. They tossed the Frisbee back and forth as they walked toward us.
“What is she doing here?”
“She’s part of the experiment,” Walker said.
I sighed. Next to Luisa’s shiny dark hair and lovely long legs, I faded away.
“You didn’t think you’d be the only one, did you?” Walker asked. “What kind of experiment would that be?”
Across the park I saw the puking kid from the nurse’s office riding his bike in our direction. “Him too?”
“Chris Lee. Yes.”
“You just took everybody who went to the nurse.”
“Pretty much.” He smiled at me and stood up. “I need you all to have something in common.”
“Luisa wasn’t even really sick. And I just had an itch. And this kid is too young for college. Plus he’s going to give us all the stomach flu.”
“Trust me,” Walker said.
I took a step away from him and crossed my arms in front of my chest, but he moved closer.
“Don’t worry,” he whispered. “You are why we’re here.”
“What does that mean?”
“October.”
“Yes?”
“Answer a question?”
“Is this finally part of the experiment?”
He nodded, but I was not prepared for the question. He looked into my eyes and asked, “When you have your first kiss, what should it be like?”
I blushed to my toes. Was it so flipping obvious that I’d never been kissed? How did he know? The itch was tingling, threatening to erupt again.
“Tell me,” he said. “What do you want it to be?”
His blue eyes had darkened into pools of inviting water. I could fall into them. I could fall in and never come up.
“I don’t want much.” I shrugged, tried to laugh, tried to be so much cooler and experienced than I was. “When someone kisses me, I expect the earth to move.”
“The earth to move,” he repeated. “Not much at all.” He didn’t smile.
“Hey. Let’s get this party started.” It was Jeb.
The connection between us broke and he turned to the others. I hoped no one noticed my red, embarrassed face. And then, worse, my stomach growled. I was flustered and suddenly I was starving and to top it off I had to pee. His experiment didn’t make any sense. What did first kisses have to do with going to college? I waved at Luisa and motioned I was going to the bathroom. Walker didn’t seem to notice as I walked away. He was busy shaking hands with Jed and little Chris, or Green, as I would forever think of him. I was cold and hurried over to the stucco park building. A gust of wind whipped my hair into my eyes blinding me.
I stumbled over a rock and somehow startled two crows. They flapped up in front of me, squawking. “Hey!” I cried as they circled my head and landed right in front of the door to the women’s room. “Scram!” I waved my arms.
They just cawed back at me and in my imagination I heard them teasing me, “we’re gonna get you.” Why would a crow want to get me? I thought of the crow in my yard, pecking at the dead cat. Crows are my least favorite bird, and one of the most common. They are everywhere in the United States. Corvus brachyrhynchos, a fancy Latin name for a flying rat. So black, so big, and they make that horrible noise. I know they steal the eggs from other birds and sometimes even kill and eat the young chicks. That makes them cannibals. Disgusting. But I was never afraid of a crow until the two in front of the bathroom. They stared at me, turning their heads this way and that to see me from each beady black eye. I stamped my feet. They didn’t move. I really had to go to the bathroom. They were just a couple of birds. I stepped toward them reaching for the door handle and they attacked. They flew at me, wings beating the air. One of them landed on my shoulder and then hopped up and got its talons caught in my hair. The other one clawed up my leg and pecked at my thigh. I spun and slapped at them, but they attacked my hands. All the while I could have sworn I heard them speaking to each other, cheering each other on.
Then Walker was there, swinging at them with a tree branch. The birds backed off, but they didn’t leave. They circled me until Green and Jed ran forward shouting with big sticks and they and W
alker chased the two crows across the park. Green took a straw out of his back pocket and blew something, a rock or a bead, at one of them. He hit it, the crow gave a little squeal, “that hurt!” and fled, the other one following, and Jed and Green high-fived each other.
I put my head between my knees. I had imagined I could understand them. Not that it was difficult to figure out what a crow would say, but between that and the attack, the scratches and peck marks, I was dizzy.
“Has that ever happened before?” Walker ran up to me.
“Yeah, of course. Crows attack me all the time.”
“You should have asked me to go with you.”
“To the bathroom?”
“Or take Luisa.”
