“No,” Alex admitted. When Hannah rolled her eyes at him, he decided it was time to change the subject. “Oh, but that wasn’t the most exciting thing you missed. Brandon and me, you won’t believe what we found . . . .”
At school on Monday, Hannah was still thinking about her brother’s news. Two adventures in time had been more than enough for her, but she was starting to think the unthinkable: The time travel wasn’t over. She frowned. Would it go on forever? Not for the first time since she had arrived from San Francisco, she sighed heavily at the unfairness of it all. Moving to remote South Georgia was bad enough, without her life being turned into a sci-fi movie.
She snapped back to the more pressing problem of the moment: She did not fit in at Snipes Academy. School was not going well.
While summer had lasted, it was hard enough for Hannah to live in Snipesville. She was constantly reminded that she was a long way from California—in fact, she was a long way from anywhere. Her new house was surrounded by pine trees and fields, and it was miles from the center of town. Not that downtown Snipesville was exciting, exactly.
Hannah had kind of hoped that starting school would help her make friends. Truly, though, she had always doubted it. It wasn’t like she had a lot of friends in San Francisco, either. And as soon as she started classes at Snipes Academy, things went wrong.
At lunchtime on the first day, a giggly group of girls in the cafeteria had stared openly at her. She tried to look cool and confident, and finally, the girls cautiously approached her. She recognized one of them as Natalie Marshburn, her dad’s boss’s daughter.
While Natalie stayed in the background, a tall blonde with long straight hair said to Hannah, “Hey, you’re new, right?” She spoke through a mouthful of gum.
Hannah nodded to her. “Yeah, I’m Hannah. From San Francisco.” The girls giggled in unison.
“Wow, how’d you wind up in Snipesville?” asked the blonde. Before Hannah could answer, she extended a willowy hand and gave Hannah a limp handshake. She said, “I’m Ashlee Bragg. Natalie says we should welcome you to SA.”
More giggles.
“My mom told me to say that,” Natalie grumbled from the edge of the group, staring at her red-painted fingernails.
Ashlee smiled brilliantly at Hannah. “So, have you got family in Snipes County? What’s your last name?”
“No, my family’s in California,” Hannah said. “My last name’s Dias.”
“Huh?” Ashlee said loudly, her jaw hanging open.
“Dias,” Hannah repeated uncertainly. “D-I-A-S.”
Hannah had noticed a slight chill fall between her and the girls. The bell rang.
“Nice meeting you, Hannah, er, Dias,” Ashlee said with a fake smile, and she flapped her hand delicately in a goodbye as she and the others drifted off.
What was that about, Hannah wondered?
Hannah wasn’t the only new student. Her homeroom teacher ordered her to sit next to the other newbie, a girl called Tara Thompson. Straightaway, Hannah recognized that Tara Thompson was not one of the popular kids: She frowned, slumped in her seat, and wore glasses with black frames and thick lenses that magnified her heavily outlined eyes. One hank of her lank hair was dyed bright purple, the rest was dyed black, and she had three piercings in one ear. If Tara had been old enough for tattoos, Hannah was sure that she would have had several. She never said a word to Hannah, but when she first spoke in class, she talked with the thickest southern accent Hannah had ever heard. The other kids laughed and nudged each other.
On this particular day, Hannah and Tara were paired up for a project in science class. As Hannah arranged glass test tubes in a rack, Tara nodded toward Natalie Marshburn. Leaning forward, she drawled to Hannah in a barely audible voice, “Just look at her acting like she knows what she’s doing. You wouldn’t guess that she don’t have two brain cells to rub together.”
Startled, Hannah almost dropped a test tube. “You talking to me?” she said. “Yeah,” said Tara. “I am. That Natalie, she’s my cousin. But I live in a trailer, so I ain’t good enough for her, and she don’t speak to me.” She added slyly, “Praise the Lord.”
Hannah giggled, and the teacher threw her a sharp look. Tara continued in a low voice, “So how’s it going for you? I hear you’re from San Francisco. That’s pretty cool. Too bad you got stuck here in the Ville. I like to call this place the Vile. Fits, don’t it? So why did your parents dump you at SA?”
Hannah shrugged. “I’ve always gone to private school,” she said. “And this is the only one in town, except for the Baptist academy.”
