The Otherworldlies

by Jennifer Anne Kogler

  “Excuse me,” Headmaster Mooney said, bolting down the stairs, his hands draped over the pleats of his pants. Fern couldn’t see Mooney clearly from her position in the back of the chapel. The first four rows, however, could see him quite clearly. He sprinted to the side exit, marked EMERGENCY, now gripping the front of his pants. The entire chapel was buzzing with the excited chatter of an unfathomable event.

  “Headmaster Mooney wet himself!” someone shouted.

  The chapel chatter had turned into an official commotion. Wild laughter reverberated off the chapel walls. It did not take a PhD in psychology to figure out that there was no human behavior more contagious than church laughter.

  Mother Corrigan, showing a good amount of agility, was up at the pulpit and leaning into the microphone within seconds of Headmaster Mooney’s unexpected departure.

  “Quiet down, please.” The ruckus began to subside. “Please. Thank you,” Mother Corrigan said, as serenely as if she hadn’t just witnessed the headmaster of St. Gregory’s scramble out of the chapel with a large wet stain on the front of his pants.

  “I’d like to begin with a short passage from Deuteronomy 31:8: ‘He will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.’” Mother Corrigan looked up from her Bible and took her glasses off. “Now, that’s all well and good,” she continued, “but how do we incorporate faith into our everyday lives?”

  Mother Corrigan had not missed a beat, but Fern promptly tuned her out, able to concentrate on little else but the headmaster’s dramatic exit. She told herself there was no connection between her fantasy and what had just happened. Lindsey turned toward Fern, aghast. The two girls did not speak; Fern’s eyes were wide with guilt.

  Mother Corrigan spoke for fifteen minutes before ending her sermon with a series of hymns.

  Fern filed out of the chapel lost in her thoughts. A few weeks ago, the unremitting sunlight beating down on her would have driven her to tears. But because of Lindsey’s bottles, she felt no ill effects at all. Her mind wandered elsewhere: Could she have possibly affected Headmaster Mooney in that way? Was her imagination poisonous? Fern was learning, in terms of her own life, that the most implausible answer was usually the right one.

  Lindsey gripped Fern’s wrist and pulled her out of line. Fern stumbled along behind as the two rounded the back of the chapel.

  “Follow me,” Lindsey said.

  Fern trailed Lindsey up the steps and toward the library. Lindsey kept walking, turning around every so often to make sure that Fern was following behind her. She pushed through a pair of doors that led to the library. Fern ran to catch up.

  The two girls were now standing in the Hall of Legends. Over a decade ago, an alum by the name of Davis Orbit had donated a sizable amount of money to St. Gregory’s for a new library on the condition that the school would build a foyer dedicated to the “giants of Academia.” It turned out that the donor had a very specific vision for the room. Columns lined the hallway and the marble floor was polished with great care. The gray stone walls were engraved with quotations in Greek characters with their English translations underneath. Three white marble busts stood on each side of the hallway, each resting on its own pedestal, all commissioned by the fanatical donor. Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Pythagoras, Aristophanes, and Homer stared at Fern and Lindsey with their unflinching marble eyes.

  “Why did you drag me in here?” Fern asked.

  “I wanted to go somewhere private,” Lindsey said resentfully. “The last thing I need is half the school watching us.” Her voice echoed off the walls of the hall. “Now,” she continued, “how did you do that?” Her voice sounded exactly as it had when she appeared in the bathroom that day. Only this time her wrath was directed at Fern.

  “Do what?” Fern said, wondering how things had gotten so contentious so quickly. To Fern, the friendship gods seemed to be a pretty fickle bunch.

  “You’re a Poseidon and you know it. How else did you do that to Mooney?”

  “What are you talking about? Poseidon?”

  “Stop messing with me. Who taught you to do that, Fern? When did you find out you were a Poseidon? You’re not really as clueless as you’re acting.” Lindsey grew enraged. “Do you realize how much trouble you could get in if someone from the Alliance finds out you did that in public?”

