“Animal spirit.” I crack up not believing that Mitch, Mr. Physics, believes in animal spirits. “Did you fall down and hit your head or something?”
“Mom and Dad called the zoo. The zookeepers are on their way. If we don’t get back now, they’ll move you, and if they move you one of three things can happen––don’t ask, because it’s Lola that knows all the ins-and-outs of this stuff. But once they move you from the attic, you’ll either be stranded here forever or you’ll be a bridge. Trust me you don’t want to be a bridge. And, once they cage you, things will get even worse. Damn Adrianne. She just couldn’t let it go.”
“Let what go?”
“What she left behind.”
“What?”
“All I can tell you is, shadows are jealous.” He lowers his voice and takes a step closer to me. “Extremely jealous of us. Of real people.”
When he says real people shivers crawl up my spine.
“They know they’re shadows, the same way you and I know we’re human. And they want more than anything to leave this world. They’ll do anything to leave this world. Anything.”
“What’s a bridge?” I say.
“We have to leave. Now!” Mitch grabs my hand and we walk-run out of the gym.
“Wait a minute.” I jerk my hand out of his.
Two strong arms wrap around me and Hayden kisses me on the cheek. “What’s up? Who’s this guy?” he says like he doesn’t think much of the competition.
“Just some Student Union geek,” I say. I reach into my back pocket and pull out the map. I’ll take care of my own problems and don’t need anyone saving me. I can save myself.
“Let’s go.” Mitch says like he’s talking to a woman now.
I sort of stand up straighter.
“Roxie?” Mitch squints his eyes like he has trouble seeing.
“Yeah,” I say. I’m taller than him in my heels. Weird.
“Roxie, can I talk to you for a minute?” Mitch pulls me away from Hayden before I say OK, but I try and break free. If these are my last moments with Hayden, I don’t want Mitch pulling me away from them.
“Listen, I’ll leave here a lot quicker if you just tell me what Adrianne left behind,” I say.
“We don’t have time for this garbage. Now I know you’re having your little fun.”
“It’s not like that Mitch.”
“I’ll tell you exactly what it’s like,” Mitch says but I only half-hear him because Ally runs over to Hayden who looks super-hot in his tuxedo jacket and jeans, rugged and beautiful, and more than anything I want to hug him again. “Life as you know it will be over,” Mitch says.
“Well maybe I never liked that life to begin with,” I say.
Mitch’s eyes go kind of moist. And it takes my breath away. At home we barely tolerate each other.
“Why do you care?” I say.
“Because, I know something you don’t know,” he says.
“Really, well, I know something you don’t know,” I fire back.
“Ok, listen,” He puts his hands in his pockets.
“What?”
“No matter what...” he runs a hand through his hair. He eyes sparkle a little bit when something catches his eye. Make that someone. “I’ll die.”
“What are you talking about?” My heart freaks out and all my memories go back to everything we’ve ever done as brother and sister.
“It’s no big deal. We all die.” He kind of says die like it’s my fault. And maybe it is. But he seems to know for certain.
“You know when?”
“I’m telling you because I know you won’t remember when we AP home.”
“I don’t want to AP.”
“I know.” And by the look in his eye he really does know.
“I’m staying here,” I say catching Hayden’s stare.
The band stops playing and I notice the music for the very first time because of the look in Hayden’s eyes. And I think about how we danced on my birthday and how my party seems so-forever-ago. Hayden walks up and takes my hand and says “It’s time.” He smiles and I wonder what he’s talking about. Whether it’s time to stay or time to go. I wonder if he’s in on this too.
I take his hand and even though I’m wearing jeans and a t-shirt I feel like a princess. We work our way through the formal, beady-eyed crowd and wind our way to center stage. I probably would have been able to hear the gasps of all the people on the dance floor if my heart didn’t beat so loud.
“Welcome Red Devils to our One Enchanted Night Homecoming Dance. I can see that our King and Queen, always originals, have taken the theme to heart this year,” Mrs. Bradley says nodding to us, still rocking her signature longish skirt and matching blazer with the same big smile she’d always had, unless she had to boot someone to detention. Some things in this world are remarkably the same. She was our principal at middle school. I let out the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding at the sight of her.
“Drum Roll please,” Mrs. Bradley says. “The votes have been counted and it’s official. The King And Queen of our Enchanted Island are Hayden and Roxie. Congratulations, kids.”
She hands me a crown and I place it on Hayden’s head. He places a tiara on mine. And I can’t speak it’s such a perfect moment. The most peacock moment of my life. It’s impossible to feel like a dodo in a tiara.
“And now, dance with your King and Queen and their court, before the treasure hunt.”
I should have paid attention to who was named to the court and the drama of us all hitting the dance floor together, but Hayden takes my hand in his and we walk down the steps of the stage and onto the dance floor. The band plays Lullaby by The Cure, complete with a lead singer who’s a Robert-Smith look-a-like, a very 80s Robert Smith look-a-like. And no one but Hayden and I exist in the world.
