Everton Miles Is Stranger Than Me

by Philippa Dowding

  We reach the last house then fly silently over the town, over the buzzing streetlights, over the library, over the schoolyard, and back to my house. Everton watches as I float into my bedroom through the window. As soon as I’m inside, he says, “Promise you won’t fly out there alone again?”

  “Why, Everton? What’s out there? And you still haven’t told me what you were doing there.”

  He leans against the window frame and looks at me seriously for a moment.

  “It’s not safe for you to be out there alone. Come and get me next time if you want to go.” Then he’s gone.

  I watch him vanish into the darkness, and I want to shout Why? Why isn’t it safe out there? Clearly, Everton Miles knows something I don’t. Also, I could point out that he was out there alone, too.

  But … I could be wrong. As he fades into the darkness there’s a shimmer above him, a flurry and shake of feathers.

  They’re pure white feathers, with a hint of gold.

  Nine

  My alarm goes off about thirty seconds later, and I somehow get up for day two of high school. I sneak a strong cup of coffee after Mom and the twins leave, so my heart hammers along, jittery.

  Mrs. Mayhew loudly interrogates a boy who cheerfully answers her questions. So far, only Jeffrey Parks has cried. This boy really doesn’t seem like the crying type.

  “And Sebastian, what did you do all summer?” Sebastian starts to tell the class about working on his family’s farm. We’re getting used to Mrs. Mayhew and her twenty questions. Despite ourselves, we are getting to know each other better. The bell rings, and Jez and I jostle down the crowded hallway. I have to find the science room.

  “I have to tell you something.” I lower my voice. “Mrs. Forest invited me to The Float Boat last night. To meet someone.”

  Jez perks up. “How mysterious. Who?” I swear her eyes gleam. A few boys look her way, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

  “A boy. He’s new here.” I don’t have to say anything else. “Him.” I point. Everton Miles leans against a locker and talks to a bunch of football players like he grew up in Bass Creek, like he’s known them all his life. He’s wearing jeans, a little too low for school rules, and a black T-shirt. He also wears a smile that makes it impossible to look away.

  Charm just shoots out from him in rays, like beams of light. It even works on adolescent high school football players. Our eyes lock, and he twists up the corner of one perfect red lip at me. Then he goes back to charming the football players. I can’t tear my eyes away from him, though. I have no choice.

  Not only is Everton Miles slouching against a locker talking to the high school football players like he’s their king, but his arm is around a girl.

  Everton Miles has his arm around Shelley Norman.

  I storm away, flustered. I bang into a few kids who look at me like I’m crazy. Jez runs up behind me and whirls me around. The bell rings for class so we can’t talk long.

  “Who’s that guy? Why do you even know him?”

  “That’s Everton Miles.”

  At that very moment, Shelley and Everton snake past down the hall, locked together by Everton’s arm.

  “I met him last summer at the party in the woods,” I whisper.

  “What? Oh,” Jez breathes, catching on. “That party. Well whoever he is, he’s got terrible taste in girls.” I could hug Jez sometimes.

  “He and his brother just moved here. Mrs. Forest wants him to help me … you know.” I look up at the ceiling. I can’t bring myself to say the word fly in the hallway.

  “That is a secret you might want to keep.” She nods. I get a shock of guilt. This is my best friend, and I am keeping a much bigger secret from her.

  Gwendolyn.

  “Talk to you after school,” I say, then run to science class.

  I’m late. I walk into the class and fight panic. In high school science you sit at lab tables. With a partner. Two stools per table. Why didn’t someone tell me this? Not smart to come to the first science class that requires partners even a second too late.

  “Welcome,” the teacher says to me, not unkindly. His name is written on the board: Mr. Tupperman. “Please choose a seat.”

  There are exactly three stools left. Two empty stools are at the Lab Table of the Damned, because it’s right at the front of the class. The third empty stool is comfortably midroom, but the stool next to it is already occupied.

