by Cyn Balog
I stop at the door and turn to him. "You have Tanner for geometry?'
He turns around, eyes wide. I've scared him. Wiping his nose, he nods, but his eyes never really meet mine.
"That's my class. I can take you," I say, looking over to Auntie Em to make sure she approves. I figure that once she sees I’m the Girl Scout type, she’ll feel bad for ever using that harsh tone of voice with me and apologize profusely. But, unfortunately, she just shrugs and waves us off.
I lead him out the door as No-Pants and Goth Girl stare after me like I've just offered to sell my soul to the devil. But it never hurts to be nice, right?
As we walk down the hall, I notice he's not. Walking, I mean. He shuffles, toes pointed outward, like he's sweeping the floor with his sneakers.
Swish, swish, swish. He's like a human Swiffer.
Thank God the hallways are empty, so I don't have to explain why I’m with him. He's clutching a paper bag in his pale hands, and a little red plastic box. Is that a… wait. Is that a pencil box? Like the kind we used in first grade? Oh, hell.
"Um, so…," I start as we swish along. "I guess you're new."
I steal a glance at him and realize he's so flushed, you can see the red of his scalp peeking out from between the greased-back shards of hair on his head. "Er, no, I'm fifteen years of age," he says softly.
"I mean, like, new to the school?"
"Ah. Er. Yes. This is my first day at this facility," he says.
Facility? Who refers to a school in the same way they'd refer to a toilet? Huh, he has a point. Still, I'm convinced I saw this guy profiled on America's Most Wanted last Sunday. "He was a quiet kid, always kept to himself," they'd said.
I'm holding his locker-assignment slip by one crumpled comer, since it is still kind of-ew-clammy from being in his hands. We pass a hundred aqua-colored doors in the science wing, finally landing at number 16S. "Here you go," I say. I reach over and fiddle with the knob. "See, all you have to do is go fourteen this way, then one full turn to twenty-eight, and then back this way to zero. Simple."
He watches, completely perplexed, as I lift the handle and the door swings open. "I see," he mumbles, and it's obvious that he doesn't.
I demonstrate the technique another three times and then have him try. He fails on the first attempt but gets the hang of it after I talk him through it.
"Didn't they have lockers in your old school?" I ask, though I’m guessing they must carry their books from class to class on his home planet.
He shakes his head and blushes clear through to his scalp once again. It's kind of cute, in a pitiful way.
"Where are you from?" I ask a generic question, since we have nothing, nothing, nothing, in common. At least, I hope.
"Up north," he answers.
I laugh. "Like, North Jersey… or the Arctic?"
"Oh, uh…," he stammers. "The Arctic."
I stare back at him, waiting for him to laugh, to tell me he's just joking. Nothing; total poker face. Fine, I'll play along. "It must be very cold up there."
He nods and closes the locker door. Uh-huh. Fascinating conversation.
I look down at the bag and pencil box in his hands and realize he hasn't put a thing inside. "You want to put your lunch in there?"
"My?" he asks, confused.
I point at the paper bag. "Isn't that your lunch?"
"No, it's my…" He pauses just long enough for me to mentally fill in the blank with some scary thoughts: bodily fluid; severed human head; science experiment ("I'm breeding slugs!"), Finally, he says, "Yes, it's my lunch," which is a dead giveaway that it's not.
"Don't you want to put it in your locker?"
He shrugs and I again help him to open it. He carefully lays the paper bag on the top shelf, his eyes lingering on it for a moment, and then closes the door.
We walk to the other side of the building in silence because I'm wondering if I could be charged with aiding and abetting for telling him to dispose of his victim's severed head in a locker. Finally, we stop outside the door to Tanner's geometry class.
I figure it's time for a final goodwill gesture, since I plan to never, ever, ever have any contact with this guy again. I extend my hand. "Well, welcome to Stevens."
He looks at it for a moment, then gently takes my fingertips and gives them a little shake, as if he's afraid of catching my cooties. "My name is Pip Merriweather."
He says this very properly, like a gay English chap. Pip. Like Pippi Longstocking? What the hell? I search the far corners of my brain to find a normal male name that Pip could possibly be short for and come up with nil.
I contemplate giving a fake name, but he'll figure out the truth anyway, since we're in the same class. Basically, I’m screwed either way. "I'm Morgan. Morgan Sparks."
He turns to me. "I know."
Chapter Eight
I TRY TO sneak into the room as James Bond-ily as possible, but Mr. Tanner stops his entire lesson. "The area of a parallelo-'' is still hanging in the air as I sit at my desk in the back of the classroom. The entire class is staring at me. Tanner's look could melt faces a la the last scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark which is just perfect. I bet I could be Master of Pi from here on out and he'd still want to murder me.
Goofy just stands in the doorway, looking like he wants to bolt. I can see his red scalp shining gloriously from halfway across the room.