  “What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything.” Fern narrowed her eyes and stood on the balls of her feet, tense. “Mooney wet his pants. I watched just like everybody else.”

  “You and I both know that Mooney did not wet his pants. That glass of water on the podium was full one second and then next second it was completely empty. You moved that water.”

  “It was the water in the glass?”

  “Don’t play dumb, Fern! Who taught you to do that?”

  “Why are you acting so upset? What’s a Poseidon? Why am I a Poseidon? Why don’t you ever tell me what you know?”

  “I want my bottles back,” Lindsey demanded.

  “What?” Fern was reeling.

  “Don’t say what to me like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  “I don’t have them with me,” Fern said, knowing she couldn’t very well give up what had made such a marked improvement in her life.

  “I can’t believe you tricked me!”

  “I don’t understand why you’re getting so mad, Lindsey. We’re friends!” Fern pleaded.

  “You’re not a friend. You’ve been getting help from someone on the other side. You’re nothing but a dirty Blout, and you’re going to regret it one day,” Lindsey said. Without another word, Lindsey turned her back on Fern and marched away.

  Now that she was all alone, Fern’s resolve melted. “Wait! Lindsey, wait a second! I don’t understand what’s happening to me, you have to believe . . .”

  Her voice trailed off when she realized Lindsey wasn’t coming back. She stood in the Hall of Legends with the marble statues of great men as her only company. She fingered the small W.A.A.V.E. bottle of eyedrops in her front pocket, vowing never to give it up, all the while wondering what significance the words Poseidon, Blout, and Alliance had. Lindsey had hurled them like daggers. What did she mean?

  Exiting the hall, Fern ran down the stairs to the bank of classrooms and tried to spot her twin brother in the crowd. In the past, she had sometimes gone the whole school day without speaking to anybody. But at that moment, Fern McAllister was in desperate need of someone to talk to.

  Chapter 7

  the view from splash mountain

  “Sam!”

  Sam McAllister was standing on the blacktop with painted P.E. numbers on it. He had never seen his twin sister in such a state: she was wild-eyed and out of breath. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I need to talk to you,” Fern wheezed, still panting.

  “Can you believe Mooney took a whiz in chapel?” Sam, along with most of the seventh grade, was still buzzing from the spectacle Headmaster Mooney had made of himself.

  “That’s what I need to talk to you about,” Fern said.

  “Mooney?”

  The warning bell rang four times. Students had exactly four minutes to get to class.

  “I think I made him do it.”

  “You made him do what? Wet his pants?”

  “He gave Lindsey and me a Saturday school.”

  “I saw; I was in line behind you.”

  “Well, after that, I was thinking about all the nasty things that could happen to Headmaster Mooney, and one of them was him running out of the chapel with wet pants. Then it happened!”

  Fern gave Sam an imploring look. Everyone else would have dismissed it as a coincidence. But Sam knew her—nothing turned out to be a coincidence when it came to his twin sister.

  “Did you say anything out loud?” Sam said, calmly.

  “You mean like abracadabra?”

  “No, more like presto whizzo.” Sam laughed at his joke.

  “This isn’t funny, Sam. I didn’t say anything.
I just thought about it and it happened.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything, Fern. I know the disappearance was weird, but this didn’t happen just because you thought it. You’re being overly sensitive.”

  “Lindsey confronted me after chapel. She was convinced that I had ‘moved’ the water from Mooney’s water glass to his pants. She asked for her bottles back.”

  Sam paused, full of thought. His expression grew somber.

  “I know you think Lindsey Lin is a real friend to you,” Sam said, “and I’m glad she rescued you that day in the bathroom, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “But . . . I feel like she wants something from you, Fern.” Sam registered the anguish in his sister’s expression.

  “I know.” Fern hung her head.

  “Those bottles are probably some worthless over-the-counter concoction, and she’s holding them over your head so you think you owe her something.”

  “She called me a Blout.”

  “A what?”

  “She said I was a dirty Blout,” Fern said, self-conscious about saying the word aloud. “And that I was a Poseidon.” These names—names more mysterious than mean—had upset Fern more than the countless times she’d been called Freaky Fern.