“Good idea,” I scoffed. “Luisa, who seems to have disappeared. Bet she’s hiding under a picnic table.”
“Here I am.” Luisa came out of the bathroom with her ever-present Frisbee. “All clear,” she said to Walker.
And then I screamed as she let her Frisbee fly. I ducked, turned and saw her Frisbee smack into a final crow coming my way. The crow squealed—as much as a crow can—and flew away fast. An impressive, perfect shot. I’d never seen a Frisbee used as a weapon before. Then again, I’d never been attacked by crows before either.
Luisa trotted over to get her Frisbee. I looked from her to Walker to Green and Jed and back around again. They were all staring at me. Green cocked his head like a puppy, as if something about me was puzzling. He turned to Walker.
“That was interesting.”
Luisa said, “Your dad makes birdhouses, doesn’t he?”
“He does. And I like birds too. Really.” On cue, two small birds tweeted above me. I looked up. “Cactus wrens, campylorhynchus brunneicapillus.”
“Huh?” asked Jed.
“My one skill. For some reason I remember all the Latin names.”
The little birds were pretty with speckled bellies and darker stripes of brown on their wings. They looked at me one way and then the other.
“We won’t let them hurt her,” said one.
“Hate those crows,” said the other.
“Me too. Me too. Me too.”
I was sure I was losing my mind. “I have to go home.”
“But we only just got here,” Green said.
“You can’t go now,” Jeb echoed.
“Don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to you.” Walker said. He gestured at the others. “We won’t.”
I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe he and they could really truly take care of me. Mostly, I wanted to curl myself against his soft gray sweater and into his arms. My want was tangible; I felt it like the breeze on my skin, or my hunger, or my need to pee. I didn’t like the feeling. I blinked my eyes to stop the tears.
“Turning eighteen wasn’t such a big deal for me,” Luisa said to Walker.
“She’s very strong. We don’t know what’s going to happen.”
I turned to him. “I thought you had questions for me about college.”
Luisa looked incredulous. “You still want to go to college?”
“I want to be a veterinarian, maybe a zoologist. Or an ornithologist. You know, study birds. I love animals.”
Walker shook his head. “You don’t have to go to school to do that.”
“That’s like me saying you don’t have to go to school to study people. Isn’t that what psychology is? The study of people’s behaviors and feelings?” I started for my car. “You need to take a few more classes.”
Walker came with me. “I’ll follow you.”
“I’m fine.”
“I’m following you home.”
I didn’t argue. He could do what he wanted. I couldn’t wait to be back in my own room, alone and inside, away from birds and people, reading a book and listening to music. Walker walked beside me, but he didn’t say anything. I felt the warmth radiating from him. I looked up searching for crows and saw those two little brown cactus wrens hopping along branch-to-branch above us. Nuts. This day had been plain nuts.
I opened the door of my dad’s beat-up car and Walker continued over to a lovely silver Porsche. Some college student, I thought.
“Listen,” I said. “I don’t want to be part of your experiment.”
He nodded. I had expected a fight, but he gave up right away. “Okay,” he said. “Maybe that wasn’t the best idea. I’m sorry.”
Him being nice was worse than when he was a jerk. He was so incredibly cute. Then I caught a glimpse of my reflection. There was a big scrape down my forehead and flecks of blood on my cheek. I looked terrible. Quickly, I jumped into my car and shut the door.
He followed me all the way home, and waited in front of the house until I parked and went in my front door. By the time I looked out the window, he had gone.
4. Three Days Until My Birthday
I woke up the next morning itching again, this time centered on the top of my right foot. I itched so badly I could almost ignore the embarrassment and pain I felt when I thought about Walker. I’d been an idiot the day before, scared of a couple crows and then going home like a sullen baby. I hoped I’d see him at school so I could apologize. There were lots of other senior girls going to college and I tried not to think about him sitting on a bench with one of them.
I gritted my teeth, from the itch or the image or both. I poked my foot out from under the covers and saw I had scratched it practically raw. There were long red scrapes and a bizarre, almost flower-shaped bruise on my ankle. It would have almost been pretty if it didn’t itch so badly. I hobbled to the shower, stopping to check the cut on my forehead in the mirror. It was an inch and a half long and scabbed over. Gross. And just as suddenly as the day before, the itch stopped. Gone. Vanished. Poof. If only the cut on my face could have disappeared as easily.
