She flipped through a list attached to a pink resin clipboard, tucking a pink balpoint pen behind her ear. A quick survey of her desk, and her outfit, told me she fancied pink. And Trol dols. A lot.
“One moment, Jenna. I don’t see your name here. Let me double-check with the guidance counselor, Ms. Spitzer,” she said.
“Just have a seat, dear.” She picked up the handset of her phone.
“It’s Gemma, with M’s, not Jenna with N’s,” I said, but she just smiled and gave a little nod as she waited for an answer on the other end of the line. I sat down in one of the fabric institution-grade chairs. They reminded me of those found in the waiting rooms in any number of Delia’s hospitals, the ugly plaid cloth meant to hide stains from mishandled coffee and pop (and worse), the wood bend of the arm rests darker where dirty hands had gripped, one after another.
Layers of filth and sadness and bad news.
After a brief conversation, the counselor appeared from her back office, hippie skirt dragging on the floor, long beled tassels around the waistband jingling with every step, her nose red and swolen, like Rudolph.
“Gemma, good to see you again,” she chirped. Mrs. Thyme handed Ms. Spitzer the pink clipboard, and the two of them pored over the list together, scanning for my name, pausing only for Ms.
Spitzer to sneeze into a wad of tissue. Behind me, the attendance office door opened and in wafted a delicious, masculine scent.
“Wel, good morning, Henry. Need a late slip again?” Mrs.
Thyme said. Both ladies, their eyes puled from the clipboard, grinned at the new face standing next to me. I looked up at him and found myself staring. Dirty-blond, borderline light brown hair almost in need of a cut, greenish blue eyes, bright teeth, perfect skin, 6’, maybe 6’1.” He was gorgeous. And again with the cologne when I inhaled… I felt my cheeks catch fire.
“You know my alarm clock—never works on Mondays,” he said.
“Gemma, this is Henry Dmitri. I think your uncle is friends with Henry’s father, isn’t that so, Henry?” Spitzer looked back and forth between the two of us, as if we should have been introduced prior to this second. He looked down at me and caught me staring. I forced myself to look away. My heart skipped a beat, and al of a sudden, I’d forgotten how to speak.
“Are you with the Cinzio group?” Henry asked.
“Yeah. Ted Cinzio is my guardian,” I said, looking at the countertop.
“Right. I’ve heard about you, from Lucian, uh, my father. It’s cool to meet you. Welcome to Eaglefern.”
“Thanks.” I dared another look at his face. Yup. Hot.
“Henry, tel you what. We won’t record a tardy today if you could just do us a little favor.” As the counselor did her finest to cajole Henry, I noticed the textbook under his forearm: pre-calculus. Oh, no. I knew what her “little favor” was going to be.
“Anything for you, Ms. Spitzer,” he said, smirking just enough to reveal a set of teeth the tooth fairy would covet, protected by a set of lips most girls would covet. I scolded myself for noticing any of this. Less than twenty minutes in the school, and I was already becoming one of them.
“Gemma’s in your first class, and I somehow overlooked assigning her a buddy for today.” She blew her nose. “I swear, I’m gonna do myself in if this cold doesn’t disappear soon.” Ms. Spitzer looked up at me as soon as the words escaped her lips, her eyes wide, her cheeks pinker than a moment ago. Nice. Marlene had told her about Delia.
“It would be my honor to serve as Gemma’s buddy for her first day as an Eaglefern Explorer,” Henry said. He turned to me and scooped his books off the counter. Ms. Spitzer and Mrs. Thyme smiled, and in a symbolic gesture of thanks, Mrs. Thyme tore a late slip in half. I swalowed hard and turned on my heel, head down, to folow Henry out of the office. Ms. Spitzer sneezed again as the door closed behind us.
“I think they like you,” I said, once we were out in the halway.
Henry smiled. It was a nice smile.
“They’re afraid not to like me,” he said. I would’ve asked him what he meant, but we reached the door to our class before I could get the words out.