  “The girl’s undercover crazy,” Sam said, looking straight at his sister. “She really is.”

  “What do you think she meant?”

  “I don’t know, but if the worst thing someone can say about you is that you’re a Blout, I think you’re in pretty good shape.”

  As much as Fern had wanted to believe Sam, she couldn’t. Fern was sure Lindsey meant those words as something terrible— that she believed Fern had betrayed her in some way. Sam saw that his sister hadn’t been comforted at all by his words.

  “We’ll look it up when we get home,” he offered.

  “You McAllisters had best be getting to class,” a voice said, coming from behind the twins.

  Mr. Bing—St. Gregory’s beloved janitor—had snuck up on them. Sam and Fern suddenly realized that the three of them were alone on the abandoned playground. The tardy bell had sounded two minutes ago. Large cumulus clouds swallowed the sun and made the landscape shades of gray. The wind kicked up, whipping through St. Gregory’s open spaces. The empty swings swayed in the air current.

  “Looks like you two are having a serious discussion, eh?” Joseph Bing was practically a folk hero at St. Gregory’s. Everyone knew him. His plump face, white hair, and rosy cheeks made him hard to take seriously, even when he was terribly upset.

  “Nah, Mr. Bing. We’re just goofing around,” Sam said.

  “Well, goofing around could land you young ’uns in a lot of trouble, you know?” Though Mr. Bing never spoke of his Irish heritage, there was always a Celtic tinge to his voice. “Why don’t I give the both of you a tardy pass, just in case Stonyfield’s in one of her moods?”

  “Thanks, Mr. Bing!” Fern said, grateful. Mr. Bing was always looking out for Fern, whether she was up a tree or off by herself in the far corner of the soccer fields. She considered him a friend.

  “Not a problem, Fern. Everyone deserves a break now and again.” Mr. Bing then took out a sheet of hall passes from a front pocket with MR. BING stitched on it, and filled them out for Sam and Fern.

  “Good luck,” he said before turning around. He was whistling as he walked back toward the upper campus.

  “Fern, meet me at the corner of the grove after school. We’ll figure this all out, okay?” Sam offered.

  “Sure,” Fern said, already somewhat deflated.

  The weather had gotten more ominous by the time the twins met in the far corner of Anderson’s Grove. The leaves rustled in the wind as if someone was furiously shaking each tree’s trunk. Fern wore Eddie’s huge V-neck red St. Gregory’s sweater, its arms longer than her own. Because of St. Gregory’s grandfather rule, siblings of older students were allowed to wear St. Gregory’s items from years ago, even if they were no longer standard issue. The sweater looked positively retro when compared to the hoodies that St. Gregory’s now offered.

  Fern squinted as dirt flew through the air. She saw the sky flash, electrified, and knew thunder couldn’t be far behind. She’d brought an umbrella to school that day, having predicted that it would rain, but had forgotten it in chapel during the day’s commotion.

  “Can we go home already?” she said to Sam, practically screaming to be heard over the gusts of wind.

  “Wait,” Sam said while his blond hair blew into his face. He spit out some dirt that had landed in his mouth. “I want to try something.” He crouched behind the tree closest to the sidewalk that skirted the grove. “See Dana Carvelle over there?” Sam pointed at a girl across the street, scurrying home with three of her friends.

  “Yeah.”

  “See the water bottle she’s holding?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Make the water move to her head,” Sam yelled, unconcerned that anyone would hear him over the howling wind. “Like you did with Mooney.”

  “I can’t do that,” Fern said, shaking her head at Sam and getting up. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “I’m not saying you can, but we might as well test it. Just try.” Sam rarely pleaded with his sister. “Then we’ll know.”

  “Okay.” Fern snaked around the trunk of the closest orange tree, keying in on Dana Carvelle. She had chubby white arms and was wearing a St. Gregory’s polo. The freezing wind was causing her to shudder as she walked with two friends down La Limonar, slightly huddled. Fern closed her eyes. In Fern’s mind, Dana watched as the water from her open bottle sprayed all over her hair and face. Dana was soaked, shrieking from the cold mixture of wind and water on her face. Her friends, puzzled, turned around to look at their soaked friend.