“Remember when you played this song for me for the first time?” he says.
I remember like it was yesterday. Because it freaking nearly was. And I can’t believe he remembers if this is some alternate universe. If he’s a shadow. A jealous shadow.
“Hayden, how do you remember that?”
“It was the night I knew I first had a crush on you, it took me about four years to get up the courage to actually ask you out. I think it’s a little harder with friends, you know?”
He leans in and gives me a peck on the cheek. A small, little kiss that means everything. And his crown bounces a bit of white light into my eye.
I jump a little. Because Hayden’s popular back home and he’s popular here and that doesn’t make sense. But I don’t care about it, or Mitch, and what Mitch said, and where I am, and whether or not I’ll ever see my family again. My worries fall off of me like a big sack I’ve hauled for miles and finally drop at the side of a road. And all I feel are my heartbeats. And all I imagine is kissing Hayden again. He pulls me in and hugs me, my cheek warm against his chest.
I look up into his eyes, he bends down low and just before he’s about to put his lips on mine, a light bounces off his crown again, into my eyes.
Chapter 12
I never thought I’d die by astral projection. When I hit the Earth, I hit hard. I’m too cold to be alive. Cold and achy.
The floor I’m laying on is damp and smells like pee and number two, and I think peacock poo and cat poo probably aren’t that different. I put my hands on the gross floor to help steady myself. My head throbs with pins of pain and my stomach is a hard rock inside of me like I’ve eaten every bad thing known to woman.
My head aches as if I drank Four Loco and Red Bull and smoked cigarettes all night. The world spins and I can’t come to my feet fast enough. When I do, a branch pokes my eye. I walk closer to the iron gate in front of me. Away from the smell. The very bad smell. But it’s not a gate.
I look up and down and sideways. I’m in a cage. There’s only one light. The light of the moon. A bright disk in the sky. And the bluish, bright light showers a jungle in front of me with a weird sort of light drapery where everything
in front of it and everything behind it has this strange kind of glow. I must be hallucinating.
All the edges of things kind of blur into each other and I stumble like I might fall back down. And I wish I had Hayden’s hand to hold. I wish we were dancing to Lullaby, going on our treasure hunt.
I stroke the top of my head. Wondering if the tiara might be like a glass slipper. But dodos don’t get glass slippers. I take a deep breath and question everything. The dance. The dress. Ally. Mitch. Death. Life. Peacocks and Dodos. And then something makes a strange, very strange noise. It growls.
Right. Behind. Me. Grrrrrrr. Grrrrr. It’s sort of like a purr, but not really. And slowly, I turn around. Very. Slowly. And I see it. Crouched down low, just in front of the iron bars on the opposite side of the cage. A puma. And my heart beats like a million times a second. I’m in a cage with a Puma in a––wait for it––zoo. No really. I’m in a cage in a zoo. Exactly like Mitch said I would be. And it gets worse. Just like he said.
The puma puts one paw in front of the other. And then, even though I have a puma staring me down, practically licking my face all I hear is Mitch in my head––I’ll die. And I wonder if he got it all wrong. And I’m the one that’ll die.
I search the cage for Mitch but I’m the only human here. A fact that only makes my legs more wobbly than they already are. With every step I take, my jeans sort of slip off my hips––three sizes too big. And I’m just me. Just thirteen again. Way short, without the major boobs but with bigger ones than I left with. At least they seem bigger. And I’m so mad at Mitch.
I worry I’ll never be that seventeen-year-old again. I’ll never have a tiara placed on my head and I’ll never, ever have a boyfriend as cool as Hayden. Kill me now.
I shrink back into the cage. I can’t break free and I can’t go back to Planet Popular. I’ll die here in this cage and be like twelfth page news in the morning. What a dodo way to go. On the freaking twelfth page. Some weird footnote to the news of the day––Idiot thirteen-year-old who wanted to be popular ends up eaten by a puma.
And I start to hallucinate. Because the next thing I see absolutely can’t be real. I see a light, just as bright as the light in the attic and I think it must be some weird reflection off of the pond filled with hippopotamuses in the fake terrain cage beside me. But, no. It’s a light. Just like the orb in my attic back home. A home I’ll probably never see again.
And all I see when I close my eyes is the gymnasium at the high school and Hayden in his jeans and tuxedo jacket and his crown. And my heart beats like it never will again. I imagine him holding me. His lips against mine and The Cure and Lullaby. And I crouch back down and sink onto the smelly wet concrete as fast as my stomach flips inside of me, because I remember. And Mitch told me I wouldn’t.
I’ll die. He said.
And I feel a lick on my cheek. A rough tongue, moist. Licking and licking.
“Mitch?” I say ridiculously, but I can’t help it. There’s something in its eyes. Something I’ve known my whole life. And I know it sounds crazy, but a sister knows her own brother. Even if he’s a puma. Besides, it’s the only reason I can think of that I’m not puma chow by now. I go back and forth seeing Mitch and not seeing Mitch in its eyes.
