Chapter Two
I stalked into the room, my peers’ eyes trying to catch a peek at my expression. I released the door, letting it—and hoping it would—smack into Pietr’s face.
He didn’t even glare in my direction. I made my disappointment obvious: Handing my pass to Ms. Ashton, I rolled my eyes. But she didn’t notice, letting the pass slip through her fingers as she crossed the floor, apologies to Pietr falling from her lips—for my behavior!
“I’m so sorry Jessie let go of the door too soon—are you okay?” She scanned his face, her eyes bright and oddly eager. I took my seat and watched the other students’ reactions to our arrogant new class member. The girls were all sitting—literally—at the edge of their seats, fingers white around the knuckles as they gripped their desks and made mooneyes at him.
I couldn’t believe how they all seemed so blatantly and suddenly obsessed with Pietr. I mean, okay—I looked him up and down without feeling a hint of self-consciousness, measuring and weighing what I saw there. Yep. Not bad looking, sort of had that catalog-model look, good enough for print but not typical runway material.
But he simply didn’t care. It made me want to scream. But I remembered: Most girls go soft over guys with that dangerously arrogant edge—that distance that marks them as unattainable. I sighed.
Ms. Ashton was still rambling on about the importance of literature to civilization and, of course, to the class. Pietr occasionally said something softly in that too-cool way of his, and all the girls giggled. Even Ms. Ashton. She had taken Pietr by the hand to better lead him to his desk. I was astonished by her utter disregard of teacher-student protocol.
I ruffled the pages of my lit book, feeling a heat growing on my back. I turned and nearly choked on my own surprise. Derek was watching me. He winked at me and motioned with a jerk of his head at Pietr. I rolled my eyes, my insides melting at this small communication with my old crush.
Derek chuckled silently and pointed to get me to turn back around in my seat.
“So, Jessie,” Ms. Ashton was addressing me. “How did you manage to get the assignment of showing Pietr around?”
The girls all turned, glaring at me and yet seemingly hungry to know how they could get their very own new-boy-at-school, too.
“Just luck,” I muttered. Bad, dumb luck.
I felt Derek’s eyes on me again. Pietr didn’t bother to acknowledge my statement.
Ms. Ashton closed class with a homework assignment. There were groans in response. Someone stated the obvious: “It’s almost Homecoming!”
Ms. Ashton was unrepentant.
I didn’t groan. Homecoming wasn’t my thing. I barely followed our football team’s adventures (other than staring at Derek and listening to people recount his exploits on the field—that I could listen to for days). The idea of going to a parade, bonfire, and dance…well, what did it matter if I was curious about it? Who would ask me, anyhow? Besides, there were always things to be done at home. A horse farm always had something that needed doing.
The bell rang—a sound even more obnoxious and less bell-like today because I had a special assignment. An especially unpleasant assignment.
I stood and gathered my things. I was annoyed to find a mob of girls hanging around Pietr’s desk. They seemed oblivious to my presence. Nearly as oblivious as Pietr was to me. I cleared my throat.
No response.
I elbowed Izzy aside, pushing my way into their giggling midst. “Come on, Pietr. We’ve got math.”
He rose, slipping his newly acquired lit book under his arm.
“Math?” Izzy sighed. “Who does he have, Jessie? Mr. Belden?” She never once looked at me—his guide and holder of the evidently royal schedule.
“Yeah,” I snapped. “Beany Belden.” Now I did groan. Escorting Pietr was making me less pleasant about everything. “Now, Pietr.”
“I’ll walk with you,” Izzy offered.
“Good.” I headed for the door, saying over my shoulder, “I’ll lead.”
I did my best to distance myself from the pair of them, but occasionally I’d hear Izzy say something entirely insipid, and it seemed as if she’d shouted it down the hall. She was entirely too easy to impress. Her brightest moment in the very one-sided conversation was when she said, “You even smell good!”
I found myself rolling my eyes so often I nearly walked into a wall. Okay, the new boy was cute. So what if he smelled good? I mean—seriously. I totally get the idea that new things are attractive. New toys are shiniest. New cars smell best. But a new boy? Big deal.
Pietr finally returned her compliment. “You smell—delicious.”
Odd. I sniffed. Well, Izzy did tend to pour on the perfume. I guessed anyone walking with her would eventually notice her scent, probably along with the slow burning of his or her nose hair in response to the olfactory assault. But that didn’t matter because there was no amount of perfume in the world that could overcome the strange smells lurking in Belden’s classroom. The man hadn’t gotten the nickname “Beany Belden” for his choice of hats. At least Pietr would have a different smell to comment on. Maybe then he’d start an interesting conversation.
Pausing by Belden’s door, I reassured myself that at least this weird fascination Izzy had couldn’t last. Everything loses its luster eventually.
I turned to Pietr and Izzy. And saw four other gawking girls vying for Pietr’s attention.
I didn’t get it. What was it about him that they found so mesmerizing? Why didn’t I see it, too?
