Starstruck

by Brenda Hiatt

CHAPTER 9: Eccentricities

  Rigel pulled out his cell phone and checked the time. "Oops, lunch is more than half over. We'd better eat." He handed me my paper sack, which I'd totally forgotten.

  I pulled out my sandwich and opened my drink, but then set them both down, suddenly reminded of yesterday when he'd handed me my lunch, and the question he hadn't answered.

  "You never did tell me why you wanted me at football practice. Or how you, um, zapped Bryce." Or a thousand other things I suddenly wanted to know.

  He took a big bite out of his own sandwich, chewed and swallowed before answering. "When you're with me . . . near me . . . you, well, bring out the best in me."

  "Huh?" That was totally not what I was expecting. I wasn't even sure it made sense.

  "Eat. I'll try to explain, at least a little."

  Since he stopped and waited and I really wanted to hear more, I quickly took a bite of sandwich and a swig of juice. "Well?" I asked, then took another bite so he had no excuse not to go on.

  "Okay. I know you've noticed that, er, thing when we touch."

  To demonstrate, he touched my hand briefly and I felt the now-familiar tingle zip through me. I nodded.

  "It's like we have a special, um, resonance. Something in you sort of supercharges something in me. Makes me . . . better. Stronger. Faster."

  "And able to shoot lightning bolts?"

  He took another bite before answering and this time I was sure it was to give him time to think. "That wasn't just me, you know," he finally said. "There's this thing called graell. It's really rare. In fact, most people don't even believe in it any more. But the theory is, or was, that sometimes a person can be a kind of, well, match with another person. And when they are, they somehow . . . enhance each other."

  I stared at him, things clicking together in my brain. "Each other? So it works both ways?"

  He nodded, but I thought he looked wary. "At least, that's the theory—or legend."

  "Holy crap," I breathed. "So that's why I'm suddenly not nearsighted anymore? And—" I stopped talking but kept thinking. And why my acne had miraculously disappeared? And I was so much better at taekwondo? Starting right after he'd touched me the very first time. My crazy suspicion had been right!

  "I think so. I know I run faster and throw harder than I used to—especially when you're actually in the stadium."

  That certainly explained why he wanted me at football practice . . . and at the games. Shoot, if the coaches knew about this, they'd probably require me to be there! The thought almost made me giggle.

  Suddenly, I was giddy with relief. Rigel wasn't crazy. At least, not about this mutual enhancement thing. I should probably reserve judgment on the Mars stuff, but now I couldn't quite dismiss that, either—not when this almost-as-unlikely story was obviously true.

  He was still watching me expectantly—anxiously—and I realized he was waiting for my reaction to all of this. I smiled, though I felt more like singing.

  "I believe you."

  The words seemed inadequate, but apparently they were enough. He closed his eyes and let out a long sigh.

  "Thank you. I was afraid you'd . . . well, never mind. So, any chance you can make it to practice today?" he asked with a grin, obviously trying to lighten things up a little. "If you're going to come to the game Friday, I need to practice throwing with you in the stadium."

  I hadn't thought of it that way, but it made sense. "Is that why the receivers had such a hard time catching your passes during the first game?"

  "Yeah, I think so. I . . . didn't realize how hard I was throwing until later."

  "Of course, it probably didn't help that our receivers all basically suck."

  He laughed. "Maybe, but I did make it worse."

  The bell rang, startling me. Quickly, I stuffed another couple of bites of sandwich into my mouth while Rigel did the same, then we stood. The rain had stopped and the sun was starting to peek between gaps in the clouds, making the wet courtyard sparkle. It seemed almost magical—or maybe that was just the way I was feeling right now.

  "All right. I'll come to practice today. I'll worry about my aunt later."

  Rigel put a hand on my back as we went back into the hallway. It made me feel . . . protected. Cared for. I liked it.

  "I don't want you to get in any trouble because of me," he said.

  Though it would have been way cool to wear it to class, I shrugged out of his jacket and handed it to him. "It's not like she actually said I couldn't go. She just lectured me a little—about what boys like you expect from girls like me." I slanted a teasing glance up at him. What had gotten into me, that I was suddenly so comfortable, so brave, around him?

