by Trisha Leigh
This is unprecedented, unbelievable, the biggest, most potentially wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me, and I’m surprised to find terror on the edges of my reaction.
The idea of losing my ability dampens my palms with fear. It’s who I am more than I want to admit; even though it’s inconsequential and useless, it’s part of me.
It’s not gone, Gypsy. It worked on Jude just a few minutes ago.
Then why? Why doesn’t this guy have a number?
If it’s not a problem with me or my mutation, then it must be him.
“Sorry for what?” He’s so even-keeled, so calm while my insides run sixty different directions, and the fact that it helps me breathe renews my inclination to like him.
“Acting weird, I don’t know. I was tired of smiling.”
“Don’t worry about smiling on my behalf. I imagine most people find it difficult in the principal’s office. She’s not the most genuine person in the world, and you have to concentrate on not passing out from her horrible perfume.”
I can’t help my grin now, but his lack of a number never leaves my mind.
It strikes me as embarrassing, being carted around by a kid who hasn’t gone to school here any longer than I have, and the sweat finds my hairline. “You don’t have to babysit me all day. If you could just show me to my first class, that should be fine.”
“Of course. Would you like to tell me your first name? Seeing as we’re not fifty years old, and even though this is the South, the principal’s kind of formality went out of fashion some time ago.”
“I’m Norah.”
“Dane.”
“Where are you from? Like, before now?”
“Washington, D.C.”
“Oh.” I want to know everything about him. I want to find a way to duplicate him, create more people immune to my morbid ability that forces me to keep everyone at arm’s length, but I can’t think of a single way to get a blood sample from him without raising at least twelve red flags.
“Where are we headed?”
I study the paper in my hand, now crinkled into a ball. “Looks like Latin.”
“My favorite.” He gives me another smile, one that suggests the two of us share a secret that we don’t. Or at least, that I don’t know about.
Then again, maybe we do. We’re both new here. The fact that he doesn’t seem impressed or even particularly intrigued by my freakish origins makes me wonder whether we could be friends.
It would be nice to have someone who understands what it’s like to be new and different in a way that has nothing to do with genetic mutations and secret abilities.
Chapter Seven
Dane drops me at the door to the Latin classroom, giving me a reassuring smile before disappearing around the corner and leaving me to face the stares alone.
Deep breath. There’s only one first day. One first class, one moment in the center of attention.
The metal knob turns under my hand, and then it’s happening. Eyes, thirty or forty of them, burn holes in my skin. The teacher, a balding man with thinning hair and a paunch, turns his back on the digital chalkboard and flicks off the light on his pointer. “Yes?”
“I’m, um, new. Should I just… ?” I tip my head toward a row of empty seats—the front row, of course.
“Your name?”
I forgot to scan my bracelet at the door, but thankfully he didn’t make me go out and do it as though I’m five. “Norah. Crespo.”
So strange, to have a last name to go with a first. A real first even, for that matter, although being called Gypsy never bothered me. It was just my name.
“Very well. Take a seat, please.”
I slide into the closest available chair, anything to step out of the limelight. He returns to his lecture, walking the class through a translation of the first chapter of Metamorphoses, and with fifteen minutes to go he asks us to split into groups and correct one another’s papers. I don’t have a paper, of course, but he includes me in the nearest group that’s short a member today—and includes Jude.
His smile sticks in my heart the way a fishhook can lodge in a finger. He quickly introduces me to the others—a bespectacled girl who barely glances up from her phone and another who studies me with a kind of suspicion that’s uncomfortable but honest. Everyone passes papers around to the left. I’m content to sit quietly until the teacher, Mr. Wells, approaches and asks me to mark the translation of the second girl—the pretty one—so he can assess my level.
Her name, Savannah Cooper, is scrawled across the top of the page in loopy cursive. The assignment was to translate the final chapter of Caesar’s Gallic Wars—Metamorphoses must be the beginning of a new project. I set to work, doing my best to ignore the Jude-flutters in my belly, with little success. The first girl puts up her phone and has a field day with his paper, leaving it more red than anything else.