  Who is sitting there? Martin Evells.

  He smiles and raises his hand.

  I close my eyes. If I sit at the front of the class all alone at the Lab Table of the Damned, I’ll have to help the teacher at every experiment. I’ll be his partner in every lab, because I’ll be the only person in the classroom sitting alone. Eventually we’ll become chummy; I’ll clean the boards and empty the beakers after class. I’ll call him Mr. T.

  I see all this in a second, and then I dash to the empty stool beside Martin Evells. I slide in beside him and drop my books on the desk. I try not to look over at him, but it’s no use. I peek, and he smiles at me then looks back up at the teacher.

  Don’t ask me what else happens in this first day of science class, because I have no idea. There’s so much between me and the boy I’m sitting beside, although we’re just a few inches apart. Best friends long ago, a terrible mother who starts rumours about me, the Worst Kiss Ever.

  But more than all that (and I could write a book about why), Martin Evells knows that I can fly.

  Ten

  Day two of high school finally ends.

  I walk toward the front doors of the school to wait for Jez when Miss Moreau walks past me. She stops and does a double-take. I can’t avoid her, so I stand still as she draws up close and peers into my face. Everyone else pushes past us to go outside. I think of a rock in the river, stalling the salmon migration.

  “Miss Moreau?” I finally say, because she’s really staring at me.

  “It WAS you,” she says. “Last night. Someone did a rooster impression outside my bedroom window. It was you.” She stands back, sure of herself now, and crosses her arms. She’s got a slightly friendly look on her face, though, the kind of look an adult gives you when they know they’re right. And they’ve got you. Of course it was her! I knew I recognized the surprised face in the window. My heart sinks.

  “Actually, Miss Moreau, I was there, yes, but that wasn’t me. Doing the roostering. Not me.” I shake my head, wondering if roostering is a word.

  She raises her eyebrow. “Well, whoever it was, they’re really loud. They sounded like they were right outside my window, which would be difficult since it’s three storeys up.”

  “Yes, difficult. Impossible, really,” I say, weakly.

  She’s about to say more when Mr. Skinty walks up and says, “Gwendolyn Golden?” Miss Moreau and I look at him in surprise, and I nod. The hallway is empty now. Everyone is out on the front lawn in the September sunshine. This is good, since it looks like I’m in trouble, caught between the principal and a teacher. I don’t need the whole school watching.

  “Miss Golden, please come with me.”

  Miss Moreau walks away, so maybe I’m off the hook.

  I follow Mr. Stinky … Skinty! Skinty! … down the hall. He slouches. I almost want to tell him to straighten up. He doesn’t say a word, so I just follow him. What can this possibly be about?

  “Through here, Miss Golden.”

  I walk into his office and there, sitting like two damaged little angels, are my brother and sister. Christopher has a tissue stuffed up against a bloody nose. His shirt is torn at the sleeve, and his hair is all over the place. Christine has a bandage on one cheek and an ice pack on her hand.

  They’re a mess.

  I’ve been in charge of C2 since they were born. Plenty of times I’ve had to haul them off each other or discipline them or sort out something with their teach
ers. I’ve walked them home every day since they were in nursery school, and technically speaking, they should be in school right now, since their day isn’t over yet. In fact, I should be meeting them on the front steps in about fifteen minutes. I’ve never been this unnerved before.

  But something about these two seven-year-olds, all banged up and staring at me from the over-stuffed chairs in my new principal’s office, something about them just makes my knees weak. It’s only the second day of school. What happened?

  I sit down and shoot C2 a sympathetic look.

  “What’s going on?” I ask Mr. Skinty. He sits in the leather chair behind a large wooden desk, which looks like an ocean between us.

  “Your brother and sister have been fighting. Not with each other,” he says. “They were causing havoc, it seems, so their principal, Mrs. Abernathy, has kindly dropped them off here.” He raises his eyebrows at me in a “they’re-your-problem-now” look.