  He laughed out loud, a delicious sound. "Boys like me? You can tell her I don't expect anything at all. Though—" He went suddenly serious— "I may hope, a little."

  I discovered I wasn't quite brave enough to ask what he hoped, though the intensity in his eyes gave me a clue. My heart started beating faster.

  "I, um, don't think I'll tell her that part." My voice sounded breathless to my own ears.

  "No, better not. We don't want her forbidding you to see me." He slung the jacket over his shoulder. "Do we?"

  "Definitely not."

  Already we were at our History classroom, though I barely remembered walking there. I felt like I could have gone on talking with Rigel—being with Rigel—forever. It was like a little exile to leave him, even to go to the opposite side of the room. My only comfort was that he looked like he hated the separation as much as I did.

  "Looks like you guys didn't fight over lunch today," Bri teased me when I reached my seat. "Man, can you two even tell the rest of the world exists when you look at each other like that?"

  With an effort, I made myself focus on her, and on her words. "What? I mean, um, no, we didn't fight. And . . . no. At least, I can't."

  "Trust me," Deb said with a laugh, "he's not noticing anything else either. So, has he asked you out yet?"

  "No. But can I use one of you guys' cell phones to call home after school? And if my aunt asks, can you tell her I was at your house, Bri?"

  They exchanged such significant glances that I felt myself blushing.

  "It's not like that!" I whispered fiercely. "He just wants me to come to practice again, and my aunt thinks that's the path to sin or something."

  "Are you sure it's not?" Bri mouthed at me, then giggled. A sharp look from the teacher shut her up, but a minute later she passed me a note.

  "I'm in," it read. "Talk to you after."

  Rigel walked me to French class, though in the crowded hallway we couldn't continue our earlier conversation. Still, it felt good—physically good—just to be by his side again for a couple of minutes. I hoped he felt the same.

  Bri and Deb didn't get a chance to assault me with questions again until after school, when I met them outside the bus to borrow Bri's phone for a quick call to the answering machine at home.

  "Okay," Bri demanded the second I hung up, "what's the deal? Are you guys 'official' yet?"

  I shrugged. "Maybe kinda?" I offered. Bri's eye's narrowed threateningly, so I elaborated—a little. "We haven't really talked about it, but it . . . feels right. Like we're supposed to be together."

  "Hm." Bri still didn't look satisfied, but I wasn't sure what else I could tell her without straying into dangerous territory.

  "It's not like they've had any alone time except at school," Deb pointed out. I sent her a grateful glance. "What about the game at Springdale tomorrow night? Did he ask you to come?"

  "Not yet," I admitted, "but I got the impression he'd like me to." Okay, it was more than an impression, but he hadn't directly asked me to go, so I wasn't lying.

  "You can ride with us," Bri offered. "We'll probably go early."

  "Um, sure, thanks. Oh, on the off chance my aunt calls, don't answer. I just told her we all stayed after school for a project."

  "Yeah, okay. Oops, bus is about to go. Talk later!" I thought she
still sounded a little ticked.

  As soon as they were on the bus, I hurried to the stadium, eager to see Rigel again, even though we'd only been apart a couple of hours.

  He was waiting when I got there, with a blue sheet of plastic in his hands. "Thought you might want this, since the bleachers are still wet. I was starting to worry you couldn't make it. Everything cool at home?"

  "Thanks," I said, taking the plastic, touched by his thoughtfulness. "I left a message for my aunt, so it should be fine." I didn't tell him I'd fudged on why I was staying after. "Shouldn't you be out on the field?"

  "Yeah. I just . . . wanted to see you first." He smiled into my eyes and touched my cheek, sending an impossibly delicious shiver through me. "We'll talk a little after, okay?"

  I nodded. I wasn't going nonverbal around him as often as I used to, but that touch temporarily undid me.

  I had the bleachers to myself today, what with the wet and all. Like before, I dug some homework out of my backpack, but since this was the first chance I'd had since lunch to spend any uninterrupted time thinking, that's what I did first.

  Some things that had puzzled me made a little more sense now. Like his reaction when Nicole had used my old "Marsha the Martian" nickname. I nearly laughed out loud, remembering how rattled he'd been. How funny was that, someone calling me a Martian, when Rigel really was one!