Tara smiled grimly. “I got a scholarship to go here. Unfortunately. Only reason I’m stuck here is Daddy won’t hear of me going to school with black kids.” “Wow, that’s seriously racist,” Hannah muttered, pouring the contents of one test tube into another. “Hey, aren’t you supposed to be helping me?”
But Tara wasn’t done. “Racist? You ain’t seen the half of it. You watch what happens. Nobody’s going to talk to you because you’re a Mexican.”
“Mexican? I’m not Mexican,” said Hannah. “And so what if I was?”
Tara shrugged. “You got a Mexican name.”
“As a matter of fact,” Hannah said haughtily, “It’s Portuguese. You have a problem with that?”
“Not me,” said Tara, wrinkling her nose. “But there’s only one thing worse than being white trash or Yankee at this school, and that’s being a Mexican. Well, the worst thing would be being black, if they ever had black kids here, which they don’t, except for the African doctor’s kid, and he won’t stay long. . . . No, come to think of it, Mexican’s worse. If they think you’re Mexican, ain’t nobody gonna talk to you.”
Hannah frowned and returned her attention to the test tubes. “But you’re talking to me, right?”
“Oh, sure,” said Tara, lifting a test tube and waggling it. “But I’m nobody. My folks don’t belong to the Country Club. Heck, we don’t even go to First Baptist.”
Hannah lifted an eyebrow. “First Baptist Church? We don’t go there either. So what?”
Tara sighed. “Hannah, you got a lot to learn about living in a little bitty town in the South. Now, what am I supposed to be doing with this tube thingy?”
Hannah gave her a sour look. “You can stop messing with it, for a start.”
In the cafeteria, Hannah was standing with her tray at the end of the lunch line when she spied the stony gazes of Natalie Marshburn and her friends, and felt the hairs stand up on the back of her neck.
As she hovered awkwardly, she saw Tara make room for her at a table and beckon to her.
Hannah hesitated. Sitting with Tara would forever label her a freak. Then again, why did she care what Natalie Marshburn and her slimy friends thought?
Impulsively, Hannah made a decision she knew would be fateful. Dumping her tray next to Tara’s, she said, “Move up, so I don’t fall off the end.” Out of the corner of her eye, Hannah saw Natalie Marshburn grinning behind her hand, and she cringed a little.
Tara finished chewing a mouthful of pizza. “So. You never said. Why did y’all move to Snipesville?”
“My dad’s job,” Hannah said. “He’s with GrandeStates Bank downtown. He got transferred.”
Tara puffed out her cheeks. “Wow, that sucks. What did your mama have to say about moving to this dump?”
Hannah hunched lower over her burger, and mumbled, “She’s dead.”
Her eyes widening, Tara looked away. “Sorry,” she muttered.
Hannah shrugged. She hated how people acted when she told them. “S’okay. I’m used to it.”
Tara glanced sideways at her. “Do you miss her?”
“Well, duh,” Hannah said, but not angrily. “Sometimes.”
Tara didn’t hide her amazement. “Sometimes? If my mama passed, I’d miss her all the time.”
Hannah felt herself go hot with embarrassment. She didn’t want to explain. She didn’t want to talk about what had happened with her m
other to anyone, least of all this girl she had just met. But she knew that she must seem weird. She tried to act cool. “Yeah, of course,” she said, “but life goes on, yeah?”
“Hey, that’s cold,” Tara said in a low voice.
Suddenly, Hannah felt fury rising in her face. “What do you know? You didn’t know her. You don’t even know me. Excuse me.” With that, she jumped to her feet, and moved her tray to an empty table nearby.
To Hannah’s horror, Tara followed her, and plunked herself down next to her. “Look, I’m sorry, okay?” Tara said. “My bad. You’re right. I don’t know what it’s like.”
There was an awkward silence while Hannah ate her burger.
And then, out of the blue, Tara said, “Hey, you know Brandon Clark, right?”
Hannah was so taken aback, she forgot to be mad. Tara knows Brandon? “Yeah, he’s my brother’s friend. How’d you know? Is he a friend of yours?”
Tara smiled slyly, and whispered, “He’s my cousin.”
