by C. P. Rider
"The office is over here." Grandpa Holli led me through a door and up to a long counter separating a busy office from a waiting area where metal-legged chairs with hard plastic seats lined the wall.
"Well, hello, Holli. How are you?"
The being behind the counter sounded female, but that was the only indicator of gender. She was around five foot ten, three inches taller than Grandpa Holli, long limbed, skinnier than a runway model, and completely hairless. At least, as far as I could see.
She blinked at me. Her eyes were half the size of her large oval head, and as blue as the Pacific Ocean. She reminded me of those drawings I'd seen of outer space aliens, except her flesh wasn't gray. It was a pinkish shade of white, and mostly hidden behind a beige turtleneck sweater and tan pants.
"Hello, Judy. I'm doing well, thanks. We missed you at the council meeting last night. Everything all right?"
Judy's orb of a head jiggled like gelatin for a fraction of a second. I guessed that the movement was a nod, but it was just an impression. There was nothing on her face to support nor disprove my theory.
"Oh yes, everything is just fine. It was my turn to help with the food and supply run, remember?"
Grandpa Holli tapped his head in recognition as she spoke. "That's right. I knew that. I guess it slipped my mind after everything that happened this last weekend." He smiled down at me. "Judy, allow me to introduce the very nice reason for my distraction. This is Emilio's and my granddaughter, Maria. Maria, this is Mrs. Beeson, the school secretary."
"Maria's child? She's come here from the Other?" Mrs. Beeson sounded excited. "And Maria?"
"Gone," Grandpa Holli replied.
"I'm so sorry, Holli."
We all took a moment to wait out the awkwardness of the moment.
"Well, it's lovely to meet you, Maria." Two dots appeared in Mrs. Beeson's cheeks, though her mouth didn't change shape. Dimples? I went ahead and took it as a smile.
"Hello, Mrs. Beeson."
She clapped her slender hands together. She had no fingernails or knuckle lines, though her fingers did bend. "I have some paperwork for your grandfather—" She handed him a clipboard and a pen. "—and some for you."
I took my clipboard. "Umm, I don't have a transcript, ma'am. I was home-schooled and I didn't get that information before I, uh, came here."
"That's no problem, dear. Just list the classes you've completed, and we'll work out a schedule for you. No transcripts needed."
I plopped into a hard-plastic chair next to Grandpa Holli. "That's strange," I said for the hundredth time since arriving in town. "Usually schools demand all that stuff."
Grandpa Holli picked up his pen, jotted something on the clipboard. "Dead End isn't like other places."
Yeah, I'd kind of figured that out.
Mrs. Beeson walked me to my first class. Well, ran me. I had to scramble to keep up with her long stride.
As I ran-walked behind her, she gave me the tour. "It's all quite logical. Mathematics there, Science back there, English classes up there." She jabbed the air with a long finger. "Electives are over here…"
I tried to retain it all, but I felt hopelessly lost. All I could think about was how I hadn't been to school in a long time. What if I made a fool of myself on the first day and became the dork of the school? It could happen. I'd read on a blog about a girl who barfed on her desk the first day of sixth grade and she was the "yak queen" until graduation.
Oh God. I really didn't want to vomit.
Or fart. That would be worse. So much worse. I'd rather vomit than fart. Burping. I'd rather burp than vomit and I'd rather vomit than fart. My stomach churned and I crossed my fingers. And my legs.
"Apologies for the interruption, Mr. Henning, but we have a new student. Her name is Maria Guadalupe Flores Thompson, but she goes by Maria." Mrs. Beeson did the dimple thing again, so I smiled back.
"Hello."
I managed the greeting without burping, vomiting, or farting. So far, so good.
"Greetings, Maria." Mr. Henning was humanoid, but not entirely human. More like an android trying to appear human. He had board-straight bronze hair down to his waist, and his skin was the shade of an old penny.
"Please take a seat next to Cindy."
He indicated a human girl—the only other one in the class—in pink shorts with fair, freckled skin, blonde hair swept into two low ponytails, and pale brown eyes. She waved at me enthusiastically while the rest of the class let out a low snicker.