As if walking late into a classroom of strangers wasn’t humiliation enough, the plump, sweaty math teacher, Mr. Poole, took it upon himself to introduce me to everyone al at once. Then he stumbled his way around the room, trying to find a place for me to squeeze in. When we finaly settled in for his forty-minute lecture, I was relieved to discover that I’d already learned the stuff they were working on. At least that was one in the Gemma Win Column.
The girls in the class whispered to their friends, passed notes, looked me up and down; the guys ignored my presence, save for a few who fixed on my hair. Red, long, frizzy in wet weather but wel behaved today, thank heavens. The hair gods had granted a reprieve. Marlene often told me that besides my brain, my hair was my strongest asset. It was one of those weird compliments that leave a person feeling confused, like when someone tels you that the difference in your appearance without makeup versus with is miraculous. Thank you?
I doodled in my brand new coil notebook to make it look as though I were taking notes. I considered writing a letter to Delia, which I often did during downtime in our circus classroom situation, and then remembered there was no place, and no Delia, to send it to.
The bel finaly rang, and Henry approached my chair. Based on the volume of classes on my schedule, I knew I wouldn’t be staying put in a single classroom for the entire day, and I was surprised at how grateful I was to have a buddy to show me around. I suddenly felt like a tadpole in a sea of monsters.
“Have you got a copy of your schedule?” he asked. I’d never felt short until that moment, sitting in that desk with him towering over me as I tried to remember where the hel I’d stuffed my schedule. Back pocket?
“Yeah, uh, here it is.” My stomach clenched a little as our eyes connected.
He looked away and unfolded my crinkled timetable. He scanned it, smiled, and refolded it to return to me. “Looks like we’ve got the next class together, too. Shal we?” Henry gestured toward the door and we squeezed through another group of gawkers who were filing the room in preparation for second period.
“Lucian mentioned that we’re having dinner with your family tonight,” he said, “sort of a get-acquainted thing. Should be fun.”
“That’s the rumor. Dinner at the circus,” I said. There was so much noise in the halway, the smal packs of shrieking girls, uninterested students trying to squeeze every last second out of the between-class interval, an iPod set on a dock booming from someone’s open locker. It smeled like the fragrance counter at Macy’s had been dive-bombed by the men’s costume tent—
perfume, hairspray, and sweat socks.
“So, have you had a chance to check out the town yet?” he said.
“Not realy. Wel, other than the mal. We sort of attacked it over the weekend. Like vultures.”
“Yeah, heard about that.”
“You heard about our shopping trip?”
“It’s a smal town. Wel, smal-ish. News travels fast, especialy when half of the student body works retail,” he said. Our chat was interrupted by a few whistles from guys at their lockers.
“Hey, Red! You into trapeze arts? How about ropes?
Handcuffs?”
My face grew hot and I clutched my notebook to my chest.
Henry leaned over. “Bradley Higgins. Captain of every sports team, major party animal, and legendary ass. Just ignore him. He’s al talk and testosterone. Otherwise, he’s harmless.” I managed a smal smile as we rounded the corner to our next class, but based on the tone of Bradley Higgins’ voice, I gathered he was anything but harmless.
I made it through AP literature (Mrs. Perkins, the very enthusiastic teacher, assigned a biographical essay for homework—
I could handle that), chemistry with the world’s most boring instructor, and coincidentaly with Ash who was too busy flirting to pay me much attention. At last, photography, my fi
nal class before lunch. Just in the nick of time. I was starving.
The class was beyond ful. Henry dropped me off at the door, and as I walked into the room, conversations silenced. More of the same. I took a seat at one of the high-top tables and waited for the fun to begin anew.
Right off the top, the photo teacher, Mr. Stephens, stroled to the front of the class and unlocked a set of cupboards, puling the fronts open to reveal a huge stash of digital cameras. He was tal but slim, most of his face covered with a thick beard. In his Aussie accent, he ushered us into a line to check out our photo gear. “No time to waste, criminals,” he said.
I waited for the rest of the class to fal into place before taking my own spot in the lineup. My cel phone buzzed in my pocket—
Junie. “I’m in luv. So MANY men, so ltl time!” she wrote. I giggled to myself, shaking my head. Junie was in Y-chromosome heaven.
The girl in front of me turned around.
