by Dima Zales
I shook my head, too upset to speak. I got the watermelon smoothie using the last $5 from my clearance-rack purse. Then we walked to the player's bench. My anger had a companion. Humiliation.
I forced a smile. "Happy birthday." I handed Natalie the smoothie. "It's watermelon, your favorite."
She gave me a sweet smile. "You didn't have to. Thanks, Lexi." She gave me a hug, and we both looked up at our parents. Our dad took a picture.
Grumbling, I headed back to my seat with Amanda
"See? That wasn't so bad, was it?" asked my mom.
As I watched Natalie sip the smoothie, I felt rage tear at me like a wild, cornered animal.
I was only half-listening to my parents talk about how great Natalie was. As I watched her drink the smoothie and laugh with her friends, I imagined pouring it on her head. I grabbed the bench, afraid I might jump up and actually do it.
Suddenly, the bright red smoothie burst straight up out of the cup onto Natalie's face, hair, and jersey. It was as if someone had hit the drink from the bottom, making the smoothie leap up against the forces of gravity—exactly when I thought of throwing it on her.
POP! POP! POP!
POP! POP! POP!
POP! POP! POP!
Rows of fluorescent lights burst all over the gym. People screamed and shrieked, while others ran for cover.
The drive home was a blur as my mom yelled and whined. Too bad I didn't have my Kindle so I could've tuned her out.
When we finally got home, I ran to my room and found my light bulb mess to clean up. It was dark by then, and I couldn't ignore it.
I used a flashlight to make sure I got all of the pieces picked up before heading for the garage to get new bulbs. I groaned when I saw my parents and sister sitting at the kitchen table. Guilt tugged at me when I saw the red covering Natalie's bleached blonde hair and jersey.
"Are the light bulbs still in the garage?" I asked.
"On the third shelf," my dad said, not even looking up.
I went to the garage. I squeezed between my dad's Escalade and my mom's Mercedes to get to the shelf. It was an ordeal to get the stool so I could reach the shelf. I finally got the bulbs and marched inside.
"Where the batteries were for my foot spa?" Natalie asked.
Dad jumped up. "They're in the garage. I'll get them for you."
POP!
POP!
Two more shattered light bulbs.
"You'd better get some lights while you're at it." I stormed to my bedroom.
Natalie came into my room.
I continued studying from my textbook.
"I know you're jealous, but it wasn't my idea for them to get me the car. I know they always buy me nice stuff, but it's not my fault. Maybe they're trying to help me not feel bad about never being able to live up to you."
I arched a brow. "You, not living up to me? You're the volleyball star, you're on the sophomore homecoming court, and you're the stylish, popular one. How exactly do you not live up to boring, plain me?"
"Seriously? You've got the best grades in the whole school—the first junior to be president of the Honor's Club. Don't forget about your trip to the White House after you won that national science contest."
"None of that seems to matter to them."
"Can we at least have a truce? I don't like all of the competition. Sisters are supposed to have a special bond, you know?"
"I don't want to be fake," I said. "I'm not going to pretend that everything is fine when it's not. You're the favorite, and they always throw it in my face. You don't do anything to discourage it."
"Discourage it?" she exclaimed. "What do you want? For me to have them return the car?"
"You could tell them to not act like I'm a peasant."
"You're crazy. No wonder they like me better."
I jumped off the bed. "Excuse me?"
She looked at me with innocent eyes. "What?"
"You heard me."
"What? That I should return the beamer?"
"After that."
"I didn't say anything after that, Alexis."
"You didn't call me crazy? Say you understood why they like you better?"
Her face went paled. "I never said that."
"I heard you loud and clear."
She narrowed her eyes. "I don't know what's going on here, but I didn't say that."
"Are you kidding me?" I exclaimed.
"What a freak," she said—but her mouth didn't move.
"Did you just call me a freak?" I asked, before I could stop myself.
Her mouth dropped and she stormed out of the room.
POP!
POP!
2
I woke up to the sun shining on my face. I couldn't remember falling asleep or having had any dreams. At least it was still early, not even nine yet. I could sneak out of the house.
I wanted to enjoy the sunny morning before I had to work the lunch shift, so I got ready as fast as I could and jumped in my rusty Ford. With weather like this, I headed straight for the lake. It wasn't big, but it was peaceful. I sat on a bench, soaking in the warm sun and enjoying the sights and sounds. It was so relaxing, and it never lasted long enough.
This was no exception.
"Alexis, what are you doing here?"
I turned around to see my childhood friend who had moved across town and went to the other high school.
My mouth gaped. "Brooke."
She sat next to me. "It's great to see you. How's everything?"
"Just studying most of the time."
"That's how I feel, too. I'm taking fashion courses outside of school."
I looked her up and down. She looked like she'd just stepped out from a photo shoot. For the first time in my life, I felt self-conscious about my boring clothes and no makeup. "You look great."
She leaned back. "Thanks. I'll never be as pretty as you, though."
My eyes nearly popped out of my head. "Yeah, right."
"No joke. You're gorgeous, but you've never seen it."
I laughed. "I don't know what you're on, but I appreciate it. Especially after yesterday."
