Never Be Younger: A YA Anthology

by Rachel Bateman

  A high-pitched giggle pierces my brain. “Dude’s got daisies,” Xanders voice slurs. “What are you, a garden gnome? You look like a garden gnome.”

  My probing thoughts snap back at the shame in the form of heat rising up from my neck to my cheeks. I open my palm and the flowers drift down, landing on the trim grass below.

  Free from my persuasion, Dimitri launches himself at Xander, shoving against his shoulders. Elena yanks Dimitri back by his shirt collar, scathing him for his act of violence.

  The world stills and ‘no’ lodges in my throat as Xander topples and face plants the ground—right on top of the pile of pansies. I lace my fingers together, praying, no—begging to God above that please, please Xander’s eyelids haven’t touched the petals.

  Xander groans and rolls onto his back. Relief washes through me as he spits flowers from his mouth.

  Pointing at his victim, Dimitri doubles over, a deep chortle rising from his chest.

  “Don’t be so insensitive,” Elena chides. Glancing at me, her anger dissolves to pity. “I’m sorry about your flowers.” She bends down and plucks the pansies from the ground.

  “It’s all right, I can do it,” I say, crouching down to try to gather as many as I can.

  Xander groans and Elena huffs out a breath and drops to her knees. “Are you okay, Xander?”

  Xander’s eyelids flutter open. “Elena?”

  My heart jolts and I stand up. No slur mars his voice.

  “Is that really you?” Xander sits up and cradles Elena’s face in his hands. “My God, you’re an angel.”

  Oh crap.

  Dimitri’s laugh loudens as Elena swats Xanders hands away.

  Unperturbed, Xander breaks out into song. “Oh Elena, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine. Don’t push me away, say you’ll be mine.”

  I slap my palm against my forehead. Crap, crap, crappity crap.

  Dimitri’s howl of amusement serves to darken my mood further. Oberon’s gonna kill me.

  Straightening up, Elena whirls to confront Dimitri. “This is not funny!”

  “Are you kidding me? It’s hilarious. And it couldn’t have come at a better time. While you have your hands full with Xander’s fawning, I can go after the girl I really want—Hermia.”

  As if we are part of a stage play, Hermia bounds onto the football field. “Xander, are you all right?” Panic laces her voice.

  I wish I could shrink back into the shadows, but I have a boy to fix and another to meddle with. Once again, Oberon and his stupid ideas have gotten me in a bucket load of trouble. Tapping my foot against the ground, I do a quick reconnaissance of the situation, but before I can decide which part of my plan to action first, Xander sings more words of devotion at Elena.

  “Is this some kind of joke?” Hermia spits at Elena.

  Straightening up, Elena thrusts her hands on her hips, the remaining flowers still clutched in her closed palm “I think he’s hit his head, he’s not thinking straight.”

  Hermia lunges at Elena, grabbing a fistful of her hair. “Liar!”

  “Get off me!”

  Their girly war cries pierce the night air. This is my fault, after all. I can’t just leave them to their catfight. Springing into action, I pull Elena away, right as Hermia punches. She misses her target and clocks me in the temple. I go down.

  She’s fierce, even though she’s little. What a hellcat. I poke tentative fingers to my head, wincing when I make contact. The pounding throb radiates from my skull to my chin.

  I lift my head as Elena retreats, her hair sticking out, making her look like she’s taken a spin in a laundry dryer. Her eyes shine with unshed tears. Marching up to Dimitri, she throws the flowers she’s been clutching in his face while shouting, “You should’ve helped me.”

  A petal clings to Dimitri’s eyelash and somehow, maybe by the grace of God, the petal has yet to touch his eyelid. If it did and Hermia was the first person he saw, Oberon would reduce me to a pile of quivering Jell-O faster than I can say dessert. I try to shake off the white blips dancing in my eyes.

  My stomach flip-flops and without caring what the bunch of norms might think, I press my fingers to my temples to try to coerce Dimitri into carefully removing the petal. As the suggestion pushes from my aching mind to his, he lifts his hand slowly to his face. My lungs deflate, and I lace more thoughts of ‘careful’ into his brain.