“You’re new,” she said, giving me what I think was a smile.
Hard to tel as her bottom lip was pierced with two dime-sized hoops. They sort of distorted the shape of her mouth.
“Yeah,” I said, unsure if this was an invitation to a conversation.
She faced me. “I’m Summer. Summer Day,” she said, offering a handshake. Her knuckles were tattooed, something I wouldn’t have noticed had she not puled back the crazy-long sleeves of her black mohair coat.
“Gemma.” I shook her hand. “I like your name.”
“Yeah, it’s different. My mom was a total stoner when I was a baby.”
Mine’s dead, I thought.
“So, today’s your first day at Eaglesperm, huh?” I chuckled. “Yup.”
“Are the natives being nice?” She sucked in her bottom lip and tapped the left hoop on her front tooth.
“It’s been fine so far. People have pretty much left me alone.”
“I see Henry Dmitri is your buddy.”
“Yeah. He kinda got roped into it.”
Summer smiled. “He’s a good guy. I’ve known him since we were five. Same kindergarten class. And first grade…and second grade…and third grade…you get the idea.” I could relate to that.
Ash and Junie and I had been in the same class through al of those years, only it had been in a heated canvas tent or a converted fifth-wheel trailer in some random spot on the map of America.
“He seems cool. The guidance counselor sort of spaced on assigning me a buddy,” I said.
“Spitzer is a flake,” she laughed. “Oh, and don’t let her talk you into joining a bunch of stupid clubs. Things totaly worked out for you. Henry D is a Hottie McNaughty.”
I laughed. Junie would like that…Hottie McNaughty. I had to resist the urge to text it to her.
“Between you and me, though, I think he’s gay,” Summer said.
“Oh…realy? Why’s that?”
“No girlfriend. Like, ever. Guy’s a perpetual batch. And seriously, how many straight guys do you know who are that pretty?”
Ash is sorta pretty…and he’s straight , I thought. “Yeah.
Guess not very many,” I said. What a weird conversation.
I looked around the room, watching the other students as they got their cameras and snapped away at friends, eyes crossed, tongues out, middle fingers on ful salute. “I can’t believe the school has so many nice cameras. I thought public schools were always broke.”
Summer snickered as she waited for the kid in front of her to finish signing the check-out register. “Most schools are broke. But your new friend Henry? His daddy is a very rich man.”
“The Dmitris paid for al these?”
“And the new computer labs, the mixed media lab, the new theater…pretty much everything built or bought over the last twelve years since Henry started school has come from Dmitri dolars,” said Summer. She turned her back to me to take her spot at Stephens’ desk, puling her ID from the rhinestone-and-rivet-encrusted walet stuffed in the back pocket of her red plaid pants.
Upon receiving her camera, she moved aside so I could step forward. “I told you, Henry D is the man.” She puckered her lips at me and walked away.
“Yours is a fresh face,” Mr. Stephens said. “You a circus kid?” His tone was brusque, but kind.
“Yes. Gemma Flannery.” I shook his hand.
“Nice to meet you, Gemma Flannery. I’l expect amazing things from your lens this semester, given your unique environment.” When he smiled, he was far less intimidating. He reminded me of one of my favorite tutors. That fact alone made me relax a little.
“Thank you, sir. I hope I’m up to the chalenge.” My cheeks flushed. The scrawny TA looking on hmmphed and handed over my gear before pushing his dirty glasses higher on his oily nose.
When everyone had made it through the line, Mr. Stephens had about five minutes to go over rules as wel as the instructions for the first week’s assignment, which included twenty-four shots that would serve as our visual autobiographies. Stephens was right about my environment offering the lion’s share of material (pun intended). The possibilities were endless.
The bel rang, and Summer took off without uttering another word to me. As I walked out into the halway amongst the throng of energized students, I saw her making a beeline for the side doors.
When I walked past, the smel of cigarette smoke squeezed through the cracks in the doorframe. I wondered how long it would take Ash to find Summer. She was so his type.