Savannah’s work isn’t terrible, but it’s not error free, and halfway through the first corrective red mark it occurs to me that being the know-it-all may not be the best way to make friends. I study her pink lips and curly blond ponytail without moving my head while she ignores us all in favor of her cuticles. Or at least I think she’s ignoring everyone until I catch her peeking at Jude.
Making friends is good, but I don’t have to make friends with everyone. And a girl who would take major offense to my pointing out what’s wrong with her assignment doesn’t seem like she’d be a good choice. Not that she will. Or that she wants to be friends in the first place.
Just mark the paper, Gypsy. Cripes.
The light blinks on the wall, signaling the end of first period, and I hand her paper over before stuffing my pen into the front pocket of my backpack. She glances at my corrections; there are fewer than ten on the entire page, which is pretty good. Latin isn’t the easiest thing to translate, and even though the Cavies have higher-than-average IQs, we all make mistakes. It’s so far removed from English that there’s room for debate on the meaning of many words and phrases.
I look up to find her smiling at me. “Thanks. Those are good catches, but I’m not sure I agree that my translation to twilight is wrong.”
“You’re welcome. And yeah, it’s a matter of opinion, but I’m partial to an evening translation there.”
“Do you know where you’re headed next?” she asks, stowing her own pen.
“Physics.” I memorized my schedule while Mr. Wells was lecturing.
“I’m headed to Chem II. It’s close. I can show you.”
“I can walk her,” Jude interrupts.
Savannah gives him a look that would wither the buds on a magnolia tree in April. “Don’t you have gym this period? It’s totally the other direction.”
His cheeks turn red, and he avoids her gaze. “Yeah, but… Okay.”
Tension vibrates between them, like they’ve struck a bad chord on a guitar. There’s something going on—she knows his schedule, he doesn’t want to argue with her—and in the middle seems like a bad place to be.
“Thanks for the offer, Savannah. That would be great.” I give Jude the fastest glance possible, not wanting to encourage any sort of friendship. “See you.”
“Sure. At lunch.” He makes an escape, almost knocking over a desk on the way.
Savannah shakes her head and keeps walking, choosing not to let me in on their history, whatever it might be. We step into the hallway, where Dane’s perfectly proportioned face, sporting the same conspiratorial expression, is waiting.
“Hey,” I say, wavering between annoyed that he’s intent on babysitting me even though I told him not to and the desire to reach out to someone else experiencing a first day. Somewhere in the mix is the fact that he doesn’t have a number. “Savannah’s going to show me where my Physics class is.”
“Okay. I was just checking, you know, because it’s my assignment.”
“Thanks.” My smile hesitates, as unsure as the rest of me how to handle him. If he’s only coming around because he has to, though, friend
ship doesn’t seem imminent.
He doesn’t introduce himself to Savannah, and she doesn’t deign to speak. If she’s interested in guys like Jude, I doubt shy, eager ones like Dane are her type.
“Okay, well, we should probably go.” I nudge Savannah, who doesn’t need to be told twice.
“Norah…” Dane’s hesitant voice stops me from following right away, and when I turn his direction, the nervous expression on his face captivates me.
Why would I make him nervous?
“Yeah?”
“I can tell you don’t want me around, really, but I have to stick with it the rest of the day, at least.” His eyes soften, flick down the emptying hall where Savannah loiters, then wander back to me. “But you’re new, and I’m new. If you ever want to, I don’t know, just hang out, we could.”
“Thanks.”
His offer fills me with relief as I trail Savannah down two flights of stairs and a hall to what must be an older part of the building. The paint on the walls looks transparent in places, not peeling but definitely fading. It has a smell, a little like Darley, as though the past has started to crawl into the present.
The possibility of hanging out with Dane Kim intrigues me, largely because my gift didn’t work on him. But it’s also that, while I have irreplaceable friends in the Cavies, they’re all unhappy about leaving Darley and less than enthused about our new beginning. Dane might be good to lean on while I navigate my feelings, which trend more toward uncertainty and nervous excitement.