  “Where’s our mom?” I ask.

  “Mrs. Abernathy couldn’t reach her, and it was very important, urgent in fact, that they be removed from the school premises.”

  I look over at C2, the Chrissies, and my heart breaks a little. What on earth did they do? My little brother looks like he’d like to cry but won’t, although he’s the gentler of the two. My little sister, though, she’s all spit and vinegar and fight. Like a tiny wounded tiger.

  She glares at me, but Christopher’s eyes are soft and full of tears.

  I take a deep breath. What would my mom say if she were here? Or Mrs. Forest?

  “Okay. Um, maybe they should tell us what happened?” I try to be diplomatic, but Mr. Skinty breaks in.

  “It’s not really important at the moment. Mrs. Abernathy will report the incident — incidents — to your mother as soon as she can reach her. We really just needed a family member to take responsibility for them before the school day was out. You can take them now.”

  Then I swear, that man just gets up and walks out.

  I’m shocked. I watch him go, my mouth open. Mrs. Abernathy is always so motherly, so concerned for our welfare. Not this principal.

  I look back at my brother and sister. Christopher succumbs to his tears and uses his blood-covered tissue to wipe his eyes. I reach across the principal’s desk and hand him a new, clean one, which he takes with a sniffle. My sister, though, oh, my sister.

  She screws up her eyes and yells at the top of her angry, spitfire lungs, “You’re not Mr. Skinty! You’re MR. STINKY!”

  Eleven

  I gather up C2 and get them out of there. No one seems to notice. Even the lady at the front desk ignores us. Clearly I’m taking two upset young kids out of the principal’s office, but she doesn’t look up from her computer.

  Maybe someone died! I think. Maybe our house has burned to the ground and taken all our belongings, and pets, and birthday presents!

  I glare at the lady as we walk by, but she doesn’t notice.

  Christopher takes my hand and is gently hiccupping as we walk out the school front door. Christine trails behind us, mumbling and darting dark looks everywhere. She drags her backpack along the floor and bump-bumps it down the front stairs of the school in protest. Outside I get her to wear her backpack, then I take them both by the hand and we head home. Everyone is gone, so there’s no one to watch me and my angry, bleeding siblings slink down the sidewalk.

  As gently as I can, I begin to prod them about what happened. The story comes out in slow, irregular drips like a leaky tap. There’s plenty of waiting between drips.

  “So,” I say as we walk along, “were you mad at someone?”

  Drip.

  “David Plummer.” This is Christine.

  Drip.

  “David Plummer? What a crap name! David Dumber is more like it.” I’ve learned that teasing is a great way to loosen them up, but you have to be careful not to overdo it. Teasing can so easily lurch into taunting.

  Drip … d … d … drip.

  “I hate him.” Christine wipes an angry tear off the end of her nose.

  “Yes?” Agreeing helps and often opens the faucet to faster drips.

  “I think he’s retarded.”

  “Retarded? Really? Do you know what that means?”

  Drip … drip … drip …

  Christine plants her feet and sticks her hands on her hips. She stomps one foot. Here comes the flood.

  “It’s just that he’s SO STUPID! And he sits beside me! And he’s always in the way! And he never gets the right answer, never, and he … he … and he told me that our dad disappeared because he didn’t love us!” Christine turns into a puddle of distress on the sidewalk right in front of me, and all I can do is put my arm around her shoulder and let her broken faucet wash over us.

  After she calms down a bit, I say things like David Dumber is dead wrong. No one gets to talk about Dad like that. I knew him, and you didn’t. He really did love us, more than anything. We had nothing to do with his disappearance.

  His death.

  As I murmur comforting things to Christine and we begin to walk again, I finally understand the term heartsick. How can a seven-year-old say something like that to another child? I know that our family is a little strange, different, even scary for some people maybe, what with a disappearing dad and an angry, possibly drug-addicted older child like me. Let’s not even mention the flying around at night part (which is something C2 don’t know about me anyway. Mom and I decided to keep it from them for now). But as for my vanishing father, can’t the world just leave my little brother and sister out of it?