Tanner, oblivious, begins again. He booms, "The area of a parallelo-" but is again cut off, this time by Pip's fragile "Ahem?"
Eden sways back and forth in her seat, trying to get a better look, like a second grader who's about to pee her pants. Then she leans over to me. "Is that him?" she whispers, nearly falling out of her seat.
Tanner, a little round man with a dark helmet of hair that makes him so closely resemble a penguin, waddles up to Pip and snatches the paper from his shaky hands.
"Him who?"
"The new kid," she says, as some other people turn and snicker. If they think Pip is snicker-worthy now, wait until Tanner announces his name.
I nod as Tanner scowls and motions for Pip, who is now almost convulsing from fear, to sit in an empty seat at the front of the room. "Wait. How did you hear about him?" I ask her.
She looks at me as if I'm a moron. "Uh. From Cam?"
"You saw Cam? Today?"
"Uh-huh."
I'm jealous. But what would Cam have to do with a freak like Pip? "What did he say?" I bark out, much louder than intended.
Tanner, who has been trying to find an extra textbook for his newest student, jerks his head up. "Miss Sparks? See me after class."
Oh hell. Face reddening, I straighten like an exclamation point. This is not my life. I am the student teachers adore, dammit! I give them reason not to go home after a hard day's work and drink themselves into a stupor! I am the one they remember fondly during their retirement dinners!
Eden turns back to me and whispers, "I asked him if he had a spine tumor and he told me you watch too much ER. "
Tanner waddles back to the f
ront of the classroom and says, "Everyone. This is Pip Merriweather."
A few chuckles. Seriously, though, what would Cam know about a dude like Pip? I look at Eden, hoping she can communicate the answer telepathically, but she's too busy examining this new specimen of male nerdiness. Most of the eyes in the class are fastened on him as he opens his red plastic box and carefully removes a finely sharpened number 2 pencil, then swipes into place a shock of oiled hair that has fallen over his forehead. I think that hairstyle was maybe in vogue when the Pink Ladies ruled the school.
Tanner turns to a sketch on the blackboard again. He barely gets out "The area of a parallelo-" when the door opens and in walks Scab. He has this very serious look on his face and is staring straight at me. What the…? Then he turns to my teacher and holds out a blue slip of paper. Hell.
Aggravated, Tanner snatches it, reads for a second, and then those demon eyes focus on me. Again.
"Didn't you just come from the principal's office?" he asks accusingly.
Double hell.
I nod, since my vocal cords have frozen up.
"Seems you're wanted there again," he grumbles. I can sort of understand his angst, since he's said "The area of a parallelo-" more than any human should have to in a three-minute period. But what can this be? Principal Edwards changed his mind and now has decided to hang me for being three minutes late? Nobody, not even the legendary Frankie Buzzaro, who didn't graduate until he was twenty-one, gets called to the principal's office twice in one measly half hour! I look at Eden, who shrugs, her eyes wide. My knees go weak as I rise, and one of the guys at the front of the class grins at me and slices his index finger across his throat.
Chapter Nine
BY THE TIME I'm in the hallway, Scab is nowhere in sight. Deserter. I walk toward the office as slowly as possible. There has to be some mistake. Maybe Principal Edwards wants to apologize for Auntie Em's attitude. Maybe they'll feel so horrible for treating me like a felon that they'll give me an award, possibly name a wing of the school after me.
Oh, who am I kidding? I am doomed.
I'm so busy imagining the execution that I don't pay attention when a door swings open. A movement, a blur of red, flashes in my peripheral vision, and I'm snapped into reality when an enormous hand roughly clasps my elbow and jerks me through the doorway of a classroom. As I'm recovering from the jolt and catching my breath, I look up and see Cam.
"What are you-"
He clamps his hand over my mouth. "Shh."
I grab hold of his enormous, sweaty paw and pull it off me. He pulls me into a hug, but his limbs feel stiff. I whisper,"Hey. What is going on?"
"I told you, I had to get some stuff taken care of."
Standing back, I realize he looks terrible. His black hair is uncombed, he's unshaven, and there are rims around his eyes the color of blood.
"Stuff with Pip?"
He exhales deeply and rakes his hands through his hair. "You met him?"
"Yeah. Is he an exchange student from Mars or something?"
He ignores me. "I need your help."
"Okay, I know, I want to talk to you, too." I put my hand on the doorknob. "But I've got to get to the principal's office."
He looks perplexed for a moment, then blocks me from the door. "No, wait. That was me. I had Scab forge a note to get you out."
"You? Thanks for the coronary." I sigh with relief and turn back into the empty room I realize that I've never been in this classroom; there are easels and stools everywhere, and shelves of paints and art supplies. "What for? You look horrible. Did you shower? Weren't you wearing that shirt yesterday?"