  “I can’t believe you could be so cruel!” Elena cries. She pushes past Dimitri and stomps from the field.

  Dimitri’s hand freezes at the impact. “Hey,” he shouts, rotating around to stare at Elena’s receding back. The movement makes the petal flutter. Dimitri shakes his head and blinks rapidly. “Elena, come back. I’m sorry my love, come back.”

  Okay, that’s not so bad. At least he’s pursuing the right girl. I turn my attention back to Xander, ready to fix my error, only—he’s already up, and, despite Hermia clawing at the waistband of his jeans, he’s marching after Dimitri and Elena.

  Clutching my hands to my head, I race after the norms. But the dizziness from the punch hasn’t fully cleared and I run straight into the goal post. Metallic liquid flows down my nose and into my mouth. Maybe it’ll improve my face. I grimace as I touch my nose then straighten to look for the messed up lovers. There’s no sign of them anywhere.

  * * *

  “They sound like a bird caught in the clutches of a hungry cat,” Oberon says about the band playing on the stage. I can’t disagree. The lead singer of The Craftsmen’s voice has already given me a headache.

  The flashing blue, red, and yellow lights illuminate the hall. Banners covered in glitter line the walls and cutout neon stars dangle from the ceiling. I guess the prom committee spared no expense on the evening.

  I scan the sea of sweaty teens on the dance floor, searching for the faces of the norm’s who’d slipped through my fingers the night before. My gaze flickers to the huge silver clock on the back wall counting down the minutes I have to fix my blunder before Oberon realizes what I’ve done.

  Oberon nudges my shoulder with his own. “There she is,” he hisses. “Titania, queen of the ice fairies.”

  I let out the laugh Oberon expects of me, though his joke isn’t all that funny. My heart trips over itself. A gold dress hugs Titania’s lithe frame, stopping just above her ankle. The neckline rises almost to her collarbone, giving her an air of sophistication amongst the scantily clad norms. A shimmering bronze replaces the usual rosiness of her cheeks, and a sweep of inky black on her upper eyelid accentuates the stark blue of her eyes.

  I stifle a growl as the Indian exchange student, Sikh, clasps her hand in his own.

  With steady, assured steps, Oberon plows through the sea of gyrating norms. I follow a footstep behind, leaving me subjected to the sighs and fluttering lids of Oberon’s ocean of admirers.

  Titania stands front and center of the room, her back now turned and head raised to watch ass-face caterwauling about a lost love paving the way for a new love or some nonsense to that extent. Possibilities race through my mind. Maybe I could be Titania’s new love. I imagine her lips mouthing words of devotion to me, her fingers trailing across my cheek as she looks deep into—

  “Puckerman.” Oberon’s voice pulls me from my fantasy, and I drop my shoulders, painfully aware that this particular daydream will never come true.

  From the pocket of his pristine black trousers, Oberon produces a pansy. Holding it up, he bites down on his bottom lip and grins, reminding me of Jack Nicholson in The Shining. “Watch and learn. How to get back at your ex 101.”

  Palming the white and purple flower, Oberon steps up behind Titania. Arching his body away from her, he bends forward, covers her eyes with one hand, and uses the other to hold her head in place. “Guess who.”

  I fight the urge to hop onto the stage so Titania’s deluded eyes find me first.

  Titania stills, and when Oberon removes his hand, the lead singer from The Craftsman is the first thing she sees. Ignoring Oberon, she takes a
step forward and reaches her hand up to ass-face.

  I want so bad to blanket her thoughts; to protect her from the magic, but it’s already too late.

  “Say it,” Oberon says from beside me.

  I open my mouth with every intention of telling him what a jerk he is. Instead, “You’re a genius,” flows from my lips.

  Oberon nods. “That I am.”

  The band finishes their number, and ass-face hops down from the stage, dropping right in front of Titania.

  “So what’s your name, beautiful?” he asks.

  “Titania.” She sounds so much like an Oberon-groupie that I feel sick. “What’s yours?”

  The jaws of jealousy clamp down on my heart. Without thinking, I insert my own name for the lead singer into his brain.

  “Ass-face,” he answers.

  Oberon’s deep laugh booms his approval.