I locked eyes with Cindy, tugging the straps of my backpack down to tighten it against my back and mask the deep breath I took for courage. Making a beeline to the empty desk, I tried not to focus on the sea of judgmental eyes burning holes into me. That was one of things I hadn't minded living without when I had to stop going to school.
Cindy smiled at me aggressively. To get her to stop, I smiled back.
"I'm Cindy Gale. So happy to meet you, Maria."
I wasn't sure that was a compliment. She seemed to be the sort of person who was happy about everything. "Uh, nice to meet you, too." A thought occurred to me. "Wait. Gale? Is your dad on the city council?"
"How did you know that?"
"I went to last night's meeting with my grandfathers."
"Aw, I wish I'd have been there. I don't go much because they're super boring," she said, then squealed as if she'd just met a movie star. "Oh, my Arcadia, I'm so excited. I love the Other. I'm a total xenophile, if you want to know the truth. I love foreign people and things, and I—"
"Cindy." The teacher glared at her.
"Sorry, Mr. Henning." She smiled at me again. "We'll talk more after class."
Cindy and I ate lunch together at a picnic table near a crooked not-quite-palm tree. Most of the students sat at or around the five tables closest to the front gate. A few studied as they ate at the tables flanking the classrooms. No one sat alone, though some were clustered in groups of three or less.
They were all different. From me, from each other. Different skin color, different hair color, different number and types of appendages. Different, but also the same. Judgmental, insecure, disapproving. And several of them were staring daggers at Cindy.
I wondered who she ate lunch with when I wasn't around.
"My mom was from the Other. She came here, like you, as a teenager. I have some of her music. She was really into this group called Queen. Have you heard of it?"
"Well, yeah. They're pretty popular."
"Still? All these years later?"
"The lead singer died in the nineties, but the rest of the band tours and stuff. There was a movie about them." I peered into my zippered lunch box. Grandpa Holli had prepared a bento box with crackers, veggies, meats, and cheeses. He'd included some sugar cookies, an orange, and a bottle of water.
"Oh no, don't tell my mom Freddie Mercury is dead. She'll cry." Cindy frowned into her paper lunch sack. "Basil, tomato, and mozzarella again. Would it kill her to make me a peanut butter and jelly once in a while?" Her eyes widened. "Is that salami?"
I picked up a neatly sliced square. "Yep."
"Wow, you're so lucky to live with your grandparents." Cindy watched, wide-eyed, as I unloaded the bag. "I'd love a lunch like that. It looks like the sort of stuff my parents eat when they drink wine."
"Have some." I nudged the bento box toward her.
She shook her head. "I shouldn't. It's your lunch."
"I don't mind sharing."
"No. I don't want to be pushy. People are always telling me how insensitive and rude I am, and I know they're right. I don't want to do that with you."
Weird. Cindy was energetic and kind of loud, but she wasn't bossy or rude. "It's not pushy if I offer."
"No, I don't want to mess up." She pulled her hands into her lap.
"It's fine." I whipped my lunch around and circled the table to sit beside her. "So, you're human?"
"Yeah, I'm human." Her hands weren't in her lap. They were tucked under her thighs as if she had to restrain
herself to keep from reaching out.
"Like me."
"Am I like you?" Her gaze flickered to the boisterous students at the tables by the front gate. "You should know, humans aren't all that respected at this school. Especially humans with no abilities. The others can be pretty mean about it. I just think you should know it's a risk eating lunch with me, and I'll understand if you want to move."
"It almost sounds like you're warning me of the dangers of being your friend."
"They might pick on you the way they do me."
"They sound like a bunch of a-holes."
She snorted out a laugh. "Is that short for assholes? Do people where you come from say it like that? I love it."
"We say it the other way, too. Why do they pick on you?"
"My mom comes from a long line of healers, and my dad is a seventh-generation tracker. The Gale family is responsible for all the cartography we have of the Beyond. He's always either out scouting locations, at meetings, or locked in his office working on his maps. Mom's usually in her garden tending her herbs, or in her greenhouse bottling her tinctures. And then there's me."