"No, listen. This is serious. I need your help/'
I sit down at one of the stools surrounding this enormous wood-topped table, and that's when it hits me. Yes, he was wearing that shirt yesterday.
In my vision.
"Oh, my God," I spit out, surveying the paintings. Yes, they're completely preschool: boring fruit bowls and warped, cartoonlike portraits and landscapes with trees like Popsicle sticks. I mean, yes, my visions are always right. I knew it would happen eventually. I just never thought it would happen so soon. "It's the blackouts, right?"
He nods. He won't look at me.
"The thing on your back?"
His eyes lock with mine. "How long have you known about it?"
"Only since last night." I stand up, position myself behind him, and put my hand on his shoulder. "Does it hurt? Show it to me."
"You don't want to…"
“ I do."
I expect a joke, something to lighten the mood. Instead, he turns to me, completely serious. Frighteningly so. "No. I don't want to."
"Just show it to me," I tell him, with conviction this time.
Don't show him you're worried. Don't let him know how horrible you think it is, I tell myself. Reluctantly, he wraps his big fingers around the bottom edge of his T-shirt and pulls it up, past the ripple of his ribs, over one of his shoulders.
Don’t cry, don't scream, I tell myself.
But my visions are always right.
Chapter Ten
"WHAT IS THAT?" I finally say. Dozens of questions are swirling around in my head, but that's the only one I can manage to choke out. "It's bad, isn't it?" he asks.
"Bad" is an understatement. Just above his shoulder blades, right at his spine, the skin is raised and bumpy, in the shape of an inverted V. His once-tanned, clear back is coated in something waxy, and it all seems to twitch and dance, like it has its own heartbeat. And at the very tip of that V, there's an opening, a small one, a bloody smile. And there's something, a sharp, white sliver, just like a fingernail… poking out…
I screw my eyes shut and do my best to keep my voice even. "It's not that it's bad, per se… It's just…" What is the word for bad to the nineteenth power? Hideous times a million? Even "the most atrocious thing I've ever seen" seems to miss the mark. I mean, last summer, I was addicted to Untold Stories of the ER on Discovery Health. I expected, possibly, to see a golf-ball-sized bump under the skin. Maybe a tennis ball. Not this. "What the hell is it?"
He-thank God!-pulls his T-shirt down, carefully lowering it over the disgusting, alien growth, and turns to me. He balls his hands into fists and presses firmly down on his thighs, but not before I see his arms quiver. The rock of Stevens, the Cam Browne who can do anything, is trying to steady himself, and that's enough to turn my own knees to Jell-O. When he speaks, his voice is mouse-like. "How much did you see in your vision?"
"Just this. What happened right now. That's it." I move around him and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "Did you go to the doctor? I can go with you, if you want.”
"Doctor?" He shakes his head. "So you didn't see anything else?"
"Um, no. You are going to the doctor, aren't you? I mean, I don't think Ben-Gay has the answer to this one."
"So you don't know about her?"
"The doctor?"
"No. Her” he says forcefully, then looks around, insp
ecting the comers of the room, until I'm sure that the hit he endured during last night's Came must have shaken more than a screw or two loose.
"Her who?" My voice rises to match his. "Is it a tumor or what?"
"No, it's not." He rakes his fingers through his hair again. "Forget it."
"No way. I've never seen you this freaked. Who are you talking about?"
The bell rings. In the hall, doors burst open and stampeding students fill every space. Despite the tongue-lashing I received from Tanner and the knowledge that I'll probably get the same reception from my bio teacher if I don't haul tail to the science wing ASAP, I can't move. But Mr. Freaky Tumor isn't talking. He just looks away, out the window, into the empty quad.
The door swings open. The two of us are still, as if we're posing for a great work of art. Nobody walks into the room at first, but I can sense someone fidgeting in the doorway. Then a soft voice says, "Is everything, like, okay?"
I turn and see a familiar, timid creature, clutching her books against her chest. I think it's the freshman that got me my fries at the Came yesterday. Casey. No, Katie. I want to say, "Sure, everything's fine," and flash a big smile, but I can't will my mouth to do either of the above. It just hangs there, so stroke victimesque.
"Geez, Morgan, you're red! I can get you some water!" she peeps, dropping her books on the table and scurrying out the door.
I walk so that I'm standing above Cam, so close I can rest my chin on the top of his head. I put my hands on his shoulders and force him to look up at me.
"Her who?" I repeat, louder and slower this time.
"Shh, she can hear."
"Cam, we're alone."
"You saw Pip, right? Did he have something with him?"
Though I have no idea what that greasy fellow would have to do with anything, I feel the need to just play along with my nut-job boyfriend, if only to keep him from running down Main Street naked with a colander on his head later in life. "Urn, yeah. He had a pencil box. And his lunch. Well, I think it was his lunch, but he seemed a little whacked about it."