I’m losing my mind. My head throbs with little pin pains again. I’m a morsel. I should have been chewed up in two seconds. At least pawed, examined. But it’s not curious about me at all. It knows me. It’s against all the laws of nature. A freak of nature. Just like a star-nosed mole. Just like older brothers. There must be a way back to Hayden and the treasure hunt. Back to the one place I felt like my true self. Where I realized I don’t need to be a peacock. And when I AP back to Planet Popular, I’m so going to kill Mitch myself for saving me from the one place where I felt like myself for the very first time in my life.
The small light outside of the cage bounces up and down, sort of dancing to its own song. It gets bigger and comes closer. And I run to the front of the cage hoping the light will astral project me back to Hayden, back to the dance, but then the light rides up over the iron bars of the cage and blinds me.
“What in the hell?” A man says. A strange man in the dark. “Charlie, yo Charlie, over.”
There’s some sort of static and Mr. Curious keeps the light pointed right in my eyes.
“Yeah, Wayne, over.”
“We have a situation, over.”
“Roger that.”
“A girl’s in the cage with the puma here.”
“A what?”
“A girl.”
The guard runs to unlock the door to the cage but backs away when the puma walks up beside me.
It’s hard to hear that I’m a girl when I had just started to begin to feel like a woman. Mitch The Puma has that told-you-so look in his eyes. How could he be Mitch? If Mitch isn’t the puma next to me, he has to be in this zoo somewhere. And this puma has to be the tamest puma on the planet. And this puma is so my brother, because of the way he’s looking at me. But Mitch so isn’t a puma. Mitch is an owl, a know-it-all. Super annoying.
I’m a puma. I’ve always known that. I’m a puma because while people might think they know me, they don’t know me at all. I go by lots of names––jaguar, panther, cougar, mountain lion, leopard and more names than just about any other animal––no one really knows me. I’m fiercer and faster than a lion or even a tiger. The key to me is my speed. And more than ever I wish I could really be a puma. The wild kind. It’s weird but my third grade report flashes through my brain:
Pumas have over 410 voluntary muscles that can be used when needed. It’s thought by some, that this characteristic symbolizes the ability of a puma to move into different realities.
I so just did that.
All this astral projecting leaves me kind of fuzzy. All I want to do is take a nap. And even though the man is opening the gate and I want to run away more than anything, hop over his head and speed to Hayden’s house, I can’t move. My eyes are heavy and everything goes black.
***
The next thing I know I’m in my room––my puma den. My puma poster hangs above my bed in the house I know, the house I’ve grown up in. Well, I haven’t totally grown up yet. I press play on my iPod and I hear my Technodancefantasy party mix that I used to think made me feel more alive because nothing in the world was able to make my heart race with excitement. I used to be just sort of there. In the world but not really a part of it. But all that’s changed.
I miss the Hayden I left behind. I feel cheated like I just started to know myself and love my life and then had it all ripped away from me. I know what lies ahead. I’ve lived it. I know what being seventeen and being in high school is like. I’ve had my first kiss and I know about lots of other things too. I can’t wait four years for it. And I wonder about Hayden and if we really will go to a dance together. If he will be my first kiss. If we will ever be like we were on Planet Popular. Or if I’ll never feel at home in this world.
I let out a huge sigh. And after everything, I didn’t unravel any great mystery. The treasure marked on the map is still buried. I can’t imagine a world where Adrianne isn’t a peacock. Where she doesn’t win in the end. I can’t believe Hayden isn’t a peacock either. And the worst part is, I can’t tell anyone what happened because when you don’t follow the rules of Planet Popular bad things happen. And the super-weird part is I still might get struck by lightning for doing what I’ve done. The day is young.
I want to talk to Ally. I need to talk to Ally. Bad.
After Mom and Dad stop freaking out, telling me over and over that I’m grounded for life and that I’ll have to put in a million volunteer hours feeding the animals at the zoo to help pay for the prank I pulled, and freaking out because Mitch has gone missing I finally get to call Ally. But she sounds, different. Even though it feels like I’ve been gone a year, I find out everything, all of it, happened in one night. One. Night.
“Ally?” I say over the phone.
“Yeah,” she says.
“It’s Roxie.”
“Oh, hi.”
“What are you up to?” I say, not knowing what to say, how to begin.
“What do you mean what am I up to?”
Great. Now I need Cliff Notes about this life.
“Listen, I got to go,” Ally says. Giggles drown her voice out on the other end of the phone.
“Who’s that?” I ask.
“Adrianne.”
And then it hits me. Hard. Monday is Twin Day and Ally and I didn’t make plans. So I freak out and say, “So what are we wearing tomorrow?”
“Ah, yeah, about that,” she says.
13 on Halloween (Shadow Series #1) Page 15