"What happened?" she asked.
"Natalie's birthday. Once again, my parents threw their favoritism in my face."
Brooke frowned.
"They completely outdid themselves this time."
"Why don't you spend the night tonight? You can get away from them, and we can catch up. It'll be fun."
The corners of my lips curved up. "That does sound like fun. My shift at the deli is over at four, so that gives me plenty of time."
"Perfect. I'll see you then."
As she walked away, I closed my eyes and enjoyed the warm sun and the sounds of the lake lapping up on the shore.
After just a little while, a strange whirring noise sounded. It grew louder.
Chills ran through me. I opened my eyes.
Over a hundred crows flew in a massive circle directly above me. I jumped off the bench and gasped for air.
As soon as one crow made eye contact with me, it cawed. The rest followed suit and dozens of crows orbited around over me, and all of them shrieked at me.
I grabbed my purse and inched away from the bench without breathing. I couldn't take my eyes off of them, and I noticed that as I inched along, the whole circle inched right along with me in the air above me. I stopped for a moment and finally took a breath.
As soon as I breathed again, every single creepy bird in the circling, cawing flock turned its eyes toward me. Each one looked down at me while whirling above my head.
I tiptoed a couple feet. Each one kept its eyes fixed on me. They circled, cawing, and stayed directly above me. Exactly as I moved, the circle moved.
I made a split second decision and ran to my car without looking up or back. Once safely locked in my car, I looked outside to see if they had followed me. I didn't see them, so I inched myself forward so that I could see above the car without getting out.
There they were, flying right a
bove in their massive whirl.
I started the car and floored it out of the parking lot. I decided to go to work early.
When I arrived at the strip mall, I ran inside, noticing again that everything went by in a blur.
After my shift, I went straight to my room and packed for the sleepover. Just as I put the last item in my bag, there was a knock on my door.
"Come in."
My dad entered and pointed to the bag. "Moving out?"
"I'm going to sleepover at Brooke's."
"Next time you should probably ask first," he said, "but I'll overlook it this once. Since it's Brooke."
"Okay. I'm in kind of a hurry."
"Your mom and I decided to take over your car insurance payments. We'll cover your gas, too."
"What?" I stared at him.
"We know how hard you work. I'd also like to get you something nice for your birthday coming up."
My mouth dropped.
"Honey, I hope you know how proud I am of you. You want something and go after it until you get it," he said. "You'd already worked for and bought your car before you turned sixteen. You didn't even give us a chance to give you a car."
I gave him a hug. "I have to go. I don't want to keep Brooke waiting."
"Have fun, honey."
As I walked through the kitchen, my mom stepped in front of me. "Where do you think you are going?"
"I'm going to spend the night at Brooke's house. Dad said I could."
She frowned. "What are you wearing, anyway?"
"Clothes."
"I don't get it. You don't care about style. That's why I never buy you nice things—you'd never appreciate them. You're happy with boring." She looked disgusted.
"So?" I headed for my car. Everything passed in a blur again.
When I got to Brooke's house, her family swarmed me. It felt like they'd never moved away, and they still felt more like family than my own. I hadn't realized how much I'd missed all of them until then. I'd was like a piece of me had been missing, only I hadn't noticed.
After dinner, Brooke dragged me to her room. We sat on her huge bed and caught up with each other's lives.
She leaned against a pillow. "Are you going to your homecoming dance? It's only a couple of weeks away. Mine's on that Friday night and yours is the next night."
I groaned. "I'm trying to ignore it. Natalie will be crowned princess, and I don't want to deal with that. I have to endure her being a princess at home as it is."
"You know why you really aren't looking forward to it?" she asked.
I raised my eyebrows.
"Because you've never gotten dressed up. You don't even know your potential."
"Well, I don't have a date and no one's interested in me, so I guess I we'll never know." I folded my arms, daring her to continue the conversation.
Her face lit up. "My cousin's coming into town. You can go to your homecoming with him. He's super hot—everyone will be jealous."
"How long did it take you to cook this up? Is that why you went to the lake?"
"For real, Lexi? Come on, say yes." She pleaded with her eyes.
"Okay, fine. But you're going to have to do all of the work. I'm just going to stand there while you do my makeup. I don't even know how to put on mascara."
She squealed. "Let me measure you and I'll design a dress just for you."
"What? Isn't that going to be expensive? Or time-consuming?"
"Nope. Cheaper, and besides, I need to design a gown for one of my classes. You're helping me out."
The rest of the evening was a blast. I hadn't expected to like being measured or looking at fabrics, but I really had fun.
The next morning, I woke before Brooke and peeked through the blinds.
A crow flew past the window and cawed.
I yelled out. My heart nearly jumped from chest. I backed away from the window.
Brooke rubbed her eyes. "What's going on?"
I tried to force my breathing back to normal. "Just a crow."
"A crow?"
"Yeah, they've really been freaking me out. Yesterday, a bunch of them were flying around me, and it really freaked me out. Now this." I frowned.
"Weird. Is anything else strange happening?"
"Now that you mention it, lights have been exploding around me," I said.