"You?" I frowned.
"Who isn't a tracker or a healer." She nodded too much, too quickly. "I'm a nothing."
Someone had said those words to her. I knew it as surely as I knew my own name. Probably someone seated at that table she kept sneaking glances at. I wanted to lash out at those stupid kids, but my anger was a dangerous thing and I couldn't indulge it, even for a new friend. Abuelo Emilio said abilities were stronger here, and my ability had been strong before arriving in Sanctum.
"I don't know. You seem nice to me."
A shy smile curved her lips. "Thanks."
"Besides, abilities aren't all that great," I said. "Sometimes they get you in a lot of trouble." And sometimes they hurt people you never intended to hurt.
"Maybe, but on this side of the universe, it's better to be a troublemaker than a nothing."
There was that word again. Nothing. I didn't know what to say to make her feel better, so I said the first thing that popped into my head. "You know, I haven't gone to a real school in a long time. I was worried I might throw up in class on my first day."
Cindy shot me a side glance, then ducked her head and giggled. "I always worry about things like that. I tend to make scenes."
I piled some salami on a cracker and topped it with brie. Grandpa Holli really had no idea what teenagers ate.
"Also, I was worried I might fart." I handed her the cracker. A laugh burst from her—quick and short like a hiccup—as she took it from me.
"That would be awful." She happily bit into the cracker. "Even if you had farted, I'd have still been your friend—if you wanted me to."
"I'd want you to." I made a cracker for myself, took a bite.
"Good." Cindy dusted crumbs off her hands as she chewed. "But I have to tell you, if you'd pooped your pants in class, I'd have had to walk away. There's no coming back from that one."
This time a laugh burst out of me. "Good thing I didn't poop my pants then."
"Yeah." Cindy grinned. "Good thing."
10
"So, you think your dad will be able to come here?" Cindy asked, after I told her how I'd ended up in Dead End.
We were at the same picnic table we'd sat at during lunch, but it was three o'clock now—was I ever glad they used normal days and time here, one less adjustment to make—and we were waiting for my grandfathers to pick me up.
"Sure. Why wouldn't he?"
For the first time in our short acquaintance, Cindy didn't smile, and she didn't answer my question.
"Cindy?"
She bent her legs to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, then rested her chin on her knees. "Because it's kind of impossible."
"What do you mean?" I tried to ignore the rising panic.
"Well, unless you have a café card, you can't find or enter the One Way Café, which is one of only a couple of ways you can get to Sanctum from the Other. Café cards are for residents."
"I wasn't a resident."
"You said you used your mom's card. The cards themselves aren't hard to get—we all have them—but they are hard to get across the Divide."
"Divide?"
"The barrier that separates Sanctum from the Other."
It was apparent I had a lot to learn. "So, I guess you couldn't just go buy one of those cards and mail it to someone back home."
"Well, no. But that's not so strange. We can't send mail to anywhere west of Dead End because of scavengers, and we can't travel north at all." She pointed toward a range of snow-peaked, purple mountains on the horizon. "Not since the trains stopped running."
"Why did the trains stop running?" I hopped along the conversation, feeling a lot like Alice must have felt when she dropped into Wonderland.
"Marauders. Rippers. Monsters. When my dad was a kid, there used to be a bunch of towns in the Beyond. There was a railroad that led straight through it to the ocean. He swam in it as a little boy."
"Where are the people now?"
"The ones who survived live in the towns and cities east of Dead End. My dad says we're the last bastion of the civilized world to the west. He sometimes talks like that—my mom says he's cute when he's pompous. Gross." Cindy stood, dusted off the back of her shorts. "Looks like your ride is here. My mom should be here soon, then."
I turned to see Grandpa Holli standing at the gate. He was pink-cheeked, like he'd exerted himself coming to get me.
"Come on. I'll introduce you," I said.
