13 on Halloween (Shadow Series #1)

by Laura A. H. Elliott

  I follow Ally into the girls’ bathroom. She slams the stall door behind her and throws up. Over and over. I wait until she goes quiet and say, “How about we go to the nurse?”

  “Nah, school’s almost over anyway. I’ll be fine,” she says.

  “You don’t sound fine.”

  “Roxie did you feel it?”

  “Feel what?”

  “The crazy way he reads, did you feel it?”

  “Yeah. It was like being put to sleep or something. Like a dream.”

  “So, it wasn’t just me.”

  “No, I totally..”

  “You girls OK?”

  Ally opens the stall door and mouths the words it’s him.

  Tingles shoot down my back at the sound of his voice. He’s creepy. The way he’s right here, outside the girls’ bathroom door. So close to the door he might have overheard us.

  “Girls?” he says sort of taunting.

  “I so don’t want to face him.” I whisper.

  “Neither do I,” Ally says.

  When we both do, Hayden stands in the hall just behind Rock-and-Roll Teacher, along with The 10. Just over Hayden’s shoulder someone’s standing in the principal’s office. I eye her through the office’s peek-a-boo window. I’d know that blonde hair anywhere.

  “Girls, as punishment for the outburst in my class I insist that you attend tryouts tonight. You’ll have the time of your lives,” the Rock-and-Roll English teacher says, his eyes sparkle again. Weird. When he finally leaves us alone, I run across the hall to find out if Adrianne’s standing in the principal’s office and where she’s been and why her family took off in the middle of the night right before school started, and if it has anything to do with the shadows and Planet Popular, or me, and why she didn’t say a word to any of us. But I get swallowed in a sea of students. I grab a hold of one person and step around them when someone else going the other way slams into me carrying me downstream. When I finally break free I run right into The 10. My heart beats a million times a minute.

  “You okay?” he says.

  OMG, he’s actually talking to me and, yeah, I’m way more tingly then when he stared at me across the cafeteria. “Yes.” I say. And I’m not kidding, I can’t speak. I’ve been dreaming about what I’d actually say to a Ten if ever I saw one, and trust me yes isn’t exactly it. But there isn’t any time. I run away from The Ten, the guy that I’d like to maybe be duct taped to for the rest of my life because I have to find out what happened to Adrianne. I have to know. I run, scrambling through the office door, falling over the super-high counter that clearly separates the adults from the students and I say, “Where is she?” All hyperventilating.

  “She who?”

  “The blonde girl that was in here.”

  “I didn’t see anyone. Did you Flo?”

  “Nope.”

  Really? “Oh, okay. I guess I’m just losing my mind,” I say, scrambling back out to see and maybe actually talk to The 10 again, but I run into Wanda instead.

  “It’s time. You need to come check this out,” Wanda says.

  “Check what out?”

  “Just follow me,” she says with that teeny, most creepy smile.

  I look up and down the still busy hall, searching for Hayden, The 10 and Ally. But there’s nobody I know. Since I’ve just darted around the high school like some maniac and I’m with the weird new girl I’m looking for a place to hide.

  “But, I’ll miss the bus,” I say with the kind of panic only freshman possess.

  “I know, but it’ll be okay,” she says.

  “How do you know?”

  “You’ll see,” she says. And it’s kind of irritating how calm she always is. At this point I’m so over her and my crazy English teacher I just want to go home. I don’t care if Rock-and-Roll Teacher gives me a detention and I’m grounded for my natural life. I follow her as far as the PAC stage door.

  “Thanks, Wanda, but I’ve got to run,” I say.

  “But tryouts are today. I heard you were trying out for the play,” she says semi-insistent.

  “You are? So am I,” The 10 says with a smile, jumping ahead of us through the open door and into the darkness of the empty stage.

  “Yeah,” I say with what feels like a plastic smile. His kind of ragged chestnut hair is what I obsess over first before it falls over his amber eyes framed with incredible eyelashes, so incredibly hot. He’s truly gorgeous. Unlike any boy I’ve ever known. But, he’s not a boy is he. His teeth are white and his abs are chiseled. I know this because as he slides between Wanda and I, his abs find my hip. There’s barely any wiggle room at all through the PAC’s backstage door. I’m so completely dumbfounded by his smile and amazing tan that I let the fact he actually touched me go unnoticed until he disappears into the darkness. And there’s a longing in me. To see him again. Now. I can’t just leave. I rub my hip.

  “Yeah, I have to go to tryouts. I forgot all about it,” I say.

  Wanda giggles a teeny, tiny giggle.

  I giggle a little too, until Hayden walks up beside me.

  “So it’s true,” he says.

  “What’s true?” I say.

  “You’re trying out for the school play?” And the way he says it, its so like I’ll never make it.

  “That’s right,” I say kind of embarrassed that this guy who’s supposed to be my friend is acting like this in front of Wanda. She puts her head down and walks through the backstage door. I’m left leaning against the door, propping it open.