When Derek came up behind me, I nearly jumped. “What do they see in that guy?” he asked, eyes fixed firmly on my own. I concentrated on breathing. In-out-in-out-in…
“I don’t know,” I admitted sheepishly. Good. That was at least coherent. I tried an endearing smile, but I could feel my lips stretch into a crazed grin. Oh-god-oh-god-oh-god… I forced my lips back into a less maniacal look, hoping Derek had somehow overlooked my stalker-like smile.
I felt someone watching us and glanced briefly away from Derek to figure out who…. Still ringed by my female classmates, Pietr was glaring our way. No. Not our way—Derek’s way. Weird. And it wasn’t the glare a guy shoots a rival guy over a girl (not that I’ve seen one personally, but I’ve read about them plenty of times). No, it was like: I hate that guy and always will. Like Pietr already knew Derek.
Derek missed it. “So, I’ll bet every girl in class is hoping he’ll go to Homecoming with them.”
I shrugged. “He’s just some guy,” I countered, maybe a little loudly. “But yeah, he seems to have attracted a flock of followers.”
“Not you?”
“What?” I blushed.
“You don’t seem too impressed by him.”
“Yee-aahh.” I tore my eyes away from Derek’s face and looked Pietr over skeptically. Our eyes met, and I thought I read a warning in them. Weird. “Nope.” I shrugged again. “I just don’t get it.”
“So you won’t be going to Homecoming with him?”
“Of course not.”
“Are you going with someone else?”
I blinked.
“Are you going with somebody else?” Derek repeated.
“N-no.”
“All right, children, let’s break it up. We have things to learn, not time to burn. Inside, inside!” Belden herded us into the room, using his yardstick to round us up and break up my conversation with Derek.
I never hated math as much as that day. I watched Derek take his seat in the back and I took mine in the front, Pietr between us.
What had Derek been getting at, out in the hallway? Guys like Derek didn’t waste time on girls like me.
That day in math, nothing seemed to be adding up.
By the time math class wrapped up, my mind was swimming with questions. Most of them had nothing to do with mathematical equations. I packed up my things, noticing out of the corner of my eye that Derek hadn’t passed by yet. I took a moment to arrange my pencils neatly in my backpack, blushing at my sudde
n and probably pathetically obvious attempt at subterfuge.
I looked up when I heard someone pause beside my desk, but my lips pursed when I realized it was Pietr. And his gaggle of girls.
Derek skirted the group, shooting me a glance I couldn’t quite read as he left class. Left me.
I nearly growled at Pietr as I rose. His eyes narrowed, accentuating their oddly exotic appearance, and he seemed to weigh me for a moment. I hadn’t realized how distinctly his dark pupils were rimmed with brilliant gold—a bold barrier before the blue. His eyes nearly glowed, giving him a disconcertingly feral look.
The hairs on my arms stood up, but I would not back down. “Let’s go,” I snapped, pushing past the girls he’d inexplicably gathered. I knocked into two of them with my elbows out. It was absolutely calculated.
But they didn’t notice, reacting only when Pietr moved to follow me into the hall.
“Where are we headed?” Pietr asked.
What? Was he actually taking an interest in his new school? I glanced at him. “Lunch,” I said shortly.
“Oh, Pietr, that’s awesome,” Izzy, obviously the self-appointed leader of his flock, exclaimed. “We share a lunch period—we can sit together!”
I half-expected that strange “ee-eee” sound hysterical girls make, when spotting this week’s pop star, to stream from her lips, but, mercifully, she just grinned like a psycho.
Pietr gazed at her with a look you’d expect from a doting sitcom dad. Then he turned his strange eyes to me. “Where do you sit?”
“With my friends.” I couldn’t imagine such a phrase would attract more trouble, but it seemed I had a magnetic personality in just this one way.
“Excellent,” he said softly. “I would like to meet them.”
“Our table is normally full,” I countered. It was true. Most days I had trouble finding a seat if I was running behind.
He smiled, and I felt the girls around him try to set me on fire with their eyes. “Has today been normal for you?”
“No.” I crinkled his schedule in my hands. As much as I didn’t care for his attitude, I realized there was something—indefinable—about him.
I caught a glimpse of Derek as he sauntered by with his fellow members of the football team. He shot me a look that made my heart stop. But I still couldn’t interpret it. Maybe that was the key to a crush: You had it, but you never understood it.
Pietr slipped the schedule out of my hand, his fingers touching mine and jarring me out of my speculation. My hand tingled where he’d touched it, the same way it had tingled after I accepted the dare to touch the Monroes’ electric fence one wet spring day. I never thought the touch of another person could make the nerves jangle and dance beneath my skin. It was like I had slept the last few months away and now, suddenly, I was waking up.
Since she was a child Shannon Delany has written stories, beginning writing in earnest when her grandmother fell unexpectedly ill. In 2008 her greatly abbreviated version of 13 to Life (written in just five weeks) won the grand prize in the first-ever cell phone novel contest in the western world through Textnovel.com. Previously a teacher and now a farmer raising heritage livestock, Shannon lives and writes in Upstate New York and enjoys traveling to talk to people about most anything.
Beasts and BFFs Page 3