"Oh, I already know your grandpas. They're friends with my parents. Also, we only live a block down from you all." She walked to the gate with me, waved. "Hi, Mr. McCain-Flores."
"Hello, Cindy. I see you met my granddaughter." His chest puffed out a little when he said that. It had puffed out when he'd introduced me to Mrs. Beeson, too.
It suddenly dawned on me that Grandpa Holli was proud that I was his granddaughter. Proud of me. I wouldn't have thought it would mean so much, but it did, especially after Abuelo Emilio's cold indifference.
"Yes, sir. I'm glad you got her signed up for school. Maria and I are in all the same classes—oh my Arcadia, what a handsome dog." That Cindy referred to Toby as handsome rather than cute made me like her even more.
Toby raced up the sidewalk and launched himself into my arms, tail wagging furiously. "Hey, guy, I missed you, too."
Grandpa Holli glanced over his shoulder. "Your abuelo must have let him out."
Abuelo Emilio was in the passenger seat of their car with the door open and his nose in a newspaper. It looked like the same one he'd been reading this morning—the Sanctum City Times. He read the newspaper the way most people watched TV or read books. I had no idea what could possibly be that interesting; it wasn't as if Dead End had a lot going on—if you didn't count the lawn gnome attacks and the giant worm hunting.
On second thought…
I introduced Cindy to Toby, and promised I'd meet her tomorrow morning at the picnic table by the meridian tree. It just looked like a twisty palm to me, but I nodded as if I understood what she was referring to and waved goodbye.
Grandpa Holli, Toby, and I strolled to the car. "Did you and Cindy really eat your lunch under a meridian tree?"
"Yes."
He pursed his lips. "What time?"
"We're dismissed for lunch at 12:15. Why?"
"Nothing. Nothing at all to worry about. As long as you're never near a meridian tree at noon or midnight. That's when it blooms."
"Blooms? Isn't that a good thing?"
"Not if you want to eat your lunch. The meridian tree has a six-foot-long tongue and a sense of smell even more developed than this gentleman." He helped Toby into the back seat and I followed. "It loves meat."
I grimaced. "We need to find a different table."
"Only if it's noon or midnight. Their feeding window is five minutes long, so plan accordingly and you'll be fine."
"What's that, amor?
" Abuelo Emilio turned down the car radio. I heard the brassy strains of a mariachi song in the background. The music reminded me of Mom. I pictured her flicking her long black hair over her shoulders and swishing an imaginary skirt around as she danced with Dad and me.
"Maria says they've got a meridian tree in the courtyard at the school."
"That right?" He frowned at me.
I nodded.
"Stay away from it at noon and midnight or it'll eat your lunch and chew on your hair."
"Good point, Emilio." Grandpa Holli started the car and pulled out of the lot. He drove about twenty miles an hour, yet no one honked at him or even sped past like they were angry. People either waved and went around, or matched his speed. "I forgot about the hair chewing."
I touched my braid. It hung to the middle of my back—the perfect length for grabbing. "It eats hair, too? Why doesn't the school chop it down?"
"That would be cruel. It's a living thing, after all," Grandpa Holli looked horrified.
"Okay then, why not move it to somewhere away from the high school?"
"Because we'd have to listen to it whine for months as it re-acclimated." Abuelo turned the page of his newspaper. "Nothing whines worse than a meridian tree that's been uprooted."
"Remember when Bert Mackey had to pull out that one by City Hall because it was infested with root-eating vermin? We could hear it wailing in the pest control office for two weeks straight. Bert nearly lost his mind during the healing process."
I leaned over the front seat. "What happened?"
Grandpa Holli shrugged. "Bert was finally able to get rid of all the root bugs and replant the tree. Once it was back in its spot, the tree shut right up."
11
"Where can I get a café card for my dad?"
I'd asked this question a good five minutes ago, and had yet to get a response from either of my grandfathers. We'd gathered around the kitchen table with milk and a pile of snickerdoodle cookies Grandpa Holli had baked while I was at school—which was why his face had been red earlier. His skin had flushed from the oven heat.