  “You of all people should have faith in me,” I say.

  Hayden’s whole face looks like a question mark. I can’t freaking believe it. “There’s no way I ever would have survived Planet Popular without being some kind of an actress. When I AP’d to that shadow world, everyone treated me like I was someone else, even you. I had to play a part.”

  “Listen, the shadow world? We called it Planet Popular. But...it’s. It’s bigger than that. It’s...”

  “I thought you’d stood me up,” Rock-and-Roll Teacher says. I jump a little when he takes his place at my side. I didn’t notice his footsteps at all. It’s like the man just appeared by my side. All the air drains out of me when I turn to say, “No, Sir.” I never say Sir, but I’m that nervous. He slinks back into the darkness glancing at Hayden, giving him a quick up-and-down once over, liking what he sees.

  “What? What is it? Tell me?” I say practically begging him to spit whatever it is out.

  Hayden looks down and wrings his hands. We wait there for what feels like forever. He stays silent.

  There’s something so epic between Hayden and me but it feels like a place neither of us want to be anymore. Or can’t be anymore. “Well, I’m late,” I say, stepping through the open door that latches with a loud, steely sound. I sort of hope Hayden will walk through the door and tell me he didn’t mean to get mad at lunch. Tell me what’s on his mind. But the door stays closed and cold ripples around me as I walk deeper into the darkness of the theatre toward the few faint voices inside. I scurry out of the darkness because I’m so creeped out by the feeling I’m being watched.

  The creepy feeling starts to make me shake. There’s about a dozen people sitting in the first few rows of the plush new theatre seats. I pick out Wanda and The 10. But I don’t see Ally. I don’t know anyone else. I take the first seat I come to, my eyes glued on Rock-and-Roll Teacher wondering if Hayden’s right about never going back.

  “Hey, my name is Andy,” The 10 says slipping down into the folding theatre seat beside me.

  “Hey,” I say, stroking the red velvet seat fabric so History Channel. The seats are old-fashioned and feel decadent and expensive.

  “You’re Roxie, right?” Andy says, wiggling around in his seat like he’s trying to shake a creepy feeling too.

  I smile. “Have you ever been in a play before?” I get a better look at his eyes underneath his long bangs. They’re golden and gorgeous.

  “Lots of times. I grew up doing commercials.”
>
  Of course he did. Because that’s something 10s do.

  “You know the one where all the kids are on a picnic and I’m the boy who sprays all the kids with Country Time Lemonade. That was me.”

  And I really do remember that commercial.

  “Now I’m doing BMW commercials...lots of cars and Ambercrombie.”

  “What play are we trying out for?” I ask, barely getting the words out when Rock-and-Roll Teacher walks center stage and belts out lines he knows by heart into the darkness:

  “Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air; And--like the baseless fabric of this vision-- The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. ...the words of Prospero,” he says.

  A few in the audience clap for his delivery. He’s good. Maybe a little too good for a substitute English teacher.

  “Lords & Lasses, everything is fleeting. This building in which we sit. Your problems and triumphs. Everything. All of it will change. Your fortunes. Your bad luck, your good,” Rock-and-Roll Teacher continues, ever the buzz kill.

  “Bad luck? I don’t have bad luck,” a guy in back of me says. It’s Romulus. I didn’t even recognize him when I walked into the theatre. Like I said, everything and everyone is changing.

  “Of course you don’t. What do you know of it? But, now, you are in the theatre, and you will believe in luck. Every kind of luck.”

  Romulus wrinkles his brow and leans back in his seat so not wanting to be here, he nods over at me.

  “What happened to Doc Watson?” Andy asks.

  “Who’s Doc Watson?” I whisper into Andy’s very adorable ear. I never thought ears could be adorable. But, I was wrong. Very wrong. I like being this close to him.

  “Doc always directed our plays, he was an English teacher here. An institution really,” Andy whispers back. His hot breath on my neck makes my crazy day melt away.

  A crash in the back of the theatre makes us all search the seats around us, looking to each other as people do to feel better about a scary thing.

  “Don’t be frightened. We’ve just been negligent. The light left on for the stage ghosts was extinguished,” Mr. Rock-and-Roll says so matter-of-factly he could be telling us the cafeteria is out of hamburgers. “We won’t make that same mistake again?” he yells in the direction of the crash.

  Andy looks at me and raises an eyebrow. I shoot a look back at him. His smile makes me feel beautiful. It makes me feel beautiful that someone like him smiles at me.

  Rock-and-Roll teacher scales the steps to the stage and disappears into the darkness. We hear a small steely flick. A solitary light shines down on the great space that is the stage. “There, the ghost light. I’ll have a word with whoever turned it off. We have much work to do and we don’t need them getting in our way.”

  “What’s your name?” Romulus says.