  “Why in the world are you pouring water on yourself?” one of them asked. They all began laughing as Dana ran to catch up and threw one arm around each friend.

  Fern opened her eyes.

  The three girls walked in a row, Dana in the middle of her friends. Her hair and face were wet. Fern turned to Sam. She had never seen him look so astonished.

  “Sam, why are you giving me that look? You’re looking at me like I’m an alien!”

  “You did it.”

  “What do you mean, I did it? I had my eyes closed; I couldn’t see.”

  “Your eyes were open—I was watching you the whole time. You looked at Dana and sort of got this crazy far-off look, and then you did it. I couldn’t see the water move, but it did.”

  The improbability of it all hit Fern like a punch to the stomach.

  The sky opened up and the girls shrieked as they ran for cover. Rain pounded the grove. The sky flashed three times and the thunder rolled after it.

  Without waiting for her brother, Fern turned and started running back home through the grove. The wind had picked up again, and with the water hammering every leaf, the grove seemed alive. The sky flashed and groaned.

  Sam’s blue eyes were expansive as he caught up to his sister. He pulled her aside and turned her. Their faces were dripping wet. “How are you doing this?”

  “It just happens.”

  “But what do you do? I want to be able to do it.”

  “Don’t you think if I knew, I would tell you?” Fern said. She felt as if the lightning was so close, it might strike them.

  “We’re twins, but you’re so different from me, and maybe you want to stay that way, but I wish I was like you. I wish you would tell me your secret.”

  “You think I’m hiding something?” Fern demanded.

  “No—”

  “You want to be a total weirdo like me, Sam?” Fern said, unable to keep her anger at bay. “You want to have to hide from the sun and have stomachaches you can’t control and be laughed at by everyone? Freaky Sam doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it?” The idea of Sam being jealous set her off. He had no idea what it was like to be different. Terribly, horribly different. Whatever she was, these things that
she could do were slowly alienating everyone in her life.

  Fern took off jogging down the muddy path that ran diagonally through Anderson’s Grove. The sky burst into white flames and then dimmed within an instant. She could no longer hear her brother’s cries through the rain, commanding her to wait for him. The wind whipped and thrashed around Fern. The lightning and rain left Fern feeling as if she were invincible. Her legs tensed, strong and energized. She made it back from the grove to her house in less than four minutes, a new record.

  When she got home, Byron, loyal as ever, was waiting for her on the front porch. She nuzzled him as he licked her face. He was wet and shivering too, having been caught in the rain. She lifted Byron up onto the porch swing with her as the rain poured off the roof and all around them. She held him in her lap and began talking to the dog, leaving out nothing, including her confrontation with Sam. Fern knew that Byron, at the very least, would understand perfectly. She talked and Byron listened. Sam arrived on the porch, panting and soaked through, three minutes later.

  “How’d you make it here so fast?” he questioned, wheezing with his hands on his knees. “You beat me by a lot.”

  Fern glared at Sam. She got up from the swing and placed Byron on the ground. Byron hit the grass running. Once he reached Sam, he growled and chewed angrily at his shoe. His ears flopped from side to side as he continued to work on the shoe.

  “Why is Byron attacking me?” Sam said as Fern turned her back to him and walked toward the front door. “Fern?” Sam called after her. “Fern? What’d you say to him?”

  The news that Wallace Summers would be arriving at the McAllister household at six p.m. on the dot made even Fern forget, for the moment, the day she’d had. Mary Lou McAllister had called a family meeting. Such meetings usually had predictable and mundane subject matters: a discussion about emptying the dishwasher more regularly, a decision on a bathroom schedule in the morning that would be fair for everybody, a conversation on what was and was not appropriate to say at the dinner table. Law and order were essential, in Mary Lou McAllister’s mind, to a healthy and happy single-parent household. The Commander left nothing to chance, playing it safe by instilling four parents’ worth of discipline in her children.