Brooke didn't even flinch. She nodded for me to go on.
"A bunch of light bulbs shattered at home and then some exploded at Natalie's practice in the gym. That was was right after her smoothie exploded all over her face. Oh, and then more lights shattered at home later, too."
"What was happening when the lights exploded?"
I thought for a moment. "The first lights blew up when my parents gave Natalie the new BMW. Then some exploded in my room after they told me that I had to go to her practice to cheer her on. The ones at the gym were after I gave her a smoothie. Why do you ask?"
"Just curious. So, you were pretty mad about her new car?"
"Mad? I'm furious! What's worse is that they can't even see the blatant favoritism." My blood boiled just thinking about it.
"Obviously not much has changed." Brooke ran her fingers through her hair. "Except now they're buying her more expensive stuff."
"It won't change. Never has, never will." My anger was morphing into rage.
"I can't imagine living with that, and also having her so popular at school." Brooke studied me.
I took a deep breath. "It's horrible. Everywhere I go, I hear about how great and wonderful she is. Great, she can hit a ball over a net, but does that mean that she needs to have everything handed to her on a silver platter?"
Brooke rested her chin on her palm. "Exactly. You get better grades and you work harder. You should have nicer things than she does."
POP!
A light bulb in Brooke's room shattered.
"Why does this keep happening?" I exclaimed.
"When you get mad something explodes?" Brooke didn't move to clean the mess.
"Are you actually suggesting that I'm at fault?"
"It makes sense if you think about it," she said.
"It makes no sense. Light bulbs and smoothies don't explode because someone's mad."
"Then why is everything blowing up when you're angry?" she asked.
"You're really going to blame this on me? You sound like my mother." I folded my arms.
Brooke laughed. "I'm not blaming you. You didn't plant explosives. I just said that things are exploding when you're mad. It's a simple correlation. I'd think that the girl everyone used to call 'the scientist' could see that much."
I narrowed my eyes. "The crows showed up when I felt relaxed and happy."
"What do you make of it?" she asked.
"I don't know."
"Well, let's forget about it. Why don't you get in the shower and I'll make my special omelets? You'll love them."
"Okay," I said, sighing.
"See you downstairs." She jumped up and ran out of the room.
As I was getting my stuff out of my bag, I heard Brooke talking to her brother.
"We were right, Steve. The lights bursting at the gym were because of Alexis."
"So it's starting," he said.
What was starting? I opened the bedroom door, expecting them to be right outside, but they weren't. I tip-toed around the entire floor, but didn't see them.
I went down the stairs quietly and crept around until I spied them in the office at the far end of the house. There was no way that I could have heard them from Brooke's bedroom. That would've been impossible.
I snuck back up to Brooke's bedroom and looked for a vent or some other way I could have heard them. There was nothing that would have allowed me to hear them. She had an old-style heater without vents.
Maybe I had imagined the conversation. It was probably stress causing me to hear voices. I was upset when I heard Natalie speaking without moving her mouth. My emotional state had to be triggering this. Whatever this was.
3
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On Monday at lunch, I sat next to Amanda at our regular table with Emma, her boyfriend, and some of his friends. Amanda looked lost in her thoughts, and everyone else was talking with each other.
"Is everything okay?" I asked Amanda.
She looked up. "I'm just going over my history facts for my test next period."
"Want some help?" I offered.
"Nah," she said. "I'd rather hear what you've been up to. I didn't hear from you all weekend. Some best friend. Last I saw you, everyone was running from those freakish lights."
"Don't remind me," I mumbled. I changed the subject. "On Saturday, I ran into Brooke and spent the night at her house."
"I forgot about her," Amanda said. "They up and moved pretty suddenly, didn't they?"
"I guess it was sudden," I said, shrugging my shoulders.
"They did move unexpectedly, I remember. I've never seen anyone move so fast. It was weird."
"They're fine now. She's taking classes on fashion design and she wants to create a homecoming dress for me."
"What? Does this mean that you're going to a formal?" Amanda smiled and adjusted her glasses.
"Yeah. She talked me into it. I'm probably going to make a complete fool of myself."
"This is going to be so much fun. Do you have any ideas on who to go with?"
"I'm going with her cousin. He's going to be in town then. No one else would be interested in me anyway."
"Oh…is he cute?" Amanda smiled wide.
"She says he is. It doesn't matter, because he won't want to see me again. Guys never give me a second glance."
"Oh, this is so exciting. You're finally going to a formal." Amanda danced in her seat.
"Who are you going with?" I asked, trying to get into the excitement. I couldn't understand spending hours in the bathroom just to get attention from boys. I was much more interested in preparing myself for a solid career. I wanted to have a job in a field that would allow me to take part in putting the bad guys away. It would be fun to use my science knowledge to uncover evidence at crime scenes. Or even to be a lawyer or judge would be exciting.
The entire process of fighting for justice was alluring. I was even a member of the CSI Club after school, which met once a week. Much to the disappointment of my hormone-driven friends, I wasn't even interested in any of the smart, geeky guys in the club. Amanda and Emma seemed to think that I was missing out on something special.