The Hollow

by Jessica Verday

  I thought about working on my business plan, but the temptation to play with perfumes was too strong, and the distraction from my thoughts was therapeutic. Overall, it was a somber and quiet yet productive holiday.

  When school started up again, we had two final days of prep before midterms began. I was actually glad for the extra schoolwork, and I buried myself in books the entire time. It seemed like I had forgotten almost everything that we'd reviewed before the holidays. My brain felt hollow and stuffy. Uncle Bob probablywould have joked about my head rattling.

  In the end I surprised even myself by managing to pass all my tests. I barely squeaked by in math, pulling in a low C, but I got a B in history, and everything else was in the A range. Mom and Dad gave me a well-rehearsed you've-got-to-apply-yourself-more speech, of course, but I let it go in one ear and out the other. They probably would have given me that same speech if I'd brought home all A minuses.

  We didn't get much of a break at school once our midterm week was over. The next bombshell was dropped on us the following Monday morning in science class. Mr. Knickerbocker waited patiently until everyone was seated and had their textbooks out before he made the big announcement.

  I was fidgeting with my pencil, rolling it back and forth on the desktop, when I heard him clear his throat. "Ladies and Gents, if I can please have your attention."

  The quiet chatter came to a stop and the room grew still.

  "I know you're all very sad that midterms are finished." We groaned on cue, and he gave a wide fake smile. "But I have some good news for you."

  His stiff brown tie bobbed slightly and he started pacing in front of the chalkboard, hands clasped behind his back. There was no way this was good news. Science did not equal good news.

  He came to a halt and held one finger up. "It's science time,people." Another groan filled the air, but he kept right on talking, like he didn't hear us. "To be precise, it's science fair time. That wonderful time of year when you get to rack your tiny little brains and then dazzle me with your brilliance."

  I rolled my eyes. This was definitely not good news. Mr. Knicker- bocker had a reputation for not letting people pick their own partners for science fair, and with my luck I'd get stuck with one of the girls from the cheerleading squad.

  "This year, instead of devising an alternate way of picking partners, I'm just going to do it alphabetically starting from Z. As soon as you and your partner are paired up, I'll expect you to change seats. You'll be sitting next to your partner for the rest of the school year."

  Now I really held my breath, and even said a silent prayer. Mentally working my way through the alphabet, I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized that none of the cheerleaders' last names started with an A, B, or C.

  Mr. Knickerbocker continued on. "You'll have three months to work on your project. Entries are due during the second week of April. At that time we'll be holding the science fair and you'll be responsible for giving a presentation on your project. This will make up twenty-five percent of your grade, people, so think long and hard. Any questions, please see me after class."

  I tuned out when he started assigning partner names, and theroom quickly filled with the sounds of scraping chairs and squeaking desks. It took him a surprisingly long time to get to my name, and I pasted a bored expression onto my face, hoping that whomever I got stuck with would get the hint that I did not want to make any new friends.

  Chairs were still scraping loudly, and students were settling in, when he finally called my name, so I missed who was supposed to be my partner. I sat frozen in my seat, hoping that the person who would be sitting beside me for the next couple of months was making their move. Because I sure wasn't.

  Glancing discreetly over my shoulder, I saw a girl sitting behind me with an identical look of boredom on her face, and an empty chair next to her. I turned back around to move my books and go sit by her, when all of a sudden Ben plopped down next to me.

  "What are you doing?" I asked him. I'm confused was probably written all over my face.

  He just raised his eyebrows and grinned at me. "I'm Bennett. You're Browning, right?"

  Comprehension still hadn't dawned. "Yeah, so?"

  "I'm your partner," he laughed.

  My cheeks turned red. "Oh," I said lamely. "I must not have been paying attention."

  He shook his head and piled his books neatly over to one side.

  "So, any ideas for what we can do? Or were you not paying attention to anything Mr. Knickerbocker said?"

  I kicked his foot under the desk, and felt a gleam of satisfaction when he doubled over. He was still laughing, but I could tell he wasn't being mean about it.

  "No, Mr. Hotshot Listener, I don't have any ideas. What about you?"

  He rattled off an idea involving math, DNA, and some type of space travel, but I was already shaking my head. "Come on. Get real, science nerd. It's a science project, not science fiction. If you want to be responsible for the entire project, then by all means be my guest and go for that one. But if you actually want me to do any work, then we have to pick something a little less Star Trek and a little more… normal."

  Crossing his arms in front of his chest, he leaned back on two legs of the chair. "Well, if you don't have any ideas, then how can you contribute?"

  I shrugged. "I don't know. I'll go to the library and look in a book or something. There's got to be a ton of ideas in there."

  Now he shrugged. "Whatever. But I don't want you to skip over any cool ideas, so I'll come too."

  "Do you have a free study hall last period?" I asked.

  He nodded.

  "Okay. We'll go then."

  He leaned his chair back down onto the ground and winked at me. "Great! It's a date."

  I just buried my face in my hands and shook my head. It was going to be a really long three months.