Henry was already waiting at my locker. Over his right shoulder, not even ten feet back, was a shade. A woman. Beautiful, young, her long, dishwater blonde hair floating about her shoulders, a smile on her pleasant face. I did my best to ignore her. I had to be careful that I didn’t stare too long in a place where there seemed to be nothing—I might be able to see someone or something standing in that space, but no one else could.
I was surprised I hadn’t seen more shades in the school thus far.
There’d been a few. A kid in my chemistry class had an old woman near him; a girl I passed in the halway earlier had a young child skipping along behind her. What a party trick that would be if I could talk to their shades and then pass along messages. Great way to make new friends on the first day. Yeah…right.
“You hungry? I’m buying.”
“Thanks, I’m good,” I lied. I was hungry. Starving, in fact.
“You gotta eat. Not even milk? Soda? How about a banana?”
“Fine. Milk. A banana. Sounds perfect,” I said. Henry smiled and nodded.
I folowed Henry into the lunch counter lineup. He handed me a tray, and then placed a club sandwich and a Caesar salad on his.
“Chocolate or white?” he pointed at the milk cartons.
“Mmm, chocolate.” He grabbed the milk and a spotty banana and plunked them on my tray. And as promised, he paid, even though I tried to protest and throw the twenty from Marlene at the cashier.
Given the number of movies I’d seen about wild teenagers in school cafeterias and their rowdy food fights, I was glad to not be dodging meatbals and Jel-O squares. Everyone seemed wrapped up in their own little worlds, their conversations, even their laptops.
No airborne food, at least not yet.
We dropped our trays onto a vacant table, and Henry tore into his sandwich.
“You know, if you have friends you want to hang out with, I can manage for the rest of the day,” I said.
“What, and renege on my responsibilities as your buddy?” he said. “I wouldn’t dream of it. What would Ms. Spitzer say?”
“Ha.” I peeled my banana and took a smal bite. “Won’t your friends wonder where you are or why you’re being seen with one of the circus freaks?”
“Maybe I like circus freaks.”
A silence settled over the table, though short-lived. The obnoxious jock from the lockers this morning, Bradley Higgins, made his noisy arrival in the cafeteria with his equaly obnoxious posse in tow. A tal blonde with legs as long as my whole body was draped over Bradley’s sh
oulders, but her position as his lead admirer did little to deter her from noticing Henry.
“Hey, Henry D, how’s it goin’? Who’s your little red-haired friend?” she said as they passed. Bradley Higgins flashed us a dirty look and shrugged the blonde off him.
“She’s pretty,” I said.
“If you like the dumb, clingy sort,” he said, smirking. “Jerrica has a lot of talents, none of which involve her brain.” I picked the threads off the meat of the banana, scouring my brain for something interesting to say. “So, uh, your dad has sure done a lot for Ted and our circus.” Okay, not so interesting, Gemma.
“Yeah, I know he’s been busy putting stuff together. That’s cool.
Lucian is good at making businesses work,” he said. There was an edge of coolness to his words, and he referred to his father as Lucian. Some people might’ve thought that weird, but I’d always caled my mother by her first name, even when I was a little kid.
She wasn’t Mommy. She was Delia.
“What’s your job with the circus? Are you a fire eater? A magician’s apprentice?” he said. He unwrapped his silverware and stabbed at the mushy croutons on his plate.
“Hardly,” I said. “Nothing that spectacular. I hide behind a curtain and play music for the shows.”
“Music? What kind?”
“Circus kind.”
“No, dummy, I mean, what instrument?”
“Violin,” I chuckled. I knew what he meant.
“That’s cool.”
“Do you play any instruments?”
“A little guitar. Lucian wanted me to learn piano, but I thought it was boring. And lucky for me, my piano teacher was a witch,” he said, biting into his sandwich. He wiped his face on his napkin and pushed back in his chair.
“What, did she smack your knuckles with a ruler or something?”
“No. She was a witch. Like, a real one. Lucian doesn’t like witches. So he fired her.” I couldn’t tel if he was kidding or not.
“So, tel me, Gemma, what’s it like living with a circus? I mean, isn’t it a little weird, adults traveling cross-country with children and wild animals in tow for the purposes of entertaining the masses?”
Sleight: Book One of the AVRA-K Page 3