  “I didn’t say,” he smiles back. “The name of our play is The Tempest. Have any of you read the story?”

  Only Wanda raises her hand.

  “Excellent, my dear. You will be my special assistant,” he says. And for the first time the always confident Wanda has a look of terror in her eye. A knowing terror.

  “Come here Lass and help distribute the scripts.”

  Wanda slowly walks to his side and eyes him in the way that I do when I’m mad at Mitch. Nothing can make me angrier than Mitch. She picks up the stack of folded, stapled books and stares back at him. They exchange glances as if they’re in the middle of an argument none of us can hear.

  “Very good, we’ll start with you, Sir, the strapping young lad who looks like a TV commercial. I’d like you to read Prospero and I’d like you, my dear,” he points at me, “to read Ariel.”

  “Ariel?”

  “She’s an airy spirit,” Rock-and-Roll Teacher says. It’s really weird he hasn’t told anyone his name.

  “Cool,” Andy says.

  “Yes, it would be if you weren’t lying to her all the time,” the teacher says looking at me.

  And it’s too horrible to even think about. Andy lying to me. But, we’d only just met. He has to just be talking about the play. What could someone I don’t even know yet possibly have lied to me about?

  Andy’s wide-eyed look makes the cold fingers of creepiness crawl over my body again.

  “Just helping you both to get in character,” Rock-and-Roll Teacher says as if to answer my silent question, is Andy lying to me?

  “Yes take it from page 25, after the shipwreck. Now imagine Andy, you have survived a tempest. A terrible storm at sea. Your ship split in two and the ship, lightened of its cargo and battered by the sea, turns into driftwood. This is where you will give yourself up for lost. But, the north winds are sharp and you’ve gotten to shore by clinging to wreckage and found this lovely sprite to thank and later take for granted.”

  “Lovely,” Andy whispers under his breath, staring right at me.

  I find my place before Andy, long enough to examine his profile. He’s most definitely a 10. After we say our lines, and I stumble on some of the History Channel words––a bunch of Dost thous and prithees, it’s clear that Prospero breaks his promise to Arial. They’re bound to each other by some sort of pact and Prospero seems like he’ll never set her free. I want to read The Tempest from cover to cover. Immediately. Only I’ll need some sort of interpreter to understand it all.

  “Great!” The teacher says as I crumble inside at the way Arial’s been betrayed and lied to.

  “Tryouts tomorrow,” Rock-and-Roll Teacher says. Take these script copies home tonight and find a monologue no more than a minute or two. Yes, that should be plenty. Tomorrow we’ll have you walk on stage, along with the ghosts and wow me with your talent.”

  “Does this mean Doc Watson isn’t director anymore?” Andy says.

  “Yes, Lad. Means you’re stuck with me. I’m afraid Doc Watson is...away.” Rock-and-Roll Teacher smiles a creepy, self-conscience smile, his teeth unnaturally whiter in the darkness of the theatre. “And the name is Janus. Mr. Janus,” he says as his smile immediately fades.

  Great. We’ve got a creepy, manic-depressive teacher for a director. I grab my backpack up off the floor and sling it over my shoulder, wishing more than ever that I lived close enough to walk home to avoid the inevitable drama that the missed bus will create. Walking slow, I pull out my cell and hesitate before pressing call, deep in thought about Arial and her betrayal, the way she gets turned on like it felt my friends were turning on me. I sort of come out of my haze when I walk out the backstage door and into the overly well-lit hallway. The only two people standing there are me and Andy.

  “You want a ride home?” he says like he talks to 6s all the time.

  “You drive?” I say. I can’t help myself. Freshman can’t disguise their longing for total freedom. Ever.

  “I’m a Junior,” he says like I should have known that already. And I should have.

  “Oh.” Why would a junior, and junior who’s a 10, want to give me a ride home? “Sure. Where do you live?” I ask.

  “Just a few streets down, in town. You?” Of course he lives in the quaintest, most beautiful village just a few streets away from the high school. He probably lives in a mansion.

  “Oh, I’m all the way across town. It’s okay. It’s way out of your way,” I say, really wishing he’d give me a ride to avoid the drama that a call to my mom will create.

  “No problem. I like to drive. It clears my head,” he says pulling his keys out of his pocket.

  Why would a 10, the perfect guy, need to clear his head? What could ever be bothering a perfect guy like him? The blue and white checked BMW logo winks at me from his silver key chain. “Ah, okay. I guess,” I say.

  “Great,” he says and we b
oth walk down the linoleum floored hallway, its walls lined on either side with white tiles. I notice every inch of our walk to the parking lot because the perfect guy with the perfect car is driving me home. I scan the hallway for someone else, anyone else. I don’t even care if it’s Wanda. Because I want someone to see this. But, not a soul is around. Not even a teacher. We walk out of the deserted building and he holds the door to the parking lot open for me.