  Titania leaps forward and crushes her lips to Ass-face. Sikh gasps and shouts a string of foreign words at Titania. She fails to respond, too caught up in sucking face, I guess. Sikh throws her one last glare then marches away.

  Oberon slings his arm around my shoulder. “Ah, Pukerman, the course of true love never did run smooth.”

  * * *

  Pushing open the gym’s gray double doors, I suck in the cool night air, filling my lungs to capacity. Oberon’s diabolical plan now in full fruition, there’s little more for me to do other than find the confused norms, Dimitri and Xander. I make time for a little sulking, too.

  I don’t have to take another step. Raised voices, familiar to my ears, alert me of my quarry. A small crowd at the edge of the dimly lit parking lot parts and two males tumble across the asphalt. Dimitri pins Xander in a neck hold. “She’s mine! She was mine before she was ever yours.”

  “You didn’t want her,” Xander snaps.

  Elena and Hermia race to either side of the brawling baboons.

  “Let him go, Dimitri, please,” Elena says.

  I jump as a throat clears behind me. Busted. “I ask you to do one simple job, Puckerman.” Oberon says. “And it wasn’t even all that hard. In fact, it was a cinch and don’t try telling my any different because I just did it to Titania.”

  Pressing my chin to my chest I mutter, “I’m going to fix it now.”

  “Yeah you are,” Oberon says. “But just the scrawny one, what’s his name?”

  “Xander,” I answer.

  “Yeah, Xander. Just fix him. That poor girl deserves Dimitri’s love and, honestly, I don’t know what his problem is—she’s hot as hell.”

  Pressing my eyes closed, I lift the tips of my fingers to my temples, which still bare the ghost of an ache from the night before. Electric currents ripple from my mind, seeds of persuasion scattered within them. They stretch out, and I envision them reaching through the air until they make contact with Xander’s forehead. The walls created by the fateful flower crumble, no match for my particular power. Job done, the currents zap back and settle to become part of me once more. I open my eyes, and the warmth of satisfaction cocoons me.

  Elena and Dimitri crush together in an embrace.

  Xander is on his knees, Hermia’s hands clasped in his. “Hermia, I am so sorry. I don’t know what got into me,” Xander says, his voice laced with panic. “I swear it’s you I love. It will only ever be you.”

  I wait with baited breath for Hermia’s response, but an ear-shattering squeal from the gym’s speakers snags my attention. Oberon kicks the doors open, giving me a view of the stage.

  “Quiet down,” Mrs Brannan’s nasally voice demands. She launches into a speech about education, friendship, and young love; her tone becomes lighter when she mentions the last bit. “So, without further ado, I am pleased to announce that this years Prom King and Queen are…Oberon and Titania.”

  “No,” Oberon groans. A white hue creeps across his skin. “What have I done?”

  My lips quirk, and it takes every fiber of my being to suppress a smirk.

  “You have to fix this, Pukerman. I’m going to look a right idiot if Titania and I are up on the stage being crowned while she’s making moon eyes at Ass-face.”

  “Can Oberon and Titania please come and accept their titles,” Mrs Brannan crows from the stage.

  I make my way off to the side as Oberon pushes his way to the front. We arrive at the stage at the same time. Oberon climbs up and accepts his crown. The whole time, Titania giggles and waves at Ass-face while blowing him kisses.

  The crowd mumbles quizzically at the beautiful Titania’s weird show of affection toward the ugly lead singer. Oberon glares at me and he mouths the words fix it.

  For what I hope is the last time, I delve into another mutated human’s thoughts and strip away the flower’s influence. Titania blinks her eyes a few times in rapid succession, then turns to Oberon. He flashes her a smile with enough ammunition to turn even the most sensible girl into an Oberon worshipping minion. The he clinches the deal. “I love you. I’m so sorry for everything. Forgive me.”

  Titania’s eyes narrow, and I can’t help it, I need to know what she’s thinking. I wade around in her sea of thoughts, and my heart fractures when I see the torch she still holds for my friend bursting to life. Titania throws her arms around Oberon and nuzzles her nose into his neck. The two of them start to levitate off the ground as they rain passionate kisses on each other.