  I had agreed to meet Ben by the main school doors at the end of our last class, and I tugged impatiently on the strap of my book bag while I waited for him. The bell had rung ten minutes ago, and I was ready to get out of here before anyone questioned what I was doing just hanging around.

  He showed up five minutes later, grinning shamefully and spouting off some sorry excuse, but I was already sailing through the double doors, content to leave him behind. He caught up with me a minute later, and tugged on my book bag when I started to turn left, in the direction of the library. "Where are you going?" he asked. "Parking lot's in the other direction."

  I came to a stop. "It's not that far to the library. I just figured we'd walk."

  Ben shook his head. "I'm not leaving my car here, and it's freezing. Come on."

  I exhaled loudly as I followed him to the student parking lot, navigating the maze of cars as we went.

  "What am I looking for?" I called, scanning in several directions.

  "It's right over here."

  I couldn't see him anymore, so I followed the sound of his voice and stopped when I came to a battered green Jeep Cherokee. He was sitting inside, revving the engine.

  "Your chariot waits," he said over the loud noise. "Come on, get in." I tried not to laugh when a puff of black smoke shot out the exhaust.

  Chucking my bag into the backseat, I shook my head as I climbed in on the passenger side. "You know, you're really pushy."

  He slowly pulled out of the parking space, and I struggled with the seat belt at my shoulder. "Here," he said, reaching over and giving it a sharp tug, "you have to find its sweet spot."

  I burst out laughing. "Your car has a sweet spot? You're kidding, right? Next you'll tell me that you've named it too."

  He kept his eyes on the road, but nodded. "Of course. All good cars have names. This here is Candy Christine."

  I couldn't help it. I exploded with more laughter. "Candy Christine? Did you come up with that name when you were twelve?"

  His cheeks turned a bright red and he took his time checking all of his mirrors before answering me. "How'd you guess? I got the car when I was twelve, he
lped my dad piece it back together, and when it came time for a name, I… uh… just put my two favorite things at the time together. I was going through a real Stephen Kingphase."

  I kept laughing. The image was just too much. Twelve-year-old Ben naming his future car Candy Christine was absurdly funny tome.

  "I'm sorry," I gasped in between bouts of laughter. "I guess we can be glad that you didn't wait until you were older to name her. Candy probably isn't number one on your list of favorite things anymore."

  He shrugged. "You're right. If I would have waited to name her until I got my license, then she would have been a different kind of Candy." Grinning wickedly, he laughed when I turned red as I realized what he meant.

  Yeah, I probably should have kept my mouth shut on the whole naming-of-the-car thing. But he took mercy on me and stopped teasing. "So what are you driving?"

  "I'm not." I sighed ruefully. "My parents are making me wait to get my license until I'm seventeen."

  "Man, that sucks. No wheels equals no freedom. I can't imagine what I'd do if I didn't have Candy Christine. She's like family."

  "It's not too bad," I said. "My parents are pretty loose with the rules, so I go wherever I want. And since I grew up walking everywhere, I kind of just got used to not having a car of my own. My mom drops me off at my job on the weekends."

  We had reached the library, and he guided the car along until we found the first open parking spot. "You have a job? That's cool. Where at?"

  I explained as we got out of the car and walked up the library steps. He listened to what I said, and held the door for me while we stepped inside. I didn't get the chance to ask him whether or not he had a job, because we were immediately greeted by a stony-faced librarian who gave us a very stern look.

  Stopping midsentence, I lowered my voice. "What section do you think we should start looking in first?"

  "Let's see if they have a section for students," he suggested. "We might find something there."

  I agreed, and we quickly set out looking for that section. We didn't find anything on the first floor, and the second floor turned out to be a bust too. But the third floor gave us exactly what we were looking for. "Over here." Ben gestured as we rounded the banister and took the last step up. "I can see a student section." I followed him in through an archway, and we split up, each taking an end.

  "It looks like there's a whole section on science project ideas," I called out from my half of the shelf.

  "I found some different books specifically on math and science," echoed back to me.

  I spent a couple more minutes browsing. I must have beenconcentrating really hard, because I jumped a mile when Ben came around the corner and surprised me. His arms were loaded down with books. "Here. I'm going to go see how many we're allowed to check out."

  After dumping the books in a pile at my feet, he jogged off, and I turned my attention back to the shelf. By the time he returned, Pd added several books of my own to his sizeable pile.

  "The librarian said we can only check out eight books at a time," he said, eyeing the stack in front of me. "And even if we both check out eight, we have a lot more than that here."

  I looked at the pile and quickly counted. We had thirty-two books between us.

  "The librarian also mentioned some type of study room a couple of floors up, and she said we could reserve it for two hours," he continued on. "So I just told her we'd use that for now. Feel up to carrying some books with me?"

  My stomach dropped. And not because I was frightened of carrying books. No, it had a little something to do with the fact that I knew exactly what study room he was talking about. I faltered for a moment, but then shook it off. "Sure," I said nonchalantly. "Let's go."

  We each gathered up an armful of books, and Ben made sure to pick up twice as many as I did. I gave him a scornful look, but he just turned away and started walking toward the door. "It's themanly thing to do," he called over his shoulder. "I have to cany more books than you."