Hannah’s mouth fell open. “What? How?”
Tara’s relationship to Brandon was complicated, and Tara explained the family tree in excruciating detail. Hannah learned that Tara and Brandon shared a set of great-great-great-grandparents. They were a black man and a white woman who had two kids: Their son, Brandon’s ancestor, was black; The daughter, from whom Tara was descended, was light-skinned, and had decided to ’pass’ for white.
Listening to Tara, Hannah couldn’t help staring at her, looking for some hint of African ancestry, but only her brown eyes suggested it.
“So if part of your family is black,” Hannah said slowly, “how come you say your dad is a racist?”
Tara gave a rueful smile. “Because he is. I’m kin to Brandon through my mama’s family, and even then, nobody on that side talks about it much. It’s kind of embarrassing for most of them.”
“I think it’s cool,” Hannah said. “I didn’t know black people and white people in the South were ever related to each other. Hey, has Brandon told you . . .” She almost asked if Tara knew about the time-travel adventures, but she let it go. Tara would never believe her.
Hannah had made a friend. Alex had not.
At lunch on the first day of school, he sat next to Trey Marshburn, the only boy he recognized, who grudgingly allowed Alex to join him. Trey and his buddies pointedly shut him out of the conversation as they talked about football. Alex knew nothing about football, or any sport, and they did nothing to teach him.
He learned his lesson. The next day, he sat at another table, alone, well away from Trey and his friends. But this somehow made things worse. Trey and his little gang kept stealing glances at him, then laughing among themselves. Finally, one of them, a stocky kid with curly black hair, strolled over and sat next to Alex. Trey and the others tailed him, and gloated as they saw Alex’s nervousness.
“Hey, ain’t you the boy who found the skeleton?” asked Curly Hair with a sneer. “The one with the black friend who was on the tee-vee? The one who sat next to us yesterday? What’s your name?”
“Alex,” said Alex, fighting a lump in his throat, his insides seizing up. “My name’s Alex Dias.”
“So, Di-as,” the boy said slowly. “What kind of name is that? You Mexican? You from old Meh-hee-co?”
“No,” said Alex quietly. “I’m not Mexican. I’m . . .”
“Sure sounds like a Mexican name to me,” the boy laughed to his friends. He turned back to Alex, and said, “You don’t look Mexican.”
Before Alex could stop himself, he snapped, “You mean I’m not brown and holding a leaf blower? Is that what Mexicans look like?”
But, to his dismay, the boys thought he was making a joke. Curly Hair slapped him on the back, a little too hard.
“Funny guy!” he said patronizingly. “So you’re not Mexican, huh?”
“No,” Alex said, his temper cooling. “My family’s Portuguese,” he added lamely.
“Say what?” said the boy.
“Nothing,” said Alex. “So where are you from?”
“Let me tell you something, Di-as,” the boy said with a creepy smile. “I’m from right here. Snipes County native, just like my daddy, and my granddaddy. My name’s Clifton Hunslow. You got that? Hunslow. You already know Trey, right?” He jerked his head toward Trey Marshburn, who smiled awkwardly. “His family started Snipesville.”
Clifton could not have imagined for one moment that Alex had actually met Trey’s ancestors. But he had, in the year 1851.
“Oh, yeah,” Alex said without thinking. “The drunk guy who started the inn, right?”
Trey stepped forward, clenching his fists. “Are you calling my family drunks?” he demanded.
“No,” Alex said, suddenly and painfully aware that he had said too much.
“You better not be,” Trey growled, staring at him.
Great, thought Alex. I’m bully bait.
Apart from the Professor, Dr. George Braithwaite was the only adult in Snipesville who believed, or even had heard, that three local kids traveled in time.
George Braithwaite didn’t just believe. He knew. He had first met Hannah, Brandon, and Alex in England in 1940, when he was just a boy. Now that he was a respected retired doctor—he was the first black doctor who had settled in Snipesville—Dr. Braithwaite had become the kids’ most important friend and ally.
Now, however, he had bad news for them. Very bad news indeed. He sighed as he picked up the phone and dialed Hannah’s number.
When Hannah got out of her last class, she switched on her cell phone and saw that Dr. Braithwaite had called. She called him back while she waited for the school bus.
