“But you’ve benefitted from all of those things, haven’t you?”
“Of course I have. I’m not stupid. I fully appreciate that the sheep at this school see the two of us as a package deal and I don’t really have a problem taking advantage of that. I like to plan things. To strategize.” True again. Ivan was very good with details. So good, as he was showing me, that I wanted to throw up. “But we both made fatal mistakes.”
I glanced at the stage where Omar stood, like a statue. From his profile, I could tell he was still confused about who was talking, so I helped him out.
“What mistakes were those, Ivan?” Omar’s head turned to the wing where we stood. His eyes found mine and I pleaded silently that he just let this continue. He said nothing, but kept watching.
“First of all, everyone’s favorite minority, Mr. Blakely up there,”—a girl in the audience gasped, but Ivan didn’t notice—“should have chosen me as his running mate. And second, I shouldn’t have assumed he would do so. If I’d realized what O really thought of me, how much he devalued me, we wouldn’t be having this little chat, now would we?” Ivan had turned Omar’s political decision personal.
What I already knew in my heart became that much clearer. “You stole Darcy’s scarf and planted it on Caleb, didn’t you?”
Ivan laughed that terrible laugh again. “I’m pretty proud of myself for that one. A smoking gun, O called it.” He’d heard the conversation too. And was pleased with his handiwork it seemed. “I can also take credit for suggesting that Darcy was spending a little too much time at the magazine.” He drummed his fingers together like villains in the movies. “That really was a great essay Neighbors wrote. I didn’t lie when I told her she should read it for publication.” Out of the corner of my eye, Darcy’s ponytail whipped around, and I knew her face was probably pink and flushed. “So even though Omar won the election, everyone’s going to know what a halfwit he is to have chosen Caleb as his vice. To have placed his trust in the wrong person.”
“Oh, I’m fairly certain I placed my trust correctly,” came Omar’s voice, booming now, from the stage. Ivan’s head snapped up, his blue eyes wide, no longer full of arrogance, but of fear.
I pulled the microphone from my pocket, held it up and wiggled it around for Ivan. “Was there something else you wanted to say, Ive? You’ve got everyone’s attention.”
He opened his mouth and narrowed his eyes at me. “You.” And then he stopped. Mrs. Sharma was crossing the stage toward us, arms pinned across her chest and storm clouds all over her face.
“I think we’re done here. Ivan, please come with me.” He turned toward the stage door and strode of out the auditorium with Mrs. Sharma practically marching behind him, calling for the principal on her walkie. Good. I had no idea if the school had any power when it came to jealous jerks who manipulate their friends, but even if no discipline was handed out, I was fairly certain Ivan would be feeling the ripples of his choices for a long long time. And as mad as I was in that moment, for allowing myself to believe the smoke and mirrors he was made of, I was even more proud of the fact that I’d ended it. That I forced the truth out.
The second the door closed behind Ivan, I rushed down the stage stairs, but stopped before I reached Darcy, who was seated on Omar’s lap, wrapped in a tight hug. He must have come down to her once he realized he’d been wrong about her. I could see him whispering in her ear and tears shining in her eyes. Good. When I looked back toward the stage, poor Caleb was sitting on the edge, his legs dangling into the orchestra pit, visibly relieved.
The silence of moments ago quickly turned to chatter, as tends to happen when social suicide occurs. No one knew quite what to do now that the night had taken such a drastic detour, so they sat. Shifting back in politician mode, Caleb hopped up and took to the podium to tell everyone the event was officially over. Dumbfounded, they began shuffling out.
“Emerson!” Darcy called out to me. “What the heck was that?” She said it with a smile, thankfully.
“I just connected the dots,” I said, stealing Omar’s words from earlier.
“I’m so sorry, Em,” Darcy said, still on Omar’s lap, and reached out for my hand. She squeezed and I squeezed back. Once the high of slaying the dragon dissipated, I knew I’d be the one making the frustrated, late night calls to a friend.
“Emerson, I guess I owe you thanks. I didn’t even suspect him. All these years.” Omar shook his head sadly. To say he looked like he’d lost his best friend was an understatement. It was so much more than that.
“Just trying to do the right thing. I couldn’t let him do that, to either of you, and get away with it.” I thought back to what Ivan himself had said earlier. Can you ever really know someone? I wasn’t sure, but he’d just muddied the waters. “Guess I’ll have to be more careful about who I place my trust in, huh?”
“We all will,” Omar confirmed. “And Darce?” She turned to him like a flower turns toward the sun. “How about we get you a new scarf?”
The three of us looked at each other and then, because there was nothing more to say on the subject, we laughed.
A Day of Errors
Jessica L Pierce
...a town full of cozenage:
As nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,
Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind,
Soul-killing witches that deform the body
...and many such-like liberties of sin.
—The Comedy of Errors
one
Melanie steps off the train and looks around at the people of her new “hometown”. Her dad took the job as mayor while she was away at boarding school, and the is the first time she’s gotten to see the new city.
She heard stories about this place while she was at school. The geographical name is Ephesus, but the common name is “Crazyville”. Urban legend describes the inhabitants of the city as—
A guy walks past with a purple Mohawk, both ears pierced, his bottom lip pierced, and a silver bar through the middle of his nose. The girl next to him has a matching bar through her nose, and a pink Mohawk.