  David Plummer didn’t think up something that mean by himself, so his parents must say that about our family at home. He heard it from them. Is that what people say about my family behind our backs? That Dad left because he didn’t love us? Not that he died?

  I realize with a start that I was almost the same age Christine and Christopher are now when my father disappeared. I must have looked a lot like Christine does, all banged up and sad, although she has way more fire in her than I ever did. She’s so little! I get an ache so deep that I want to burst into tears too, but I can’t, not in front of C2.

  I can take the rumours and loneliness, but no one gets to hurt them. I’m going to have to raise up my shield, throw whatever protective charm I can over them. I should be able to figure out how to do that. Maybe just up the crazy ante, start flying around in public so no one gives C2 a second thought. All eyes would be firmly on me, not on them.

  But it would never work. We’re all in this together.

  Christine quiets and slowly walks behind us. I turn to my little brother, who has held my hand all the way and is strangely quiet.

  “So do you want to tell us about your angry day?” I try to sound breezy and bright, but Christopher keeps a stony silence. His faucet isn’t leaky.

  “Did you meet up with a nasty kid? A dumb quiet-time story? A rotten carrot stick at snack-time?”

  Christopher clenches his jaw, which I’ve never seen him do before. “Does David Plummer have black hair?” he asks his sister. She nods.

  “Why do you want to know what David Dumber looks like?” I ask, trying to keep it light. My little brother looks up at me, the sweet one, the kind one, the first to laugh or cry.

  “I’m going to fight him. I’m going to fight David Plummer.” I’m so shocked that I gasp.

  “What?”

  Christine skips up, happier now.

  “You heard him. He’s gonna fight Dumb David Dumber.”

  It’s like watching two kids from a horror movie. The twins are suddenly happier. They perk up and walk ahead of me down the sidewalk, chattering away like nothing just happened. I’m in way over my head here. Christopher never fights. Never, not even with his twin. Not really. He just gives in. Two days separated at school, and he’s already talking about fighting other kids?
r />   I really, really hope our mother is home when we get there.

  Twelve

  When we get home, Cassie waddles up to us, wagging her stubby tail. C2 tear toward the kitchen, and I see our mother in the living room. Mrs. Abernathy is sitting beside her.

  This has never happened before.

  A school official has never visited our home. Police officers on account of me, yes. But up until this moment, we’ve never had an official visit from the principal.

  Christopher and Christine skid to a halt and stare. Christine is the first to look a little worried. Her face gets stormy, and I can see that the faucet could burst again.

  I step up.

  “Hi, Mrs. Abernathy. I’ll make a snack for everyone.”

  My mother says, “Thank you, Gwen.” Then the adults turn back to their conversation. I lead C2 into the kitchen and make them crackers and cheese. I pour two glasses of milk.

  “Are we in trouble?” Christine whispers.

  “Of course you’re in trouble. I’m going to talk to them. Don’t move out of these seats,” I say, serious. I still have some sway with them. Enough to make them stay in the kitchen for a few moments, anyway. I head into the living room.

  Mrs. Abernathy says kindly, “Your brother and sister had a very bad day, I’m afraid, Gwendolyn. Your sister argued with a boy rather loudly. He’s quite unnerved.”

  “David Plummer,” I say.

  “Yes. And your little brother threw a tantrum and spat on his teacher because she asked him to sit down.” I’m shocked. The thought of my little brother spitting on an adult is impossible.

  “Are you sure?” I ask. “He spat on her?”

  Mrs. Abernathy nods. “I’m afraid so.” She looks a little stricken, too. She knows us all well.

  “Maybe we should move them back into the same class, and this behaviour will stop?” my mother says. She’s got a hopeful tone to her voice that hurts to hear. A pleading mother.