“Thank you for getting back to me so quickly, Hannah,” he said. His accent was a little American, but, despite decades in the States, he still sounded very English. “I just had a call from Verity.”
“Cool, how is she?” Hannah asked eagerly. “How’s Eric?” When Hannah, Alex and Brandon were transported to World War II England, Verity and Eric became their best friends.
Now, Verity and Eric Powell were an elderly married couple, living in the house that had once belonged to Verity’s grandmother, Mrs. Devenish. For Hannah, their childhood friendship was a recent memory. But for Verity and Eric, it was a lifetime ago.
There was a pause on the line. “Hannah, I’m afraid I have something rather sad to tell you,” said Dr. Braithwaite. “I’m afraid that . . . well . . . Eric died yesterday.”
Hannah gasped, “Oh, no!” Her knees felt weak, and she felt blood rush to her face.
Soothingly, Dr. Braithwaite explained, “It happened very quickly. He had a massive heart attack. Verity says he didn’t suffer.”
All Hannah could see in her mind’s eye was Eric as she had known him: a mischievous and funny little boy in short pants, with a heavy Cockney accent. Her eyes welled up. “Poor Verity . . . How is she doing?” she said.
“Well, as you would expect, she’s very upset,” said Dr. Braithwaite. “But I think she’s glad to have had him around as long as she did. His health hasn’t been very good in recent years. Look, why don’t you send her a card, then wait a week or so until the dust settles, and then give her a ring? She would be thrilled to hear from you.”
“Yeah, I will . . . It’s just so hard to think that Eric’s dead,” Hannah said wistfully.
“Yes, it is,” agreed Dr. Braithwaite. “But, perhaps, you know, what with the, er, time travel, perhaps you will meet him again.”
I hope not, thought Hannah, but she had the presence of mind not to say it aloud. It wasn’t that she hadn’t liked Eric, of course. She was just tired of being a time-traveling freak.
The color drained from Alex’s face when Hannah told him the news, and he felt his eyes go moist. But he didn’t say anything. Eric had been his best friend in 1940. More than that, he was his best friend ever. Most kids thought Alex was a dork, but Eric didn’t even know the meaning of the word. Literally, since the word “dork” didn’t exist in 1940. He had li
ked Alex for who he was, and never, ever criticized him for it.
Alex calmly went upstairs, lay down on his bed, and sobbed quietly.
Hannah wasn’t fooled by his bravado. Climbing the stairs after him, she slipped silently into her brother’s room and sat on the bed, holding his hand.
“No kid should ever have to go through this,” she said bitterly. “I can’t believe our friends get old and die. Time travel sucks.”
“It shouldn’t,” said Alex, wiping his eyes. “We should get to choose when we go. Then we could visit Eric when he was our age.”
“I guess,” said Hannah. “Trouble is, we don’t. That Woman does the choosing for us. We’re just victims.”
Alex knew he should argue with his sister, but he didn’t feel like it. Not today.
Two weeks passed after the boys’ visit to the clinic and Eric’s death, and in all that time, the kids nervously expected to be swept without warning into another journey in time. But it didn’t happen, and the school routine gradually distracted Hannah and Alex.
Brandon, however, could not forget. He thought about it constantly. He prayed fervently for that magical moment when he would lift his head, and find himself in another place and time. Of the three kids, Brandon alone secretly looked forward to time travel: He would do anything to free himself from the suffocating boredom of life in Snipesville.
It was Brandon, then, who plucked up the courage to call the Professor, to ask her if she thought that another adventure was coming soon—not that he truly expected her to answer his questions honestly. He also wanted to know what she had learned about the skeleton, and whether the gold ring would become his property when the excavation was complete.
The first time he called the Professor, she didn’t answer her phone. He tried her again several times over the next few days, but despite all his messages, she never returned his calls.
Finally, one day after school, Brandon made the long trek through town to Snipesville State College. But when he finally arrived at the history building, he found the Professor’s office door firmly closed. He knocked hopefully, but heard only silence in reply. Despondent, he trudged away, dodging through a rowdy crowd of students who were leaving classes. It was then that he spotted the history department office.
Look Ahead, Look Back (The Snipesville Chronicles Book 3) Page 2