  And the bit with Trina and the glue. He probably did have super hearing, though I hadn't asked him about it yet, since I'd been a little distracted by more important revelations. Then there was the matter of our first touch and the way he'd freaked out about it. I still needed to do some thinking on that one, but the boys were out on the field now, so I spent the next half hour or so feasting my eyes on Rigel in motion, before finally, reluctantly, applying myself to my homework.

  I was nearly finished reading Lord of the Flies—my reading speed had increased, too, which was a nice surprise—when Rigel joined me.

  "So, what do you think?" he asked, nodding at the book.

  "It's definitely not something I'd read if I didn't have to," I said, stuffing the book into my backpack and standing up. "Not only is it kind of gross, but I don't like thinking humans are naturally so savage—even if it's true."

  "Yeah, it wasn't one of my faves either, though I thought some of the jungle stuff was kind of cool." He fell into step next to me as we headed toward the buses.

  "That's because you're a guy," I said with a little laugh. But then I frowned up at him. "So, do your, um, people see us that way? As savages?"

  He looked a little wary. "Some do," he admitted. "Definitely not all, though."

  That reminded me of something else I'd wondered about. "Are there a lot of . . . Martians here? On Earth, I mean. Or in Jewel, for that matter?"

  "Not a lot, I don't think. Maybe a few thousand? I'm pretty sure my parents and I are the only ones here in Jewel, though."

  "A few thousand?" That sounded like a lot to me. "How did they get here? And how long have they been here?" I found myself starting to doubt again. It just seemed so unlikely.

  He seemed to sense that. "It's all kind of complicated. Tell you what—how about you come over to my house tomorrow after school? My parents can explain some of the more technical stuff if you want, and then you can ride to the game with us."

  "You don't have to take the team bus?" I asked, partly to hide my excitement that he'd actually asked me to his house. That seemed huge, somehow.

  Rigel shrugged. "I'm supposed to, but Coach said if I bring a note from my folks and get there when the team does he could let it slide this once."

  I suspected the coach was willing to let Rigel slide on almost anything to keep him happy—and on the team.

  "I'll ask. I don't think my aunt and uncle will mind." Especially if I told them I was going with Bri instead, which would avoid awkward questions.

  "Cool. Let me know if there's a problem and I can ask my mom to call your aunt."

  The way he said it made me wonder if he knew what I was planning. Rather than make any promises, I changed the subject.

  "So, that resonance thing you say we have—graell?—when did you figure that out?"

  He slanted a slightly embarrassed look down at me. "I, um, sort of suspected it that first time I touched you last week. Definitely not before that."

  "Oh, wow, no wonder you freaked. I mean, if it's so super rare even among—you know." I glanced around but no one was close enough to hear us. "Then it's probably supposed to be totally impossible with a regular Earthling, huh?"

  Rigel opened his mouth, then closed it, then said, "Probably. Yet here we are." His smile looked a little forced. "Would you, um, mind not mentioning it to my folks when you talk to them tomorrow?" he said then.

  "Because they might flip out?" That hurt a tiny bit, but I sure couldn't blame them—or blame Rigel for worrying about it. "No, I won't say anything."

  "Thanks. We'll obviously have to tell them sometime, but—"

  "No, it's okay, really." We'd reached the buses by then. "See you tomorrow."

  "Yeah." He touched my cheek like he had before practice, and his smile held a longing that squeezed my heart. "Tomorrow."

  As I boarded my bus, I wondered if it was wrong of me to hope he'd miss me as much as I was going to miss him.

  I was relieved that Aunt Theresa was too busy grading papers when I got home to grill me about what I'd done after school. Being vague in a message was one thing, but lying to her face if she asked a direct question was something else, and I doubted I could do it. To stay on her good side—which I sometimes wondered if she even had—I set the table and made the salad for dinner without being asked. Then, for good measure, I asked if she had any laundry she wanted me to throw in with the load of my own stuff I was doing.

  "Aren't you little Miss Helpful tonight?" she said, making me worry that I'd overdone it. But then she added, "It's good to see you're developing a sense of responsibility, Marsha."

  That caused me a pang of guilt for being less than totally honest—but not a big enough pang that I felt a need to confess. Especially after what she'd said about Rigel the other night.