“There’s a basketball game tonight. You should come,” Savannah says, offhand but not quite.
“Are you going?”
She flips her ponytail, managing to somehow not look like a moron in the process. The mingled scents of her shampoo and perfume almost mask the mothballs. “Of course, but no one ever stays past the first half. I’m on the dance team.”
“Oh. Maybe.”
The way she mentions it confuses me—as though she has no real desire to ask but the invitation escaped anyway, and that fact puckers up her face worse than sucking on a lemon. I get the feeling that Savannah thinks she needs to be nice to me for some reason, but that doesn’t make much sense.
“Well, this is you. I’ll see you.” Savannah whirls and vanishes into the room two doors down, leaving me alone.
Trying to learn where people fall in the Charleston Academy hierarchy is more baffling that I expected. Which ones are friends, which are only pretending—why Savannah would be nice to me if she doesn’t want to be, why Jude seems intent on sticking around, or why Maya invited me to lunch after talking to me for all of thirty seconds.
There doesn’t seem to be anything to do but keep trying, but I know one thing for sure: I’m not savvy enough to determine if these kids are honest and nice, or have ulterior motives, or just don’t care one way or another. I’ll have to wade along, hoping the answers arrive before high tide.
The rest of my morning classes finish without any movie-like drama. Dane finds me after each one, walking me to my next period and mentioning points of interest like shortcuts and bathrooms along the way. He evades most of my questions about him with shrugs or self-effacing comments about how uninteresting he is, which does nothing to alleviate my thirst for details. Even so, by the time lunch rolls around we’re reaching a certain level of comfort together and I’m feeling better about being the new girl.
We separate on the way to the cafeteria when I stop in the restroom. It’s empty, thank goodness, and the me in the mirror looks tired. She also looks naked, a fact that never occurred to me before meeting my classmates, most of whom resemble Savannah in their commitment to grooming. I know about makeup, of course, but have never owned any. It’s going to be a strange thing to ask my father for—maybe asking him for anything is weird, I don’t know—but it seems reasonable.
Dane’s gone when I emerge, but there’s confidence in my stride on the way to lunch. I spent the lectures watching my fellow classmates in an attempt to pick up on social cues, to understand how they interact with their friends, how to tell whether girls and boys are dating or whatever, but it’s not as interesting as the books and movies make it seem. Everyone acts pretty much the same—trying to stay awake during class, gossiping in the halls, the occasional couple holding hands or making plans to meet up at the game that night. Very little drama, at least on the surface, but the thought of jumping in with both feet still intimidates me.
The students are the decorations in the cafeteria, a huge room that contains nothing but stark white walls and bare tables. Empty, it would be a cavern. Full, it’s a loud flurry of activity, with voices and colors careering off the floor, hitting the ceiling, zipping in one ear and out the other.
I pick up a slice of pizza, a bottle of water, and figure out how to maneuver the checkout line with my ID bracelet. Maya spots me after only a few minutes of awkward loitering on my part, waving me over with exaggerated arm movements. Maybe because she’s so little she thinks she has to jump up and down to get attention. Maybe she does, what do I know?
I’d been looking for Dane, but he’s nowhere to be seen and I had told Maya sure when she asked me to have lunch. Told me, whatever.
Her table isn’t empty. Savannah sits on Maya’s right, and to her right is a girl with sandy hair that reminds me of Jude’s. I climb onto the bench across from them, feeling mousy among their heads of shiny blond perfection, but smile at Maya as she introduces me to her friends—the dirty blonde reminds me of Jude because she’s his younger sister. Holly.
“How was your morning?” Maya asks around a mouthful of garlic bread.
“Good. The principal has someone showing me around so I won’t get lost, and he’s nice.”
“Ohhh, a boy? Who is it? I bet I can tell you a hundred and one reasons you don’t want to go on a date with him.”