“Yup. Just like I expected.”
Melanie laughs and winds her way through the crowd to the luggage car. The outside world calls this place weird, but in her opinion, they’re just exotic. They’re unique and interesting, and…
A tall, skinny girl with slightly man-ish features, a black trench coat, and giant black platform boots bee-bops past. She waives her hands in the air, jives her hips, and moves her long legs to the rhythm of whatever music she’s listening to on her iPod.
Fun. That’s definitely what this place sounds like to Melanie. Fun.
A station worker starts to unload a cacophony of mis-matched luggage. One-by-one, bags and suitcases are lined up on the platform’s slate-gray floor. Melanie waits for her two neon pink-and-green polka-dotted cases to appear. She scans the platform, wondering what trouble...uh, fun, she might be able to cause in this new city.
Her last city was pretty much a stick in the mud. She was always getting into trouble—one time she even landed in front of the mayor. Her dad was working his way up the power-chain at the time, and able to get her out of serious trouble, though she did get shipped off to boarding school a few weeks later.
Really, she didn’t mind her dad’s decision. She was able to enjoy life and explore her interests and push her boundaries, while her dad was able to pursue his mayoral goals and move forward without her interference. It really is a good deal for both of them, she just wished she could see her dad a little more. Major holidays are not enough.
Her bags finally appear on the platform and she rolls them toward the exit.
The platform grows congested as the railcars empty to her left. She sidesteps a priest and a rabbi, skirts around a couple making out like teenagers—which they very much are not—and almost collides with a six-foot-tall white Easter bunny carrying a pink basket of eggs and a giant carrot.
She manages to avoid the bunny, but not b
efore he gives her a nasty hand gesture.
“Oh, go fall down your rabbit hole, A-hole!” She laughs and adds, “It’s not even Easter!”
The evil bunny saunters off and Melanie straightens her skirt and fluffs her hair. Just as she hikes her purse higher up on her shoulder, she stops completely. No adjusting, no fidgeting, not even a breath.
She just stares.
Across the platform, through all the people, she sees what has to be the world’s most gorgeous guy. Tall—at least six-foot-two—short wavy blond hair, electric green eyes, pierced left ear, and…oh, goodness, the tattoos and muscled arms!
Rocker. Definitely a rocker.
And just. Her. Type.
* * *
Bear—known as Andrew to those in Ephesus—looks around at the oddball people of the train station.
He smiles wide and lets the feel of the moment sink in. Wow, he missed this place.
Syracuse is a nice town and all, but he grew up here—this is his home, these are his people.
A farmer wearing cut-off jeans, suspenders, no shirt, cowboy boots, a straw hat, and carrying a chicken under his arm walks past.
Bear laughs and breathes in the weirdness that is his hometown. “Damn, it’s good to be home,” he says to no one in particular.
Whenever he told someone in Syracuse he was from Ephesus, they either moved away in fear, or teased him mercilessly. His first year in school was full of endless questions— “Do you really practice witchcraft in pre-school?”— crazy jokes, and fearful side-glances.
It took him a month to convince one of his roommates to sleep in a bed, not locked in the bathroom. The guy had this bizarre idea Bear would hypnotize him while he slept and use him to sacrifice babies. Of course, he wasn’t as bad as the guy who followed Bear around like a puppy, begging him to make a “love potion” for a girl he had the hots for. What the guy didn’t know was the girl he wanted had been after Bear because she thought he had radioactive super-powers that allowed him to enhance certain body parts.
People really do have the weirdest impressions about Ephesus.
Bear hefts his duffle bag over his shoulder and heads for the door. A large Easter bunny rushes past him and swears at him to get out of his way.
Well, maybe some of the weird impressions are earned.
The train station’s platform is busy with people coming and going—a lot of excitement and noise, just the way he likes things. Actually, it’s one of the reasons he came home. Syracuse was too bland, too boring. It didn’t have what he’s looking for in life. Of course, he’s not positive what he’s looking for specifically, he just knows Syracuse doesn’t have it.
A tall, skinny Jamaican man with a braided goatee walks past, holding hands with a short Caucasian woman in long tie-dye dress. Both are older…and the woman has dreadlocks.
This place certainly has everything, so why not start searching in his home town.
Just as he passes the station’s gift shop, he sees a reflection in the window that makes him stop and turn around. On the other side of the platform, staring straight at him, is a girl with bright blue eyes and big, fluffy black hair. Her expression is wicked—like she might be thinking of devouring him—but there’s something familiar about her. He can’t place it, but he definitely has the sense he knows her from somewhere.
She looks a few years younger than him—maybe 17 or 18—so, she probably goes to school with his younger brother. That’s probably it. Just another person who knows his kid brother.
Without thinking about the girl again, Bear pushes through the crowd, out of the train station, and into the open air and bright light of his hometown. Inhaling deeply and smiling widely, he heads in the direction of his childhood home.
two
Bear turns the corner to his street and already hears the chaos of his house. With a crazy—but loving—mother who teaches English by day and thinks she can sing Opera by night, and an accountant father whose goal is to learn every musical instrument known to man, the house can get noisy. Tack on a few foster kids under the age of ten, and earplugs are sometimes needed.