  I waited until after I'd loaded the dinner dishes into the dishwasher to say casually, "Brianna asked if I could ride to the football game with her tomorrow afternoon." Which was perfectly true. "It's at Springdale."

  "I suppose this sudden interest in football is because of that boy," she said, as I'd known she would. "You never went to an away game last year."

  Rather than admit or deny anything, I just shrugged, not quite meeting her eye.

  "Oh, let the girl go to the game, Theresa," Uncle Louie said. "First you worry because she isn't popular at school, and now you worry because a popular boy might like her. Give the kid a break."

  It surprised me a little that Aunt Theresa worried about me at all—or that she ever talked to Uncle Louie about me. I'd always kind of assumed she forgot I existed if I wasn't in the same room with her. I waited for her answer, trying not to show how nervous I was.

  "Fine," she said after a suspenseful two or three seconds. "You can go. Just . . . be careful."

  I almost asked what she thought I might do, but caught myself before I accidentally antagonized her into changing her mind. "I will." I kept my voice meek and respectful. "Thanks." I sent a grateful glance at Uncle Louie and he winked at me.

  Now came the tricky part. I'd rehearsed my words all through dinner so I wouldn't have to lie—at least, in the most technical sense.

  "They plan to leave early, so it would probably be easier if I just got off the bus there instead of coming home."

  She sniffed the way she did when she didn't approve of something but didn't want to discuss it. "Just come straight back after the game. No hanging about with that quarterback and his friends."

  I nodded, rather than risk saying something that could be used against me later, then escaped to my room.

  I'd done it. I'd cleared the way so I could go over to Rigel'
s after school tomorrow, then ride to the game with him and his parents. The only touchy thing left would be explaining to Bri tomorrow. Maybe an e-mail would be easier—and more discreet.

  Unfortunately, that meant asking to use Uncle Louie's computer, since they refused to buy me a laptop or tablet because of my static thing. Between that and the phone issue, it sometimes felt like a conspiracy to keep me from ever communicating with my friends privately.

  I poked my head into the living room, where Uncle Louie was watching some reality show and Aunt Theresa was doing cross-stitch. "Is it okay if I use the computer to look up some stuff for a paper? I'll be careful," I added before my aunt could say it, like she always did.

  They both nodded without really looking at me. I went into the tiny formal parlor that Uncle Louie used as his office and logged into my e-mail. I cleared out the spam—I hardly ever got any real e-mail, since my friends knew I couldn't check it often—then typed a quick message to Bri.

  From: AstroGrrl

  To: JagFanB

  Subject: Tomorrow

  B—please don't hate me, but R asked if I'd ride to the game with him and his folks and I said I would. I'll def see you there, tho! Sit together?

  —TTYL, M

  I hit send and started to close the browser, but then paused. I had said I needed to look stuff up, and it might look suspicious if I was done so fast. Which meant this was a perfect chance . . .

  I opened Google and typed "Mars" and "new discoveries." Clicking on the first couple of pages of headlines—out of nearly eighty thousand hits—didn't reveal anything I didn't already know, so I tried "Martians on Earth." That netted me less than 700 hits, including a Wikipedia article. But when I read it, it was all about fictional Martians, not real ones. All of the hits on the first few Google pages also dealt mainly with fiction—books, movies, comics, stuff like that. I found a couple of conspiracy-type blogs, but when I opened them, neither dealt with human Martians.

  I was typing in "human Martians" when I heard someone coming. I immediately closed the window and emptied the cache, then quit from the browser just as Aunt Theresa came in.

  "Still researching, Marsha? It's late."

  "Just finished," I said. I stood up and was surprised to find I was stiff—and even more surprised to glance at the clock on the computer and see that it was almost midnight. I'd been Googling for close to two hours!

  She shook her head at me as I picked up the notebook I'd brought to back up my cover story. "Doesn't anyone use the library anymore?"

  I shrugged. "Online is quicker." Plus, no library would have the kind of info I really wanted to find.

  I said a quick good night and headed back to my room, feeling guilty again—both for deceiving her about Rigel and for trying to check up on Rigel's story behind his back. He had promised to tell me more tomorrow. If I trusted him as I claimed to, that should be good enough.

  Shouldn't it?