  I readjusted the stack in my arms and followed him, trying to keep my thoughts to myself. This won't be too hard. It's just a room. I can totally do this. I will not think about Caspian at all, and instead I will focus solely on what type of project Ben and I should do for the science fair.

  When we finally came to the room, I heaved my books down onto the table. Momentarily distracted by the sharp ache in my arms, I swore to myself that I would start working out one of these days. A couple more trips like that would kill me.

  Ben set his books down too, and gave the room a brief onceover. "I guess this is it for the next two hours." He glanced up at the peeling paint on the ceiling, and the faded pictures on the walls. "Looks like they blew their decorating budget on all the other rooms in the library."

  I gave him a wry smile as I spread my books out in front of me and sat down. Then I carefully gave his books a gentle nudge over to the opposite side of the table. He was still prowling around the room, and I tried to ignore him, picking up a particularly heavy-looking book before opening it up to the table of contents.

  "They obviously don't want anyone getting away with anything in here," he said, pointing to the keep this door open at all times sian.

  I froze.

  Caspian's words came back to me, and in my head I heard my response. Well, they never said anything about keeping it wide open. Ruthlessly banishing the memory, I forced my attention back to the book and stared down at the page in front of me.

  But I wasn't seeing words. I was seeing a memory of white blond hair and deep green eyes that sparkled above a wide smile. That vivid black streak stood out, and for a second I swore that I could almost touch it.

  Ben's hand waving in front of my face broke the moment, and my thought was shattered. I looked over at him and raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"

  He was sitting down now, over where I had pushed his books, and he looked aggravated. "I was calling your name, but you didn't answer me. Are you okay?"

  No, I'm not okay! my brain screamed, but I just gave him an annoyed look. "Sorry. I was concentrating. We do have to get some work done here, you know."

  He leaned back in his chair and flipped open a book. "Fine. Let me know when you find something."

  I shrugged and turned back to the page in front of me, halfheartedly flipping through a couple of different sections. I knew I should be paying attention to what was in front of me, but it was really hard to make my brain cooperate.

  Reminding myself once again of the no-thinking-about-Caspian rule, I started reading about a project that used different scents and a blindfold to test the five senses. I quickly got caught up in that section. It sounded like an interesting idea.

  Ben interrupted my train of thought. "Do you think we could get our hands on petroleum, alcohol, and ethanol? It would all be used strictly in the name of science, of course. I think that we could make our own gasoline."

  Placing my finger on the spot where I'd been reading, I looked over at him. "And the point of that would be…?"

  "To not have to pay for gas for my car anymore," he said. "Do you have any idea how much a gallon of unleaded is going for right now?"

  I rolled my eyes. "We are not going to figure out how to make gas for your car as a science project. Now keep reading."

  Returning to my spot, I tried to finish reading, but I ended up casting glances over at Ben. I knew exactly when he'd find another idea that he liked, because his eyes lit up and he wiggled in his chair like a monkey.

  Sighing, I put my book down again and looked straight at him. "What is it this time?"

  He looked up at me, practically bouncing in his seat, and said, "How do you feel about the space-time continuum? If we were able to take some mirrors, and refract the liaht, I think we couldcalculate a quantum physics theory, and then we could…" He trailed off when he noticed my expression. "Does that fit into the not-normal category?"

  I nodded.

  "What about time travel?" he countered.

  I shook my head. "Leave
that to NASA, or wherever it is they figure that stuff out. Here. I think I found one." As I read to him from the book I held about a project based on nose sensitivity and the power of compensating for lost senses, he stared at me blankly.

  "Did you listen to any of that?" I asked when I'd finished. "I think it would be a really neat project to do. I've always wondered how strong the sense of smell is. When I'm making my perfumes, at times I swear I-"

  He cut me off. "You make perfume? I didn't know that."

  I ignored him and kept talking about the project. "Can you just focus here, Ben? Please? I think this is the one for us. It won't be boring. And you'll get to make people smell gross things. How much more fun can you get?"

  He looked intrigued by the idea, and I took the opportunity to read some more to him from the book, but he interrupted me again. "Are you going to put those red streaks back in your hair, Abbey? I really liked them."

  The breath sucked right out of me, and I felt like a fish, gasping for air. It was a blow aimed straight at my heart, and itbruised all the way down to my soul. He didn't have any way of knowing. No way to tell that his question could hurt me so.

  "What do you think of mine?" Ben asked. "Should I put some red streaks in it? They could match yours."

  He gave me a smile, but I just sat there in frozen shock. To my immense horror, a tear spilled down my cheek, and I immediately brushed it away, ducking my head in shame. I felt the table shift beneath me, and then there was an awkward touch on my arm.

  "Hey," Ben said softly. "We can do the smelly stuff project. It's cool. I was just teasing you about the other ones. I didn't really mean it."

  I laughed shakily, and wiped another tear away before lifting my head. "It's not that, Ben, but thanks." I looked around the room and gestured hopelessly. "This room… It has some memories for me… and when you said that about the red streaks, well…"

  He dropped his hand and took a step back. "It reminded you of him, right? Is that a good thing? Or a bad thing?"