  The crowd breaks out into raucous comments, and I catch one girl telling her friend that perhaps Oberon, Titania and Ass-face have some sort of freaky arrangement going on. I could reach into her mind and erase that thought, but instead I jump onto the stage and grab the mic.

  Turning to the crowd, I note Hermia and Xander playing tonsil tennis in the back left corner, and just inside the gymnasium doors, Dimitri is running his hand through Elena’s hair as she beams up at him.

  Taking a deep breath, I psych myself up to delve into the thoughts of every norm below me. My legs tremble at the effort as an invisible web of power connects the norms brains together. “Forget everything you just saw,” I say to the whispering seniors. “Pretend it was all a dream. It appears someone has laced the punch with liquor.”

  Speaking the words has given my power some extra clout, and a hum of understanding sends ripples of relief through me. The partygoers get back to what they’re good at—partying.

  Ass-face takes the mic from my hand. “Hi, I’m Ass-face, if you don’t mind, we’re going to play the official Prom King and Queen song now.”

  “Sure, go ahead.” I grin as I join the throng on the dance floor. I should remove the tag of Ass-face from his mind. “Eh, I’ll leave him.”

  The End.

  About the Authors

  Rachel Bateman lives in the middle of Montana, but dreams of the ocean. When she’s not writing, reading, or editing books, she can be found playing with her husband, son, and small zoo of animals. You can stalk Rachel online at RachelBateman.com, Twitter, and Facebook.

  Jessica L Pierce is a somewhat crazy—yet loving—blond. She lives in Green Bay, WI, hates the cold, and loves her completely awesome camo coat. She is passionate about football, baseball, photography and writing, and won’t go near cooked peas. (Raw peapods are fine.)

  She is a student at the University of Wisconsin—Green Bay, and will graduate in December 2015 with a degree in Communication with emphasis in Journalism. She is a sports photographer and her work can be found at Inkshotstudios.com

  S.M. Johnston is a writer of weird fiction and soulful contemporaries from sunny Queensland, Australia. Her family includes a husband, two sons and a number of fur babies of the feline and cavy variety.

  E.L. Wicker lives in Hampshire, England with her husband and two children. Fueled by the bossy voices in her head, she writes New Adult fiction with a side of romance.

  Christina June writes young adult contemporary fiction when she’s not writing college recommendation letters during her day job as a school counselor. She loves the little moments in life that help someone discover who th
ey’re meant to become—whether it’s her students or her characters. She is a voracious reader and traveler, eats too many cupcakes, and hopes to one day be bi-coastal—the east coast of the US and the east coast of Scotland. She lives just outside Washington DC with her husband and daughter. Find Christina online at www.christinajune.com.

  Nicole Zoltack loves to write in many genres, especially romance, whether fantasy, paranormal, or regency. When she’s not writing about knights, superheroes, or zombies, she loves to spend time with her loving husband and three energetic young boys, with another little one on the way. She enjoys riding horses (pretending they’re unicorns, of course!) and going to the PA Renaissance Faire, dressed in garb. She’ll also read anything she can get her hands on. Her current favorite TV show is The Walking Dead. Nicole is online at her blog, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, and Amazon. You can also sign up for her newsletter.

  Cortney Pearson is the author of Phobic and Such a Secret Place, a mother, musician, and a lover of pink and sparkles. She can be found online at www.cortneypearson.com, Facebook, and Twitter, or you can sign up for her newsletter.

  Growing up, Adrianne James couldn’t get her hands on enough books to satisfy her need for the make believe. If she finished a novel and didn’t have a new one ready and waiting for her, she began to create her own tales of magic and wonder. Now, as an adult, books still make up majority of her free time, and now her tales get written down to be shared with the world.

  During the day, Adrianne uses her camera to capture life’s stories for clients of all ages and at night, after her two children are tucked in bed; she devotes herself to her written work. Adrianne is living the life she always wanted, surrounded by art and beauty, the written word and a loving family.

  As a New Adult Paranormal (and sometimes contemporary) author, Adrianne James writes strong women, powerful magic, and love that lasts a lifetime. She can be found online at AdrianneJames.com, Facebook, and Twitter.