I dressed for school—and a possible Walker sighting—carefully. I wore my new jeans and my purple T-shirt that fit perfectly and my second hand, but cool black leather jacket. In case the itch returned, I left my big boots at home and wore a little pair of flats I’d bought myself. My mom hated them. I don’t know why, but she was partial to my big old boots. Go figure. In the flats my feet felt light and nimble—not usual for me. In fact, as I walked up the steps into school my whole body seemed to be floating into the air. Maybe I had been wearing those boots too much.
But at school it seemed every kid had heard about my itch. Total strangers asked me about it in the hall. “How’s that itch?” and “Scratch much?” One girl offered me a bottle of lotion. I thought she was being nice until all her friends cracked up. The handwritten label read Miss October’s Centerfold Itch Cream. I did my best to ignore everyone. I ducked into English class just after the bell and was relieved Luisa wasn’t there.
Half way through class—which was actually kind of interesting for a change—the door opened and Principal Hernandez entered with a new kid. A guy. He looked around the class and then at me. Right at me. Immediately I felt a little twinge in my gut, as if there was a string attached to my belly button and he was tugging on it.
“Class, attention.” Hernandez bounced up and down. He always sort of stood on his tippy-toes. We all knew it was a sign of sexual frustration. He continued bouncing as he said, “This is Trevor Rockman. He’s going to finish his senior year with us.”
Hernandez handed some paperwork to Ms. Campbell, the English teacher, while Trevor kind of smiled at all of us but mostly me. Dark, shaggy hair and high cheekbones, dark olive skin, full lips, and eyes like smoldering coals. Okay, I’d read that in a romance novel and it wasn’t his eyes—I was the one smoldering. Something had definitely revved up my pheromones; I was hot and bothered, first for Walker and now this guy. I blushed and looked down. Ms. Campbell offered him the empty seat behind me and to my right. He walked down the aisle and stopped at my desk. I looked up.
“What happened to your forehead?”
“Killer crow attack.” It sounded ridiculous. I don’t know why I didn’t lie and say somethin
g awesome, like motorcycle accident.
“Not going for a Harry Potter look?”
I laughed. “Definitely not.”
He laughed with me. “It’s kind of cute.” And continued to his seat.
Forget whatever Ms. Campbell said after that, he was all I could think about. Right behind me. I heard every move. Every exhale. I heard his pen scratching in his notebook. When class was over, I was disappointed he rushed out of the room, but then I found him leaning against the opposite wall. He was waiting for me.
“What’s your name?”
“October. Really.” I added that before he could ask.
“Very nice,” he said. “Really.”
English class was right before lunch and I found myself walking with him toward the cafeteria. He wasn’t very tall, and he wasn’t drop dead gorgeous or anything, kind of thick with big feet and hands to tell the truth, but he had my motor racing. As we went down the hall, the other kids looked him over, but seemed only as interested as they would be in anyone new. I was the only one having trouble breathing.
“Hungry?” he asked.
“Not very.”
He took my arm and pulled me outside to the breezeway. It stretched between the classroom building and the gym and was where kids used to hang out to smoke back when smoking was allowed. Now it was just a place to gather, smoking forbidden of course, and all the little cliques had their areas. The fountain was for the popular girls so they could sit down together and the sunlight could show off their salon highlights. The corner by the gym was of course for the jocks. The stoners sort of drifted on the steps down to the parking lot. Trevor and I stopped by an empty pillar.
“Tell me all the school secrets,” he said. “Who are these people?”
“Your companions for the next three months of your life.” I dropped my voice as I nodded at various kids. “She’s most likely to end up in jail. He’s most likely to fail 11th grade—again. That one? Most likely to be pregnant before graduation. Probably just like the kids at your last school. Why did you transfer so late in the year?”
“Usual. My dad’s job.”
“You’ve moved a lot.”
He nodded. He looked kind of sad and I wanted to say something comforting. It had to be hard to come into a school so late.