Just as he hits the driveway and starts up the path to the front door, a baseball comes crashing through a window on the second floor, narrowly misses his head, and bounces off a car parked on the side of the street.
A little girl screams and starts crying inside the house, the Indian instrumental music that was playing stops, and someone with a thick Hispanic accent starts talking fast.
Bear laughs. His parents must have hired a new nanny/housekeeper. His family goes through them like laundry detergent, and each one is always more eccentric than the last.
He tries his key in the front door and it doesn’t work. He knocks and hears trampling behind the door. Three small faces appear smooshed up against the window next to the door. A fourth face bobs up behind them; this one is older and has features that look like they go with the Hispanic accent he heard.
The three kids start yelling his name and jump up and down. He raises his hand to waive at the lady.
“Hi,” he says and smiles big. “Can you let me in? I live here.”
He expects the woman to unlock the door and let him in, but instead, she stares at him with big scared eyes. Just when he thinks she’s about to have a coronary, she starts screaming in her native language. She disappears from the window and the kids follow, yelling at the top of their lungs he’s their brother.
Bear waits patiently, praying his parents are home. A high-pitched screeching he thought was a generator somewhere stops, and calm, light footsteps are heard on the stairs. A moment later, his mother walks past the window and opens the door for him.
“Andrew!” she cheers and throws her arms out for him.
Bear hugs his mother and she coo’s and fusses over him.
“Tattoos, piercings, and you’re taller than your dad now!” she says, turning him around so she can see him from all angles.
He laughs and she lets him into the house, where he’s instantly mobbed by three sticky little bundles of energy. All three of his foster siblings start yelling and demanding his attention; each one is, of course, more important than the other.
His dad appears from the stairs and embraces Bear. “Good to be home, huh?” he yells.
One of the kids starts tugging on Bear’s pants. Bear growls loudly and envelops all three of the squealing kids in a rough-and-tumble hug that ends up with all four of them on the ground. They spend several minutes rolling and playing until his parents send the three kids upstairs to wash-up for dinner.
Breathless, Bear drops down on the couch. “This place never changes,” he says happily.
“Change is overrated,” his mother says, taking a seat in a nearby chair.
His dad takes the other chair. “Did you meet the new nanny? We just hired her today.”
“That explains the fresh scent of fear around here. Why didn’t my key work?”
“We changed the locks a few months ago,” his mom says. “One of the nannies kept coming back after we let her go. She kept trying to cover the place in garlic cloves to ward off the vampires she thought bit us and made us crazy.”
Bear laughs and clasps his hands together behind his head. “Well, that’s a new one. Don’t people know by now our brand of crazy is all natural?”
“Guess not,” his dad says. “Have you seen Drew yet?”
“No. I came straight from the train station. How’s he doing? Still ambitious as hell?”
His dad nods. “He’s been aiding for the new mayor. He’s determined to build his résumé and get as much experience as he can before college.”
Bear shakes his head. His kid brother has always been too ambitious for his own good. “He still has a year of high school left. He has plenty of time.”
His parents update him on a few other things about their neighbors and friends, then head into the kitchen to check on dinner. He throws his duffel bag over his shoulder and starts up the stairs to his room. Along the wal
l are various photos—family portraits, vacations, sports—and one in particular catches Bear’s eye. It’s one of his brother, Drew, and Drew’s childhood friend, Marjorie. Her nickname is Marigold, and she has bright green eyes and big, fluffy black hair.
He immediately remembers the girl from the train station. Initially, he thought the girl had blue eyes, but it was probably just the light. Now that he remembers Marigold, the girl in the train station looked just like her. It was her. For sure.
He continues up the stairs to his room, and doesn’t give Marigold from the train station a second thought.
* * *
Drew stands in front of his insane house, procrastinating going in. His day was hell and now he has to deal with the large amount of crazy his family dishes out, every minute of every day.
Stress from his day hangs around him like dead weight. For the past three weeks he’d been aiding for the new mayor and planning the Independence Day Festival. He was putting so much time and effort into the job, hoping to get an internship position for the rest of the summer. The internship would come with more responsibility, but it would be worth the experience and résumé boost. He has to get as much experience in before college as he can get.
He knows everyone looks at him like he’s insane for saying it, but he doesn’t care. And let’s face it, with his crazy family and wacky town, he’s used to weird looks and behavior. Of course, he is typically the one who receives the weird looks. People follow the beat of their own drum in this town, but few are corporate minded. His business ambitions tend to make him the oddball in a town full of wingnuts.
His only saving grace in the eye of the town is his girlfriend, Marigold. Well, technically, she’s not his girlfriend, but she will be after the festival. He has it all planned out.
Drew takes a deep breath and pictures Marigold. Bright green eyes, cute freckles over her nose and cheeks, beautiful smile…understanding nature. She’s the only person in his life who doesn’t see his goals as weird. He knows she doesn’t fully understand them, but she supports him none-the-less.
Never Be Younger: A YA Anthology Page 6