“He’s new,” Savannah interjects in a bored tone. “I met him after Latin.”
“A new boy? It’s what I’ve been dreaming about for three years!”
“Maya, if you’ve been dreaming about me for three years, you should have said something sooner.” The voice is smooth and drawling and full of good humor
It’s behind me, and I only heard it for the first time a few hours ago, but it can belong to no one but Jude.
“Very funny, Jude. Your delusions are getting worse. Time to up those meds.” Maya grins at me, then swallows a huge bite of spaghetti. “Keep going, Norah.”
“There’s nothing to tell, really. He’s a real go-getter. Came in on Saturday and met with your student council president, and is keen on helping other new students learn their way.”
“So, he’s a little dorky. There are worse things.” She presses on, waggling her eyebrows suggestively. “What’s he look like?”
Jude drops his tray next to mine and sits, sighing dramatically to display his lack of interest in the conversation. I shoot him a look of apology and catch a wink in return.
“He’s, um… handsome?” My brain struggles to focus, to remember the question. “And a little quiet.”
The embarrassingly honest description drops from my lips and onto the table, where we all examine it. It’s true, anyway.
“I like it. Tres mystérieux! ”
“If you gals are done gabbing about men, I have something important to discuss,” Jude says.
“Important? I promise, no one cares whether you walk around with that pizza sauce on your shirt all day. We’re used to it.” Savannah frowns, nodding toward the little red circle on Jude’s white shirt.
“Damn!” Jude swipes at the glob while Maya and Holly dissolve into giggles.
They infect me, and his elbow connects with my ribs. I flinch away, laughing. Lunch has been simpler than the rest of the day, except for the quick walks with Dane. These kids aren’t Cavies, I haven’t known them my entire life, but they’re nice. Friendly. So blessedly normal.
“So, Norah, tell us everything about Darley.” Maya puts her elbows on the table, her chin in her han
ds, and stares at me as though she has nowhere to go for the rest of the day. “You’re, like, famous.”
It occurs to me that this is what I’ve been missing. That the reason Maya, and Savannah, and Jude want me around is to get a jump on the gossip, maybe lay claim to the new weirdo. The realization squints at me with an expression that says duh, and my stomach sinks.
The longer my pause, the thicker the discomfort at the table grows, but I don’t know what to say. They’ve seen everything on the news—everything I can say, anyway—but no one’s giving me an out from answering. Even though their curiosity and their barely proffered friendships don’t seem malicious, it makes me feel more than a little like a fish trapped inside a glass bowl.
“There’s not much to tell,” I say, forcing a smile. “And we’re not famous. We’re just kids. We didn’t know anything different until a few days ago.”
“You’re like an alien,” Savannah muses. “Like E.T.”
“What’s that? Does it stand for something?”
Everyone laughs, but the joke’s lost on me. It starts to feel a little like they’re laughing at me, and maybe they are, but the joy and friendliness on their faces reminds me they’re not being mean. Maybe I’m funny?
Jude’s arm lingers close to me, heat from his body tickling my hip. The memory of Dane’s nonnumber is almost enough to propel my hand forward, to lay my flesh against his and verify that my gift remains. That my quiet tour guide didn’t somehow steal it.
Years of aversion stop me, along with the fact that I don’t want to think about Jude dead.
“It’s a movie,” he explains, gently. “An old one, about a kid that finds an alien and then hides him when the government wants to take him away and do tests on him.”
“Oh.” The information sparks a revelation—they kept certain films from us at Darley. This knowledge distracts me, leaves me wondering why, but I give Jude a smile of thanks.
I look over to find Savannah staring at Jude and me from across the table. She’s not laughing with the others, and the fire consuming her gaze takes my breath away. It sobers me, and causes me to put a few inches between Jude and me on the hard bench. She and I watch each other, locked in a silent confrontation I don’t understand. A fight I don’t need. I don’t need an enemy, either, certainly not in the form of a pretty, popular girl already ensconced with the people who seem interested in befriending me, whatever the reason.